Apart from some islands located deep in the ocean, almost isolated from the world, and small lands that almost exist in legends and have never been visited by anyone, the Mother Continent is the only known and vibrant continent on this planet. It is irregularly oval-shaped, spanning both the southern and northern hemispheres, but extends more towards the Northern Hemisphere—its northern part stretches into the icy ocean, while its southern end barely crosses the equator, not even reaching the temperate zones of the Southern Hemisphere. Therefore, for a long period in history, scholars on the Mother Continent believed they lived in a world with a one-way cold and heat direction, getting colder as one goes north until the sky itself freezes, and hotter going south until the earth melts. Thus, there were legends of an Extreme Northern King of Cold Ice and a Southern Abyss Lava Tyrant in the old myths of the Mother Continent.

This is what Lilina told us when she was bored.

The place we went to was located in the north of the Mother Continent, and almost near the Ice Sealed Wilderness. If not using the Teleportation Gate, an ordinary person would have to cross the Northern Duchy, then cross the countless scattered settlements on the Beimang Prairie which were divided by barbarians, and reach the last borderline that intelligent beings could occupy in this world for any long period. Here lies a loose nation called "Gudel." This is a country with almost no clear government, where cities and even towns of all sizes establish themselves as independent kingdoms. However, remarkably, this is not the result of long-term division warfare, but a peculiar balance formed after a long process of civilization and mutual compromise. Countless city-states follow their own laws and have their own lords while nominally ruled by the Northern Royal Family, "Gudel." The Northern Royal Family seems uninterested in strengthening their central power and even enjoys seeing their vassals form such a loose state of federation. They only require their nominal citizens to fulfill two tasks: offering tribute and revering God, and largely leave them to their own devices. This method of governance and country structure is hard to imagine for outsiders. In any case, I can hardly conceive how, barring the unexpected, the Gudel Royal Family has managed to remain unchallenged for so long, but in fact, the entire Northern Kingdom "Gudel" has been extraordinarily stable for an extended period, with almost no internal friction.

After reviewing the data Lilina had gathered, I realized this was all because of the "Storm Giant."

In the Extreme North of the continent, although there is no King of Cold Ice, there does exist a powerful Ancient Spirit, and that is the Storm Giant. This formidable being, revered as the God of the North, is considered one of the strongest Ancient Spirits. It is recorded to have appeared before mortals when they first reached the Northern Ice Plain and established settlements on the border, but its true existence must be far older. The Storm Giant is described as a cold being without a physical form. Legend has it that he resides in the deepest part of the Northern Ice Plain, a place unreachable even by the most advanced Alchemy Airships on the Mother Continent. The Storm Giant is a never-resting, male Ancient Spirit, filled with snow, ice, cloud mist, and lightning. He only takes a human shape when faced by mortals and when it piques the interest of this Ancient Spirit. When he stands up, he can stride over the widest ice abyss and the highest mountains on the North Ice Field. When angry, he can freeze all mortal settlements along the border in one breath, and the only way to communicate with this Storm Giant—lies in the hands of the Gudel Royal Family.

This is the cornerstone that enables this loose confederation in the Extreme North to remain stable: the Storm Giant stands behind the Gudel Royal Family. In fact, the word "Gudel" in the local language means "servant," implying they serve the Storm Giant.

However, why this Gudel Royal Family, possessing such powerful forces, would willingly let their kingdom remain in such a disorganized state, seemingly indifferent to their royal power, is hard to explain clearly. They are very mysterious individuals, living in their frozen castle, almost shunning the mortal world. The information available about them on the continent is mostly legends or nonsense...

Hmm, mostly nonsense.

The Northern Border is filled with fragmented mountains and hills, indicating a very intense but short-lived period of geological activity, and human-populated towns here are mostly built along the mountains. Hiding in the mountains can effectively ward off the cold winds from the Northern Ice Plain, and it’s easier to obtain extra food from the forests. Our destination is such a medium-sized town hidden in a hollow at the foot of a mountain. The town has a specifically straightforward and peculiar name: Ice Blade. Perhaps it’s named this way due to its narrow shape, and because it’s situated on the icefield border, looking just like an ice-cutting blade piercing the icefield border. In such cold and resource-scarce places, slightly larger towns rarely expand or relocate, so it’s understandable if they are named after their shapes.

