That pair of Golden Wind Ferrets flickered and dove straight through the stone door without a trace, as though they were incorporeal beings.
A glistening passage lay revealed within.
The walls of the passage were coated in a thick layer of frost, resembling the entrance to an ice cavern.
And that pair of Golden Wind Ferrets stood right at the entrance to the passage, turning their heads to peer at Han Li with round, glistening eyes brimming with spiritual intelligence. The other one that had been invisible also revealed itself at this moment.
"Fellow Daoist Han, please come in. This old man has some difficulty moving—forgive me for not rising to greet you from a distance." A low chuckle sounded beside Han Li's ear.
Han Li raised his eyebrows and, without another word, strode forward and stepped inside.
The pair of Golden Wind Ferrets, upon seeing Han Li follow, immediately turned and darted down the passage.
Han Li trailed closely behind, seemingly unhurried yet swift. After a few turns, he felt the chill in the passage growing increasingly bitter, and it suddenly began descending downward.
His heart stirred, but he did not stop. Without a moment's hesitation, he headed downward.
After a full quarter of an hour, when Han Li noticed that the surrounding temperature had nearly reached the point where his breath would freeze into ice, he finally arrived at the end of the passage. The Golden Wind Ferrets darted into a vast, pale-white hall.
The entire hall was constructed from a type of semi-translucent jade stone, its surface radiating threads of cold light. It had been built entirely from Ten-thousand-year Dark Ice.
The moment Han Li stepped into the hall, he involuntarily shivered. But immediately, purple flames swirled across the surface of his body, and he was as composed as ever.
"As I suspected—Fellow Daoist Han truly possesses the Extreme Cold Flame." A voice tinged with surprise came from the center of the hall. Han Li's gaze flickered toward it, and what he saw made him cry out in astonishment.
"The Azure Ice Flame!"
At each of the four corners of the hall stood a crystal pillar as thick as a man could embrace, and in the center sat a massive blue cauldron five or six zhang in diameter. Wisps of pale blue flame rose from within it—that inexplicable cold, that spiritual pressure—it was the Azure Ice Flame that Han Li knew all too well. How could he not be shocked!
"Fellow Daoist Han also recognizes the Azure Ice Flame? That surprises this old man even more."
A soft exclamation came from behind the cauldron, and then a figure flickered as a dwarf no more than three feet tall emerged from behind it.
His face was deeply lined with wrinkles, his long beard snow-white. He wore a blue robe and regarded Han Li with a trace of surprise on his face.
"You must be Shangren Hanli?" Han Li's expression returned to normal in an instant, and he cupped his hands in a slight bow.
"Indeed, this old man is Hanli. However, the title 'Shangren Hanli' is merely the honorific borne by successive Grand Elders of the Minor Extreme Palace. My true name is Shi Xiang—there are fewer who know it." The dwarf's eyes flickered as he spoke to Han Li, then he calmly raised his hand and struck a hand seal on one of the crystal pillars at the corner.
Immediately, white light flashed, and several areas of the hall floor blazed with radiance. A few pale-white meditation cushions materialized out of thin air.
"I rarely receive guests here, so I haven't prepared any tables or chairs on a daily basis. Please forgive me, Fellow Daoist!" the dwarf said amiably.
"Fellow Daoist Shi is too kind. We who cultivate the Dao need not be so particular about such things." Han Li smiled faintly and, with a composed air, walked over and seated himself cross-legged on one of the meditation cushions. His gaze drifted once more toward the great cauldron.
Only then did he notice that the cauldron's design bore a seventy to eighty percent resemblance to the Void Heaven Cauldron, and its powers were quite extraordinary—the Azure Ice Flame's might was entirely contained within the cauldron, with not the slightest bit leaking outward. Otherwise, this hall would have been sealed in ice long ago, and no one could have entered.
But this only deepened the suspicions in his heart threefold.
"Although I haven't yet had a thorough discussion with Fellow Daoist Han, my intuition tells me that there is an eighty or ninety percent chance that you are the one this old man has been searching for many years." Shangren Hanli sat down on a meditation cushion across from Han Li and spoke with a sincere expression.
"Shangren says such things, but I'm completely in the dark! Could you perhaps explain your reasons for inviting me here in detail?" Han Li suppressed the alarm and doubt in his heart and spoke slowly.