He picked up the warm ceramic bowl, holding it carefully between his large hands, and sat back down on the edge of the mattress.

"Drink," Lin Feng ordered softly, holding the bowl out to her.

Ji’an didn’t argue.

She sat up, wrapping her cold, trembling fingers around the warm ceramic, and took a slow sip.

The dark, sweet syrup slid down her throat, carrying a sharp, fiery kick of fresh ginger.

The moment the liquid hit her stomach, a spreading wave of intense, soothing warmth bloomed outward.

The fiery heat of the ginger actively began to combat the cold, cramping spasms of her uterus, wrapping her internal organs in a comforting, thermal blanket.

She let out a long, ragged sigh of absolute relief, her tense shoulders dropping two inches.

"You didn’t answer my question," Ji’an murmured, taking another, deeper sip, looking at him over the rim of the bowl. "This isn’t any orthodox medicine. This is... this is a domestic remedy. This is what old wives do for their daughters. How do you know how to brew soups for period cramps, brother?"

Lin Feng watched her drink, his silver-flecked eyes softening with a deep melancholy.

He reached out, casually pulling the heavy silk quilt up to cover her shoulders, tucking her in.

"When you were small," Lin Feng began, his voice a quiet, reflective rumble, "Our mother also had the same symptoms as yours now. When her cycles began, they were very painful times. She would lie on the floor of the freezing courtyard, screaming until her voice gave out."

Ji’an froze, the bowl hovering near her lips, listening intently to the history of the mother she didn’t remember.

"The second wife refused to summon a physician," Lin Feng continued, a dark, dangerous shadow passing over his face at the memory of the woman he had banished. "She claimed Mother was simply experiencing the natural punishment of having a weak, impure constitution. And the estate physicians... the male doctors refused to treat her, citing the archaic laws of Yin impurity. They would not risk their cultivation to aid a woman’s ’impurity’."

Lin Feng’s jaw tightened, the muscles ticking beneath his scarred skin.

"I was but a powerless young master then, so I had no power to defy the second wife openly," Lin Feng said, his gaze dropping to his own calloused hands. "But I couldn’t listen to Mother cry. So, I tried to break into the restricted archives of the Imperial Medical Pavilion in the dead of night. I bypassed the guards and scoured the records of mortal healers, midwives, and ancient tribal remedies."

Ji’an lowered the bowl, her heart aching at the image of a teenage Lin Feng, desperate and terrified for his mother, risking execution to steal medical texts just to ease her pain.

"Though I didn’t find anything there. I found the recipe for the ginger and sugar syrup through Mother’s nanny later on," Lin Feng smiled softly, looking back up at her. "I snuck into the kitchens, brewed it myself in secret, and brought it to her window. I fed it to her while she cried. And when it finally eased her pain, I memorized the recipe. I have kept the ingredients in my personal spatial ring ever since, replacing them weekly to ensure they were always fresh, in the hopes that one day... I would be able to brew it for you again, considering you have the same constitution as our mother."

Ji’an stared at him.

The overwhelming, unconditional depth of his love for his sister was staggering.

He had defied the societal taboos of his era, risked his career, and learned a domestic skill purely out of a desperate need to protect her.

And even though he knew Ji’an possessed a different soul, an alien mind... he was still sitting here, brewing her syrup, offering her the same unconditional sanctuary.

"You are an over-prepared, ridiculously good brother," Ji’an whispered, her voice thick with fresh tears that she didn’t bother trying to stop.

"And you are a loud, table-flipping, chaotic little bird," Lin Feng chuckled, reaching out to wipe a tear from her cheek with his thumb. "Finish your syrup, then go to sleep. I’ll remain here. If the cramps return, tell me, and I’ll channel my Qi to warm your meridians."

"You don’t have to stay," Ji’an mumbled, though she leaned into his touch, her eyes already growing heavy from the exhaustion, the pain relief, and the overwhelming emotional crash. "You have military briefings. You have other things to do."

"Others can wait," Lin Feng stated with immovable finality. "Drink."

Ji’an drank.

And as the warm, sweet syrup worked its magic, lulling her into a deep, dreamless sleep, the last thing she saw was the terrifying Vanguard Commander of the Azure Empire sitting quietly by her bed, standing guard over her rest like a silent, yet unbreakable fortress.

***

The next morning, the sharp cramps finally subsided into a dull, manageable ache.

However, the toll of the cycle meant that Ji’an’s body was actively bleeding, and she felt lethargic.

Her inner self knew exactly what her body required to stave off the fatigue.

She needed blood replenishment from iron and sugar.

After assuring a reluctant Lin Feng that she could survive for an hour without him sitting by her bed, Ji’an shuffled out to the private, sunlit terrace attached to her courtyard.

She collapsed onto a padded wicker chaise lounge, pulling a light blanket over her legs.

From her spatial ring, she produced a massive, burlap sack she had procured from the capital’s premium spice markets the day before.

Inside the sack were hundreds of high-grade, sun-dried Imperial Blood-Dates.

In the cultivation world, red dates were prized for their intense Yang energy and their ability to rapidly restore vitality and blood flow.

They were the perfect, quintessential snack for a cultivator dealing with the physical depletion of menstruation.

Visually, however, premium dried red dates possessed a very specific, unfortunate aesthetic.

They were roughly two inches long.