Chapter 315: Are You Injured?
"Wash your face and go to sleep now. You have a survival dimension to construct at dawn."
The bamboo fronds rustled shut.
Master Jiu Zui vanished into the shadows, leaving her sitting alone in the cool, capsaicin-scented dirt of the main courtyard.
For ten long minutes, Lin Ji’an did not move.
She sat in the dirt, her knees pulled to her chest, her chin resting on her forearms.
Her mind was a chaotic, whirling vortex of conflicting data, ruined tropes, and the irritating realization that her alcoholic master was correct.
She had let her boundaries slip.
She had loved the comfort of Wangchen’s quiet, unbothered presence so much that she had ignored the terrifying, highly possessive yandere architecture he was silently building around her existence.
"He really was going to tuck himself into my bed," Ji’an whispered to her knees, a hot, uncontrollable blush creeping up to the tips of her ears. "The guy has zero chill. Literally and elemental-ly."
She slowly pushed herself up from the dirt, aggressively dusting off her gray apron.
She walked across the courtyard, stepped into the cool, dark sanctuary of her bedchamber, and pulled the heavy spirit-wood double doors shut, throwing the interior iron bolt into place.
She walked over to the edge of her plush canopy bed and sank onto the silk mattress.
She unbuckled the cast-iron spatula from her calf, setting it on the bedside table next to her spatial ring.
She looked down at her left wrist.
Beneath the faint, glowing silver soul-tether ring of the sleeping Nekomata, the midnight-blue silk threads of the Frost-Silk Pulse Guard were resting quietly against her skin.
Ji’an bit her lower lip.
Her pride, still bruised from Jiu Zui’s filial lecture, demanded that she turn off the light and go to sleep.
She was the Head Chef.
She didn’t chase after evicted mercenaries or yeeted immortals.
But her heart, the deeply human, inherently soft core that had built an outdoor kitchen specifically to feed lonely people, couldn’t stand the silence.
With a soft, defeated sigh, Ji’an raised her right index finger and gently tapped the central ice-jade bead.
Chime.
The miniature array is activated.
A thin, swirling column of pale, freezing mist erupted from the bead, expanding upward into a shimmering, translucent projection mirror of condensed ice.
The image cleared instantly.
Xie Wangchen appeared in the projection.
He was not lying at the bottom of a ravine.
He was not impaled on a pine tree or hadn’t suffered a single fracture to his newly consolidated divine foundation.
He was standing perfectly upright in the center of his own heavily warded courtyard on the pinnacle of the Eternal Cloud Peak.
The howling, absolute-zero mountain blizzards whipped furiously around him, parting seamlessly around his mass.
His white robes were slightly wrinkled at the collar from Jiu Zui’s scruff-grab, but his cascading silver hair was entirely immaculate, flowing around his broad shoulders like a river of moonlight.
And his radiant, ruby-red eyes were staring directly into the projection array, burning with an intense, and un-dimmed, deeply obsessive fire.
Ji’an swallowed hard, her head chef’s bravado entirely failing her. She huddled slightly into her gray apron, looking at him with wide, guilty eyes.
"Little Puddle?" Ji’an whispered, her voice small and thoroughly scolded. "Did... did you land okay? Did Master’s throw disrupt your spiritual sea? Are your meridians intact?"
Across the projection, the terrifying aura radiating from the silver-haired immortal completely melted away.
A slow, devastatingly handsome, tender, and deeply knowing smile curved his stained, red lips.
He reached out his long, pale hand, pressing his fingertips flat against the icy surface of the projection mirror, aligning perfectly with the ghostly image of her cheek.
"I landed upon my feet just fine, Brother Ji’an," Wangchen murmured. His rich, melodic voice echoed through the mist, carrying no anger toward her master, only an immovable devotion. "The Sovereign’s trajectory was... highly educational regarding the structural integrity of the Drunken Peak’s outer retaining walls."
Ji’an let out a breathless, choked little laugh, pressing her own fingers against the mist to meet his touch. "You are an absolute lunatic, too. You got launched across a mountain range at Mach 4, and you took notes on the architecture?"
Wangchen’s smile deepened, his ruby eyes glowing in the dark of his blizzard.
"Your Master is a formidable guardian of his territory, Brother Ji’an," Wangchen whispered, leaning his face closer to the projection until his eyes filled her vision. "He guards his hearth with the ferocity of an ancient dragon."
He paused, his voice dropping into a low, thrilling, deeply possessive purr that vibrated straight through her pulse guard and into her bloodstream.
"But... a glacier moves with absolute, unyielding inevitability, Ji’an. It’s not easily deterred by a single displacement. It merely re-evaluates the leylines... and continues its advance."
Ji’an’s heart executed a violent, complete triple-axel.
Her face exploded into a brilliant, furious flush of heat that rivaled the capsaicin of the hotpot.
’He is literally rizzing me up via FaceTime after getting thrown off a cliff!’ Her brain short-circuited. ’The guy is an unstoppable romantic juggernaut!’
"Okay! Good! You’re intact! That’s all I needed to know!" Ji’an stammered frantically, breaking eye contact and reaching down to tap the jade bead. "Go to sleep, Wangchen! Meditate! Regulate your core! I will see you in the survival dimension at dawn! Do not be late for breakfast!"
"I will be the first light you see, Brother Ji’an," Wangchen promised softly.
Click!
The mist swirled, rapidly retracting into the ice-jade bead.
The projection mirror vanished, dropping the bedchamber back into the quiet, cool, dim light of the moon.
Lin Ji’an let out a long, shuddering, completely exhausted sigh, falling backward onto her pile of plush silk pillows and spreading her hands and legs.
She stared up at the dark, embroidered canopy of her bed.
She thought about her copy-paste brother on the dais.
She thought about the manipulative merchant heir in the library.
She thought about the feral Beast Lord in the swamps.
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