This town called Ice Blade should be considered one of the larger "cities" in this area, and it’s quite close to where the Gudel Royal Family resides. But the main reason we chose this as our destination was due to the request of Shajina and Sona: they said they needed to find someone here.

"Phew, this place is much ’cooler’ than the Giant Dragon Kingdom," I said, exhaling white vapor while looking at the town entrance in front of me. The moist air from another space vanished along with the Teleportation Gate, instantly dispelled by the cold wind here. A moment before, we were standing in front of the Teleportation Gate in Angel City, and in another moment, we were in a sub-arctic region. The temperature change was quite significant, though for me, it’s just something to be amazed about. However, the two cold-blooded creatures beside me...

"Shajina, are you guys okay?" I turned to look at Shajina and Sona, following behind me, wrapped tightly in heavy clothing. These two claimed several times to be cold-blooded creatures, and I had indeed touched Shajina’s tail, which was as cold as a snake. I really wondered if they could handle the low temperatures here. I mean, how did they know friends in such a place?

"Don’t worry," Sona said with a light smile, "Although we belong to cold-blooded species, Half-Dragon People aren’t extreme enough to become unviable in cold environments; it’s just that in excessively cold weather, we’ll feel less spirited. Besides, Shajina and I... we’ve lived here for quite a long time. We grew up at the Northern Border. This place... is kind of our homeland."

"Huh?" I was momentarily stunned, "Two cold-fearing Half-Dragon People, living in a place where it’s snowbound seven to eight months a year?"

"It’s not like we can control that," Shajina yawned in a listless demeanor, rubbing her eyes as she muttered, "We were sold here by slave traders. Half-Dragon People become sluggish in cold temperatures and are naturally easier to control. So, some mages who conduct alchemical experiments prefer to place Half-Dragon slave in cold environments, since they don’t require much physical labor from them. Half-Dragon slaves are often sold to two places: Extreme North and Extreme South. For those in the Extreme North, Half-Dragon People are treated as servants or experimental materials like us, because they’re easy to control, and even in cold conditions, their physical strength is superior to ordinary races. In the Extreme South, they’re used as laborers due to their great strength, and in warmer weather, they can work longer hours."

Shajina spoke of these injustices with a complex gaze, filled with sorrow and frustration. These topics were seldom broached by her, but perhaps because we had become familiar with one another, and Half-Dragon People’s humiliating history saw the dawn of an end, she occasionally mentioned such matters in my presence. Listening to her recount those bitter past experiences, I too felt uneasy and hesitantly asked, "So... you guys aren’t here to find that mage from back then, right? For revenge?"

"Ha, who has the time for that," Shajina sneered contemptuously and led the way, "He was already so old and close to death back then, and the lifespan of Half-Dragon People is longer than that of humans. By now, even his bones are probably decayed. Also, that mage lived in a different city, far, far from here..." As Shajina spoke, she gazed towards somewhere out in the wild, "Really far. Now I can’t even imagine how we managed to escape from there, fleeing all this way, surviving in such a cold place..."

"Then why do you return here..." I looked at Shajina somewhat puzzled. This place must hold no beautiful memories for her and Sona. What could possibly be worth nostalgia here? I recalled the history of these two half-dragon girls—slave life, being test subjects, theft, prison, wandering—such a first half of life almost devoid of any glimmer of hope.

"We have to return something." Sona spoke softly, reaching into her pocket and taking out a thick, well-worn handwritten notebook. "Thirty years... it’s time to return it..."

