Though deep autumn elsewhere, here a relentless, driving blizzard raged. A vast expanse of pure white snow stretched endlessly to the horizon. Through the blizzard, a man trudged, his back bent under the weight of a woman he carried. One hand gripped a sword box, the other a crude staff he leaned upon for support. Across the windswept, snowy expanse, a trail of uneven, struggling footprints marked their arduous passage.
At last, his strength utterly spent, the man could go on no longer.
Gently, he lowered the woman to the ground, then sank down beside her. With weary hands, he began to mound the thick snow, shaping it into the rough form of a Spirit Tablet. Into its surface, he etched the single character: "Li".
The woman, already lightly dusted with accumulating snow, slowly opened her eyes. Her gaze, filled with puzzlement, fell upon Li Yaozu and the makeshift snow tablet.
An icy voice broke the silence. "Your injuries flaring up once more? And now you're fussing over those Spirit Tablets of yours again?"
"I'll manage," Li Yaozu replied, his voice raspy.
"This place is freezing, true, but with our constitutions, a simple blizzard like this won't be the end of us. It's you I'm worried about," he said. "You were already severely injured during that major clash with the Wu Clan. Then, five years back, you exhausted your last reserves performing that secret technique to get us both out, to flee to this forsaken Snowy Region. You really should conserve your strength and wake as little as possible."
Li Yaozu's voice remained serene. He exhaled, his breath misting in the frigid air, then turned and Kowtowed before the crude Spirit Tablet he had sculpted from the snow.
He thought wistfully, "If my reckoning is correct, today is supposed to be the Day of the Great Ceremony. What a shame... in my current state, I have no true ability to conduct the rites, nor any suitable offerings to present to the Old Ancestor."
Observing Li Yaozu's pious devotion, Fang Linglong knitted her brows. "There are times I simply cannot comprehend you, Li family folk," she said, a hint of exasperation in her voice. "Brought to such a desperate pass as this, and still you persist in these ancestral rites!"
"Of course, you wouldn't understand." A profound piety shone in Li Yaozu's eyes.
"I have faith that my kin still live," he stated simply. "Those who are lost will one day find their way home. So long as our belief remains unbroken. Fang Linglong," he turned to her, "You told me that if we just keep heading forward, straight on until the very end of this Snowy Region, we will reach the land of your birth. And there... There, my injuries can finally heal. Is this true?"
Upon hearing his question, Fang Linglong's brow twitched almost imperceptibly. Then, regaining her composure, she gave Li Yaozu a calm nod.
She recalled that day vividly. She had seen the cataclysm unfold. At the earliest opportunity, she had grabbed Li Yaozu and spirited him away. It was the most she could manage under the circumstances.
Throughout these five long years, Li Yaozu had never once abandoned hope. He had carried her on his back across this desolate Snowy Region, relentlessly seeking that 'birthplace' she had described.
Though Li Yaozu's injuries flared up recurrently, never fully mending yet never fatally worsening, Fang Linglong perceived with startling clarity that his sword intent was, paradoxically, strengthening with each passing day!
"Ancestor," Li Yaozu continued, his voice now ringing with renewed hope, "Did you hear her? My injuries... they can be healed! And I believe, Old Ancestor, I truly believe that Father (Li Dalong), Mother (Xu Cuihua), Ah Qing (Yaoqing), Ah Tie (Yaotie), and Ah Wen (Yaowen) – all of them, and all the children too – they will make it through this! They will survive!"
He kowtowed again and again before the snow tablet. "Please rest assured, Old Ancestor! This child has already journeyed for five years; be it fifty years, or even five hundred, this child will see this path through to its very end!"
Ever since that day they had fled until this very moment, Fang Linglong had never once seen Li Yaozu outwardly display the profound grief one would expect from witnessing his clan's destruction, nor had he ever shown the slightest sign of being lost or without purpose.
His only focus seemed to be pressing onward. Though the arduous journey often left his body stooped with exhaustion, his spirit, like his backbone, remained unbroken, straight and proud, just as the Li family itself had once stood proud and unbowed in the Azure Cloud region.
Fang Linglong couldn't fathom the source of Li Yaozu's unwavering faith. But then, suddenly, she saw him smile – a genuine smile, the first she had witnessed from him in five long years.
And the reason was...
The Spirit Tablet Li Yaozu had fashioned from snow began to rise, hovering in the air, suffused with a brilliant, dazzling radiance. And from that light, characters slowly materialized—
[ALL IS WELL]
[System Reveal: Fang Linglong, fearing Li Yaozu might, in his despair, rashly attempt to return to the Azure Cloud region, and also discerning his unyielding (if desperate) spirit, told him a 'Well-intentioned lie'. She claimed that her own birthplace lay at the furthest extremity of this Snowy Region, implying a destination and purpose for him.]
