It was the most magnificent thing he had ever tasted in his entire, short life.

"It’s... It’s not poison," the boy whispered, a single tear tracking down his cheek. "It’s... it’s salvation."

He didn’t take another polite bite.

Then he shoved his face into the bowl, shoveling the rice and pork into his mouth with the frantic, feral desperation of a starving wolf.

That was the catalyst.

The hall erupted.

The sheer, undignified sounds of three hundred teenagers aggressively gobbling down food echoed through the pavilion.

Chopsticks clashed like swords.

Disciples fought over the remaining lotus roots.

They lifted the massive serving vats, practically licking the spicy glaze off the cast iron.

The fear entirely vanished, replaced by a ravenous gluttony.

"More! Martial Uncle, please, we need more!" a girl cried out from the back, holding her empty bowl up like a beggar, her face smeared with sauce.

Ji’an stood at the front, leaning against the counter, a deeply satisfied, arrogant smirk on her face.

«They are like beasts. They have no decorum,» the Nekomata judged, delicately chewing a piece of premium sashimi Ji’an had set aside for it.

"They are my greatest fans, fluffball. They just needed a little aggressive encouragement," Ji’an laughed softly.

.

.

.

As the final grains of rice were hoovered up, a strange, heavy atmosphere began to settle over the pavilion.

The high-grade monster meat and the potent spices carried an immense amount of Yang energy.

The junior disciples, unaccustomed to such concentrated spiritual fuel, began to sweat profusely.

Their faces flushed red, and they shifted uncomfortably on their benches as the raw power raged through their underdeveloped meridians.

Ji’an’s smirk vanished, replaced by the sharp focus of an instructor.

"Fools! Do not just sit there burping!" Ji’an barked, slamming her spatula against the wooden counter, the sharp CRACK silencing the hall. "The Iron-Bristle Boar is a Rank 5 beast! Its energy will rupture your novice cores if you let it stagnate! Drop your chopsticks and cross your legs! Regulate your breathing! Meditate, right now!"

The panic returned, but this time it was productive.

Three hundred disciples immediately scrambled off the benches, dropping to the stone floor in identical lotus positions.

They closed their eyes, pressing their hands to their knees, desperately initiating their foundational breathing techniques to digest and assimilate the violent influx of spiritual power.

The chaotic, noisy dining hall fell into an absolute, pin-drop silence, filled only with the faint, synchronized hum of three hundred cultivators circulating their Qi.

Ji’an stood at the front of the hall, resting her hands on her hips, watching them.

The sight of the young disciples, their faces screwed up in concentration, sweating as they battled to absorb her cooking... triggered a sudden wave of déjà vu.

The chaotic present melted away, overlapping seamlessly with a memory from nearly a year ago.

She remembered her first week on the Drunken Peak.

She remembered standing in her overgrown, makeshift courtyard, having just cooked her first batch of Spicy Spirit-Chicken.

She remembered a boy with silver-bell like hair and bottomless, icy eyes, wearing immaculate white robes, sitting across from her. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

He had eaten the fiery dish without a single word of complaint, his pale skin flushing as the Yang energy clashed with his Flawless Ice Root.

He didn’t panic at all.

He set his bowl down, closed his eyes, and dropped into perfect meditation right at her dining table, trusting her entirely as he digested the fire.

Ji’an’s breath hitched slightly, a soft, melancholy smile touching her lips.

That boy had been her first real connection in this terrifying world.

Xie Wangchen.

The Ice Demon.

Her Little Puddle.

She turned away from the meditating disciples and walked slowly out the side doors, stepping onto the sweeping, open-air balcony that overlooked the vast, misty expanse of the Celestial Sword Sect.

The sun was beginning to set, casting brilliant streaks of gold, violent orange, and deep violet across the rolling clouds.

The mountain winds whipped against the balcony, catching the hem of her gray traveling cloak.

Ji’an gripped the cold jade railing, looking out over the world.

It had been a phenomenally long, terrifying, and utterly bizarre journey.

She had woken up in a freezing courtyard, a transmigrator trapped in the body of an abused, cross-dressing noble child, destined to be cannon fodder in a web novel she barely remembered.

She had fought for every single breath.

She had manipulated sect exams, threatened immortal elders, navigated the whims of an imperial prince and a bunch of arrogant punks, and accidentally triggered a fujoshi pandemic across the capital.

However, no matter what came her way, she embraced the chaos.

She had wielded her spatula like a broadsword, carving out her own space in this lethal reality.

She had made this world her own.

But as she stood there, watching the sun dip below the horizon, the realization struck her that she hadn’t done it alone.

Every time she had stood on the edge of the abyss, Wangchen had been there.

He was the quiet, immovable glacier to her roaring, chaotic fire.

Even when she found out the truth, that she was the original soul, that Earth was just a cosmic exile for her, the first person she had wanted to tell, the first person she had desperately wanted to see, wasn’t her father, or Lin Feng.

It was him.

"I am an idiot," Ji’an whispered to the evening wind, resting her forehead against her hands on the railing. "I bribe my master, I terrorize three hundred novices, and I hide in a cafeteria, all because I’m too cowardly to admit that I actually, genuinely missed him so much it hurts."

The romantic panic about his future eight-pack seemed trivial now.

She just wanted her friend back.

She wanted to sit in the courtyard and pour him tea.

She wanted to see if those icy eyes still held that quiet, absolute focus when he looked at her.

"You are overcooking your thoughts again, Brother Ji’an."