Everyone was worried that this old nuisance had no one to deal with her, so they naturally agreed.
Song Sanniang was initially unwilling, but Liu Rumeng leaned over, her right hand reaching to the back of Song Sanniang's head and pressing it gently. Song Sanniang immediately stopped crying and was docilely pulled up by Yang An.
Liu Rumeng dragged her a long way off, until the guards' small cabin was completely out of sight.
Liu Rumeng released her acupuncture points and suddenly let go, leaving Song Sanniang to crash heavily into a snowdrift, with half her head buried in the snow.
Song Sanniang struggled endlessly, nearly suffocating, until Liu Rumeng raised her foot and kicked her out of the snowdrift.
By this time, Song Sanniang's face had turned the color of a pig's liver as she gasped for breath in huge gulps.
Chapter 6: The Mysterious Coffin
Song Sanniang suddenly leaped up to grab her, but Liu Rumeng shifted her stance, and her figure had already moved behind her.
Her five fingers formed a claw, locking onto Song Sanniang's neck and tightening bit by bit.
Song Sanniang's eyes bulged wide, staring at her in terror and shock.
Liu Rumeng suddenly smiled, a smile so chilling and gruesome that it struck terror to the core.
Frightened out of her wits with bulging eyes, Song Sanniang completely lost the ability to resist.
Liu Rumeng shoved a pill from between her fingers into Song Sanniang's mouth, then released her grip, letting her drop back down into the snow.
Song Sanniang gasped heavily, utterly unable to believe that the cowardly weakling from before had become so terrifyingly formidable.
Suddenly, a pair of feet appeared before her eyes. The insteps were covered in gruesome scars, and around the ankles were even the marks left by having once been bound in chains.
How could Song Sanniang not recognize them?
Weren't these very scars caused by her and those guards in the manor?
Back then, word had come from the eldest miss that her newly gifted jade bracelet was missing. The maidservants on duty that day were questioned one by one, and all claimed they hadn't taken it, everyone forgetting that Song Sanniang had also gone to the eldest miss's boudoir that day, running an errand for the younger son to deliver account books to the eldest miss.
Blinded by greed at the time, seeing the eldest miss's bracelet resting right on the table and noticing no one around, she had simply taken it. She thought she had done it without anyone knowing, but she had unluckily run into Yang An returning from fetching medicine for her mother.
Fearing her misdeeds would be exposed, she decided to go all the way and shift the blame onto Yang An, stubbornly claiming she had seen her coming out of the eldest miss's boudoir.
The eldest miss was relatively merciful; knowing Yang An was the one accused, she waved her hand and said she didn't want to make an issue of it. But First Madam refused to let it go, sending men to drag Yang An over, administering private torture without asking right from wrong, and forcing her to kneel outside.
Early spring was biting cold, and it was even raining that day. Had Mother Yang not gone to beg for mercy, Yang An would have died in that spring rain years ago.
Song Sanniang did not dare raise her head. Every single incident, piece by piece, was enough to have her put to death a hundred times over.
In this desolate place, even if Yang An beat her to death today, no one would ever find out.
At this thought, Song Sanniang trembled violently.
"I trust you remember now."
Song Sanniang shook even more uncontrollably. "Yes, yes! It was this humble servant who didn't know her place. I beg the Fourth Miss to spare my life! I won't dare do it again, I truly won't!"
Song Sanniang kowtowed like pounding garlic, snot and tears streaming down together in a state of utter wretchedness.
Liu Rumeng curled her lips coldly. Killing her was so easy, but she was still useful now.
"I can spare your life. However, you must do a few things for me."
Song Sanniang nodded hurriedly, though in her heart she was thinking that as long as she managed to escape back, she would definitely report this to First Madam. First Madam hated Yang An and her mother to the core and would surely send men to torture them to death!
How could Liu Rumeng not see through these petty schemes of hers? She merely let out a cold laugh. "The Life-Ending Powder I just gave you requires an antidote every half month. If you are obedient, you will naturally be fine. But if you dare play any tricks behind my back, you had better prepare your own coffin in advance!"
