Danmei is a very unique genre of queer literature which both centers and de-centers queerness. None of the Danmei I’ve read have been essentially “about” being gay. They’re just stories of life, of magic, of fantasy, of love, in which the main characters happen to be gay. Which is a kind of representation I have often seeked from western media and related intermediaries because why is every gay story, a coming out story? Is there not more to queer people than that?
However, while capturing the personhood of queer people; Danmei also captures the queerness of people because none of these stories would work if the characters weren’t gay/queer
Wei Wuxian’s absolute buffoonery of misunderstanding Lan Zhan’s feelings in a decade long telephone game in which neither of them open their damn mouth would never work in a non-queer story because between a man and a woman romance would be the natural assumption of everyone around them and therefore wouldn’t leave space for confusion. The misunderstanding of their romance is so closely tied to the plot succession that the plot would be… non existent without it
In TGCF Xie Lian and Hua Cheng’s absolute aspirational love is literally in the backseat and front seat of the story. Not too different from a classic hero’s journey but instead of the hero being one person, it’s two people. They are so intertwined with eo that they become one character and witness a lot of the story together. Witness being a very interesting word choice. Their queerness doesn’t drive the story but replacing one of them with a woman would dampen the effect— it’d remove the uncertainty, the confusion from everyone around them, the genuine slow burn of the romance. There’s also this idea of Hua Cheng falling in love with Xie Lian so far separated from concepts such as gender or whatever which wouldn’t have been hammered home in a straight romance where those conversations aren’t always had between the audience and the story
And Erha.. well obviously. Half of Chu Wanning’s “this is so inappropriate” spiral wouldn’t exist if he was a woman. And, the idea of Mo Ran being a “cut sleeve” builds up the under current of his character being so far dismissed by society because he’s seen as immoral. Which just wouldn’t serve to the same effect if he was into exclusively women because so was every other character.
Not in a single one of these stories is queerness and homosexuality the central theme of the story yet without them, the romance wouldn’t be the same. Liking the same gender as you comes with baggage in our society which is so heteronormative and that effect has to exist in the person characters become for them to be authentic but at the same time, limiting that effect only to produce coming out stories/falling in love stories is unfair. Danmei mends this through a middle ground where the plot is the focus but it doesn’t exist in a vaccum, it exists in queerness itself
You know, more millionaires should skip their 15th mansion and start funding multi-million dollar BL series to live out their gay fanfiction AU dreams—mafia boyfriends, rockstar angst, omegaverse heat cycles. Do something useful with your wealth!
pairing: OC! Chen Mo x male!bottom!reader
summary: Y/N fell asleep reading a cheap novel about a cruel regent and his "white moonlight" — a gentle healer who once saved his life. He woke up in the body of the story's main villain: the regent's lecherous, insufferable spouse, scheduled for execution in a few months. His back burns from thirty lashes, the previous owner's memories are nauseating, and the plan is simple: avoid the regent, stay away from the healer, and run at the first opportunity
wc: ~10.8k
details:
↳ warnings: violence, toxic relationship, forced marriage, death of a minor character.
↳ tags: transmigration, obsessive behavior, slow burn obsession, fake innocence, manipulation, from dislike to obsession, poisoning attempt, morally gray protagonist.
↳ rating: R
from author: My English isn't perfect, so there might be some mistakes. There will be more work on this fanfiction.
Awakening did not come to him gradually, but in a violent lurch — the way one bursts from the depths when the lungs are already burning and the surface still refuses to appear. Y/N flung his eyes open and stared at a ceiling he did not recognize. Dark wood. Carved beams. Strips of light from a brazier dying somewhere behind a screen. The air smelled of incense and stale blood. Foreign air. Foreign scent.
He tried to sit up, and his body answered with such pain that his vision swam. His back. His back burned as though the skin had been flayed off and the wound then seared with something hot and rough. Y/N froze halfway, propped on trembling arms, and in that moment it came.
Not a memory. A blow.
Images flooded his consciousness — alien, repulsive, vivid to the point of nausea. There he was (not him, the body's previous owner) walking down a corridor, hips swaying like a courtesan in a cheap tea house, fingers reaching for the sleeve of a tall man with an icy gaze. There he was, whispering breathily, offering to "warm the master's bed." There he was, flying to the floor from a short, contemptuous shove. And there — the executioners, the bench, thirty strokes of the cane across his back for slipping something into the healer's tea. Xiao Yi. The name surfaced together with a face: pale, delicate, with the eyes of a doe and a smile that made Y/N's — the real Y/N's — jaw clench.
He had read this novel. Before sleep. The last thing he remembered before waking was a phone screen glowing in the darkness, and the irritation of yet another chapter in which the main villain (this very one, with the swaying hips) yet again schemed against the "white moonlight," and Regent Chen Mo yet again punished him with cold, ritual cruelty. The plot was stupid, predictable, but something about it hooked him. Maybe the atmosphere. Maybe the way the author described the Regent's hands — long fingers, always calm, even when they gripped a sword hilt.
Now those hands existed in the same reality as he did.
"Awake, young master?" came a creaking voice from the door.
Y/N jerked and instantly regretted it: his back exploded with pain. Slowly, controlling every movement, he turned his head. In the doorway stood an old woman with a wrinkled face and clouded eyes — not blind, but nearly. In her hands she held a clay bowl of something that smelled of herbs and rancid fat.
"Ordered to apply the salve," she said without any expression. "Lie still. I'll be quick."
She did not ask permission. She simply approached, flung back the blood-soaked coverlet, and set to work — roughly, deftly, without a shadow of sympathy. Y/N gritted his teeth. The cold ointment touched the welts, and he nearly screamed.
"How many?" he forced out when his voice returned.
"How many what?" the old woman did not understand.
"Strokes."
She grunted.
"Thirty. The Lord Regent was merciful. It could have been fifty." She smeared the salve without concern for the patient's pain. "You'd best lie quiet, young master, and stop angering your future husband. You might not survive the next time."
She left as silently as she had appeared, leaving behind the scent of herbs and the sensation of clammy cold on his back. Y/N remained lying there, staring at the ceiling and sifting through what he knew.
The novel's plot was already in motion. The body he found himself in had already managed to do plenty: nasty tricks aimed at Xiao Yi, attempts to seduce the Regent, some intrigues with the servants. Chen Mo had already meted out punishment — thirty strokes, publicly, in the estate courtyard. The "white lotus" Xiao Yi had surely stood nearby, watching with his innocent eyes as the executioners worked. And the Regent... the Regent had watched the flogging with the same expression he wore when reviewing tax reports or maps of military campaigns. Nothing personal. Ritual.
And according to the plot, this ritual was supposed to repeat until, one day, Chen Mo would kill his persistent spouse. Quickly, without emotion. Simply because he had crossed a line.
Y/N closed his eyes. Fine. He knew the plot. That meant he knew what not to do.
Do not approach the Regent. Do not seek encounters. Do not get entangled in intrigues. Do not cross paths with Xiao Yi. Become invisible — as much as was possible for a person whose name was already written into a marriage contract.
The plan was simple and, as it seemed to Y/N, the only correct one. He was a sensible person. He would not repeat the mistakes of the body's previous owner, who, judging by the memories, was not just stupid but pathologically incapable of learning from his mistakes. The swaying walk, the oily smiles, the theatrical hints — it all worked against him like a rusted mechanism that was impossible to fix, yet one that the previous owner kept trying to wind up over and over.
Y/N had no intention of winding up such a mechanism.
The first steps around the room were difficult — his back still ached, the wounds healing slowly. But he noticed something immediately upon rising from the bed and walking to the window: the body remembered. The muscles themselves tried to move in a certain way — hips slightly forward, shoulders back, chin lifted, steps from the hip, smooth and fluid like a snake hypnotizing its prey. It was so unnatural to Y/N himself that it made him shudder. He stopped in the middle of the room and forced himself to walk again. Heavier. Simpler. Without that foxy grace, without the attempt to coil around invisible legs. Step — a firm placement of the foot. Step — weight shifted without unnecessary movement. Step — shoulders still, hips not swaying.
The body resisted. The muscles ached, accustomed to a different mechanics. But Y/N was stubborn. He walked from wall to wall until the gait became his own — maybe not perfect, but human. Not animalistic. Not alluring.
