Chapter 14: Sea of Roses

Upon the frozen, deathly silent plain buried beneath snow, there lay a single stretch of the purest white.

It was difficult to comprehend, for every inch of this frigid wasteland gleamed with brilliant white. Yet none of it could compare with the white before them—so delicate and beautiful, so vividly alive, that its existence seemed utterly inconceivable amid such a cold and lifeless wilderness.

A soft exclamation escaped from beside Su Ziye.

Xingxi stumbled out of the void, revealing her figure.

The girl looked somewhat surprised, and a little embarrassed as well. She tried to conceal herself again, but this time she failed.

“That is a sea of roses. Xiao named them snow-colored roses,” Su Ziye said calmly, gazing at the whiteness before him. “These snow-colored roses were formed when the blood of an ancient and mighty god fell and gathered after its death. They contain laws and power within them, so it is hardly surprising that your concealment failed.

“Let us go.”

With those words, he had plainly become the one directing their movements.

Xingxi could only nod calmly before following behind him at an unhurried pace.

From the moment they first saw the sea of roses to the time they finally drew near it, they crossed a distance of roughly two or three thousand meters.

During that entire stretch, even the shadows of extreme cold that had been drifting through the sky dared not approach. And only when they came close enough could the true appearance of the snow-colored roses be seen.

Compared with ordinary roses, these snow-colored roses looked much the same at first glance. Their vines, however, were thinner, their leaves smaller, and their blossoms more delicate and diminutive than roses the size of a fist. Their branches, leaves, and flowers were all uniformly pure white.

The leaves were narrow and pointed, alternating along the stems, odd-pinnate and featherlike. The blossoms exuded a faint fragrance touched with cold. The slender branches were covered in tiny, razor-sharp hooked thorns, and a dim blue radiance flickered atop them. From that faint light, Su Ziye could sense another kind of magical power.

Almost instinctively, Su Ziye reached out to touch the flowers.

But Xingxi stopped him. The girl calmly stepped before him and raised a hand to bar his way.

“They are poisonous.”

“I know.” Su Ziye nodded, then extended his hand without hesitation, allowing the sharp thorns to cut into his fingers.

This time, Xingxi did not stop him.

“It is only a very mild poison, with paralyzing and freezing properties. Even an ordinary Earth-Realm magical beast could not be killed by it. It would be somewhat troublesome only for creatures below the Earth Realm.” Su Ziye quietly felt the power within it. “All of this is recorded in Yueyi’s notes.”

“They are peculiar forms of life. Nearly every part of their structure is connected to ice. They seem to exist in complete symbiosis with it. In their flowers, branches, leaves, and even their roots and stems, ice replaces water to a great extent. And despite this, these snow-colored roses can still grow and reproduce normally. They are practically a miracle of life.” Su Ziye continued gazing at the flowers before him. “More importantly, these snow-colored roses possess an extraordinarily potent vitality and healing power. They can be called the finest healing medicine in the world. But because the conditions required for them to grow are so unusual, they are found nowhere else.”

Xingxi said nothing.

Although Su Ziye had never been here before, there was no doubt that his knowledge of the place far exceeded hers.

There was another rather serious fact as well.

She had lost contact with the Starpath Elders’ Council.

Not merely here—her connection had already been severed the moment they entered the snowy plain. She could no longer contact the elders on her own, and the elders had not sent her any messages either. It seemed that this was a world completely cut off from the rest of existence.

As he spoke, Su Ziye began harvesting the snow-colored roses.

This place was called the Sea of Roses, which meant that the flowers were practically endless. For dozens of miles in every direction, the same roses bloomed. Unless Su Ziye truly unleashed a wildfire across the plain, even if he worked tirelessly and harvested tens of thousands of kilograms, the sea of roses would probably recover naturally within a year or two.

Su Ziye was not so greedy. He merely gathered the flowers one by one and stored them away. After collecting roughly a hundred stems, he stopped. Then he turned and handed Xingxi the largest and most beautiful snow-colored rose.

“Here.”

Xingxi did not take it.

“The Starpath Elders’ Council may be very interested in this. Don’t you want to bring one back?” Su Ziye asked with a smile.

For an instant, Xingxi’s expression shifted.

And in that moment of hesitation, Su Ziye raised his hand and tucked the snow-colored rose beside her temple.

Xingxi was almost dumbfounded.

Su Ziye stepped back two paces and carefully admired his handiwork before smiling.

“It looks beautiful.”

He said it with complete sincerity.

For a time, Xingxi had no idea how to react.

She had never encountered such a situation before.

Until now, the girl had always hidden herself within the void, leaving Su Ziye unable to see or touch her. Naturally, there had been no opportunity for such presumptuous gestures. But now she had been forced to reveal herself, and Su Ziye had placed a flower in her hair. What was she supposed to do?

Kill Su Ziye on the spot?

Of course not.

Then should she have dodged and refused to let him put the flower there?

Yet at that moment, Xingxi had judged that she ought to accept it.

After all, just as Su Ziye had said, the Starpath Elders’ Council would certainly be extremely interested in these snow-colored roses.

This was land no one else could set foot upon, and these were divine flowers that grew nowhere else in the world.

According to Su Ziye, the flowers themselves had been transformed from the blood of a god.

And so the girl could only stand there, practically frozen in place, her entire mind overwhelmed.

“How interesting.” Su Ziye said this as he continued toward the center of the sea of roses. His body remained sheathed in golden flames.

By then, the temperature nearby may already have fallen to one hundred degrees below zero.

But whether Su Ziye or Xingxi, both could withstand such bitter cold with ease.

When they reached the far end of the sea of roses, Su Ziye suddenly turned to look back at Xingxi.

“The lake is just ahead. Do you know who the so-called Lord of the Lake really is?”

The young man asked the question casually.

Xingxi had not intended to guess. There was a good chance that even if she remained silent, Su Ziye would tell her the answer himself.

But after hesitating for a moment, she nevertheless gave her answer.

“Xiao.”

“Right and wrong.” Su Ziye smiled faintly. “Because Xiao is dead as well.”

The moment his words fell, a calm and elegant woman’s voice rang out with crystalline clarity.

“Who says I am dead?”

Behind Su Ziye and before Xingxi, a woman in a sea-blue dress appeared almost out of nowhere. Tilting her head, she gazed at the young man and girl before her.

With a faint smile, she said, “What a fateful reunion.”