Chapter 1908: Purple Light
The Cloud Emperor's arrival was no small matter.
The entire Bing Huang God Sect was thrown into intense commotion. A group of elders and palace masters hurried over, but before they could even perform their kneeling bow, Yun Che and Yun Wuxin's figures had already vanished, heading straight into the Ice Phoenix Sacred Domain. The others could only stare at each other in bewilderment.
Upon entering the Ice Phoenix Sacred Domain, a familiar breath of ice and snow greeted them. Before them, an ethereal figure as beautiful as an ice fairy approached with slow steps.
“With such a commotion, it could only be you.” Mu Bingyun smiled, her icy eyes resting on Yun Wuxin.
“Palace Master Bingyun, it has been a while.” Yun Che nodded with a smile. Every time he saw Mu Bingyun, his heart felt a sense of comfort and peace. Even now, as the Cloud Emperor, that feeling remained.
Perhaps it was because her eyes, though reflecting the color of ice, always exuded a softness like water.
At that moment, Yun Wuxin took a small step forward and bowed solemnly to Mu Bingyun: “Disciple of the later generations of Bing Yun Fairy Palace, Yun Wuxin, pays respects to Grand Ancestor Master.”
Mu Bingyun was slightly startled, then shook her head with a faint smile: “No need for that. Mu Bingyun of Bing Yun Fairy Palace has already ‘passed away’ a thousand years ago. Now, I belong only to Yin Xue Realm, with no further ties to that past. There is no need to address me as Grand Ancestor Master.”
“Then…” Yun Wuxin lifted her eyes: “Can I call you Little Aunt?”
At these words, Mu Bingyun, who rarely showed emotional fluctuations, broke into a gentle smile: “Of course. Your mother is my sister and the Emperor’s Consort, so naturally, I am your Little Aunt.”
Yun Che thought: (This girl… used both titles, and even switched seamlessly!)
She turned her gaze to Yun Che: “As expected of the Cloud Emperor’s daughter, truly endearing.”
“Palace Master Bingyun,” Yun Che said, “you can still address me as before. I’ve grown used to the title ‘Cloud Emperor,’ but when it comes from you, it feels very unnatural.”
Yun Wuxin secretly glanced sideways: (Hmm???)
“…Alright.” Mu Bingyun lightly nodded.
“Little Aunt,” Yun Wuxin suddenly called out sweetly, “you are really beautiful, even more so than I imagined. No wonder Father always says you look like a fairy.”
“???” Yun Che’s brow twitched: When did I ever say that!?
“…” Mu Bingyun stood there, momentarily unsure how to respond.
“When we entered the Dong Shen Domain, Father said he hadn’t seen Little Aunt in a year and missed her very much… Ah, that hurts!”
Yun Che slapped his hand on Yun Wuxin’s head, his expression serious: “Palace Master Bingyun, where is Xuanyin? Why isn’t she in the Sacred Domain?”
“She is in seclusion,” Mu Bingyun replied, her voice still as ethereal as a snow lotus, her eyes as deep as a cold pool, as if undisturbed by the earlier remarks.
“Seclusion?”
“Just calming her mind and cultivating her soul, not a breakthrough in cultivation,” Mu Bingyun said softly. “She knew you would come soon, so before entering seclusion, she told me to call her when you arrived.”
“I will go and summon her out now.”
“No need to trouble yourself.” Yun Che raised his hand. “I will take Wuxin to see her directly.”
“The depths of Fog Valley are too cold, beyond what Wuxin can endure,” Mu Bingyun said. “Since Wuxin has come here for the first time, you should first take her to explore the Sacred Domain.”
“Very well.” Yun Che did not insist. “Thank you, Palace Master Bingyun.”
Even before Mu Bingyun, he still maintained the respect and deference of the past.
“By the way, how long do you and your daughter plan to stay in Yin Xue Realm this time?” Mu Bingyun asked.
Yun Che glanced at Yun Wuxin: “That depends on Wuxin’s interest.”
“I don’t have a say at all,” Yun Wuxin muttered softly, rubbing her hair that her father had messed up.
With a faint smile, Mu Bingyun stepped away over the snow.
As soon as Mu Bingyun’s aura faded, Yun Che immediately put on a fierce expression and growled in a low voice: “You girl! You are getting more and more out of line!”
“I… I was just trying to help Father!” Yun Wuxin looked wronged and timid.
“Do I need your help!”
“Well, that’s true,” Yun Wuxin nodded with deep understanding. “Father’s skill in dealing with women is so~ so~ superb, he really doesn’t need anyone’s help.”
“That’s not what I meant! Hah…” After roaring, he let out a long sigh: How come I feel like I’ve been teaching my daughter all the wrong things along the way? How am I going to explain this to Chu Yuechan when we get back?
Yun Wuxin’s brows curved like crescent moons: “Anyway, you’ve already made a move on my other Little Aunt, so you can’t favor one over the other.”
“Is ‘favor one over the other’ even used in that way!?” Yun Che’s voice rose several notches, and his eyes widened even more.
