Walnut used me to boost her sales performance.

Filled with questions, the king attempted to climb to the mountaintop to seek guidance from the heavens, but he heard no voice from the sky, nor was he able to return.

The princess led the remaining members of her tribe to take refuge in a cave below, where they huddled together for warmth in the cold wind.

The princess plucked the most intact branch from the white tree and, while painting the mural, tried every means to prolong its life.

However, the grafted life never survived.

With nowhere else to turn, the princess could only place her last hope in her lover from a foreign land.

She ordered a greatsword to be forged from star silver, hoping her lover could use it to cut through the snow and find a way to save their homeland.

At the time of parting, the princess said:

"I believe that the cheerful, chattering birds will follow in your footsteps and fly back to the verdant summer palace gardens."

"Those creatures driven away by the cold wave, those poor children who have lost their homeland, will return with you to the nest of your dreams."

"But if your innate cowardice and despair overwhelm you, causing you to never return, then..."

"...Please live on. Please don't join us in our demise, to be swallowed by the cold oblivion."

However, the princess never got to see the hero's triumphant return.

Amidst bitter cold, longing, and guilt, the princess's life came to an end.

The glory of the ancient kingdom has also come to an end.

The chronicler erected several stone tablets in the mountains to record everything that happened. Finally, he came to the place where the princess transplanted the white branch and quietly watched over the transplanted new branch until the end of his consciousness.

The story ends here, and the consciousness of the group withdraws from the silvery-white ancient tree.

After reading about the brief history of this ancient country, everyone felt a heavy weight on their hearts, as if a huge rock was pressing down on them.

Unlike the feeling of reading Carlos's diary, what I saw in this silvery-white ancient tree was more comprehensive and more distressing.

Even the naive Klee was in great pain. She hung her head and stared at the ground, unable to recover for a long time.

A long silence followed.

In the end, it was Abedo who sighed first and picked up Klee.

"Brother Abe, I feel so bad, I want to cry..." Keli hugged his head, her eyes red.

"Sigh, I shouldn't have let you see it," Abedo sighed softly.

For Klee, who is at this age, it's too early to be involved in such things.

Abedo gently patted her back, "If you want to cry, then cry."

"Waaaaah..."

Klee's crying went from suppressed to unrestrained, and finally she burst into a wail.

"Let's leave here."

Leaving the secret realm, Jiang Bai breathed a long sigh of relief, the oppressive feeling dissipating considerably.

Seeing that Hu Tao was still listless and silent, he noticed that Hu Tao remained unresponsive.

Jiang Bai took out a sweet flower and handed it to her, "Would you like something sweet, Master? It'll make you feel better."

Hu Tao took the sweet flower he offered and stuffed the whole flower into her mouth.

The sweetness spread between her lips and teeth, which improved her mood a little.

It's no wonder Katis is so fixated on this; after learning about the history of this ancient kingdom, she's almost become obsessed...

Klee wiped away her tears, jumped down from Abedo's arms, and glared fiercely at the Frost Spike that had been blown to pieces.

"Klee's going to blow those damn nails up again!"

Her eyes were red-rimmed, her cheeks were puffed out in anger, and her eyes were full of fierce light.

Aberdo knew that he couldn't let her vent her anger at a time like this.

He coaxed, "Okay, okay, let's blast it! Blow up that big bad guy!"

Jiang Bai had no intention of getting involved in Ke Li's venting of anger; he just wanted to warm himself by the fire.

"Master, let's go warm ourselves by the fire over there."

"Ah."

Walnut nodded and walked toward the camp without much interest.

Even after they had been gone for a while, the fire continued to burn and did not go out.

What happened in Chapter 144?

Jiang Bai added a few more pieces of firewood to make the fire burn brighter.

He had expected to see images of himself, but he didn't.

Perhaps he arrived here later than the ancient kingdom was destroyed, or perhaps his deeds were not recorded.

It's also possible that he was just an insignificant member of the group and not worth recording.

In short, there are too many possibilities.

But how did he fall into the river?

Yes, he is now almost certain that he was sealed by Bingbing before.

Although it is unknown how he was frozen or how he ended up in that Hilichurl tribe, it is undoubtedly a fact that he was frozen before.

I just don't know if he was really frozen in the Hilichurl tribe as he thought.

Or perhaps somewhere else.

But how exactly did he fall?

Was it because the ice broke by chance? Or did something he didn't know happen that caused the ice to break?

Or is it simply that the ice has broken?

……

Campsite at the foot of Longji Snow Mountain.

Everyone gathered at the camp was talking about the explosion that had just occurred on the mountaintop.

Many of them have lived here for decades, and some have even built houses nearby, but they have never seen anything like what happened today.

First of all, there are no known people who have reached the top of the mountain, and secondly, they don't know anything about the situation at the top, let alone how such a large explosion occurred.

Was it intentional or an accident?

Or perhaps it's the effect of some kind of monster?

