The doors of the inner sanctum clicked shut, the sound muffled by the thick frost-veined marble. Within this room, the air was so still, it felt as though time itself had been preserved in a block of ice. Yin Xue remained silhouetted against the silver glow of the moon, her posture perfect, and her presence a chilling testament to her rank.
"Nine minutes and forty seconds," she said, her voice like the chime of a bell in a graveyard. She finally looked up from the scroll.
Her blue eyes were devoid of warmth, projecting a sharpness that could make a lesser man feel as though his very soul was being dissected. "You have yet to speak. If you came here to bask in the spiritual energy of my office, you have made a grave tactical error. Every second you waste is a second I could spend refining my own cultivation for the ceremony."
Yin Shen stood in the center of the hall. Most would have been trembling, overwhelmed by the latent spiritual pressure that naturally leaked from a Foundation Establishment expert.
However, Yin Shen didn't look at her with the wide-eyed fear of a younger brother, nor the desperate hope of a beggar. He looked at her with the level, evaluating gaze of a veteran commander who had seen a thousand masks across a thousand negotiating tables.
In his past life, he had dealt with spies whose lives depended on their facades, as well as generals who wore arrogance like armor to hide their fear. Yin Xue's coldness was efficient, yes. It was sharp, but beneath the Absolute Zero Intent, there was a missing piece—malice.
There was no joy in her cruelty, no satisfaction in the crushing pressure she had exerted on the guards outside. It was a performance. A necessary shell developed in a family where any sign of "softness" was a target painted on one's back.
"You can drop the act, Sister," Yin Shen said. His voice was calm, cutting through the artificial chill of the room. "The 'Ice Queen' might scare the servants and the Elders, but I know the difference between a predator hunting for sport and one simply protecting its territory. You didn't save me at the gate because of family duty. You saved me because you're curious. And you're curious because for the first time in nineteen years, something in this house has changed."
Yin Xue's fingers, which had been reaching for a jade pen, stilled. The air in the room seemed to vibrate. The latent frost on the crystal desk began to grow, crystalline structures spreading like jagged flowers. To an outsider, it would have looked like she was preparing to strike.
Yin Shen stepped closer, undeterred. "I didn't come here to play games. I came here to ask for help. I need High-quality Elixirs. Marrow-Cleansing Dew, Spirit-Gathering Nectar, and most importantly... two High-Grade Qi Condensation Breakthrough Pills."
For a split second, the mask shattered.
Yin Xue's eyes widened, a flicker of genuine shock darting through the sapphire depths of her pupils. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared; replaced by a strange, haunting stillness.
She didn't release a killer intent; instead, the terrifying pressure in the room vanished completely, replaced by a silence that felt heavy and expectant.
Then, she did something Yin Shen's memories of the "original" body could never have predicted.
She smiled.
It wasn't the mocking sneer of Yin Hua or the arrogant grin of Yin Jian. It was a small, soft curve of the lips—one that didn't reach her eyes but softened the harsh lines of her face. It was the smile of a person who had finally found a riddle worth solving.
"You truly are different," she murmured, her voice losing its bell-like resonance and becoming something more human.
"To think that the boy who used to hide in the shadows of the library now stands in my office, reading me like a scroll. You want the most expensive resources in my private store. Tell me, Yin Shen... why? A Supreme-grade vein doesn't give you the right to bypass the laws of the body. You are at the 6th stage of Body Tempering. Those pills would be useless to you for at least a year."
"I don't have a year," Yin Shen replied. He met her gaze, his golden eyes burning with an intensity that rivaled the starlight. "I have seventy-two hours. I intend to reach the Qi Condensation Realm before the ancestors open their eyes at the re-examination."
Yin Xue's smile vanished instantly. She stood up so abruptly that her chair skidded back across the marble.
"Have you lost your mind?" she scolded, her voice rising in genuine agitation.
"Qi Condensation in three days? Yin Shen, do you even understand what you are saying? You haven't even begun the Bone Tempering or Organ Tempering stages. To force Qi into your meridians now would be like trying to channel a lightning bolt through a straw. Your veins would burst, your Dantian would collapse, and your soul would be torn asunder before the first drop of Qi could even settle!" She walked around the desk, her white robes billowing.
She stopped inches from him, her height nearly matching his. "I thought you had gained wisdom, but this is nothing but suicidal recklessness. It won't bring you glory. It will bring you a painful, agonizing death. The Major Stone requires a stable foundation. If you show up with unstable, forced Qi, the ancestors will see it as a desperate lie. They will execute you on the spot for mocking the bloodline."
