“Yan Shilou!” Pei Junyan rasped, his voice raw with cold. “Let us in! For the love of the Heavens, *please*!” The words, stripped of their usual sneer, hung in the frigid air, sharp with panic and something far more practical: leverage. Yan Shilou’s heart gave a quiet, practical thrum. He watched the group huddled outside his door, faces contorted by the biting cold, their heavy furs doing little against the insidious frost-rot that gnawed at their bones. This was it. This was his chance to claw back a piece of his sister, Meiling’s, freedom. He pushed the door wider, allowing the steam to billow out, carrying the scent of rich earth and ozone. The sight of Meng Chuying, serene and glowing, her sword now resting casually against the wall as she dried her long, dark hair, seemed to galvanize the frozen mob. Her presence alone lent an undeniable legitimacy to Yan Shilou’s shack. Yan Shilou met Pei Junyan’s gaze, not with triumph, but with a cool, assessing calm. “The Pool of Blazing Repayment,” he announced, his voice steady despite the tremor in his hands. He imagined Meiling’s small, sightless face, her quiet resignation to her fate. “Access is not free.” Pei Junyan visibly flinched. “Name your price, ash-shoveler!” he snarled, though the snarl was weak, a dying ember of his former arrogance. His joints, stiff with cold, twitched as if to grasp a spirit stone, but his body shuddered uncontrollably. “Just hurry!” “One hundred astral silver ingots per immersion,” Yan Shilou declared, his voice cutting through the rising clamor of the crowd. “Paid in advance, and non-refundable.” A gasp rippled through the group. One hundred ingots! That was a fortune, enough to keep a low-tier spirit cultivator for a year, or buy a modest plot of land in the outer settlements. It was more gleaming currency than Yan Shilou had ever seen in his life, and ten times what a typical bath cost in the inner sect’s exclusive pavilions. It was, in short, extortion. “Are you mad?!” one junior shrieked, a girl with delicate, frost-bitten features. “That’s robbery!” “The alternative,” Yan Shilou said, gesturing vaguely at the blue-tinged skin and shivering forms, “is to freeze.” The silence that followed held fast, broken only by the chattering teeth of the frantic pack. Pei Junyan’s eyes, once so full of disdain, now held a frantic, calculating glint. He was a core disciple, his family wealthy, but even for him, one hundred ingots was a significant sum for a single bath. Yet, the frost-rot was relentless, and the sect’s natural reservoirs had gone cold, useless. With a guttural groan, Pei Junyan plunged a hand into his spatial pouch, fumbling with icy fingers. He extracted a small, intricately carved jade token, then another, then a pouch packed to bursting with refined astral bullion. The precious metal clinked as he tossed it onto the worn wooden floor of Yan Shilou’s shack. The pile shimmered, a small mountain of wealth that represented his sister’s future. “Take it,” Pei Junyan ground out, his face a mask of furious humiliation. “Now, move aside!” The soot-fox, Lord Jinwu, roused by the commotion, lifted its head from where it lay curled near Yan Shilou’s feet. Its three slitted pupils, burning amber, fixed on Pei Junyan in silent, ancient judgment. A faint, almost imperceptible shimmer passed over the surface of the amber pool. Yan Shilou carefully scooped up the heavy pouch, his skin grazing against its cool, smooth surface. It was more than enough to buy Meiling’s indenture contract. He felt a surge of cold satisfaction, quickly tamped down by his usual anxious nature. This was only the beginning. He needed a tea shop, a safe haven. He stepped back from the doorway, making a small, inviting gesture. “Welcome to the Pool of Blazing Repayment, honored cultivator.” The words were polite, almost too polite, with an edge that was lost on the suffering crowd. Pei Junyan wasted no time. He tore off his frost-dampened robes, his lean, muscular body now alarmingly pale and marked with faint, creeping blue veins. He didn’t even glance at Yan Shilou or Meng Chuying. With a rasping gasp, he hurled himself into the amber basin, expecting the comforting heat that Meng Chuying had experienced. Instead, a scream tore from his throat, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony that echoed off the rough-hewn walls. The basin, which had offered sweet release to Meng Chuying, was, to Pei Junyan, an inferno. It wasn’t merely hot; it was a living, sentient heat that recognized and punished his every malicious thought, his every cruel deed. His skin, within moments, turned an angry, blistering red. Small tendrils of steam rose not from the water, but directly from his flesh. He thrashed, his elegant movements reduced to frantic, wild jerks. His stare locked onto the water as it shimmered with a malevolent, sun-bright radiance. It was boiling him alive, slowly, excruciatingly. The agony was beyond anything he had ever known, far worse than the creeping frost. “It burns! It burns!” he shrieked, clawing at the water, trying to scramble out. The pads of his hands, already raw, blistered against the burning stone rim. He barely managed to drag himself half out, his chest heaving, every inch of his body screaming with pain. But the moment his lower body left the water, a new wave of cold, a resurgence of the frost-rot, surged through him. The blue veins on his exposed skin deepened, and his limbs began to lock, his joints seizing up with agonizing speed. The bath, for all its torment, was the only thing holding the frost-rot at bay. He was trapped. He was being boiled, yet he couldn’t leave the pot. His screams dissolved into gasping sobs, tears mixing with the steam on his scorched face. He collapsed back into the scalding water, the renewed agony drawing a whimper from his lips. He was weeping, openly, publicly, before the very ash-shoveler he had so disdained, and his terrified cronies. The other students, who had been pushing forward, eager to pay, froze. Their faces, already pale, turned ashen. They stared at Pei Junyan, writhing and wailing in the boiling broth, his flesh blistering, his dignity utterly annihilated. The euphoria that had emanated from Meng Chuying was starkly contrasted by the raw, torturous screams of their sect brother. This was not the paradise they had envisioned. Meng Chuying, who had been quietly observing, now shifted. Her gaze, cold and sharp as a winter’s night, swept over the frozen faces of her peers. A grim tilt settled across her chin. The cacophony of Pei Junyan’s suffering grated on the serene peace she had found. She had experienced the basin's embrace, its pure, unadulterated healing. To see it desecrated by such an unworthy display, by such blatant karmic debt, ignited a quiet fury within her. With a fluid movement, she rose. The air in the small shack seemed to thicken, charged with her refined Qi. Her sword, the ‘Azure Stream’, whispered from its sheath, its polished blade catching the bright vapor rising from the water. She held it loosely, its tip resting lightly on the dirt floor, but its presence radiated an undeniable, terrifying authority. Her voice was low, clear, and utterly devoid of warmth. “This is a sanctuary,” Meng Chuying stated, her eyes fixed on the trembling crowd. “The Pool of Blazing Repayment. Anyone who enters does so under the proprietor’s terms. Any disrespect, any attempt to circumvent the rules, or any ill intent… will be met with my blade.” Her gaze lingered on a few juniors who had once echoed Pei Junyan’s cruel remarks towards Yan Shilou. “I am its bouncer.” The declaration hung heavy in the air. The watchers swallowed dryly, their panicked craving for relief now overshadowed by a primal fear. Pei Junyan, still whimpering in the boiling water, was a stark lesson. They were at the mercy of Yan Shilou, the ash-shoveler, and the terrifying sword genius who now protected him. Their lives, their very cultivation, depended on the kindness – or the price – of the boy they had once delighted in tormenting. A new kind of cold, far deeper than the meridian-frost, settled into their hearts: the chill of absolute powerlessness.

Boiling the Arrogant