Xuan looked at Ji’an, tears welling in his eyes once more. He didn’t care about the dishwashing.

He didn’t care about the chores. He had found his older sibling, and his older sibling was a terrifying, incredibly capable badass who made the best food in the world.

"Thank you, Third Brother," Xuan whispered, bowing his head respectfully.

"Yeah, yeah, save the tears for peeling the spirit onions tomorrow," Ji’an grumbled, though she couldn’t hide the fond, affectionate smile touching her lips.

As the hearth fire burned low, casting long, peaceful shadows across the kitchen, Lin Ji’an realised her life had just gotten infinitely more complicated.

She had a mountain to run, a terrifying cultivation method to master, a massive debt of extorted money to hide, and now, a little brother to raise.

But as she looked at Xuan’s sleeping form an hour later, curled up on a cot in the corner of her cabin, she didn’t feel overwhelmed.

’Bring it on,’ Ji’an thought, crossing her arms and looking out the window toward the freezing summit of the Eternal Cloud Peak. ’I’ve got a wok, a spatula, and fifty million stolen spirit stones. Let the plot try and stop me.’

***

The transition from the chaotic, adrenaline-fueled heist of the Black Market to the serene, isolated tranquility of the Drunken Peak should have guaranteed Lin Ji’an the best sleep of her transmigrated life.

After all, she had successfully rescued her little brother, extorted a criminal syndicate for fifty million spirit stones, and secured a legendary cultivation manual.

She had earned at least fourteen uninterrupted hours of comatose slumber.

But her subconscious, heavily poisoned by the catastrophic events in the Eternal Cloud Peak’s bathing chamber, had other, vastly more scandalous plans.

The dream was a hazy, steaming labyrinth of white jade and thick fog. Ji’an was standing waist-deep in a pool of thermal water, but she wasn’t boiling it. The water was perfectly, pleasantly warm.

"Ji’an."

The voice was a low, rough vibration that seemed to echo directly inside her chest.

Through the mist, a figure stepped into the water. He didn’t wear the heavy, pristine white robes of the Inner Sect.

He wore absolutely nothing from the waist up. His skin was pale, flawless, and completely immune to the heat of the spring.

Drops of condensation gathered on his sculpted collarbones, tracing the lean, terrifyingly perfect lines of his abdominal muscles.

It was Xie Wangchen.

But it wasn’t the cold, aloof Ice Demon who looked at the world with dead, murderous eyes. This Wangchen was looking at her with a heavy, hooded, undeniably hungry intensity.

He waded closer, the water parting around him. The chill radiating from his skin mingled with the steam, creating an intoxicating, dizzying contrast.

"You ran away," Dream-Wangchen murmured, his voice dropping a full octave, dripping with a dark, possessive sorrow that made Ji’an’s knees genuinely weak.

"I... I had to check on my... my broth," Dream-Ji’an stammered, entirely abandoning her arrogant chef persona as she backed up against the slick jade wall of the tub.

Wangchen didn’t let her escape. He closed the distance, pressing one pale, elegant hand against the wall right beside her head, trapping her.

He leaned in so close she could feel the icy, minty chill of his breath against her flushed cheek. His other hand slowly, deliberately rose from the water, his cool fingers brushing a wet strand of dark hair behind her ear.

The touch was electric. It sent a violent, searing jolt straight down to her toes.

"Forget the broth," Wangchen whispered, his dark eyes dropping to her lips. "I am starving."

He leaned in, his face tilting, the space between them evaporating into nothingness.

Ji’an’s eyes fluttered shut, her heart hammering a frantic, desperate rhythm against her ribs. She could feel the chill of his lips hovering mere millimeters from hers—

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The deafening, unholy sound of a rusted iron ladle beating against a brass wok shattered the ethereal mist of the dream like a grenade thrown into a glasshouse.

Ji’an shrieked, shooting up from her cot so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash.

She scrambled backward, tangling herself entirely in her thin cotton blankets, her chest heaving as she gasped for air.

"WAKE UP, LAZYBONES! THE SUN IS UP! THE BIRDS ARE SINGING! THE DAO AWAITS!"

Standing in the doorway of her small wooden cabin, looking entirely too cheerful for a man who drank his body weight in alcohol daily, was Jiu Zui.

The Drunken Sovereign was holding a wok and a ladle, grinning like a maniac.

Ji’an sat in the tangled mess of her blankets, her face flushed a brilliant, scandalous shade of crimson. Her heart was still performing Olympic-level gymnastics.

’I was dreaming about him,’ Ji’an’s mind shrieked in absolute, bisexual panic. ’I was having a rated-R, borderline-NSFW dream about the yandere villain! What is wrong with me?! He is a walking red flag! He freezes people into abstract art! Why is my subconscious trying to kiss him?!’

"Master," Ji’an groaned, dragging a hand down her burning face. "It is barely dawn. The roosters haven’t even cleared their throats yet. Why are you banging cookware at me?"

"Because you are my direct apprentice, and it is time to cultivate!" Jiu Zui declared, tossing the ladle into the air and catching it. "The Dao of the Iron Wok waits for no man! Or woman! Or whatever you’re currently identifying as under that illusion locket! Up! We have internal meridians to compress!"

"I am exhausted, Master," Ji’an argued, flopping back onto her pillow and pulling the blanket over her head. "I fought a ghost cultivator, dragged a man out of a freezing tub, raided a black market, and carried the plot on my back for three days straight. My muscles are screaming. I require some emergency beauty sleep, Master."

Jiu Zui scoffed, marching over and effortlessly yanking the blanket completely off her bed.

"Lazy! Absolutely lazy!" Jiu Zui chided, putting his hands on his hips dramatically.