44. The Snow Monster in the Shilian Tower

Useful indeed, the marten functioned like a natural wall to keep the cold out. And the fire crystal even maximized its function by transmitting heat to keep Ye Lan warm. Seeing Ye Lan tightened her Marten coat, Libao said in smile, "Ok, now we can go on an adventure in the tower."

"Let's go!" Ye Lan had no prior knowledge of the history, background, and the creatures in the tower, and Libao also only knew few things about here. The only man who knew everything around here is the old man from Ye Lan's space.

On the fifth-level, all they could see was a white land of the snow frozen for thousands of miles with floating snowflakes, and within steps away, there were several snow mountains.

Ye Lan raised her palm upward to the sky. The snowflakes just fell on to her palm, gorgeous like specimen.

The old man who had returned to her personal space warned them, "These are all illusions. Monsters that can create such illusions must be a Snow Monster. Don't be fooled!"

"Snow Monster?"

"Snow Monster?" both of them asked in sync.

Libao scoffed, "Is the Snow Monster a lady? Is it pretty?"

Ye Lan frowned and responded to his scoff with a smile, ''You are not afraid of me telling Dan Niang about this, are you?"

"Eh, I am just kidding!" Libao scratched his head and smiled awkwardly.

"There exist many kinds of Snow Monsters, both male and female. But the one shared feature of this kind is their beauty. They are all dead from love in the snow, resting their deep resentment onto the snow and turning into the snowflakes in the sky. The coldness they created is too freezing even for a stage-two spiritual cultivator." The old man sighed, "They were all poor lives during their lifetime. But people say that the poor person must be utterly detestable. This is 100 percent true."

"Emm." Ye Lan did not say anything.

"Are they good?" Libao finally spoke of something useful.

"Of course." The old man replied with a smile, "The power of the Snow Monster mainly comes from their resentments. The greater the resentment, the stronger its power, and vice-versa. But when their power enters into a certain level, instead of relying on their resentments, they can start their spiritual stage practice just as a normal human. The Snow Monster who had cultivated their own spiritual power is the worst. They fear not the earthly restrain, nor the sunlight."

"Ah! We won't meet such monsters, will we?" Libao raised his eyebrows in disgust.

"No, you won't." the old man comforted Ye Lan and Libao, "Relax. Monsters here are constrained by the Shilian Tower. Their practices are limited by the tower's power. They can make only breakthroughs every thousand years once. Therefore, those elders from the academy dared to leave the tower here unattended."

"Hahaha! Finally, some humans here. I thought I could only see monsters here." at this moment, an affectedly sweet voice rose. The voice was so sweet that it made Ye Lan melt in the sweetness. Her voice, really sweet.

This voice had made Libao shiver. It was almost as sweet as Dan Niang's. But Dan Niang's voice is normal and sweet, and this was just weirdly sweet. Wouldn't she cramp her throat speaking like this?

"Come out! Don't pretend to be a ghost!" Ye Lan sneered.

Libao glanced around seriously. Just then, a red dress flashed through ahead of them. On high alert, Ye Lan reacted with a palm-attack and caused an eye-full of snowflakes in front of her.

"Yo, this little girl is so grumpy. How can you hit someone you just met." the red-dressed woman swaying in front of Ye Lan. Though her red dress was very eye-catching in the white snow world, she didn't seem to be afraid.

Ye Lan frowned at the red dress swinging in front of her while Libao whispered into her ears, "This is her territory, so we don't have the advantage." Also, the old man stressed to her, "Girl, you must keep in mind that you are in an illusion. Everything here is just a phantom!"

Illusion! Phantom! Ye Lan kept thinking of these two words. "In theory, illusions and phantoms are all generated from one's mind. Are these all her imaginations? No, that can't be true. These are all fantasy of the Snow Monster. I can't believe or trust my own eyes."

She couldn't be stuck here with Libao.

Even if Libao was not afraid of the cold, she was. She had to pass this floor.

Outside the Shilian Tower, the Dean was staring at Ye Lan's life star for a while. She hadn't moved for a while on the fifth floor.

"Why is she still there?!"

"Are they stuck on the fifth floor?"

"Haha! It seems that they are finally trapped. They were so fierce minutes before, but they were trapped now!"

"Yes, indeed! She was so ignorant before. She deserved it."

One by one, people ridiculed their sluggishness, sneering at their distress. Of course, the Dean could hear them. For all these years, he stayed behind the scenes to avoid seeing people like this.

