Changling couldn't remember how long she experienced suffocation in that moment near death.
She had witnessed drowning victims frantically struggling in the water, their chests desperately wanting to draw a breath yet unable to obtain it—the terrible dance of lungs crying out for air that would never come. She was grateful that she was too exhausted and weak to fight, merely waiting quietly for death in complete darkness. But she waited and waited, her consciousness still drifting through an endless void of darkness and suffocation.
She couldn't help but wonder—could it be that after death, one simply floats in endless, eternal cold?
She didn't know how much more time passed in that suspended state—perhaps a day or two, perhaps a thousand or ten thousand years, time losing all meaning in the absence of sensation—until weak light and shadow appeared in the pitch-black world ahead. Overjoyed, she wanted to rush toward it—
Changling's eyes suddenly flew open!
What met her gaze were clusters of jagged, grotesque rocks, their surfaces layered with ice that caught and refracted light into a thousand shimmering fragments. Water droplets splashed from somewhere above, echoing hollowly in the emptiness with a sound that marked the passage of seconds.
This was a massive ice cavern. The rock ceiling arched overhead like a dome covering from the heavens, fantastical and extraordinary—nature's cathedral carved from stone and frost.
Changling lay atop a huge block of ice, her body perfectly still. She instinctively moved her fingers—the ice was bone-chillingly cold to the touch, freezing her until she shuddered involuntarily. She only felt her heart suddenly stab with pain, pounding directly, barely pulling back her three souls and seven spirits from wherever they had wandered.
She actually hadn't died.
She looked down at herself and saw that she wore a white gown, the clothing soft and clean against her skin. The ice cavern stretched around her, empty and silent, without half a trace of human presence.
Changling forced herself to sit up, every muscle protesting the movement. She discovered a stone table and chairs within the cave, positioned as if waiting for guests who never arrived. The furniture bore no frost accumulation, suggesting someone must have cleaned them not long ago. She tried to stand, but just as she straightened her body, her feet gave way and her entire body fell onto the ice below with a dull thud.
Changling sensed something was profoundly wrong—her entire body was both frozen and numb, her legs completely without sensation. Forget walking—even crawling to the cave entrance to look at the scenery outside would be a monumental task.
Outside the cave, daylight had not fully brightened, the world suspended in that gray hour between night and morning. Inside, light and shadows flickered indistinctly, creating phantoms that danced across ice-covered walls. Changling supported herself on her elbows and managed to shift several steps with difficulty, noticing a shadowy figure on the ice wall of the cavern, though she couldn't see it clearly through the distortion.
She thought briefly, then reached to her neck for the luminous pearl and drew it out from her collar with careful fingers.
The pearl's ethereal light was dazzling, illuminating the ice cavern until it was crystal clear, every facet of ice transformed into captured starlight. Focusing her gaze, a woman's figure immediately appeared on the stone wall before her with startling clarity.
The woman appeared to be about sixteen or seventeen years old, with dark hair hanging loose to the ground like a midnight waterfall, wearing white smoke-like gauze that made her complexion appear smooth as cream, though somewhat lacking in color. Apart from this pallor, her features were like a painting come to life, carrying three parts heroic spirit, bright and incomparably lovely.
Changling stared blankly at the woman in the wall's reflection, slowly raising her hand as if testing reality itself. She saw the reflection also raise its hand, lightly touching the smooth, supple skin beside the right eye with tentative wonder.
This person was naturally Changling herself.
She didn't know what transformation her body had experienced that could make her chronically swollen eyelids subside, while the originally crimson mark—that brand that had marked her entire life—had disappeared without a trace.
Changling's insides were in complete turmoil, emotions crashing against each other like waves in a storm. She carefully recalled for a long while, clearly remembering she had been poisoned by the United Hearts Gu and should have had no chance of survival, yet upon opening her eyes she found herself in this impossible place. She didn't know who could possess such arts of reviving the dead to save her from fate's certain grasp.
At this moment, a surprised cry suddenly came from behind, shattering the cavern's silence. "You're awake!"
Changling looked toward the voice and saw an old woman in thorn clothes and cotton skirt standing at the cave entrance, carrying a bamboo basket in her hand. With a face full of disbelief, she approached and circled around Changling like one inspecting a miracle.
