Ji’an broke the surface, gasping for air, violently coughing up a lungful of mineral water.

She wiped her soaking wet hair out of her eyes, completely blinded by the steam, and tried to push herself backward.

But she was trapped.

The geography of the situation was an unmitigated, catastrophic disaster.

Ji’an had fallen directly on top of him. Her knees were bracketed on either side of Elder Qin’s hips.

She was essentially straddling the ancient, supposedly celibate master of the Heartless Dao in the shallow end of a steaming bath.

Worse still, her thin, white cotton tunic was completely soaked through. It clung to her skin like a second layer of paint.

The Void Locket she wore across her chest to maintain her male illusion was functioning perfectly; it still looked like a flat, masculine chest, but the sheer, unavoidable friction of two bodies pressed together in wet silk was scandalous enough to cause a riot in the mortal realm, let alone a puritanical cultivation sect.

"Let go of me, you crazy old man!" Ji’an sputtered, planting her hands flat against his bare, broad chest and shoving with all her might.

But Elder Qin’s grip around her waist was locked in the iron-clad rigor of delirium. His eyes were closed again, his face buried in the crook of her neck, greedily soaking up the heat she was producing.

"Warm..." he murmured, a soft, incredibly out-of-character sigh escaping his lips.

Ji’an froze. The panic in her chest suddenly shifted gears, grinding against a massive, horrifying realization.

She looked down at the pale, handsome face of the elder resting against her shoulder.

She looked at her own hands pressed against his bare chest. She felt the hot water swirling around them, the steam fogging the chamber. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

The gears in Ji’an’s genre-savvy, web-novel-poisoned brain finally clicked into place.

’Wait a minute,’ Ji’an thought, her eyes widening in abject, existential horror. ’A Qi deviation caused by suppressed emotions... a desperate, life-saving bath... an accidental fall into the tub... the cold, austere master waking up with the warm, vibrant junior trapped in his arms...’

A cold sweat broke out across Ji’an’s forehead, entirely unrelated to the heat of the bath.

’THIS IS Chapter 45!’ her inner voice shrieked, echoing off the walls of her skull. ’THIS IS THE "ICE MELTING BATH" SCENE FROM "THE SAINT’S HAREM"!’

In the original BL novel, this exact scenario was one of the pivotal, fan-favorite turning points of the story.

Gu Zhiwei, the golden retriever protagonist with the Sun Root, was supposed to trigger Elder Qin’s Qi deviation by showing him too much kindness. Zhiwei was supposed to prepare the bath. Zhiwei was supposed to fall into the tub!

It was the scene where Elder Qin’s frozen, dead heart was supposed to violently restart upon waking up with the radiant, beautiful protagonist straddling his lap in wet robes!

It was the catalyst for the forbidden, angsty Master-Disciple-adjacent love triangle!

And Lin Ji’an had just accidentally stolen the protagonist’s plot armor. Again.

"Oh no. Oh no, no, no," Ji’an whispered, pure panic seizing her. She doubled her efforts, shoving against his chest with a surge of raw Qi. "Get off me! Unhand me, you walking plot device! I am not a romance option! I am just a chef!"

The sudden, violent surge of Yang Qi from Ji’an’s desperate shoving finally broke through the last remnants of the ice deviation in Elder Qin’s meridians.

The freezing fog in his mind cleared as the delirium vanished slowly.

Elder Qin’s long, dark eyelashes fluttered. His eyes opened slowly, the foggy glaze fading into sharp, crystalline clarity.

He felt a heavy, warm weight resting on top of his hips, then he felt as if two hands were firmly pressing against his bare chest. He felt the slick, wet friction of soaked silk against his skin, smelled the scent of pine, spices, and sweat.

He blinked the steam from his eyes and looked up.

Hovering directly above him, Ji’an’s face was flushed crimson, her dark hair plastered to her cheeks, water dripping from her chin onto his collarbone.

The gray-robed cook, the arrogant wretch who had just insulted his Dao. The boy who was corrupting his disciple...

And he was currently straddling Elder Qin’s lap in a steaming bath.

For three seconds, Elder Qin’s brain simply refused to process the visual data. It was a scenario so completely, impossibly vulgar, so entirely divorced from his reality of celibacy and asceticism, that his old Transcendental Realm mind experienced a fatal rendering error.

And then, the realization hit him.

The flush that exploded across Elder Qin’s face was so violently red it rivaled the color of a boiled lobster.

The sheer, unadulterated scandal of the position struck him with the force of a physical blow.

’He is on top of me!’ Elder Qin’s internal monologue screamed in high-pitched, Victorian-maiden terror. ’His clothes are transparent! He is touching my chest! This shameless, vulgar, arrogant chef boy! What is he trying to do to me?!’

Elder Qin’s eyes went wide open. The majestic, terrifying elder of the Eternal Cloud Peak let out a sound that was a cross between a strangled gasp and a horrified squeak.

He violently shoved Ji’an backward, scrambling away with such frantic, uncoordinated panic that he nearly drowned himself in the shallow end of the pool.

"S-Shameless!" Elder Qin shrieked, his voice cracking three octaves higher than its normal, booming baritone.

He splashed backward until his back hit the far wall of the jade tub, crossing his arms protectively over his bare chest as if he were a maiden whose virtue had just been brutally compromised.

"You... you insolent, lecherous wretch!" Elder Qin stammered, pointing a trembling finger at Ji’an. The tips of his ears were burning so hot they were practically emitting their own steam. "What is the meaning of this?! Taking advantage of my weakened state! Throwing yourself at me in the bathing chambers! Have you no face?! Have you no morals?!"

Ji’an, who had been shoved backward into the water, scrambled to her feet.