Song Sanniang looked utterly shocked and suddenly thrust her hand into her mouth, attempting to vomit out the poison.
A flash of ruthless coldness crossed Liu Rumeng's eyes, and she said immediately, "This poison melts on contact with the tongue and has already fused with your blood!"
Song Sanniang's face turned ashen. After a long moment, she crawled to Liu Rumeng's feet and begged tearfully, "Fourth Miss, please spare this lowly creature's life! Whatever commands you give, this humble servant will surely obey!"
Liu Rumeng sneered, "I need some common medicinal herbs, some cold-weather clothing, and whatever you hear about manor affairs of any size, you must report it all to me. Also, once you return, if anyone asks about me, just tell them I am sickly and crippled, and probably won't last much longer."
Song Sanniang nodded repeatedly and fled in a wretched panic.
Weighing the small pouch in her hand, Liu Rumeng went home fully satisfied.
That evening, she prepared a table full of dishes.
The two of them finally had their first proper grand meal since coming to the Realm of Ice and Snow.
After the meal, Liu Rumeng returned to her room and began to sit in meditation, regulating her breath.
The gradually forming energy began to circulate throughout her body, but it would always get stuck at her acupuncture points, no matter how hard Liu Rumeng tried.
When she opened her eyes, her entire body was drenched in sweat.
Why couldn't she break through?
Even with a weak body, she shouldn't feel like this. It felt as though someone had forcefully placed a seal on her acupuncture points, making it completely impossible for her to regulate her breath.
What on earth was going on?
Liu Rumeng got off the bed, paced the floor twice, and suddenly heard Erxue's cries from outside the window.
Liu Rumeng pushed the window open. The moonlight was like silver, spilling over the vast expanse of white snow and creating a breathtaking view.
Erxue was jumping back and forth before the window with an anxious expression.
Liu Rumeng flicked its little nose. "What? Did you bring me something good again?"
Erxue let out panting cries, as if desperate to tug at her sleeve.
Liu Rumeng thought for a moment, flipped out the window, and followed Erxue as it bolted away.
After running for a short while, the rumbling sound of water reached her ears.
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So it had led her to the waterfall.
It wasn't like she didn't know it was there; what was so interesting about this?
Yet Erxue stubbornly insisted on pulling her forward.
Liu Rumeng had no choice but to follow.
Crossing snowdrifts that must have accumulated for hundreds of years, the waterfall finally appeared before her eyes.
Silver currents of water rushed down from the high cliff peak, crashing against the rocks and sending up dazzling sprays of water.
Before even arriving, a piercing, bone-chilling cold could already be felt.
Erxue ran to the water's edge, crying out anxiously with its short little tail pointing straight toward the bottom of the water.
Liu Rumeng looked closely and saw a vague black shadow hidden at the bottom of the clear lake. The current was turbulent, but that black shadow remained completely motionless, as if trapped by something.
"You want me to save it?"
Erxue's little head bobbed up and down, its large green eyes brimming with moisture, looking utterly pitiful.
Liu Rumeng hesitated and pondered, but finally took off her outer garments and jumped into the water.
The piercing river water sliced against her skin like knives. Liu Rumeng was an expert diver in her team, holding a personal record of holding her breath underwater for five minutes.
Holding her breath, Liu Rumeng dived to the bottom, swimming slowly toward the black shadow.
Yet the closer she got, the more shocked Liu Rumeng's expression became.
She had originally thought it was merely a companion of the Snow Demon, but the object was far more massive than she had imagined. It was a huge black coffin, sunken deep into the bottom of the waterfall's lake.
The coffin was firmly bound by countless thick iron chains.
Four sturdy iron chains extended from both sides of the coffin, stretching straight into an unknown, dark expanse.
There were people inside this?!
Why would they be sunk down into a place like this?
With a head full of questions, Liu Rumeng swam right up in front of the coffin. Only then did she see that the coffin was carved with patterns—an ancient kind of totemic art. She had seen similar designs in a few police case files before, but unfortunately, she had only been skimming them for amusement back then and hadn't paid attention.
