Bai Qingxue was not swayed by Ning Qinghan's words.
Standing her ground, she watched Ning Qinghan with a calm gaze. After a few moments of silence, Bai Qingxue finally spoke.
"Why don't you take it?"
The question was blunt and direct.
As soon as the words left her mouth, Lu Xueqing's fingers moved another half-inch closer to her sword hilt. Standing a step behind Bai Qingxue, Lu Xueqing was positioned perfectly to see Ning Qinghan's profile and draw her sword at the slightest sign of trouble.
Hearing this, Ning Qinghan tilted her head, that faint smile still playing on the corners of her mouth.
"I can't take it," Ning Qinghan said, her tone so frank it didn't sound like she was admitting to a weakness. "There is a restriction on this jade slip that only recognizes the Ice Spirit Physique. Anyone else who approaches will be repelled."
As she spoke, she reached out tentatively toward the center of the stone room.
The moment her fingertips crossed the threshold of the stone doorway, a visible ripple shimmered in the air, like an invisible barrier issuing a warning. Ning Qinghan withdrew her hand. A thin layer of frost had condensed on her fingertips, so white it was nearly transparent. Set against her reddened finger pads, it looked like ice flowers blooming on a windowpane in winter.
"See?" Ning Qinghan rubbed the frost off her fingertips with a casual motion, her thumb and forefinger kneading together until the frost melted into water. She then carelessly wiped it off on her Daoist robe.
Her tone remained lazy, as if she were demonstrating an insignificant trifle. "It's not that I won't take it; it's that it won't let me."
Bai Qingxue did not speak immediately.
She watched the frost that had yet to completely vanish, pausing for a beat.
"Then how did you know I have the Ice Spirit Physique?"
Ning Qinghan didn't answer right away.
Her gaze shifted from Bai Qingxue's face to the bell at her waist. The bronze bell hung there quietly, its copper patina appearing even deeper under the eerie blue light.
"It told me."
Ning Qinghan's voice was very soft, as if she were speaking of something she herself wasn't entirely certain about.
"There is a certain resonance between this bell and that jade slip." Her fingertips lightly brushed over the carvings on the bell's body. "When you entered the ice cave, it began to alert me."
She looked up, meeting Bai Qingxue's eyes.
"And it only reacts to one thing: the Ice Spirit Physique."
Bai Qingxue looked at the bell.
The carvings on the bell were indeed of the same origin as the runes on the ice walls; she had already confirmed that much. But Ning Qinghan's words now added another piece to the puzzle: this object could identify the Ice Spirit Physique. And the existence of the Ice Spirit Physique was not something just anyone would know about.
Bai Qingxue's thoughts stalled for a moment.
She suddenly realized something. Based on Ning Qinghan's implication, this bell was not something she was born with, but rather something left behind by someone else.
Who was the person who left the bell? Was it the same person who carved the runes on the ice walls? And what about the person who left this jade slip?
Bai Qingxue raised her eyes to look at Ning Qinghan and asked that question for the third time.
"Who exactly are you?"
This time, her intent was clear: if Ning Qinghan didn't explain herself, she wouldn't take another step forward.
Ning Qinghan looked at her and suddenly laughed.
Her canine tooth flashed in the eerie blue light, but this smile was different from the previous ones.
"Me?"
She lowered her head to look at the bell at her waist. A long silence followed.
Then, Ning Qinghan looked up.
"I am someone who has been imprisoned for a very long time."
Hearing this, Bai Qingxue looked into Ning Qinghan's eyes. Those deep black depths held only a very, very heavy weariness.
That weariness was buried so deep that Ning Qinghan herself might have grown used to it—so used to it that she had forgotten it existed, only for it to surface from the depths of her gaze for a fleeting moment.
"You are imprisoned here?" Bai Qingxue asked.
Ning Qinghan shook her head and said no more.
Bai Qingxue remained silent for a moment.
The bell did indeed resonate with the jade slip; she had felt it just now. It was also a fact that Ning Qinghan was repelled when she approached the slip. Ning Qinghan knew about her Ice Spirit Physique, and while it was unclear if her explanation was true or false, she currently posed no threat.
But the most crucial point still weighed on Bai Qingxue's mind: why was Ning Qinghan here, and why exactly when she arrived?
"Junior Sister Bai, be careful of a trap."
Lu Xueqing's voice was kept very low, audible only to Bai Qingxue. She gripped Bai Qingxue's wrist, her fingers pressing firmly.
Bai Qingxue turned back and met Lu Xueqing's gaze. Lu Xueqing's eyes were filled with vigilance and worry.
Bai Qingxue nodded, then gently pulled her wrist from Lu Xueqing's grasp and patted the back of her hand.
Then, Bai Qingxue stepped toward the jade slip.
The stone room was silent.
Lu Xueqing kept her breathing extremely shallow, her fingers locked onto her sword hilt. Ning Qinghan leaned against the ice wall at the entrance of the stone room, arms crossed, the bell hanging quietly at her waist. Her expression was obscured by the eerie blue light.
Bai Qingxue stopped in front of the jade slip.
The jade slip floated silently in mid-air, three feet off the ground. The pale green jade was as warm and smooth as fat, its surface covered in fine patterns. The halo surrounding it pulsed slightly, like a heartbeat.
Bai Qingxue reached out.
The moment her fingertips touched the jade slip, a cool sensation spread from her finger to her entire arm. It was like dipping her hand into a mountain stream; the water flowed through her fingers, taking something away while leaving something else behind.
The jade slip did not repel her.
Not only did it not repel her, but it could even be said that the jade slip was responding to her.
The dim halo on the surface of the jade slip softened and brightened, like a lamp being relit, the light growing inch by inch. The jade slip trembled slightly, emitting an extremely soft and thin hum that traveled through her fingertips, up her meridians, and straight to her dantian.
There, the ice lotus inside Bai Qingxue's body suddenly moved.
As if something dormant had been awakened, the petals of the ice lotus slowly unfurled within her dantian. Each petal emitted a faint fluorescence, resonating with the hum of the jade slip.
In that instant, Bai Qingxue felt a strange connection—not like a master-servant bond or a contract, but more like finding something that had been lost for so long that she had forgotten it ever existed.
Bai Qingxue grasped the jade slip and gently took it down.
Nothing happened.
The stone room remained as silent as before, the cold still lingering and quietly enveloping everything.
Lu Xueqing breathed a sigh of relief, her fingers slowly loosening their grip on the sword hilt.
Ning Qinghan watched the scene without a word. However, her fingers clenched once inside her sleeve.
Just once.
Quickly, Ning Qinghan relaxed her hand, crossed her arms tighter, and shrugged her shoulders slightly, leaning further back against the ice wall.
Yet her moment of unease was still noticed by Lu Xueqing.
Lu Xueqing watched Ning Qinghan but said nothing, merely making a mental note of it. She didn't know this person's origins, but one thing was certain: Ning Qinghan's reaction to Bai Qingxue taking the jade slip was definitely not that of a mere passerby.
Bai Qingxue did not see Ning Qinghan's expression. Her attention was still on the jade slip.
Held in her palm, the jade slip felt warm yet cool. The halo on its surface gradually faded until it looked like an ordinary piece of jade. But the ice lotus in her dantian was still moving, its petals opening and closing as if holding a silent conversation with the jade slip.
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