and so staring down a future of no banging righteous scholar boy goes and kicks some serious ass

the flower in the palm of my hand

If a male lead doesn't secretly battle a bear and bring it down in the middle of the night to detoxify the love of his love and then hide the truth and his scars from her, what is he even doing and how can he call himself a period cdrama male lead?

I stopped counting but it seems that the scars he sustained because of her are starting to outnumber the ones he had got in his 10+ years on the battlefield.

He gets all bloody and injured in a battle:

When we meet him again, he's bathing, sinisterly:

A lot of time must've passed because all that are left of those battle wounds are scars:

When you're wearing a sinister black bathrobe, you have to put on a sinister face:

I have no idea how he got his sword to flame for this long but I am all for it.

I was thinking why I thought this was badass while rolling my eyes in a very annoyed way at the blindfold archery in BoP and I think it's because I expect and enjoy extra in my stories yes but it has to make sense - it would definitely be advantageous to be able to have a flaming sword in battle provided you could figure out how to keep it burning and had skills not to set your eyebrows on fire.

There is literally zero point to blindfolding yourself while shooting pirates.

Not to mention that I am always more into it when there are real stakes - this battle looks hard for this dude, not whatever 'don't break a sweat ever' nonsense both the overly OP mains in BoP are doing.

I didn't understand it at that time. But after he left, I finally understood that bone-deep sadness. It was the base color of his soul. Like a broken song, vast, distant and desolate.