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

That night, the wind and snow seemed to have stopped, but the oppressive, chilling atmosphere that hung between heaven and earth was even more suffocating than the fiercest blizzard.

Inside the house, the fire in the stove was dim.

Ashuang leaned against the headboard, a faint sense of peace gracing her aged and withered face. The return of Xuanming's memories had made her eyes deep and clear, as if she had seen through all of life's cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death.

However, this physical body is truly failing.

Even with Pingxin's merits repairing the soul, and even with Su Bai's time-law solidifying state, the limits of a mortal's physical body are still here.

She is 45 years old this year.

In this world cursed by the cold, this was already an advanced age. Her internal organs had long been corroded to dust by the cold poison, and if it weren't for that wisp of the ancestral witch's true spirit holding her up, she would have been a handful of dust long ago.

"No need to waste your energy."

Xuanming looked at Su Bai, who was still trying to channel his magic into her, and gently pressed his withered fingers against the back of Su Bai's hand, his voice hoarse but calm:

"I can feel that this world is rejecting me, and also... devouring me."

"I shouldn't exist here in the first place. I'm already content to have woken up, seen you all, and heard you call me Xuanming."

Su Bai didn't speak, but instead gripped her hand tightly, his knuckles turning slightly white from the force. He turned to look at Pingxin, who was sitting cross-legged in front of the illusory image of the Six Paths of Reincarnation Disc, performing divination.

"How is it?"

Su Bai's voice trembled slightly, "Is there any other way?"

Empress Pingxin slowly opened her eyes.

Those holy eyes, which should have been filled with insight into the three realms and compassion, were now bloodshot and filled with despair. She looked at Su Bai, then at Xuan Ming on the bed, her lips trembling for a long time before she finally spoke with difficulty.

"Yes...but..."

"Speak!" Su Bai hissed.

Pingxin took a deep breath, her voice trembling with a hint of tears:

"I've used the Six Paths of Reincarnation to deduce it tens of thousands of times. My sister's origin, because she has reincarnated in this world for too long, has long been deeply entangled with the Heavenly Dao origin of this Frost Realm."

"The Frost Realm was born because of her, and it exists because of her. This Heavenly Dao regards my sister as its 'nourishment' and 'foundation,' clinging to her tightly and refusing to let go."

Pingxin held up two fingers, his tone heavy as a mountain:

"Now, there are only two paths."

"Article 1."

Pingxin looked at Xuanming, tears streaming down her face. "Follow the will of Heaven. My sister will remain in this realm, and in three days, her physical body will disintegrate and her remnant soul will dissipate. But I can use my saintly privileges to forcibly intercept that wisp of true spirit at the moment she dissipates and send it to the underworld for reincarnation."

"But... because she is the soul of ice and snow, and has been too deeply assimilated by this world, if she enters reincarnation again, she will probably be a completely new being. She will completely forget her past, forget us, and even... no longer be Xuanming."

This path is one of survival, but also one of "forgetting".

This is tantamount to completely erasing the existence of "Xuanming," leaving only a symbol called "living."

Upon hearing this, Xuanming's lips curled up slightly, seemingly unsurprised by the outcome, and even somewhat relieved.

"What about the second one?" Su Bai stared intently at Ping Xin.

Pingxin's body trembled even more violently. She dared not look Su Bai in the eye and said with her head down:

"The second...is to forcibly take her away."

"You must use your essence of time, transforming it into the 'Sword of Time,' to forcefully sever all ties between your sister's essence and the Heavenly Dao of this Frost Realm! 'Dig' her out of the rules of this world!"

"Then, she returned to the primordial world with her origin, which could shatter at any moment."

At this point, Pingxin suddenly looked up, her voice becoming sharp:

"But bro! Do you know what the price will be?!"

"Although this Frost Realm is a minor world, it still has its own Heavenly Dao rules! To sever this entanglement of cause and effect, you will need to burn at least half of your Time Essence as a price!!"

"Furthermore, even if the connection is severed, your sister's remnant soul will become extremely fragile the moment she leaves the Frost Realm. You would need to use the remaining half of your essence to nourish her day and night for a hundred years to have even the slightest chance of helping her rebuild her soul!"

"There can be no mistakes, no interference whatsoever!"

Even if you've accomplished all of this...

Pingxin bit her lip hard and uttered the most brutal data:

"The success rate is less than 30%!"

Less than 30%.

This is like a high-stakes gamble. The stakes are half of Su Bai's cultivation foundation, a peak Quasi-Saint, and even his entire path to enlightenment. And the odds of winning are less than a third.

If they lose, Xuanming's soul will be scattered, Su Bai's vital energy will be severely damaged, and he may even fall from his cultivation level, losing all hope of achieving the Great Dao.

"Brother, let's choose the first option!"

Pingxin suddenly knelt down in front of Su Bai with a thud, grabbed his clothes, and pleaded with tears streaming down her face:

"Please... choose the first option!"

"Even though my sister may forget us, at least she's still alive and can be reincarnated. We can protect her reincarnation and watch her grow up. Wouldn't that be better?"

"You've done so much for your sister! Back then, in Guixu, on Buzhou Mountain, under the lightning tribulation... you truly did your best!"

"If you were to squander half of your cultivation for this less than 30% chance... what would you do if another great calamity struck the prehistoric world in the future? What would happen to the Witch Clan? What would happen to me?"

Pingxin was genuinely scared.

