This stretch of ice wall was steep, with very few places to gain a foothold, making it several times more dangerous and difficult than before.
At some point, Qiu Niang had already closed her eyes, not daring to look any longer.
All she could feel was the night wind growing stronger, the cold biting to the bone. Her body swayed and tilted with the man’s movements, only to be forcefully steadied again at certain moments.
From the moment she agreed to let Gu Qing climb, their fates had been tightly bound together. Just like the two hemp ropes now fastened around their waists.
To live and die together was no longer just words but a tangible reality.
At last…who knew how long had passed. Accompanied by the man’s ragged breathing and violently heaving chest, they made it past that stretch of ice wall. They found footing once more, pausing briefly midway up the sheer cliff.
The short sword was embedded in the rock. Relying on it, Gu Qing gripped a crevice with his left hand while his feet pressed against a small protrusion, forming a relatively stable triangle.
Only the cold remained.
So cold.
The higher they climbed, the more the chill seemed to seep into the bones, burrowing beneath the skin. It was no longer something any padded clothing could withstand.
His fingers were stiff with frost, and his right hand gripping the sword was close to losing all sensation. Gu Qing looked up, only to see the Heavenly Heart Lotus still quietly blooming at the cliff’s peak, pure and flawless.
“Y-You’re hurt…”
The girl’s dazed murmur came from beside his ear.
Gu Qing thought she meant his left hand, where his fingertips had just been scraped open, blood seeping out.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s your abdomen…”
This time, her voice was even softer.
Gu Qing lowered his head, only then realizing that the sword wound on his abdomen had somehow completely torn open again. Blood poured out like a spring, staining his green robe a deep red.
He fell silent for a moment, then said, “Don’t look.”
But how could Qiu Niang remain unmoved? That ring of crimson blood was so glaring that just looking at it brought a phantom ache.
“You’re hurt. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
The girl’s voice trembled. Her expression froze completely, and then a line of tears could no longer be held back, silently streaming down her cheeks.
“You bastard… how could you do this… how could you… sob…”
“I don’t want you to die… I don’t… sob… can we go back, please… go back…”
“I hate you…”
Her emotions collapsed and spiraled out of control in an instant.
In contrast, the man remained strikingly calm. He said flatly, “Saying this now won’t change anything. The only thing you can do and should do is rein in your emotions and not affect me.”
His calmness was the kind that felt completely detached, as if this body did not belong to him at all.
In truth, that was indeed the case. It was precisely because he knew he wouldn’t truly die that Gu Qing dared to push himself so recklessly, as if his life meant nothing.
He had never been some noble person. If this situation had truly happened in reality, he might have already turned around and left.
But due to the rules set by the “Heavenly Book” he had no way to reveal this to Qiu Niang.
Otherwise, fate would once again fall into chaos.
To traverse the past, to reverse cause and effect—
How could such a forbidden matter be spoken of to someone who already existed within the “past”?
High upon the sheer cliff, silence gradually returned.
Gu Qing’s calm words fell into Qiu Niang’s ears, forcing her to acknowledge them and accept them.
At twelve years old, she was in fact more capable of endurance and restraint than many adults.
It was just that the scene earlier had shaken her far too deeply, which was why she had lost control like that.
After a brief rest, the climb continued.
From the base of the cliff until now, they had already ascended at least forty zhang, yet the summit still lay far above.
At that moment, a thin snowflake drifted down silently, landing on the back of Gu Qing’s right hand.
Both he and Qiu Niang froze.
It was snowing again.
***
For the time that followed, silence became the dominant rhythm upon this sheer cliff.
The man silently pulled out his sword, then silently drove it in again. Whenever he encountered a spot with no foothold at all, he could only use the sword to chisel into the rock, carving out a small depression.
The wind began to carry grains of snow. The blood at his abdomen congealed in the cold, only to be torn open again by his large movements.
Over and over again.
His shoulder was also soaked by the tears that kept falling, yet the girl bit down hard on her lip, refusing to let even the slightest sound escape.
Only her tears flowed uncontrollably, slipping down in silence.
Silence. Still silence.
This kind of silence was enough to drive one mad.
Sixty zhang.
Eighty zhang.
The cold in the air seemed to solidify into something tangible. Every breath he took released visible white vapor. Gu Qing’s hands were already numb with frost; his joints were frostbitten and swollen, his skin a bluish-purple.
A layer of white frost coated his eyebrows, and his lips were slightly parted, unable to close.
Having come this far, it was sustained entirely by his astonishing willpower.
