# 2
Two hours later, on a remote mountainside far from the Violet Cloud Sect.
Snow fell heavily—not ordinary winter snow, but an unnatural ice storm that blanketed the entire mountain range in white. The wind howled like starving wolves, tearing away the last traces of warmth daring to linger.
Amid the fury of nature, a girl walked.
Fang Jia Ying moved through the snow-covered pine forest, her steps no longer graceful but faltering. Her pale blue robe was torn in places, snagged on branches and rocks. Her hair, partially white now, clung in icy sweat and blood. Her blood—pale blue and thick—stained the edges of her robe.
No. Not stained.
The blood froze instantly upon leaving her body, forming tiny pale-blue crystals that shimmered faintly in the dim light.
She stopped, leaning against a massive pine trunk. Her breath formed clouds in the frigid air. In her chest, beneath her right rib, a throbbing pain pulsed like a second chaotic heartbeat. Each pulse sent cold radiating through her body—cold unlike the surrounding air. A living, hungry cold.
"How many?" she murmured to the wind.
The answer came not in words, but sensations. Tiny needles of ice pricked her skin in specific spots: the lower back (bruised from a fall into a small ravine), the left arm (pierced by an almost-hit arrow), and most disturbing—the right wrist, where the pulse was strongest.
Three hunters. Perhaps four.
She sensed them. Not with ordinary sight or hearing, but with something deeper—like resonance between ice and ice, blood and blood. The hunters carried warmth—anger, greed, fear. These emotions rang in her new awareness like warning bells.
She closed her eyes. Her pale blue eyes, still alien to her, now saw the world differently. The world was no longer shapes and colors, but flows of energy, temperature… life.
The pine beside her glowed softly with green light—the slow, calm energy of the earth. A snow mouse hiding beneath roots radiated a small orange heat. And in the distance, three blazing red points moved through the forest.
The hunters.
One of them—the largest, hottest—carried something that made Jia Ying shiver. Metal. Not ordinary metal, but infused with fire energy. A spirit-hunter's weapon, perhaps, designed specifically for… creatures like her.
"Creatures like her." The words tasted bitter in her dry mouth.
She was no longer human. Or at least, not an ordinary human. Her blue blood, blue eyes, and ice obeying her will—all screamed that truth. Monster. That was what Elder Peng saw. That was what Lin Feng saw. That was why they sent hunters.
But beneath fear and confusion, there was anger.
Anger colder than any ice, sharper than any blood crystal. Anger at betrayal. At humiliation. At a world so quick to condemn her simply for being different.
"No," she whispered to the wind, the trees, the falling snow. "I am not a monster. I am… a victim. And victims can become executioners."
She pushed off the tree and walked on. Her feet sank into knee-deep snow, yet she did not slow. The snow seemed to… give way. Ice crystals rearranged themselves before her, forming a path firmer, easier to walk on.
Unconscious power. Or perhaps instinctive, but deliberate.
*/*2
Half a li away, three men clad in thick animal hides stopped at a rocky pass.
"The trail ends here," growled the tallest, Kong, gripping a longbow strung with beast-tendon cord. His eyes—one normal, one scarred—scanned the surroundings with expert precision.
"Impossible," said the younger, Xiao Li, scraping a short knife on a stone. "She's injured. Her blood is… strange. Freezing before it hits the ground. She can't just vanish."
The third, stocky Lao Hu, bent down to inspect the snow. "She hasn't vanished." His thick fingers traced footprints. "See? Her trail… changed."
The other two stepped closer. Kong squinted his good eye.
The girl's footprints—deep, erratic at first, signs of running—had suddenly become shallow and orderly. As if the snow ahead hardened to support her weight.
"High-level ice technique," Kong muttered. "But Elder Peng said she was only Yellow Low. Could only produce frost."
"Elder Peng might be wrong," Lao Hu rumbled. "Or she's hiding her true power."
Xiao Li spat into the snow. His saliva hissed and froze. "What difference does it make? The reward is the same: 500 mid-tier spirit stones for her head, dead or alive. With that, we could retire from this dirty work."
Kong ignored him, crouching to sniff the air. "Do you smell that?"
"Smell what? Cold and more cold?" Xiao Li teased.
"No." Kong lifted his head, single eye narrowed. "Blood. But not ordinary blood. Sweet. Like a withering frost flower."
*/*2
Jia Ying heard them.
Not with ears—the distance was too far, the wind too strong—but with her blood.
When Kong said "sweet blood," the words echoed inside her like a small gong struck. Her pulse responded, recognizing its own call.
