"Su Ming."
The girl in white walked towards Su Ming through the sky with a smile that revealed her canines. There was a ribbon underneath her feet. That ribbon floated about, causing the girl to look as if she was walking on thin air as she walked towards the platform before Su Ming.
Her gentle voice sounded as if it had traveled through the pa.s.sages of time when it fell into Su Ming’s ears. It awakened the sorrow that was hidden deep within his memories and the promise he did not manage to fulfill that year.
At that moment, because of the wind, the snow from the sky was lifted and flew in between Su Ming and the girl. The snow covered their sight as if it wanted to obscure their vision, but as the snow blew past them, their vision was cleared up once again.
"Su Ming, do you remember me..?"
The girl in white bit down on her lower lip, and there was wildness within her bright eyes. She approached him with light footsteps and slowly came to stand before him. The faint and refres.h.i.+ng fragrance from her body was carried by the wind to Su Ming and wafted into his nose, then right into the deepest parts of the memories in his soul.
Under the illumination of sunlight, the crystals on the girl’s forehead let out a brilliant light. It shone into Su Ming’s eyes and similarly seeped into that spot where he had buried all his memories.
She had her hair tied up with two braids by her ears. The few locks of hair that were lifted up when she approached him touched Su Ming’s face.
"Why didn’t you come find me..?" the girl asked softly. Her gentle voice echoed in his ears.
Su Ming trembled and stared blankly at the girl. Grief appeared in his eyes.
"Su Ming, do you remember me? Do you remember my name..? Do you remember how we first met..?" The girl’s soft words cut into Su Ming’s heart.
"I remember…" he mumbled.
He lifted his right hand, touched the girl’s black locks, removed the red string and tied it up for her again, then put the braids by her ears behind her shoulders before taking off the crystals on her forehead and changing the location where they were placed.
Once he was done, calmness appeared in Su Ming’s eyes and he spoke slowly, "You only look more like her this way."
When Su Ming finished speaking, the girl immediately frowned. The disgust on her face was difficult to hide away. She took a few steps back, as if the act of Su Ming touching her hair itself was difficult for her to accept.
"If you can become her and make me look at you like her… then when you leave, you will have completed the task Si Ma Xin arranged for you," Su Ming said calmly.
He cast a glance at the girl and turned around to walk towards Zi Che, who was looking at them from the distance.
Bai Su stomped her feet. It could be said that she had made detailed preparations all for the sake of shocking Su Ming this morning. In fact, she had also practiced all the ambiguous words, including her expressions when she spoke, multiple times carefully.
Before she came this morning, she had even practiced before the ice mirror. Back then, the moment she started practicing, she had a feeling that she had turned into another person. It was as if a stranger’s soul had gathered in her body and changed all her actions.
She knew deeply that the instant she first appeared as the person in his memories and stood for the first time before Su Ming with this look was her best chance.
In fact, if she caught this chance, then there was a high possibility that there would no longer be any need for her to do anything else.
When she saw Su Ming’s dazed look, she had been pleased with herself, and when she noticed the grief in his eyes, it caused her to be even more pleased with the detailed preparations she had done the night before.
Yet things did not go according to her plans. Su Ming’s last words and actions made Bai Su understand that all her preparations to meet him in this appearance had failed.
Su Ming walked up to Zi Che. As Zi Che looked at him respectfully, Su Ming gave him an order.
"I need an object that is not too big but is very heavy. The heavier, the better. Can you find something like this for me?"
Zi Che was silent for a moment before he nodded his head.
"Master, I know a type of ice. It’s called Drowned Ice. It’s said that this ice will never melt and each piece of it is about the size of a fist. It weighs the same as a mountain rock about the size of a human."
"Bring back as many as you can, the more the better."
Su Ming lifted his right hand and threw a plate into Zi Che’s hand.
Zi Che looked at the plate and a strange look appeared on his face. The plate was considered to be a sacred item to him before he came to the ninth summit. Yet the more he knew, especially when he learned that this item was something Su Ming had borrowed from Hu Zi, the more he became perturbed.
He took the plate and wrapped his fist in his palm toward Su Ming before turning into a long arc and going off.
Once Zi Che left, Su Ming walked down the mountain path that led to Hu Zi’s cave. Bai Su stomped her feet once again. When she saw Su Ming ignoring her, she took a few brisk steps forward and caught up to him.
"Hey, didn’t you say you’ll teach me how to draw!"
"What do you want to draw?" Su Ming did not stop and his voice came out at a moderate pace.
"Slow down! I want to draw myself!"
Bai Su took another few quick steps forward and only then did she manage to walk beside Su Ming. It was clear that she did not want to walk behind him. Even if the ice on the mountain stairs was slippery, she still wanted to walk at the same pace as Su Ming.
"It’s easy drawing yourself. Position yourself before the ice and draw yourself while looking at the reflection on the ice." Su Ming’s voice still retained its mild tone and did not surge with any sort of emotion.
"Then… Then what’s the point of me looking for you?!"
Bai Su was momentarily taken aback before her face colored red with rage. Yet Su Ming was walking very quickly and most of the steps he took were about several feet each. She could barely catch up to him.