"You really woke up?"
She crouched down and placed her hand on Changling's wrist with practiced ease, looking at her as if seeing some rare treasure that shouldn't exist in the mortal world. "You're alive—you actually truly came back to life."
Changling didn't understand what was happening, confusion clouding her thoughts. She only felt the old woman's accent was very strange, and at her age she still wore several small braids on her head—she didn't look quite like someone from the Central Plains. The old woman, seeing her staring without making a sound, placed her palm on Changling's forehead with maternal concern.
"Why aren't you talking? Don't tell me you've become stupid? Do you, you, you still remember who you are?"
Changling wasn't accustomed to being touched by others, her instinct toward isolation deeply ingrained. She turned her head aside, yet probed tentatively, testing the waters of this strange situation. "Who am I?"
The old woman's face showed "this is bad" as she leaned closer, her breath warm against the cold air. "Could it be… you're not Yue Changling?"
Changling's brow furrowed warily, suspicion rising. "You know me?"
"Ah, so you haven't become stupid. Then it's not that this granny saved the wrong person."
The old woman patted her chest with relief, exhaling dramatically. "I've been wondering all along—everyone says Yue Changling is a man. How could it be such a delicate, charming young lady like you… But at that time, the crimson flame mark on your forehead was clearly…"
"You… saved me?"
The old woman stood up supporting her knees with both hands, her joints creaking with the movement. "Nonsense. If this granny hadn't fished you out by the ice river at the foot of Yan Huishan, you would have long since become an ice block sleeping eternally at the bottom."
Yan Huishan? Wasn't that a famous mountain in Yan Kingdom?
Changling's heart finally showed some surprise, the first crack in her composure. She had fallen into the water at Taixing City—how could she possibly have been rescued by someone in Yan Kingdom? The distance was impossible, the geography made no sense.
The old woman noticed her expression shifting through emotions. Seeing her still not speaking a word, she waved her hand before Changling's eyes with theatrical impatience. "This is the Ice Peak Cavern of Yan Huishan. If you don't believe it, look for yourself and you'll know."
A trace of unease floated across Changling's indifferent face like a shadow passing over still water. She struggled to shift to the cave entrance and looked outside, seeing that the heaven and earth of distant mountains and near ridges were all hazily verdant and green. Only Yan Huishan stood towering majestically above the clouds, the ghostly mountain wind entering the valley, frightening and cold—a sound that seemed to carry the voices of the dead.
The mountain wind suddenly rang in her ears like a warning bell. She still remembered that before she lost consciousness, it had been the depths of winter—even Taixing City had been covered in plain white snow, let alone the extreme north of Yan Kingdom.
"Impossible. I was clearly in Liang Kingdom."
The old woman scratched her head, seemingly unbothered by impossibilities. "What's so strange about you drifting from there to here?"
Changling: "…"
From Fulong Mountain to Yan Huishan, even by boat would take ten days to half a month at the very least. If she had drifted across seas all that way, she would have long since become a rotting corpse, food for fish and carrion birds. How could she have the chance to sit here perfectly fine?
"Besides, Liang Dynasty was destroyed so long ago… Where is there still any Liang Dynasty nowadays?"
The old woman had an expression of not being able to wrap her head around it, as if Changling spoke of ancient history. "Oh right, how could you possibly know? You've been dead for eleven years…"
Changling's mind jolted, the words hitting like a physical blow. "What do you mean dead for eleven years?"
"When this granny fished you out from the river, your entire body had long since frosted over, completely without breath. How could a living person look like that?"
Changling's heart leapt with inexplicable shock as she looked at the granny in disbelief, searching the weathered face for signs of madness or jest.
"Dead is dead. Originally I only wanted to give you a proper burial. Who would have thought that just as granny had finished digging the pit and was dragging you into the earth, I actually heard your heartbeat—thump, thump—it scared granny to death… Hey, where are you going?"
Changling naturally couldn't listen to this unrestrained absurd theory, her rational mind rejecting such impossibilities. But her current circumstances were truly too preposterous to dismiss entirely. She couldn't help wanting to investigate—she didn't believe this was Yan Kingdom. As long as she left this place and found someone to ask, the truth would naturally become clear.
