The transition from the antiseptic white of the hospital to the muted greys and blacks of Alexander Blackwood's private limousine felt like crossing into another dimension. Elena sat as far from Alexander as the leather bench allowed, her hands folded primly in her lap. Outside, the city of Jiangcheng blurred into a kaleidoscope of neon lights, but inside the car, the air was unnaturally still.
And cold.
It wasn't the chill of a powerful air conditioner. Elena could see the faint, crystalline frost beginning to form on the interior of the bulletproof glass. She looked at Alexander. He was staring out the window, his profile as sharp and unforgiving as a mountain ridge. To the common eye, he looked bored. To Elena's Heavenly Vision, he was a man struggling not to drown in a sea of frozen Qi.
"You're vibrating," she said softly.
Alexander's head turned slowly. His eyes were dark, shadowed by a fatigue he would never admit to. "I am fine."
"The lie doesn't change the temperature," Elena countered, her voice gaining a hint of its former professional steel. "Your Yin is overflowing. The contract says I am your healer. If you want to survive the night, you need to stop fighting me and start breathing. Diaphragmatic breaths, Alexander. Now."
For a moment, she thought he might snap at her. The Blackwood patriarch was not a man used to being coached on how to breathe. But as a particularly sharp shiver wracked his frame, he closed his eyes and obeyed.
"Better," she whispered, watching the jagged blue mist around him settle, if only slightly.
The car eventually turned into the gates of Obsidian Manor. It was a sprawling estate of glass and dark stone perched on the cliffs overlooking the sea. It was a masterpiece of modern architecture, but as Elena stepped out, she felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature.
"The Feng Shui is dead," she muttered to herself.
The house was positioned in a "Tiger's Maw" formation—too much wind, too much shadow. It was a house built for a man who expected to be attacked, not a man who wanted to heal.
A woman in a stiff, charcoal-colored suit stood under the portico. Her hair was pulled back into a bun so tight it seemed to pull her eyes into a permanent glare.
"Master Alexander," the woman said, bowing. She then turned her gaze to Elena, her eyes traveling over Elena's worn sneakers and faded jacket with visible disdain. "And this... must be the 'guest' you mentioned?"
"This is my wife, Mrs. Gable," Alexander said, his voice dropping an octave, warning and heavy. "She is the Mistress of this house. You will treat her as you treat me. If she asks for a glass of water at three in the morning, you will bring her the finest vintage in the cellar if that is what she desires. Understood?"
Mrs. Gable's mask slipped for a fraction of a second. "Wife? But, sir, the board... the rumors—"
"The board does not sleep in this house. I do," Alexander stepped past her, his movement stiff. "Elena, Mrs. Gable will show you to your suite. It is adjoining mine."
"Adjoining?" Elena blinked. "The contract said—"
"The contract said you would stabilize me," Alexander turned, the frost on his shirt glinting under the chandelier. "The crises don't keep office hours. I need you close."
He disappeared into the shadows of the grand staircase, leaving Elena alone with the hostile housekeeper.
Mrs. Gable waited until Alexander was out of earshot before she turned to Elena. "I don't know what spell you've cast on the Master, Miss Lin—if that is even your real name—but don't think for a second that a ring makes you a Blackwood. This house has seen many 'miracles' come and go. Most leave in tears. Some don't leave at all."
Elena felt the old, familiar heat of the Lin family pride rising in her chest. She stepped closer to the older woman, her eyes tracing the lines on the housekeeper's face.
"You have a recurring pain in your lower left abdomen, don't you?" Elena asked, her voice calm and clinical. "It gets worse at sunset. You've been taking bismuth subsalicylate for it, but it's not a stomach issue. It's a gallstone, approximately four millimeters wide, obstructing the duct. If you keep drinking that heavy black tea you're so fond of, it will rupture within the month."
Mrs. Gable went deathly pale, her hand instinctively fluttering to her stomach. "How... how could you possibly—"
"I don't need a spell to see the truth, Mrs. Gable," Elena said, stepping around her. "I am a doctor of the Old Ways. Now, show me to my room. And tomorrow, I'll need a list of every herb in the kitchen's pantry. We have a lot of work to do."
The suite was more luxurious than Elena's entire childhood home. Silk wallpaper, a bed that felt like a cloud, and a bathroom larger than her mother's ICU room. But Elena couldn't rest. She spent the next hour unpacking her small bag, carefully arranging her father's remaining medical scrolls and her set of silver needles.
Through the heavy oak door connecting their rooms, she heard it.
A muffled groan. Then the sound of something heavy—a lamp, perhaps—hitting the floor.
Elena didn't hesitate. She grabbed her needle pouch and threw open the connecting door.
Alexander's room was a cavern of shadows. He was collapsed on the floor by his bed, his skin so pale it was almost translucent. But it was the bed that horrified her. The sheets were literally covered in a layer of white rime. The air was so cold it burned her lungs.
"Alexander!"
She knelt beside him. When she touched his shoulder, a shock of static cold jumped to her fingers, numbing her arm to the elbow. He was seizing, his muscles locked in a tetanic spasm. The blue-black star on his chest was no longer faint—it was glowing, the "veins" of the curse spreading toward his throat like a web of frozen ink.
"Too... cold..." he gasped, his teeth chattering with a violence that threatened to shatter them. "Can't... breathe..."
Elena realized with a jolt of terror that his lungs were beginning to crystallize from the inside out. This wasn't just a medical condition; it was a concentrated burst of Dark Yin Qi.
"I've got you," she whispered, though her own body was trembling.
She knew what she had to do, but the cost was high. To save him from a surge this powerful, she couldn't just use a needle. She had to use her own body as a bridge to vent the excess cold.
She pulled him into her lap, ignoring the frost that began to bite into her skin. She grabbed his hands, threading her fingers through his.
"Listen to my heart, Alexander," she commanded. She began to circulate her own Phoenix Qi, a warm, golden energy that lived in the marrow of her bones. She pushed it through her palms into his.
The sensation was like plunging her arms into molten lead and liquid nitrogen at the same time. Elena gasped, her head falling back as the darkness threatened to take her. She felt the "Ice" rushing into her, trying to put out her golden flame.
"Don't... don't go out," she prayed, her voice a mere breath.
Slowly, agonizingly, the blue light on Alexander's chest began to dim. The violent shivering subsided, replaced by a heavy, exhausted slump. He leaned his head against her chest, his breathing finally evening out.
For a long time, they stayed like that on the floor of the darkened room—the frozen king and the girl made of sunlight.
As the dawn began to touch the cliffs outside, Alexander's eyes opened. He looked up at Elena, seeing the frost on her eyelashes and the way her lips had turned blue from absorbing his pain.
"You saved me," he whispered, his hand reaching up to touch her cheek. His touch was finally warm. "Why? The contract didn't require you to suffer for me."
Elena looked down at him, her heart thudding a rhythm she didn't quite understand. "Because a doctor doesn't leave a patient in the dark, Alexander. And because... I think you're the only person in this world who knows what it's like to be hunted by things no one else can see."
Alexander's gaze darkened with a new kind of intensity—one that wasn't born of ice. He pulled her closer, his voice a low growl. "Then you should know one thing, Elena Lin. Now that you've brought me back, I am never letting you go. Not in a year. Not ever."
Elena felt a different kind of chill then—a thrill of danger that made her pulse race. She had saved the man, but she had awakened the predator.
And in the distance, a phone on the nightstand vibrated. A text message appeared on the screen, visible only to Elena as she sat there:
I see you found a new protector, Elena. But even the Blackwoods can't hide you from the debt your father owed the Valley. We are coming.