After Lin Feng's unexpected rise from a mere servant to outer disciple, his fame spreads like wildfire through the Ironwood Sect. But not all are pleased. Jealousy brews among noble-blooded cultivators, and a deadly ambush is set during a spirit herb expedition in the Frozen Mist Valley.
Wounded and surrounded, Lin Feng escapes deep into the valley's forbidden zone, where even Core Formation elders dare not tread. There, amidst an eternal storm of snow and spirit winds, he discovers a crystalline lake sealed in time. At its center floats a lone woman in white robes, encased in an enormous lotus of ice.
Drawn to her for reasons he can't explain, Lin Feng touches the ice—triggering a flash of ancient memories not his own. In them, the woman is called Lan Xue, the Ice Lotus Empress, once a prodigy of the Eternal Frost Palace. Betrayed and sealed in slumber for millennia, she waits for someone strong enough to awaken her.
Moved by her lonely, tragic past—and the familiar glimmer in her eyes—Lin Feng cultivates by her side, absorbing the frost qi and awakening a dormant affinity within himself. As he breaks through to the Foundation Realm under the frozen moon, the lotus cracks—and Lan Xue awakens.
Her beauty is ethereal, her presence cold and distant, yet her first words shake him:
> "So you're the one… who defied fate to reach me."
Though she claims she will leave once her strength returns, Lan Xue begins traveling with Lin Feng, drawn by his strange energy and relentless will. What begins as cold detachment shifts into a slow-burning, unspoken bond—marked by battles fought back-to-back, moments of silent trust, and rare flashes of warmth in her otherwise icy gaze.
But the world is watching. The Eternal Frost Palace has sensed her awakening—and they want their Empress back.