Her legs had no sensation and couldn't walk, useless as dead weight. In her urgency, she borrowed force from the rock wall with one hand and leaped up, floating directly toward the cliff outside the cave with desperate grace. The old woman saw this and cried out in alarm.
"You just woke up! Your breath is still difficult to regulate. You mustn't rashly use internal force!"
But Changling could no longer hear, her mind focused singularly on discovering the truth.
She raised her eyes to gaze below the mountain cliff. In all four directions were ten li of mining grounds and a hundred li of farmland stretching to the horizon.
Under the scorching sun, people laboring in the fields were densely scattered everywhere like ants, each wearing Yan clothing with shaved hair, while groups of soldiers wielding whips drove them onward with casual cruelty. Miasmic vapors filled the air, rising in visible waves, nearly causing suffocation. What the ancients called Asura realm could be nothing more than this—hell made manifest on earth.
Changling collapsed sitting on the ground, unable to believe what she saw no matter what arguments her mind constructed. Until the mountain wind brushed her sleeves and she looked down to discover the thin calluses on her palms—earned through years of sword practice—had vanished without trace, while the United Hearts Gu wound on her arm had become a deep scar, white and ancient-looking. If not for the passage of several years, how could such a scar have formed?
The old woman had already followed to her side with surprising agility. Seeing her lost in thought for a long while, staring at her own hands as if they belonged to a stranger, she said with gentle insistence:
"Aiya, I already told you that you've been lying here for eleven years. Why would I lie to you?"
Though it was extremely absurd, defying all logic and natural law, she ultimately had to believe it.
Eleven years. Those heart-piercing pains were still vivid before her eyes, sharp as yesterday's wounds, yet she awakened from one dream to find eleven years had already passed like water through her fingers.
Stars shifted, all things changed. In this world, there were probably no longer any who remembered her name or her deeds. Where should she go from here?
Endless desolation spread from the bottom of her heart like ink through water. Changling stared blankly at the distant clouded mountains when her chest suddenly seized with severe pain. Mouthfuls of fresh blood surged up from her throat, the taste of copper flooding her mouth.
The old woman's expression panicked, all her earlier casualness vanishing. "Oh no, this is going into qi deviation."
Seeing Changling about to collapse, the old woman immediately sat cross-legged behind her with decisive movements, took out a silver needle pouch from her clothing pocket, supported Changling's body with one hand, and with a sweep of her sleeve, her five fingers simultaneously grasped nine silver needles, swiftly piercing several major acupoints around Changling's body with unerring precision.
The old woman's technique was extremely fast, her movements a blur. In just a brief instant she had already shifted to over ten acupoints, the needles flashing like quicksilver. Changling only felt excruciating pain throughout her body, as if wave after wave of short, sharp internal flows followed the silver needles into her body, conflicting and repelling her original internal force. Unable to break free from the sensation, fine sweat beaded densely on her forehead like morning dew. When the pain reached its extreme, she let out a muffled groan—the only sound she allowed herself. Suddenly the agony scattered like wind blowing clouds away. Though her entire body went limp, she felt incomparably lighter, as if weights had been lifted from her soul.
"My goodness, granny has administered needles to so many masters. Which one didn't roll around on the ground in pain?"
The old woman withdrew the needles into the pouch with practiced efficiency, clicking her tongue in wonder. "Someone like you who only made one sound—I've truly never seen such a thing."
Changling vaguely felt the needle technique and meridian paths just now were very familiar, stirring memories of old teachings. She turned to look at the old woman with new understanding.
"Nanhua Needle Method—what relation are you to the Green-Robed Wanderer Chu Tiansu?"
The old woman smiled bashfully, almost girlishly despite her age. "I am Chu Tiansu."
Changling was even more surprised, shock rippling across her usually controlled features.
In her childhood, she often heard her martial brother mention their master's past, saying that Master Xuanji when young had also once had a beloved woman. The two traveled together with one blade and one sword—people of the martial world called them the Green-Robed Wanderers, legends whispered in teahouses. Later, for unknown reasons, that woman abandoned him to marry another. After grieving until his spirit nearly broke, Master left the Central Plains, and afterward achieved great enlightenment, shaved his head, and became a monk, from then on keeping company with dim lamps and ancient Buddhas.
