One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

Back in the private medical room on the third basement floor of the North China branch of Nadutong, the air seemed to solidify into a thick gel, and every breath carried a suffocating feeling of disinfectant mixed with oppression.

Under the stark white of the operating lights, Feng Baobao sat quietly on the operating table covered with a disposable sterile mat. An older female doctor, wearing a mask and with gentle eyes, was carefully treating the wound on her left shoulder. As the sterile cotton ball soaked in iodine wiped the exposed flesh, it made a soft "sizzling" sound. Feng Baobao didn't even frown; she simply tilted her head slightly, her gaze blankly fixed on the human meridian and acupoint chart on the opposite wall, as if she were receiving treatment from another insignificant body.

Xu Si paced back and forth in the narrow corridor outside the medical room like a restless, trapped beast, his footsteps heavy and hurried, the soles of his shoes screeching against the floor. The cigarette dangling from his mouth was chewed out of shape, the filter covered in teeth marks, yet it remained unlit. Xu San, on the other hand, leaned against the cold metal wall, his hands in his trouser pockets, his head slightly lowered, the gold-rimmed glasses on his nose reflecting the cold light of the overhead lamp, completely concealing his eyes behind a glare.

The most uneasy one was Zhang Chulan. He huddled in a hard plastic chair in the corner, his hands clasped tightly on his knees, his knuckles white from the force. His gaze seemed to be pulled by invisible threads, sometimes falling on the glaring gauze on Feng Baobao's shoulder, sometimes drifting to the silent Xu San and Xu Si. His lips opened and closed silently a few times, but his throat felt like it was blocked by a wad of waterlogged cotton, unable to utter a single syllable.

Nie Lingfeng leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, his gaze calmly sweeping over every face in the room. He could clearly sense the almost overflowing emotional fluctuations emanating from Zhang Chulan, a mixture of fear, doubt, and a certain urgent need for confirmation. Beneath Xu San and Xu Si's seemingly calm exteriors, a tension was also palpable—the tension of a secret about to be revealed, and the worry about the possible consequences.

The wound was finally treated. The female doctor skillfully tied the last knot in the bandage, let out a soft sigh of relief, and turned to Xu San in a low voice: "The wound is deep, a penetrating wound caused by the dragon pecking cone, damaging some muscles and the edge of the scapula. However... Dr. Xu, this young lady's recovery ability is quite amazing; her blood clotting speed and cell activity far exceed those of ordinary people. Be careful to prevent infection, keep it dry, and change the dressing on time. She shouldn't have any significant aftereffects."

She tidied up the instrument tray, glanced one last time at Feng Baobao who was still staring blankly at the acupuncture point chart, shook her head, and turned to leave the medical room. The heavy soundproof door closed silently behind her, separating the inside from the outside into two worlds.

Now, only five people remain in the room—if you include Feng Baobao, whose soul seems to have temporarily left her body and is wandering off into the distance.

Xu Si finally couldn't hold back any longer. He abruptly stopped, ripped the battered cigarette from his mouth, threw it to the ground, and then ground it with the sole of his shoe, as if it were the face of some enemy. He turned around, his bloodshot eyes fixed on Zhang Chulan in the corner, his voice trembling slightly from the barely suppressed rage:

"Zhang Chulan! You little bastard! You think you're all grown up now? You've learned to disappear without a word, haven't you? And you even went to the World Society! Do you know who we are..."

Fourth Brother.

Zhang Chulan suddenly spoke, interrupting his roar. His voice was not loud, even somewhat soft, yet it carried a strange, forcefully calming penetrating power.

Xu Si felt as if he had been choked, and the words he was about to say were stuck in his throat.

Zhang Chulan slowly, bit by bit, raised his head. His face was somewhat pale, and there were faint dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep, but his eyes were surprisingly bright, staring straight at Xu San and Xu Si, filled with a turbulent mix of complex and unfathomable emotions:

"Before you scold me and lecture me... can I ask you one thing first?"

Silence fell over the medical room once again. Even Feng Baobao seemed drawn to the unusual atmosphere, shifting her gaze from the acupoint chart to Zhang Chulan's face.

Xu San slowly raised his head and adjusted his glasses. His gaze behind the lenses was sharp and deep, meeting Zhang Chulan's eyes in mid-air. After a few seconds, he nodded, his voice steady and calm:

"Go ahead and ask."