The servants, rare in this wing of the estate, began glancing sidelong at him by the third day. He caught their looks — quick, surprised, cast from under their brows. They said nothing, but Y/N read the bewilderment in their faces. The young master had changed. The young master no longer floated down the corridor like a whore searching for a client. The young master walked as if he knew where he was heading.
He didn't know. But let them think that he did.
The first encounter with Xiao Yi happened on the fourth day.
Y/N went out into the garden — that very one, with the stunted pines and the dry stream — hoping for a quarter hour of silence. He was sitting on a stone bench, his face turned to the stingy autumn sun, when he heard footsteps on the gravel. Light, almost weightless. That is how those who wish to seem harmless walk.
"Young master," crooned a voice, soft as a silk pillow. "Are you feeling better?"
Y/N opened his eyes.
Xiao Yi stood three paces from him, and the sun shone at his back, outlining his silhouette with a bright halo — a picture worthy of a novel's illustration. A white hanfu with pale blue embroidery, hair gathered in a simple knot, in his hands a woven basket with some herbs. Skin like porcelain, almost translucent at the temples. Eyes — large, moist, with a hazy film, like a doe's that had accidentally wandered into a human dwelling.
In the novel, this gaze was described as "innocent, touched by a gentle sadness." Y/N, looking at it in person, saw something else: calculation. Cold, honed, like the blade of a scalpel hidden beneath silk.
"Thank you, better," he replied, trying to keep his voice neutral.
"I was so worried," Xiao Yi pressed his free hand to his chest, and the gesture was perfectly rehearsed: fingers trembling slightly, lashes lowered. "When the Lord Regent ordered you punished... I tried to soften his anger, but he was adamant. You must understand — he is not cruel, it is just that duty to the country demands firmness from him."
Y/N watched this performance, and inside him, slowly, like a bubble rising from the bottom of a swamp, a mixture of irony and disgust welled up. "Tried to soften his anger." Of course. As if he would believe that.
"I understand," he said.
"Truly?" Xiao Yi raised his eyes, and something flickered in them — for a split second, before the innocent haze returned. Surprise. Light, almost imperceptible. He had expected a different reaction. Spite. Resentment. Tears. The body's previous owner would surely have made a scene — would have screamed, accused, spat venom. But this one simply nodded and said "I understand." It did not fit the pattern.
"I am glad," the healer smiled, and the smile was like glaze on a stale cake: sweet, but not hiding what lay beneath. "I was afraid you would hold a grudge against me. After all, it is because of me that you..."
He broke off, biting his lip — a perfectly calculated pause portraying embarrassment. Y/N nearly snorted. Seriously, dude? You think this works?
"Not because of you," he said, and his voice was even, like water in a bowl. "Because of myself. I was foolish. Now I understand my mistakes."
Xiao Yi blinked. Slowly. Like a lizard that had noticed something unexpected.
"You are... different," he uttered, and the compliment sounded almost like a question.
"People change," Y/N shrugged. "Forgive me, I must go. My back still hurts — sitting for long is difficult."
He rose — smoothly, but without the former feline grace — and walked away. With a heavy, confident stride. Without looking back. Feeling the healer's gaze on his back — no longer meek, no longer innocent. Studying. Appraising. Dangerous.
The first meeting with Chen Mo occurred a day later — and in a manner entirely unlike what Y/N had planned.
He was walking along the covered gallery, returning from the garden to his chambers, when at a crossing of corridors he ran straight into the Regent. In the most literal sense: lost in thought, staring at his feet, and bumped his shoulder into someone's chest.
He raised his eyes. Met the gaze of Chen Mo.
Up close, the Regent looked different than in the memories of the former owner. Tall — taller than he had imagined. Black hair, smoothly combed back and tied into a knot at the nape, revealed a face that would have been handsome were it not for the scar. It stretched from the left temple, crossed the cheekbone, and disappeared somewhere under the collar — a long, even line, whether from a sword or an arrow. The skin around the scar was slightly darker, making it resemble a crack in a porcelain mask.
But more terrifying than the scar were the eyes. They did not bore, did not pierce, did not burn — all those verbs from the novel missed the mark. They simply... saw. They looked at you, and you felt transparent. As if all your thoughts, fears, secrets were written right on your forehead in large print, and only you yourself considered them hidden.
"Forgive me," said Y/N, stepping back a pace. "I wasn't watching my step."
The Regent did not answer. He simply stood and looked. The pause stretched — first to awkwardness, then to anxiety. Y/N felt goosebumps running down his back, over the healing welts. He was already about to apologize again and retreat when Chen Mo spoke.
"You did not look me in the eye."
The voice was calm, distinct — such a voice cannot be unheard, even if it sounds barely louder than a whisper. It penetrated not through the ears — through the skin, resonating somewhere in the bones.
"What?" Y/N did not understand.
"Before," said the Regent, and the word fell like a stone into water, "you always looked me in the eye. Too directly. Too insistently. As if you were trying to find something. Now you look at the floor."
Y/N swallowed. The previous owner's memories obligingly presented an image: there he is, the former one, standing before the Regent, chin tilted up, and staring, staring, staring — with an oily, beckoning, openly hungry look. Trying to seduce with a gaze. Trying to find reciprocity. Trying...
"I have changed," he said, repeating the phrase he had already used with the healer.
"I see." The Regent tilted his head slightly to the side, and the movement had something avian about it — sharp, precise, predatory. "The changes are noticeable. Your gait. Your gaze. You no longer try to touch me."
The last phrase sounded almost like a reproach. Almost.
"You were right," said Y/N, carefully choosing his words. "I behaved unworthily. I realized it and decided to improve."
"In five days?"
"Sometimes one is enough."
He did not know where this audacity had come from. Perhaps the remnants of irony, which had always been his defense mechanism. Perhaps an instinct suggesting that submission and flattery were what the Regent expected, and therefore the exact opposite might work better.
Chen Mo was silent. The corridor was quiet — only somewhere in the distance a floorboard creaked under the feet of an unseen servant. Then the Regent took a step. One. Closing the distance between them to half an outstretched arm.
"You are right," he said. "Sometimes one is enough."
And he walked on. Simply passed by Y/N and continued on his way, as if nothing had happened. The dark robe glided over the stone slabs, and the scent of sandalwood, barely perceptible, melted into the air.
Y/N remained standing. His heart was hammering somewhere in his throat. He could not understand what frightened him more: that the Regent had noticed the changes, or that he deemed them worthy of mention. Chen Mo, who had slaughtered entire villages, did not waste words on trifles. If he spoke — it meant he had taken note. If he had taken note — it meant Y/N was now within his field of attention.
This was precisely what he had been trying to avoid.
Three days passed after the encounter in the gallery. Three days during which Y/N left his room less and less, trying to become even more inconspicuous — a shadow among shadows, dust on a windowsill, unworthy of a stranger's glance. He almost believed that the meeting with the Regent had been an accident, bearing no consequences.
He was mistaken.
A servant appeared on the morning of the fourth day — not the old woman with the salve, but a young lad with the impassive face of a professional announcer.
"The Lord Regent invites you to dinner," he said, and it was not a question.
A chill settled inside Y/N. An invitation from the Regent was no invitation. An order. He could have refused, citing his sore back, but that would delay the inevitable, not cancel it. Chen Mo did not forget. Chen Mo did not forgive evasion.
"Fine," he said. "I will come."
The dining hall was smaller than he expected — not the ceremonial one, but a private one, for a narrow circle. And today that circle consisted of two: him and the Regent. A low table laden with dishes, two sitting cushions opposite each other, and no one else. Even the servants, having served the food, disappeared behind the door, leaving them alone.
"Sit," said Chen Mo, without raising his eyes. He was already seated at the table, sorting through some scrolls, and looked as if he had invited not a future spouse, but a junior official for a routine report.
Y/N sat. Silently. Not moving. Waiting.
"Eat."
He picked up his chopsticks. The food was excellent — thinly sliced duck in honey sauce, rice balls with sesame, stewed vegetables exuding the aroma of ginger and soy sauce. But Y/N ate mechanically, not tasting it. Every bite stuck in his throat, because the Regent was not eating. He simply sat and watched.
