Chapter 164

Those words crashed into the sea of her consciousness with a sudden impact.

Qing Zhouxue's cold gaze softened slightly, a flicker of confusion surfacing in her eyes before it faded back into blankness. The three-foot green blade in her palm seemed alive as she slashed, stabbed, and swept with ease.

Every strike she made was deflected. In just a few exchanges, Yun Shuchen's heart hung over a bottomless abyss, trembling. At this distance, if Taishang Wangqing wanted her life, it would be effortless.

Taishang Wangqing stood rooted, dissolving each of Qing Zhouxue's moves without taking a step. She wasn't as fierce as Yun Shuchen had expected; instead, she seemed patient, allowing a reckless junior to keep attacking her without a hint of impatience.

Only when Qing Zhouxue was about to exhaust herself and knelt to the ground did Taishang Wangqing lower her eyes, seize the opportunity, and point a finger at her forehead.

A strand of spiritual light slowly seeped into her body. The ice patterns covering Qing Zhouxue melted into water, and her unusual eye color gradually faded, revealing pitch-black pupils.

Qing Zhouxue was dazed for a long moment, then her eyelids drooped, heavy with weariness, until they closed softly.

She fell backward, not onto the cold ground but into a soft embrace. Yun Shuchen caught her and held her tightly, her tension palpable.

Liu Xunqin stepped forward to check Qing Zhouxue's pulse, surprised to find it calm.

"She's just asleep," she said.

Taishang Wangqing stood by, watching quietly. She had been observing Qing Zhouxue just now, but now she studied Yun Shuchen with the same calm expression, as if watching a distant, cold play.

She watched Yun Shuchen smooth Qing Zhouxue's furrowed brow, then press her face against Qing's, the strands of hair smearing tears from the corners of her eyes.

"The one she loves is you?" Taishang Wangqing asked.

Yun Shuchen froze. She finally looked up at the woman but did not answer.

Taishang Wangqing caught the clear caution in her expression, sighed, and decided not to press further.

She turned and left, waving her sleeve. The fragments of scattered stone gathered from all directions like a river of stars.

The towering main hall gradually reassembled piece by piece, just as an ancient path reappears after wind-blown sands, or a valley bottom appears after mist clears—reemerging before them.

Taishang Wangqing pieced together the broken floating stones under her feet into a broad slab, methodically repairing the visible ruins.

"What does this have to do with you, Ancestor?" Yun Shuchen suddenly spoke.

Taishang Wangqing turned back, her gaze fixed on Yun Shuchen's face, thoughtful. "Nothing. I was merely curious what it feels like to love and be loved."

Yun Shuchen gave her an odd look, her brows slightly furrowed, utterly bewildered. This woman was cultivating the Emotionless Dao, having lived for who knows how many years. She should have long since hardened her heart and shed all desires—why was she asking such curious questions like a lovestruck maiden?

Taishang Wangqing waited a moment, but no answer came. Yun Shuchen silently picked up Qing Zhouxue, aching all over and too exhausted to chat with this ancestor.

She supported Qing'er and took a step.

Taishang Wangqing's voice drifted, faint and distant: "Leave the Sword Soul behind."

Yun Shuchen's hand tightened. She turned her head. "You've searched for her for years. What exactly do you want?"

Taishang Wangqing did not answer.

Yun Shuchen had already begun to calculate. She had just transcended the tribulation and was severely injured inside. If Taishang Wangqing wanted to take her by force, she definitely wouldn't win.

She could only block her momentarily, let Liu Xunqin take Qing Zhouxue and flee—but even that seemed slim odds. Her fingers clenched slightly, gripping Qing Zhouxue's waist.

"It's been years, but I have something to discuss."

Taishang Wangqing's voice gave no hint of emotion.

Yun Shuchen was taken aback. Qing Zhouxue was young, had grown up in the Taichu Sect—how could she have anything to do with this woman?

It seemed impossible.

She laughed. "You must have mistaken someone."

"There is no mistake," Taishang Wangqing replied.

She neither insisted nor blocked, her temperament peculiar. Yun Shuchen and Liu Xunqin exchanged glances. Finally, Yun Shuchen's expression turned cold. "And if I refuse?"

The atmosphere grew tense. Only the moan of the wind filled the silence.

"Then go ahead and take her back," Taishang Wangqing said calmly.

Yun Shuchen was taken aback again, but Taishang Wangqing's figure had already vanished.

When she tried to recall the woman's appearance, she found her memory muddled, impossible to pin down even deliberately.

Liu Xunqin waited a moment, then said, "Why are you just standing there? She's already gone."

Yun Shuchen was speechless.

She suppressed her confusion. Whatever the case, Qing'er was still in her embrace, and leaving this place quickly was the priority.

Yun Shuchen turned and stepped onto a cloud, flying off. After a short distance, she checked twice that there were no pursuers, then let Liu Xunqin steer the cloud, drifting over Liuyun Sect's territory.

A gentle breeze blew.

When she had transcended the tribulation earlier, her superficial wounds had healed. Now she mainly felt chest tight and short of breath, but after circulating her energy, she felt much better.

Only then did Yun Shuchen feel the relief of survival. She opened her palm and realized that while speaking with Taishang Wangqing, she had broken out in a cold sweat without noticing.

