Elder Qin slumped against the jade wall, clutching his chest where the paste was still burning warmly.

He looked up at Ji’an, his eyes filled with a complex, agonising mix of gratitude for saving his life and an absolute, unyielding desire to see her banished to the farthest corners of the mortal realm.

"This incident," Elder Qin rasped, his voice weak but laced with absolute venom. "This... vulgar display. It never leaves this room. If a single whisper of this reaches the other peaks... I will personally ensure your vocal cords are frozen."

"Oh, please," Ji’an scoffed, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off the chill. "You think I want the sect to know I accidentally bathed with a three-hundred-year-old man? I have a reputation to uphold. As far as I’m concerned, this entire afternoon never happened. It is buried. Deep. Under six feet of concrete."

Elder Qin glared at her one last time, looking remarkably like a cat that had been forcefully bathed, before closing his eyes and sinking into a restorative meditation, pointedly turning his face toward the wall.

Ji’an waded to the shallow end of the pool and hauled herself out onto the jade tiles.

She stood there, dripping wet, her teeth chattering uncontrollably.

The adrenaline crash was hitting her like a freight train, and the sheer, absurd embarrassment of the last twenty minutes was finally catching up to her.

She wrung out the hem of her tunic, keeping her eyes glued to the floor. She could feel Wangchen standing just a few feet away.

’He believed me,’ Ji’an thought, a wave of profound relief warring with intense, suffocating awkwardness. ’Thank the culinary gods he’s blindly loyal. But this is still incredibly weird.’

Before she could formulate an excuse to sprint out of the chamber, a shadow fell over her.

Wangchen had silently unfastened the heavy, immaculate white Ice-Silk cloak from his shoulders.

With a fluid, incredibly gentle motion, he stepped behind her and draped the cloak over her shivering form.

The cloak was heavy, lined with spiritual fur that instantly began to generate a soothing, neutral warmth.

But it wasn’t the temperature that made Ji’an’s breath catch; it was the fact that the cloak smelled entirely, intoxicatingly of him, crisp pine, fresh snow, and that faint, underlying scent of clean ozone.

Wangchen reached around her, his hands hovering inches from her collarbones as he pulled the edges of the cloak tightly together, ensuring she was completely, modestly covered from his master’s peripheral vision.

"You are wet," Wangchen murmured. His voice was pitched low, a rough, gravelly vibration right next to her ear.

The sheer proximity, combined with the heavy, possessive nature of the gesture, sent a violent jolt of electricity straight down Ji’an’s spine.

The sexual tension in the room, which had been momentarily derailed by Elder Qin’s dramatic fainting spell, returned with catastrophic force.

Ji’an’s face, already flushed from the hot water, turned the colour of a ripe tomato.

’He is doing it again!’ her internal alarms screamed. ’He is weaponising his proximity! Why is his voice so deep?! I am now a Martial Uncle! By seniority, I am supposed to be the cool, detached senior!’

"I-I fell in a pool, Wangchen, water tends to have that effect," Ji’an stammered, her voice cracking slightly. She hastily grabbed the edges of the cloak, pulling it tighter around herself as if it could shield her from the intense, dark gravity of his gaze.

She stepped out of his immediate airspace, putting three vital feet of distance between them.

"Anyway!" Ji’an clapped her hands together loudly, the sound echoing awkwardly in the vaulted chamber. "Crisis averted! The old man is stabilised. I should... I should get back to the Drunken Peak! Yes! Master Jiu Zui is probably... setting something on fire right now. I have very important, highly technical culinary duties to attend to!"

Wangchen’s dark eyes tracked her erratic movements. He saw the panic in her eyes. He saw the blush on her cheeks.

He knew she was running away.

Part of him, the dark, controlling monster that lived beneath the ice, wanted to step forward, grab her wrist, and forbid her from leaving until she explained exactly why her heart was beating so frantically.

But the tactical genius prevailed. He had seen the way his master had looked at her.

He knew the environment on the Eternal Cloud Peak was currently too volatile, too hostile for her. If he forced her to stay now, she would associate him with this panic.

"I will walk you to the gates," Wangchen offered softly, his hands falling to his sides.

"No need! I know the way!" Ji’an practically shouted, already backing toward the heavy oak doors. "You stay here! Monitor his Qi! Make sure he doesn’t freeze the plumbing! I’ll... I’ll see you around! Bye!"

Without waiting for a response, Ji’an turned and bolted.

She sprinted down the pristine, frosted hallways of the Eternal Cloud Peak like a bat out of hell, her wet boots squeaking comically on the ice, Wangchen’s heavy cloak billowing behind her like a superhero cape.

Wangchen stood in the doorway of the bathing chamber, watching her disappear down the corridor.

He raised his hand, slowly touching his own chest, right over his heart. He could still smell the faint scent of the hot spring, mixed with the spicy aroma of the herbs she had crushed.

He turned his head slightly, his dark, bottomless eyes settling on his master, who was still meditating in the tub.

The look Wangchen gave Elder Qin was devoid of any filial piety. It was the look of a dragon evaluating a thief who had dared to touch a piece of its hoard.

"You will never lay a hand on him again," Wangchen whispered into the freezing air, a silent, absolute vow.

***

For the next seven days, Lin Ji’an did not leave the Drunken Peak.

She didn’t just stay on the mountain; she practically barricaded herself inside the newly scrubbed kitchen.