Zhang Chulan took a deep breath, a long and deep breath, as if trying to expel all the stale air from his lungs. Then, he slowly exhaled, the rise and fall of his chest gradually subsiding. He didn't look at Xu San or Xu Si, but instead turned his gaze to Feng Baobao sitting on the operating table, his eyes as complex as a tangled ball of yarn, filled with entanglement, pain, confusion, and a hint of barely perceptible fear.

"Before I went to the World Society... Lü Liang came to see me."

Xu San and Xu Si's faces darkened almost simultaneously, as if they had been splashed with thick ink.

"He showed me a 'memory'." Zhang Chulan's voice began to tremble uncontrollably, but he tried his best to steady himself. "He used the Soul Brightening Technique to extract fragments of his grandfather's memories from his remnant soul before his death."

He paused, each word seeming to be squeezed out with difficulty from frozen teeth, carrying an icy chill and the stench of blood:

"I saw... that it was Sister Bao'er who killed my grandfather."

Dead silence.

Absolute silence.

The medical room was so quiet that only the low hum of the ventilation system and the suppressed breathing of the people inside could be heard. The stark white light seemed even more glaring at this moment, illuminating every subtle expression on everyone's face.

Feng Baobao finally snapped her attention out of her reverie. She turned to look at Zhang Chulan, whose usually expressionless face remained calm. He merely blinked slightly, his long eyelashes casting small shadows beneath his eyes, as if he were searching for something in the storehouse of his memories.

Xu San and Xu Si exchanged a quick glance. Their eyes held no unexpected shock, no sudden panic, only a heavy sense of relief, as if a long-awaited shoe had finally landed, and a deeper tension, as if walking on thin ice.

"Now that you know..." Xu San took off his glasses, pulled a velvet cloth from his shirt pocket, and meticulously wiped the lenses. He put his glasses back on, his gaze behind the lenses becoming clearer, yet more complex. "Then come with me. I'll take you to see someone. After you see him, you'll probably understand everything between you and the baby..."

Xu Si opened his mouth, as if wanting to say something, a struggle flashing across his face, but ultimately it only turned into a long, heavy sigh. He walked to Zhang Chulan's side and patted the young man's thin shoulder forcefully, so forcefully that Zhang Chulan swayed:

"Come on, kid. It's time... to face it."

Zhang Chulan stood up mechanically, his legs feeling weak and almost unable to support his weight.

Nie Lingfeng straightened up, ready to follow. Xu San turned around, his gaze falling on him: "Xiao Feng, you come along too."

"Me?" Nie Lingfeng raised an eyebrow.

"You're already an indispensable part of the team." Xu San's tone left no room for doubt. "Besides... there are some truths and some responsibilities that you should know and bear since you've chosen this path."

Feng Baobao lightly jumped off the operating table, the bandage on her left shoulder not hindering her movements at all. She walked to Zhang Chulan's side, looked up at his pale profile, and said calmly, "I'm going too."

"Of course you should go." Xu San looked at Feng Baobao, a rare tenderness flashing in his eyes. "That person... has been waiting for you for a long time."

The group silently traversed the intricate, labyrinthine corridors of the Nadutong underground base. The lights were a uniform, cold white, casting blurry shadows on the smooth metal walls. The air was thick with the faint smells of engine oil, disinfectant, and a unique dampness characteristic of underground spaces.

They finally stopped in front of a heavy, incongruous alloy door. The door was a matte dark gray, with no markings on its surface, only a complex security system: a digital keypad, a fingerprint reader, and an iris scanner hidden in a concealed compartment.

Xu San stepped forward and proceeded with the steps one by one. When entering the password, he cleverly concealed the keyboard with his body; then he performed fingerprint verification; finally, he leaned close to an inconspicuous small hole on the side of the door, letting the red light scan his pupils.

"Click... hiss..."

After a series of soft mechanical sounds, the heavy alloy door slowly slid open to one side, revealing a much softer light inside.

The room inside was small, decorated more like a high-end private ward, but equipped with far more advanced and denser medical equipment than a typical ward. A faint smell of medicine filled the air, along with the unique scent of the elderly—a mixture of decay and tenacious vitality. In the center of the room, on an adjustable bed, lay a emaciated old man, seemingly about to collapse under the weight of the life-support tubes binding him.

The old man's eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling weakly with the work of the ventilator. His arms, exposed outside the blanket, were as withered as winter branches, his skin loose and covered with age spots. The electrocardiogram monitor by the bedside emitted a regular and monotonous "beep" sound, and the fluctuating curves on the screen showed that his life was still stubbornly continuing.