The coffin rested quietly at the bottom of the lake, as though it had long since fused with the body of water.
No one knew how many years it had been sinking here, nor what kind of person lay inside.
Liu Rumeng tried to pull on an iron chain, but her fingers were deflected by a certain force emitted by the chain, and her whole body was blasted out of the water surface, crashing heavily onto the bank.
Chapter 7: Breaking Through the Acupuncture Points
Following that, a deafening sound erupted from the bottom of the lake. Feeling as though her internal organs were about to be shattered, Liu Rumeng quickly covered her ears and closed her eyes to regulate her breath, resisting the agony brought on by the sound.
The sound churned the surface of the water, and the lake water surged like a raging dragon crashing toward the shore. Liu Rumeng had nowhere to hide as the freezing water struck her like tens of thousands of fine, piercing steel needles.
Terrified, Erxue tucked its tail and hid behind a boulder, its green eyes filled with worry.
Liu Rumeng bit her lower lip fiercely, not daring to relax for even a fraction of a second.
After an unknown length of time, the sound slowly died down, and the ground stopped shaking.
Liu Rumeng opened her eyes and was instantly startled by the scene before her.
The snowdrifts, which had originally stood a dozen people high, had collapsed into a flat expanse. The solid ice layer had also been cracked open by a long fissure, and the shore was piled with various stones from the lakebed. A few boulders had landed right beside her feet—another centimeter closer and she would have been finished.
Liu Rumeng stood up with the relief of someone who had cheated death.
Regardless of what was locked inside this coffin, it undoubtedly possessed immense energy. With her current abilities, she was simply no match for it; she had better put the matter aside for now.
Returning from outside, Liu Rumeng quickly stripped off her soaked clothes and rummaged through her things to find a relatively decent garment to put on.
Yet suddenly, she froze once more.
She picked up the oil lamp and brought it close to her.
The warm yellow light illuminated her emaciated, naked body.
Her small frame was covered in various scars, deep and shallow, new and old. The most gruesome among them was one stretching from her left chest all the way to her back. She didn't know how it had been inflicted—that wound had nearly cost Yang An her life—but that wasn't what surprised Liu Rumeng.
There, visible across her abdomen, was a faint red line. Starting from between her thighs, it had crawled all the way up and surrounded her navel.
Liu Rumeng brought the oil lamp closer and looked more carefully.
That red line was about the thickness of a hemp rope, winding and twisting like a little worm. Liu Rumeng reached out and touched it; there was no pain at all, absolutely no sensation.
She suddenly remembered eating the Black Spirit Ointment yesterday; there had been a similar line between her thighs then, but at the time she had assumed it was a reverse flow of blood and hurriedly struck her acupuncture points to stop it.
Now, she was having some doubts. If blood were flowing in reverse all the way to her abdomen, she would likely have been in excruciating pain long ago, yet she felt nothing at all now. Could it be that there was actually something else going on?
Liu Rumeng decided to put the matter out of her mind.
After getting dressed, Liu Rumeng looked through the items she had found in the guards' quarters today.
Aside from some daily necessities, there were also two books.
Liu Rumeng picked one up and saw that the binding of the cover was exceptionally crude. She understood immediately—the book was likely stolen from somewhere by them, and they had changed the cover for fear of being discovered.
Full of anticipation, Liu Rumeng opened the book in her hand, only to find that the illustrations inside depicted matters of the boudoir between men and women.
She couldn't help tossing the book aside and picking up the other one, but it was just the same.
Several books in a row were like this, and Liu Rumeng's anger flared up. Sure enough, from ancient times to the present, men had nothing else on their minds except those trivial matters!
Suddenly noticing there was still one more book left, she held no particular hope as she reached out and picked it up.
There was nothing on the cover of this one, only some black stove ash. That reminded her: when she was fetching food, she had felt something beneath the stove and had casually pocketed it.
Liu Rumeng flipped it open at random.
