Tome of Troubled Times-Chapter 806 (2): Tea Party and the Secret of the Icy Abyss

The Abyss of the Frost Chi was part of Kunlun. They were sure he hadn’t entered Kunlun yet, but somehow, he had already found his way here, traversing an unknown spatial node directly into Kunlun’s depths.

He was searching for them, and there was no doubt about it. Charging straight into the Abyss of the Frost Chi, a place so perilous that even Ye Jiuyou held reservations, could only mean one thing. Even if he was not heading directly toward their location, it was certainly related, a roundabout way of tracking them down.

Inside the sea of consciousness, the little rabbit stared blankly, utterly stupefied.

A month? Screw that. It was only the fourth day, yet he had already reached one of Kunlun’s most treacherous secret realms!

“Big Brother Zhao can’t go in!” Cui Yuanyang cried out in alarm. “Even Jiuyou won’t step into that place!”

Ye Jiuyou cast her a sidelong glance. “Who says I wouldn’t? I just put it off for later. There were simply too many things to handle recently. But this is perfect. If even just the Abyss of the Frost Chi is enough to make him back off, then you’ll finally see for yourself what kind of man he really is.”

Cui Yuanyang shot back, “I don’t need to see anything! You’re the one who wants to test him! Aren’t you engaged to him or something? I haven’t even confronted you about that, yet here you are, testing my husband!”

Piaomiao: “?”

Ye Jiuyou: “...”

What surprised Piaomiao was that Jiuyou did not argue back.

She fell silent, and with her silence, Cui Yuanyang lost her target to vent her frustration. Piaomiao was not one to talk much either, and so, what had been a lively tea-time argument suddenly fell into an eerie stillness.

Each of them kept their eyes fixed on the night-shrouded image, watching the man whose body was growing increasingly rigid and his face paling as he advanced step by step.

Crack!

Zhao Changhe’s muscles bulged, his entire body pulsing with every bit of blood and qi he could muster. It was a sign that he was pushing his physique to its limits to resist the bone-chilling cold. Even his skin had undergone a subtle hardening, a method of reinforcing it to prevent it from cracking in the unbearable frost.

He tore some strips of cloth and wrapped them around the hilt of Dragon Bird. Without them, his hands would freeze and adhere to the metal.

Never before had he felt such cold.

Ying Five was faring somewhat better than Zhao Changhe, albeit marginally. He seemed to be using spatial power to isolate the space around him, reducing the intensity of the cold. But even so, it did not bring him that much of a relief. After all, continuously using the power of space for extended periods was an exhausting feat, one that few could endure.

At the same time, the spiritual pressure grew heavier. A restless irritability crept in, headaches intensified, ears rang, and vision blurred. Disjointed illusions flickered in and out; a violent, frenzied impulse clawed at the edges of their minds.

Neither of them could assist the other. Not dragging the other down was already an impressive feat.

Zhao Changhe could not shake the feeling that this atmosphere bore a resemblance to his own vicious qi.

Could it be that vicious qi is interwoven within the frost qi? What if they’re actually two distinct forces mingling together?

It was difficult to say for sure. The interference from the frigid air was far too severe.

And it was not just the cold that was the problem.

The icy wind howled like blades, slicing through the air. In this frozen wasteland, each gust of wind felt like being executed by a thousand cuts.

Dragon Bird roared through the air, slashing forward in a sweeping arc. The razor-sharp winds were scattered apart, dispersing in waves around him. But even that was not enough to fully repel them. Sharp gusts still grazed his arm, leaving trails of blood that immediately froze upon exposure.

Zhao Changhe paid it no mind. Seizing the moment, he surged forward, covering several zhang in an instant.

In the outside world, he could teleport across a hundred li in a blink. Here, managing even a few zhang was a feat.

Before long, he began to see human-shaped ice sculptures—frozen figures, each trapped in a unique posture. No... these were not sculptures. They were people who had inadvertently wandered into this place and ended up frozen to death where they stood. Among them were bizarre, beast-like figures, their forms unnatural. Some likely did not belong to this era at all and were victims from the previous era, creatures that had perished here long ago. And they stretched as far as the eye could see. This place was an eerie, endless expanse of frozen corpses.

Who knew how many lives had come to a stop here across the ages?

A faint, echoing whisper seeped into the ringing in his ears. Slowly, the fragmented murmurs solidified into distinct words, “Heh... Before I could even venture out to kill, people have already delivered themselves to my doorstep.”

Zhao Changhe’s voice was calm. “So you’re saying that even if we hadn’t come, you were planning to go out and slaughter?”

The voice chuckled. “There’s no need to actually kill anyone, is there? The glaciers are beautiful! This world was meant to be like this; it was always meant to be ruled by frost. Why is humanity even there? You are just ruining things.”

Zhao Changhe nodded slightly. This thing was no different from the Sea Emperor—it and humanity were on either side of a fundamental conflict of survival. It would not simply remain dormant within its own territory. It would emerge, spreading its influence and reshaping the world into one that suited its nature.