"The 'trash' died in that Desolate Courtyard, Sister," Yin Shen retorted, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I have survived things that would turn your hair white. I didn't crawl back from the edge of oblivion to die because my 'foundation' was too slow for the world's pace. My meridians are not like the ones you've studied."
He wasn't lying. The Chaos Meridian was already shifting, its evolvable nature allowing it to expand and contract far beyond the limits of a standard Supreme-grade vein. Coupled with the Star-King Breathing Technique, his body wasn't a clay pot—it was a furnace.
Yin Xue stared at him, her chest heaving slightly. She looked for a sign of hesitation, a flicker of the old, cowardly brother she had once known.
Yet, she found none. All she saw was a terrifying, singular focus. It was the look of a man who had already accepted his death and was therefore, no longer afraid of it.
"You really mean it," she whispered.
She turned away, walking toward a wall of ice-sculpted cabinets. "You're asking me to be an accomplice to your suicide. If the Matriarch finds out I gave you these resources and you die, the Elders will accuse me of sabotage."
"Then don't tell them," Yin Shen said. "Let them see the result. If I succeed, you have the strongest ally in the family. If I die... well, you've already told me the ice is kinder than the executioner. Consider it a mercy."
Yin Xue stopped, her hand hovering over a jade key. Silence stretched between them, thick enough to touch. Outside, the frozen lake groaned as the ice shifted under the moonlight.
"Fine," she said, her voice turning cold again, but this time it was the coldness of a decision made. "I will give you the Elixirs. I will even give you a Celestial Marrow Pill to accelerate your Bone Tempering. But there is a condition."
She turned back to him, her face a mask of iron.
"You will not return to the Serpent's Nest. You will stay here, in the Glacial Moon Residence, for the next three days. You will cultivate in the Sub-Zero Chamber beneath this office, and I will personally monitor your progress. If I see your meridians begin to fail, or if your heart rate drops to a lethal level, I will forcibly stop your cultivation. I will not have your blood staining the reputation of my residence."
She stepped closer, her blue eyes boring into his. "And if you fail... I will be the one to carry your corpse to the Matriarch. I will tell her you were too weak to handle the gifts I gave you. Do you accept?"
Yin Shen felt the Chaos Meridian pulse. The Sub-Zero Chamber was likely a place of extreme elemental density—perfect for the Star-King technique to draw from. Staying under her watch was a risk, but it was also a shield. Elder Yuan wouldn't dare strike at him inside Yin Xue's private fortress.
"I accept," Yin Shen replied, agreeing to her terms.
Yin Xue nodded, her expression grim. She turned to the cabinet and retrieved a small, ornate box made of soul-wood. Inside lay three vials of glowing liquid and two deep-blue pills that pulsed with a faint, rhythmic light. The scent of a thousand herbs filled the room, so potent it made Yin Shen's 6th-stage Body Tempering skin prickle.
"Take them," she commanded. "The first stage of your Bone Tempering begins tonight. If you haven't reached the 8th stage by tomorrow morning, I am ending this experiment."
Yin Shen took the box, the weight of his future literalized in the palm of his hand. As he turned to follow the path she indicated toward the underground chambers, her voice stopped him one last time.
"Yin Shen."
He paused at the door.
"Why me? Why didn't you go to the Fifth Sister, Yue? She actually liked you. She would have given you anything she had out of pity."
Yin Shen looked over his shoulder, his silver hair catching the light. "Because pity doesn't build a Foundation, Sister, and I didn't need someone to cry for me. I needed someone who understands that in this family, the only thing more dangerous than an enemy... is a sibling who actually wants you to succeed."
He stepped through the doorway and descended into the darkness of the subterranean stairs.
Yin Xue stood alone in her office, the moonlight casting long shadows across the floor. She looked at the door he had vanished through, her hand slowly going to her own chest, feeling the steady thrum of her Glacial Spirit Veins.
"A Supreme genius... or a madman," she whispered to the empty room. "We shall see which one the Stone recognizes."
Deep beneath the residence, Yin Shen reached the Sub-Zero Chamber. It was a cavern of pure ice, the walls glowing with ancient formations. The temperature here was so low that his breath froze into solid crystals before they could even hit the floor.
He sat in the center of the chamber, opened the soul-wood box, and looked at the Celestial Marrow Pill.
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