The people in the camp looked uneasy and were talking amongst themselves.

Wen Yuan was also one of the uneasy people in the camp.

He was an intelligence agent directly under Ye Lan, and was Ye Lan's subordinate.

I was sent by Ye Lan to the snow mountain to investigate matters related to Jiang Bai.

Yelan guessed that Jiang Bai came from the snow mountain, and was most likely frozen in the ice layer. Later, he accidentally fell into the underground river and followed the water all the way to Liyue.

But there's always a reason for everything. The intelligence officers' intuition told them that Jiang Bai falling into the water from the ice was definitely not a coincidence. Something must have happened that caused the piece of ice that had sealed Jiang Bai to fall into the water.

So he stayed at the camp for a while, trying to find someone who could provide clues.

He did manage to sift through the chaotic information and extract some useful intelligence.

For example, about a month and a half ago, a small avalanche occurred somewhere in the snow mountain, and a loud noise was heard in the vicinity. Later, someone checked and found that it was caused by the collapse of the ice layer.

He tried to go to the vicinity to confirm, hoping to find some clues.

However, the avalanche that occurred a month and a half ago completely buried the area, and any clues were buried under the snow.

For example, around the same time, some adventurers discovered that a group of Hilichurls in a snow mountain cave were acting strangely, being unusually aggressive compared to their usual behavior.

However, this information is based solely on the adventurer's personal feeling and has little reference value.

For example, one adventurer said that he saw a blond person sitting on the Ruin Guardian during that time, seemingly able to control the Ruin Guardian.

But he only saw it once. When he rubbed his eyes again, there was no one on the ruins guard, only the ruins guard who had already spotted him and was preparing to attack him.

He thought he was hallucinating from being too cold, and told the story as a self-deprecating joke.

This information was obtained some time ago.

There have been fewer things related to snow-capped mountains recently, but it may be related to the recent explosion on the snow-capped mountain.

A well-known adventurer in the camp's snow mountain explorer circle, named Katis, recently went up the mountain to challenge himself to climb to the summit.

Two days ago, members of the Knights went up the mountain, and today an explosion occurred on the mountain.

Wen Yuan speculated that this explosion might be related to the Knights of Favonius in Mondstadt.

They might be conducting some kind of experiment on the mountaintop, or perhaps dealing with some dangerous monster.

Although this may involve Mondstadt's secrets, Dragonspine Mountain is located on the border with Liyue, and for the sake of Liyue's safety, he must conduct an investigation.

Furthermore, the investigation takes precedence over the investigation of Jiang Bai's origins.

He wrote a letter and sent it back to Liyue Harbor by carrier pigeon.

Afterwards, he packed his bags, preparing to go up the mountain to see what had happened.

Among the adventurers, there were many who were curious about what had happened at the summit, so it wasn't unusual to travel with them.

Halfway up the mountain.

The avalanche had completely stopped by this point. After confirming that no further avalanches would occur, Kea set off towards the summit.

Although he was also involved in the explosion, we'll have to wait until he goes up there to find out the outcome.

He hadn't gone far when he heard another explosion coming from the mountaintop.

This explosion was different from the previous violent explosions; it was more like the small, misfired firecrackers in a large roll of firecrackers being relit.

It's not very powerful, and it doesn't cause much damage.

Kaiya stopped and looked up at the snow on the mountainside.

The mountainside was originally covered with a thick layer of snow, but after an avalanche, only a thin layer of snow remained.

This thin layer is not enough to trigger another avalanche.

After confirming that nothing else would happen, he continued on his way.

Klee is currently throwing bombs at the broken Frost Spikes.

If you say you'll blow up the nails again, then you mean you'll blow up the nails again, without any hesitation.

She pursed her lips tightly, trying her best to look fierce.

However, her eyes are too round, and even though she tries to make her eyes look fierce, she still doesn't look fierce at all; instead, she looks quite cute.

Abel stood guard to prevent Klee from getting into danger.

Even though there aren't any monsters around that could pose a danger to Klee, that doesn't mean there isn't any danger.

Shrapnel from explosions and icicles blown away are all dangerous things.

Klee kept throwing bombs out, one after another. Although these bombs were quite powerful, they couldn't compare to the massive amount of gunpowder that detonated directly, and ultimately they didn't have much of an impact on the broken stone pillars.

At most, it will cause a few pieces that already had cracks to completely split apart.

Only when Klee got tired of throwing bombs did Abedo pat her head and pick her up.

Clare looked aggrieved as she nestled in Abedo's arms.

The bomb, which had always been invincible, encountered a setback on this cold, hard nail.

"Klee's bomb was useless..."

"How could Klee's bombs be useless? It was all thanks to Klee's bombs that we were able to blast this big nail to pieces."

Abedo spoke gently, affirming the bomb's role.

“That’s different…” Klee pouted and shook her head.

It was gunpowder that shattered the large nail, not the bomb she had invented.