The Mirror of Startling Beauty: Her courtiers are everywhere

It turned out to be the case.

It turns out that her soul, which had been repeatedly erased by the Fate Book system over the past five years but never perished, was not a fluke.

Someone had used their body as an anchor and their life as a rope to hold her back from falling into eternal darkness.

The system that tried to control fate repeatedly activated the annihilation program, but always encountered an insurmountable barrier at the last moment.

To completely erase Tang Xixue's soul imprint, it is necessary to first crush the Ziwei star, which is tied to her life and carries the fortune of half of the Nine Provinces.

The price of crushing the Purple Star...

It is the backlash of Heaven, the upheaval of the land, and the collapse of the nation's destiny.

It can't afford it.

Five years ago, at the observatory of the Temple of Fate on Mount Shengling.

He Lichen stood alone beneath the howling wind and snow dome, his moon-white crane cloak fluttering in the wind.

He tilted his head back, his gaze fixed on the flickering, extinguished dark star in his orbit, his face as pale as the snow piled up behind him.

He has tried everything.

They altered the feng shui and adjusted the dragon veins to prolong her life.

The Seven Star Array was set up to gather the vitality of heaven and earth;

They even sacrificed their own lifespan to pray to the heavens for a glimmer of hope...

useless.

The light of that star is still fading irreversibly, like a cruel countdown.

"The way of heaven is constant, and the orbits of stars are orderly."

He recited in a low voice, his voice shattered by the wind and snow.

The cold wind whipped up snowflakes and lashed his face, frost forming on his eyelashes, but he seemed oblivious.

I just gazed at that star, at the last glimmer of its light.

"However..."

"I am willing to use the radiance of my own body to illuminate her dark soul."

Even if stars fall and souls perish, this vow—I will not regret it.

Blood is the medium, and the spirit is the guide.

He wrote a contract between heaven and earth that defied fate.

The backlash from the Star Pact was like a thousand ants gnawing at the heart, and the feeling of weakness from the loss of fortune was like a tidal wave crashing over one's head.

A metallic taste rose in his throat, and he swayed, almost falling off the platform.

But he struggled to lift his head and look at the path of fate.

There, the dark star, which was about to be swallowed by darkness, finally stopped falling.

A faint yet incredibly resilient glimmer of starlight was rekindled by the vast purple aura of the Jade Balance Star, trembling as it shone brightly in the void.

Though faint as a firefly, though still dim.

But it was lit up.

The immortal's blood-stained lips slowly curved into a faint arc.

The wind and snow blurred his vision, and his voice was so soft it was almost inaudible:

"Zhizhi..."

"Look, your stars..."

"It's lit up."

His voice faded into the wind, and he could no longer hold on, collapsing in the snowstorm.

Later, he recuperated at the Temple of Fate on Mount Holy Spirit for a full year.

By using the Ziwei star as a sacrifice to perform the art of defying fate, the backlash he suffered almost completely drained his life force.

The old imperial advisor was so angry with him that he almost fainted.

In the end, it was only through the countless rare and precious materials that the Palace of Fate spared no expense in gathering, and the intervention of the Divine Physician Zheyue, that he was pulled back to the mortal realm inch by inch from the edge of eternal night.

Even so, he was still severely weakened and needed careful recuperation.

Therefore, Songyun reasonably suspected that his master's health was very weak.

Moon-Viewing Pavilion.

"My lord, Princess Jing and King Beichen had a conflict tonight."

Songyun reported the intelligence he received immediately.

"Bei Chenji—his wolfish ambitions are blatantly obvious. Tang Xiye can still suppress the emperor with his power, but the Bei Chen clan has been rooted in Chenyao for a hundred years, with deep-rooted connections... pulling one hair could shake half the country."

He Lichen slowly opened her eyes from her light sleep.

The room was quiet, with only the soft rustling of the breeze through the window.

He got up and walked to the window.

"Squeak—"

The carved window was pushed open, and a chilly yet refreshing breeze rushed in.

The moonlight poured down like a silver ribbon, illuminating the snow-covered courtyard in a pristine white.

"Keep an eye on the Battle Hall area. Report any unusual activity."

He Lichen looked up at the starry sky, a hint of pity rising in her eyes.

Tangxi Xue's destiny star is too weak.

But in his eyes, that faint star was the most unique and the most adorable.

He had seen that star struggle and rise and fall in its orbit, seen it dim, and seen it repeatedly extinguish itself only to stubbornly reignite.

"Before Bei Chenji breaks ties with Tang Xiye, she still has to consider the emperor's authority. As long as Zhan Tang doesn't intervene, she can handle it."

"What if Zhan Tang makes a move? Zhan Tang is the most ferocious hidden blade in the Nine Provinces."

Song Jun said in a deep voice.

The master of the War Hall is Bei Chenji.

The vicious and ruthless thugs in the War Hall all obeyed Bei Chenji's orders, and the missions they undertook resulted in rivers of blood and fields of corpses.

