Ye Chenxue sat with her head lowered, her fingers twisting the hem of the clean robe Han Lin had provided her with. The faint white haze Lu Feng alone could see around her seemed to shiver with every word she spoke.
"I wasn’t just a student," she began, her voice barely louder than the wind whistling through the carriage curtains. "I was the pride of the Frost Heart Pavilion. My Master, the Sect Leader, treated me like the daughter she never had. I was on track to becoming the First Disciple—the best the sect had seen in a hundred years. I was even called the Ice Princess."
She paused, a bitter, hollow laugh escaping her lips. "But light always creates shadows. I had a sister disciple, someone I grew up with, trained with, and shared my meals with. I thought she loved me as I loved her. I didn’t see the envy festering behind her smiles. I didn’t see the hate that grew every time the elders praised my progress while she remained in my shadow."
Lu Feng remained quiet, watching her closely. He could see the phantom pain in her very posture. He could also see it in the way she subconsciously touched her midsection where her dantian, the core of every cultivator’s power, had once been a sun of spiritual energy.
"Our Master possessed a Divine Glacial Pearl," Ye Chenxue continued, her eyes unfocused as she looked into the past. "It was the sect’s most prized artifact as it was a catalyst for our highest techniques."
She sighed before she continued her story. "One night, it vanished. Master was beyond furious; she was heartbroken and because of that, she stood before the entire assembly and swore an oath on her own cultivation, an oath that could not be broken, that she would shatter the dantian of the thief and cast them into the abyss."
Han Lin gasped, her hand rushing to her mouth before the entire gasp could escape. She knew enough of the world to know that a cultivation oath was absolute. One who broke it would definitely invite the heavens to strike them down.
"It was a perfect frame," Ye Chenxue whispered, a single tear carving a path through the faint remnants of dirt on her cheek that Han Lin could’ve sworn she cleaned. "They found the Pearl hidden in my private quarters, tucked away beneath my bedding. I didn’t even know it was there until the Master’s own hand pulled it out. The feeling of betrayal in her eyes... it hurt more than what came next."
The carriage seemed to grow cold as she reached the climax of her tragedy. "Master didn’t ask for my side of the story. She didn’t investigate. She had made an oath, and the evidence was in her hand so she struck me. She destroyed my dantian with a single blow of her ice Qi, turning my spiritual sea into a sea of ruin. I was kicked out of the sect gates, bleeding and broken."
"It didn’t end there as a decree was sent to every surrounding territory: anyone who dared to shelter me or offer me a path back to cultivation would face the full, frozen wrath of the Frost Heart Pavilion."
Ye Chenxue looked up, her gaze haunted. "I tried, at first. I went to smaller sects to be recruited, to rogue teachers to be taught a thing or two, even to healing halls to be treated of a destroyed Dantian. But the decree followed me like a shadow. As soon as they heard my name, they turned me away."
As she spoke, she seemed close to crying for real. "Some even threw stones while others simply closed their doors against me. I was wandering the roads, starving and defenseless, when the slave catchers found me. To them who knew nothing about me, I wasn’t a fallen genius. I was just a girl who couldn’t fight back."
As the story ended, the cabin was silent save for the soft, muffled sobbing of Han Lin. The maid, who had spent her life serving a city-wide renowned mad master, couldn’t contain the tidal wave of empathy she felt for this girl.
Ye Chenxue looked so small in the corner of the carriage, younger than Han Lin, and perhaps even a year or two younger than Lu Feng himself.
"Oh, you poor soul," Han Lin choked out. Without hesitation, she moved across the small space and pulled Ye Chenxue into a fierce, protective hug like a big sister who’d just found her long lost junior sister.
Ye Chenxue stiffened at first, her body unaccustomed to warmth after so long in the cold, but slowly, her shoulders slumped, and she leaned fully into the embrace.
Lu Feng watched them, his heart swelling with a strange, protective heat. He was no longer just a boy running from his mother’s shadow and fury or the contempt of his older siblings.
He was the anchor for these two souls. But his focus was quickly diverted as a sharp chime echoed in the theater of his mind.
[Ding!]
[New Quest Triggered: The Restoration of the Fallen Ice Princess.]
[Target: Ye Chenxue has shared her Broken Fate. Her Dantian is shattered, but the ’White Haze’ (Primordial Ice Essence) remains dormant in the marrow.]
[System Shop Opened: You can now purchase anything from the System Shop.]
[Investment Option Unlocked: 1x Heaven-Mending Rebirth Pill available for purchase in System Shop.]
[Price: 10,000 Gold Coins.]
Lu Feng nearly laughed loudly in front do the two beauties but held himself back from doing so. Just moments ago, he had been wondering what to do with the twenty thousand gold coins that had appeared in his inventory as his reward.
The system was truly efficient as it seemed to both provide the problem and the solution in the same breath. Ten thousand gold was a fortune that could buy a small estate, but to Lu Feng, it was half of a return he hadn’t even worked for. It was yet another investment plan.
’Purchase it,’ he commanded silently.
Inside the mental space that now served as his inventory, ten thousand gold coins vanished into the unknown. In their place, a small, jade-carved bottle appeared, radiating a warmth that he could feel even through his thoughts.
Just from staring at it, he instantly knew that inside that bottle was the power to make the Frost Heart Pavilion’s decree look like a child’s temper tantrum that he was ready to settle.
He looked at the two women. Han Lin was still whispering comforting words to Ye Chenxue, whose eyes were redeemed and weary. Lu Feng leaned forward, his two colored eyes glowing with an intensity that demanded attention even before he spoke a word.
The realisation of his new wealth and the power of the system had changed his aura. Lu Feng, no longer looked like a fragile noble. He looked like a man who held the keys to the very heavens themselves.
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A/N: Please support with your power stones. That’s all I ask. Thank you!!