They were all children of big families, growing up in conflicts of wealth and fame. They were all used to talks of money and interests. In the Dean's opinion, these children were all spoiled, and worse than the poor children. At least, the poor children had a correct view toward life.

But these children couldn't be disciplined or scolded. He had no choice but to let them develop freely. All he could do was focusing on a few good children and ignored the rest. Just let them be. Anyway, the Fengtian Academy would stand forever, no matter what they did.

Fengtian Academy would always be the supreme school in the Fengtian Continent no matter what. Looking up to Ye Lan in the tower, with frost in his eyes, he didn't know what was happening in there, but he knew what was on the fifth floor.

That was the monster he collected. Back then, he was just a law enforcement elder. During a trip to the human world, he strayed among the people.

He arrived at a wealthy village, witnessing a woman was locked in a bamboo cage and soaked in icy mountain spring. Though it hadn't snowed yet, it was early winter already. The water would freeze up on the surface at night.

The waterfall pouring down from the mountain left huge water splashes in the water pool below. The woman was placed next to the water splashes and left unattended even at night. The bamboo cage she was kept in was very strong and covered by oil, which ensured its strength even when soaked in water or chopped. The woman in it was in ragged clothing, with insulting markers all over her body. Her hair just cluttered on her face as if she was insulted and lost her soul.

In ragged clothes and dirty hair, with blood stains on her body, she seemed to have suffered enough, with empty eyes and pale complexion. She just kept rumbling, "Chai Lang, Chai Lang."

"Chai Lang?" The dean was intrigued by the name; he meddled with human affairs while he knew it was prohibited for unknown reasons.

He secretly transmitted some spiritual energy to the woman through a trick.

The Dean didn't know what he thought at the time, but he pitied her suffer and deep resentment. The resentment in her, though it did not appear on her face, could be clearly seen through her eyes. The girl was so pitiful that he felt for her. Thinking of this incident now, he looked back and asked himself if he really felt for her pettiness. The dean, deeply entangled by his actions before, introspected; he had always blamed everything on karma and fate, complaining about the unpredictable world.

In the eyes of those ordinary people, the woman was just overwhelmed by the sadness of fear. But, as an enlightened cultivator, he could see enormous grudge in her. He wondered what experience could cause such deep grudge and anger.

When he felt puzzled, he stood on the cloud and observed everything. But he forgot to freeze the time and seal his identity. Yet, fate really tricked them. With a single glance from far away and far up, the woman turned back suddenly and caught his eyesight. Seeing his figure reflecting in her blank eyes, he panicked and fell down to the woods. The look of her eyes really carved into his memory and gave him the chills. For just a single glance, he was so shocked that he froze for a long time.

Such a deep resentment! He sighed, but he couldn't stay long after all. Due to his own interest, he thought that even if he meddled with human affairs, everything would be fine after her death. After all, she was just a mortal human. And in case something really happened, she would just become a ghost with deep grudge which would be collected by ghost god. And he would be fine after all. He comforted himself like this. But something he didn't anticipate happened.

When he returned to the village, he was stunned. The once wealthy and prosperous village had been frozen into sculptures. Everyone there was frozen to death, holding their gestures and expressions at their death moment- horrified, ignorant, frightened, innocent. The entire village was like the Avichi Hell.

He had just been traveling around the world for three months since his last visit here. And within three months, a blooming village was turned into a hellhole.

Indeed, unpredictable times! Holding a sword in his hand, he walked slowly into the village covered by ice. The snow here was just strange, and it was freezing.

Somehow, he suddenly thought of her! Taking out his tracing tool, he located the belongings of the woman. A touch of her belongings unfolded her memory. The Dean was disappointed by what he saw, "the folks are never kind."

He walked on ice with his sword, and the snow mountains ahead gradually appeared. Looking around, he sensed the freeze permeating his body and frowned. He remembered what his master used to say, "If the snow is cold enough to permeate to the bone, then there must be the human heart or feelings attaching to it." He felt so cold now in the snow.

He raised his hand to catch a snowflake slightly, and it would not melt in the palm of his hand. Infused with his spiritual energy, the snowflakes only fainted a little. Suddenly, something hit him. He remembered something.

"Was it a Snow Monster?" he thought.

Thinking of this, he walked forward in a hurry and pinched his spiritual energy to use the seek-soul method. He had to find this Snow Monster.

His heart was surging; somehow, he seemed to know already who it was.