"I’m a cultivator. I compress the ambient spiritual energy of the universe into my muscle fibres. I can shatter a boulder with a soup ladle. Why has my evolution not bypassed this utterly barbaric, unnecessary mortal function? Where is my protagonist’s golden finger that pauses menstruation?! I demand a refund on this transmigration!"

"I don’t understand half the words you are saying, hero," Su Yin whispered, wrapping her arm securely around Ji’an’s waist, hauling her toward the estate gates with surprising strength for a pampered runaway. "But you’re sweating, and it looks like you’re going to vomit anytime. Let’s get you to bed first, Hero. If need be, I’m willing to sacrifice myself and offer up to reduce your pain!"

The journey from the front gates to Ji’an’s private courtyard, which usually took five minutes, felt like an hour-long forced march through a blizzard.

Every step sent a jolt of ache radiating through her lower back and down her thighs.

By the time they reached the heavy doors of her sanctum, Ji’an’s previous, blazing fury had evaporated, replaced by a wave of miserable, hormone-induced despair.

She shoved the doors open, stumbled into the cool, dimly lit bedroom, and practically threw herself face-first onto the plush, silk-draped mattress of her canopy bed.

"Leave me alone," Ji’an groaned into the mattress, waving a weak, trembling hand at Su Yin. "Go to the kitchens and tell them to send up some hot water. And tell them if anyone knocks on this door today, I will personally deep-fry their fingers."

Su Yin, for once recognizing the severity of the situation and abandoning her usual bratty antics, nodded solemnly and sprinted out of the room, pulling the heavy doors shut behind her.

Ji’an rolled over onto her back, curling her knees tightly to her chest, wrapping her arms around her shins in the universal, desperate fetal position of the cramping.

’This is unfair,’ Ji’an’s internal monologue wept, her emotions swinging wildly from residual anger to pathetic self-pity. ’I just wanted a vacation. I just wanted to rest.’

Dealing with her period on Earth had been an inconvenience.

But dealing with it in a Xianxia web novel universe, entirely populated by male leads with supernatural olfactory senses, was like a nightmare.

Until now, Ji’an had managed to survive her monthly cycles at the Celestial Sword Sect through a combination of extreme stealth, arson, and dumb luck.

Living on the Drunken Peak as the supposed "boy" apprentice of Master Jiu Zui meant men surrounded her.

To make matters infinitely worse, in the archaic, highly traditional culture of the orthodox cultivation world, menstrual blood was not merely an inconvenience; it was considered a highly potent "impurity."

It was believed that the heavy Yin energy of a woman’s cycle could disrupt low-level arrays, taint spiritual herbs, and actively damage the pure Yang cultivation of any male who came into contact with it.

Women in orthodox sects were usually sequestered during their cycles, excused from training, and kept away from the alchemy pavilions.

Ji’an had no such luxury.

When her period first arrived on the mountain, she nearly suffered a panic attack.

She had spent three days sneaking down to the freezing mountain river at three in the morning to wash her binding cloths, scrubbing the fabric until her knuckles bled.

Disposing of the evidence had been an even greater challenge.

She couldn’t just throw things away.

She had to use her Qi to incinerate the soiled cloths into ashes.

Master Jiu Zui, the alcoholic Sovereign of the peak, had stumbled out of his hammock one night and caught her burning a pile of rags in the courtyard.

Ji’an had frozen, terrified that she was about to be exposed, executed, or thrown off the mountain.

Instead, the old man had merely taken a swig from his wine gourd, squinted at the flames, and slurred, "If you are trying to invent a new wok-searing technique using burning fabric, apprentice, I suggest you use a higher grade of silk. Cotton leaves an ashy aftertaste."

He had then stumbled back to his hammock, entirely unbothered, leaving Ji’an staring after him in relief.

But the Ice Demon, Xie Wangchen, had been a far more terrifying hurdle.

Wangchen possessed the Flawless Ice Root, so his senses were impossibly sharp.

The first time she had served him tea while on her cycle, his red eyes had immediately snapped to her face.

His nostrils had flared delicately.

"You are bleeding," Wangchen had stated, his voice dropping low.

The temperature in the courtyard had plummeted by twenty degrees, black frost creeping up the legs of the stone table. "Who injured you? Tell me their name. I will go and shatter their meridians into dust."

Ji’an had panicked, slapping a hand over her nose and tilting her head back, lying through her teeth. "It’s just a nosebleed! I was practicing a new breathing technique and forced too much Qi into my upper capillaries! I am fine! Do not murder anyone!"

Wangchen had stared at her for ten long seconds before the ice receded, though he had insisted on personally brewing her a restorative tonic that tasted like frozen dirt, watching her drink every last drop.

’I am so tired of lying,’ Ji’an whimpered, pressing her face into the silk pillows of her bed in the Lin Estate, her abdomen contracting with another vicious spasm.

She didn’t have to hide her gender from her father or Lin Feng, but the cultural stigma of the era still loomed heavily in her mind.

Even if they knew she was a girl, she assumed they would adhere to the standard, archaic reactions of men in this world: avoidance, discomfort, and treating her like a walking biohazard until the "impurity" passed.

"I’m going to die alone in this bed, and my tombstone will read: ’Here lies the Head Chef. She flipped a table, and then her uterus flipped on her," Ji’an mumbled deliriously, her mood swings violently shifting from self-pity back to furious, irrational anger.