Chapter 1538 — Persuasion, Part One

When she heard the hair-raising account of Wei Zhao's great battle against Zhang Naipao and Feng Nitian, Feng Xiaoxiao could not keep her heart from pounding. She knew, of course, that Wei Zhao must have won — otherwise how could he be called the foremost man below the Earth-tier? Yet she could not help feeling nervous, and she was desperately eager to learn how he had dealt with those peerless experts from the ancient sects and ancient clans.

"So you see... with a boyfriend like that, you ought to treasure him... and the first thing you must do is become a cultivator and dissolve the yin-cold qi within your body. Otherwise, if you lose your very life, how will you stay by his side for a lifetime?" The Ice Palace Master spoke awkwardly; she had never tried to persuade anyone before, but now she had no choice but to lead Feng Xiaoxiao step by step toward joining the Ice Palace.

"Mm... I need to ask my husband Wei Zhao first," Feng Xiaoxiao stubbornly insisted.

"You..." The Ice Palace Master rolled her eyes, somewhat exasperated. "Think about it. He is a cultivator and you are not. His ultimate goal must be to break through the Heaven-tier and step into the Heavenly Dao. If you are merely an ordinary person, you have only a few short decades of life, while a Heaven-tier expert's lifespan is exceedingly long. When you die, what is he to do?"

"Oh," Feng Xiaoxiao said.

"You agree?" Hearing Feng Xiaoxiao respond, the Ice Palace Master was overjoyed.

"No," Feng Xiaoxiao said.

Apart from Wei Zhao's words, she trusted no one's. This Ice Palace Master seemed warm enough, but who knew what she was scheming? Unbidden kindness is either treachery or theft — Feng Xiaoxiao refused to believe the Ice Palace was so poor it could not even take in disciples.

If, as the Ice Palace Master had said earlier, one could only become an outer disciple after passing trials of unimaginable difficulty, and even that had the great families and sects scrambling for the chance, then would not the Ice Palace's recruitment of inner disciples have people fighting tooth and nail, heads bloodied?

So why fixate on her alone, a sick girl? Fine — even if she had some yin-cold constitution, was all this really necessary? Whether she joined the Ice Palace or not would hardly matter to them; the Ice Palace already had so many Heaven-tier experts, so what difference would one more make?

So Feng Xiaoxiao only hummed and hawed, and did not utter a single word of promise.

"..." The Ice Palace Master did not know what to say. It seemed she would have to talk with Wei Zhao instead, and hope he was an open-minded man.

Wei Zhao was waiting anxiously for news of Feng Xiaoxiao when a figure in azure drifted down before him. He hurried forward, cupped his fists, and asked, "Senior, my girlfriend Xiaoxiao, is she..."

"She has already woken. Come with me," Xiao Qing said, nodding to Wei Zhao.

"Ah! She's awake? That's wonderful!" Hearing that Feng Xiaoxiao had regained consciousness, Wei Zhao felt a wave of relief. He quickly fell in step behind Xiao Qing, but asked, "Aren't men forbidden to enter the Ice Palace?"

"You are the exception," Xiao Qing said.

"Me? The exception?" Wei Zhao was startled, unable to understand how he had become a special case — and moreover, he had not been an exception before, so why only now?

"The husbands of Ice Palace Masters throughout the ages have all been permitted to enter the inner court," Xiao Qing said.

"Huh?" Wei Zhao's eyes went wide. "The Ice Palace Master's husband? What is that supposed to mean?"

Wei Zhao was badly startled. Surely that cold little girl, the Ice Palace Master, had not taken a fancy to him and meant to take him as a live-in son-in-law? A cold sweat broke out over him at once. The girl might look pretty, but she was rather frosty! And besides, where was the ease in being a husband who marries into the wife's family? Wei Zhao had no wish to spend the rest of his life buried here!

Seeing Wei Zhao's look of horror, Xiao Qing was briefly taken aback, but she soon understood that he had misread her meaning, and hastened to explain: "Feng Xiaoxiao's constitution is truly a rare yin-cold body, the finest possible constitution for cultivating our Ice Palace's supreme arts! Therefore the Ice Palace Master wishes to take a disciple on her master's behalf, formally accepting Xiaoxiao as her junior sister, to remain in the Ice Palace and continue cultivating!"

"Oh?" Hearing Xiao Qing's words, Wei Zhao frowned. "You want to take Xiaoxiao as an inner disciple?"

"Not merely an inner disciple — the next Ice Palace Master!" Xiao Qing said. "Her constitution is even better suited to cultivating our Ice Palace's ice-attribute mental cultivation method than the Ice Palace Master's own. She can directly receive the power inheritance of the Snow and Ice Spirit Mountain — that is to say, she will not face the barrier we must break through, and can charge straight for the Heaven-tier in one stroke!"

"What!" Even with Wei Zhao's wide experience, Xiao Qing's words left him utterly astonished. No barrier to break through, and a direct charge to the Heaven-tier? What kind of existence was that? It was practically more overpowered than cheating!

Yet Wei Zhao quickly calmed down. He knew well what manner of place the Ice Palace was. Even if Feng Xiaoxiao's aptitude were heaven-defying, surely they would not offer such generous terms? If they had merely said she could cultivate here and dissolve the yin-cold qi in her body, Wei Zhao would have believed it. But for Feng Xiaoxiao to receive some inheritance and even become Ice Palace Master — that struck him as unreasonable.

Though Wei Zhao did not know what the Ice Palace's inheritance was, he had heard of similar inheritances. It was said that each generation's inheritance could be passed to only one person; in special cases, at most two. Thus the opportunity of inheritance was exceedingly precious. Even if Feng Xiaoxiao's aptitude was good, the Ice Palace could not simply pick someone at random to receive it.

"Why her?" Wei Zhao asked.

"I have already said — she possesses a rare yin-cold constitution, one seen but once in a thousand years! To be frank with you, the Ice Palace Master failed when she received the inheritance. The inheritance has strict requirements for the recipient's constitution: it must be an ice-cold constitution. But the Ice Palace Master has only a pseudo Ice Heart Jade Bone constitution, not a pure Ice Heart Jade Bone constitution!" Xiao Qing explained. "Such a constitution is not sufficiently refined; one must take the Ice Heart Jade Bone Pill to temper it, and only then can an Ice Heart Jade Bone constitution be artificially created! That is also why we said earlier that we were looking for an alchemist of the third grade or above!"

"Then the Ice Heart Jade Bone Pill is a third-grade pill?" Enlightenment dawned on Wei Zhao — now he understood why an alchemist was so important to the Ice Palace.

"Yes." Xiao Qing nodded. "But though it is called a third-grade pill, refining it is incomparably difficult. Even an alchemist of the fourth grade or above may not succeed."