I stared dumbfounded at the crumpled notebook, time leaving its marks of age upon it. A layer of dirty grease coated the cover, almost all pages were uneven, and the spine bore obvious indications of multiple repairs, showing it had fallen apart more than once. Sona’s hands, holding the notebook, trembled slightly, her expression seemed to want to smile but couldn’t: "We’ve almost forgotten this town’s name, but Shajina happened to overhear your conversation before departure, which reminded us of this place we fled from thirty years ago... This place has barely changed, still as cold as when we left."

I blinked, recalling the origin of this notebook: Shajina and Sona’s journey as explorers began with this very notebook, though it was a stolen item.

The once two half-dragon girls, after escaping a dreadful poison laboratory, were utterly unskilled, wandering in confusion just to survive. To fill their bellies and avoid the harsh winter, they even intentionally got themselves arrested into jail. Almost all the people they ever knew in the first half of their lives were the same homeless and prison guards avoiding winter storms in jail. This notebook came from a young prison guard, perhaps out of sympathy, or perhaps because he hadn’t yet been corrupted by real life. The young guard showed extraordinary compassion towards Shajina and Sona, even sharing stories of his father’s past as an explorer and showing this precious heirloom to the two half-dragon girls.

Shajina and Sona took the notebook with them when they left prison for the last time and then set out on their path as explorers.

That departure now seems like... thirty years ago? I truly didn’t expect that the story Shajina and Sona told me was already thirty years old. Thirty years might not be long for half-dragon people, but for humans, it’s nearly a lifetime.

"I wonder if he’s still a prison guard," Shajina suddenly smiled, looking forward to unburdening herself, "When we left, he was still a young lad, by now he must have settled down and made a family—he might even be a grandfather now... I hope he doesn’t come after us with a knife, don’t you think, Sona?"

Sona carefully put away the notebook, smiled brightly: "He won’t."

For these scattered towns along the Northern Border, outsiders are surely quite a rare sight. The most noticeable Alaya and Orelia had already gone invisible, following behind. Even so, the appearance of me, Qianqian, Lin Xue, and the two half-dragon girls still attracted plenty of attention from the locals. However, I quickly noticed their focus was more on the two half-dragon girls. The gazes of the people were filled with some uncertainty and a faint sense of apprehension. It suddenly struck me that this might be due to the recent widespread activity of half-dragon devotees—we had been so busy researching ruins that we’d paid little attention to the happenings in Mother Continent’s regular human society. But thinking about it, it’s clear that the whole half-dragon race suddenly becoming Dragon Descendants must have had a massive impact on the world—even the most immediate impact being that all half-dragon slaves must have been freed. Now, almost all half-dragons have migrated south, with nothing to hinder their journey, and now with two such young-looking half-dragon girls appearing in a remote northern city, people would surely be quite curious.

Yet Shajina and Sona seemed oblivious to the attention around them. They looked around at the streets and houses passing by with a reminiscent expression, smiling as they introduced the place to us: the cold seemed unable to extinguish their current burning enthusiasm. Shajina indeed had a good memory; she could even fluently mention the name of a tavern about to appear at the next corner—though she got the name wrong, a tavern did indeed appear there.

"The owner of this tavern is a henpecked guy, but a really nice person," Shajina pointed at the quaint yet bustling tavern by the roadside, "He often prepares leftovers for the nearby homeless. He also has a daughter, a pretty girl... but she’s probably a mother of kids by now."

With Shajina’s continuous introductions (though there were several mistakes, given how time had changed this place from what she remembered), we gradually reached a highland at the northern edge of the town, where sturdy stone buildings stood—the prison facility of this border city called Ice Blade—not as far from the busy district as expected, and merely a simple two-story structure. The guards at the gate looked spirited, but evidently, even the prison here probably housed few serious criminals. Mostly petty thieves were detained here, functioning perhaps similarly to our local police station’s radiators.

Even the usually carefree Shajina showed a hint of nervousness. She tidied her hair, ruffled by the cold wind, and stepped forward to negotiate with the guard. I casually asked Sona, "You guys have a deep impression of that prison guard?"

