On the Dragon-Slaying Platform, I was executed and became Yang Jian's brother-in-law.

The wind and snow in the Northern Sea seem to never stop.

Su Bai (Zhu Jiuyin) knelt in the empty ice cave, clutching a rhombus-shaped ice crystal tightly in her hand. It was the last trace left by Xuanming, and also the most burning essence in her heart.

However, ice crystals are cold.

No matter how much Su Bai burned his own laws of time, trying to reverse time to the moment before her sacrifice; no matter how frantically he channeled his magic into the ice crystal, trying to awaken the dormant consciousness within.

None of them worked.

"It's gone...is it really gone?"

Over the past century, Su Bai has been like a madman, traversing every corner of the prehistoric world. He ventured through Kunlun Mountain to seek an audience with the Three Pure Ones, only to be turned away; he went to Phoenix Perch Mountain to search for Nuwa, but was unable to meet her due to the ongoing calamity; he even ventured into Mount Sumeru of the Western Sect, just to seek that sliver of possibility of transferring cause and effect.

But there was only one answer—

"The spirit of the one who performed the ritual has been scattered; the way of Heaven cannot be reversed."

The girl who said she was "cold" on his back, the girl who clumsily carved ice sculptures all over the room, will never come back.

……

As time went by, the gears of the great calamity finally turned to their final moment.

Mount Buzhou collapsed, and the Milky Way poured down.

Gonggong angrily struck Buzhou Mountain, breaking the pillar of heaven and causing the sky to collapse. Endless weak waters, accompanied by chaotic energy, washed over the primordial land like a world-destroying waterfall.

This is no longer just a war between the Lich and the Lich race; this is the end of the world.

Su Bai stood on the shattered earth, watching the sky continue to collapse, watching countless lives perish in agony. He knew that his end had come.

Before heading towards that inevitable end, he found something, or rather, a person.

That was Houtu (now known as Pingxin), who had only recently entered the cycle of reincarnation and had not yet fully taken control of the underworld.

"elder brother……"

At the edge of the Netherworld Blood Sea, Houtu looked at Su Bai, who was covered in deathly aura and had a full head of white hair, and tears streamed down her face.

"Little sister, don't cry."

Su Bai smiled, a smile that conveyed a sense of relief. He stretched out his trembling hand and solemnly placed the rhombus-shaped ice crystal, which he had always kept close to his body and had never parted from, into Houtu's palm.

"This is... Sister Xuanming?" Houtu sensed that familiar aura and her whole body trembled.

"She burned herself out to save us, to save the witch clan."

Su Bai's voice was hoarse, "I've tried everything, but I can't save her. You are the Lord of Reincarnation; if there is any last glimmer of hope in this world, it lies within your Six Paths of Reincarnation."

"Help me...protect her."

Su Bai looked deeply at the ice crystal, as if looking through it at that cold soul.

"If she can be reincarnated, I don't ask that she remember me again, nor do I ask that she can ascend to immortality again. I only ask that she... be an ordinary person in her next life, safe and sound, no longer suffering from the cold, no longer bleeding."

"Brother, where are you going?" Houtu gripped his sleeve tightly, a very bad premonition rising in her heart.

Su Bai gently pushed her hand away and pointed to the collapsing sky above.

"I am a descendant of the father god Pangu. If the sky falls, someone has to hold it up."

"Nuwa is mending the sky, but someone still needs to be the pillar that supports the sky."

After saying that, Su Bai did not turn around again.

He transformed into a massive, billion-foot-long Candle Dragon, burning away all his remaining life force and the essence of time, and charged headlong into the enormous chasm.

"hold head high--!!!"

A mournful dragon roar resounded throughout the three realms.

He transformed his spine into a pillar of heaven, filled the void with his flesh and blood, and forcefully supported the collapsing sky!

Until... he died from exhaustion, his body turning to ashes.

……

[Reality, Underworld, Pingxin Palace]

The image completely disappeared.

Su Bai has perished, and the story in that timeline has come to an end.

But for Houtu, the promise has only just begun.

"Sister Xuanming..."

Deep within the underworld, Houtu held the ice crystal, attempting to use the power of reincarnation to help Xuanming reunite his true spirit and send him into the cycle of reincarnation.

However, reality is crueler than imagined.

Xuanming sacrificed himself to the formation, burning himself out completely. Even with Su Bai's Time Source protecting him, all that remained was a wisp of incomplete remnant soul.

"The remnant soul is too weak to bear complete memories, or even a complete lifespan."

