Bai Qingxue and Lu Xueqing, one after the other, set foot on the path back to their temporary shelter.
The return journey was even more difficult than their arrival. The night was as dark as ink, and inside the ruins, light and shadow intertwined, casting hideous silhouettes of the collapse everywhere.
Bai Qingxue's spiritual power had not yet fully recovered, making her pace a few notches slower than usual.
Lu Xueqing remained half a step behind her, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword as her eyes swept across the surrounding darkness like a hawk.
When the outline of the stone room carved out of natural rock finally appeared in the dim light, both of them breathed a faint sigh of relief.
Inside the stone room, the oil lamp had long since gone out. Only a faint sliver of moonlight filtering through the crack in the door cast a slanted beam on the ground, illuminating a few dancing specks of dust.
The air was filled with a stale chill, mingled with a trace of faint medicinal fragrance, and... a certain scent even colder than the night wind.
Bai Qingxue's footsteps paused slightly at the entrance of the stone room.
The scent was very faint, like a wisp of cold fragrance about to dissipate, yet it caused her pale eyes to constrict almost imperceptibly for an instant.
Without hesitation, Bai Qingxue walked straight inside.
Lu Xueqing followed close behind. The moment she stepped inside, she keenly detected the unusual fluctuation in the air. Her hand instantly tightened on her sword hilt, her sharp gaze sweeping toward the depths of the stone room.
A moon-white figure sat there silently, like a phantom coalesced from the night.
It was Ning Qinghan.
She had returned.
Lu Xueqing's heart clenched, her fingers tensing almost imperceptibly.
She looked at Ning Qinghan, a complex wave of emotions flashing through her eyes—vigilance, scrutiny, and a faint, forcibly suppressed hostility.
But in the end, she said nothing. She merely shifted her body slightly, subtly blocking the line of sight between Bai Qingxue and Ning Qinghan.
Ning Qinghan looked somewhat exhausted.
The usual laziness she wore on her face—as if she cared about nothing in the world—had faded significantly.
Ning Qinghan did not explain where she had gone, nor did she mention whether she had gained anything.
She merely raised her eyes slowly, her gaze lingering on Bai Qingxue for a brief moment.
Then, her gaze swept calmly over Lu Xueqing's slightly tensed shoulders. There was not a single ripple in her eyes as she lowered them once more.
With her face half-buried in her knees and her bare feet curled beneath her Daoist robe, Ning Qinghan looked like an utterly exhausted bird with folded wings, completely shutting out any interaction with the two.
The air inside the stone room stagnated for a moment.
Bai Qingxue walked to the side and sat down to regulate her breathing with her eyes closed, seemingly not at all surprised by Ning Qinghan's return.
After a brief scrutiny, Lu Xueqing silently walked over to a spot not far from Bai Qingxue and sat cross-legged on the ground as well, though her hand never left the hilt of her sword.
No words were exchanged among the three.
In the silence, the passage of time became imperceptible.
Until a certain moment, a faint, milky-white light lit up on all three of them simultaneously.
The light emanated from deep within their skin. Faint as silk at first, it grew increasingly bright, like three ignited stars, casting a stark, pale glow over the dim stone room.
At the same time, similar lights lit up one after another across various parts of the ruins.
The figures of the surviving disciples gradually grew transparent in the light, resembling phantoms on the verge of dissipating.
A sensation of the world spinning came over them.
In the next instant, their vision was filled with blinding daylight.
On the plaza of Canglan Island's Dao Discourse stage, space warped slightly. One figure after another materialized from midair, landing on the cold bluestone slabs.
The bright midday sun poured down, warming the disciples who had just been teleported back from the ruins. This formed a sharp contrast with the bone-chilling cold deep within the ruins just moments ago. Many of them couldn't help but squint as they landed, raising their hands to block the overly bright sky.
The clamor of survivors, low coughs, and the ragged breathing of disrupted spiritual power instantly shattered the plaza's long silence.
Some stumbled a few steps to support themselves on their companions' shoulders, some sat down on the spot to regulate their breathing, and others looked around for their fellow disciples, their calls tinged with lingering panic.
The figures of Bai Qingxue, Lu Xueqing, and Ning Qinghan materialized almost simultaneously.
When Bai Qingxue's feet touched the ground, her body swayed slightly. Her knees buckled for a split second before she regained her footing. Under the sunlight, her pale eyes appeared even more translucent, like two thin sheets of ice pierced by the sun.
Her face was still pale, but she had a bit more vitality than when she was in the ruins—at least she no longer looked like a paper doll that could collapse at any moment.
Lu Xueqing followed close behind. The moment she landed, her hand was already on her sword hilt. Her gaze quickly swept around like an unsheathed blade, and only after confirming they were safe did her tense shoulders relax slightly.
She cast a side glance at Bai Qingxue. Once she was sure Bai Qingxue had stood firm, she finally took a deep breath.
Ning Qinghan remained as lazy as ever. When she landed, she even had a light, airy floatiness to her, like a fallen leaf kept aloft by the wind to prevent her from falling flat.
As she stepped barefoot onto the warm bluestone slabs of the plaza, her toes curled slightly at the transition from the extreme cold of the ruins to the warmth of the sunlight here, before she quickly resumed her usual indifferent posture.
Her eyelashes drooped, making her expression difficult to discern under the sunlight.
Not far away, the figure of Zhao Yue from the Northern Underworld Sword Sect materialized.
He landed exceptionally steadily, his feet firmly planted on the stone surface without any swaying. The longsword on his back gleamed with a heavy, iron-gray luster under the sun.
His gaze swept over Bai Qingxue, lingering for a moment on her pale yet still straight face. No emotion could be seen in his bottomless pupils.
Soon, he looked away. He did not step forward to strike up a conversation or show any extra reaction, merely turning to walk toward his fellow disciples.
The group from Falling Star Pavilion was also teleported out.
However, their numbers were significantly fewer than when they had first set out.
Han Muchun stood at the front of the group, her left hand wrapped in bandages. Her dark-green martial attire was stained with several dried dark spots. Her face was even paler than it had been in the ruins, her lips almost completely devoid of color, with only two patches of abnormal flush on her cheeks where the cold wind had chafed them.
She did not look at Zhao Yue, nor did she look at the other sects.
Han Muchun's gaze pierced through the bustling crowd on the plaza, falling straight upon Bai Qingxue and Ning Qinghan. Her eyes first swept over the Frost Moon Chant at Bai Qingxue's waist, pausing for a fraction of a second, before slowly moving upward to settle on Ning Qinghan's lazy yet tired face.
Han Muchun's gaze lingered for a long time. In those eyes that always held a gentle smile, there was now only a layer of almost imperceptible gloom.
The noise on the plaza grew louder. A wind blew in from the sea, carrying a salty, damp scent, sweeping away the last trace of coldness lingering in their clothes from the depths of the ruins.
Standing in the sunlight, Bai Qingxue raised her hand slightly to block the overly bright sky.
‘Is it all over...’
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