Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Lan Yi didn’t do anything else to me after I fell asleep.

During the day, he tried various methods to teach me the Water Manipulation Art, quietly pushing me to my absolute limits.

At night, he would come to my room to sleep, transferring a portion of his spiritual energy to me.

However, this was not a long-term solution.

I could feel the dissipation of spiritual energy accelerating, and my body was becoming increasingly sensitive to the cold.

I began to suspect that Lan Yi was simply unwilling to give me half of the Snow Soul.

Given the current situation, my chances of surviving within the Ice Clan were slim, and as my source of spiritual energy, Lan Yi was proving to be quite unreliable.

And so, I began to plan my escape.

Rather than being controlled by others, it would be better to flee south and try to blend in with the humans.

On a night thick with frost and fog, while the High Priest and the ministers were occupied with a meeting, I put on as many warm clothes as possible. I silently scaled the palace walls and stepped into the slumbering cedar forest.

I gave three low whistles. Familiar hoofbeats echoed through the woods as the reindeer I had raised for years slowly approached, its nose nuzzling my palm.

I fed it a few fresh carrots. It chewed contentedly, allowing me to climb onto its back.

Under the starlit sky, I sat upon its back and let it carry me past the snow-covered cedars, galloping toward the south.

I used the constellations to navigate, watching as the surroundings grew increasingly unfamiliar, my heart filled with trepidation.

If there were any other way, I wouldn’t want to leave Winterfall City. All the joy, bitterness, and attachments of the first eighteen years of my life were buried within this city.

My mother gave birth to me eighteen years ago, on the night of the Snow Sacrifice.

Before she even had the chance to call me by name, she passed away due to blood loss.

My father never remarried. He sealed away her chambers and forbade anyone from entering.

According to the customs of the Ice Clan, the youngest royal heir would inherit the throne.

From the moment I started babbling, my father taught me how to guide the essence of water, but from beginning to end, I never received a response from a single drop. I was afraid of the cold and hardly dared to approach the royal pools in the palace.

As I grew older, the look in my father’s eyes became heavier.

This continued until the winter solstice of that year, when my father summoned the Divine Envoy from the edge of the snowy plains.

The Divine Envoy had me stand before a sheet of ice under the moonlight. My reflection on the ice was clear and pale, devoid of any spiritual light.

The Divine Envoy lowered his head and sighed, saying I was born Soulless, forsaken by the Snow God.

That night, my father sat alone on the cold steps outside the bedchamber, drinking cup after cup of wine.

By dawn, his hair and beard had turned completely white, as if they had been stained by the falling snow.