Seeing Yun Che’s expression, Yun Wuxin finally began to feel a little scared, and her voice became more timid: “Father isn’t really angry, is he?”
She reached out and gently tugged at her father’s sleeve: “I didn’t mean to make you angry. It’s just… when you said on the way that you could never have friends in this life, you seemed very disappointed. I thought maybe this would make you happier… I really didn’t mean to anger you.”
“…” His heart was softly touched. Yun Che instantly dropped his fierce expression and threw his head back with a big laugh: “Hahahaha! So it only takes this much to scare you! It seems I still have my fatherly authority after all, hahahaha!”
Yun Wuxin shook his sleeve hard, turned her face away, and hummed softly: “How annoying! I knew it… how could Father ever get angry over something like this! He’s probably secretly delighted, hmph!”
Just then, the sound of wind and snow in the Sacred Domain softened. Another ethereal, dreamlike female figure walked out from the snow.
Yun Wuxin turned to look, and the moment she saw her face, her lips parted unconsciously.
She came to a stop before Yun Che and Yun Wuxin, pausing on the flawless white snow. Looking at Yun Che, she spoke softly: “Should I address you as Cloud Emperor, or Senior Brother Yun?”
The way she looked at him was as it had always been. No matter if he was Yun Che, the Demon Lord, or the Cloud Emperor.
Yun Che looked at her: “From Feixue, I would still most like to hear you call me Senior Brother Yun, or Yun Che.”
“Fairy Sister,” Yun Wuxin suddenly spoke up. “First meeting. I am Yun Wuxin.”
Yun Che thought: (She used that title too…)
Slightly surprised, Mu Feixue looked at Yun Wuxin, her icy eyes clearly softening several degrees, and also growing more complicated: “Before I knew it, Senior Brother Yun’s daughter has grown so big. Time flows silently, like this eternal wind and snow—beautiful and cruel.”
“But what remains on Feixue seems only the beauty,” Yun Che said with a smile.
“…” Her beautiful eyes rippled. It seemed she smiled. But the smile that appeared on Mu Feixue’s jade-like face was always as faint as the first snow that melts at a touch.
“I won’t disturb you and your daughter.”
With that faint remark, her snow-white form gently shifted and she walked away.
Yun Wuxin’s gaze followed her back until she had gone far off, and still did not look away.
“She looks a lot like your mother, right?” Yun Che said.
“Ah? Does she?” Yun Wuxin asked in surprise.
This time it was Yun Che’s turn to be surprised: “Then why were you staring at her the whole time?”
Yun Wuxin stared at Yun Che for a moment, and found that his surprise seemed genuine, so she said: “Father, that Eternal Shadow Stone you gave me—she gave it to you, right?”
“Uh…” Yun Che touched the tip of his nose. “Did Aunt Qianye tell you?”
“I also know that she likes you… very much, in that kind of way.”
Yun Wuxin said this very seriously, her voice carrying a subtle emotion.
“That definitely wasn’t from Aunt Qianye,” Yun Che said with certainty.
Yun Wuxin’s gaze turned somewhat strange: “Father, before you gave me that Eternal Shadow Stone, did you… never even look at the recorded images inside?”
Yun Che was stunned for a moment, then shook his head: “No. Because I clearly told her that the Eternal Shadow Stone was for my daughter. After I got it from her, I only thought about giving it to you quickly, and didn’t think about anything else.”
“What, does it still have the images she recorded earlier?”
Yun Wuxin stamped her foot in the snow with some force: “Father, sometimes… you are such a super big idiot!”
Yun Che: “Uh…?”
“Being flirtatious and unfaithful is a detestable thing, but… letting down someone so beautiful and so devoted is even more detestable!”
Yun Wuxin took out the Eternal Shadow Stone and slapped it directly into her father’s hand: “See for yourself… I’m going to play on my own!”
After saying that, Yun Wuxin turned and flew straight toward the direction of the Sacred Hall, leaving her father alone to properly “reflect.”
“Wuxin, you’re going to…”
Yun Wuxin completely ignored him, and in a flash, she flew out of his sight.
Frustrated but amused, Yun Che shook his head. He picked up the Eternal Shadow Stone in his hand, and Yun Wuxin’s reaction piqued his curiosity.
His profound energy surged… The Eternal Shadow Stone contained many recorded images. There were the ones he had seen of Yun Wuxin on her birthdays each year, some daily moments she had casually recorded, and many recordings of Chu Yuechan and Feng Xue’er.
His spiritual sense swept quickly, stopping at the earliest recorded image, and he directly projected it.
Within the image was pure white ice branches and ice crystals, the familiar cold aura almost spilling out of the scene. Yun Che recognized it at once as a bedchamber in the Ice Phoenix Sacred Domain.
And then, Mu Feixue slowly appeared in the image.
“Yun… Che…”
She looked ahead, her hazy eyes veiled like ice fog, her lips moving softly, speaking his name.
