After discussion, the four of them decided to stay in the Forest of No Return for a few days for the time being. At this moment, the people pursuing them in Jiangling should still be around, so going out now was not a good time, not to mention that Yan Baichuan’s injuries had not fully healed yet. Ying Chuang rarely objected to their decisions, and Jin You could not rest his mind regarding Yan Baichuan either. Especially Lingyun, having just gotten her hands on the Sound-Suspension Stone, wanted to refine the magical artifact she had been longing for. The Forest of No Return was both quiet and free of disturbance, perfect for refining artifacts without distractions.
Jin You was curious about what kind of thing Lingyun wanted to refine, but was perfunctorily brushed off by Lingyun, who said that good things naturally required a grand entrance and certainly could not be in this remote forest, a claim Jin You scoffed at. Given Lingyun’s bad luck, even if it really happened in this forest, it would be hard to say.
Lingyun was rummaging through her Qiankun bag, when she suddenly remembered something and said to Jin You, “Who was that handsome young guy that day, why did you all look at him with such hatred and even beat Yan Baichuan up to that extent?”
Yan Baichuan furrowed his brows, saying fiercely, “What do you mean by beat up to that extent, taking this strike from me, he will only feel worse, so he can forget about coming out to stir up trouble for these next few months.” After speaking, he looked at Lingyun with a somewhat playful gaze, mocking, “Your taste is truly poor. That outer skin of his, who knows how many humans’ and ghosts’ desirable traits were pieced together to form such a single one. Look, didn’t that just fool you?”
“Is that real or fake? And here I thought he looked kind-faced. Then is there nothing on him that is real?” Lingyun pondered for a long time, thinking there must be at least one place on Yan’e that belonged to himself, right?
Yan Baichuan remembered that face of Yan’e’s, letting out a snickering laugh, “Perhaps.”
Unable to figure it out, Lingyun shook her head, found a quiet spot, set up an array, and went off to refine the artifact by herself.
Ying Chuang had an outstanding sense of smell, able to find his way back on his own relying on scent. During the daytime, he transformed into wolf form to explore around the forest without reservations, getting to know several places where animals customarily loved to inhabit, his hunting skills also growing better and better, never returning empty-handed. Sometimes when Yan Baichuan was too lazy to prepare food himself, the meat roasted by Ying Chuang relying on his own intuition turned out to be quite good as well, earning unanimous praise from Jin You and Yan Baichuan.
Ever since Jin You knew the power of the Yellow Spring Water, he actively proposed letting Yan Baichuan rest to heal his injuries, while he himself scouted around the perimeter of the Forest of No Return every day. The Zou family indeed had not given up, their dispatched men reaching the edge of the Forest of No Return several times, yet ultimately still not daring to come inside, so Jin You also put away the Yellow Spring Water held in his hand.
Most of the time, Yan Baichuan sat on a large tree, casually dangling a grass stalk in his mouth, the top of his head covered completely by lush tree leaves, making it a fine place to enjoy the shade. From time to time, he would also take a couple of looks toward the direction where Lingyun was refining her artifact, and after confirming nothing was wrong, he would continue closing his eyes to rest his mind.
The place where Lingyun refined her artifact was beside a pond of lake water not far away, and any animals that occasionally strayed in attempting to disturb her were all dealt with one by one by Ying Chuang, turning into dinner dishes for the evening.
Generally speaking, the better the quality of the magical artifact, the longer the time spent refining it, so the three of them were originally prepared for Lingyun not coming out in a short time. But when Lingyun had refined up to the thirtieth day without any movement, let alone Yan Baichuan who was impatient with waiting to begin with, even Jin You wanted to drag her back from the lakeside.
Jin You and the others had eaten roasted meat for nearly a month. When Jin You ate until the seventh day, he used the excuse that ghosts did not need to eat food to hide back inside the bead, Ying Chuang looked at the meat and also began sighing rarely, and even the Zou family did not want to continue sending people to keep watch at the forest entrance, yet Lingyun still had not come out.
“I am going to drag that fellow out. The fasting pills are all on that fellow, so she does not need to eat roasted meat for a month straight, but I cannot swallow it down anymore!” Yan Baichuan grabbed a handful of his hair, lifting his big blade to go bring the person back. Jin You stopped him, “We have waited for a month, so a few more days will not make a difference, what if it is just about to be successfully refined?”