She was afraid of losing her sister, and even more afraid that her brother would be dragged down with her. The feeling of watching her loved ones slowly walk towards destruction before her eyes was more painful than death itself.

Xuanming on the bed also became anxious.

She tried to get up, but couldn't move. She could only shout with all her might:

"Nine Yin! Listen to Pingxin! Don't do anything foolish!"

"I'm already dead, not worth you risking half your life for! Choose option one! Let me go! Let me reincarnate! Forget it, forget it, it's no big deal!"

Xuanming's tears fell in large drops. "I don't want to be a burden to you... Please..."

Inside the house, there was a chorus of weeping.

Despite his two younger sisters' pleas, Su Bai remained unusually calm.

He lowered his head, looking at Pingxin kneeling on the ground, and then at Xuanming on the bed, who, even though he was old and weak, was still thinking of him.

suddenly.

He smiled.

The smile was light and faint, yet it carried a chilling madness and stubbornness.

"Thirty percent?"

Su Bai gently chewed on the number, as if he had heard some incredibly good news.

He slowly knelt down, helped Pingxin up, who was crying her eyes out, and gently wiped away her tears.

"Little sister, do you seem to have some misunderstanding about your brother?"

Su Bai looked into Pingxin's eyes, his tone as calm as if he were saying that the weather was nice today:

"Back then, at the foot of Buzhou Mountain, facing Donghuang Taiyi's Chaos Bell, facing that seemingly inescapable death trap, what were our chances of survival?"

Pingxin was stunned.

"Not even a tenth of what we expected," Su Bai answered himself. "But we still fought. It was brutal, but at least I don't regret it."

"Now, tell me you have a 30% chance of bringing her back safely, that you can make her still the same Xuanming, that you can make her remember me, remember our witch clan's home..."

Su Bai stood up, his gray robe fluttering without wind, and a restrained yet terrifying fluctuation of the laws of time began to burn wildly within his body.

That was him igniting his own essence.

"Thirty percent, that's high enough!"

These five words, spoken with resounding force, struck Pingxin and Xuanming's hearts like a heavy hammer blow.

"Brother!!" Pingxin screamed.

"Stop talking."

Su Bai raised his hand to interrupt her, turned his back to Pingxin, looked at the trembling old man on the bed, and said softly:

"I was lucky to survive. If it weren't for her saving me back then, I would have died at the foot of Buzhou Mountain long ago."

"I used half of my cultivation to settle this karmic debt, in exchange for a chance for her to start over."

"value."

After speaking, Su Bai turned around, his expression becoming more serious than ever before. He took out a jade slip from his pocket and solemnly placed it in Pingxin's hand.

"Calm down, listen."

"If... I mean if."

Su Bai's voice was low and deep, "If I don't seize this 30% chance, if I fail in the end, leading to the depletion of my source energy, or even encountering unforeseen circumstances."

"The remaining members of the Witch Clan, and the operation of this Underworld, are all entrusted to you."

"Don't let your older brothers down, and don't... don't blame me."

These are his last words.

Or rather, this is a desperate act of entrusting one's orphaned child to another before a do-or-die situation.

Pingxin held the jade slip, still warm from her body, in her hand, her whole body trembling, and she was sobbing uncontrollably.

"Why... Waaaaah... Why are you always like this?!"

Pingxin broke down in tears, like a child who had suffered a great injustice, "It was the same during the Lich War! Everyone was retreating, but you insisted on going in! And now it's happening again!"

"Can't you be a little selfish? Can't you think about yourself?!"

She resented him and hated his reckless behavior.

But she hated herself even more, hated that as a saint, she still couldn't have it both ways, and could only watch helplessly as her brother risked his life.

"Okay, stop crying."

Su Bai patted her head, just like when she was a child, "Even if a saint cries, he won't be afraid of being laughed at by those bald monks."

"Get ready to do it."

Su Bai took a deep breath, and the essence of time around him had burned to its limit, transforming into an invisible longsword that exuded the aura of time.

He glanced at Pingxin, a sharp glint in his eyes:

"If I sever the connection with this Heavenly Dao, it will inevitably provoke a frenzied backlash from the Frost Realm and even the Great Dao itself."

"Girl, I don't ask anything else of you."

"During the time I take action, no matter what happens, no matter if the sky falls or the earth collapses."

"You have to block it for me!"

Upon hearing this, Empress Pingxin quickly wiped away her tears. Although her eyes were still red and her heart was still bleeding, she was, after all, the ruler of the underworld who controlled reincarnation.

She couldn't go against Su Bai's wishes.

Since I can't go against his wishes, I'll just go crazy with him!

"good!"

Pingxin gritted his teeth, turned around abruptly, and faced the void. The golden wheel of merit suddenly erupted, transforming into a golden canopy that enveloped the entire thatched hut and even the entire Snow Ridge Town.

"Su Bai! Listen to me! If you dare to fail, I will never forgive you for the rest of my life!"

With a calm mind, he formed hand seals, and countless chains of the laws of reincarnation probed into the void, firmly locking the spatial barrier of the Frost Realm.

"Merits of the underworld, heed my command!"

"Sealing the Heavens!!"

With a long howl, Lady Pingxin used her supreme merit to forcibly obscure the heavenly secrets, temporarily blocking the Frost Realm's Heavenly Dao from sensing the anomaly here.

"Now!"

A sharp glint flashed in Su Bai's eyes.

"Time... severs cause and effect!!"