101: Chapter 101 The fragments were glued together into ice, but it was too hot!

It is hatching slowly.

There is no warmth, no tacit understanding, only cold probes trying to measure where the other's bottom line lies, and how much value one can still extract from it.

Shen Xiao's back was pressed tightly against the rough, cold broken stele, every breath tugging at the dull, painful injuries in his chest and abdomen.

He silently mobilized that pathetic, nearly dried-up remnant of spiritual energy in his Dantian, like a clumsy apprentice trying to repair a tattered, leaky bellows, grinding bit by bit through his astringent Meridians to suppress the surging, bloody sweetness.

The trembling of his fingertips was subtle but stubborn; it was the aftereffect of forcibly activating the Silver Pattern System and nearly burning out his Mental Energy.

He tried hard to control his muscles, not letting this signal of weakness be too obvious.

Yet his gaze was like an uncontrollable fish, sliding over the coagulated dark bloodstains on the ground, sweeping past the Light Cocoon that was as dead and silent as a stubborn rock, and finally landing on the woman opposite him.

Xia Lengbai was standing.

Not leaning, not relaxing, just a straight, almost ritualistic "standing."

As if the wretchedness of that Soul shattering just now was merely an illusion.

But Shen Xiao knew it wasn't.

The circle of Silver Pattern in his Dantian, though dim at the moment, still retained a trace of an almost instinctive, keen sensitivity to the surrounding energy fluctuations.

The layer of ice-blue light around Xia Lengbai, belonging to the Tomb Guardian Seal Legacy, had a flickering rhythm that was not right.

It was too fast, the frequency of the flickering light revealed a heart-palpitating disorder, like a spiritual energy battery about to overload and explode.

Deep within that light, some heavy, nearly overflowing "undercurrent" was surging, which she was suppressing tightly beneath her skin with astonishing willpower, maintaining the surface calm of this humanoid ice sculpture.

In the stone chamber, only the stubborn dripping of water droplets remained, drip… drip… drip… beating against the suffocating silence.

Then, she spoke.

Her voice remained cold and clear, as if coming from the depths of an ice cellar, but the content was like a precise scalpel, dissecting directly into the core of the chaos just now.

"You just now,"

Her ice-blue pupils locked onto Shen Xiao, carrying not a hint of an interrogative arc, only a statement, calm enough to chill one to the bone,

"The thing you risked total Mental Energy collapse to snatch from that crack, and what 'It' was desperately trying to seal off, are the same thing."

The "It" she referred to was naturally the self-enclosed Light Cocoon beside them.

"The backlash of emotional stripping? Or…"

Xia Lengbai tilted her head slightly, a very subtle movement that made the sense of scrutiny even stronger,

"A mirror image?"

It wasn't a question.

It was a conclusion she reached after digesting her own pain and catching glimpses from that mirror image feedback.

She placed herself, Shen Xiao, and even that Consciousness Entity on the same scale to weigh.

Denial was meaningless.

This woman had exchanged her own mental collapse for this bit of "insight," and speaking it out now was both a confirmation and a declaration, declaring that she was no longer the puppet purely manipulated by the "deep affection" script; she had begun to see the strings.

Shen Xiao grinned, a smile without any warmth tugging at the dried blood on the corners of his mouth, bringing a subtle stinging pain.

"If emotions are a knife,"

His voice was severely hoarse, every word sounding like sandpaper rubbing against his throat,

"Then when you stab out, the wrist holding the knife will also be shaken numb, or even fracture."

He paused, his gaze tightly locked onto Xia Lengbai's reaction, capturing any slightest contraction or tremor in her pupils.

"It is afraid of pain."

He raised his chin toward the dead, silent Light Cocoon,

"So, it sealed off its own 'wrist,' along with the ability to perceive 'pain.'"

The air seemed to stagnate for a moment. The "drip" sound of water droplets was exceptionally clear.

Shen Xiao continued, his voice lowered further, yet clearer, like a dull knife scraping across an ice surface:

"And you…" He intentionally let this sentence hang, observing.

There was still no expression on Xia Lengbai's face, but with the aid of the remnant Silver Pattern's perception of the energy field, Shen Xiao clearly "heard" that the flow of the ice-blue light around her had a momentary, almost imperceptible stagnation.

Now is the time.

Just as he was speaking, fully attracting Xia Lengbai's attention to this metaphor about "pain sensation," the index finger of his right hand, which hung at his side and appeared to be resting weakly on his knee, moved imperceptibly.

