After the icicle came down, a shape of blazing white appeared suddenly in front of the huge white wolf… a half-transparent white wolf-shadow. An enormous body, snow-white fur, jaws half open, and a pair of wolf’s eyes shining with a strange light, fixed hard on them.

And the moment that half-transparent shape appeared, all three of them saw at once that its shape and that of the huge white body lying motionless behind it were startlingly alike.

As the snow-white wolf-shadow appeared, a prompt sounded in their ears at the same moment.

“Ding… The Frost Snow Wolf once liked to roam the frozen snowfields, with no fixed dwelling. Later, being with young, it settled in the deepest part of the Ice-Severed Wolf Den and for many years did not come out, so as to bring its next generation into the world. The conception and birth of an Immortal Beast is a comparatively long process. A hundred years ago the Frost Snow Wolf at last saw the birth of the little Frost Snow Wolf… but during that birth, a Golden-Armored Ice Bear — a level-60 low-tier Immortal Spirit Beast — blundered into the Ice-Severed Wolf Den and attacked the Frost Snow Wolf…”

“…In the act of giving birth, the Frost Snow Wolf was far below its usual strength, yet in the end it defeated the Golden-Armored Ice Bear all the same, through its own great power and a still greater will to protect. But that battle also left the little Frost Snow Wolf, born at the very moment the fighting ended, gravely wounded — at its birth it was already at its last breath… and the injuries the Frost Snow Wolf itself had taken were graver still… It died in the very act of bearing the little Frost Snow Wolf.”

“Though the Frost Snow Wolf’s body had died, it would not let its consciousness disperse, for thinking of the child that stood at death’s door the moment it was born; and under the force of that will, the consciousness that refused to scatter fused with the power that had once been its own, and the two became a ‘spirit.’ And it is this spirit that has spent its own power year upon year to shield the little Frost Snow Wolf and hold on to the last of its life. When the Frost Snow Wolf’s power runs out, that will be the moment the little Frost Snow Wolf dies. To let the little Frost Snow Wolf live… the only way is for it to take a human from another world as its master, because in becoming the pet of a human from another world, a beast’s power falls, but its existence comes to depend on that human’s life — not only will it not die at once, but even death can be undone, without limit.”

“Though the Frost Snow Wolf’s consciousness remains, its body is dead, and it cannot leave the Ice-Severed Wolf Den. All this time it has been waiting for a human from another world to come to the Ice-Severed Wolf Den, save its child and take the child away, so that it too may at last be released. But at the same time, a mother’s nature makes it fear that its child will fall into wicked hands, to be enslaved, abused and tormented… And so, to complete the Frost Snow Wolf’s long-cherished wish and save both Frost Snow Wolves, great and small, its recognition must first be won.”

The long prompt stopped there. All three of them had heard it perfectly clearly. The half-transparent wolf-shadow in front of them was in fact the “spirit” of the dead Frost Snow Wolf, and the attack launched at Ye Tianxie a moment ago had come from it as well.

Watching now with some idea of what they were looking at, they found what they had expected: the strange light coming off that great wolf-shadow was half wariness, and half a longing and a pleading of enormous complexity… For a mother, the most important thing in the world is always her child, and that nature, stamped deep in the soul of every mothering creature, knows no distinction of species, of time, or of world.

“Tianxie, what do we do?” Su Feifei asked quietly.

“Win this wolf’s recognition… does that mean talking it round?” Zuo Pojun said it thoughtfully, then went on with rising excitement, “Which means that if we can win its recognition, we get a little Frost Snow Wolf for a pet… And that little Frost Snow Wolf…” Zuo Pojun swallowed, his eyes lighting up. “It couldn’t be an Immortal Spirit Beast too, could it!? Because if it is, that’s an absolutely enormous deal!”

Ye Tianxie considered a moment and said in a low voice, “I’ll try.” He took two steps forward.

The Frost Snow Wolf’s eyes snapped onto him and locked there, and its body shifted slightly to block what lay behind it — to block the place where the little Frost Snow Wolf was hidden — and a warning light came up in them.

Ye Tianxie stopped where he was and went no further, meeting the Frost Snow Wolf’s gaze openly. After a short pause he spoke. “You are a great mother. For your child you stayed here even after losing your life, even after spirit and body came apart — and you have kept that watch for a hundred years. What you feel for your child moves us humans deeply as well… So I would gladly help you look after your child, and I swear to you that it will be my companion forever, not merely a pet, and that I will never mistreat it. So please, set your mind at rest and hand it over to me.”

Ye Tianxie had spoken at length, and everything he meant to say he had said. What waited for him when he finished was a long silence…

The Frost Snow Wolf’s eyes stayed locked on him. It did not attack, but the worry and the wariness deep in those pupils were still there. An Immortal Spirit Beast has a fully developed intelligence, and the choice in front of it bore on its child’s whole future and whole life. For its child it had given up far too much and borne far too much. How could a few sentences from Ye Tianxie make it believe him and hand the little Frost Snow Wolf over so lightly?

