The Ephemeral Snow Lotus would only appear and bloom for Emperor Jingren and Su Huailing. Xiao Jinyi knew this better than anyone.

This world contained three components entirely unlike anything else. If you said that all the other components only required 0.00000001 seconds for the system to process, then processing these three components took up at least 70% of the system’s memory. And the system didn’t have so much processing space; because of this, the Ephemeral Snow Lotus, the third special component, was usually in hibernation mode.

In order to understand the doctor’s personality, Xiao Jinyi had read his notes. Describing the Ephemeral Snow Lotus, the doctor had written as follows: “I want to design a component that will overturn the whole era. I will invest it with the ability to compute and to improve and upgrade itself. This will be the first step toward giving artificial intelligence a soul.”

At the time, Xiao Jinyi had merely thought that the doctor’s ideas were a little naive. Even if this component could compute for itself, as soon as the primary power source was cut off, it would cease to operate. The idea of giving it a soul was a fantasy.

But having met and fallen in love with Emperor Jingren, Xiao Jinyi finally understood what the doctor was thinking.

He desperately hoped for Emperor Jingren to have a true soul, like the doctor had said. Even if in the future the data that made up Emperor Jingren was uploaded into an AI, it would still be possible for them to be together.

It was precisely because the doctor had said this that Xiao Jinyi particularly wanted to find him. In the doctor he saw a possibility for him and Emperor Jingren to be together; if anyone could truly bring Emperor Jingren to life, it was the doctor.

But Huyan Xi’s words had made him despair. Now, Huyan Xi’s search for the Ephemeral Snow Lotus had rekindled his hope.

Huyan Xi was a being outside of this world’s ambit. Huyan Xi had encountered the doctor. Huyan Xi was searching for the Ephemeral Snow Lotus…

Now, Xiao Jinyi had a clear answer in mind to explain precisely what Huyan Xi was.

He was a mutated component. Perhaps it was encountering the doctor that had changed him and made him understand the truth of this world, made him wish to possess true life rather than existing as a cluster of data. He had the ability to compute and to upgrade himself: Huyan Xi’s martial skills were the most obvious example of this. He had raised his own abilities, changed himself from what the system had made him.

So he was seeking the Ephemeral Snow Lotus for one specific purpose: to exist, to be alive!

If Huyan Xi could live with the aid of the Ephemeral Snow Lotus, what about Emperor Jingren? The young emperor who had realized the truth of this world on his own was certain to be made of more complex data than Huyan Xi. If he obtained the Ephemeral Snow Lotus…

Hope beat wildly in Xiao Jinyi’s chest, ready to explode. Squeezing the pendant, he felt both worry and anticipation.

Without the pendant, looking for the three of them in this endless field of snow was like looking for a needle in the sea. But if he could find Emperor Jingren in time, then there would be hope for their future!

Jing Xixian was still attempting to find traces that had been obliterated by the wind and snow when he saw Xiao Jinyi come to a sudden halt up ahead; his expression had turned grave.

“General Xiao?” An ominous premonition arose in Jing Xixian’s heart.

“Commander Jing,” said Xiao Jinyi, “take this bottle of liquor. If you haven’t found us within three days, leave the mountain.”

“Empress, what are you planning…” Jing Xixian felt a frisson of dread.

Xiao Jinyi found that he preferred being addressed as empress over being addressed as General Xiao. Lips turning up in a faint smile, he said, “Naturally I wish to find His Majesty. As long as His Majesty lives, I will live. If His Majesty is no more, then I also have no further need to exist.”

Then he produced a pill, popped it into his mouth, and swallowed it along with some snow.

He had come to find the doctor; naturally he had means at his disposal that others didn’t. This pill could draw an overdraft on his life force and temporarily grant him greater power than existed in this world. At the same time, this power came at the price of burning through his life. Of course, this life wasn’t the one in the real world, but the one in the game. Once the effects of this pill ended, he would “die” in this world and, like all the other beta players, return to the real world. Because his assignment was to find the doctor, he couldn’t use this pill except as a last resort.

For others, returning only meant missing out on the prize money and entailed no other losses. People like the four consorts, who were doomed to lose, were probably only too eager to go back. But for the empress, this was a desperate gamble.

If he won, he would gain a future for himself and Emperor Jingren. Even if he lost, he might at least give the young emperor a chance to return to the capital and continue bearing the weight of the realm.

Even if for him this would mean an eternal parting, it would still be worth it.

Because the young emperor wasn’t a person to be fettered by love. He was strong and brave; he wouldn’t let love blind him into becoming a craven who abandoned his responsibilities because he had lost his love.

As the pill took effect, Xiao Jinyi felt his body fill with strength. He was more powerful than he had been at his peak.

He moved very slightly; Jing Xixian saw nothing but a blur of white passing before his eyes, and the empress vanished.

