A magical journey of a sharp-tongued woman and a goofy man

The sound of ice cracking was particularly jarring in the silent wilderness.

Ye Shuli knelt on the sloping ice rock, her right hand tightly gripping the glowing golden pattern on her collarbone, while the ice threads wrapped around her left wrist were crawling along her blood vessels toward her heart.

The jade bracelet emitted a high-frequency buzzing sound on her wrist, and three different colored light spots darted and collided under her skin.

"Your lungs are frosted over." Jiang Ye knelt on one knee, stirring up tiny shards of ice, his fingertips hovering three inches above her neck, too afraid to touch her.

The elemental forces flowing under her skin were like living things, tearing spiderweb-like cracks into the girl's fair neck.

Ye Shuli bit her tongue to keep from crying out in pain: "Southeast...that star..." Ice crystals fell from between her teeth with every half-word she uttered, "...its coordinates are moving at twelve times the speed of sound..."

"Is this still considered a physics problem?" Jiang Ye pulled open his outer robe to reveal twenty-eight hidden compartments on his waistband, and flicked out seven copper coins engraved with star maps as his fingers flew across the surface.

Three of them were thrown back by elemental forces as soon as they touched the ground, crashing into distant ice pillars with a crisp metallic clang.

The golden patterns on the surface of the twelve ice pillars suddenly twisted, and the suspended golden ice cones collectively emitted a buzzing sound.

Jiang Ye's right pupil split into a double ring, and the star trails appearing on his retina overlapped with the direction the ice cone was pointing: "It's a Tide Array!" He tore off his hair ribbon and strung the copper coins into the shape of the Big Dipper. "Thirty years ago, Ling Shu City used this array to contain a rampaging lightning element."

Ye Shuli suddenly grabbed his wrist: "Don't use Ling Shu City's..." Before she could finish speaking, she was choked by ice shards rising in her throat, and the golden pattern on her collarbone had already spread to behind her ears.

The jade bracelet suddenly emitted a red light that enveloped the two of them, and the three elemental forces collided within the barrier, creating lightning-like sparks.

Jiang Ye tore open the bandage on his right hand with his teeth, and beads of blood seeping from an old wound on his palm floated as the eye of the array: "The Tide Array requires a living medium." His bloodied fingers drew a distorted six-pointed star on the ice surface. "Do you remember last month in Medicine King Valley, how that old swindler used wild rabbits to transfer miasma?"

"You want to be the medium... cough cough... are you looking for death...?" Ye Shuli's pupils began to turn icy blue, and the icicles that had formed on the tips of her hair were slowly growing.

Suddenly, the stars in the southeast burst forth with blinding light, and the twelve ice pillars cracked open, revealing their intricate gear structure.

Jiang Ye slapped the last two copper coins into the ice crevice: "You said back then, 'Energy transfer requires an equivalent carrier.'" With a flick of his wrist, he pulled at the ice threads binding the two of them, and a strand of the jade bracelet's red light suddenly separated and wrapped around his bleeding palm. "My origin is the water elemental root, which can serve as a buffer."

The half-gear made of icicles suddenly accelerated its rotation, tearing a tiny black crack in the night sky.

Veins bulged on the back of Jiang Ye's neck, and the talismans in the twenty-eight hidden compartments automatically flew out to form a ring barrier.

When the seventh copper coin was embedded in the array's core, the three energies within Ye Shuli's body suddenly stopped simultaneously.

"Now!" Jiang Ye pulled the ice silk and leaned back, and a vortex of ice and fire exploded between their clasped hands.

The buzzing sound emitted by the jade bracelet turned into a low-frequency vibration, and the golden ice cones suspended in the air collectively changed direction, pointing their tips at the girl in the center of the formation.

The golden pattern on Ye Shuli's collarbone suddenly detached from her skin and solidified in the air into the shape of a physical key.

The clicking sound of gears meshing came from inside the twelve ice pillars, and the southeastern star, trailing a luminous tail, fell below the horizon.

As the last trace of ice element flowed into the formation along the ice silk, the copper coin formation set up by Jiang Ye simultaneously lit up with the lights of the Twenty-Eight Constellations.

"Enter the formation." The moment Jiang Ye released the ice silk, he spat out a mouthful of blood mist, and the wound on his right palm had frozen into ice crystals.

The floating golden key suddenly inserted itself into the gap in the gear made of ice cones, and the entire ice field began to collapse around the array.

