Chapter 12

Chapter 12

The Furnace Front Ritual was held at the very bottom of Glimmersnow Palace.

As the stone doors swung open, a wave of heat and the metallic scent of blood rushed out. The four walls were embedded with bronze mirrors that reflected flickering blue flames, making everyone’s faces look like ghosts. In the center stood a massive black furnace, its body carved with snow kites and thorns. Around its base, a dense array of small handprints from children were etched into the metal.

Those handprints varied in size; some were barely half the size of my palm.

Mo Yaoshuang stood before the furnace, already changed into her sacrificial robes. Her snow-white gown trailed on the ground, but the hem was not embroidered with flowers-it was covered in the faces of small children, eyes closed in smiles. Ministers and noble ladies lined both sides, having followed us all the way down. Some looked terrified, others excited, but most appeared as if they were attending a routine prayer service.

So they all knew.

It wasn’t that they didn’t know; they just pretended not to.

I walked toward the furnace step by step, the silver bells on my ankles chiming with every movement, sounding like a premature funeral dirge. Yan Zhichuan stood on a high platform, his face deathly pale, a trace of blood he hadn’t wiped clean staining the corner of his lip. He looked at me, his gaze so deep it was impossible to read his emotions.

Mo Yaoshuang raised her hand and gently removed my crown.

“Good child, don’t be afraid,” she said with a smile. “Your mother was too greedy back then; she wanted to take all the fire with her, so she died a hideous death. If you’re a bit more obedient, I’ll let you go with dignity.”

I stared at her. “You clearly could have stopped this.”

“Stopped?” She sighed softly, as if she had heard something hilarious. “Yi Jiangxue, do you know what the people of Baili City fear most? It isn’t death-it’s the cold. As long as they can gather around a fire to eat, dance, and survive the winter, they won’t care if that fire is burning wood, coal, or a few nameless poor children.”

As her words fell, some of the people nearby actually lowered their heads, avoiding my gaze.

I felt nothing but disgust.

Mo Yaoshuang reached out to touch the black furnace, her expression almost pious.

“Besides, it isn’t just winter sleeping inside this furnace.” She turned back to look at me, and the layer of tenderness in her eyes finally cracked, revealing the cold, sharp truth beneath. “It’s also me.”

The body of the furnace suddenly shuddered.

It was as if something massive inside had slowly rolled over.

A layer of white mist simultaneously rose over the surrounding bronze mirrors. Within the mist, the face of a woman appeared-exquisitely beautiful, yet incredibly old, like a corpse that had been frozen for hundreds of years. Her lips moved, letting out a thin, reedy laugh.

“The descendant of the Fire Seed Woman… has finally come again.”

The blood in my veins turned to ice.

Mo Yaoshuang wasn’t the Snow Queen’s true body. She was merely a shell. The real thing had been inside the furnace all along.

On the high platform, Yan Zhichuan suddenly moved.

He leaped down, snatched a long blade from a nearby guard, and thrust it straight toward the center of Mo Yaoshuang’s back. The tip of the blade pierced through the sacrificial robes, drawing a spray of pale silver blood. Gasps erupted throughout the hall, but Mo Yaoshuang simply turned her head and smiled at him.

“Zhichuan, you are still so disobedient.”

In the next instant, she grabbed the blade with her hand. Ice formed on her palm, instantly freezing the entire weapon into white frost. Yan Zhichuan’s chest jerked violently, as if he were being yanked by an invisible rope. He fell to one knee, the blood at the corner of his mouth deepening in color.

“Don’t forget who is keeping you alive,” Mo Yaoshuang whispered.

Bai Linye led his men forward, and the scene instantly descended into chaos. People screamed and retreated. Taking advantage of the confusion, I stepped back and showed my ring to the Imperial Guard guarding the furnace. The man indeed hesitated for a moment. While he was dazed, I shoved past the side door and sprinted into the passage behind the furnace.

From behind me came Yan Zhichuan’s voice, raspy to the extreme.

“Yi Jiangxue, run!”