"Yinzi Flower, grows in extreme cold places, possesses miraculous effects of regenerating tendons, melting bone, and clearing blood stasis. Prefers to grow on cliff edges, blooms unceasingly, one plant grows per hundred years..."
Flipping further: "Nieziguai, creates flesh on bones, brings the dead back to life, born in fire and perishes in water, blooms for a moment, and a century passes..."
Liu Rumeng was overjoyed. This turned out to be a herbal pharmacopoeia introducing hundreds of medicinal plants! With this book, she wouldn't have to worry about nourishing and restoring this body of hers.
Consumed by a thirst for knowledge, Liu Rumeng read right through until dawn, finishing the entire book.
Disregarding her exhaustion, Liu Rumeng walked over to the window, pushed it open, and called for Daxue.
She showed it the medicinal herbs illustrated in the book pages and instructed it to go find them.
Having gone a whole night without sleep, she didn't feel a shred of fatigue. Liu Rumeng was somewhat surprised; with her current physical condition, she ought to have been extremely weak, yet starting from last night, she kept sensing a current of energy quietly circulating through her body, though she had no way of controlling it when she tried.
Liu Rumeng pulled open her clothes.
Sure enough, she saw that the red line had traveled all the way up to her chest.
Yet she felt not the slightest discomfort.
This also confirmed her suspicion that there was another explanation for these red markings.
Liu Rumeng returned to the bed, crossed her legs, and regulated her breath.
The energy began to gather slowly in her lower dantian, then traveled along her meridians toward her four limbs.
Liu Rumeng had already braced herself for the feeling of getting stuck.
The energy traveled to the Kunling point and, sure enough, got stuck. Liu Rumeng reined the energy back in, then pushed it toward her arm.
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The energy traveled slowly, like a rushing torrent pouring and surging through her meridians. Just as it was about to rush into the acupuncture point, Liu Rumeng suddenly felt a surge of heat in her chest, and immediately afterward, that energy was pushed forward by something, charging straight toward the point.
The energy moved too fast—so fast that Liu Rumeng could hardly bear it. She doubled over in pain, yet dared not stop, biting her teeth as she waited for the energy to slam into the acupuncture point and rebound.
Instead of getting stuck as it usually did when it rushed to the acupuncture point, the energy began to circle along the point. Every single rotation made Liu Rumeng's eyes well up with tears from the pain.
Time ticked away second by second; sweat poured from Liu Rumeng's forehead, and her consciousness began to blur.
Just as she was about to pass out, a wave of clarity rushed into her spiritual altar, and she jolted completely awake.
Yet when Liu Rumeng inspected her dantian at that moment, she received a massive scare.
The red line that had previously only reached her chest had now split into two: one continued to crawl upward, while the other surged toward her right arm. Moreover, that red line had already crossed her first acupuncture point, plunging straight into the major point at the end of her arm.
Liu Rumeng checked her internal breath and couldn't help being startled—she had actually cleared an acupuncture point! Although it was only one, it was enough to be exhilarating.
If she could clear all her meridians, what did it matter even if she lacked spiritual power? She could still travel unfettered across this continent!
Over the next few days, Liu Rumeng practiced breath regulation every day, but strangely enough, no matter how hard she tried, that red line would no longer extend, nor could she clear any other acupuncture points.
Fortunately, through her recent period of nourishment, her body had improved a great deal.
However, ever since that day, Daxue had not returned.
Liu Rumeng couldn't help feeling a bit worried. If even these small beasts that had lived in the Realm of Ice and Snow year-round couldn't find the medicinal herbs, wouldn't it be as difficult as ascending to the heavens for her to do it by her own strength?
Because Mother Yang had been frail recently, Liu Rumeng kept preparing extra food for her, and the provisions she had brought back last time were running low.
Moreover, there was still some time before the next food collection.
They could not simply sit and wait for death.
The difficulty of finding food in an ice plain like this can be imagined. The Snow Demons only brought back things they themselves ate, which couldn't sustain normal human living at all; she had to rely on hunting herself.
If a worker wants to do a good job, he must first sharpen his tools.
