Ling Luocheng's Contrasting Charm

Meeting once every two days—this was the rule Huo Chen and Ling Luocheng had agreed upon.

Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, in the Frost Cultivation Room, for one shichen.

During their first formal session, Ling Luocheng's attitude was no different from when they had first met: polite, aloof, and maintaining precisely the right distance.

Before Huo Chen arrived, she prepared two cups of hot tea. After the session ended, she gave a slight nod in thanks, then watched him leave. Throughout it all, there was not a single unnecessary pleasantry or lingering glance.

She was like a machine rigorously executing a cultivation plan, reducing all interpersonal interaction to the bare minimum.

But Huo Chen noticed certain details.

The angle of the ice-crystal cat-ear headpiece atop her head was different every time they met. Sometimes it tilted slightly left, sometimes right. Clearly, she carefully adjusted its position every morning.

Someone who cared even about the angle of a hair accessory was not truly indifferent to everything.

He also noticed that of the two cups of tea she prepared, one was plain green tea, placed on the side where he usually sat.

The other was ginger tea with honey, placed on her own side.

Long-term cultivation for an ice-type soul master could cause cold energy to accumulate within the body. Ginger tea dispelled the cold, while honey warmed the stomach. She understood her physical condition well and knew how to care for herself.

During their third session, she began addressing him by name.

"Huo Chen, today I want to try compressing my soul power to its limit."

She stood upon the ice platform, snowflakes swirling around her. Her tone was as calm as ever, as though she had been calling him that for years.

Huo Chen nodded. "You can try, but don't force yourself."

Ling Luocheng did not answer. She closed her eyes and began circulating the soul power within her body.

An icy blue radiance lit up around her, and the temperature in the room suddenly plummeted. The white frost on the walls thickened at a visible rate.

Her ice element condensed into crystalline snowflakes before her, one after another, layered densely together, each one exquisite and razor-sharp.

Then she began compressing them.

The crystalline snowflakes squeezed against and merged with one another, producing a piercing sound of friction.

Fine beads of sweat seeped across her forehead, and her breathing grew rapid.

The backlash from the ice element rampaged through her body, trying to rupture her meridians.

But she did not stop.

Huo Chen stood to one side without intervening. He was waiting for her to ask for help herself.

Ling Luocheng did not speak.

Her lips pressed into a straight line, her face growing paler and paler. Fine cracks began appearing in the ice crystals around her—the precursor to a loss of control over her soul power.

She still did not stop, nor did she ask for help.

Not until blood seeped from between her tightly clenched lips and dripped onto the ice platform, instantly freezing into a dark crimson ice flower.

Huo Chen stepped forward and grabbed her wrist.

Ling Luocheng's body suddenly stiffened, as though struck by an electric current.

She almost instinctively tried to pull her hand back, but Huo Chen's grip was firm, leaving her no room to break free.

Her fingers curled slightly, her fingertips as cold as ice, trembling faintly.

"Don't move." His voice was calm, yet carried an irresistible force. "Your meridians are already beginning to suffer damage."

Ling Luocheng did not speak, but she stopped struggling.

Her body remained taut, like a wary cat ready to flee at any moment. Yet the wrist he held seemed nailed in place, impossible to pull free.

She lowered her eyes. Her lashes trembled lightly, but she did not look at him.

Huo Chen sent a thread of reincarnation power into her body through the veins in her wrist.

That gentle yet vast power slowly flowed along her damaged meridians. Wherever it passed, the tiny ruptures caused by the ice element's backlash were repaired and smoothed over bit by bit.

Ling Luocheng's body trembled faintly. She could feel that power moving through her, repairing the injuries she had sustained by gritting her teeth and forcing herself onward.

The feeling was strange.

It was like a warm stream slowly flowing along a riverbed that had been frozen for years, gradually soaking and softening the dried, cracked bed beneath it.

She had never experienced such a feeling before. Since childhood, she had grown accustomed to armoring herself in coldness, to using a hard shell to resist every touch from the outside world.

She had thought she liked that coldness, because it made her feel safe, made her feel in control.

But at this moment, as that warm sensation spread through her meridians, she realized that she did not dislike it.

She bit her lip and said nothing.

A moment later, Huo Chen withdrew his hand.

"Why didn't you ask me to help?" He looked at her, his tone carrying a trace of helplessness, and a trace of concern she did not quite understand.

"I could still endure it." Ling Luocheng lowered her eyes, her voice cool with a hint of stubbornness.

She tucked the hand he had held back into her sleeve, her fingertips unconsciously rubbing the lingering warmth on her wrist.

"By the time you can't endure it anymore, it'll already be too late." Huo Chen's tone remained calm, but Ling Luocheng could hear the seriousness buried beneath that calm.

"Cultivation isn't war. You don't need to push yourself to the limit every time. Sometimes, stopping is so you can go farther."

Ling Luocheng fell silent for a moment, then nodded lightly. "...I understand."

She said she understood, but Huo Chen knew she would do the same thing next time.

She was used to bearing everything alone, used to gritting her teeth and forcing herself onward, used to never showing weakness to anyone.

It was a habit carved into her bones while growing up in that declining family.

She was the Ling family's last hope, a genius upon whom the clan had placed great expectations since childhood. She could not fall, could not show weakness, could not let anyone see her vulnerability.

He said nothing more. He merely released her wrist and took half a step back. "That's enough for today. Go soak your hands in hot water when you get back. It'll ease the stiffness in your meridians."

Ling Luocheng lowered her head to look at her wrist, where the warmth of his fingertips still lingered. She was silent for a moment before softly saying, "...Thank you."

