The Emperor Rui did not know what this strange garment was made of, nor did he dare to ask, focusing instead on the warmth that slowly spread through his body.
Except for his exposed calves and feet, which remained icy cold, the Emperor Rui was no longer feeling the chill that had pervaded him moments before. Even the pain in his chest had significantly subsided.
The Emperor Rui felt as if he had been tied with a rope and violently thrown off a cliff, only to be caught safely at the very moment he was about to shatter upon impact.
His most profound feeling at this moment was that he had been teetering on the edge of death all day, and had once again escaped by a hair's breadth!
Huo Qiyuan had no mood to attend to Emperor Rui at present. Although his expression remained unchanged, his footsteps quickened with a sense of urgency as he approached the ice coffins.
Just as he was about to reach the ice coffins, his feet rooted him to the spot. Huo Qiyuan felt as if his legs were cast in lead, unable to take another step.
Nearly five years had passed! He had learned of his parents' accident and his own ambush on the battlefield. Even though he had been afflicted with a cold poison and was close to death at the time, he had still risked his life to rush back to the capital, determined to retrieve his parents' remains.
Ultimately, due to Huo Qixiao's obstruction, his plans failed repeatedly. Not only did he fail to retrieve his parents and bury them, but his persistence also led to the deaths of many loyal subordinates.
Now, his parents lay in the ice coffins not far away. The regret that had weighed on his heart for nearly five years could finally be resolved, yet Huo Qiyuan hesitated, too afraid to step forward.
The ice chamber, bathed in extreme cold, was eerily silent. In such an environment, the pervasive loneliness and chill amplified the fear and trepidation in one's heart.
This was true for Emperor Rui, who feared retribution, and equally true for Huo Qiyuan, who bore the heavy burden of so much pain!
After an unknown period, Huo Qiyuan sighed. He closed his already bloodshot eyes, and with them still shut, walked step by step to the ice coffins.
When Huo Qiyuan opened his eyes again, a layer of white frost had already formed on his long, curled, and upturned eyelashes.
With two slow "sloshing" sounds, Huo Qiyuan raised his hands and pushed open the lids of both ice coffins simultaneously, revealing the two corpses within.
Cold mist rose from the ice coffins. Huo Qiyuan saw that his parents lay peacefully inside. Their faces and bodies were covered in frost, with only faint outlines discernible.
Huo Qiyuan reached out and used his sleeve to wipe the frost-covered face of Leng Muran. Her clothes were somewhat tattered, with dried bloodstains.
In particular, the several bloodied holes on her upper body, which even the frost could not conceal, starkly revealed what Leng Muran had endured at the time…
With such severe injuries, how much pain must his imperial mother have suffered when she passed!
"Plink…" A tear dropped onto Leng Muran's face.
The tear, carrying body heat, melted a bit of the frost on Leng Muran's face. Then came a second, a third… until countless tears, like pearls from a broken string, incessantly dripped into the ice coffin.
Huo Qiyuan's shoulders trembled. The hand wiping the frost shook uncontrollably, and then a choked sob escaped his lips.
It was not a heart-wrenching wail that could vent his emotions. It was the suppressed pain of wanting to cry after extreme sorrow, but being unable to, the tears caught in his throat.
It made the man who usually appeared as aloof and ethereal as an immortal, seem like an abandoned young beast, forced to lick his wounds alone in a corner, compelled and helpless to accept all the painful experiences he did not wish for.
Watching the man's retreating back, Su Muqing's eyes also welled up with tears, which slowly trickled down her cheeks.
Huo Qiyuan was crying! And he was crying so heartbrokenly!
Even when he had been afflicted with the cold poison and endured unbearable physical pain and torment from suppressing the Scarlet Flame Fruit, he had only squeezed out tears due to the pain, but had never truly cried.
Seeing the normally strong Huo Qiyuan so sorrowful, so pained, revealing a vulnerability and helplessness she had never witnessed, Su Muqing felt an unspeakable heartache.
She too had lost her beloved parents due to an accident, so she could truly empathize with Huo Qiyuan's current pain.
That pain was like falling into the nineteenth layer of hell, without the gore of the eighteenth, sparing the body but relentlessly tormenting the already riddled heart…
Day and night, reliving the most painful and unbearable memories of a lifetime. The wound, after scabbed over, was torn open again and again.
Repeatedly, endlessly, a fate worse than death!
Huo Qiyuan's hot tears melted the frost on Leng Muran's face. With suppressed and trembling hands, he turned to wipe Huo Siyuan's face. kanδん
Upon seeing his father's bulging veins, twisted limbs, protruding eyes, and the fact that he had died without closing them, Huo Qiyuan could no longer hold back!
Overwhelmed by grief, a surge of bitterness rose in his throat, and with a "poof!", he spat out a mouthful of blood.
The bright red blood splattered on the frosty ice, stark and piercing!
Su Muqing rushed forward, and for the first time, disregarding Huo Qiyuan's wishes, forcefully shoved a blood-replenishing pill into his mouth.
Huo Qiyuan stopped spitting blood, but he was now enveloped in sorrow and darkness, his former imposing aura completely gone.
If not for the tears still streaming down his face and his continuous wiping motions, Su Muqing would have thought he resembled a walking corpse.
Silence returned to the ice chamber, but the suffocating feeling of silent, bone-deep agony persisted!
Su Muqing watched as Huo Qiyuan finally managed to wipe the frost from Leng Muran's face, but as he turned to tend to his father, frost began to form on Leng Muran's face once more.
Then, after finishing with Huo Siyuan, he turned back to wipe Leng Muran's face again. Huo Qiyuan, as if tireless, repeatedly moved back and forth to wipe his parents.
The temperature here was still too low; wiping back and forth like this was futile, no matter how many times he did it.
Glancing at Emperor Rui, who was cowering in the corner like a quail, Su Muqing's gaze turned cold. She flicked a trace of internal energy towards him…
Emperor Rui clearly saw the sorrow radiating from Huo Qiyuan. He now deeply regretted his actions, and a fine, dense pain even spread through his chest, though he knew it was all in vain…
Suddenly! Emperor Rui felt a sharp sting on his neck, and then he collapsed, completely losing consciousness. With a wave of her hand, Su Muqing brought both Huo Qiyuan and the two ice coffins into her space.
Within the space, Su Muqing casually tossed the unconscious Emperor Rui into the sea of mist. Huo Qixiao was also there, making it a rare opportunity for them to "catch up"!
As for their eventual fate, everything would have to wait until Brother Huo's emotions stabilized before being decided.