It was not a gaze — a gaze glides, assesses, gets distracted. This was observation. Methodical, calm, like that of a naturalist studying a new species. Chen Mo watched how Y/N held the chopsticks (more firmly than before, not dropping them, not playing with them, not trying to touch his fingers across the table). How he chewed (slowly, not slurping, not talking with his mouth full — the previous owner hadn't done that). How he sat (straight back, shoulders squared, but not provocatively — just level). How he kept silent.
"You keep silent," the Regent uttered after a long minute. There was no question in his voice — only a statement of fact.
"I'm eating," Y/N replied.
"Before, you talked incessantly. About my appearance. About my hands. About how cold you were sleeping alone."
Y/N nearly choked. The previous owner's memories came alive again, thrusting forth a picture: he (the former) leans across the table, chest forward, lashes fluttering, and coos something about "the Lord Regent's strong fingers that hold a brush so skillfully." God.
"I understood that it was... inappropriate," he said, carefully wiping his mouth with a napkin.
"Inappropriate," Chen Mo repeated, and something in his tone changed — almost imperceptibly, like a crack running through ice. "You have become silent. Restrained. You no longer try to climb into my bed. You no longer look at me as if you want to swallow me."
"I have realized my mistakes, Lord Regent."
"Stop."
Y/N froze.
"Stop calling me 'Lord Regent' in that tone," Chen Mo continued, and his gaze grew a degree sharper. "You pronounce it as if I were your employer. Before, you purred 'my lord' in a way that made the servants blush."
Y/N felt the corner of his lip twitch — not a smile, more like a shadow of irony he hadn't managed to suppress. Yeah, he thought, the former me was a real piece of work.
"Perhaps I decided that the servants' nerves should be spared," he said.
The Regent blinked.
A pause hung in the room — thin as a silk thread stretched between two interlocutors. Chen Mo looked at him, and something in his face was changing. Slowly, almost imperceptibly. A predator who thought he knew his prey, and suddenly discovered that the prey had grown spines.
"You are joking," said the Regent. "With me. You have never joked with me before."
"There are many things I didn't do before."
Chen Mo set the scroll aside. For the first time during the entire dinner, he shifted his full attention to the person sitting opposite. His fingers — long, calm, the very ones the novel had described with such breathless admiration — came to rest on the table, palms down. The scar on his cheekbone seemed darker in the soft light of the brazier.
"What else have you stopped doing?" he asked. And it was not a rhetorical question. He was genuinely interested.
Y/N held his gaze. Didn't look away, didn't lower his eyes — just looked back. Not challengingly, not coquettishly. Calmly. As an equal.
"I have stopped trying to be who I am not," he said. "And stopped believing in what I see."
"And what is it that you see?"
Y/N fell silent. The answer was on his tongue — I see that your healer is playing a role — but he could not say it. Not yet. Not here. Not now.
"I don't know yet," he replied. "But it is no longer what it was before."
The Regent looked at him for a long time. Then he picked up his chopsticks and, for the first time during the entire dinner, placed a morsel of food onto his own plate.
"Stay for supper," he said in a tone that brooked no objection. "Here."
And Y/N understood: this was not an invitation. It was an order. But for the first time ever, the Regent's orders were not tied to punishment. For now.
The second encounter with Xiao Yi happened two days after the dinner, and it was even more telling than the first.
Y/N was sitting in the library — a vast hall with carved shelves, smelling of old paper and dust. He was searching for maps of the area — not because he was planning a new escape (although thoughts of it still smoldered somewhere at the back of his mind), but because he wanted to understand the geography of this world. Knowledge was a weapon, and he was in need of it.
The door opened without a knock. Xiao Yi entered — with the same basket, the same innocent smile.
"Young master," he purred. "I have been looking for you everywhere."
"You've found me," said Y/N, not looking up from the scroll. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Xiao Yi drew closer, and his steps were soundless — fitting, for a healer accustomed to walking quietly. He stopped at the edge of the table and placed his basket on a free corner.
"I heard the Lord Regent invited you to dinner," he said, and his smile did not waver. But his voice — his voice had changed. Ever so slightly. As if steel had shown through the silk. "That is so kind of him. He rarely invites anyone."
"Perhaps he was bored."
"Him? Bored?" Xiao Yi laughed quietly, and the laugh was like the ring of a porcelain bell: beautiful, but false. "You do not know him at all if you think that. Chen Mo knows no boredom. He always has business. Important business." He paused, and the next sentence was dropped as if in passing: "I was with him last night. He asked me to check his pulse. He says he has been sleeping poorly these last days."
It was a blow. Subtle, precise, calculated for jealousy. I was with him. At night. He asked for me. He trusts me. The classic "white moonlight" tactic from the novel — sow doubt, provoke, present oneself as irreplaceable.
The body's previous owner would have fallen for it. Would have made a scene. Would have run to the Regent demanding an explanation.
Y/N lifted his eyes from the scroll and looked at the healer. For a long time. Attentively. With that very expression — a mixture of irony and disgust that came over him when reading the novel. Seriously, dude? You think this will work?
"That is good," he said calmly. "It means you will promptly notice if something is wrong with his health. I thank you for your care for my future husband."
Xiao Yi's smile froze for a moment. Literally for a second. But Y/N noticed. Noticed how the corner of his lip twitched, how his pupils constricted, how the fingers clutching the basket's handle turned white from tension.
"You... are thanking me?" the healer asked again, and the mask showed a second crack: bewilderment, almost irritation, broke through his voice.
"Of course." Y/N set the scroll aside and rose. "You care for the Regent's health. You were by his side when he was wounded. You continue to be by his side now. That is worthy of gratitude." He took a step toward the door, then stopped and added, without turning: "By the way, about sleep. I've heard that a decoction of chrysanthemum with a drop of lavender oil helps with insomnia. You might offer it to the Lord Regent. That is, if you haven't already."
He walked out, leaving Xiao Yi standing in the middle of the library. And, already closing the door, he heard a quiet sound — as if something had cracked. Perhaps the basket's handle. Perhaps the healer's patience.
Another week passed. The wounds on his back healed, leaving behind thin pink lines, which the old servant continued to smear with the foul-smelling salve without saying a word. Y/N gradually grew accustomed to the body, to the estate, to the rhythm of life that pulsed here — slowly, measuredly, like the breathing of an enormous beast dozing at the center of a web. He was still planning his escape, but now he was not hurrying. First — information. First — to understand who was an ally here, who an enemy, and who merely a pawn.
Xiao Yi, by the way, had not appeared after the incident in the library. Y/N saw him a couple of times from afar — in the garden, in the gallery — but the healer did not approach. Only watched. Watched for a long time, without blinking, and in that gaze there was something that made one want to check whether the door was locked at night.
And the Regent... the Regent summoned him more and more often. Lunches, dinners, walks in the garden. Sometimes — simply "sit nearby while I work." And each time Y/N felt that gaze on him — studying, warm, hungry — and could not understand what troubled him more: the gaze itself, or the fact that he had begun to grow accustomed to it.
One evening — about ten days after the dinner — they were sitting in the Regent's study. Chen Mo was working; Y/N was reading a book he had taken from the library — a treatise on poisons, ironically enough. A fire crackled in the hearth; rain pattered outside the window; the room was warm and quiet.
"You do not ask why I summoned you," the Regent remarked, not looking up from his scroll.
"And you do not tell me," Y/N replied, turning a page.
"Are you not interested?"
"If you wish to tell me, you will."
Chen Mo set down his brush and looked at him. Y/N had already learned to recognize this gaze — the gaze of a collector studying a new specimen. But now something else was mingled with it. Something warmer. Or hungrier. He had not yet figured it out.
"You have changed," the Regent said for the third time overall. But now it sounded different. Not like an observation. Like an admission.
"You've already said that."
"I know. But I don't stop being surprised." Chen Mo rose from the table and walked to the window. The rain drummed against the wooden frame, and his silhouette against the gray sky resembled ink blurred by water. "Before, you were... predictable. Transparent. Your every thought was written on your face, and all those thoughts were about me. About how to drag me into bed. About how to get rid of Xiao Yi. About how to become the sole object of my attention. It was boring."
"And now?" Y/N asked quietly.
"And now," the Regent turned, and the firelight reflected in his eyes, "you sit in my study, reading a book about poisons and asking no questions. You do not try to seduce me. You do not try to provoke me. You simply... exist. Nearby. As if you do not care."