Tangxi sat high in the Mingtang Hall at night, his hands stained with blood as the North Star cleared.

But who wants to be a lackey in the dark forever?

"If the battle hall moves, the bell of the Hall of Fate... should also ring."

On He Lichen's snow-white star-patterned robe, the silver starlight embroidery shone brightly.

He has been waiting all these years.

Waiting for the spring breeze to blow across the frozen earth, waiting for the night to come to an end.

until--

In the Hall of Eternal Life, she opened her eyes on a snowy night, her wet gaze meeting his in an instant.

At the other end of the Star Contract, a tremor like a mountain collapsing and a tsunami roared.

Like a frozen river suddenly bursting open, like a seed buried deep in the ground sprouting, like a lone boat that has been lost for far too long finally seeing the lighthouse on the other side.

He let that throbbing sensation pierce through time and strike the softest part of his heart.

It created a bittersweet, scalding tenderness.

Those were the snowflakes he had waited countless dawns and dusks for before finally falling back to earth.

"Weaving."

Welcome home.

"You must have had a tough journey."

He gazed in the direction of the Hall of Longevity, at the lamp that seemed especially warm in the night, and spoke softly.

Two stars, bound by life and death and intertwined by destiny, shine silently in a height beyond the reach of mortals.

They illuminated each other, and also illuminated this world of everyday life that they both cherished.

The long night is not over, but there is light on the way home.

Beneath the darkness, three major powers dominate the laws of the Nine Provinces, controlling everything outside of daylight.

By day, it follows the laws of Yang; by night, it follows the principles of the Three Harmonies.

The secrets of heaven are divided into three parts, each governing a mysterious realm.

"Yun Jue plays with fate, Shan Hai obeys Heaven, Zhan Tang obeys the covenant."

Clouds and mist, cloud-like traces that entice the soul, dictate fate and compose poetry.

The spirits of mountains and seas, taming beasts into soldiers, and listening to the mountains as strategists.

Zhan Tang Ye Feng, with ironclad rules as his soul and contracts as his sword.

That night, the three major dark forces of the Nine Provinces were stirred up by the figure of a young man.

The moon hides and the stars fade, birds of the mountains and seas fly across the sky, listening to all things. Cloud-wielding feathers flit like ghosts across the eaves, and the iron cavalry of the War Hall silently assemble in the shadows.

It was all because on the Shura Platform of the Seven Worlds Pavilion, the young man holding the Snow Soul Fan effortlessly defeated Yun Jue's Threading Technique and Shan Hai's Roaring Forest.

The news spread like wildfire across the lips and tongues of the underworld:

"He's definitely not one of Yun Jue's people. I wonder where he stole the 'Immortal Cloud Steps' from?"

Whispers circulated among the Mist Feather assassins, yet they could not conceal a hint of wavering.

"The Immortal's Cloud Steps? Stolen?" A sneer rang out from the shadows. "Who could steal such a technique and create a cloud of light even more ethereal than the orthodox Yunjue style?"

On the other side, the disciples of the mountains and seas had faces ashen.

"Beastmaster? After tonight, those three words will probably become a joke."

"If Xiaolin hadn't escaped quickly, he and his wolf would have been killed by that Snow Soul Fan long ago."

Snow Soul Fan.

These three words finally solidified all the noise.

After a long while, a seasoned Mistfeather assassin, in a hoarse voice, gently stirred up a nearly forgotten past:

"Wasn't our elusive lord of Yunjue always carrying a folding fan made of Cold Jade Snow Soul many years ago?"

"Yes."

"I haven't seen it since. I heard it was... stolen?"

"Are you crazy?"

"Who has such extraordinary abilities to get close to Lord Yun and steal his personal belongings? They must be complaining that the coffin shops in the Nine Provinces are doing too little business."

The topic subtly veered off course, adding a touch of absurdity to the tense atmosphere.

The other person lowered their voice, revealing an excitement at sharing a secret:

"I don't know if Yun Jun's things were stolen, but last month I heard from the spiritual disciples of Shan Hai that the tyrant of Zhan Tang was indeed robbed—his personal belongings were all stolen!"

"What?!"

"Who did this? They've got guts!"

Several gasps were heard.

"It's said that Chenyao's lawless Princess Mirror sneaked into that man's bathhouse, not only peeping but also stealing all his clothes from head to toe, and then setting it on fire, almost making that man run naked—"

"I must say, that prince is quite the ladies' man."

"puff--!"

"Hahaha--!"

"Wow! That's ruthless!"

"He can be called the king of wolves."

"This is a role model for us all..."

"Wait, weren't we just talking about that boy on the Asura Platform? What's his background? Who found out about him?"

The laughter stopped abruptly.

An awkward silence followed.

"no."

"I've never seen this before."

"He has powerful connections and influence, and he has managed to erase all traces of his past."

"..."