It was a loose, flowing inner tunic crafted from the finest, thinnest white spirit-silk.

Without her chest bound, the silk draped over her natural, feminine curves.

It wasn’t tailored to be provocative; it was a standard nightgown, but the material was incredibly sheer.

Ji’an didn’t care.

She was too exhausted to care about modesty in her own locked room.

She simply slipped the silk tunic over her head, leaving the collar loosely tied.

Her dark hair, usually pinned up in an immaculate, arrogant young-master bun, hung completely unbound down her back.

It was soaking wet, the water dripping onto her shoulders and soaking into the thin white silk, causing the fabric to cling translucently to her heated, flushed skin.

She padded barefoot into the main bedchamber, rubbing her wet hair with a towel.

The stray girl Su Yin went back to the guest dorm by now and was fast asleep, softly snoring, exhausted from her own tantrum.

Ji’an smiled wearily, walking toward her massive canopy bed.

As she approached the mattress, a faint, pulsing blue light caught her eye.

Resting on the silk sheets, where she had tossed it before her bath, was the Frost-Silk Pulse Guard.

The central ice-jade bead was glowing with a brilliant, mesmerizing luminescence, projecting a thin, swirling column of pale, freezing mist into the air above the bed.

Ji’an paused, the towel dropping to her shoulders.

’The communication array,’ Ji’an realized, her heart giving a sudden, entirely joyful leap in her chest.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t spoken to him in weeks.

In the chaotic, terrifying whirlwind of her journey, the Prince, the bloody dungeons, the overwhelming revelations of her own transmigration, the image of the Ice Demon sitting calmly in his courtyard brewing tea had become her anchor to sanity.

Ji’an didn’t hesitate.

She scrambled onto the edge of the bed, her wet hair falling over her shoulders.

She reached out, pressing her index finger directly against the glowing jade bead.

The swirling column of frost instantly expanded, flattening out into a shimmering, translucent, mirror-like projection of condensed ice.

Through the frost, the image cleared.

Sitting in the pitch-black darkness of a cave, illuminated only by the faint, blue glow of the array itself, was Xie Wangchen.

He was dressed in his pristine white inner robes.

His silver hair was untied, spilling over his shoulders, framing his pale, flawless, breathtakingly handsome face.

The moment Ji’an saw him, a brilliant smile broke across her face.

The heavy, suffocating exhaustion of the capital city instantly lifted, replaced by a surge of relief.

"Wangchen!" Ji’an exclaimed, her voice bright, ringing with a genuine, undeniable joy that made the ice mirror vibrate. "You called! Oh my god, Little Puddle, you have no idea how happy I am to see your brooding, freezing face right now!"

On the other side of the projection, Xie Wangchen completely stopped breathing.

He had expected to see a tired boy in heavy armor.

He had expected to see the arrogant cook wearing a gray apron.

He did not expect this.

Ji’an was leaning toward the projection, completely relaxed.

Her skin was flushed a deep, healthy pink from the hot bath.

Her dark, wet hair clung to the sides of her face, a single drop of water tracking a slow path down her slender neck.

But it was the clothing that caused Wangchen’s brain to completely, violently short-circuit.

The white spirit-silk tunic was damp from her hair.

It clung to her collarbones.

The loose neckline gaped open as she leaned forward, exposing the smooth, pale expanse of her chest.

Wangchen’s pupils dilated until his eyes were entirely, bottomlessly black.

The impact of the visual confirmation hit him like a physical strike from a Nascent Soul expert.

The monster beneath the ice, the dark, possessive, feral entity he had been desperately trying to chain, violently shattered its restraints.

The arousal was instantaneous and suffocating.

The air in the seclusion cave began to crackle, the ten-thousand-year-old Glacial Marrow beneath him groaning under the sudden surge of his unchecked Qi.

But Wangchen was a master of the Heartless Dao.

He was a sociopath of the highest order.

Even as his soul burned with an unholy, possessive inferno, his face remained a flawless, serene mask of carved jade.

He forced his lungs to expand.

He forced his lips to curve into a soft, breathtakingly beautiful, and entirely fake smile.

"Brother Ji’an," Wangchen murmured, his voice a low, smooth, perfectly modulated hum that hid the tremor vibrating in his throat. "It is good to see you. You appear to be... refreshed."

His eyes dropped to the damp silk clinging to her chest before snapping back to her silver-flecked eyes.

Ji’an, oblivious to the fact that her nightgown was acting as a wet T-shirt, just laughed, running a hand through her dripping hair.

"Refreshed is an understatement," Ji’an groaned, leaning back on her hands, causing the silk to pull even tighter across her torso. "I just took the hottest bath in the history of the Azure Empire. I was covered in subterranean mud, bandit blood, and the nasty scent of those noblewomen from the palace. I finally feel like a human being again."

Wangchen’s smile remained perfectly fixed.

He watched the way the fabric stretched.

He watched the soft, natural sway of her body.

Every single movement she made was sending a fresh spike of electric tension straight to his core.

"Bandit blood?" Wangchen asked sweetly, his tone gentle, inquiring. "Have you been engaging in dangerous missions, Brother Ji’an?"

He used the word ’Brother’ deliberately.

It was a twisted, deeply ironic endearment in his mind now.

It was a secret he held over her, a dark, thrilling joke that only he understood.

"Don’t even get me started! Calling it just dangerous is putting it mildly!" Ji’an practically exploded, eager to vent to the only person she felt safe with.

She shifted on the bed, pulling one knee to her chest, resting her chin on it as she huffed.