"Perhaps I do care," said Y/N. "Perhaps I have simply learned to wait."
Chen Mo moved away from the window and approached him — slowly, smoothly, like water flooding a sandbank. Stopped a pace away. Extended his hand and touched a strand of hair that had fallen onto Y/N's forehead. Did not brush it aside. Simply touched it — with his fingertips, barely perceptible.
"You never knew how to wait," he said. "You were impatient, like a hungry beast. You would have thrown yourself at me right here, had I allowed it. But now..." His fingers slid lower, along the cheekbone, along the jawline. "Now you don't even tremble."
Y/N indeed did not tremble. He sat motionless, feeling the Regent's touch — warm, dry, assured — and understood that the fear that should have paralyzed him had gone somewhere. In its place was something else. Curiosity. Tension. And — he did not want to admit it to himself — a response. His body remembered the past night in the bridal chambers — a night they had not yet shared, but which loomed on the horizon in this version of reality, inevitable and all the more unsettling for it.
"I am not a beast," he said, looking the Regent in the eye. "And not prey."
Chen Mo's hand stopped. For a moment. Then he withdrew it — not sharply, not with irritation. Slowly. As if with regret.
"No," he agreed. "You are not prey. You are something else." And he added, returning to the table: "Stay the night. You will sleep here. Just sleep."
It was a test. Y/N knew it. The Regent was testing him — would he try to seduce again once in the bedroom, or remain true to his new "self." And Y/N passed the test — lay down on the edge of the bed, covered himself with a separate blanket, and fell asleep without saying a word.
And in the morning he discovered that the blankets had tangled, and his head was lying on the Regent's shoulder, while Chen Mo's arm wrapped around his waist — possessively, firmly, as if he had held Y/N all night and had no intention of letting go.
The obsession was growing. Slowly. Inexorably. Like water rising in a well.
Several more days passed before Y/N became a witness to a scene that put much into place — and at the same time tangled things even further.
He had not planned to spy. He had not planned to leave his chambers at all that evening — but sleep would not come, and his feet carried him out into the garden, away from the stuffy walls, closer to the cold air and the quiet chirring of cicadas. He wandered along the path laid with gray stone, skirting the lotus pond, when he heard voices.
The voices came from behind a hedge — tall, trimmed, forming a secluded nook with a stone bench and an old lantern. The place was hidden, romantic — the kind that usually served for secret meetings in novels. Y/N stopped. His heart beat louder. He recognized both voices.
Chen Mo and Xiao Yi.
He did not mean to eavesdrop. Yet neither could he leave — his feet had taken root in the ground, and his body itself slipped into the shadow of an old cryptomeria, whose branches hung over the path. From here one could see — through a gap in the foliage — but he himself was hidden by the darkness.
Xiao Yi was sitting on the stone bench. His posture was unusual — not straight, not proud, but somehow broken. Shoulders slumped, hands resting limply on his knees, head bowed. Chen Mo stood nearby — tall, dark, like a tower against the starry sky. And he... he was speaking to the healer. Quietly. Almost tenderly.
"You are tired," the Regent uttered, and Y/N had never heard such a tone in his voice. Soft. Enveloping. Like warm water one sinks into after a long day. "You work too much. I told you — you don't need to carry medicines to distant villages yourself. There are other healers for that."
"I must," Xiao Yi replied, and his voice was quiet, almost resigned. "I promised them. Those peasants. They have no one else."
"They have no one, but I — I have only you," said Chen Mo, and Y/N felt something inside him clench. Not jealousy — no. More like cold. I have only you. Those words, spoken in the Regent's voice, sounded like an incantation. Like an oath.
Chen Mo extended his hand and touched the healer's shoulder. Not the way he touched Y/N — with hunger, with possessiveness. Differently. Carefully. The way one touches someone one is afraid of breaking.
"You saved me," the Regent continued. "I remember. I always remember. You are the only one who was by my side when I was dying. The only one who asked for nothing in return." His fingers slid higher, to the healer's cheek, and Xiao Yi lifted his eyes — moist, glistening in the lantern light. "You will stay with me," said Chen Mo. "Whatever happens."
"Whatever happens," the healer echoed.
Y/N stood behind the cryptomeria, not breathing. He saw the Regent lean down and touch his lips to Xiao Yi's forehead — lightly, almost ritually. A blessing. A farewell. A promise. Something Y/N could not find a name for.
Then Chen Mo straightened and left — soundlessly, like a shadow. Xiao Yi remained sitting on the bench. His face, just a moment ago resigned and meek, slowly changed. His lips stretched into a smile — not innocent, not meek. Triumphant. Like a gambler who had just made the decisive move.
Y/N retreated into the shadow and silently went back to his chambers. There was a coldness in his chest. He knew Xiao Yi — knew his game, his lies, his madness. But Chen Mo... Chen Mo did not know this. Or knew, yet still said, I have only you. And that meant the healer's position was stronger than Y/N had calculated.
But the strangest thing was something else. The coldness in his chest. Where did it come from? Why did the sight of the Regent showing tenderness to another evoke not relief (excellent, he's occupied with the healer, I can disappear) but this tightness, this vague, unformed bitterness?
Y/N did not answer that question for himself. He simply closed the door and sat for a long time on the edge of the bed, watching the moonlight fall upon the floor.
He was still planning his escape. But now something else was mingling with the plan. Something he refused to give a name to.
The next meeting with Xiao Yi was the most dangerous — and the most revealing.
The healer came to Y/N's chambers uninvited. Simply opened the door and walked in without even knocking. His face was no longer meek. His smile was no longer innocent. He resembled a man who had long played a role and suddenly decided to shed the mask — at least before the one audience member who never believed it anyway.
"You think you're smarter than me," he said from the doorway, and his voice was cold as a blade. "You think you've changed, and now the Regent will look at you differently."
Y/N was sitting at the dressing table, brushing his hair. He did not turn around. Simply continued to draw the comb through it rhythmically.
"Good morning, healer," he said. "You forgot to knock."
"You haven't changed," Xiao Yi continued, ignoring his words. "You've simply switched tactics. Before, you were an obnoxious fool; now you're playing hard to get. You think it will work? You think Chen Mo doesn't see that it's a game?"
Y/N slowly set down the comb and turned. His face was calm, but sparks danced in his eyes — those very ones, ironic, almost mocking.
"And you?" he asked. "Do you think he won't see through your game?"
Xiao Yi froze.
"What are you talking about?"
"About the fact," Y/N rose, and now they stood opposite each other — equal in height, equal in tension, "that I heard you in the rock garden. Ten days ago. You were talking with someone about Advisor Wei. About poison. And about me." He paused, letting the words settle. "'Getting rid of him will be even easier.' That's what you said, wasn't it?"
Y/N had been horrified upon overhearing that conversation late in the evening the previous day in the garden. It had made his entire body tense; it was becoming ever more dangerous, and he was grateful to have heard it.
The healer's face turned pale. Not from fear. From fury. The mask slipped off completely, revealing what had been hidden beneath it: madness. Cold, hungry, calculating madness of a man who had spun a web for years and suddenly saw that the wrong fly had landed in it.
"You wouldn't dare," he whispered. "You wouldn't dare tell him. He won't believe you. I saved him. I love him. He is mine."
"Yours?" Y/N tilted his head to the side. "Did he ever say that he loved you? Or did you make that up yourself while sitting by his bed and changing the bandages on wounds that you yourself arranged?"
Xiao Yi recoiled as if struck. His eyes — beautiful, doe-like, innocent — now burned like two coals.
"You can't prove anything," he spat. "You have no proof."
"Proof?" Y/N smirked, and the smirk was bitter. "I'm not going to prove anything. I will simply stay by his side. And you... keep playing your role. But know this: I see right through you. And the day will come when the Regent sees it too. If you want to keep your feigned face, don't discuss such things on the Regent's estate grounds with god knows whom, and don't barge into other people's rooms with a broken mask — after all, I might not have been alone here."
Xiao Yi stared at him for a long time. A very long time. Then his face smoothed over — slowly, eerily, like water calming its ripples. The smile returned. But now it was different — not meek, not innocent. Predatory. Sharp teeth beneath the silk.
"Fine," he said quietly. "Let's see which of us lasts longer."
He left — as soundlessly as he had appeared. And Y/N remained standing in the middle of the room, feeling his heart pound. He had just made himself a mortal enemy. But at least now he knew the enemy's face.
