Ning Qinghan was startled awake by a dream.
In the dream, there was no light.
Ning Qinghan stood deep within that ice field, facing the massive door carved with runes.
Dark red patterns seeped from the crevices of the door, like blood flowing from a wound.
Facing the oozing patterns, Ning Qinghan wanted to retreat, but she found her feet pinned to the ground, unable to move even a single step.
Just then, the door opened.
...
When Ning Qinghan woke up, her heart was beating so fast it felt like it would leap out of her throat.
At this moment, the side room was very dark. Moonlight leaked through the window paper, casting a layer of pale, bluish-white light across the floor.
Ning Qinghan gasped for breath. The fabric on her back was drenched in cold sweat, clinging to her skin with a sticky, clammy sensation.
To shake off this bizarre feeling, Ning Qinghan sat up and placed her bare feet on the icy floor.
The cold floor made Ning Qinghan's toes curl instinctively, but she quickly pressed her feet flat against it again.
In the dead of night, the side room was too quiet—so quiet that it reminded her of the ice cave.
Ten years in that ice cave.
She thought she had grown accustomed to that silence, but looking at it now, she still couldn't seem to enjoy it.
Enduring it until she forced herself to stop thinking about 'habit.'
Ning Qinghan stood up and pushed open the door to the side room.
The moonlight in the courtyard was cold and clear.
Standing on the corridor, Ning Qinghan took a deep breath, trying to suppress the suffocating tightness in her chest.
Then, she saw the door to the main room.
At this moment, the door to the main room was wide open.
Moonlight spilled in through the doorway, dyeing the floor of the main room a pale bluish-white.
A figure sat on the threshold.
Bai Qingxue wore frost-white sleeping clothes, her silver-white hair loose and draping over her shoulders.
She was not wearing shoes either, her bare feet resting on the bluestone slabs outside the threshold.
Frost Moon Chant lay horizontally across her lap, its translucent white body gleaming with a soft light under the moon.
Bai Qingxue raised her head and glanced at her.
Those pale eyes were as calm as ever, yet at this moment, she seemed to be waiting for Ning Qinghan, or perhaps she just happened to be awake as well.
“Can't sleep?” Bai Qingxue asked.
Ning Qinghan stood on the corridor, barefoot, her fingers clutching the edge of her robe.
She walked over and sat down beside Bai Qingxue.
The threshold was not wide. Sitting together, their shoulders were less than a fist's width apart.
Bai Qingxue did not look at her, her gaze drifting into the distant night.
The mountain ridge of Xueji Peak gleamed silver-white under the moonlight, resembling a slumbering dragon.
Ning Qinghan lowered her head to look at her bare feet. The old scars left from her time in the ice cave gleamed pale under the moonlight.
“I had a dream,” Ning Qinghan said.
Bai Qingxue did not reply, quietly waiting.
“I dreamed of that door.”
Ning Qinghan's voice was very soft, as if she were speaking of something she had recounted countless times in her mind, yet had never actually told anyone.
“They say I am the ‘key’,” she said, her fingers resting on her knees, her fingertips curling slightly. “The key to opening that door.”
The person the Holy Sect had spent hundreds of years searching for.
That bell had not been her choice; someone else had placed it in her hands.
When Ning Qinghan accepted it, she had no idea what it meant.
But later, she understood.
“They want me to open that door.” Ning Qinghan paused. “But that is not what I want.”
In truth, Ning Qinghan didn't particularly care about the door being opened.
However,
she didn't want to.
She didn't want to become a tool. She didn't want to be like a dog on a leash, obediently walking up to that door, pouring her spiritual power into the bell, and then watching whatever was behind the door come flooding out.
Even though Ning Qinghan had no idea what lay beyond the door,
she knew that once the door was opened, her usefulness would likely come to an end.
How would a tool be disposed of once its purpose was served? She had seen it happen far too many times in the demonic sect.
And so, Ning Qinghan chose to run.
Fleeing into the ice cave, she had run for ten years.
“That bell was the very one I took with me when I fled the Holy Sect,” Ning Qinghan said, turning her head to glance at Bai Qingxue. “Later, it became the flute in your hands.”
Bai Qingxue lowered her head to look at the Frost Moon Chant on her lap.
The moonlight fell upon the flute, illuminating its intricate patterns clearly. They were identical to the patterns on that bronze bell.