That woman was precisely Chu Tiansu.
Looking at this old granny before her, Changling found it truly difficult to equate her with the world's most beautiful woman from her master's mouth—the paragon whose grace had inspired poetry. But calculating the years, it was about right. Moreover, the Nanhua Needle Method was absolutely unique, passed down through a single line. If she weren't Chu Tiansu, who else could she be?
"Senior."
Chu Tiansu quickly waved her hands in protest. "Aiya, don't. Just call me Granny Chu."
"You said earlier… when you pulled me from the water I had no breath. What happened? And how… did you recognize me?"
Chu Tiansu sighed, the sound carrying decades of accumulated wisdom.
There were countless strange and bizarre occurrences in this world, phenomena that defied explanation. If it were someone else who fished up a person with a heartbeat but no breathing, they would definitely treat it as some evil demon or possession by something unclean. Not dismembering Changling would already be considered merciful. But Chu Tiansu was no ordinary person. She not only knew martial arts but also medicine, her knowledge spanning both the external and internal. Even after being frightened, she could still crawl back to Changling's "corpse" and ponder over it for half a day.
"Though you were severely poisoned, immersion in the glacial river caused your blood vessels to cease flowing, preventing the poison from attacking your heart. Ordinarily you should have long since died, your body surrendered to nature's laws, but the true qi within your body could still circulate, instead causing your heartbeat to pulse like a living person. This internal force was both domineering and uncanny, unlike anything I'd encountered. I probed once and immediately knew—this was Shimo True Qi. Your master accepted several disciples, but only you possessed exceptional talent to master this art. Combined with the red mark at your temples then, how could I not guess?"
Chu Tiansu paced several steps, her movements restless with memory. "At that time I didn't know whether you were alive or dead—suspended between two worlds. Seeing the frost around your body melt away, your heartbeat immediately weakened. Only then did I expend tremendous effort to carry you up to this ice cave. Sure enough, after you lay upon this ice, you recovered a slight thread of life force."
Changling listened with wonder, her mind struggling to comprehend. She subconsciously took two breaths before belatedly feeling her chest full of icy cold, as if she'd inhaled winter itself. Chu Tiansu coughed twice, a wet sound that spoke of age.
"Later, I used the Nanhua Needle Method to expel the poison for you. Unfortunately, you still remained unconscious… Oh no, unconscious unto death without waking. I too was helpless—all my skill couldn't reach you. You just lay there like a block of ice for eleven years without eating or drinking. Strangely enough, recently when I came to see you, I felt your appearance was increasingly different—the red mark was gone, your eyelids no longer swollen, even the frost formed on your body had melted considerably… I was just wondering whether you might come back to life, and unexpectedly you really did rise from the dead!"
Changling: "…"
She, Yue Changling, wasn't some cordyceps fungus emerging from the earth. How could a body of flesh and blood be frozen at will and revive at will?
After Chu Tiansu spoke for so long, she probably also felt it was too unreasonable, defying all medical texts. So she lazily shook her head with a philosophical air. "Aiya, how could we mortals easily penetrate the mysteries of all things in this world? Being able to return from death is ultimately a blessing."
If an ordinary person experienced such death and revival, even if not moved to tears they would at least sigh a few phrases about seizing the day and heaven rewarding the diligent. But Chu Tiansu watched as Changling's expression changed from indifference to bewilderment then back to coldness, the cycle completing itself. She secretly admired that at such a young age she could already transcend and see through worldly affairs, not knowing that it was merely that her seven emotions and six desires couldn't show on her face—her heart had long since turned a hundred times over, unable to be expressed in words.
Changling remained stunned for a long while, processing impossibilities, then suddenly asked: "Since Liang has already been destroyed, who rules now?"