Seemingly hearing the noise at the door, the old man's long, white eyelashes fluttered a few times, and he slowly opened his eyes. His eyes were cloudy from long illness, with yellowish whites, but deep in his pupils, a sharp and clear light, tempered by the vicissitudes of life, was still preserved.

His gaze lingered somewhat as he swept over the crowd at the doorway. When he saw Feng Baobao, a faint light suddenly shone in his cloudy eyes. His chapped lips moved with difficulty, managing a weak yet incredibly genuine smile. His voice was hoarse, like a leaky old bellows.

"Awu...you've come..."

Feng Baobao walked straight over and sat down on the chair beside the hospital bed, her movements as natural as if she were going home. She extended her uninjured right hand and gently grasped the old man's withered hand, the warmth of her fingertips passing over him.

"Gouwazi, I'm here." Her voice was calm, revealing little emotion, but her grip on the old man's hand was steady and tight.

"Zhang Chulan is here too," Feng Baobao added, gesturing towards the door.

The old man—Xu Xiang, the father of Xu San and Xu Si—followed her gaze to Zhang Chulan. His cloudy eyes looked the young man up and down, his gaze flashing with relief, emotion, and reminiscence, and finally... settling on a deep, almost imperceptible sense of guilt.

"Chu Lan..." Xu Xiang's voice was very soft, each word seeming to require a great deal of effort, "Sit...sit down and talk."

Zhang Chulan didn't move. He stood stiffly at the door, his body taut like a fully drawn bowstring, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, his nails digging deep into his palms.

Xu San moved a chair to the other side of the hospital bed, walked to Zhang Chulan's side, and pressed his hand firmly on Zhang Chulan's shoulder, forcing him to sit down in the chair. Then, Xu San looked at his father, his voice low and clear:

"Dad, Chu Lan... he knows. Lü Liang used the Soul-Clearing Technique to show him that memory."

Xu Xiang remained silent for a few seconds, the only sound the rhythmic hissing of the ventilator echoing in the room. He slowly closed his eyes, then opened them again, his sigh long and heavy, as if carrying the weight of half a century:

"What's coming will come eventually. You can hide it for a while, but not forever."

He looked at Zhang Chulan again, his gaze seemingly piercing through time and space, returning to that bloody and helpless night. In a weak yet unusually firm voice, he began to tell a story sealed away for decades, a story of "searching" and "protecting":

"The story begins in 1944, a year of war and chaos..."

For the next half hour, Xu Xiang used his intermittent voice, which was sometimes interrupted by coughing but always managed to remain clear, to unveil a story that spanned more than half a century.

The story of "A-Wu," a girl who wakes up in the mountains, forgets her past, and whose face is frozen in time.

How did a country boy named Gouwazi find this "older sister" who fell from the sky (or rather, fell from his memory) by a stream one summer day? How did he accept her in his ignorance and live a near-primitive life with her in the deep mountains? How did he watch in horror and confusion as she remained unchanged for decades, as if the torrent of time had bypassed her? And he himself, however, grew from a snotty-nosed child into a naive teenager, a strong young man, a composed middle-aged man, and finally became a frail old man lying on a hospital bed, his life fading away...

"Later... the war ended, and the world changed. I started working, joining the predecessor organization of 'the Company.' Based on some clues and rumors from back then, we... finally found your grandfather, Zhang Huaiyi."

At this point, Xu Xiang's breathing suddenly became rapid, his chest heaving violently, and the monitor emitted a piercing alarm. Xu San immediately stepped forward, skillfully adjusting the oxygen mask's flow rate and gently patting his father's chest. It took Xu Xiang a while to recover, and his face slowly returned to normal from its alarming bluish-purple color.

He closed his eyes, as if unable to bear reliving the scene from his memory, but his voice grew even lower, echoing with a bloodshot hue:

"When we found him... he was already on the run, being hunted to the brink of despair by his enemies and various groups coveting the Eight Extraordinary Techniques. When we arrived at that old forest... he was being besieged by several skilled members of the Tang Clan..."

As Xu Xiang's aged and trembling voice narrated, scene after scene of bloodshed and tragedy seemed to be projected clearly through the thin mist of time onto the stark white walls of the medical room, reflected in the constricted pupils of everyone present—

Deep in a remote, primeval forest in southwest China, the night was as dark as ink. The air was thick with the stench of blood and the raw, briny scent of trampled vegetation.

