Chapter 1283: Snow Woman

Zu An frowned, recalling the recent events. "That shouldn't be right," he said. "I've been flying exactly in the direction you pointed; I couldn't have taken a wrong turn."

Yan Xuehen explained, "I suspect there was something amiss with that blizzard. Besides being exceptionally fierce, it also had the effect of disorienting people. We thought we were heading in one direction, but we were actually going in another." As she spoke, she glanced at the figure in the ice sculpture. "I've been here before, and these ice sculptures were definitely not here then."

"You said he's your martial uncle?" Zu An observed closely. The attire of the person in the ice sculpture indeed had a distinct White Jade Capital style.

Yan Xuehen nodded. "That's why I said it. My martial uncle disappeared when I was quite young. At the time, Master said he was nearing the end of his life and went to seek his own fortune, never returning. I never imagined he would end up here."

Zu An thought to himself that this was normal. After all, the Great Snow Mountain held many legends, and countless people hoped to turn a bicycle into a motorcycle, but unfortunately, most never succeeded.

"What was your martial uncle's cultivation level?" Zu An mused, then asked.

Yan Xuehen fell into a reminiscent mood. "I didn't spend much time with my martial uncle. I only remember him as being very stern and somewhat fierce. As for his cultivation, he was definitely a Grandmaster at his peak. But when he left White Jade Capital, his strength had declined due to old age. Even if he couldn't maintain the Grandmaster realm, he was still far stronger than an ordinary Master."

After hearing this, Zu An's expression grew heavy. "I never imagined such a powerful figure would ultimately be frozen into an ice sculpture."

A hint of worry also flashed across Yan Xuehen's face. "He shouldn't have been frozen by that recent blizzard. Even I can sense something unusual about it. My martial uncle was well-versed; there's no way he wouldn't have noticed."

The two discussed for a while. They couldn't find any wounds on his body, nor any signs of poisoning. His cause of death remained a complete mystery. It couldn't have been freezing to death, could it? A master of this level would have surging vital energy; how could they freeze to death? Even the domineering blizzards of the Great Snow Mountain shouldn't be capable of that.

"Should we bury him?" Zu An asked thoughtfully, remembering it was her martial uncle.

Yan Xuehen shook her head slightly. "No need. White Jade Capital has always revered nature. Now, with the sky as his blanket and the earth as his mat, my martial uncle rests better than if he were buried in dark soil."

Zu An's expression was strange. To describe leaving a body exposed in the wilderness so elegantly? If they hadn't spent so much time together, he might actually think she was heartless. But this was indeed the White Jade Capital style; even Chu Chuyan had a similar aloof disposition. It seemed the "Taishang Forgetting Emotions Scripture" was truly extreme. He needed to find a way to warm them up and make them more human.

At that moment, Yan Xuehen bowed to the ice sculpture, and Zu An instinctively followed suit. To his surprise, Yan Xuehen blushed deeply. "I'm paying respects to my elder; why are you bowing?" His action made it seem as if they were performing a wedding ceremony. Of course, if it had been anyone else, she wouldn't have thought such a thing, but her relationship with Zu An was simply too complicated to explain.

Zu An looked bewildered. "He's your elder, so naturally he's my elder too. What's wrong with paying respects?"

"What do you mean 'my elder is your elder'?"

"Aren't you claiming to be my master? Shouldn't I pay respects to my master's martial uncle?"

"Now you admit I'm your master?"

"I didn't admit anything."

The two engaged in a verbal sparring match. Yan Xuehen was somewhat surprised; she usually preferred quiet and never wasted words arguing, even when encountering unpleasant things. Yet, encountering Zu An seemed to break all her habits.

As they chatted and walked, they suddenly stopped. They had discovered several more skeletons. These individuals were dressed in various attires, some even in the style of the Demon Race. However, judging by the residual auras, the weakest among them was also a Master.

Yan Xuehen's expression changed. "Though I don't recognize them, their attire and lingering auras suggest they were either sect leaders of major factions or patriarchs of top families... This is bad, retreat quickly!" Every single one of these individuals was a top-tier expert of their time; some, according to legends, were even comparable to her at her peak. The fact that so many masters had died here proved they had chosen the wrong path.

Zu An felt the same. But just then, heavy snow began to fall again, and the temperature plummeted. Not only Yan Xuehen, but even Zu An, with his robust vital energy, found his teeth chattering.