"I didn’t ask you to look for me."
Su Ming did not even turn his head back. The distance between him and Bai Su was gradually widening.
Bai Su gritted her teeth and ran once again.
Su Ming heard Bai Su’s voice coming from behind him, "I don’t want to draw myself anymore. I want to draw you!"
He stopped and turned his head back to cast a glance at the running Bai Su.
When Bai Su saw Su Ming stopping, she quickly ran to his side and satisfaction rose within her heart as she thought that there was no way Su Ming could get out of it. If she needed to look at ice to draw herself, then if she wanted to draw someone else, she would naturally need that someone to stand before her so that she could draw them.
"You want to draw me?" Su Ming looked at Bai Su.
The pride in Bai Su’s heart was reflected on her face. She lifted her chin and as the sun shone on the crystals on her forehead, they glittered. Her tied up hair moved along with the wind.
"That’s right. I want to draw you."
Bai Su let out a snort. That prideful look on her face overlapped for a moment with the person buried deep within Su Ming’s memories.
He lifted his right hand and drew a few lines on the ice rock beside her. Once he was done and numerous ice shards flew into the air, a person appeared on that ice rock. That person was naturally Su Ming.
"Draw according to that."
Once Su Ming finished speaking, he turned around and left.
Bai Su was stunned for a moment. She looked at the person Su Ming had drawn on the mountain rock, then at Su Ming himself, who had already walked into the distance, and once again stomped her feet on the ground.
"Su Ming, you jerk!"
Bai Su’s current appearance, expressions, and her words were completely different from how she was when she was with Si Ma Xin. When she was with him, Bai Su would always look naïve. She would always look at him with a gentle and adoring gaze along with a docile expression.
Yet when she was before Su Ming in the ninth summit, it was as if she had turned into someone else. If Si Ma Xin was here, he would definitely be stunned, because the Bai Su now was greatly different from the usual Bai Su before him.
Bai Su was seething and her glare made her eyes s.h.i.+ne. Once she stomped her feet on the ground, she saw that Su Ming had already walked away and could no longer be seen. She glared at his portrait on the mountain rock and lifted her foot to kick it.
"I’ll kick you! Su Ming, you jerk!"
Only when Bai Su gave a few repeated kicks to the portrait did she feel her rage subside slightly. She looked at Su Ming’s portrait on the ice. Suddenly, the light in her eyes flickered and that prideful expression appeared on her face once again.
She took a few steps forward and brought a black cylinder from her bosom before starting to paint on Su Ming’s portrait. As she continued painting on it, she started giggling in gleeful pride.
Su Ming arrived before long outside Hu Zi’s cave. He did not hear any snores but instead some strange chuckles coming from within. Su Ming did not stop and walked in.
The moment he entered Hu Zi’s cave, he immediately noticed Hu Zi crouching on the ground with numerous round, wooden pictures scattered all over the floor. There was also the picture of a mountain among these circles. They surrounded each other as if there was a path lying within them.
Hu Zi had a knife in his hands and was carving on the pictures repeatedly. As he did so, he would let out that strange laughter. If Su Ming saw Bai Su’s expression now, he would definitely think that she looked quite similar to the Hu Zi before his eyes right now.
"Heh heh, your Grandpa Hu is the smartest person of all, the smartest!
"So what if you changed the Rune? Darn you, just you watch, I’ll definitely break it!
"Your Grandpa Hu has never found a place that he couldn’t enter. No matter how hard this thing is, I still managed to solve it after I went to sleep."
Hu Zi was far too engrossed in his thoughts and did not notice Su Ming entering his cave. In fact, he did not even notice Su Ming standing behind him looking at the pictures he had carved on the ground.
"I used ten days for this, and I only drank thirty something pots of wine during these ten days. It’s all your fault that I drank so little. d.a.m.n it, why did you people in the seventh summit suddenly change your Mountain Protection Rune? Just watch me break this!"
Hu Zi brought up his knife and carved a few lines on the ground before excited glee appeared on his face and he lifted his head to howl in laughter.
Yet the moment he lifted his head and started laughing, he caught sight of Su Ming from the corner of his eye. Stunned, his laughter died away.
"Fourth, when did you come here?"
"A long time ago…" There was an odd expression on Su Ming’s face as he looked at the messy-haired and bloodshot-eyed Hu Zi.
"You heard everything?" A stern look appeared on Hu Zi’s face.
"I heard… a part of it." Su Ming’s expression turned even weirder.
Hu Zi lowered his head before lifting it swiftly once again. He grabbed Su Ming and his voice reverberated through the cave like a tidal wave.
"Fourth, you’re truly my dearest, closest youngest junior brother. You knew that your senior brother Hu Zi was going to succeed today, that’s why you came to congratulate me. You’re great. You’re an awesome junior brother. I won’t hide from you, so be my judge. Say, that darn, d.a.m.ning, shameless, perverted, outrageous seventh summit, aren’t they really unfair? Aren’t they really heartless? Aren’t they really without honor? They… they actually changed their Mountain Protection Rune!"