And yes, Xiao Yi was indeed as insane as Chen Mo. It was just that his madness wore a different mask.
The escape, which had seemed the only way out, now appeared in a different light. Not a retreat. A tactical maneuver. If he failed to get away — well, he would come back. But with new knowledge. With a new understanding of the rules of the game.
Too bad the rules were changing faster than he could learn them.
However, before the escape, one more event occurred. The Imperial Celebration.
The invitation arrived three days before the event — a gilded scroll tied with a purple cord bearing the imperial seal. "The Mid-Autumn Festival," it proclaimed, "in the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The attendance of all members of the court is mandatory." Y/N, as the Regent's future spouse, was a "member of the court" by definition. Refusal was impossible.
He had never been to the imperial palace. In the novel, this palace was described sparingly — a backdrop for political intrigues, nothing more. Reality proved overwhelming. The Hall of Supreme Harmony was vast as a cavern hewn from gold and cinnabar. Enormous columns, entwined with carved dragons, soared into the twilight beneath the ceiling, where painted beams floated. Hundreds of candles and lanterns flooded the space with a trembling orange light. The air was thick with the smell of incense, roasted meat, rice wine, and perfumes — musk, sandalwood, jasmine — blending into one stifling, intoxicating cocktail.
Officials, dignitaries, generals, their wives and concubines — everyone who held weight in the empire had gathered here. Silk rustled, fans fluttered, laughter rang, and beneath it all, like an undercurrent, tension pulsed: alliances, intrigues, hidden threats disguised as toasts.
Y/N sat at the table reserved for the Regent's close associates and felt uneasy. People were watching him. No wonder: the scandalous spouse of Chen Mo, the very one who had been flogged in the estate courtyard a month ago — now sitting at the imperial celebration, dressed in dark blue silk with silver embroidery, holding his back straight like a crown prince. Whispers crawled through the hall like snakes. Y/N caught fragments: "...he's changed...", "...they say the Regent no longer punishes him...", "...and where is the healer?.."
The healer was there. Xiao Yi was seated several tables away — in white, as always, with his unchanging meek smile on his porcelain face. Their gazes met. Neither looked away. It was a duel without weapons — quiet, tense, lasting several endless seconds — and Y/N was the first to break it, raising a cup of wine to his lips. Not because he surrendered. Because he noticed something else.
Chen Mo.
The Regent sat on the dais, beside the imperial throne — empty, since the emperor was still young and rarely attended feasts. Chen Mo was dressed in black with scarlet — the colors of power, the colors of blood. His hair was done up in a high knot, crowned with a silver pin. The scar on his cheekbone looked almost black in the candlelight. He was listening to a report from some minister, his head slightly inclined, and his face was motionless, like a mask.
But he was not looking at the minister.
He was looking at Y/N.
And it was not the same gaze as before. Not studying, not appraising. This gaze was heavy, like water pressure at depth. It was hungry, but not the way it had been that first night in the study, when Chen Mo had touched his face. Then there had been interest. Now there was something else. Obsession. Wild, no longer concealed, pulsing in the depths of his pupils like a second heartbeat.
Y/N felt it physically — as if the air in the hall had grown denser, as if an invisible hand had settled on the back of his neck and squeezed. He could not look away. Could not move. He simply sat, staring at the Regent, and felt goosebumps run down his back — no longer from fear, but from something else.
Y/N flinched and turned. Next to him sat Lady Wen, the wife of one of the advisors — an older but still beautiful woman with a sharp gaze and a tongue known for its venom.
"Yes," he said neutrally.
"And he cannot take his eyes off you," she added, and in her voice was the interest of a naturalist observing the mating of rare snakes. "Before, he looked only at the healer that way. And now..." She fanned herself. "I wonder what has changed."
"I have no idea," Y/N replied.
Lady Wen smiled — thinly, knowingly — and said nothing more.
The feast continued. New dishes were served, toasts were made, the musicians played something slow and melancholy on the guqin. Y/N drank wine — in small sips, so as not to get drunk — and tried not to look in the Regent's direction. It was difficult. Chen Mo no longer looked at anyone else. Ministers spoke to him, Xiao Yi sent him meek smiles, but the Regent did not get distracted. His gaze was fixed on Y/N, and in that gaze there was something almost unhinged. As if he were holding himself back with the last of his strength so as not to rise, not walk over, not seize his spouse right in the middle of the imperial hall.
Xiao Yi also noticed this.
The healer stopped smiling. His face — for a second, while he thought no one was watching — twisted. Pure, unclouded hatred. It flickered and vanished, replaced by the usual mask, but Y/N had managed to catch it. Managed to understand: the healer was losing. And he knew it.
And then something happened that Y/N did not expect.
Chen Mo stood up. Right in the middle of someone's speech — the minister of finance, it seemed, was reporting on tax revenues — he simply rose and walked. Not toward the exit. Across the hall. Past the tables, past the frozen officials, past the petrified Xiao Yi. Straight to where Y/N sat.
The hall fell silent. Even the musicians lost their rhythm.
The Regent stopped before Y/N. Looked down at him — and Y/N tilted his head back to meet that gaze.
"You are tired," said Chen Mo. Not a question.
"A little," Y/N replied, and his voice, to his own surprise, did not waver.
"We are returning to the estate."
This was not said to Y/N. This was said for everyone. For the hall, for the imperial court, for history. The Regent was announcing his departure from the imperial celebration — an unheard-of breach of etiquette — because his spouse was tired.
A whisper ran through the hall. Lady Wen behind Y/N gave a soft gasp. Some official choked on his wine. Xiao Yi — Y/N saw from the corner of his eye — sat white as chalk.
"I can stay," said Y/N. "If you have business..."
"I have no business," Chen Mo interrupted. "I have you. We are leaving."
He extended his hand. Did not command. Did not demand. Simply extended it — palm up — and it was more than an order. It was a declaration. Before everyone. Before the entire court.
Y/N hesitated for exactly one second. Then placed his palm into the Regent's hand.
Chen Mo's fingers closed around his — firmly, warmly, possessively — and he led Y/N through the hall. Through the parting crowd, through the whispers and stares, through the incense smoke and candlelight. And at the very exit, Y/N turned around — just for an instant — and met Xiao Yi's eyes.
The healer was watching them. And for the first time, there was no meekness in his gaze, no innocence, not even madness. Only emptiness. As if something inside him had just died — or was preparing to kill.
In the palanquin, swaying along the winding road, Chen Mo sat beside Y/N and did not let go of his hand. He was silent. Stared at the wall before him. His profile in the moonlight, seeping through the gaps in the curtains, was sharp as a blade.
"Why did you do that?" Y/N asked quietly.
"Do what?"
"Left the celebration. Because of me. Now the whole court will talk."
"Let them talk." The Regent turned his head, and his eyes gleamed in the semi-darkness. "You are my spouse. You are more important than the court. You are more important than the emperor. You..."
He stopped short. As if he had said more than he intended. His fingers squeezed Y/N's palm tighter — almost painfully.
"You are mine," he finished. "And I will not let you go. Ever."
Y/N was silent. The palanquin swayed. The night outside the curtains was quiet and starry. And somewhere deep inside, beneath layers of caution and irony, Y/N felt that very seed sprouting — the one he had tried to tear out. The seed of understanding that this obsession was not a trap. Or not only a trap. Perhaps it was a key. A key to rewriting the plot. A key to power. A key to a life he would never have had in another world.
The decision did not come at once — it ripened over three days, while he gathered information, checked routes, and waited for the right moment.
Three days during which he continued to play the role of the calm, indifferent spouse. He attended dinners with the Regent. Read books in the library. Strolled in the garden. Even smiled at Xiao Yi when they happened to cross paths in the gallery — and saw how confusion mixed with suspicion flickered in the healer's eyes. The man could not understand why his threats weren't working. Why the target of his persecution did not flinch, did not get nervous, did not make mistakes.
And Y/N, meanwhile, prepared.
He found out that the back gate was the least guarded. An old guard named Jian — he had learned the name by pretending to be interested in the estate's history — usually stood watch there alone and had the habit of dozing off after midnight, especially on cold nights when joint pain forced him to take opium tincture. Y/N found this out simply by talking to him one afternoon — about the weather, about rheumatism, about how difficult it was to serve at his age. The old man softened, flattered by the young master's attention, and blabbed more than he should have.