So it’s a demon god.

The ancient Black Tortoise must have come after it for this very reason. Their opposing attributes made them natural enemies.

Thinking about it, Zhao Changhe mused over the ancient Four Idols. Compared to this, the ancient White Tiger’s madness and the ancient Azure Dragon’s betrayal did not seem that terrible. In essence, the Four Idols had always been guardians of order, upholding the balance of the Night Emperor’s domain.

Which means... Even Blindie had once been on the right side. But the ancient Black Tortoise actually lost to the Frost Chi? That shouldn’t be possible. Something must have gone terribly wrong...

These thoughts flickered through Zhao Changhe’s mind as he replied aloud, “I appreciate the clarification. Otherwise, I might have second-guessed whether it was right to trespass into your domain and try to kill you. Now, I can proceed without hesitation.”

The voice erupted into laughter. “Interesting... Do you know who was the last to say those words to me?”

“It doesn’t matter who it was. Where they failed, I won’t.” Zhao Changhe paused, then added, “Although... it seems they didn’t exactly fail either. In today’s world, demon gods are reviving everywhere. Jiuyou has returned, Piaomiao has been reborn... and yet, you’re still sitting here, motionless. It’s not because you want to, is it?”

The voice abruptly fell silent.

Ying Five, who had remained quiet until now, suddenly felt a realization click into place. “It’s sealed! The Black Tortoise must have imprisoned it here! It can’t escape!”

Zhao Changhe murmured, “And it’s about to break free. If my guess is correct, thirty years ago, it was already pushing against the Black Tortoise’s seal. That’s when your people encountered it. Some of the Black Tortoise’s lingering will must have latched onto Lady Three’s mother, which is why Lady Three was born with that karma.”

This was not just speculation. He had seen it through his karma observation. And he had also seen that the Black Tortoise’s seal was not just imprisoning the Frost Chi. There was another reason, an underlying purpose that remained obscured. When he tried to probe deeper, a wave of dizziness and nausea overtook him, as if he had touched upon some forbidden truth.

What he had originally thought was a simple matter—helping Ying Five with his revenge so he could assist him in finding Yangyang—had somehow led straight back to ancient conflicts, to karmic threads tied to Ye Wuming.

Nothing ever seemed to escape her influence.

Ying Five muttered, “If that’s the case, then we came at the perfect time... If we had delayed any longer, and it had managed to break free completely, the consequences would be catastrophic.”

The Frost Chi remained silent for a moment before chuckling again. “Although I don’t know who you people are, your guesses are surprisingly accurate. Very well, take your time. Find your way to me, and then we’ll talk.”

Ying Five leaned closer to Zhao Changhe and whispered, “If we stay in this environment for too long, we’ll only grow weaker. We need to end this quickly and head straight for the seal. But this place is vast. Our souls can’t reach far, and every direction looks the same. Do you have a way to locate it quickly?”

The environment in this place was unbearably oppressive. Neither of them dared to let their souls wander about. Even walking felt like a struggle. If Zhao Changhe had to stay here much longer, he feared he might go mad. Moreover, everything looked the same, and the aura of the surroundings was indistinguishable. Finding a specific location in such a place was incredibly difficult. Even if they did manage to locate their target, they would likely be too exhausted to do anything about it...

Yet, Zhao Changhe let out a sigh and said, “There’s a way. It’ll take at most the time of one incense stick.”

The Frost Chi burst into laughter. “How times have changed... Are the people of the current era all so naive?”

“?” Ying Five tugged at Zhao Changhe’s sleeve. “How?”

Zhao Changhe pulled out a booklet and waved it in front of Ying Five. Taking a closer look, Ying Five’s eyes widened. It was the Atlas of Mountains and Rivers.

Flipping through it, Zhao Changhe quickly located a map labeled “The Icy Abyss of the Frost Chi.” It had a marked core point with an annotation: “Black Tortoise sealed the Frost Chi here.”

So it was not that the ancient Black Tortoise had been slain by the Frost Chi. It was the other way around—the Black Tortoise had sealed the Frost Chi. However, it was possible that the Black Tortoise had been injured in that battle, and that injury combined with the later catastrophe resulted in their downfall.

There were even a few small notes inscribed on the map, seemingly a brief introduction to the Frost Chi. One particular line caught Zhao Changhe’s attention: “Sealed by extreme cold to suppress qi from leaking.”

What does that mean? Is it not just the Frost Chi being suppressed? Is the Frost Chi also being used to suppress something else? Why is it phrased so vaguely? Who wrote this shit?!

Ying Five grew more bewildered the more he read. “What... What even is this?”

Zhao Changhe snapped back to the present. “Specialized maps of various places in the heavenly realm, personally created by the Black Tortoise.”

Ying Five was utterly dumbfounded.

Aren’t you here to help me fight a battle of vengeance? Why does it suddenly feel like you’ve become the protagonist instead and I am assisting you on your path to vengeance?

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