She was now hiding in a small cave behind a frozen waterfall. The waterfall was entirely solid, forming a two-foot-thick crystal curtain reflecting light in dizzying patterns. A perfect hideout, discovered accidentally as the blood in her hands reacted with the ice—drawing her like a magnet.
Inside the dark, cold cave, she finally had a moment to examine herself.
Her hands trembled as she opened her robe. Across her chest, above her heart, a pale blue pattern had emerged on her skin. Not a tattoo, not a bruise—but something beneath the skin, faintly glowing like a full moon behind fog. Its design was intricate: a snow crystal with nine nodes, surrounded by concentric circles that seemed… to pulse.
Heavenly Frost Dao Bone.
Elder Peng's words. The words that made the three hunters groan in terror before chasing her.
What did it mean? She did not know. But her bones felt different. Denser. Singing. A silent song made of cold and solitude.
She pressed her hand to the pattern. Cold. But a comforting cold, like returning home after a long absence.
Who am I? the question echoed.
Fisher girl? Humiliated fiancée? Monster with blue blood?
Or… something else? Something older than her village memories, deeper than her love for Lin Feng, which had proven false?
Grrrr…
The sound made her jump. Not from outside, but from inside the cave.
She turned. Her blue eyes adjusted to the darkness. In the back of the cave, where shadows thickened, a pair of brighter blue eyes stared.
Not human eyes.
Large. Shining. Full of primitive intelligence and… hunger.
Jia Ying froze—not from fear, but from something stranger: recognition.
The creature stepped into the faint light filtering through the ice curtain. A wolf. But not an ordinary wolf. Its fur was pure white like fresh snow, its eyes glacier-blue, and from its mouth, breath formed tiny ice crystals that clinked softly on the cave floor.
Frostwolf. A legendary beast from bedtime tales, thought extinct for centuries.
The wolf approached—not aggressively, but curiously. Its black nose sniffed the air, drawn to… her chest. To the glowing pattern on her skin.
Then something unexpected happened.
The Frostwolf bowed.
Not like a pet, but like nobility honoring its queen. Head lowered, ears flattened, tail tucked between its hind legs.
Jia Ying blinked. "What… what are you doing?"
The wolf lifted its head. Eyes—blue as her own—regarded her with impossible understanding. Then, in slow deliberate motion, it rubbed its head against her leg, like a cat demanding attention.
As its cold fur touched her skin, images flashed in Jia Ying's mind:
Towering mountains blanketed in eternal ice.
A palace of crystal, spires reaching into dark skies.
White-haired, blue-eyed women, laughing as they conjured ice flowers in their palms.
Then… fire. Screams. Blood in the snow—blue as hers.
And finally, a woman's voice, gentle but sorrowful:
"One will return when the final winter comes. She will reclaim what was lost."
The images vanished as quickly as they appeared. Jia Ying staggered against the cave wall, gasping.
The Frostwolf lifted its muzzle and let out a low whine.
"You… you recognize this, don't you?" Jia Ying whispered, pointing to the pattern on her chest. "It… it belongs to them? The women in the ice palace?"
The wolf nodded—an unnaturally human-like motion.
But before Jia Ying could ask more—
BRAAAAM!
An explosion outside. The ice waterfall shuddered, tiny cracks spreading like spiderwebs across the crystal surface.
"HERE!" Kong shouted.
"The cave behind the waterfall!" Xiao Li yelled.
Jia Ying cursed silently. They had found her.
She looked to the Frostwolf. "You must go. They'll kill you too."
But the wolf did not leave. Instead, it stood between Jia Ying and the cave entrance, fur bristling, fangs bared. Protecting.
Lao Hu: "Out, girl! Or we'll flush you out!"
Choices. Fight or flee. But flee where? She was wounded, exhausted, unfamiliar with the terrain.
Then, from deep within, a voice spoke. Not foreign, but her own—deeper, older, colder.
"They carry fire. Fire is your weakness. But also their weakness."
"What do you mean?" Jia Ying thought.
"Fire needs fuel. Their breath is fuel. Their blood is fuel. Take the fuel, and the fire dies."
Jia Ying looked at her hands. Frozen blue blood still clung to her skin. Her blood… could extinguish fire?
"Not extinguish," the voice corrected. "Transform. Ice is not the opposite of fire. Ice is the other side of the same coin. Heat and cold. Life and… un-life."
She did not fully understand. But there was no time to ponder.
"ALRIGHT!" Kong shouted. "UNLEASH THE FIRE!"
Bright orange light blazed behind the ice curtain. They would melt the entrance.
Jia Ying inhaled deeply. Cold filled her lungs, clearing her mind. Fear vanished. What remained was… certainty.
