The carriage rolled onward through the mud and the rain, carrying a traumatized child, a panicked chef, and a predator who had just decided to stop playing with his food.

The journey to the Azure Empire had just become the most dangerous mission of Lin Ji’an’s life.

***

The heavy, enchanted mahogany carriage of the Imperial Second Prince rolled over the deeply rutted, mud-slicked roads of the provincial borderlands.

The violent thunderstorm that had trapped Lin Ji’an, Lin Xuan, and Xiao Yichen in a suffocating bubble of terrifying, predatory sexual tension had finally broken, leaving behind a thick, oppressive humidity and a dense fog that clung to the ancient, towering pine trees flanking the highway.

Inside the carriage, the atmosphere was a completely different kind of stifling.

Lin Ji’an sat rigidly on the plush velvet bench, her arms crossed so tightly over her chest that her fingers were digging into her own biceps.

She had spent the last two hours staring aggressively out the rain-streaked window, absolutely refusing to make eye contact with the man sitting across from her.

’He is a sociopath,’ Ji’an chanted internally, her mental voice a frantic, looping siren. ’That absolute lunatic bastard, what the heck was he thinking while trying to pin me to a wall? He is dangerous and unhinged. If I look at him, he is going to say something smooth and terrifying, and my blood pressure will genuinely cause a stroke.’

Xiao Yichen, conversely, was the picture of relaxed, aristocratic elegance.

He sat completely at ease, his long legs crossed, lazily fanning himself with his painted silk folding fan.

He hadn’t said a single word since Lin Xuan had obliviously interrupted his attempt to seduce his "Royal Uncle."

But he didn’t need to speak. The sheer, suffocating weight of his dark, unblinking gaze was doing all the talking.

He watched her. He watched the tense line of her jaw, watched the way she aggressively chewed on the inside of her cheek.

And behind the silk fabric of his fan, Yichen was smiling. It wasn’t the fake, polite smile he wore in the Imperial Court. It was a dark, deeply obsessive smirk.

’He is flustered,’ Yichen analyzed, the brilliant, twisted tactician within him rejoicing. ’He is not completely indifferent. The Ice Demon may have his loyalty, but I have his panic. Fear is a perfectly acceptable foundation upon which to build an empire.’

In the far corner, entirely ignorant of the psychological warfare threatening to tear the carriage apart, thirteen-year-old Lin Xuan was happily munching on the remaining orange slices, his nose buried in a military scroll.

"Third Brother," Xuan mumbled around a mouthful of citrus. "Are we going to stop for lunch soon? My stomach is empty. I think I burned through the morning congee already. My Iron-Marrow Physique requires sustenance."

Ji’an leaped at the excuse to break the silence. "Yes! Absolutely! We should stop immediately! Foraging is crucial! Let me tell the driver to—"

Ji’an never finished the sentence.

THWACK!

The sound was deafening, like a massive iron whip striking the reinforced roof of the carriage.

The entire vehicle violently shuddered, groaning under a sudden, immense kinetic impact.

The four Spirit-Stallions pulling the carriage let out a synchronized, terrified shriek, rearing back on their hind legs.

"Ambush!" a voice roared from outside. It was Commander Mo, the leader of Yichen’s elite shadow guards. "Protect the Prince! Defensive Array Delta!"

Before Ji’an could even grab the hilt of her Black Iron Spatula, the reinforced glass windows of the carriage shattered inward.

It wasn’t an arrow or a sword that broke the glass. It was a localized, highly condensed orb of toxic green smog.

The orb detonated upon impact, instantly flooding the interior of the carriage with a thick, blinding, choking vapor.

Ji’an’s culinary-enhanced senses immediately analyzed the chemical composition of the attack.

’Burnt sulfur, crushed Bitter-Weeping Willow bark, and powdered hallucinogenic toadstools,’ Ji’an’s brain computed as her eyes began to burn fiercely. ’This isn’t a mortal bandit raid! This is an alchemical smokescreen! Rogue cultivators!’

"Xuan! Get down!" Ji’an screamed, coughing violently as the acrid smoke filled her lungs.

She blindly reached out toward the corner where her little brother had been sitting, intending to pull him to the floorboards.

Her fingers brushed against the thick, heavy canvas of a burlap sack, followed immediately by the terrified, muffled shriek of a thirteen-year-old boy.

"Third Brother! Help!" Xuan yelled, his voice rapidly moving away from the carriage.

"Xuan?!" Ji’an roared, her vision completely obscured by the noxious green fog.

She felt a sudden rush of cold air as the heavy mahogany door of the carriage was violently ripped off its hinges from the outside.

Through the stinging smog, Ji’an caught a fleeting, terrifying silhouette: a massive, burly man wrapped in dark, tattered leather armor, hoisting a squirming burlap sack over his shoulder.

The man didn’t run; he bounded into the dense, fog-covered forest using a highly refined, Foundation Establishment-level movement technique.

They had taken her dishwasher, had taken her little brother.

The protective, feral, Asian-Mom-Chef instincts within Lin Ji’an detonated with the force of a nuclear bomb.

"YOU SON OF A BITCH! Give me back my dishwasher, leave him here!" Ji’an shrieked, her voice stripped entirely of its usual arrogant calm.

She didn’t think or calculate the odds.

She drew her Black Iron Spatula, channeling every single ounce of her hyper-compressed Dao of the Iron Wok Qi into her legs, intending to launch herself out of the shattered doorframe and chase the kidnapper to the ends of the earth.

She took exactly one step.

Before her foot could even touch the mud outside, a hand clamped down on her wrist with the unyielding, iron grip of a vice.

Simultaneously, a strong, muscular arm wrapped securely around her waist, violently yanking her backward.

Ji’an gasped as her back slammed into a hard, solid chest. The momentum sent them both crashing back into the velvet cushions of the carriage bench.

"Let me go!" Ji’an thrashed wildly, bringing her elbow back in a vicious strike.