[Clan Trait Update (Li Yaozu): Firmly believing her 'Well-intentioned lie,' Li Yaozu has acquired the Trait: Hope Burns Eternal.]
[Trait Effect: 'Hope Burns Eternal' – Though at some level he comprehends the untruth in Fang Linglong's words, he chooses to cling to this 'lie' with all his heart, for it is the sole guiding light he can perceive in his unending darkness. So long as this belief holds, his sword intent shall continually strengthen!]
"Ancestor!" Li Yaozu stared at the hovering Spirit Tablet, his eyes suddenly the most luminous points in the entire frozen wasteland.
"You've answered me again!" he cried, his voice filled with joyous conviction. "It's true then! Everything Fang Linglong told me – it's all real!"
Witnessing this interaction between the man and the Spirit Tablet, Fang Linglong blinked her eyes again and again. So, the 'Old Ancestor' Li Yaozu kept mentioning actually did exist in some form, responding through the tablet – it was a phenomenon entirely beyond her understanding. Furthermore, she mused irreverently, this 'Old Ancestor' of Li Yaozu's seemed rather dim-witted – perhaps even more so than Li Yaozu for believing the lie in the first place!
...
"You're all… still alive."
On this day, no matter where they were in the world, generation after generation of descendants could be seen prostrating themselves before their Ancestral Spirit Tablets.
Li Wei's eyes were bloodshot. But now, he could see them—each and every one.
He saw Li Dalong, standing firm on the edge of a cliff at the border of the Endless Forest. Above him, the sun blazed fiercely in the sky; below, the vast forest stretched out in silent majesty. Behind him, a wild wind roared, as if echoing his unyielding will.
He saw Xu Cuihua, deep within the heartlands of the Fox Clan. Her body was wrapped in six soft, glowing tails that pulsed with crystalline light. She lifted her head, her gaze fixed upon the last fading star of the morning sky.
He saw Li Yaoqing, wandering alone across the endless grasslands, her face blank and bewildered, unsure of where to go or what path to choose.
He saw Li Yaowen, lying supine with her eyes closed, carried high among the clouds, drifting aimlessly wherever the winds chose to take her.
And he saw Bai Rourou, who remained still at Azure Mist Mountain.
He saw Li Yunbing, who, by some unknown means, had fully taken on the identity and title of Region Prince Jiang, Jiang Chenghuan!
And he saw Li Kuanghua, riding atop a fearsome Raging Sky Flood Dragon, locked in a desperate battle somewhere amidst the boundless seas!
He saw Li Kuangren, deep within the Eternal Sun Prefecture, imprisoned in a filthy, squalid cage. Some sinister spiritual technique had reduced him to a state like a bird trapped in a cage. Yet even so, his eyes blazed with an unyielding, deathly glare, locked on the avatar of Venerable Tian Xing, standing silently in the same room.
And he saw them—thirteen members of the Li family—still holding out, refusing to yield, within the Tian Xing Abode!
Across all these distant places, Ancestral Spirit Tablets pulsed one after another with a soft, radiant light.
In this shared moment of connection, these survivors, scattered far and wide, each felt it. Some were still lost in confusion, isolated and alone, unsure of where to turn next. Some remained consumed by grief for their fallen kin. And perhaps, like Li Wei himself, they had spent the past five years adrift in an endless sea of sorrow.
Yet at this very instant, a profound realization dawned upon Li Wei.
Perhaps, in the face of such crushing calamity, to simply keep living—to endure—demanded a courage deeper and fiercer than he had ever imagined. And his descendants, scattered to the far corners of the world, were each struggling desperately to find that one faint, flickering beacon of hope.
It was just as he had once declared to Venerable Tian Xing on that terrible day:
"Nothing has truly ended. In fact, everything is only just beginning!"
"Merit City in Azure Cloud region remains suspended on that single, tragic day," Li Wei affirmed, his gaze hardening. "Beneath this current, oppressive night, what was left behind might seem like the mere empty shells of our Li clansmen. But darkness, however profound, must eventually yield to light! And when that light shines again, it will illuminate the rebirth of the Li Clan!"
"Just you wait, Tian Xing," Li Wei vowed, his voice resonating with cold determination.
Li Wei took a deep, steadying breath, his eyes fixed on the distant Eternal Sun Prefecture.
"A Li family, more powerful than ever before," he declared to the unseen Tian Xing, "will one day stand before you again."
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