He obtained a map — not very detailed, but enough to understand: ten li to the east of the estate there was a village called Shiqiao, where one could hire a cart. Further — more: a road, a city, perhaps a port. The main thing was to go far enough so the Regent would not search. And would he search? In the novel — yes, but the novel was already coming apart at the seams. In reality, Chen Mo might simply erase the runaway spouse from his life, just as he had erased entire villages.
This was what Y/N hoped for.
On the evening of the third day, he began his preparations. In an old trunk where the body's previous owner stored his outfits, he found a purse with silver — enough to live for several months if spent frugally. There was also a dagger with a jade hilt — small, ceremonial, intended more for beauty than for combat. But in a dark forest, even such a blade was better than nothing. Y/N tucked it into his belt and threw on a dark cloak — plain, without embroidery, unremarkable.
He waited until midnight.
The estate was quiet. Only the wind wandered through the covered galleries, making the lanterns sway and cast dancing shadows on the stone slabs. Y/N crept along the walls, choosing the darkest corridors, the most deserted passageways. A couple of times he froze, hearing the steps of the guard patrol, but both times the patrol passed by without noticing him.
The back gate was exactly as he remembered: a low arch overgrown with ivy, and a wooden door bound with rusty iron. Old Jian sat on a stool by the wall, his head dropped to his chest, snoring quietly. Beside him on the ground stood an empty cup — from the tincture, Y/N presumed.
He passed the guard, trying not to breathe. The door — he had checked earlier — was not locked with a key, only with a heavy bolt. Y/N grasped it with both hands and pulled. Slowly. Soundlessly. The metal slid in the grooves with a quiet, almost inaudible scraping. The old man did not wake.
The bolt gave way.
Y/N pushed the door — it opened, letting in the cold night air that smelled of rotting leaves, damp earth, and the smoke of distant fires. He stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him — just as slowly, just as soundlessly. Then he turned and ran.
The forest began right outside the estate — old, wild, untouched by gardeners' care. There were no gravel paths here, no stone lanterns. Only trees — enormous, dark, with roots protruding from the earth like veins on an old man's hands. Moss sprang softly underfoot. Somewhere high above, an owl hooted, and its cry spread through the thicket like a warning.
Fog rose from the lowlands — whitish, dense, it crept between the trunks, snagged on branches, filled the hollows. Y/N ran through it, arms outstretched before him so as not to crash into a tree. Branches whipped his face, leaving scratches. Roots caught at the hem of his cloak; once he stumbled and nearly fell, but caught himself by grabbing a pine trunk. The bark was rough, cold, smelled of resin. He caught his breath and ran on.
He did not know how much time had passed. Perhaps half an hour. Perhaps an hour. His legs grew heavy, his lungs burned, but he did not stop. He was not running in any particular direction — simply away. Further from the estate. Further from the Regent. Further from Xiao Yi with his smile and his poisons. Further from this entire cursed novel.
Somewhere at the edge of his consciousness, a thought flickered: reach the village, hire a cart, disappear among the peasants. And then — he would see. He did not build long-term plans. He was no strategist at all. He was simply a person who wanted to live.
He did not hear the hoofbeats right away.
At first it was just a rhythm — distant, almost indistinguishable over the noise of his own breathing and the pounding of blood in his ears. Y/N did not even immediately realize what it was. And when he did — he quickened his pace.
The pounding drew nearer. Now it was distinct: a single horse, a heavy gallop, the rider experienced and not trying to hide. Hooves beat a tattoo on the frozen ground, and the sound carried through the forest, reflecting off the trunks, multiplying, creating the illusion that there were many riders.
Y/N zigzagged between the trees, hoping to throw the pursuer off the trail. He turned left, then right, leapt over roots, ducked under low branches. But the pounding did not fall behind — on the contrary, it grew louder, closer. Whoever that rider was, he knew the forest better. Or the horse knew. Or something else guided him — a sense, an instinct, an obsession.
Y/N did not look back. He was afraid. Afraid of losing speed, afraid of seeing what was galloping after him through the fog. He simply ran, until his legs began to tangle, until the air started tearing from his chest with a wheeze, until—
The horse burst out of the fog from the right — enormous, black, with flaring nostrils and foam at the bit. The rider leaned down, and Y/N only managed to catch a dark silhouette, long hair streaming in the wind, and the gleam of eyes — not human, bestial — before he was seized across the torso and hauled into the saddle.
The world flipped. Branches, sky, the black rump of the horse — everything blurred into one. Y/N cried out — not a scream, precisely a cry, short, strangled — and a moment later found himself sitting sideways in the saddle, pressed back against a hard chest. Someone else's arms closed around him like a trap.
He was suffocating. His pulse pounded in his temples, in his throat, in his fingertips. The cloak had bunched up, the hood had fallen, and the cold air seared his face. The horse slowed its run, shifted to a walk, and in the silence that fell, he heard the rider's breathing — even, calm, as though the man had not been racing through a night forest chasing a fugitive, but was simply out for a leisurely ride.
"There are wolves in these woods."
The voice struck his nerves like a whip. Calm, distinct — such a voice cannot be unheard, even if it sounds barely louder than a whisper. It penetrated not through the ears — through the skin, resonating somewhere in the bones.
Y/N froze. He recognized that voice. He had always known it — from the first minute of waking in a strange body, from the first memories of the former owner, from the first glance in the gallery. Chen Mo.
He slowly, very slowly, turned his head.
The Regent looked down at him. Black hair tied into a knot, but several strands had come loose and fell across his face, crossing the scar on his cheekbone. In the dim moonlight filtering through the treetops, his skin seemed almost gray, and his eyes — so deep that one's gaze drowned in them, finding no bottom. He was not angry. He was not irritated. His face was calm, like water in an old well — dark, still, concealing unknown depths.
"You thought I would not know?" he asked.
Y/N swallowed. His mouth was dry, as after a long run through a desert.
"I..."
"My spy reported to me the moment you stepped out of the gate," Chen Mo interrupted, and his voice was still just as even, just as calm. "I rode out after you. Not immediately. I gave you a head start. Wanted to see how far you would go."
He leaned a little closer, and Y/N caught a scent — sandalwood, metal, horse sweat, and something else, elusive, like the smell of a thunderstorm when the clouds have already gathered but the rain has not yet begun. Something that was Chen Mo himself — his essence, his aura, his predatory nature.
"You went further than I expected," the Regent continued, and his fingers, holding the reins, tightened slightly. "You are fast. Enduring. You did not stop, did not panic, did not run back. You ran to the end." A pause. "That is worthy of respect."
Y/N was silent. What could he say? I didn't want to die? Your healer is trying to kill me? I am not who you take me for? All those words had lodged in his throat like a bone.
"I didn't want..." he began and stopped short.
Chen Mo did not let him finish. His hand settled on Y/N's waist — did not squeeze, did not yank, simply settled — and in that gesture there was more threat than in any blow.
"You didn't want?" the Regent repeated. "What didn't you want? To be my spouse? To live at the estate? Or perhaps," he leaned even closer, and his lips nearly touched Y/N's ear, "you didn't want me?"
The last word fell like a stone into water. And by the ripples spreading from it, Y/N understood: this was not a question. It was a statement. And everything depended on the answer to it.
He closed his eyes. Inhaled. Exhaled. And told the truth — the only truth he could tell without revealing himself:
"I didn't want to die."
The Regent's hand on his waist stilled. A pause hung — long, tense, like a string pulled to its limit. Then Chen Mo leaned back — just a little — and looked at Y/N as if seeing him for the first time.
"To die?" he asked again. "Who said you would die?"
"The plot," slipped from Y/N's lips before he had time to think.
"The plot?" The Regent tilted his head to the side, and something new flickered in his eyes. Not interest. Not suspicion. Confusion. Almost human. "What are you talking about?"
Y/N bit his tongue. Too much. He had said too much. Now he had to wriggle out of it, and quickly.
"I thought you would kill me," he said, and that, too, was the truth. "Sooner or later. As you would kill anyone who stands in your way. You are the Regent. You slaughter entire villages. And I am just..."
"You are my spouse," Chen Mo cut him off. And it sounded like a sentence. Or like an oath. "You are not 'just.' You are what belongs to me. And I do not kill what is mine."