She looked to the Frostwolf. "Prepare."
Then she extended her hand—not toward the doorway, but to the cave wall beside her. Where dripping water had formed tiny ice stalagmites over centuries.
"Ice is not just defense," she whispered. "Ice is… memory. Ice is… preservation."
She closed her eyes. Within her, something awakened.
The pattern on her chest glowed brighter, casting pale blue light throughout the cave. Her bones vibrated, singing an ancient forgotten song.
And the ice responded to her hands.
*/*2
Outside, Kong had prepared Fireblast Talismans—yellow papers inscribed with glowing red characters radiating intense heat.
"One, two, THREE!"
He threw the talisman at the ice curtain.
Flames erupted, intense heat striking the ice. The frozen waterfall began to melt, droplets steaming into vapor.
"Again!" Kong ordered.
Xiao Li threw the second talisman. Lao Hu the third.
The ice curtain quickly melted, forming a human-sized opening.
"READY!" Kong drew an arrow, tip glowing red with fire energy.
But just as the hole became passable—
The wind shifted.
Not ordinary wind. A soul-freezing gust, blasting from the cave with storm-force, carrying razor-sharp ice shards and… something else.
A scent. The scent of dying frostflowers. First snow in autumn. The scent of blue blood.
The three hunters staggered back, gasping.
"FROM INSIDE!" Lao Hu shouted.
But it was too late.
From the cave, Fang Jia Ying stepped out.
But not the Jia Ying they expected. Her hair was now fully white, like someone a hundred years old. Eyes bright blue like the Frostwolf beside her. And in her hand—a sword.
Not a metal sword.
An ice sword.
Not ordinary ice, but alive—pulsing with pale blue light from within, veins like frozen blood running along its blade. Long, slender, deadly.
"You seek a monster," Jia Ying said, her voice layered—her own voice overlaid with another, older, more powerful. "You have found one."
Kong fired an arrow.
A flaming arrow streaked through the cold air.
Jia Ying did not dodge.
She raised her ice sword, and just before the arrow touched it—
She did not cut it.
She touched it with the tip.
And the arrow… froze.
Flame frozen. Flames that should never freeze—locked in transparent ice, still retaining the shape of its flickering tongue, now a beautiful and terrible crystal sculpture. It fell to the snow silently, unburnt, unextinguished—frozen forever.
The three hunters froze stiffer than the arrow.
"Impossible…" Xiao Li muttered, face pale.
"Combined attack!" Kong shouted, trying to regain control.
They unleashed all fire talismans, all weapons. Flames lit around them, forming a defensive circle.
Jia Ying exhaled. Her breath formed clouds of crystal frost in the air.
"Fire," she said, as if speaking to a child. "You think fire protects you from cold?"
She stepped forward. Every step, ice spread beneath her feet, extinguishing the flames.
"But cold existed before fire. Cold existed when the first stars were born. Cold is… the primal state."
She raised her left hand—the hand not holding the sword. In her palm, a spinning ice-blood crystal formed.
"And blood," she continued, her layered voice now clearer, "blood is memory. Blood carries stories. My blood carries a story… very, very old."
She stared at Kong, her blue eyes piercing his soul. "Do you wish to hear it?"
Kong wanted to flee. But his feet were frozen in place—literally, locked in ice growing from the ground.
"NO!" he shouted.
Jia Ying crushed the crystal in her hand.
It shattered.
No explosion. No loud sound.
Just… a wave.
A wave of unseen cold spread through the three hunters.
And they froze.
Not like ordinary ice statues. But like the fire arrow—frozen in their last positions. Kong with bow raised, face twisted in terror. Xiao Li with talisman in hand, mouth open mid-scream. Lao Hu turning to run, one leg lifted.
They were still alive. Eyes could still move, full of unspeakable fear. But their bodies—skin, muscles, blood, even clothing—had turned to transparent ice.
Jia Ying walked past them, Frostwolf at her side. She stopped before Kong, staring into his wide-open eyes.
"You will remain like this… a long time," she whispered. "Perhaps forever. Eternal ice. Eternal torment for eternal hunters."
She turned, beginning to walk away.
But then paused, glancing back once more.
"Tell those who sent you," she said, her layered voice now dominant, commanding with ancient authority. "Fang Jia Ying is dead. Rising in her place is… the Heir of Frost. And she is on her way home."
She walked into the intensifying snowstorm, Frostwolf at her side.
Behind her, three human ice statues stood in the forest—a chilling warning to anyone daring to follow.
And somewhere far north, in the colder reaches, something opened its eyes after a long slumber.
Something sensing the awakening of its heir.
Something… waiting.