That woman was strange.

She had blasted off a large part of the woman's sect, and her disciple had attacked her fiercely—but Taishang Wangqing didn't seem to care at all, only quietly repairing part of the damage.

If someone had acted so presumptuously against her, Yun Shuchen probably wouldn't have been so calm.

"Until we meet again."

Just as she began to relax a little, a voice transmission suddenly echoed in her sea of consciousness, seeming to come from far away.

Yun Shuchen abruptly turned to look, eyes widening. She scanned her surroundings but saw only white clouds and a gentle breeze, no other person.

Only that ethereal sentence struck like a drum against her heart, making her face grow pale.

Liu Xunqin, who hadn't heard it, noticed her expression. "Unwell?"

Yun Shuchen pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. "It's fine."

---

While unconscious, Qing Zhouxue fell into a long dream.

She dreamed she had become a Sword Soul, formless and drifting in a place that never saw light, where only a single lamp burned.

Sword wisps chattered around her, ceaselessly, a persistent headache at first.

But for a long time, she relied on that sound to ward off the endless loneliness. When she grew drowsy, they would hush and hum softly, like a lullaby.

She slept there like a carefree child, passing the long years.

Until one day, light footsteps echoed from outside.

A few heavy tremors later, the formation cracked open a hair's breadth.

The Sword Soul was startled awake. She hid inside, while the sword wisps around her tried to soothe her.

The stone crack widened.

She floated down a bit, squeezing in with the curious sword wisps. Through the last layer of the formation, Qing Zhouxue saw a young woman.

She was beautiful.

Her eyes were especially striking—when she glanced in her direction, they seemed to hold strands of mist.

But she didn't see her. Her gaze passed through her and landed on the large lamp as bright as the sun.

The woman tried for a while but failed to break through the first barrier completely. Still, she had some skill, cracking a large section of the formation.

The Sword Soul had just floated over when the woman struck her with a bolt of spiritual power.

It felt as if her body was being torn apart. From her heart, something seemed to drop away, and the backlash knocked the woman to her knees, spitting blood.

A sliver of a fragment, silent and seamless, merged into the woman's body.

The woman lingered near the Sword Tomb for a long time before finally leaving.

The Sword Soul felt as if something of hers had been stolen. Something felt wrong, so she followed the figure, darting out in a flash.

But it was too dark, and she lost track of her.

She could no longer find the way back to the Sword Tomb.

So she drifted aimlessly through the world.

She had no solid form and knew neither hunger nor cold. She drifted past a very dark territory and saw the first ray of light that had ever illuminated her since gaining consciousness.

So this was what the "outside" looked like.

She wandered freely among mortals, curious, watching bustling streets, imperial capitals, and rural villages. Men and women—two eyes and a mouth—yet each distinct. She saw small beasts scrambling over mountains and slippery fish jumping in rivers.

She watched countless joys and sorrows, tales of mortal splendor. Young people donned crimson veils, drifting through half a lifetime of arguments and conflict, until both grew gray and ended in a mound of yellow earth. Their descendants shot up like spring bamboo, growing into elegant poles, until they too fell and returned to the endless cycle, new shoots already pushing through the soil.

Each scene, viewed once, seemed different; viewed twice, similar; viewed to the end, all bound by birth, aging, sickness, and death—the six paths of reincarnation.

The Sword Soul didn't fully comprehend. A piece of her heart had been taken by that wicked woman, and even after so many years, she still couldn't grasp what mortal feelings were.

She searched for so long—five hundred springs and autumns of drifting.

But she never found the woman who had stolen her piece.

Until one day, fate knocked again.

A cultivator, roaming the world, looked up toward her direction, stared for a long moment, and asked, "Sword Soul, why are you wandering here?"

The Sword Soul stared blankly at the woman.

She had an extraordinary bearing, a long sword at her waist wreathed in cold mist, carved with ancient characters: "Qingshuang" (Clear Frost).

The Sword Soul spoke haltingly, recounting the experiences of those years.

The female swordsman listened, then said thoughtfully, "I see. Through a twist of fate, you left your Emotion Root with someone else."

"I need to find her," the Sword Soul said.

After thinking for a moment, the cultivator asked, "Why?"

Having observed the ways of the world for so many years, the Sword Soul still didn't understand, but she vaguely hoped to grasp what "feelings" meant.

She had to reclaim the part of herself that was missing.

"Everyone wishes to leap out of the six paths," the cultivator said. "But to enter the mortal world, you must endure all kinds of suffering. If you find your Emotion Root, there will be the pain of parting from loved ones, of meeting resentment, of seeking what you cannot have. Would you not regret it?"

She asked flatly.

The ethereal white form drifted around her once and answered innocently, "No, I wouldn't."

"Then you must promise me one thing," the cultivator said.

After hearing her request, the Sword Soul readily agreed. She accepted a drop of the woman's heart's blood, evaded the eyes of the Heavenly Dao, and was reborn as she wished, shaped into a human body.

But alas, the bowl of Mengpo soup washed everything away. She shook her head, and all memories of the past vanished.

Even those five hundred years of wandering and searching dissolved into a loud cry within the walls of the Qing household, carried away by the wind.