Covered in blood, Zhang Huaiyi leaned against a towering ancient tree that required several people to encircle, barely managing to stand. His coarse cloth clothes were already soaked with blood and sweat, tattered and worn. At his feet lay seven or eight corpses, dressed in tight-fitting clothes, their deaths varied—elite disciples of the Tang Clan, each once renowned in the world of supernatural beings.

But Zhang Huaiyi himself had reached his limit. His face was ashen, and dark red blood foam constantly spilled from the corner of his mouth. Most terrifying of all was a strange black mark, the size of a fist, with irregular edges, slowly writhing and expanding like a living thing, on the left side of his chest, relentlessly eroding his life. That was the Tang Clan's supreme secret poison—Dan Shi. Those afflicted were beyond saving, forced to watch helplessly as their life force was slowly devoured in excruciating pain.

When Feng Baobao (who was then called "Awu") and Xu Xiang, a middle-aged man panting heavily, pushed aside the dense bushes and rushed into this killing field, this was the scene they saw.

Zhang Huaiyi noticed the newcomer and struggled to lift his cloudy eyes. When he saw Feng Baobao's face—cold and empty, exactly the same as when he first met her decades ago at Twenty-Four Solar Terms Valley—his pupils contracted sharply, revealing extreme shock. Then, that shock transformed into understanding, a kind of knowing that he had grasped some kind of karmic cycle. Finally, all his emotions settled into a near-liberated sense of relief, mixed with endless exhaustion.

"It's you..." Zhang Huaiyi coughed up a mouthful of black blood mixed with fragments of internal organs, but he managed a forced smile that was more like a grimace. "Well... cough cough... dying at your hands... is cleaner than... dying at the hands of those scumbags..."

He extended his trembling, blood-stained hand, and Feng Baobao silently stepped forward and grasped it. The hand was cold and withered, yet it conveyed a strange, dying entrustment.

With his last breath, Zhang Huaiyi haltingly gave his final instructions: protect his young grandson Zhang Chulan back in his hometown in Shandong; stay with Zhang Chulan and secretly protect him as he grows up; because only Zhang Chulan, this child who carries a part of his secrets and bloodline, could possibly reach the ultimate truth that could unravel Feng Baobao's origins, the Jia Shen Rebellion, and the origins of the Eight Extraordinary Techniques in the future…

"Then..." Xu Xiang's voice choked, and cloudy tears slid down the deep furrows at the corners of his eyes, soaking the pillowcase. "He begged Bao Bao... to give him a quick death."

"The poison of Dan Shi... has no cure. He didn't want to slowly rot and die in that excruciating pain... He was even more afraid... afraid that after he died, his corpse would fall into the hands of those ruthless forces... to be dissected, studied, and squeezed dry of its last bit of value... implicating Chu Lan, implicating the Celestial Master's Mansion..."

"Baby acted... to fulfill his last wish! To honor an old man's final dignity and arrangements! To protect you, Chu Lan! To temporarily seal away the secret of the 'Qi Body Source Flow' in a resolute way, preventing it from falling into the hands of treacherous officials and causing even greater disaster!"

Xu Xiang suddenly opened his eyes, his tear-blurred vision fixed on the stunned Zhang Chulan. Every word he uttered seemed to be hammered out with the last of his life force:

"Baby isn't the murderer! She never was! She was just... just an executor caught up in this long tragedy! A person keeping a promise to someone who left behind a dying friend!"

Zhang Chulan kept his head bowed deeply, his forehead almost touching his knees. His thin shoulders trembled uncontrollably, like leaves shivering in the cold wind. His clenched fists had pale knuckles and bulging veins on the back of his hands, yet they also revealed an extreme helplessness.

Nie Lingfeng stood in the shadows of the corner, calmly observing everything. Although he already knew about this past event from the "plot," hearing the person involved recount it in such a desolate and tragic tone, and feeling the heaviness and helplessness that permeated the air across life and death, still felt like a huge rock was pressing down on his heart, making it hard to breathe.

Feng Baobao still held Xu Xiang's withered hand tightly, her face remaining expressionless, calm to the point of being cold. But Nie Lingfeng keenly noticed that the grip on the old man's fingers had tightened even more than before, her knuckles turning slightly white. In the depths of her empty eyes, there seemed to be something extremely subtle, like a pebble thrown into a deep pool, rippling out in a circle that was almost imperceptible.