A trace of silver, thinner than a spider's thread and dimmer than moonlight, quietly seeped from his fingertips, silently merging into the cold, rough ground beneath him.

This was not an attack, nor could it even be considered probing; it was more like extending an extremely sensitive nerve ending into the surrounding environment that had just experienced the impact of "mirror feedback" and where the information residue had not yet completely settled.

He was "listening."

Listening for the most subtle "echoes" that might have remained after the collision of those floating, ownerless, extreme emotions (Xia Lengbai's "disgust" and the "resistance" in First Child's memory) from just now.

He was verifying a terrifying possibility derived from the bit of cold logic fragments he had just snatched.

Do emotions, especially extreme emotions, truly possess "contagiousness" or "interference" under specific rules?

Especially when the target's own emotional field is extremely unstable?

The information mire environment remained silent, but the tentacles extended by the Silver Pattern seemed to be able to "see" the invisible "emotional dust" floating in the air.

They were weak, chaotic, but not completely dead.

And Xia Lengbai was the most conspicuous energy source and sensor in this unstable field.

Just as he finished speaking, an anomaly suddenly occurred.

The ice-blue light around Xia Lengbai suddenly stalled without any warning!

It didn't get stronger or weaker, but like a faulty fluorescent tube, it flickered violently a few times, and in the alternation of light and dark, it vaguely revealed a struggling, chaotic undertone.

Immediately after, the light began to fluctuate and distort irregularly, no longer a stable protective aura, but rather like a water surface into which a stone had been thrown, rippling out chaotic circles.

"Urgh…!"

A short, suppressed groan.

Xia Lengbai's body swayed almost imperceptibly, and her left hand subconsciously covered her chest again.

But this time, her eyes were no longer empty or dazed, but suddenly sharpened, like ice picks, piercing fiercely toward Shen Xiao!

"Are you 'listening'?"

Her voice carried a distinct, cold interrogation for the first time, and even a trace of… offended anger?

Beneath that anger was a deeper shock.

Shen Xiao instantly retracted that wisp of Silver Pattern tentacle, moving so fast that it was as if nothing had happened just now.

His Adam's apple rolled with difficulty, forcibly swallowing back another mouthful of bloody sweetness that had surged to his lips, his hoarse voice revealing an exhaustion of having survived a disaster:

"No."

He met Xia Lengbai's gaze that was about to freeze his Soul, word by word, slowly and clearly:

"I am 'testing.'"

The temperature in the stone chamber seemed to drop a few more degrees.

Water droplets froze in mid-air, and the interval between dripping lengthened.

Shen Xiao stared at her, watching the layer of ice-like calmness on her face finally be breached by a subtle crack from the sudden energy disorder and palpitations just now.

Beneath the crack was a fleeting, genuine shock and confusion belonging to the person "Xia Lengbai" regarding the unknown disturbance, rather than any set expression of "Ice Soul Fairy" or "yandere heroine."

He succeeded.

With the smallest interference, he verified the theory in those cold fragments and also probed the most fragile node of her current state.

The fingers Xia Lengbai had pressed against her chest turned pale, the knuckles white from the force.

She looked at Shen Xiao, her eyes complex to the extreme, cold, scrutinizing, shocked and angry, and also a trace of lingering fear from that momentary loss of control just now, which she might not even have realized herself.

Silence spread, heavier and stickier than the previous stillness, filled with unspoken words and energy about to erupt.

Finally, Xia Lengbai slowly lowered her hand.

The ice-blue light stopped its chaotic flickering, but it did not return to stability; instead, it settled into a deeper, more ominous dark blue, tightly wrapping around her like the final, oppressive clouds before a storm.

She looked at Shen Xiao for a long time.

So long that Shen Xiao almost thought she was going to make a move, or say something even more terrifying.

Then, she spoke, her voice calm without a ripple, yet it made one's heart colder than any roar.

"Shen Xiao."

She called his name, very lightly, very clearly.

"Your 'test' was very effective."

She turned around, facing the dead, silent Light Cocoon, her back straight, the light of the Tomb Guardian Seal flickering eerily in her palm, tearing at and devouring the ice-blue energy around her, flickering unsteadily.

"Then, now,"

Her voice drifted over, as cold as the wind that never thaws on the peak of Kunlun for ten thousand years,

"It is my turn."