Her voice remained cold and clear, but beneath that chill seemed to be a faint softness that had not been there before.

She turned and walked toward the cultivation room's door, her steps still composed and elegant. Yet Huo Chen noticed that the fingertips of the hand gripping the doorknob had turned slightly white.

It was the lingering tremor from overexertion. She pushed open the door and walked out, and it closed behind her, separating the two worlds within and without.

Huo Chen stood in the frost cultivation room, looking toward the door in silence for a moment before lowering his gaze to his palm.

It still held a faintly cold sensation, along with the pulse that had beat beneath her wrist.

He withdrew his hand and turned toward the door on the other side.

Next time would be Thursday afternoon. He remembered it.

During the fourth session, Ling Luocheng was once again waiting early in the cultivation room, with two cups of tea prepared as usual.

But Huo Chen noticed that she did not begin cultivating right away today. Instead, she stood beside the ice platform with her hands clasped before her, as though gathering her thoughts.

"Huo Chen." She spoke, her gaze fixed on the wall behind him rather than on him. "About last time... thank you."

She paused, then added, "I'm not used to asking others for help. But if next time... I can't hold on anymore, I'll call for you."

When she said those words, her voice was lower than usual. She still did not look at him, instead staring at a tiny crack in the wall as though it were the most worthy subject of study in the world.

Yet the tips of her ears had flushed faintly red, especially conspicuous against her snowy skin and ice-blue hair.

Huo Chen looked at her attempt to appear composed. He did not laugh, merely nodding seriously. "All right."

Ling Luocheng seemed to let out a breath, her shoulders relaxing slightly.

At last, she shifted her gaze away from the wall and onto Huo Chen. Though it lingered for only an instant, the wariness and distance in that brief look were gone.

"Then let's begin," she said. Her tone remained cool, but there was a gentleness within it that even she had not noticed.

Huo Chen stepped forward and began today's guidance.

This time, when she tried compressing her soul power again, she still hovered at the edge of her limit, still gritted her teeth and refused to relent.

But when she saw Huo Chen's faintly furrowed brow, she fell silent for a breath before saying in a low voice, "...I can't hold on much longer."

Her voice was very soft when she said it, as though the words had taken all the strength in her body.

A faint flush rose to her cheeks, not from backlash from her soul power, but from unfamiliarity.

She had never told anyone the words, "I can't hold on anymore." From childhood to now, she had always been the one who endured until the very end.

Huo Chen immediately stepped forward, grasped her wrist, and once again sent the power of reincarnation into her body.

This time, Ling Luocheng did not stiffen or try to pull her hand away.

She merely closed her eyes and relaxed, allowing that gentle power to flow through her body and mend the tiny injuries within.

She still said nothing, but the corners of her lips seemed to loosen slightly.

From then on, Ling Luocheng continued to maintain her cool and distant manner. She still gave a slight nod in thanks after each session, still never exchanged a single extra word of pleasantry.

But before Huo Chen arrived, she began adjusting the temperature of the tea on his side to the one he preferred. She had noticed that the first time he came, he took a sip, paused slightly, and only then continued drinking.

She tested the water temperature three times before finding the one that made him drink without pausing.

While he explained things, she began to occasionally lift her head to glance at him, though her gaze would quickly move away. When he left, she began seeing him to the door rather than remaining where she was and watching him go.

When he mentioned certain ideas, she began to tilt her head slightly. The crystalline cat-ear crown atop her head would sway gently with the motion, revealing an unconscious expression of faint curiosity. It stood in stark contrast to her usual icy demeanor, like a glimpse of spring accidentally exposed beneath a layer of ice.

One day, when Huo Chen arrived at the frost cultivation room on time, he found that Ling Luocheng was not waiting for him atop the ice platform. Instead, she was crouched in a corner of the room with her back to the door, doing something he could not make out.

He walked two steps closer and found her crouching on the floor, cautiously poking an ice flower on the ground with one finger.

That ice flower had been accidentally left behind during her cultivation yesterday. She had not cleaned it up at the time, but after a night in the low temperature, it had frozen into something even more exquisite. Its petals were crystalline and translucent, refracting rainbow-colored light beneath the lamps.

She poked it once, but the ice flower did not move. She poked it again, and it remained intact.

Apparently intrigued, she poked it a third time. This time, she used a little more force, and with a crack, the ice flower split in two.

Ling Luocheng froze.

She looked down at the ice flower she had poked into two halves, fell silent for a moment, then lifted her head—only to meet Huo Chen's gaze.

In that instant, an exceedingly rare change came over her expression.

First came confusion, then embarrassment at realizing she had been seen, and finally a forced return to her usual cool composure, as though nothing had happened.

A faint blush spread across her cheeks at a visible speed, from her cheekbones all the way to the tips of her ears.

"...When did you get here?" She stood up and dusted off nonexistent dirt from her hands, striving to keep her voice calm, though that calm was clearly on the verge of crumbling.

"Just now," Huo Chen said without changing expression, not exposing the fact that she had been squatting there poking at it for at least two minutes.

Ling Luocheng gave a quiet "Mm" and turned toward the ice platform, her steps a little faster than usual.

Only after stepping onto the ice platform did she turn back. Most of the pink had faded from her face, and her usual cool, aloof expression had returned.

"Let's begin," she said.

Huo Chen nodded and did not mention what had just happened. But as he explained that day's cultivation practice, he noticed Ling Luocheng's gaze occasionally drifting toward the ice flower in the corner, now poked into two halves, before quickly darting away as though she had done something guilty.

He held back a laugh.

Next time, Thursday afternoon. He would still come.