The ice-sealed ruin sleeping on the seabed should still be there; which means Yaya is still alive. The thought hit Tangxue like a rising tide, and urgency snapped like cold wind—she couldn’t wait to rush back.
“Alright, go… If you can, come back and visit,” Hualuo Jingqing said, the words drifting like falling leaves. She knew it was a luxury; after this goodbye, reunion might never come.
Tangxue caught the ache and reluctance in her eyes. But even a comforting lie would be seen through by an Elf.
“We’ll meet again… I trust my own strength. When I settle everything, I’ll come back.”
“Mhm.”
Hualuo Jingqing nodded, expression tangled like roots, and watched Tangxue lift into the sky and leave like a pale comet.
Not long after Qingsheng Tangxue left, Flora Eina hesitated at a familiar door. She knocked on what used to be her office. Once permitted, she slipped in with a bag of snacks, rustling like paper wings.
“Ancestor, is Tangxue here…”
“She’s gone,” Hualuo Jingqing said, lounging on a wooden chair, tone drifting like smoke.
“Gone…?”
“Mm. She went back to find her kin.”
“I see…” Flora Eina lowered her head, a helpless smile thinning across her face like winter sunlight. “Makes sense. She has her own family… I wanted to apologize. For before… for the expression I showed her. It was too much.”
“If you want to go, then go. Her home is near the old Merfolk royal palace. Head there, and you’ll find her soon. I’ll handle the Elf Clan’s internal affairs for now. Don’t leave regret in your bones, or you’ll carry it for life.”
“Mhm…” Flora Eina nodded, half-understanding, then said, “I want to take little Daiya once she heals…”
Hualuo Jingqing opened her mouth, paused, then only sighed. “Do as you wish.”
Give it time, and even this world might not remain. Tangxue said she’d handle everything alone, but as the keeper of the World Tree, Hualuo Jingqing knew the world’s fissures like counting rings in ancient bark. With Tangxue’s current power, Absolute Zero isn’t solvable; even a god’s remnant soul would be a struggle.
But a Tangxue like this is already the sharpest blade left in the world. If the Authorities that stumped the gods were impossible for them, how could we—flawed copies—ever bear them?
That Authority had stymied her dearest sister, and likely even the Ice Deity couldn’t forge it twice. Hualuo Jingqing still remembered the Sea God’s helpless gaze, like waves breaking against stone.
“Believe… in a miracle?”
“…How am I supposed to believe that?”
She sank into the sofa, hollow as a shed husk. Asking a leader to trust in miracles was like signing a death warrant for a whole race.
And yet, beyond believing, she had nothing left to do.
…
It took Tangxue a full day and night to reach the ocean from the Elven Dominion. She had no convenient spatial jump, and even if she did, she’d need the sea’s horizon to anchor it. At the first sight of blue, she let out a whoosh and dropped onto the grass, starfish-spread. Since the last battle, she hadn’t truly rested.
Dreamsound will be thrilled when she sees her mom walk in, right? Heh…
The thought bubbled bright, and Tangxue sat up, like a spring uncoiling. She’d caught her breath; time to move.
Two powers always thrummed inside her. One was her birthright—ice divine power. The other was newly awakened—water. Near the ocean, that water Authority felt like the tide picking up the moon. She guessed it tied to the Sea God’s Trident.
My growth’s near its ceiling. No more that old certainty of taking on anyone. Absolute Zero… That should be the endless maze inside the Ice Palace. I can ignore it and bring people inside, but there’s no end…
Every time, I just drop out of it at the end. In those shards of memory, I was lost or slamming into walls—what a disaster… No wonder I’m hopeless with directions.
Tangxue shook her head, blew out a breath, and focused on the Ice Tomb’s location.
The place they had lived was now a field of ruin, like a shattered shell. The perimeter, though, had been rebuilt by Qingyu Mengyin, restoring old lines and colors. Only Tangxue could approach the block of ice that sealed Yaya.
“Mm… It should be right here.”
It felt sharp, carved into bone, like it happened yesterday. Ugh, that hateful one—there’s still the red-haired scent lingering. It was her, after all.
Rage rose like a storm-surge, and she needed ten long minutes to let it drain.
“Save Yaya first. When we meet again… what do I call her? Mom… or mother-in-law?”
…
I’ve been Dreamsound’s mom for so many years. I fought it at first, but changing it now feels wrong. Maybe… just call her Yaya. Yeah.
Tangxue nodded to herself, placed her palm on the ice wall, and the decades-old surface began to soften like thawing frost. A portion of power even flowed back into her, like meltwater returning to a river.
Didn’t expect I’d frozen such a vast area then. It’ll take time to walk to Yaya’s side.
The ice wasn’t fast to open, but she wasn’t in a rush. In her mind, she felt the Sea God’s Trident calling, a deep hum like whalesong. After her memory returned, the Trident had bound to her; in a sense, she was one of its masters.
I’d only seen Dreamsound wield that Divine Artifact… to teach me a lesson. The Sea God’s Trident can rally the entire sea, steer nature, and draw this region’s magic under its sway.
Over the years, the Trident had become one of the plane’s cores, redirecting magic while stabilizing the world’s lattice.
“Found you, Yaya… mother-in-law.” Tangxue looked at the girl lying there, her face complex as rain on glass. From Yaya’s last memory, she had been drowning in guilt. Maybe even hating Tangxue for making her life worse than death.
But if I hadn’t… Yaya would have truly died.
Strange. Why are my recollections coming from Yaya-mom’s eyes? Shouldn’t they be my first person?
The realization stabbed like ice, and her head throbbed.
Memory’s scrambled… It hurts. Wake Yaya first.
Yaya lay on an ice bed, expression calm as still water. After so many years, maybe she’d stopped thinking at all.
“Time to get up, Yaya… mother-in-law. Don’t sleep.” Tangxue nudged her gently. Yaya’s skin was deathly cold, frostbound for decades. When the push did nothing, Tangxue pressed her cheek to Yaya’s forehead, hoping to share warmth—her cheek was the warmest place she had to give.