“So this is what you meant by waiting for me?” Bai Qingxue said.
Ning Qinghan fell silent for a moment. “I didn't know the one I was waiting for would be you. I only knew that the bell reacted to you.”
Bai Qingxue did not speak.
She picked up the Frost Moon Chant from her lap, her fingertips brushing along its body. The translucent white flute gleamed with a soft, gentle light under the moon, completely unlike the cold, hard bronze of the bell.
“Aren't you going to ask me?” Ning Qinghan spoke up.
“Ask what?”
“Ask what lies behind that door. Ask why I ran. Ask why I won't go back.”
Bai Qingxue fell silent for a moment. The moonlight fell upon her silver-white hair, making the fine strands appear almost transparent.
“Are you following me,” she said, “just to be interrogated by me here?”
Hearing this, Ning Qinghan was taken aback.
She lowered her head, looking at her hands.
Suddenly, Bai Qingxue raised the Frost Moon Chant to her lips.
Bai Qingxue did not know why she was doing this.
The moment her fingertips touched the flute, an unfamiliar yet intimate sense of recognition welled up from deep within the jade, as if the flute remembered her fingers, or perhaps her fingers remembered the flute.
Perhaps it was an instinct of this body.
Perhaps it was something from a forgotten corner deep within the original owner's memories.
Then, the sound of a flute echoed.
It could hardly be called a melody—just a few scattered notes drifting away on the night wind.
The music was very soft, as if afraid to startle the leaves on the branches and make them fall.
Yet, to Ning Qinghan, the sound felt like a hand reaching into her chest, gently brushing aside a bit of the suffocating tightness that had been lodged there for so long.
Bai Qingxue lowered the flute.
“I won't open it either.”
Ning Qinghan looked at her. Under the moonlight, Bai Qingxue's profile was as cold and aloof as ever, but there was a resolute look in her pale eyes.
“Are you afraid?” Ning Qinghan asked.
“Of what?”
“Of that door. Of what lies behind it.”
Bai Qingxue did not answer immediately.
She gazed at Xueji Peak in the distant night, looking at the snow on the ridge that never melted.
The moonlight fell upon the snow, casting a cold gleam that made it impossible to distinguish between the glow of the moon and the glare of the snow.
“Fear is useless,” she said, her tone as calm and indifferent as usual. “What must come will come.”
Hearing this, Ning Qinghan turned her hand over, stared at her palm, and said:
“Bai Qingxue.”
“Mm.”
“If one day, that door really opens...”
Will you stand in front of me? Ning Qinghan thought silently, but wondered if she was being too selfish.
Bai Qingxue did not press further.
She placed the Frost Moon Chant on the steps between them. The moonlight fell upon the flute, making its intricate patterns clearly visible.
“We'll see when that day comes.”
Ning Qinghan stared at the jade flute.
Its translucent white body glowed softly in the moonlight, lying quietly on the bluestone slabs like a broken sliver of moonlight.
She reached out and touched the flute with her fingertips, its gentle coolness slowly seeping into her heart.
Ning Qinghan withdrew her hand and looked at her fingertips.
The cool sensation from the flute lingered on her fingertips, faint and slowly dissipating.
“Go to sleep early,” Bai Qingxue said as she stood up, picked up the Frost Moon Chant, and walked back into the main room.
Ning Qinghan sat on the threshold, remaining motionless.
The moonlight poured down from above, slightly brightening the indelible shadows clinging to her.
Ning Qinghan watched Bai Qingxue's back disappear behind the door, watching as the door to the main room slowly closed.
The door was not completely shut, leaving a small crack.
Moonlight leaked through the gap, drawing a thin, silver-white line across the floor.
Ning Qinghan stood up, her bare feet stepping onto the bluestone slabs.
She stood there for a long time, gazing at the plum tree under the moonlight.
Then, she walked back to the side room, lay down, and pulled the blanket up to her chest.
She closed her eyes.
The door was still there.
In her dreams, in her memories, deep within the furthest reaches of that ice field.
It would not vanish, it would not leave, and it would not spare her just because she had run for ten years.
Ning Qinghan rolled over, burying her face in the pillow.
For the rest of the night, Ning Qinghan felt that perhaps she wouldn't dream of that nightmare again.
But what would take its place?
Perhaps the sound of the flute.
Perhaps the moonlight.
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