My Taboo Harem!

Chapter 852: Stylish Popsicle

By the time the Rolls-Royce finally glided to a smooth, aristocratic halt before the boutique, the cold had already seized both heaven and earth in a tyrannical grip, showing no mercy and no intention of ever relenting.

The night outside looked beautiful.

Cruelly, viciously beautiful.

The cold had transformed every breath into pale, ethereal smoke and honed the city lights into crystalline blades, as though winter itself had meticulously polished Hell’s Paradise Island into something pristine and merciless. Far in the distance, the endless forests surrounding the island loomed like ancient sleeping gods beneath the darkness, and the wind flowing from them carried a chill so profound it no longer felt like mere weather.

It felt personal.

Like nature itself harboured a quiet, ancient contempt for warmth.

Phei stepped out first.

And unlike the others, he felt absolutely nothing. No chill. No discomfort. Nothing.

At this point he was fairly certain he could lounge inside an industrial freezer for several weeks and still complain about the temperature being mildly inconvenient.

The absurdity of it wasn’t even surprising anymore — it had crossed over, somewhere in the last few weeks, from remarkable to mere background noise, the way a man who discovers he can fly eventually stops noticing ceilings.

Connected to the cold and the void themselves, he could practically see the chill moving through the air around him — thin invisible currents twisting across the streets and wrapping around buildings like wandering spirits searching for weak points to invade.

None of it touched him as the cold simply parted at his shoulders, curled past his arms, and reconvened behind him like a river flowing around a stone it had long since accepted it could not erode.

Like even winter understood boundaries.

Behind him, the girls exited the car and immediately suffered.

Lydia shivered first, hugging herself tightly beneath the oversized sweater she had wisely brought — her arms crossed, chin tucked, her whole-body folded inward with the practiced efficiency, she had planned for this exact scenario and was now reaping the warm, smug, cashmere-insulated rewards.

Emily followed shortly after, her composed expression cracking ever so slightly the instant the wind hit her face — a hairline fracture in the Hartwell composure, quickly repaired, but noticed by everyone who was looking, which was everyone.

Only Catrina—

Actually no.

Catrina had it worst.

Because unlike the other two, the girl had apparently arrived tonight with confidence instead of survival instincts:

She stepped out of the two-million-dollar Rolls wearing something fashionable and sleek and absolutely, catastrophically, suicidally unsuited for the temperature — a cute top, bare arms, no jacket, no scarf, no concession whatsoever to the fact that Hell’s Paradise Island was currently being strangled by an ancient forest’s cold and was losing — and instantly folded into herself with a violent shiver that rattled her from her shoulders to her ankles.

Phei looked at her.

Lydia looked at her.

Even Emily looked at her.

Catrina tried maintaining dignity for approximately three seconds.

Another gust of freezing wind slammed into her bare arms and her spirit visibly departed her body, leaving behind a shivering girl whose fashion choices were currently being audited by the universe and found catastrophically wanting.

Emily’s eyes narrowed with predatory delight.

"Well," Emily said smoothly, adjusting her sleeves with calm, vicious satisfaction, "if it isn’t the consequences of poor planning."¹

Catrina gasped weakly through chattering teeth. "Y-You witch... This is betrayal!"

"Oh?" Emily continued with dangerous serenity, her single visible eye gleaming like a tiny, feral accountant who had just found an unpaid invoice. "Suddenly I’m useful again? After all that ’financially evolved beyond human emotion’ nonsense in the car? How the tables have turned!"

Lydia burst out laughing beside them, her breath pluming white in the cold air.

"Not only did she forget a jacket," Lydia added gleefully, "she also forgot her card. Absolute masterpiece of planning."

It felt suspiciously as if Lydia had seen it all happen and had said nothing, good show.

Silence.

Phei blinked.

Emily blinked.

Then both slowly turned toward Catrina with the synchronized precision of two people arriving at the same horrifying conclusion at the same time.

"...You forgot your card?" Emily repeated, her voice dripping with sweet, feral triumph as she puffed her cheeks in maximum indignation. "In this weather? With this wind? Are you trying to become a stylish popsicle?!"

Catrina looked away, jaw tight, eyes fixed on a distant point that presumably contained the shattered remnants of her dignity. "It was supposed to be warmer..."

The silence itself confessed everything.

Lydia physically stumbled laughing — actually stumbled, her foot catching on the kerb, her balance saved only by grabbing Emily’s arm, her whole body shaking with the kind of laughter that lives in the diaphragm and refuses to be controlled.

"Oh my God. Incredible." She pointed dramatically toward the luxurious boutique gleaming before them, its windows warm and golden and full of beautiful things that cost beautiful amounts.

"A fish dying of thirst in the middle of the ocean. Poetic."

"That metaphor doesn’t even work," Emily muttered, though her lips were twitching with victorious glee.

"It emotionally works," Lydia insisted.

"It really does," Phei admitted, fighting back his own grin.

Catrina looked genuinely betrayed. "You people are horrible. Traitors. All of you. I’m freezing here and you’re making ocean metaphors!"

"Oh no," Lydia said sweetly, still wiping tears from her eyes, "we’re hilarious. You’re just freezing. Big difference."

Another gust of cold wind hit, Catrina visibly lost the will to continue pretending she was fine. Her shoulders drew up to her ears. Her arms clamped tighter around herself while her teeth chattered audibly despite her best efforts.

Emily’s single visible eye narrowed further, her expression shifting into full feral-cute mode as she crossed her arms with dramatic flair. "Poor planning really is a tragedy, isn’t it? Maybe next time you’ll remember that fashion doesn’t protect against hypothermia, Catrina."

"I hate you all," Catrina grumbled through clenched teeth, though her shivering ruined any attempt at menace. "Especially you, Emily. With your stupid warm sweater and your stupid valid points."

"My hobbies prepared me for this moment," Emily declared proudly, puffing up even more. "See? Financial planning includes weather contingencies!"

Lydia nearly collapsed again. "She’s weaponizing her spreadsheets now. We’re doomed."

Phei simply shook his head, smiling as the cold parted around him like an old friend, watching the chaos unfold with quiet amusement.

"Emily..." she started carefully, inching closer with the cautious sidelong steps of someone who already knew she was about to be rejected but was too cold to let pride decide for her. "Can you maybe—"