Set against the Ice-Bone Severed Road behind them, this last stage of the System Quest was the hardest of all. This special quest, closer to a persuasion than to anything else, was the last and most crucial step in “saving the Frost Snow Wolf.” To pass it, the Frost Snow Wolf’s trust had to be won without reserve… and the difficulty of that was enormous.

What it needed was not force… but, as Yaya had said, “cleverness.”

It had not worked — and Ye Tianxie was not greatly surprised. If that were all it took, the quest would have been rather too simple. Anybody at all could work out what this quest wanted and say something a hundred times finer than what he had just said; whether the heart behind it was true or false, there would be no telling. How could a Frost Snow Wolf with a fully developed intelligence be brought round that easily?

So he had to produce something it could believe.

Zuo Pojun called out from behind him. “Oh! Set your mind at ease. My Second Brother is a man who absolutely keeps his word, and I’ll tell you this — my Second Brother is the strongest of all the players there are. Your child going with my Second Brother is the best choice it could possibly have. Look, we must be the first group of people to get in here, right? If you can’t bring yourself to trust us, waiting for the next lot to come along won’t be easy at all.”

Zuo Pojun’s words set a struggle flickering in the Frost Snow Wolf’s eyes, but it was replaced at once, again, by a deeper wariness and worry.

Ye Tianxie raised a hand behind him, signaling Zuo Pojun to say no more. He thought for a moment, then picked Yaoyao up from beside his feet and held it against his chest, stroking it gently with one hand. “This is my companion. Its name is Yaoyao, and it is also called the Mystic Spirit Snow Fox. Whether you have ever heard the name Mystic Spirit Snow Fox, I don’t know. It may look very small, but when it comes to protecting its companions there is nothing stronger. If your child comes with me, the two of them will become the best of companions, and Yaoyao and I will protect your child together… Please trust me.”

Silence. The Frost Snow Wolf was as unmoved as before.

“The three of us came to the Ice-Severed Wolf Den and endured that brutal cold to cross the Ice-Bone Severed Road… Perhaps cold like that is nothing to you, but to us it was hell itself, and we came here anyway with our teeth clenched. And we came for one purpose only: to help complete your wish and save your child. Please trust us, and let your child… have its freedom sooner, and reach the world outside sooner. If you give this up because you have too many misgivings, then what you destroy instead may be the hope that belonged to it.”

Ye Tianxie’s last sentence plainly struck the Frost Snow Wolf hard. Its body swayed a few times with the struggle in it. Ye Tianxie waited quietly for an answer — and what came was silence again.

“Ai! Just trust us, will you? Otherwise — I really don’t dare come to a place like this a second time, and if nobody else ever comes here to save your child, don’t you go blaming us.” Zuo Pojun said it with some agitation. Watching Ye Tianxie work away at it patiently, line by line, was almost more than his comparatively hot and hasty temper could stand.

“Big Brother Zuo,” Su Feifei said at this point. She shook her head. “Don’t talk to the mother wolf like that. She is being this careful… because she is a mother, and what is behind her is her child.”

Zuo Pojun: “……”

“Tianxie, let me talk to her — may I?” Su Feifei said it looking at Ye Tianxie. Somehow, Ye Tianxie caught a forlorn cast in her eyes; something turned over in him, and he nodded gently and took a step back.

Su Feifei walked forward and stood where Ye Tianxie had stood. She looked at the Frost Snow Wolf and the struggle in its eyes, and said in a very, very soft voice, “You… are a great mother, just like my mother… Perhaps every mother in the world is great like this. For your child, even after you died, you struggled to stay behind, guarding it with the last of your strength and your conviction… And my mother, for me, traded her own life for mine, in just the same way…”

The Frost Snow Wolf: “……”

Su Feifei laughed softly, though her eyes had already misted over. “Because I once had a mother, I know how happy a child with a mother is… and because I no longer have one, I know… how pitiful a child without a mother is. Your child is happy, because its mother gave up so much for it. But your child is pitiable too, because in the end its mother left it while it was still very small… exactly as mine did when I was a little girl.”

She had lifted the edge of it herself — the memory she least wanted to touch, the most painful scar of all. Even after all these years, the grief and the longing left by the upheaval of that one night still filled Su Feifei’s chest until the sorrow of it left her barely able to breathe. In the few short sentences it took to say it, her tears were already falling in streams, and where they landed on the ground they turned into small, glittering beads of ice.

“Will you… give your child to me? We have been through the same thing, and we both had gentle, great mothers… so we both know what the other is missing, and what the other wants. We will be the best of friends, the best of companions… Won’t we?”

Su Feifei had said far less than Ye Tianxie, and far more simply… What she had that he did not were tears, and a swell of feeling that memory dragged up out of her and that she could not hold back.

The light in the Frost Snow Wolf’s eyes dimmed — and at that moment a small ball of pure white light drifted slowly out from beneath its silent body and floated toward where Su Feifei stood…

(End of Chapter 204)