If he couldn’t find Emperor Jingren quickly, he would cut down the time. If he couldn’t see the young emperor before him, he would run over the whole mountain range, up to heaven and down to the underworld, whatever it took to find his young emperor!

—

Su Huailing was cold and hungry, and she was nearly frozen to death. If she hadn’t happened to have half a mantou hidden away, the cold would certainly have killed her by now. Huyan Xi was a madman. He forced Su Huailing to drag Emperor Jingren through snow, this way and that, with no direction, no goal in mind, just as long as she kept walking. But she couldn’t stop, not for a moment.

Su Huailing knew that she really couldn’t stop. Once she stopped, she would fall down in the snow and never get up again. But now, Emperor Jingren’s breaths were growing weaker and weaker, and the blood on his head had frozen solid. It took nearly all her strength to move His Majesty; his arms and legs were chilled to the bone. Even if they were rescued now, there would be no saving his hands and feet. Once warmth returned to them, they would begin to decay.

As she walked, she struggled to rub Emperor Jingren’s hands. But Huyan Xi unexpectedly lashed Emperor Jingren with his whip. The whip was full of barbs, which caught in Emperor Jingren’s flesh. The open wounds quickly iced over amid the snow. The blood congealed on Emperor Jingren’s back. It was a horrifying sight.

All this time, Huyan Xi had been tormenting Emperor Jingren.

“You don’t need to go to this much trouble to kill someone. Why do you keep tormenting him! You lunatic!” Su Huailing howled. She was no longer afraid of Huyan Xi. What good would it do to be afraid? Huyan Xi wasn’t planning to let them live. Her terror wouldn’t win her any sympathy from him. At least she could scold him to her heart’s content before she died.

But Huyan Xi wasn’t mad. There was frenzy in his expression, but when he looked at Emperor Jingren, his eyes were still cold. “If you don’t experience all the suffering the world has to offer, if you aren’t on the point of death, the Ephemeral Snow Lotus won’t automatically appear.”

Yes: this was the condition for activating the Ephemeral Snow Lotus.

In the novel, Su Huailing had been poisoned, and the poison tormented her daily, causing her unimaginable pain. As a last resort, Emperor Jingren took her to seek the Ephemeral Snow Lotus, which only appeared when the situation was as grave as it could be. If their deaths weren’t preceded by pain, even if he killed them, the Ephemeral Snow Lotus still wouldn’t appear.

The lash of the whip woke Emperor Jingren. The pain made him open his eyes. His train of thought had nearly linked up. Just a little more.

Because of this, Emperor Jingren stopped playing dead. He said weakly, “Huyan Xi, do you wish to ascend and be free of the fetters of this false world, or…do you want immortality, to live truly?”

If Xiao Jinyi could think of it, how could Emperor Jingren fail to reach the same conclusion? Huyan Xi’s actions were completely different from those of the outsiders. Emperor Jingren always had a peculiar feeling when he came in contact with the outsiders. Now that he had met Huyan Xi in person, he knew that Huyan Xi’s nature was different from theirs. He had an air of belonging to this world. And based on what Huyan Xi had said, he must be like him: aware of how false this world was.

Faced with the same reality, Emperor Jingren had chosen to live for the sake of this false data, while Huyan Xi had chosen to escape his fate.

“You know?” A light flared in Huyan Xi’s eyes. “So you’re like me. Through contact with the outsiders, you’ve discovered how ridiculous you are. Fair enough. You are a child of fortune, one of the source components. It would be much easier for you to guess the truth than me. Too bad. Had I known that before, I would have slaughtered the woman and kept you.”

Huyan Xi was lonely after all. Upon encountering a person like him, he couldn’t resist opening up a dialogue. He didn’t care that Su Huailing could hear him; clearly, she was already as good as dead to him.

“You must also want to live, but you don’t know how. My life isn’t mine to control. If…if that…supercomputer or whatever outside breaks, or those…technicians decide to delete or refresh, I’ll disappear? Or…my memories will be gone? What a joke!” As Huyan Xi spoke, the veins stood out on his forehead. “Why should my life be controlled by others? I want to live! I want to leave this damned world!

“I met the creator of this world. He was called…the doctor. He told me that in order to live forever, I needed to obtain the Ephemeral Snow Lotus and merge with it. Then I could truly perfect my data and surpass this world, exist on the internet. As long as the internet existed, I would be immortal and could go anywhere in the world!” Huyan Xi said. “I don’t really understand what the doctor was saying, but I remember each and every word. If I want to live, I must obtain the Ephemeral Snow Lotus!”

So that was it… Emperor Jingren lowered his eyes. His thoughts stagnated under the influence of the wind and snow. So that was it… He could also become real. Had he known before—if he had known before, the empress…

Before his thoughts disappeared, Emperor Jingren’s lips suddenly turned up in a self-mocking smile.

Even if he had known, he still wouldn’t have chosen to leave this world and live forever beyond it. He couldn’t abandon his nation, couldn’t abandon all the people here. This was his responsibility.