"Sort of," Sona forced a smile, "In this kind of place, meeting a good person is rare, especially if that good person is a prison guard. He was a young man out of place with his surroundings. When we first met, he had only been a guard for a few days, unlike his rude and irritable colleagues. He was still a bit naive back then." Sona shrugged as she spoke, "He even said his future dream was to become a judge, to uphold the order of Ice Blade City. Back then, he especially loved to laugh and often looked for me and Shajina to chat. He would even secretly bring his lunch to us. If it weren’t for what happened later, he might have been the first true friend for both Shajina and me."

Lin Xue dragged out her words, "Oh... a young man in his adolescent phase."

By this time, Shajina had finished negotiating and walked back, seemingly having obtained permission to enter, but her expression was a bit peculiar. Sona couldn’t help asking with concern, "What happened? Did the guards give you a hard time?"

"No," Shajina shook her head as she led us across the suspension bridge in front of the prison, "these soldiers think we’re relatives of prisoners here to bribe the Prison Director—Ville is already the director here."

Ville, it seems that’s the name of that youthful boy full of dreams back then.

"The Prison Director?" Sona’s tone was somewhat raised, "He’s really something, this counts as a step closer to his dreams."

Shajina shook her head noncommittally, "Who knows, I always feel uneasy... maybe it’s because it’s too cold here."

After crossing the suspension bridge and the long stone passageway in front of the prison, we reached an inner courtyard surrounded by high stone walls. This was where minor offenders usually got their air. Under the guidance of a scruffy old soldier, our group of specially labeled "Visitors" entered the guard area next to the courtyard. The light inside the stone building was rather dim, with cold white light slanting in from the high narrow windows, even less bright than the torches inserted in the corridors on both sides. A slight musty smell permeated the air, and a warm fire basin quietly burned at a corner of the corridor. The old soldier left without a word after leading us to a thick, studded wooden door. Sona and Shajina stared at each other for a moment before the latter cautiously went forward to knock on the door.

"Bang—Bang—" The iron ring clashed against the heavy wooden door, the dull sound echoing down the long dark corridor louder than expected, making Shajina stick out her tongue. A moment later, a rough and slightly hoarse male voice came from behind the door, "Come in, did that bastard start talking?"

Shajina was taken aback for a moment, pushed the door open with force, and a strong smell of low-grade tobacco immediately wafted out. We filed into the room and saw the scene inside: a small room of several square meters, its walls roughly built with stones, with large bunches of keys and old locks, their colors long gone, hanging on the walls, along with two lanterns used for night patrols. A heavy large table was placed at the center of the room, cluttered with a mess of odds and ends and files that heaven knows if anyone had seriously read. Behind the table sat a middle-aged man already bald, looking about fifty, wearing a wrinkled prison uniform. His face was clean-shaven, which made the fleshy lines on his cheeks more pronounced.

The middle-aged Prison Director seemed somewhat surprised to see a group of people entering, none of whom were the prison guards he expected to report for work. He shook his shiny head and said in a rough voice, "Who are you people? Visiting? Why wasn’t I notified?"

He completely failed to recognize the two Half-Dragon girls in front of him—though I believe with the relatively long lives of Half-Dragons, Shajina and Sona’s current appearances shouldn’t differ much from thirty years ago, but he still didn’t recognize them.

"We... are here to find you." Shajina didn’t quite know how to begin, her expression quite stiff, and in the end, she could only mutter this sentence haltingly. Clearly, even though she had mentally prepared herself in various ways beforehand, the balding middle-aged man now before her was far from the shy, somewhat naive prison guard boy she remembered, so much so that all the lines she’d rehearsed became useless.

"Find me?" The now somewhat portly middle-aged man came around from behind the table, "Ha, which prisoner are you pleading for? I’ve seen this kind of thing before, it all depends on your sincerity and what you can offer—Hmm, Half-Dragons?" He finally seemed to notice the restless tails behind Shajina and Sona, his eyebrows raised, "You guys have been quite active lately... Wait!"

