Snow had started to fall.
Not a storm—just a quiet drifting of white powder that settled gently on shoulders, sleeves, and hair, blanketing the mountainside in a soft hush. The path had narrowed so much that even Fenglan, who was usually the most chatty among them, had gone quiet.
"I swear,"Fenglan muttered after a long while, rubbing his gloved hands together, "if Tianzun landed us all in the snowy armpit of the heavens, I'll—"
"You'll what?" Zhenhai said coolly from behind, adjusting the talisman on his waist. "Build him a snow statue and declare your everlasting loyalty?"
"I'll bury you in snow and pretend you're a sleeping dragon!"
Shuiyun, riding slightly ahead on a spirit-tamed ox, let out a soft laugh. "Can both of you preserve your energy? We're literally climbing into the middle of nowhere."
The cold region they now wandered held no sect names, no town roads, no familiar formations. Just frozen trees and hills swallowed by mist, as though the world had chosen this place to forget.
They had been walking for nearly two days.
All they knew was that Mo Tianzun had been pushed through a hastily crafted teleportation portal—a raw, incomplete gate summoned by Longxuan in desperation. Not even Longxuan himself knew where the portal led, only that it scattered Tianzun across the distance, far away from the eyes of the imperial guards and Liu Shengjie's celestial dogs.
"Do you think he's… alive?" Fenglan asked suddenly, walking beside Longxuan as the sun began to dip behind the clouds.
The question wasn't meant to be cruel, but it cut deep.
Longxuan didn't answer for a while.
His hair was dusted in snow, his lips cracked from the cold, but his eyes burned with a quiet defiance.
"I'd know if he wasn't," he finally said.
Fenglie stepped beside him. "We will find him. Even if we search the edge of the world."
Just then, Huayin's voice echoed from the front of the trail. "There's something ahead!"
They rushed forward to find Huayin brushing snow off a wooden sign post half-buried in frost. It read no names—just a carving of a four-petaled flower and an old snow-worn path leading up a ridge.
At the top: a house.
Small. Broken. Abandoned. But intact.
As the group reached it, they cautiously inspected the structure. The windows were frosted over, the roof missing a few tiles. But inside, the stone hearth was still functional, and a few old blankets remained folded in a corner—dry, somehow, untouched by decay.
"Should we stay the night?" Huayin asked.
Longxuan stepped inside without a word, brushing snow off his cloak. "We'll search more tomorrow. We can't keep walking in the dark."
They lit a fire, cooked some spiritual herbs Fenglie had gathered earlier, and passed around roasted snow deer jerky from Shuiyun's pack. Fenglan took it upon himself to hang talismans around the doors—though half of them were slanted, and one even stuck to his forehead.
"Oops," he said as Huayin helped peel it off. "Hey, if a ghost tries to eat me tonight, at least I'm seasoned."
"You're not funny," Zhenhai muttered, but even he was smiling faintly.
The warmth of the fire and laughter couldn't entirely chase away the weight in the room. Not for Longxuan.
He lay by the hearth on a pile of furs, staring at the ceiling while the others began dozing off one by one.
His hand pressed to his chest.
"Tianzun…" he whispered.
Sleep claimed him slowly—like a tide, not a fall.
And then he dreamed.
———
In the dream, the world was made of ice. A great cavern of frozen light and reflection, where even sound felt suspended. Longxuan stood in the middle of it barefoot, wearing only simple robes, his breath curling in clouds.
A hum vibrated through the cavern floor.
Then he saw it.
At the far end of the cave, resting on a raised dais of crystal, was a zither. Long, elegant, and carved of a luminous blue jade. Its strings shimmered like moonlight. But it wasn't silent. It thrummed—softly, calling.
As he approached, each step echoed across the chamber.
Then a voice.
"...Longxuan…"
He froze.
It wasn't Tianzun's voice—but it carried a familiar ache, a yearning.
The strings of the zither suddenly tightened, glowing faintly.
He reached out—his fingers barely an inch from the instrument.
Then—
The ice cracked.
And he fell.
———
"CROWN PRINCELONGXUAN!"
Fenglie's shout pulled him awake.
Longxuan sat up, gasping, sweat beading across his brow despite the cold.
"You okay?" Fenglie asked, crouching beside him with a cup of warm tea. "You were mumbling in your sleep."
"I saw something," Longxuan said breathlessly. "A zither. Blue jade. In an ice cave."
Huayin looked over from the hearth, eyes narrowing. "Blue jade zither… that matches something I heard once in the Spirit Realm."
Zhenhai stirred. "What did you hear?"
Huayin folded his arms. "They say in the far North, beyond the sea of frozen tears, lies a cave where a celestial artifact waits. An instrument forged by Heaven and the Abyss."
"An instrument?" Longxuan's heart pounded.
Shuiyun nodded slowly. "A zither, bound with both light and shadow. Said to only awaken for someone with a heart full of longing… or sorrow."
Longxuan clenched the cup in his hand.
Then it must be calling him.
Or—Tianzun.
The group fell quiet.
Fenglan flopped onto a fur blanket with a groan. "So now we're chasing icy zithers in dreams and hiking across god-kissed frost lands?"
But his grumbling was gentle now. Not resistance—just exhaustion.
Longxuan lay back down, eyes open toward the low roof.
The fire crackled softly.
And still, somewhere deep in the back of his heart, he could feel it.
That hum.
Calling.