Chapter 323: Too Hard
The glowing holographic runes on the ceiling flickered, their golden light dimming into a sickly, freezing blue.
The ambient hum of the array consoles ground to a sluggish halt.
The cup of leftover black-lotus espresso sitting on the jade table instantly, audibly cracked as the liquid inside flash-froze into solid black ice.
A shuddering gasp rippled through the female cultivators.
Elder Su’s hand jerked, nearly dropping the thermos of Yang-tonic as a layer of jagged, black frost actively began to climb up the sides of the porcelain.
"What... what is this pressure?!" Senior Sister Mei gasped, her hand violently recoiling from Ji’an’s shoulder, her breath pluming into a white cloud in the suddenly freezing air.
Ji’an opened her eyes.
She looked past the shivering women, toward the heavy brass entrance doors.
Standing in the threshold, silhouetted against the dark corridor, was Xie Wangchen.
He was dressed in pristine white robes, his cascading silver hair catching the flickering, dying light of the array holograms.
In his right hand, held with delicate care, was a beautifully crafted, multi-tiered wooden bento box wrapped in deep blue silk.
It was the quintessential, devoted image of a loving husband arriving at his spouse’s workplace in the middle of the night to deliver a home-cooked midnight snack.
But the expression on his flawless face was not one of domestic bliss.
Xie Wangchen’s radiant, ruby-red eyes were locked upon the alcove.
He saw Elder Su leaning over Ji’an, Senior Sister Mei sitting on the divan, her thigh pressed against Ji’an’s, her hand hovering mere inches from Ji’an’s chest.
He saw Ji’an huddled in the corner, her arms crossed defensively, looking panicked and overwhelmed.
The possessive, territorial monster that lurked beneath the prodigy detonated.
’They are touching him,’ Wangchen’s mind processed the scene. ’They cornered and are offering him elixirs, invading the space that belongs exclusively to me.’
The urge to summon Winter’s Sigh, his legendary blade, and sever the hands of every single person in the room who had dared to breathe the same air as his Ji’an was practically insurmountable.
The killing intent radiating from his core was so dense and heavy that the junior array masters across the room almost collapsed to their knees, gasping for air.
But Xie Wangchen was bound by the chains of orthodox sect hierarchy.
Elder Su and Senior Sister Mei were not rogue cultivators.
They were not foreign enemies.
They were high-ranking, respected senior female members of his own sect.
They were his Martial Aunts and Senior Sisters.
To attack them, to even raise his voice in disrespect against them, would be a violation of the filial piety codes that governed the Celestial Sword Sect.
It would bring shame to Elder Qin, and trigger a political civil war between the peaks.
He could not murder them.
He could not throw them through a wall like Master Jiu Zui had thrown him.
He had to endure.
Wangchen took a slow breath and forced his facial muscles to relax.
He smoothed the scowl into a mask of flawless, polite, breathtakingly beautiful serenity.
He stepped into the freezing room.
"Greetings, Elder Su. Senior Sister Mei," Wangchen murmured.
His voice was a smooth, low, and polite hum.
It was the perfect, respectful greeting of a junior offering deference to his seniors.
But the polite tone of his voice was in contradiction to the disaster he was unleashing upon the room.
As Wangchen walked toward the alcove, the polished obsidian floorboards beneath his white boots cracked, completely freezing over.
The frost climbed the walls, creeping toward the divan like a living, sentient predator.’
The temperature was dropping by the second, plunging well past sub-zero.
The women in the alcove were shivering.
They were dressed in thin, alluring silks designed to look beautiful in a warm room, not to survive an arctic expedition.
"Ah, disciple Xie," Elder Su chattered, her teeth clicking together as she clutched her arms, circulating her Qi to stave off the hypothermia. "What a... surprise. We were merely... checking on Martial Uncle Lin’s progress."
"How incredibly... benevolent of you, Elder Su," Wangchen replied, stopping directly in front of the divan.
He offered a slow, perfect, elegant bow.
It was the picture of orthodox respect.
But as he bowed, a blast of wind swept through the alcove, tearing the thermos of Yang-tonic out of Elder Su’s numb fingers.
It hit the floor and shattered, the hot liquid instantly turning into a puddle of frozen red ice.
"My deepest apologies," Wangchen lied flawlessly, standing back up, his ruby eyes curving into a devastating yet fake smile. "My divine consolidation is still... stabilizing. I fear my ambient aura is prone to occasional, minor fluctuations. I pray I have not disturbed your visit."
Ji’an, huddled in the corner of the divan, stared up at him.
She was completely immune to the cold.
The moment Wangchen had stepped into the room, he had manipulated the ambient temperature so that it bypassed her.
While the women around her were freezing to death, Ji’an felt like she was sitting in a perfectly comfortable, mildly breezy spring evening.
She looked at Wangchen’s fake, polite smile.
She looked at the hostility burning in his ruby eyes.
’He is angry?’ Ji’an realized, a wave of amusement bubbling up in her chest. ’He is boiling with jealousy, but he can’t break sect rules, so he is trying to politely freeze them to death to make them leave? He is passively-aggressively weaponizing the climate!’
"It is... quite cold, Junior Brother Xie," Senior Sister Mei gasped, her lips turning a faint shade of blue.
She tried to maintain her seductive posture next to Ji’an, but her shivering look was incredibly tragic. "Perhaps... perhaps you should retract your aura?"
"I am endeavoring to do so, Senior Sister; you see, it’s too hard to maintain," Wangchen replied, his voice dripping with faux-apologetic sincerity.
He didn’t retract the aura; instead, he made it colder.
The decorative silk curtains hanging in the alcove froze solid and snapped off their rods.
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