Chapter 244 | The Ice-Jade Beauty in the Mist

Chapter 244: 244 | The Ice-Jade Beauty in the Mist

As soon as Lin Tian and Elder Liu stepped onto Bamboo-Mist Peak, the noise from the outer gate faded behind them, swallowed by the thick white mist.

The temperature on the peak was colder than the rest of the sect.

Halfway up the mountain stood a quiet ancestral shrine where a single spirit lamp burned before the memorial tablet of the Previous Sect Master, Chu Canglan.

At the summit stood a solitary two-story building the Snow Pavilion.

Part of the pavilion had been shattered outward by the spiritual Qi, and a layer of white frost covered the courtyard like midwinter snow.

Lin Tian followed Elder Liu into the inner seclusion hall.

The chamber was austere and quiet, furnished only with a wooden sword stand, a low incense table, and a wide meditation platform carved from Thousand-Year Cold Jade at the center of the room.

Beside the base of the Cold Jade platform lay the cracked porcelain pieces of a small white elixir casket.

Chu Qingyi was sitting in the center of the Cold Jade platform.

Even with her face as pale as snow and a trace of crimson blood at the corner of her lips, her beauty was breathtaking.

Although she had lived for over a century, reaching the Core Formation Realm early in her youth had preserved her appearance at the peak of her late twenties. Her features were sculpted with a cold, regal nobility, framed by long ink-black hair that had come half-unpinned during the backlash, spilling over her shoulders and across the full, graceful curve of her chest.

Tiny frost crystals clung to her long eyelashes, and her slender, jade-white hands pressed tightly against her lower abdomen as disordered waves of Late Stage Core Formation ice-qi leaked uncontrollably from her meridians.

The instant Lin Tian’s gaze settled upon her, a series of crisp golden notifications appeared inside his mind:

[Ding! High-Tier Conquest Target Detected!]

[Target Name: Chu Qingyi (Daughter of the Previous Sect Master)]

[Age: 142]

[Cultivation Realm: Core Formation Realm (Late Stage — Suffering Severe Meridian & Core Backlash)]

[Spiritual Root: Single Ice Spiritual Root]

[Special Physique: Frost-Jade Profound Physique]

[System Potential Rating: 5-Star]

[Current Obsession Level: 0% (Guarded / Heart Sealed in Ten-Year Solitude)]

At the same time, faint crimson runes flickered silently inside Lin Tian’s Insight Eye as he looked straight into her Dantian.

Inside Chu Qingyi’s Dantian floated a radiant, ice-blue Late Stage Golden Core, nourished by both her Single Ice Spiritual Root and her rare Frost-Jade Profound Physique.

Yet wrapped tightly around the surface of that ice-blue Golden Core was a thick, ten-year crust of dark-grey Corpse-Marrow Stagnation Ash!

For ten years, every time she had swallowed the Nine-Petal Yin-Nourishing Core Elixir sent from the Main Peak, the ash had acted as a soothing catalyst during quiet meditation while silently weaving a grey net around her Core.

Tonight, when she had gathered ten years of accumulated essence to impact the Peak Core Formation Realm, that grey net had locked shut all at once—forcing her own surging ice-qi to rebound violently.

On the Cold Jade platform, hearing two sets of footsteps enter the hall instead of one, Chu Qingyi’s frost-rimmed eyelashes lifted sharply.

Her cold phoenix eyes moved past Elder Liu and locked immediately onto Lin Tian standing behind her.

Having been sealed inside Bamboo-Mist Peak for ten years, she did not recognize this tall, strikingly handsome young man—and for a decade, she had not allowed any man to approach her .

Her left hand shifted instinctively toward the hilt of her ice-crystal sword.

"Junior Sister Liu..." Chu Qingyi’s voice was weak and shivering from the freezing pain in her chest, yet still carried an edge of guarded frost. "I only permitted you to cross the barrier... Why did you bring a strange man into my seclusion hall?"

"Put your hand down from your sword, Senior Sister Chu, or the cold essence will breach your heart meridian before I can even give you a pill!" Elder Liu hurried to the side of the Cold Jade couch, pressing gently on Chu Qingyi’s shoulder to keep her from moving.

Looking closely at the faint grey frost creeping up Chu Qingyi’s neck, Elder Liu’s eyes reddened with a mixture of heartache and anger.

"This is Lin Tian—Elder Lin, who just ascended to the Core Formation Realm," Elder Liu said rapidly in a low voice. "He possesses a pure Single Yang Spiritual Root and the precise fire control of a Tier-4 Low-Grade Artifact Refiner. Right now, my alchemy fire is too aggressive for your ruptured ice channels—only his pure Yang essence can protect your heart meridian while I stabilize your pulse!"