At this moment, a figure vaguely appeared in the blizzard in the distance. It was a woman, dressed in a plain white gown without any patterns or colors, wrapped simply around her. A delicate silk ribbon gently cinched her waist, making it truly appear slender enough to be clasped in one hand, further highlighting her graceful and alluring figure. The only pity was that her head was enveloped in a swirling flurry of snow, making it impossible to see her face clearly. However, her faint outline suggested she was undoubtedly a great beauty.

Then, the woman raised her hand in their direction, and a voice seemed to echo: "Save me~"

Zu An, however, grabbed Yan Xuehen and turned to run. What kind of joke was this? This was the Great Snow Mountain, a forbidden zone of life since ancient times. How could a delicate woman possibly be lost in these mountains, waiting for rescue? Although he had a certain weakness for women, he wasn't foolish.

Yan Xuehen cast him a look of relief. She had originally worried that this lustful fellow might develop a protective instinct upon seeing her graceful figure.

Seeing her trick didn't work, the woman in white dropped her pretense. Her aura suddenly surged, transforming into a whirlwind of snow that chased after them. The terrifying sense of coercion in that instant made Zu An's scalp tingle. "Earth Immortal?"

Yan Xuehen also looked dazed. Though both used ice and snow, the power displayed by her was considerably greater than hers at her peak. A look of determination appeared on her face. "You run alone. I'll hold her off for you. Otherwise, we'll both die." At the Earth Immortal level, even one person couldn't escape, let alone with her, a burden.

Instead of letting go, Zu An scooped her up into his arms, summoned his Wind-Fire Wheels, and sped desperately in another direction.

"You can't escape. If you don't let go, we'll truly both die," Yan Xuehen urged anxiously.

"Then we die together!" Zu An's expression was resolute.

Yan Xuehen opened her mouth, but this time, no words came out. Because she was held in his embrace, looking up at his resolute face, her chaotic heart inexplicably quieted. Perhaps this was for the best. In the vastness of the Great Snow Mountain, with no need to consider worldly ethical relations, dying here with him wasn't entirely unacceptable...

Zu An, however, had no intention of dying. He desperately urged on his Wind-Fire Wheels, but their speed had reached its limit, and the figure in the blizzard drew closer and closer. As the distance closed, frost visibly formed on their clothes, cheeks, and even their hair. The Wind-Fire Wheels nearly flickered out several times, kept alive only by Zu An desperately feeding them with Phoenix Flames. Even so, the ice on the Wind-Fire Wheels grew thicker, and the once blazing flames were now reduced to mere flickers, threatening to extinguish at any moment.

They felt as if their blood was freezing in their veins. The blizzards that had caused them extreme discomfort while flying earlier seemed utterly insignificant compared to this. They finally understood why all the top experts they had seen along the way had died suddenly without any wounds: they had been frozen to death.

Zu An continuously employed the Kuihua Phantom movement technique, combined with Great Wind's teleportation, which was the only reason they weren't caught immediately. It was also fortunate that he had recently drawn Meixi, whose skill could reduce the cooldown time for summoning Great Wind. This allowed him to repeatedly use Great Wind so many times. Yet, despite using every trick he knew, he couldn't stop the figure in the terrifying ice and snow from drawing ever closer.

"So hot!" Yan Xuehen began pulling at her clothes, as if trying to strip them off. She was too severely injured; her current strength was utterly incapable of resisting this extreme cold. When the human body's core temperature drops too low due to hypothermia, one doesn't feel cold and want to put on clothes. On the contrary, because the body temperature becomes lower than the external temperature, one instinctively feels hot and wants to remove clothes. This is why so many bodies of people who freeze to death in snow mountains are found unclothed. Of course, if Zu An hadn't been so fast, she would likely have been frozen into an ice sculpture before even entering this state.

Zu An, at this moment, had no time to spare for her. Seeing the ice tornado less than a zhang away, he knew that without a miracle, they would be completely engulfed in the next second. Zu An gritted his teeth, successfully activated the "Star-Shattering Profound Seal" to instantly boost his power tenfold. Then, clutching the "Lifeline Talisman" Xie Daoyun had given him when he left the capital, he activated the "Jian Lai" skill: "Take us a thousand li away!"

The words had barely left his lips when the two instantly vanished. The blizzard raged for a while, then found its targets gone. It gradually dispersed, leaving only the woman in white standing there, looking somewhat puzzled.