The middle-aged man finally stopped in his tracks, a look of surprise spreading across his face as he stared at Shajina’s face, then quickly looked over to Sona, as if finally breaking through the barrier of memory. A strange sound emerged from his throat, the kind of weird noise made when one has many words stuck and can’t get them out.

"You’ve remembered," Shajina chuckled dryly, waving and pulling Sona’s arm, "Ville, it’s us..."

"You... you guys!" Ville, now middle-aged, shook violently, his arm slowly raised, pointing in our direction, "It’s really you?!"

"We want to..." Shajina managed only three words before being loudly interrupted, "How did you end up here?!"

Ville’s voice was loud, and as soon as he opened his mouth, a strong smell of cheap tobacco spewed out. His emotions were evidently very intense, causing the flesh on his face to tremble and his eyes to bulge with emotion. But this expression didn’t last long; he suddenly walked quickly back to his position and sat heavily, "Speak!"

"We... came to return something to you..." Sona seemed to gather her courage for a long time, then took out a thick notebook, separated from its owner for thirty years, and placed it on the Prison Director’s table. Ville’s eyes widened as he stared blankly at the black notebook before him, as if not daring to believe his eyes. He slowly picked up the book, carefully opening it.

Inside, there was a small piece of paper, yellowed and brittle.

"Look, even the original bookmark is still here," Shajina quickly said, "We’ve always taken great care of it, not a single page is missing, and the leaf you picked, made into a specimen with Cloud Wax and palm oil, is tucked in the last page..."

Ville quickly flipped through the notebook, finding the leaf that had long lost its color and been made into a specimen on the last page. His movements froze at this moment, and for a long time, he remained silent, his head bowed as if turning into a stone statue. Shajina looked nervously at us and stepped forward, "Um... sorry..."

"You all should leave." A low, hoarse voice came from the opposite side.

"Huh?" Shajina didn’t hear clearly and asked.

"Leave!" Ville suddenly raised his head and said loudly, "You’ve brought it back, so go quickly!"

"We haven’t even..." Shajina was always a bit thick-skinned. She stubbornly took half a step forward, but Sona pulled her back, giving the now middle-aged, rough, smoke-loving old Prison Director Ville a deep look, and in a low voice said, "Ville, farewell." Then she promptly dragged Shajina out of the room.

I lingered at the back, and just as I was about to step out, I heard the hoarse voice behind me: "Wait."

I looked at Ville puzzled, and he opened his mouth, barely squeezing out an awkward smile, seemingly long unaccustomed to such an expression: "Help close the door, and pass on a message to them; these years... I haven’t been doing too badly."

The heavy studded wood door made a creaking noise as it slowly closed. I intentionally lingered for a moment at the doorway before catching up with the others. Lin Xue also stayed back deliberately, and once I caught up, she said without looking back, "He’s probably crying inside."

"You guessed right."

"What’s wrong with him?" Qianqian, perhaps the least insightful among us regarding such matters, asked a question that was equally insensitive—to be honest, I sometimes envy her simple mind.

"Mourning his own youth," Lin Xue looked back at the Prison Director’s door now obscured in darkness, then at the two Half-Dragon girls walking ahead, "He might also be mourning a first love from thirty years ago—I bet he secretly had a crush on one of Shajina or Sona back then, a woman’s intuition."

After leaving the dim prison corridor for the bright outdoors, Shajina and Sona couldn’t help but take a deep breath. Whatever the case, perhaps they’ve finally lifted a burden of thirty years. I relayed Ville’s message to them, and Sona’s face finally bore a hint of a smile, embracing the wind blowing from afar, "Seems... the wind has warmed a bit."

Shajina looked at her friend cluelessly, shivering as the wind blew, "Where? It’s still cold. If it stays like this, I might really hibernate."

"Your Majesty," Orelia, who had been invisibly following all along, suddenly spoke, interrupting everyone’s respective thoughts. She pointed towards the direction of the Icefield, "I sense Audemus is calling, his situation... is very strange." (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, you are welcome to visit Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets; your support is my greatest motivation.)