The Mirror of Startling Beauty: Her courtiers are everywhere

"Ah Qiao, you really aren't coming with us?"

Feng Zhuo glanced at Chu Qiao.

Chu Qiao stood outside the passage, leaning against the piece of black ice, his arms crossed in a lazy posture.

It's like seeing a friend off to the market; after they leave, he still has to go back to tidy up the house, dry his herbs, and cook his fish soup.

"I'll pass."

Chu Qiao shrugged, his smile as casual as ever.

Those eyes reflected the light of the icy plains, sparkling brightly, yet giving the impression that beneath that light lay an unfathomable darkness.

"I am a hermit. How can a hermit leave the Ice Abyss? What kind of hermit would I be if I left the Ice Abyss?"

He waved his hand, as if bidding a final farewell to a thought in his mind.

"Besides, I hate crowds. There are so many people outside, it's too noisy for me. It gives me a headache."

Feng Zhuo wanted to say something more, but his lips moved slightly, and the words were already on the tip of his tongue.

Chu Qiao had already waved his hand and retreated to the outside of the underground river entrance.

They retreated quickly, as if afraid they would change their minds.

If he had been any slower, he would have really followed them.

His footsteps left a trail of messy marks on the snow.

It was completely different from the neat footprints he deliberately left when he arrived.

"Hurry up, hurry up, stop dawdling."

If the wind picks up again and the water level in the underground river rises, the road will become difficult to travel.

Don't blame me for jinxing you later.

Tang Xixue turned around and looked at him.

He stood beside the ice outside the entrance to the underground river.

"Chu Bridge".

Tang Xixue called out.

Chu Qiao's eyelashes trembled slightly, like the slightest flutter of a butterfly's wings.

"What's wrong, sister?"

His voice still had that lazy tone.

Thank you.

Tangxi Xue said.

Only two words.

There was no unnecessary sentimentality, no lengthy expressions of gratitude.

Concise, straightforward, and solemn.

All the weight has been placed on these two words.

These two words are enough to convey all her feelings.

Chu Qiao's lips moved slightly.

He wanted to say something, but swallowed it back.

In that instant, he suppressed all his unspoken words into his chest, using the already cracked walls of his heart to hold them back.

A glint flashed in his eyes.

Like a fish shadow deep in the ice, it sinks as soon as it floats to the surface.

"polite."

"Next time you come to visit, remember to bring more candied fruit."

This wretched place has everything, except sweet things.

I've almost forgotten what sugar tastes like.

"it is good."

Tang Xixue glanced at him, her gaze brief and fleeting.

Yet it was as if she wanted to etch his image into her eyes.

Then she turned and walked into the dark river.

Feng Zhuo remained in the same spot, staring at Chu Qiao, his lips moving, countless words stuck in his throat, yet he couldn't utter a single one.

"Let's go."

Mu Liang gently patted his back, her strength steady and restrained.

Feng Zhuo turned around, gritted his teeth, and walked into the underground river.

He didn't turn around.

He has always been impatient.

I'm afraid that if I turn around, I won't be able to resist knocking the person unconscious and carrying them away.

The water in the underground river is very cold.

It carried a chill that penetrated to the bone, as if time itself had solidified into liquid.

But the light from the water-repelling pearl enveloped the three of them, gentle yet firm, keeping out the biting cold.

The light was like someone had lit a lamp underwater, holding them steadily in the current.

The current propelled them forward, through the dark bottom of the ice.

The ice layer was very thick, and the ice wall overhead was translucent, allowing a sliver of sunlight to filter through.

The water refracts the light into countless shimmering ripples.

A flowing curtain of light is woven into the darkness of the underground river.

Feng Zhuo couldn't help but look back one last time.

The path we came from has been swallowed up by the flood.

The entrance to the underground river grew farther and farther away, smaller and smaller, until it finally became a tiny point of light.

It flashed in the dark water and then disappeared completely.

It's as if it never existed.

The boy standing at the entrance was nowhere to be seen. Only the gurgling of water and the soft glow of the water-repelling beads could be heard.

"Ah Xue, why didn't he come with us?"

Feng Zhuo asked telepathically, his voice filled with confusion and regret.

Tangxi Xue did not answer.

She simply swam forward, the light from the water-repelling beads reflecting on her face, clearly illuminating her eyebrows and eyes.

Her expression was calm as still water, but there was something heavy in her eyes.

Everyone has their own secrets, their own path, and their own choices.

The sound of the underground river receded into the distance behind us.

Ahead, the light at the exit was getting brighter.

The snowstorm has stopped.

The icy abyss was deathly silent.

Chu Qiao stood still, watching the light travel further and further away in the depths of the dark river until it completely disappeared from sight.

He stared at the dark water for a while, then turned around and started walking back the way he came.

The entrance to the underground river closed behind him, the rift remaining narrow and deep, as if no one had ever been there.

Another line of footprints appeared.

Extending from the depths of the icy abyss, the spacing between each step is perfectly uniform, as if measured with a ruler.

The footprints stopped three steps away.

Deep down, the ice layer beneath was pressed into fine cracks.

At the end of the footprints, a scale lay on the snow.

A palm-sized ice scale.

It was completely transparent, with a cold, eerie blue light, and its edges were so neat that it didn't look like it had fallen off naturally; it looked more like it had been cut off by someone's own hands.

Chu Qiao bent down and picked up the scale.

The moment my fingertips touched the scales, a bone-chilling coldness spread up my knuckles and condensed into a thin layer of frost on my wrist.

He turned the scales over.

The back of the scale is engraved with an extremely fine line, an ancient rune, which emits a faint light.

Like an eye watching its prey.

He recognized the scale.

For every additional ice coffin, there is one more scale like this. Lying inside the ice coffins are young men whose fortune has been completely taken away, and the scales are the only proof that they ever existed.

This is the token of the Lord of Guixu Palace, and also his shackles.

A voice entered his mind directly.

There was no temperature, no fluctuation, like syllables formed from the icy, unmelting air deep within the ice.

"Chu Qiao, have you forgotten who you are?"

"You are the guardian of the graveyard. You are the guardian of all the chosen ones buried in this icy abyss."

From the moment you laid your first footprint on this land, your destiny was already set.

Chuqiao did not answer.

He simply lowered his head, looking at the ice scale in his palm, his fingertips slowly tightening.

"You should have led them into the ice crevice above and sent them deep into the burial ground."

This is your duty, a divine covenant etched into your soul.

The purpose of your presence here is to wait for the next burial offering.

Then he personally led them to their deaths.

This icy abyss was the burial place chosen by the Palace Master of Guixu for Tangxi Xue.

Countless chosen ones whose fortunes were stolen are buried here.

Their remains turned into silhouettes in the ice.

Their good fortune transformed into nutrients that nourished this burial ground.

Their souls are forever trapped in this icy wasteland.

Unable to be reborn in the Pure Land, unable to be liberated.

They could only wander deep into the ice, day after day, uttering silent cries of agony.

Tangxi Xue should have been the next one.

This was the order he received, a covenant with Heaven that he could not disobey.

It was a duty he had to perform as the tomb keeper.

"I know."

Chu Qiao finally spoke.

"Then why don't you do it?"

The voice remained flat and cold, devoid of any emotional fluctuation.