The horse snorted and shifted its weight from foot to foot. The fog swirled around, hiding the forest, making it look like an underwater kingdom where there was no up or down, no direction, only cold and silence. And these two — the rider and his captive — lost in the white haze.
"Why did you come after me yourself?" Y/N asked quietly. "You could have sent guards. Could have ordered me caught. Why did you come yourself?"
Chen Mo was silent for a long time. The wind stirred his hair, and in the moonlight it gleamed like wet silk.
"Because you have changed," he said at last. "Because you stopped swaying your hips and started walking like a human being. Because you stopped looking at me like a hungry dog and started looking at me like an equal. Because you keep silent, and your silence is louder than all your words ever were." He took a breath. "Because I want to understand who you are now. And I want you to stay."
"You never asked if I want to."
"And I am not asking."
His hand moved from Y/N's waist to the back of his neck — gently but inexorably — and he pulled him closer. Now they sat face to face, separated by a distance of just a few cun. Y/N felt his breath on his skin. Saw every detail of his face: the scar crossing the cheekbone — old, whitened at the edges; the crease between his brows, deep as a crack in stone; the pupils, dilated, dark, with golden sparks in their depths.
"You ran away," said the Regent. "Now you will not run. Ever." He turned the horse and headed it back toward the estate. "We will marry today."
And it was not a question. Not a proposal. An order. The same as those he gave to his generals before battle — calm, assured, brooking no objection.
Y/N sat in the saddle, pressed to his chest, and felt the last hope of escape melting like fog at dawn. He had lost. He had gotten himself stuck in this plot right up to his neck.
He understood it when they dressed him in red garments. The wedding. Swift, without all those traditions. Merely the cementing of what was inevitable.
The bridal chamber. And the kiss — the first truly possessive kiss, from which Y/N's breath caught and his head spun.
All of it flashed by in one long, blurred movement — from the escape to the fall onto silk sheets. And now he lay, staring at the dark canopy, feeling the Regent's fingers glide over his skin — still not tenderly, but no longer coldly. Exploratory. Hungrily. As if Chen Mo had only now understood exactly what he held in his hands, and the understanding pleased him more and more.
The night was long. And by morning Y/N knew two things.
First: the Regent was obsessed. Not with Xiao Yi — with him. With his new "self." With his silence. With his irony. With his walk that no longer swayed. With his gaze that no longer tried to seduce.
Second: this obsession could become either his death or his shield. There was no third option.
The morning after the wedding night arrived gray, quiet, smelling of the rain that was drizzling outside the window, drumming against the tiled roof. Y/N did not wake at once — first he simply lay there, feeling the heaviness in his body, that very sweet, aching weariness that comes after a night full of frantic, hungry intimacy. The sheets were crumpled, the pillow knocked askew.
Chen Mo was not asleep. He sat on the edge of the bed, already dressed in dark colors, fastening an embroidered belt. His movements were unhurried, precise — just like during the night, when his fingers had glided over Y/N's body, exploring, claiming, leaving invisible marks.
"You are awake," he said without turning.
"Yes," Y/N replied, and his own voice seemed foreign to him — hoarse, low, somehow... satisfied? He pushed the thought away.
"Lie down. I will order breakfast brought."
Y/N wanted to object — he was not used to being served — but his body was too heavy and the bed too warm to argue. He remained lying there, watching as the Regent finished dressing, adjusted his collar, ran a hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face. The scar on his cheekbone seemed paler in the morning light, almost silver. His movements were smooth, like those of a predator that had just fed and now rested in blissful repose.
There was a knock at the door.
Y/N instinctively pulled the blanket up to his chin. Chen Mo cast him a brief glance — something akin to a smirk flickered in it — and said:
"Enter."
The door opened. On the threshold stood Xiao Yi.
He was dressed in his usual white, but today — Y/N noticed it immediately — something in his appearance had changed. Not subtly, but distinctly: shadows under his eyes that had not been there before; slightly sharper movements; a smile that was still meek, but one that came with visible effort. Like an actor who has played the same part for too long and is beginning to tire of the role.
In his hands he held a tray with a porcelain bowl. Light steam rose from the bowl, and with it — a scent. Herbal, sweetish, with some floral notes. Almost pleasant. Almost.
"Good morning, Lord Regent," the healer intoned, and his voice was soft as ever. "I have brought a tonic for your spouse. After such a night, he surely needs to restore his strength."
He bowed — gracefully, with dignity — and took a step into the room. His eyes quickly swept the chamber: the crumpled bed, the scattered clothing, the traces of a night unmistakable for anything else. And although the smile on his face did not waver, Y/N noticed how the knuckles of the fingers gripping the tray turned white. Noticed how the neck tensed beneath the white collar. Noticed how the pupils constricted, turning into two pinpricks.
"I did not ask for a tonic," said Chen Mo, without turning. He was adjusting a cuff, and his voice was distracted.
"I took the liberty," Xiao Yi replied softly. "Caring for the health of the members of your household is my duty." He bowed again and moved toward the bed.
Y/N watched him like a snake slowly crawling across the floor, pretending to be just a branch. Every movement of the healer was perfect, every gesture refined. But something was off. Something in the way he held the bowl — too carefully, as though it contained not an herbal decoction but liquid fire. Something in the way he looked at Y/N — furtively, through lowered lashes, and in that look there was neither meekness nor care. Only coldness. Only calculation.
"Set it on the table," said Chen Mo, and Xiao Yi froze mid-step. "I will give it to him myself."
"But my lord, the tonic must be drunk warm," the healer objected, and in his voice a barely perceptible note broke through — not insistence, but something close to it. "When it cools, the healing properties..."
"I said: set it on the table."
The Regent's voice had not changed — it was just as even, just as calm. But something in it made Xiao Yi stop short. He halted. Looked at Chen Mo — quickly, appraisingly. Then smiled — even more meekly, even more innocently — and placed the tray on the low table by the window.
"As you command," he said and stepped back a pace.
A silence hung in the room — dense as cotton wool. Y/N stared at the bowl. Steam still rose from it, and the smell of herbs, so pleasant at first glance, now seemed cloying to him. Too sweet. Like perfume trying to mask the smell of decay.
He drew the air through his nose — instinctively, like an animal that has sensed danger. And something in that scent was... wrong. Not overt, not crude. A barely perceptible note hidden beneath a layer of herbs and flowers. Bitter almonds. Or something like it — faint, almost indistinguishable, but distinct to one who knew what to look for.
And Y/N knew. He had read the treatise on poisons cover to cover. "Night Fog," that was what the healer's accomplice had called it. Odorless, tasteless — so the man had claimed. But the authors of the treatise had been more precise: "Night Fog" had a faint smell of bitter almonds that could be masked by herbs with a strong aroma. That was precisely what Xiao Yi had done.
Y/N's stomach clenched. Not from fear — from disgust. This man was standing two paces away from him now, smiling his false smile, waiting for his enemy to drink the poison. Waiting with anticipation. With relish. Like a gourmet watching the main dish being served.
"Lord Regent," Xiao Yi spoke when the pause had stretched too long. "The tonic truly is better fresh. I used rare herbs — astragalus root, goji berries, ginseng from the Wudang Mountains. They lose their potency with every passing minute." He spoke softly, solicitously, but Y/N heard beneath this layer of honey something else: impatience. Hunger.
Chen Mo finally turned around. His gaze slid over Xiao Yi, then over the bowl, then over Y/N. And something in his face changed — for a split second, almost imperceptibly. But Y/N noticed. Noticed how the Regent drew in air almost imperceptibly — sniffed. Noticed how his pupils dilated, then constricted, turning sharp as blades.
"My spouse will decide for himself when to drink," said Chen Mo, and his voice was calm, but that very edge Y/N had already learned to recognize had crept into it: danger. A predator who had scented another predator. "Wait outside the door."
Xiao Yi blinked. A shadow flickered across his face — surprise? alarm? — but he quickly collected himself.
"As you command," he repeated, and with a bow, he left.
The door closed. Y/N and the Regent were left alone.
"You do not want to drink it," said Chen Mo. It was not a question.
Y/N looked at him. At the scar on his cheekbone. At the dark eyes, which now resembled two wells — deep, impenetrable, full of something unspoken. Something in those eyes had changed since the night. Or perhaps it had changed from the moment the Regent had sniffed the air and sensed something.