One wanted to go and one was stopping him. During their pushing and pulling, a wave of chilliness suddenly swept over from the lakeside. The three hurriedly operated their cultivation to resist, just in time to hear a shout, “It is done!”
Lingyun ran back with a bright smile holding the refined magical artifact, showing them the magical artifact in her hand.
The magical artifact in Lingyun’s hand was a string of ice beads refined from Unmelting Ice. Looking carefully, it gleamed with a subtle blue light in the sunlight, its whole body emitting a biting cold air. In the middle of the cold ice beads hung a tiny, almost transparent bell, where the Sound-Suspension Stone was likely used.
Lingyun casually smoothed back a lock of her somewhat messy hair, cradling her beloved magical artifact and saying to herself, “This Unmelting Ice was harder to refine than I imagined, taking me quite some time just for the shaping alone, but fortunately it was done in the end. Listen to its sound!”
Lingyun held the cold ice beads in her right hand and shook them gently. A soft, clear sound seemed to rise beside everyone’s ears, lingering around their ears without ceasing for a long time.
That was the sound of the first snowflake falling onto the ice surface in winter, the collision between tiny, pure ice crystals and solid ice, three degrees crisper than the sound of a spring stream striking rocks in spring.
Jin You still closed his eyes to savor this rarely heard sound, secretly exclaiming that this magical artifact of Lingyun’s was truly worth refining.
Lingyun satisfiedly put the string of beads onto her wrist, her lively eyes filled with smiles, “I named it Ice Heart, isn’t it very fitting?”
This magical artifact indeed lived up to this name, but right now there was clearly another matter that was more important.
“Cut the nonsense, once refined then hurry up and go, staying in this forest makes my fists itch!” Yan Baichuan merely took a glance at Lingyun’s string of beads and lost interest, his heart and eyes completely filled with the relief of no longer having to eat roasted meat.
Lingyun looked Yan Baichuan up and down. His complexion was rosy and his steps were steady, so it seemed he had indeed recovered, “Alright, my business here is done, where to next?”
Jin You pondered slightly for a moment, proposing, “Since we want to take back Dichen, we certainly have to make a trip to the Sword-Forgetting Pavilion. Why don’t we take the path through Mount Huancang, entering the West Spirit Illusion Continent directly from Mount Huancang. Once inside the West Spirit Illusion Continent, we can take a flying boat, making it more convenient no matter where we go, how about it?”
According to Jin You’s proposal, traveling like this was indeed the shortest route, except for the place called Mount Huancang.
“It makes no difference to me, if you two do not mind traveling through Mount Huancang.” Lingyun did not speak plainly, but the few of them all understood the meaning in her words.
Yan Baichuan, on the other hand, had a face of total composure, “Didn’t I not die after all, what is the big deal. Since that place is the closest, then we walk from there.”
Jin You snapped his fan shut, “Good, then it is settled like this.”
Mount Huancang was still several hundred miles away from the Forest of No Return, so if they took a horse carriage there like before, time would inevitably be wasted. The few of them discussed for a moment, and it was still Lingyun who brought up a method, “Actually, a teleportation array is set up inside Jiangling City, if it were not for that incident at the Treasure Pavilion, we could have used it to go over directly. As for now, it is a bit more troublesome.”
Lingyun was skilled in transformation methods, and her current appearance was transformed by her, so giving a few others a changed appearance was not difficult either. However, the guards searching for them in Jiangling City had not been withdrawn yet, so the instances of four people going to the teleportation array together were estimated to be extremely few, which was somewhat like protesting too much.
Jin You could hide inside the blood jade bead, Lingyun could transform her appearance, and the only ones who were a bit more troublesome were Yan Baichuan and Ying Chuang’s identities.
Jin You’s gaze deliberated back and forth between Yan Baichuan and Ying Chuang, when a plan suddenly formed in his mind.
Inside Jiangling City, a young girl pulled at a hunter’s clothes corner, raising her innocent face to look up at him, asking crisply, “Big brother, are we going back now?”
