Chapter 455: Blackout

It was a holy crusade built on the foundation of absolute guilt.

He didn’t just want to possess her anymore.

He wanted to atone, to lay his life at her feet and let her use his spine as a stepping stone to whatever paradise she desired.

He stayed on his knees.

For the entirety of the long, dark, desert night, while the volcano roared outside and the other boys slept peacefully in their ignorance, Xie Wangchen remained kneeling beside her bed.

He did not meditate or sleep.

He simply watched her breathe, a silent gargoyle guarding the only piece of the universe that mattered, torturing himself with the ghosts of a past he couldn’t remember, and preparing his soul to burn the world to ash the moment she asked for a light.

Waking up from a night of heavy drinking is a universally unpleasant experience, regardless of whether you are a mortal college student or an immortal cultivator at the Body Fusion realm.

But waking up from a night of drinking Molten-Core Ale, a volatile, high-proof spirit brewed in an active volcano is an entirely different taxonomy of suffering.

Lin Ji’an slowly cracked open one of her silver-flecked eye.

It felt as though a family of territorial desert badgers had decided to excavate a burrow directly behind her frontal lobe.

Her mouth tasted like sulfur, old pennies, and regret.

"Ugh," Ji’an groaned, attempting to sit up.

Her body felt strangely well-rested, but her brain was rattling against her skull.

She looked down.

She was lying on a plush bed in a spartan, heavily warded guest suite of the Iron-Stone Monastery. She was no longer wearing the heavy leather blacksmith’s apron, nor the stained outer robes.

Someone had carefully, meticulously wrapped her in a thick, woven quilt.

’How did I get here?’ Ji’an’s culinary mind sluggishly tried to piece the timeline together.

She remembered searing a steak, Elder Ignis roaring with laughter, drinking a liquid that tasted like a campfire, and then... nothing.

A complete blackout.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, rubbing her temples.

She grabbed her Szechuan Red combat trousers and her white inner-tunic from a nearby wooden stool, where they had been perfectly folded with a precision.

She strapped her heavy cast-iron spatula to her calf, tied her shimmering silver hair back into a tight, messy ponytail, and stepped out into the sweltering corridors of the monastery.

She needed water and aspirin, and she needed to yell at someone to establish her morning baseline.

As she rounded the corner into the expansive, basalt-paved guest courtyard, she spotted the familiar, blindingly white robes of Xie Wangchen.

The Ice Demon was standing near a bubbling thermal fountain.

The air around him was crisp, clean, and chilled, providing an oasis against the volcanic heat.

"Hey, Little Puddle," Ji’an called out, her voice raspy, walking toward him with the intention of leaning against his freezing arm like a human ice pack. "Did you carry me back last night? Because my head feels like it was used as an anvil."

Wangchen stiffened.

He didn’t just freeze; his entire vessel locked up as if he had been struck by lightning. The black frost that usually coiled around his boots retracted violently.

He slowly turned his head.

His ruby eyes, which normally tracked her every movement with unblinking devotion, darted wildly away the second they met her gaze.

He looked at the floor. He looked at the thermal fountain. He looked anywhere but at her.

"Vanguard Leader," Wangchen murmured.

His voice was not the usual, husky, possessive purr. It was hollow, trembling, and weighed down by an invisible agony that Ji’an couldn’t even begin to decipher.

He took a deliberate step backward, increasing the physical distance between them.

"I must... inspect the perimeter wards," Wangchen choked out, his chest heaving as if he couldn’t breathe the same air as her. "Excuse me."

Without waiting for a response, without offering to freeze her a glass of water, and without a single glance... the Sovereign of the Eternal Cloud Peak turned on his heel and practically fled the courtyard, disappearing into a blur of ice-displacement.

Ji’an stood alone in the courtyard, her hand half-raised, completely bewildered.

"Did... did he just avoid me?" Ji’an whispered to herself, genuinely stunned.

For a month, her primary problem with Xie Wangchen was prying him off her.

He was a clingy, homicidal, overbearing refrigerator who stared at her collarbones and threatened to freeze anyone who breathed in her direction. She had spent the last twelve hours terrified he was going to murder the entire Iron-Stone welcoming committee.

And now, he couldn’t even look her in the eye.

A sudden, sharp pang of genuine hurt pierced through the throbbing hangover. ’Did I do something wrong?’

Ji’an wondered, her brow furrowing. ’Did I say something stupid when I was drunk? Did I throw up on his pristine robes?’

Before she could spiral into a pit of drunken guilt, the temperature in the courtyard spiked, and the heavy, intoxicating scent of spiced amber and ozone washed over her.

"Good morning, little intern."

Ji’an turned to see Yan Zhaoge leaning casually against an obsidian pillar.

The Overtime Boss was draped in his usual, chaotic midnight-purple silk, a smug, entertained smile curling his lips.

"You look terrible," Yan Zhaoge noted cheerfully, pushing off the pillar and strolling toward her. "The Molten-Core Ale is unforgiving to those who lack the liver capacity of a three-hundred-year-old forgemaster. But there is no time for hangovers. We have an appointment."

Ji’an scowled, crossing her arms over her chest, ignoring her pounding head. "I have a work list a mile long, Sovereign Yan. I have to check on the boys, I have to inspect the kitchen’s ventilation systems, and I have to figure out why my Ice Demon is currently acting like a kicked puppy. Whatever corporate team-building exercise you have planned, cancel it."

Yan Zhaoge didn’t miss a beat.

He stepped into her personal space, his dark amber eyes flashing with absolute, unyielding authority.

"The boys are currently lifting anvils and complaining about their blisters. They are fine," Yan Zhaoge stated smoothly. "The ventilation systems have functioned perfectly for six centuries without your intervention. And your Ice Demon... will manage. He has much to meditate upon. Now, come with me."

"I said no," Ji’an dug her heels in.

She felt a surge of protective guilt regarding Wangchen’s bizarre retreat. "I can’t just leave him when he’s acting weird. He’s unstable on such a good day. If I abandon him, he might freeze a mountain."

Yan Zhaoge’s smile faded slightly, replaced by a look of genuine irritation. He looked down at her, his jaw tightening.

"Why do you care so deeply for that feral, broken thing?" Yan Zhaoge demanded, his voice dropping into a harsh, vibrating hum. "He is an erratic weapon, Ji’an. A sociopath driven by an obsession he doesn’t even understand. There are ten thousand men in this empire who are stronger, wiser, and infinitely more stable than Xie Wangchen. You could choose anyone to guard your back. Why anchor yourself to a walking blizzard?"

Ji’an stared up at the Sovereign.

She thought about Wangchen’s suffocating possessiveness. She thought about his homicidal jealousy. She thought about the way he had caught a legendary sword with two bare fingers just to buy her time to finish a stir-fry.

"Because he’s mine," Ji’an replied, her voice low, fierce, and utterly unshakeable. "He might be a psychopath. He might be a little bit unstable. But he’s the only one who doesn’t expect me to be a perfect, diplomatic saint. He doesn’t care if I’m a young master, or a chef, or a demon. He’s the only one who actually listens when I tell him to back down. There’s no one else like him, Zhaoge. And I don’t abandon my prep cooks."

Yan Zhaoge stared at her for a long, heavy moment.

The irritation in his amber eyes warred with a dark, complex, deeply envious understanding.

He let out a short, bitter exhale, turning away.

"Your loyalty is as foolish as it is absolute," Yan Zhaoge grumbled, his purple robes swirling as he began to walk toward the open arches that led out of the monastery. "But you struck a deal last night in the bubble, Chef. An unsanctioned field trip. Do not make me drag you there by the collar."