As the talisman light faded, Lu Qiancha crashed heavily into a barren forest, her back slamming hard against an ancient tree.
A mouthful of blood sprayed out. The wound on Lu Qiancha’s chest, pierced through by the Sword of Frost, burned with a searing pain, the bone-chilling cold mixed with agony spreading ceaselessly.
She slumped limply against the trunk, every breath tugging at pain as if her flesh were being torn apart.
Instinctively, she reached for her storage pouch at her waist—her fingertips touched only emptiness.
Only now did Lu Qiancha realize, belatedly.
Her storage pouch, the one containing pills and potions, had long been lost amidst all the previous upheavals.
“Ugh… ugh…” The little wolf cub curled up tightly, clutching her throbbing arm in vain, letting out weak, broken sobs.
It hurt so much.
Xunxue.
Mother.
Where are you?
Save me.
Her unfocused gaze, filled with despair, turned to the sky, watching the blood-red setting sun slowly sink behind distant mountains.
Boundless night, cold as a rising tide, surged in from all directions, swallowing her frail figure inch by inch.
Just as her consciousness was about to sink into darkness—
A voice, choked with tears and frantic beyond measure, suddenly called out: “Xiao Qiancha, where are you? Mother’s come to find you!”
“It’s all Mother’s fault, you win at hide-and-seek, Mother admits defeat, please come out, will you?”
“Wu wu~”
Lu Qiancha used the last of her strength, but only a faint whimper squeezed from her throat.
“Qiancha!”
Xunxue still caught that weak sob. A streak of ghostly blue light crashed down beneath the tree.
With trembling hands, Xunxue gathered the curled-up Lu Qiancha into her embrace, face covered in terrified tears, each drop falling onto Lu Qiancha’s icy forehead.
Seeing the stabbing wound on Lu Qiancha, she frantically rummaged through the pouch at her side, pulling out a pill that radiated a gentle, spiritual glow.
Carefully, she pried open Lu Qiancha’s tightly clenched jaw and fed it to her.
The mild medicine dissolved rapidly, driving away the bone-chilling cold and searing pain. The wound stopped bleeding and scabbed over at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Not until Lu Qiancha’s ragged breathing finally eased did Xunxue dare to relax her embrace, her arms still trembling with post-crisis fear.
She buried her face deep in the crook of Lu Qiancha’s blood-scented neck, her voice choking and broken: “Xiao Qiancha, Mother missed you so much, N\next time, don’t ever scare Mother like this again, alright?”
Xunxue looked up, her tearful eyes fixed on the pale, weak face in her arms, her gaze so full of pleading it could drown a person.
“…Mother, I’m sorry.”
Lu Qiancha forced her heavy eyelids open, looking at Xunxue’s face still shadowed with fear. Her heart filled with overwhelming sorrow and guilt.
After returning to Xunxue’s home—
Xunxue gripped Lu Qiancha’s cool little hand, her eyes flickering with a complex light.
“Xiao Qiancha,” she said gently, a trace of barely concealed tension in her voice, “Mother will teach you a secret art called ‘Bloodline Link’.”
“With this,” her fingertip glowing with gentle spiritual light, she touched Qiancha’s brow, “we can connect our hearts and minds, and no matter how far apart we are, we’ll always be aware of each other’s existence.”
Xunxue forced a playful smile. “But… it comes with a big side effect.”
“What side effect?”
Lu Qiancha asked in confusion.
“It’ll make you feel like Mother could control you at any time.”
Xunxue pursed her lips, her eyes earnest but tinged with anxiety, adding, “Of course, if Xiao Qiancha isn’t willing, Mother will never force you.”
Lu Qiancha looked quietly at Xunxue. In those blue eyes, her own reflection was clear, as well as a careful tenderness so humble it bordered on self-effacing.
For a long time.
She gently rested her head against Xunxue’s warm embrace, her voice as soft as a feather: “I’m willing.
After all, besides you, I have nothing left.”
Xunxue trembled slightly all over, then, a radiant smile blossomed on her face. She tightened her arms, holding her daughter even closer.
Hundreds of years passed in a flash, and that happiness ended far too abruptly.
Lu Qiancha could feel a wave of bone-chilling cold, and then saw Xunxue collapse before her.
“Mother, wake up, please! We have to run!”
Her desperate cries sounded so small amidst the thunderous shouts of battle.
Little Lu Qiancha clung to Xunxue’s blood-soaked side, shaking her in vain, tears and blood smeared all over her face, hopeless sobs falling like broken pearls onto Xunxue’s pale cheeks.
“Cough, cough…”
Xunxue struggled to open her heavy eyelids, her life slipping rapidly away. With the last of her strength, she lifted a trembling hand, cold fingers gently caressing Lu Qiancha’s tear-stained face.
Her voice was so faint it was like a sigh, full of endless regret and longing: “I’m sorry, Xiao Qiancha, I won’t be able to watch you grow up…”
“No, no, you can, Mother, you can! Let’s go, we can still run!”
Lu Qiancha shook her head frantically, her little body shaking with fear and grief, her eyes empty with utter despair.
It was already too late… run…
Xunxue used her final strength, her gaze locking onto Lu Qiancha. “Don’t let them catch you…”
As her words faded, Xunxue’s eyes gently closed.
A peerless Immortal Lord, fallen in that moment.
Heaven and earth wept as one.
Blood-red rain poured from the sky.
Scarlet drops, like the heavens themselves crying blood, fell coldly to the earth, and onto Lu Qiancha’s frozen face.
“…Wu~”
Lu Qiancha slowly stood up, as stiff and creaking as a rusted puppet.
Tears mixed with the metallic rain of blood, streaming down her cheeks unchecked.
She raised empty eyes to the figure hovering in midair, shrouded in domain light, her voice rasping like sandpaper: “Why…”
“Why did you kill her?
Why did it have to be you—!!”
The radiance faded from the domain.
Revealed was the face Lu Qiancha knew so well, yet now cold as ice forged over ten thousand years—Gantang.
She floated silently above, robes of powder blue billowing in the blood rain, her eyes indifferent as she gazed down at the corpses embracing below, and the small, despairing wolf cub.
“I want all of you to accompany her in death!”
Lu Qiancha’s roar was the dying scream of a wild beast, shattering the blood-soaked battlefield.
The eyes that once reflected Xunxue’s gentleness were now consumed by despair and madness, crimson as fresh blood.
She clenched her hands in the air.
“Zheng—!”
With a sharp sword cry, a Scarlet Greatsword formed out of nothing in her grasp.
The blade trembled, humming with a thirst for slaughter. Spirit power of the late Nascent Soul Realm surged forth, and her figure turned into a streak of scarlet light.
There were no more techniques, no more forms, only a raw urge to tear everything before her to shreds, as she charged into the group of cultivators who had besieged Xunxue.
With every swing of her blade, flesh and blood flew in mad sprays.
Scarlet sword energy, like a rampaging beast, tore through protective spiritual auras, severed flying swords and treasures, and pierced through the chests of cultivators.