The hunter impatiently weighed the game on his shoulder, “Originally I thought it could be sold for a bit more money, but in the end those people did not even look at it, we are going back!”
The young girl gave an obedient ‘oh’, walking behind the hunter, from time to time looking enviably at the vendor selling candied hawthorns nearby, unconsciously licking the corners of her mouth. The hunter had no intention of buying it for her, raising his feet to walk straight forward, stopping only when he reached the front of the teleportation array, “Official, sir, we want to go to the foot of Mount Huancang, this is the money for two people.”
The soldier took the money, suspicion showing in his eyes, “Mount Huancang? What are you going there for?”
Pointing at the dead wolf on his shoulder, the hunter cursed with a face full of bad luck, “Isn’t it because the villagers said that good things can be sold for a good price only in big places like Jiangling, who knew that shopkeeper pushed me out without even taking a look, saying what ‘we have seen plenty of this stuff, it is not even as much as what the traveling merchants in our village offered’!”
So that was how it was. The soldier gave the hunter a somewhat sympathetic glance, saying, “Jiangling is not the same as a small village like yours, the things you laboriously hunt for, those lords can get with a wave of their hands, so no wonder you cannot sell it for a good price. Alright, the teleportation array is over there, go ahead.”
The hunter brought the little girl to queue beside the teleportation array, when suddenly he heard people nearby muttering, “Strange, I heard two days ago that the Yan Estate was collecting pelts, preparing to make winter cloaks, so this wolf’s fur is so complete, how could it fail to sell for a good price?”
Hearing this, the soldier paused, his gaze looking at the hunter gradually turning suspicious.
Right at this moment, the hunter suddenly grabbed the little girl and hoisted her onto his other shoulder, pushing away the people in front with one shove and stepping into the teleportation array, shouting fiercely at the “dead wolf” on his shoulder, “Couldn’t you transform a bit more miserably, now we are exposed all at once!”
Ying Chuang, who had transformed into the dead wolf, spoke human words, appearing to still be a bit aggrieved, “I did not know they were collecting pelts either.”
The hunter, who was Yan Baichuan, used the back of his blade to sweep away the people surrounding them, shouting a word to Lingyun, “Do not play dead, hurry and transform back to help! It will still take a moment for this array to activate.”
Lingyun jumped to the ground, restoring her original maiden appearance as soon as she landed, saying neither hurriedly nor slowly, “What is the rush. On such a grand scene, it is just right to try out my new magical artifact.”
Clearly Yan Baichuan and the others being exposed was merely a matter of a moment, yet when Lingyun took out her magical artifact, only cultivators remained around, their sword tips pointing straight at Yan Baichuan’s party, “Killing people and stealing treasures at the Treasure Pavilion, how bold of you! By order of the Shangyuan Sect, we shall definitely capture the evil culprits today!”
Lingyun raised her right hand to reveal Ice Heart on her wrist, actually without even pinching a spell seal, as the cold air climbed up the legs of the cultivators in front of them like a roaming snake, causing the cultivators in front to turn pale with fright.
Lingyun merely gave a faint smile, saying to Yan Baichuan and the others, “I told you a good magical artifact should make its appearance on such a grand scene. As the first people to test it out, you are blessed.”
Having finished speaking, Lingyun gently shook the bell, “Frost Map, unfold.”
The surrounding time seemed to freeze in an instant. Jiangling, which was still full of spring scenery just a moment ago, instantly turned bleak and desolate, all the structures of the teleportation array condensed with a layer of cold ice, including the cultivators in front who had turned into ice sculptures unable to move. Jin You could not help emerging from the blood jade bead, admiring this marvelous spectacle with praise.
This was only the beginning. Lingyun’s right hand wearing Ice Heart slowly closed into a fist, her gaze turning extremely dangerous in an instant, “Frost Map, close!”
The surrounding earth suddenly shook for a moment, as all the frozen people and objects were like an unfolded scroll painting, which was currently being slowly closed from both sides of the scroll axis, all tangible things on the scroll painting turning completely into powder under the intense pressure.
The cold wind brought by the scroll painting blew past Lingyun’s robes, making even her overly youthful appearance turn unattainable, as if this was her true strength traveling through the world beneath her transformations.