Chapter 2: The Frozen Flower's Treacherous Tide
804 Words
The sound of crystallizing ice crept along the doorframe as Lin Shuang drove her peachwood pin into the mirror's c***k. Azure scales churned behind the glass, their movement halting when wand-light pierced the fog—only for indigo lantern glow to seep through carvings on the door.
"Council archives' restricted section smells of honey-preserved plums." Lady Frost leaned against the frame, her frost-silk skirt scattering moonlit shards. "How curious... Han Fei borrowed the very day Councilman Wren's pocketwatch chain got lodged in shelf crevices."
Lin flicked the new jade pendant at Frost's waist with her wand tip. "Milady didn't happen to nibble f*******n plums too?" Before Frost could retort, window frost spiderwebbed with cracks as Han Fei's dark robes—reeking of archival parchment—burst into the room.
"Lovely ladies," Han Fei pressed a scale-etched dagger to Frost's throat while contract fragments fluttered to Lin's feet, "care to wager whether Eastern lightning tribulation or Western holy judgment comes first when witch-system shards fuse with cultivator souls?"
Lin stomped on honey-stained parchment edges. "Advise Young Master Han to divine his ancestral graves first—see if they're worthy of being Xuanwu's chamberpot." Before her talisman could solidify, Su Wuyai's sword aura split the north window, pine-ink fragrance mingling with flying splinters.
Lin noted fresh cinnabar stains on the instructor's white robes—blood from her earlier wound on the arena.
"Moonfrost Reflection!" Frost spun toward the mirror, her ice-prism refracting moonlight into seven silver needles.
Blood blossomed on Han Fei's shoulder, splattering contract fragments that now wriggled toward Lin's wand like living things. She spat blood-tinged essence: "Xuanwu's Abyssal Descent!" Golden light erupted as tortoise-serpent phantoms devoured parchment.
Memory-shard agony plunged her vision into darkness, last glimpse being preserved plum pits in Han Fei's sleeve—identical to Frost's morning snack with matching frost-silk ribbons.
Three seconds into blackness, her wand vibrated autonomously. She heard Frost's prisms shattering, Su Wuyai's sword qi slicing her sleeve, something scaly coiling up her ankles.
Vision returned to find Han Fei vanished, leaving glowing contract runes on ice-streaked floors.
"Cultivator's sword aura shouldn't reek of mermaid tears." Lin pried open Su Wuyai's sleeve with her broken twin-lotus pin. "Fishing in Eastern seas last night, Professor?"
He dislodged the pin yet cushioned her stumble with gentle sword winds. "At third watch, I detected frost-bond spells in the library." Bloodied contract fragments nailed to the wall now oozed cerulean liquid evaporating into Wren's pocketwatch patterns.
Lin traced new scale patterns on her wand, smirking toward the window: "Peeping costs spirit stones, Councilman Wren." She pressed bleeding palm to glass, watching blood resonate with silver chains.
Honey dripped from frost-silk ribbons as frozen footsteps echoed down corridors.
Blood-crystals bloomed on glass as Wren's pocketwatch squeezed through cracks. Scale patterns now crawled up Lin's collarbones. "Tsk, wounded roses need tending." His violet-hued healing magic oozed black sludge upon contact.
Draconic roar from her wand shattered stained glass. Lin flung poisoned blood at Wren's rose-embroidered cuff: "Change your perfume—rotten swamps and mermaid tears might choke Xuanwu himself."
"This isn't playtime, fledglings." Golden holy light poured from the atrium as Lin's wand pressed against Wren's throat.
Luo Yang stepped through radiance, his moonlit robes smeared with bioluminescent moss. Picking up half a frost-silk ribbon, he brushed cracked plum pits: "Young Master Han even used Love-Thread Gu. Professor Su's Profound Gate token must be irresistible."
"Don't trust him!" Frost seized Lin's bleeding wrist. "The holy light contains—" Her warning vanished into spatial tears as Su Wuyai's blacksteel token emerged, its broken twin-lotus edges perfectly matching Lin's wand fractures.
"Grab it!" Su Wuyai's ink-scented voice pierced their minds.
Lin's wand suddenly reversed direction, scale phantoms stabbing toward Luo Yang's heart. Holy barriers shattered like crystal. Through backlash agony, she glimpsed dark-gold runes swimming in Luo Yang's pupils—identical to dragon taboos seen in last night's system fragments.
Wren's pocketwatch exploded into stardust: "Game upgrade time." He licked dragon-scale cuts as gear projections gnawed at spatial rifts.
Lin's wand autonomously drew half a talisman. Broken contract runes climbed Su Wuyai's sword aura onto the blacksteel token, warping testing grounds into vibrating harp-string tension.
"Three... two..." Luo Yang seized Lin's nape, holy chains coiling around her scaled ankles. His breath warmed her bleeding ear: "Guess what happens when system meets..."
Cataclysm drowned his words.
As dome defenses crumbled, Lin saw Frost's frost-silk skirt disintegrating into butterfly swarms. Su Wuyai's sword aura carried a memory fragment into the abyss.
Residual dragon scales carved b****y lotus marks on her palm—perfect match to the blacksteel token.
Luo Yang's holy barrier disintegrated into golden sand, his smile colder than moonlight.
When first temporal currents grazed her bloodied collarbones, she heard system monotony blended with someone's heartbeat—
[Scale Contract Forced Activation: Memory Carrier Damage 37%]
- Writer