Chu Tiansu was taken aback, seeming unwilling to speak the truth that might cause pain. Her eyes rolled around evasively. "I've been in this godforsaken place too long. You've really stumped granny… I only heard that after Liang fell, the land was divided like meat among wolves. Now one is called Eastern Xia and one is called Western Xia. Actually… whoever becomes emperor is all the same…"
She carefully observed Changling's expression for signs of breaking. "Cough, but I also heard that back then, if the Yan army hadn't attacked your Yue Family, who knows—the one sitting on the throne now might be you… Though you're a woman, the people of the realm don't know that."
Changling was silent for a long moment, her voice quiet when it finally came. "If it were only the Yan army, it wouldn't have been enough to harm us to such a degree."
Chu Tiansu asked curiously, leaning forward. "Then who was it?"
Changling was unwilling to answer, the wound too fresh despite eleven years passing. In Chu Tiansu's eyes, whoever won or lost was all the same—history written by victors. Even if she learned that the Yue Family was harmed by treacherous people, now that times had changed, it would only amount to a sigh. She looked at the countless laboring slaves below the mountain, thinking instead of another matter.
"Yan Huishan—could this place be…"
"Mu Wangbao."
This name sounded familiar, stirring dark legends. Changling thought briefly and recalled what Mu Wangbao was.
Yan Kingdom's Mu Wangbao—at first hearing, it sounded inauspicious enough to be a tomb forest. Actually, it truly was a barbarous miasmic land, specifically receiving criminals exiled from thousands of li away. Legend said that prisoners banished here had never left alive—each was drained of their last drop of blood before being tortured to death. Unlike other exile lands, even when Yan Kingdom granted general amnesty to celebrate imperial occasions, Mu Wangbao was not included in the pardon. Thus naming it with the character for tomb was quite fitting—a place of no return.
Only now did Changling reexamine Chu Tiansu thoroughly with new eyes. Her thorn clothing was worn and tattered, her ten fingers covered in new wounds and old scars—clearly from years of hard labor.
Chu Tiansu followed Changling's gaze and looked down at herself, smiling carelessly as if her condition were nothing. "I'm just a laborer at Mu Wangbao. Compared to those people below, my days are actually quite comfortable."
Changling surveyed all four directions with slowly dawning comprehension.
If so, she had been swept by the waterfall and drifted to Yan Kingdom's famously renowned human hell on earth. That was truly cause for celebration—she'd survived death only to wake in damnation.
Over the following days, Chu Tiansu came every night at dusk carrying food boxes and even pots and pans to the ice cave to visit Changling, not leaving until daybreak approached with the first gray light. As she said, compared to other exiles, she had considerable freedom of movement—a privilege whose source remained mysterious. But Changling didn't quite understand—with Chu Tiansu's martial skills, why didn't she escape from Mu Wangbao, instead willingly submitting to others' control within the fortress for over ten years?
"You think escaping Mu Wangbao is an easy matter?"
Chu Tiansu took out several needles with practiced ease. "Besides, I'm just a lonely, pitiful old woman. If I went out hiding here and there, where would I find work?"
Legend said the Nanhua Needle Method could not only expel poison and heal injuries but could kill invisibly in an instant, the needles becoming instruments of silent death. This unique divine skill alone was enough to make countless martial world figures covet it with murderous intent.
Changling silently grumbled to herself, instinctively feeling Chu Tiansu wasn't telling the truth—the explanation too simple for such a skilled woman. But if she was unwilling to speak, Changling was too lazy to dig to the bottom of it.
She had just awakened from a long dream spanning over a decade. Her body and bones were far too weak, completely unable to control the powerful internal force within—like trying to contain an ocean in a teacup. Combined with excessive worry and grief, she often suffered torment from internal force backlash after the Zi hour. Chu Tiansu, fearing she might have some mishap, came nightly to use golden needles on her acupoints. Unexpectedly, after watching only twice, Changling had already memorized most of the needle method's patterns, her mind absorbing the knowledge like parched earth drinks water. Chu Tiansu wasn't angry about her stealing the technique—instead, she was astonished by such natural genius.
"I spent so much effort wanting to pass this needle method to my son and grandson. Who knew they all learned it half-heartedly, never grasping the essence? You only watched a few times and can already penetrate these mysteries… No wonder even your master couldn't practice the tenth level of the Shimo Scripture, yet you, this little girl, learned it. Truly a prodigy, a prodigy… Hey, if he's willing, how about I also take you as a disciple?"