And… the complete disregard for consequences as he forced this body beyond its limits, one must know that when a person no longer fears death, their potential becomes boundless. Even if the body is already on the verge of collapse, sheer willpower can still drive it forward.
But there were still the final twenty zhang.
A chasm-like twenty zhang.
The silence continued, and with it, the long and desperate climb showed no sign of ending.
The dim night gradually faded, shifting from deep darkness toward the first hints of light.
If one were to pull their gaze far enough away, this seemingly towering cliff would be nothing more than an inconspicuous part of the divine mountain.
Let alone the two tiny figures upon it.
Only at the summit of the cliff, beneath the starry sky, did the Heavenly Heart Lotus stand out, radiating a deep azure glow, mysterious and elegant. Its petals unfurled, rippling layer upon layer like waves of the sea, utterly captivating.
Suddenly—
A pale hand, covered in frostbite, gripped tightly onto the edge of the cliff.
So cold.
In the final moment before his consciousness blurred, Gu Qing climbed onto the summit.
At this instant, he was only three inches away from the Heavenly Heart Lotus.
But what followed was cold. Endless cold and a chill that penetrated to the marrow.
In such an environment, an ordinary person without spiritual protection would not survive more than three minutes.
Death seemed all but certain.
Yet within seven steps, there must be a solution. The key lay in that Heavenly Heart Lotus.
Whoever consumed it would gain the blessings of heaven and earth, forging a body of frost and ice, immune to all cold thereafter.
Gu Qing did not know any of this, yet it did not hinder his next actions.
With trembling hands, the man quickly untied the girl bound at his waist and set her down. Her condition was no better. Her lips were pale, her breathing faint, her eyes tightly shut, as if she could die at any moment.
He roughly yanked the Heavenly Heart Lotus over and placed it by her lips.
In an instant, the lotus petals transformed into streams of azure light, flowing into the girl through the corners of her mouth.
Then, a miraculous scene unfolded.
A vast, surging life force burst forth from the girl’s body. It melted the frost between her brows and drove back the black pattern that was on the verge of reaching her heart.
The decayed, ashen aura gradually dissipated, replaced by an unprecedented vitality. This was true rebirth.
The cold wind at the cliff’s edge lifted the girl’s long hair, revealing the right side of her face.
More streams of light flowed there, gathering together, converging into the hollow of her empty eye socket, and finally condensing into a shade of icy blue.
—It became an eye as clear as frozen crystal.
Luminous and translucent, its beauty was breathtaking, so mesmerizing that one hardly dared to look directly at it, as if it possessed the power to seize one’s soul.
In the next moment, she opened this eye, her gaze dazed, as though she had yet to comprehend what had happened.
“So beautiful…”
An extremely weak voice sounded beside her.
There was a faint smile in that voice and a trace of melancholy.
The melancholy came from knowing he was about to die. He would no longer be able to see such a beautiful eye again.
Yes, the decayed, gray aura on the girl was fading away.
In contrast, as the man knelt before her, that same withered lifeless aura appeared on him.
He was going to die.
From the cold, from blood loss.
It was a strangely surreal scene, as though she were stealing away his life force.
So she thought she should cry again, but she didn’t. Long before reaching the summit, her tears had already run dry, just like the wound on the man’s abdomen that had bled without end.
Her lips parted slightly, as if she had something to say, but her throat felt blocked, and no sound could come out.
The man’s breathing grew weaker and weaker.
Kneeling before her, he looked at her, and a faint smile slowly formed at the corner of his lips.
“I thought you’d cry… but you didn’t. That’s good. You’ve improved…”
His voice was faint, so soft that she had to strain to hear it clearly.
But in truth, she didn’t want to hear it at all.
“You once asked me… why I treat you so well…” He paused, then smiled lightly. “But in this world, there aren’t that many ‘whys’. I can’t answer that question either… because it’s all arranged by fate.”
“If I had to say… maybe it’s because the feeling of being relied on… is actually quite nice.”
He paused again.
“—Say, Qiu Niang, you’ll definitely become someone remarkable in the future, won’t you?”
“When you get to the capital, remember to check for me if there are beauties as tall as a ten-story building.”
“And also… that apricot tree in the courtyard. I remember it blooms beautifully. I really liked it…”
The man’s lips moved faintly. Perhaps he said more, but his voice was too weak to be heard clearly.
At last, in a certain moment, he collapsed, never to move again.
The night had passed; dawn began to break.
An orange glow spread across the horizon as clouds churned and the red sun rose in the east.
The young physician fulfilled his promise and found eternal rest upon the divine mountain.
And the sun rose as it always did.
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