Ice cannot Hide Fire
[Yue shilan — Inner thoughts]
He was beautiful.
Not in the delicate, spirit-refined way most cultivators pursued. He wasn't polished like the disciples of the Heavenly Sects or dressed in the formal elegance of the court-trained. He was raw. Built from defiance. Sculpted by chaos.
And he was standing in front of her half-naked, smiling like he already owned her.
Yue Shilan kept her face still. Her breathing controlled. Her qi tight around her meridians like silk wrapped around a blade.
She had trained for this.
She was the Saintess of Verdant Flame. Cold-hearted, unreachable, pure in both body and spirit.
She'd rejected every suitor. Slapped princes. Silenced arrogant heirs with a single look. Even the sect master had said, "Yue shilian is untouchable ."
But right now… her heart wouldn't stop racing.
His aura was wrong.
It wasn't violent. It wasn't spiritual. It was… intimate.
His presence clung to the air like the scent of skin after heat. His voice coiled around her like smoke. His gaze didn't look at her like a threat or a target.
He looked at her like a challenge he already knew he'd win.
I won't fall. I won't melt. I'm not like Liam Rou flirtatious and weak. I'm disciplined. I'm in control.
So why did her legs tense whenever he smiled?
[Present —Courtyard]
Yue Shilan's aura exploded outward in an instant—ice and clarity, wind slicing through the moonlight. The grass beneath her feet frosted over in a flash. Haaron's robes fluttered slightly in the backlash.
Still, he didn't flinch.
He smiled.
"You always greet guests with frost, or am I special?"
"You broke into our vault."
"Would you have given me permission if I asked nicely?"
"No."
"Then I saved time."
Yue's hands didn't move, but her spiritual pressure rose like a tidal wave, surrounding Haaron in freezing tension. A weaker cultivator would have collapsed just standing inside it.
Haaron didn't even blink.
"I'm told you're a Saintess," he said, walking slowly across the courtyard.
"Stay back."
"Why? You afraid of me?
"No," she said.
Then why was her heart skipping again?
Haaron kept walking. "You're putting up a good front. Cold voice. Empty eyes. That thing you do with your jaw when you're hiding surprise. I've seen it before."
"You don't know me," she snapped.
"No," he said, stopping two steps from her. "But I've known women like you. Perfect. Polished. Dutiful. Until someone kisses them the wrong way… and they beg to be ruined."
Her breath hitched—barely.
But he heard it.
Felt it.
Yue Shilan raised both hands. Ice bloomed around her fingers, forming crystalline lotus blades. She launched them forward without warning.
Haaron moved between them, flowing like smoke. One blade skimmed past his cheek, another was batted aside with a qi-infused flick. He didn't dodge the third.
He caught it.
The ice cracked in his palm, then melted entirely.
"Your attacks are clean," he said. "Precise. Too precise. You're trying to prove something."
"I'm trying to kill you."
He laughed. "No, you're not."
He stepped in.
Too close.
His hand touched her waist.
Not forceful.
Just contact.
But Yue froze.
Her qi went rigid.
Her heart pounded so hard she could hear it.
"You haven't been touched in a long time," he whispered.
"You have no right—"
"But your body reacts anyway." His fingers trailed slowly up her side. "That's the problem with purity. It's untested. The first touch always feels like fire."
Her palm slammed into his chest.
Frost exploded outward.
He staggered back slightly—but laughed again.
"I like you," he said. "You break slow. That's the fun kind."
"Leave," she hissed, though her voice trembled.
He stopped smiling.
"You want to know the truth?" he asked, stepping forward again. "You think you hate me. But deep down, you've always wanted someone to see through that frost. Someone who wouldn't kneel, wouldn't grovel, wouldn't worship your title."
"You think that's you?"
"I know it is."
Yue raised her hands again—but she hesitated.
His qi had changed.
It wasn't just pressure—it was rhythm.
It matched hers.
A spiritual mirroring technique?
No.
It was deeper than that.
He was syncing with her. Matching her spiritual frequency. Her heartbeat. Her breath.
And it felt good.
Too good. Dangerously good.
He stepped in again and lowered his head until his lips were a breath away from hers.
"I'm going to make you melt, Yue Shilan. Slowly. Thoroughly. And when you do…"
She shoved him back—hard this time.
He let it happen.
Because he'd seen what he needed.
The crack.
Small. But spreading.
[Later — Sect Perimeter]
Yue Shilan sat alone beneath the spirit willow tree near the training cliffs.
She'd dismissed the guards. Told the elders Haaron had fled the sector. Claimed he was wounded. That she'd chased him off.
It was a lie.
He'd walked away on his own terms.
And she'd let him. Why?
Because he'd touched something.
Not her skin. Not her spirit.
Her desire.
He'd seen through her without trying. He'd made her knees weak without laying a real hand on her. He'd looked at her and called her out. Not as a Saintess. Not as a title.
As a woman.
And worse… he wasn't wrong.
[Elsewhere — Haaron & Lian Rou]
"You're obsessed with her already," Lian Rou said.
They sat on a rooftop overlooking the southern ridge of the sect, watching as disciples scrambled below. Haaron had dressed now—simple black robes, open at the chest, freshly taken from a panicked inner court boy who hadn't put up a fight.
"Shilan?" Haaron smirked. "She's resisting."
"You like that."
"I love that."
"She'll fall," Lian Rou said. "They all do."
"Yes," Haaron murmured, "but she'll shatter."
He glanced at Lian Rou.
"You're not jealous, are you?"
She scoffed. "I'm your furnace node, not your wife."
"But you still wanted to be first in my bed and in my heart."
"Don't flatter yourself," she muttered, though her eyes said otherwise.
Haaron stood, adjusting his collar.
"I'm not done with this sect. Not until I see what else they've hidden."
"What now?"
"I want their core pill recipe, the spiritual flame root they keep sealed—and Yue Shilan in my lap."
Lian Rou rolled her eyes. "Ambitious."
"I was born unwanted," he said. "Now I take whatever I want."
And below them, somewhere in the ice-lit silence of her chambers, Yue Shilan lay awake, her fingers touching her lips.
And she was burning.