She unclasped the jade medallion from her waist, tossing it onto the table.

She began to strip away the heavy, suffocating layers of her formal court robes, desperate to wash the smell of the Imperial Palace off her skin.

As the heavy silk pooled on the floor, the quiet isolation of the room suddenly felt overwhelmingly oppressive.

It wasn’t a peaceful quiet.

It was the quiet of an empty cage.

Ji’an paused, looking out the large, circular window toward the distant, darkened horizon where the northern mountain ranges lay hidden by the night.

A sudden, sharp pang of homesickness struck her right in the center of her chest.

She missed the Eternal Cloud Peak.

It was an entirely irrational feeling.

The Eternal Cloud Peak was a freezing, isolated fortress guarded by a man who had nearly frozen her blood because she spoke to a golden retriever.

But standing here, in the heart of her own family’s estate, surrounded by the crushing weight of her brother’s sacrifice and the sociopathic machinations of the Imperial Court... she desperately craved the simplicity of Xie Wangchen’s madness.

Wangchen’s obsession was terrifying, yes.

But it was honest.

He didn’t demand a debt.

He didn’t manipulate her history or alter the cosmos to bend her to his will.

He just wanted her to be there.

He wanted to sit across from her, drink her tea, and look at her as if she were the only thing keeping his universe from shattering into a million frozen pieces.

’I wonder what he’s doing right now,’ Ji’an thought, her fingers absentmindedly brushing against the cool, smooth jade bead of the Frost-Silk Pulse Guard tied securely around her left wrist. ’Is he still sitting on that slab of ice? Has he broken through his bottleneck? Does he even realize I’m gone for a long time?’

She let out a soft, melancholic sigh, tracing the intricate midnight-blue silk threads.

"I miss you, Little Puddle," Ji’an whispered to the empty room, her voice barely a breath. "You are an absolute, unhinged yandere disaster... but compared to my family, you are practically a comfort blanket. Please finish your seclusion quickly. I need my designated vegetable-chopper back."

She let her hand drop, turning toward the adjoining bathing chamber to finally wash the exhaustion from her bones.

She took exactly two steps.

Before her foot could even touch the threshold of the bathroom, the heavy silk curtains draping her canopy bed suddenly rustled.

Ji’an’s combat instincts, honed to a razor’s edge by the subterranean dungeon raid, flared instantly.

She didn’t scream or freeze. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

She dropped into a flawless, low martial stance, her right hand snapping down to her calf, her fingers closing tightly around the cast-iron grip of her spatula.

She channeled a massive surge of Qi into her arm, fully prepared to shatter the skull of whatever imperial assassin or demonic beast had breached her father’s wards.

"Who’s there?!" Ji’an barked, her voice a terrifying, flat baritone, leveling the spatula toward the bed.

The heavy curtains parted.

A figure launched itself from the mattress, flying through the air like a desperate, highly aggressive missile.

Ji’an braced for impact, raising the spatula to block a blade.

But the projectile didn’t possess a blade.

It possessed two thin, remarkably strong arms that bypassed her guard entirely, wrapping around her neck with the suffocating, unyielding grip of a boa constrictor.

"Oof!" Ji’an grunted, stumbling backward under the sudden weight, her spatula clattering uselessly to the wooden floorboards.

"You left me!" a shrill, furious, and incredibly dramatic voice shrieked directly into Ji’an’s ear.

Ji’an froze.

The aura of murder completely evaporated, replaced instantly by a wave of exasperated disbelief.

She reached up, prying the arms loose just enough so she could breathe, and looked down at the assailant currently clinging to her chest like an oversized, highly agitated koala.

It was the stray girl.

The delicate, beautiful teenager she had rescued from the Blood-Iron Syndicate dungeon, whom she had carried on her back through the mud, and whom she had spent the last thirty-six hours physically peeling off her arm in the hell-carriage.

The girl was no longer wearing the torn, dirty silk robes from the cavern.

The estate maids had clearly scrubbed her clean, brushing her long, dark hair until it shone, and dressing her in a set of high-quality, pale pink sleeping robes reserved for honored guests.

She looked like a porcelain doll.

A porcelain doll that was currently throwing a massive, unmitigated tantrum.

"What are you doing in my room?!" Ji’an demanded, her head chef’s voice returning in full force as she tried to detach the girl from her torso. "How did you even get past the courtyard guards?!"

"The guards are stupid!" the girl pouted, her massive, doe-like eyes swimming with angry, unshed tears.

She refused to let go, burying her face into the fabric of Ji’an’s inner tunic. "I told them I needed to bring the Martial Uncle his restorative tea, and they just let me walk right past! But you weren’t here! You were gone for hours! I had to hide in the curtains!"

Ji’an stared at the top of the girl’s head, her brain struggling to process the unadulterated bratty energy radiating from the teenager.

"I was at a Royal Banquet," Ji’an stated flatly, finally managing to peel the girl off her chest, holding her at arm’s length by her shoulders. "I was summoned by the Emperor. I didn’t abandon you, you little gremlin. And even if I did, you are currently residing in the most heavily fortified military estate in the Azure Empire. You are perfectly safe. Why are you hiding in my bed?!"

The girl sniffled, her lower lip trembling with a devastatingly effective, highly practiced pout.

"Because I was bored," the girl whimpered, looking up through her dark lashes. "And... and I missed you. The scary man with the white hair put me in a massive room all by myself, and the maids wouldn’t talk to me, and I didn’t know anyone here."