Chapter 13

Chapter 13

The passage was longer than I had imagined, and far colder.

The deeper I went, the faster the heat from the Furnace Room faded, until only a bone-deep chill remained. Small lamps were embedded in the walls every few steps, their wicks burning with a ghostly blue flame. Within the fire, the faces of children flickered, staring back at me.

I opened the first door with the copper key.

For the second door, I took out Ming Yinxing’s matchbox, pried open the bottom, and turned the small key hidden inside three times.

As the door opened, I heard a faint sound from inside the box, like someone tapping gently from within.

“Sister Jiangxue.”

My hand trembled, and I nearly burst into tears.

The Third Gate stood at the very end, cast from a solid slab of dark iron. Carved into the center of the door was a woman reaching out to take fire. Beside the keyhole was a shallow groove, just large enough to fit a palm.

Recalling the words on the copper plate, I gritted my teeth and drew my dagger, slicing a gash across my palm.

The moment my blood dripped into the groove, a very faint sigh echoed from behind the door.

It sounded like many, many people who had frozen to death finally letting out a collective breath of relief.

The door slowly creaked open.

Inside was not the sea of fire I had expected, but a massive ice cavern. Suspended in the center was a Crimson Heart, wrapped in black chains. At the end of every chain was a matchbox. Countless boxes floated in mid-air, clustered together like a dense swarm of small lanterns.

Near the bottom, I saw “Ming Yinxing.”

I also saw “Yi Yinchun.”

With every beat of the heart, those boxes trembled slightly, as if they were breathing in unison with whatever was pulling them. Curled in the deepest part of the ice cavern was a woman, her long hair spreading across the floor, half of her body buried in the ice. Her eyes were closed, a crimson mole sat between her brows, and her face was almost identical to the one I had seen in the copper mirror outside.

The Snow Queen.

No-she was a monster fed by Dream Fire until this day.

She slowly opened her eyes, looked at me, and smiled.

“You’re just like your mother, never willing to stay quiet.” Her voice was soft and sweet, like someone coaxing a child to sleep. “But in the end, your mother still lit the fire. Do you know why?”

I gripped my knife tightly and did not answer.

“Because she couldn’t bear it.” The Snow Queen stroked a matchbox floating beside her. “Children from poor families are the most pitiful, and the most foolish. They clearly have nothing, yet they just can’t bear to watch others freeze to death. When your mother saw the city full of corpses, she still knelt and begged me to keep the fire burning.”

“You’re lying!”

“Then see for yourself.”

With a flick of her hand, Yi Yinchun’s matchbox flew toward me of its own accord. The lid popped open, and a single match slowly rose. Almost instinctively, I reached out and struck it.

The moment the light flared, I saw my mother.

She was kneeling in the middle of a field of corpses, cradling a swaddled infant in her arms. The child’s face was blue with cold, yet it was still crying weakly. The snow was too heavy; the city gates were piled high with bodies, and in the distance, countless commoners were kneeling and pleading. Mo Yaoshuang stood on high and asked her: stop the fire, or continue it?

Mother looked at the child in her arms. Finally, with trembling hands, she dripped her own blood into the Furnace Lock.

My entire body was shaking.

Because that child in the swaddle was me.

In the glow of the fire, Mother suddenly looked up and met my eyes.

“Jiangxue.” Her voice was still steady across sixteen years of snow and fire. “Don’t be like me.”

The flame suddenly went out.

My tears hit the back of my hand, painfully hot. But the Snow Queen’s smile grew even more tender.

“Do you see? Your mother begged me too. Now, it’s your turn.”

As soon as she spoke, the ice cavern suddenly shook. A thunderous crash echoed from outside, as if something in the Furnace Room had collapsed. In the next instant, Yan Zhichuan burst through the half-opened iron door, covered in blood.

He held a dripping blade, his shoulders covered in frost, looking as if he had crawled out of a pile of the dead.

“Yi Jiangxue.” He was breathing heavily, barely able to stand, yet he still walked toward me step by step. “Take down the last matchbox.”

“You still want to burn them?”

“Not burn.” He stared at the heart entangled in chains, his eyes filled with a desperate, all-or-nothing ferocity. “Release.”