With tears in her eyes, Houtu had no choice but to send this wisp of remnant soul into the cycle of reincarnation.

First incarnation.

Xuanming was reincarnated as a peasant girl.

Because of her incomplete soul, she was born weak and sickly, and suffered from a strange disease—no matter how many clothes she wore, her body was always as cold as ice.

She didn't remember who she was, nor did she remember the man named Zhu Jiuyin. She would often sit alone on a stone at the village entrance, staring blankly at the northern sky, her eyes always filled with an indescribable sadness.

In the winter of her eighteenth year, during a heavy snowfall, she froze to death silently on a cold night.

She never got to see the person who promised to take her to see the ice sculptures until her death.

Second life, third life, fourth life...

In every lifetime, she was stunningly beautiful, with a cool and aloof air etched into her very bones.

In each of her lifetimes, she did not live past a hundred years, mostly dying young or passing away prematurely.

In each of her lifetimes, she had to endure the pain of the cold air gnawing at her body day and night. In countless nights, she would curl up in pain, unconsciously calling out a vague name, but she could never remember who it was.

Houtu stood at the end of the cycle of reincarnation, watching these scenes unfold, her heart breaking.

"elder sister……"

"Because you sacrificed yourself to the formation, all that's left of you is this remnant soul."

"This remnant soul carries your unfulfilled thoughts and your stubborn resentment... Without guidance or awakening, it can only drift eternally in this mortal world, suffering endless torment."

……

Inside the quiet hall, only the bubbling sound of the Meng Po soup and the suppressed sobs of Lady Pingxin could be heard.

As Su Bai's memory seal loosened, and with Consort Pingxin's initiative to trace back, the entire timeline of cause and effect regarding "Xuanming" was finally revealed to her without reservation.

"So that's how it is... So that's how it is..."

Empress Pingxin clutched her chest, the excruciating pain nearly causing even this saint to lose her composure.

She always thought that Sister Xuanming left gracefully and decisively.

Unexpectedly, behind this lies a deeply unforgettable yet extremely tragic past.

"Buzz—"

Just then, Su Bai, who was lying on the cloud bed, was still unconscious, but a single tear slid down his cheek.

Although his mind was in disarray, those memories had begun to connect.

He "saw" Xuanming, who sacrificed his blood for the great formation.

He "saw" Xuanming smiling at him in the Ruins of Return.

He also "saw" those reincarnated Xuanming who suffered all kinds of cold and died alone.

A profound and irreparable sense of regret permeated the entire Pingxin Hall.

"An unspoken regret..."

Looking at Su Bai's pained expression, Consort Pingxin recalled the three words Xuanming had silently uttered to Su Bai before the sacrifice in the previous scene.

That is—"I love you".

However, until she vanished into nothingness and was reincarnated, she never had the chance to say those three words to that blockhead.

She was always so proud and so stubborn.

She said "we're even," she said "we're not close," she said "it's for cultivation."

She hid all her deep affection in those ice sculptures, in those silent acts of devotion, but never spoke of it aloud.

"It's too bitter..."

Empress Pingxin wiped away her tears, and the sorrow in her eyes gradually transformed into an unprecedented determination.

Since my brother is still alive in this timeline, I am still alive too.

Now that I have become a saint, I am in charge of the six realms of reincarnation.

I will never allow such a tragedy to happen again! I will never allow my sister's lingering soul to suffer in some corner!

"call--"

Empress Pingxin suddenly stood up.

Her plain palace dress fluttered without wind, and the golden wheel of merit behind her head, symbolizing supreme authority, suddenly burst forth with a light more dazzling than the sun.

"Six realms of reincarnation, heed my command!"

With one step, Lady Pingxin arrived directly at the deepest part of the underworld, the "Well of Reincarnation" which connects to the ocean of true spirits of countless living beings.

"Boom—!!!"

The entire underworld trembled, and even the evil spirits of the eighteen levels of hell trembled under this holy might.

With her hands forming a mudra, countless profound runes of the laws of reincarnation flew from her fingertips and disappeared into the vast, boundless river of true spirits.

She would search among the countless living beings, in the corners of all the heavens and realms, to find the scattered remnants of Xuanming's soul—

Find it!

"Sister, no matter how well you hide, this time I'm going to dig you out!"

"Even if it means reversing Yin and Yang, even if it means searching through the entire Three Realms and Six Paths!"

"I also want you... to stand before your brother again and say those words yourself!"