Chu Qingyi’s cold phoenix eyes flickered in surprise as she looked up at Lin Tian again.

So young—and already a Core Formation Elder and a Tier-4 Low-Grade Artifact Refiner?

She suppressed another cough that brought a thread of blood to her lips, shaking her head weakly.

"There is no need to waste your spiritual Qi on me, Junior Sister Liu..." Chu Qingyi whispered, a trace of bitter desolation passing through her clear eyes as she looked down at her trembling hands. "For ten years I prepared for this single step... Yet at the final moment of impacting the Peak Core Formation Realm, my Golden Core locked up on its own. My talent failed my father’s expectations... Even if you push the frost back tonight, my core is beyond repair."

"Your talent did not fail you, Senior Sister Chu," Lin Tian spoke up for the first time.

His voice was low, calm, and steady—cutting cleanly through the freezing despair in the room.

Lin Tian walked past the platform, crouched down, and picked up a broken piece of the elixir casket from the frost-covered floor.

"You possess a Single Ice Spiritual Root paired with a Frost-Jade Profound Physique," Lin Tian said evenly, standing three paces from her couch and meeting her guarded gaze directly. "With your foundation, stepping from the Late Stage into the Peak Core Formation Realm should have been as natural as water flowing into a river. Your Golden Core didn’t lock up because of a heart-demon or a lack of talent—it locked up because.... someone has been feeding you Corpse-Marrow Stagnation Ash every three months."

Chu Qingyi froze completely.

Her pale fingers stopped trembling and her phoenix eyes widened as she stared at the broken pill casket in Lin Tian’s hand.

"What... what did you just say?" Chu Qingyi breathed out, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Elder Liu and I unsealed the Black-Jade Ledger inside the Restricted Vault of the Resource Hall," Lin Tian said calmly, holding nothing back now that they were inside the ancestral barrier of Bamboo-Mist Peak.

"It feels soothing and smooth whenever you meditate, doesn’t it?" Elder Liu added softly, her voice shaking with shared fury as she placed a hand over Chu Qingyi’s freezing wrist. "He used similar hidden toxins from the Blood-Bone Cult on me, on Elder Bai, and on Elder Qing over the years—and yesterday he even tried to hand a pair of ash-poisoned herbs to Lin Tian. He waited ten years for you to impact the Peak Core Formation Realm so the accumulated ash would detonate inside your Golden Core and kill you without him lifting a finger!"

BOOM!

Like a bolt of winter lightning striking inside her mind, ten years of doubts, unanswered questions, and lingering grief over her father’s sudden death during closed-door seclusion crashed together in Chu Qingyi’s heart!

Her father’s sudden meridian ruptured ten years ago while Hong Xuan was in charge of his elixirs!

Hong Xuan’s patient, smiling insistence on sending her seclusion elixirs every three months while waiting outside her peak for ten years!

"Hong... Xuan...!"

Pure, bone-deep hatred flared inside Chu Qingyi’s eyes—and instantly triggered the violent frost-rebound coiled around her chest!

"Cough—cough!"

She coughed up a mouthful of dark, frost-tinged blood onto the white silk at her collar, her body swaying forward off the Cold Jade platform.

Before she could fall against the hard jade, Lin Tian moved forward.

His strong left arm caught her gently around her cold, trembling shoulders, supporting her back against his chest, while his right hand closed firmly over her freezing, snow-white palm!

"Don’t let anger scatter your Qi right now, Senior Sister," Lin Tian murmured close to her ear, his voice steady and warm. "If you let the frost stop your heart tonight, Hong Xuan will walk through that door at dawn and take your father’s Ancestral Seal from your cold hands. I can burn that ash, out of your Golden Core."

The moment Lin Tian’s warm palm closed around her freezing hand and her back rested against his broad chest, a pure, golden stream of Primordial Yang mixed with Core Origin Fire flowed gently through her meridian and wrapped around her freezing heart like a warm spring sun!

Chu Qingyi had lived in an ice-cold room, surrounded by cold jade, cold bamboo, and the cold memory of her father’s death—never touched by another human being.

Now, deeply comforting Irresistible Yang Scent that made her exhausted soul want to lean against his shoulder—the proud, untouchable daughter of the Previous Sect Master felt a tremor run all the way through her frozen heart.

[Ding! Target 7 (Chu Qingyi) Obsession Level: 0% → 8% (Shock of the Ten-Year Truth & First Touch of Life-Saving Warmth)]