Using the sharp knife and firewood the Snow Demon had brought her last night, Liu Rumeng quickly crafted a bow and arrow and an animal trap of her own making.
Whittling down the final arrow, Liu Rumeng tied all the arrows to her body, took her tools, and went out.
Along the way, she set many traps, finally climbing up a large tree to wait patiently.
Before long, a grayish rabbit-like creature appeared in her field of vision. Liu Rumeng drew her bow to the maximum, held her breath and concentrated, and loosed an arrow with a swish.
Chapter 8: This Woman is Rather Interesting
Before long, a grayish rabbit-like creature appeared in her field of vision. Liu Rumeng drew her bow to the maximum, held her breath and concentrated, and loosed an arrow with a swish.
Because her body was too weak, although the arrow hit the target, it only struck the leg. The frightened animal bolted away, leaving a trail of blood on the ground.
Liu Rumeng sighed and had no choice but to wait for other animals to grace her with their presence.
The very next instant, however, a sound resembling a tiger's roar echoed across the entire forest, shaking the very tree she was in until it began to sway.
What is this now?!
It couldn't be an ordinary tiger; tigers couldn't possibly possess such immense power.
Liu Rumeng concealed her body among the tree branches and observed carefully.
The leaves shook violently, and immediately after, a white figure darted out from behind a tree.
The creature was extremely robust, its four claws gripping the ground firmly. Its snow-white fur gleamed dazzlingly in the sunlight. It held its head high, its golden eyes flashing with anger as its blood-red jaws opened wide to emit a deafening roar.
Yet on its back, it carried a tiny creature, with blood dripping continuously down its back and staining the snow-white ground red.
A White Tiger?
She had seen white tigers online before, but this was her first time seeing fur of such pure color. Furthermore, its body was so massive that it was truly a rare sight.
Liu Rumeng remained calm and collected. The white tiger paced around in circles on the spot as if searching for something, occasionally turning back to sniff the injured rabbit on its back as if comforting it.
Liu Rumeng suddenly had a bold conjecture: could the one she had shot be its mate?
That was simply too mind-boggling—cross-species romance?
Regardless of what it was, with her current body, she simply couldn't withstand a monster like this. It was better to hide.
Finding nothing after searching the spot, the white tiger dashed off.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Liu Rumeng climbed down the tree, preparing to sneak home.
Before she could even turn around, a chilling breeze struck her back. Instinctively, she rolled to the side.
*Swish—*
A deep claw mark appeared on the tree trunk beside her.
"Roar!"
The deafening roar almost made her deaf.
Before Liu Rumeng could get back up, she rolled again to evade another attack from the opponent. The successive onslaughts left her no time to even stand up, and the huge tiger paws seemed to carry the momentum to tear her to pieces.
Liu Rumeng had once encountered a pride of lions in the wild, so she didn't panic in the face of such a situation. Yet this white tiger was more massive than any beast she had ever encountered, and she didn't dare lower her guard for even a moment.
Amidst a prone interval, she drew her bow to the fullest and shot backward.
The arrowhead was batted to pieces by the white tiger, and an angry roar echoed across the entire valley.
"Third brother, listen to me. 'You search for it everywhere, only to find it effortlessly without a second thought.' We've been looking for it for so long, and it turns out to be right here! Quick, quick, don't let it get away."
Two golden lights flashed, and a giant Golden Phoenix spread its wings and flew in from afar, coming to a sudden halt mid-air.
The Golden Phoenix fluttered its wings, its golden feathers flashing with brilliant colors and radiating dazzling light, adding a splash of splendid vibrancy to this desolate region.
Yet even so, it still failed to overshadow the presence of the two men riding upon its back.
Of these two, one was dressed in carefree cyan robes, while the other wore flowing white garments. Both were paragons of men among men, supremely handsome and refined, cutting a thoroughly dashing figure.
In this freezing weather, the cyan-robed man was actually holding a folding fan, acting unrestrained and carefree, his pair of eyes brimming with peach-blossom charm. "Third brother, say something. In this freezing weather, are you trying to freeze me to death?"