The moment Ye Shuli rolled into the eye of the six-pointed star array, the twelve ice pillars collapsed with a crash.

The falling ice spikes didn't crash to the ground; instead, they reformed into a complete mechanical gear above the array—a miniature version of the giant gear that had swallowed the entire subway station on the day she traversed it.

The jade bracelet suddenly detached from the wrist and hovered in the center of the gear, with the three elemental forces forming a stable spiral structure within the bracelet.

The rumbling sound of the collapsing ice field gradually dissipated, and the jade bracelet made a crisp metallic clanging sound as it was fastened back onto Ye Shuli's wrist.

Jiang Ye was about to get up, supporting himself on the ice, when he suddenly noticed tender green moss seeping out from under the melting ice—this plant, which shouldn't be in such a cold place, was growing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

“Elemental imbalance.” Ye Shuli pressed down on the still-humming jade bracelet. Three colors of light formed a stable triangular structure under her skin, except for the silver-blue representing frost, which still lingered at the edges. “The formation can only last for twelve hours.”

Jiang Ye suddenly stopped wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth.

Three ice crystals, like butterflies, perched on his shoulder, their wings forming ancient totems with naturally occurring patterns.

The moment he reached out to touch it, the ice butterfly transformed into a stream of light and shot towards the newly grown cedar forest in the southeast.

“Elemental spirits.” Ye Shuli was about to get up when the red light emanating from the jade bracelet pressed her back to her spot. Shackles formed by the three elemental forces imprisoned her within the remaining six-pointed star pattern of the array. “They only appear when the elemental tides are abnormal.”

Jiang Ye had already run towards the cedar forest through the melting ice water.

Twenty-eight copper coins jingled at his waist, and pale blue spiritual energy seeped from the still unhealed icy wound on his right palm, automatically forming a fluorescent path of newly grown moss wherever he went.

Deep within the cedar forest, translucent sprites float above a cluster of ice crystal mushrooms.

It is composed of constantly recombining water elements; with each word spoken, it shatters into snowflakes and then reforms: [A Lock of Obsession]

Ye Shuli arrived just in time to hear those four words.

The red light shackles formed by the jade bracelet collided with the icy mist released by the elf, creating tiny sparks. The golden key on her collarbone suddenly projected a phantom image, translating the elf's words into fragmented text that appeared on the ice surface.

Jiang Ye embedded three copper coins into the tree rings: "She said there's a lock in your heart." The ice-like characters reformed as he spoke, revealing a complete sentence: "[Elemental perception is affected by emotional fluctuations], 'That time in Medicine King Valley...'"

"Shut up." The fire element that Ye Shuli was gathering at her fingertips suddenly went out of control, melting the newly formed ice crystals at her feet.

The moment the jade bracelet's red light surged, the spirit suddenly shattered into millions of snowflakes, carrying with it thirty years of elemental memories that flooded into her brow.

Countless overlapping images appeared on the ice: Jiang Ye catching her with his bare hands as she fell off a cliff during a thunderstorm, his blood dripping onto the Xuan Tie sword to draw a substitute talisman; under the moonlight, he secretly switched the Heartless Pill she was about to take; in the chaotic battle three months ago, the deep, bone-revealing knife wound on his back was not left by a demonic beast at all...

“Energy transfer requires an equivalent carrier.” Ye Shuli murmured, repeating Jiang Ye’s words from back then, her fingertips unconsciously tracing the newly formed cracks on the inside of the jade bracelet.

Those scenes she had deliberately ignored were clearly replayed under the impetus of elemental power—every time at the brink of life and death, this guy who always loved to joke around was fulfilling his promise in the most clumsy way.

The jade bracelet suddenly emitted a clear and melodious sound.

The originally free-floating silver-blue light spot slowly sank into the center of the triangular structure, and the shackles formed by the power of the three elements shattered in response.

The moment Ye Shuli looked up, Jiang Ye was crushing the ice crystal scorpion that was trying to attack her with his bare hands. Blood dripped from between his fingers onto the snow and bloomed into tiny ice flowers.

“Does it hurt?”

"It doesn't hurt."

"fraud."

The ice crystal mushroom swarm suddenly turned north.

The elf's remaining consciousness transformed into icy mist text: [The earth element in the Eternal Night Wasteland is going berserk].

The last ice mushroom shattered before the two, revealing an elemental compass inside, as precise as a clock, its pointer trembling wildly as it pointed toward the reddening northwest horizon.