He knows, the thought flashed. He knows about the poison. Or he suspects. But why is he silent? Why isn't he accusing Xiao Yi right now?
"I do not want to drink it," he said slowly, "because it smells strange."
The Regent was silent. His face was motionless. Then he turned to the door and raised his voice:
"Enter."
Xiao Yi came in — with the same smile, the same meek posture. But now Y/N saw the cracks even more clearly. The healer was nervous. His fingers, hidden in his sleeves, trembled. His breathing was slightly faster than it should be. He sensed that something was going wrong, but did not understand what exactly.
"Will you drink the tonic, young master?" he asked, and his voice was still soft, but now a strained note was audible in it.
"Smell it," said Chen Mo.
Xiao Yi froze.
"What?"
"Not you." The Regent nodded to the guard standing by the door. "You. Smell the bowl."
The guard stepped forward. He was an older man with a face cut by scars — one of those who had gone through more than one campaign with Chen Mo. He took the bowl, raised it to his nose, and drew in the air. For a long time. Slowly. His face, impassive until now, changed — his brows drew together at the bridge of his nose, his nostrils flared. He smelled again, more deeply, and set the bowl aside.
"Bitter almonds, my lord," he said flatly. "A very faint smell, almost covered by the herbs. But it is there. 'Night Fog' poison. Deadly. Acts quickly."
Silence fell in the room.
Not the silence of before — tense, but neutral. This silence was different. Ringing. Like the air before a lightning strike. Like the pause between a sentence and the fall of the sword.
Xiao Yi stood motionless. His face changed slowly — like a mask slipping from an actor's face, layer by layer. First, the meek smile vanished, leaving behind only pale, tightly pressed lips. Then — the innocent gaze; the healer's eyes, which had always seemed moist and warm, suddenly became dry and sharp, like two shards of glass. What remained was something hard. Something predatory. Something that had been hiding beneath the silk all this time.
"Chen Mo," he said, and his voice was no longer soft, no longer enveloping. It was taut as a bowstring, ready to snap at any moment. "You cannot..."
"I can," the Regent interrupted. He rose. Slowly. Smoothly. Like a beast that has spotted its prey. "I can do anything."
"You love me!" Xiao Yi shouted, stepping back a pace. His voice cracked, and hysterical notes broke through it. "You have always loved me! You said it! That night, in the tent, when I was changing your bandages! You said — 'you are the only one I have'! You said — 'I will never leave you'!"
Y/N froze. Those words — that night, in the tent — rang out like a slap. He did not know this story. The novel had not described it in detail. But now he understood: there, in that tent, something had happened between the wounded Regent and the healer who had himself arranged that wound. Something that bound them more tightly than gratitude. More tightly than debt.
Chen Mo took a step toward the healer. His face was motionless, but something burned in his eyes — not fury, not anger. Coldness. The terrible, all-consuming coldness of a man who had just learned the truth.
"You saved me?" he asked, and his voice dropped to a whisper. "You?"
"Yes!" Xiao Yi cried out, and tears streamed down his cheeks — real tears, not feigned. "Me! I found you on that road, bleeding out! I carried you on my back for three li to the nearest village! I didn't sleep for nights, changing your bandages! I nursed you back to health when everyone else had already written you off for dead!" He sobbed, and his voice became pleading. "I love you, Chen Mo. I have always loved you. I dedicated my whole life to you. I..."
"You bribed the man who wounded me," the Regent interrupted. His voice was still as even, but now something was audible in it that sent chills down Y/N's spine. Not anger. Not pain. Disappointment. A dull, heavy disappointment, like a gravestone. "You went out onto that road knowing that I would be there. You played me from the very beginning."
Xiao Yi's face turned white. Not metaphorically — literally. The blood drained from his cheeks, and he began to look like a ghost — white hanfu, white face, only his eyes burning with mad fire.
"Where did you..." he whispered and stopped short.
"I know everything," said Chen Mo. "I have known it from the very beginning." He took another step, and now there was no more than an arm's length between him and the healer. "You thought I don't vet those who approach me? You thought I would believe in a random traveler on a road where there wasn't a soul? You thought I wouldn't make inquiries about a village healer who suddenly turned up in the right place at the right time?" He spoke calmly, almost lazily, but every word struck like a lash. "I have known everything from the very beginning. I simply observed. Waited for you to reveal yourself. And you have."
Xiao Yi stumbled back another step. His face twisted — now there was no meekness on it, no love, no fear. Only hatred. Pure, unclouded hatred.
"You... you used me?" he whispered. "All this time..."
"You were useful," said Chen Mo. "You healed my people. You gave information about those who tried to poison me — about your own accomplices, though you didn't know it. You were convenient." He stopped a step away from the healer and looked down at him. "Now you have ceased to be convenient."
Xiao Yi trembled. His lips quivered, his eyes darted around the room, searching for an exit, but there was no exit. The guard at the door. The window behind him, barred with a grate. And the Regent before him — tall, dark, with a dagger in his hand. That very one, with the jade hilt.
"It's all him!" the healer suddenly shouted, jabbing a finger toward the bed. "It's him! This unclean son of an advisor! He poisoned you against me! He..."
He did not finish.
Chen Mo struck him — briefly, economically, without a wind-up. Simply a sharp movement, and Xiao Yi flew against the wall, clutching his stomach. On the white hanfu, just below the chest, a red stain was spreading. Small at first, like a peony petal — then wider, darker, until it turned into a huge, hideous flower.
The healer slid down the wall to the floor. His hands, pressed to the wound, turned red. Blood flowed between his fingers, dripped onto the wooden floor, gathered in a small puddle by his knees. He raised his eyes to the Regent, and in those eyes there was so much — pain, disbelief, hurt — that Y/N, against his will, felt a prick of pity. A very small one. Almost imperceptible.
"I loved you," Xiao Yi whispered. Blood bubbled on his lips, and the words came out gurgling, indistinct. "I did everything for you. I killed for you. I lived for you. And you... you chose him." He shifted his gaze to Y/N, and in that gaze there was so much hatred that the pity vanished without a trace. "You... you are nothing. You are just a body. You don't know him. You don't know what he is. You think you're safe? You think he won't kill you like he killed me?"
"Be silent," said Chen Mo.
"He will kill you!" Xiao Yi cried out, and blood sprayed from his lips. "He will kill you like he killed everyone who came before you! Like he will kill—"
He did not finish. Chen Mo flipped the dagger in his hand and struck again — backhanded, across the throat. A short, choked wheeze — and Xiao Yi went silent. His body went limp, slid down the wall, and remained lying on the floor, in a spreading pool of blood. His eyes — wide open, full of pain and disbelief — stared at the ceiling. And there was nothing left in them. Only emptiness.
The Regent wiped the dagger on his sleeve — slowly, almost ceremoniously — and turned to the bed. Y/N watched him, unable to tear his gaze away. His heart pounded somewhere in his throat. He had just witnessed a murder. Not a ritual one, not a political one — a swift, cruel, personal one. And the man who had committed it now stood before him and looked as though nothing had happened.
"Are you all right?" asked Chen Mo.
His voice was calm. Almost tender.
Y/N swallowed. His mouth had gone dry.
"I... yes," he forced out. "I am all right."
The Regent lowered himself to his knees before the bed. His hand — the very one that had just held the dagger — took Y/N's hand. The fingers were warm, dry, surprisingly gentle for a man who had just killed. He raised Y/N's palm to his lips and kissed it — first the knuckles, then the center of the palm, then the wrist, where the pulse beat beneath the thin skin.
"I told you," he said quietly. "I will protect you. From everything. From everyone."
Y/N looked at his bowed head, at the black hair scattered over his shoulders, at the scar crossing his cheekbone — and felt something inside him shift. Fracture. Reforge.
Here he was. A man who had just killed another man. Who had slaughtered entire villages. Who was cold, cruel, calculating. And who was now kissing his hand as though it were the most precious thing in the world.
"I'll remember that," he said. And smiled.
Rain drizzled outside the window. Xiao Yi's corpse lay on the floor, and his blood was slowly soaking into the wooden boards. And Chen Mo kept kissing his spouse's hand, and in that gesture there were more promises than in a thousand words.