Previously, though she knew Chu Tiansu had saved her life, she understood very clearly that the other's assistance was mostly for her master's sake—repaying old debts of the heart. She secretly noted this debt of gratitude, thinking she would repay it with all her strength in the future. But in her heart, she still regarded this granny as a stranger, someone whose motivations remained opaque.
Until this moment, when she asked "how about I also take you as a disciple," Changling's heart was inexplicably touched—warmth spreading through the cold.
Rarely, Changling proactively asked, her curiosity overcoming her usual reserve: "If Granny's heart cannot let go of Master, why did you marry another back then?"
The needle in Chu Tiansu's hand paused mid-motion, her gaze drifting lightly as memories surfaced. "Your master and I… we spent more time fighting than being good together. He was such a stubborn person—immovable as a mountain. After quarreling too much, how could we not grow weary? Later, in a fit of anger, I agreed to marry someone else. Your master, he… he never tried to keep me either. So I completely gave up hope."
Changling hadn't expected that her generous and kind master had once been such a stubborn fool. For a moment she was somewhat at a loss for words, her image of him shifting. Chu Tiansu's expression went into a trance, eyes seeing past instead of present.
"It's just… if I hadn't left him back then, I wouldn't have ended up in such straits now."
Over ten years ago, her husband and son somehow committed some offense that touched the Yan Emperor's taboo—speaking words better left unsaid. The entire family was exiled to Mu Wangbao without trial or appeal. During the exile journey, those who starved died from starvation, those who fell ill died from illness. Only she and her grandson, then merely eight years old, barely survived the march.
Originally heartbroken to the point of despair, she had also considered ending it all—joining her family in death. But to care for her young and helpless grandson, she gritted her teeth and endured, finding purpose in his survival.
Yet within two years, her grandson still couldn't bear the inhuman torture within the fortress and died of illness in the bitter winter winds, another small body added to Mu Wangbao's count.
Not long after, she inadvertently saved Changling who had drifted across the seas.
At first it was from a kind heart, but when she detected that Changling was that person's disciple, suddenly, as if memories buried deep within were stirred up—
"I'm so old now—talk of rekindling old romance is pure nonsense… I only thought that after healing you, I could go see him once…"
A trace of nostalgia arose in Chu Tiansu's eyes, soft as candlelight. "Over fifty years—just being able to sit down and share a cup of wine would be quite nice."
Changling said gently, "My master never drinks alcohol."
Chu Tiansu was stunned, reality intruding on fantasy. "That's right—he became a monk, so he should have quit drinking long ago."
How much feeling, slowly simmered by the years into a pot of unforgetting longing—love transformed into something both more and less than what it was.
Changling couldn't know the depths of such devotion.
After Chu Tiansu left, she sat alone with knees drawn up against the ice peak, her shadow cast long on the ground as she watched the sun rise in the east, painting the sky in shades of amber and gold.
Since awakening, she had not yet quietly considered the road ahead with clear eyes.
In the vast sea of humanity, she didn't even know Fu Liujing's true appearance—the face behind the mask remained a mystery. Things had changed, people had changed, everything had changed—where should she even begin seeking revenge?
Right now she was in Mu Wangbao, a thousand li away from anywhere that mattered. Forget escaping—at this moment, whether this was revival or a dying gasp of light was still unknown.
Changling sighed softly, the sound lost in the mountain wind.
At this moment, footsteps faintly came from not far away, breaking the morning stillness. A man's voice was heard, rough with annoyance: "I'm telling you, why are you having a fit bringing me here for no reason? Haven't you heard there are unclean things up here!"
Another man said in a low voice, suspicious and scheming: "I always feel something's not right. Didn't you notice that Granny Chu is always sneaking around near Yan Huishan? Hmph, who knows if she's hiding something shameful."
Soldiers from Mu Wangbao!
Changling's heart leapt in alarm, adrenaline flooding her weakened system. She was just supporting herself to stand when those two soldiers had already rounded the corner and appeared before her, their faces registering shock at the sight of a beautiful woman where none should be.
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