Fanfic: A Cypress in Winter – Chapter 15 (Ice Fantasy - 幻城)
Chapter 15 written by UnicornSlippers edited by DramaPanda Xing Jiu sat at a plain wooden desk in his room, bent over a book he had retrieved from the Imperial Library earlier in the day. The manuscript was bound in bronzed leather, cracked and dry with age, and smelled faintly of mold and dust. The original stitching was barely holding it together, but the words written on the spine were still clearly visible: Descendents and Guardians: A History of the Ancient Clans. He sat back in his chair and stretched, bleary-eyed from scanning pages for several hours for any mention of the Blood Red Lotus or Earth Tribe. Predictably, he had found nothing, and he rubbed his temples in frustration as he considered returning to the Library for more research. The world abruptly turned upside down as he was suddenly launched into the air and sent tumbling like a leaf in a blizzard to the far side of the room. He crashed into stone, a frosty magical noose around his neck, the cor