“Today is the seven hundredth day since news of your death spread…”
“In just two years, it’s been so hard to endure, so agonizing.”
Her jade lips whispered, every word like a dream.
“I thought that this time would be enough to fade everything away.”
“But… what the cold wind chants is still your voice; what the heavenly pool reflects is still your figure; the vast world is still filled with your breath; the snow falling in my palm is still as cold and heart-wrenching.”
“When I wake in a daze, beneath my fingertips is still your name.”
The image trembled continuously. And only then did Yun Che suddenly notice that the ice table, the ice walls, the ice corals, and the ice branches—every inch, densely packed—were written all over with the words “Yun Che.”
Yun Che’s heart stirred with an indescribable ache and bitterness.
He knew Mu Feixue had feelings for him, but he had never imagined she was so deeply infatuated.
He recalled every interaction with Mu Feixue, yet never knew at which moment or by which action he had made her feel this way.
“So this is the love tribulation recorded in the books? No wonder the books say: ‘Ten thousand calamities are easy to pass, but the love tribulation is hard to cross’…”
She closed her eyes, her icy fingertips lightly touching the name “Yun Che” she had engraved: “I only regret that when you were in my sight, I was timid at every step, backing away every time.”
“If there were a divine miracle in this world… I would not retreat so wretchedly again. I would look into your eyes and tell you that I am not your ‘Little Fairy.’ I want, for a lifetime, to be your Mu Feixue…”
“…”
The image faded.
In the Eternal Shadow Stone, the image left by Mu Feixue was only this one.
Yun Che stood still, frozen for a very long time.
During those years in Yin Xue Realm, Mu Feixue had always tried her best to avoid him. Wherever he was, she never wanted to appear. This continued until the Mystic God Assembly.
Then he was buried in Xing Shen Realm… When he returned to Yin Xue Realm after three years of nirvana, her attitude toward him had undergone an earth-shattering change.
Giving the Eternal Shadow Stone as a gift for his daughter was Mu Feixue’s suggestion… and this Eternal Shadow Stone was given to him by Mu Feixue.
At this moment, how could he not understand? Back then, she had intended to use this Eternal Shadow Stone to let him see her deepest feelings.
But he had never bothered to explore the stone and directly gave it to Yun Wuxin.
When Yun Wuxin saw this image, she had no idea that her father was unaware of its existence… She even thought he had deliberately left it for her to see, as a kind of preparation for adding a new “aunt” to the family.
Then, when Yun Che faced Mu Feixue afterward, he was just as before, with no change at all. To Mu Feixue, that was undoubtedly the most straightforward disregard for her feelings.
Yun Che reached out and heavily smacked his own head.
After getting the Eternal Shadow Stone from Feixue back then, why the hell did I not even look at it once!
Hiss~~~~
It was easy to imagine how, ever since then, every time Mu Feixue faced him, behind her cold, clear eyes and occasional faint smile, there lay such loneliness and heartache.
After a long while, Yun Che finally stopped berating himself. Holding the Eternal Shadow Stone in his hands, his mind accidentally brushed against the next recorded image within.
The image showed Yun Wuxin, nearly fifteen years old.
“Hehe, Daddy, this is the first time I’ve used the Eternal Shadow Stone you gave me. I don’t know if the recording turned out nice or not. Whatever, I am your own daughter, so even if it’s ugly, you’re not allowed to complain, hmph!”
Looking at his daughter, still childish at that age, Yun Che unconsciously smiled.
“The three Liuyin Stones I gave you took me such a long, long time to make. You absolutely must not damage them, Daddy. If you accidentally break them, I’ll punish you by making you accompany me to make new ones… it’s settled! This is the proof, no objections allowed! Hehe!”
“Seriously, how could I bear to break them?” Yun Che chuckled to himself. “That ‘punishment’ of yours will never come to pass.”
Through years of world-shaking turmoil, countless disasters and fierce battles, his body had suffered many wounds, but the three-colored Liuyin Stones he always wore around his neck had never been damaged in the slightest.
His spiritual sense stirred again. The third image was not unfamiliar to him—Yun Wuxin had shown it to him on her twentieth birthday.
It was the celestial phenomenon that occurred back when the calamity happened, when Lan Ji Star was moved from east of the Dong Shen Domain to south of the Nan Shen Domain.
The phenomenon was brief, but Yun Wuxin had casually recorded it with the Eternal Shadow Stone.
Although he had already seen it and clearly remembered the image, Yun Che still projected it.
The sky trembled, space quivered, clouds scattered, and a rich crimson divine light spread rapidly, covering the entire sky as far as the eye could see…
The image was exactly the same. Yun Che flicked his finger and closed it.
But just as the image disappeared, Yun Che’s gaze suddenly flickered.
Because in that instant, his eyes faintly caught a flash of purple light.
That flash of purple light was extremely fast and brief, beyond what ordinary eyes could capture. When Yun Che first watched this projection, he hadn’t noticed it at all.
Even with his immensely powerful spiritual sense, even now, he felt it might have been an illusion from a momentary daze.