节制

   𝑎 𝑝𝑎𝑙𝑒 𝑏𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 …

#l͏i͏m͏e͏l͏1͏g͏h͏t͏s͏.     a look into ✧  a princely young man, disarming beauty, fragmented self-image,  survival bought with spiritual rot, scripted return to forgotten trauma & a contradiction at the core. ˊˎ-   indie xia fei FELIX from the donghua 时光代理人 ╱ link click. canon compliant & hc influenced. crime & thriller-based settings. au & multi-versed. duplicate-friendly. dash-only. private and highly selective. low activity. must be 21+ to enter. house of the hotheaded — ♢ ♧ ♧ br. — ♖, ✫, ᰔ

  … 𝑤𝑎𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑓𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑒𝑡𝑙𝑦 𝑢𝑛𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑑𝑠

✧ portfolio ╱ art cr. ╱ aes blog ╱ contract below. 🎥

  xia fei shouldered the kitchen door with a nudge, setting down a crate of empty bottles. a few steps out and the shadows swallows him. it’s narrow, the alley. just enough for outstretched arms to reach both sides. the area’s soaked and puddled by rain water. barely lit from the ambient, useless lamps behind him, the door staying open a crack. his mind was in too deep with his tasks, too keen on work and escaping the downpour; he felt it before he fully saw it. the shift, the air taut with tension. there’s footsteps where there should have been none. a stack of empty crates come tumbling, and pain flared white-hot along the length of his upper arm. the sensation is fire, then ice - he feels his movements lag a heartbeat behind his thoughts, as he spots a knife handle sticking from his arm. he hears the low growl of a familiar male voice, but his head needed another second to catch up - but a second is no luxury he can afford ( like the rest of his shitty life. ) a metal edge slides through red-stained fabric, through soft skin and muscle tissue. the knife is retrieved from his arm, causing xia fei to fold - staggering back and half-way stumbling deeper into the dampen alley. sharp, sunset-gold eyes narrow to even sharper slits. the figure follows him, ranting on about shitty drinks and shitty meals and an even shittier customer service experience. great. his blood-soaked hand releases his arm - recollection failing to remember when he even grabbed it - pawing cold, wet concrete until his fingers clasped something hard enough to use. he should have known. in jobs like this, dignity only clothes you until the moment someone strips it off. but xia fei has found himself biting more hands than he should be. a flaw of his that’s been giving him more grief than he’s willing to admit. thinking this night would be benign was laughable. rookie mistake. now he pays with his blood pouring from the open gash in his arm, tainting uneven ground with puddles of red. screw this. if he’s dying here, saving face would do him no favours. he’s expected to be broken in the presence of an ‘elite.’ expected to cower, or plead his case for a second chance, redeem himself in the eyes of a low-tier mobster who’s full of it. instead, he meets him with only a darkened glare. xia fei couldn’t give two shits to coddle a wannabe gangster who’s deluded enough to think he’s someone important. self-made millionaire? a roundabout way to describe a trust-fund baby more like. he and his whole bloodline can fucking rot. his rant barely registers anymore, as xia fei’s head was busy remembering advice of a former patron: break the bottle. no one's walking into those jagged edges.

summarizing it roughly off google so feel free to correct me as idk chess:

In chess, a pawn "changes" through a rule called promotion. When a pawn successfully reaches the furthest opposite end of the board (the 8th rank for White or the 1st rank for Black), it must be immediately swapped out for a more powerful piece of the same color. When a pawn reaches the end of the board, it transforms according to the following rules: The Options: You can replace the pawn with a queen, rook, bishop, or knight. The Limitations: A pawn cannot remain a pawn, nor can it turn into a king. The Most Common Choice: Pawns are almost always promoted to a queen because it is the most powerful piece on the board (a process often called "queening")

the thread mentioned how often the pawn is promoted to the queen in chess. and now, this entire theory is practically confirmed by director li via interview.

source.

"not sure how big the transformation will be, but the danger level will definitely be huge."

i'm not too worried about the exact label of what he will be 'promoted'/'transformed' into - but the fact that his threat level is basically confirmed to be something huge is so !!!!!! exciting.

i adore xf as he is already, but people really downplay him and his abilities, thinking he's going to sit back and watch while everyone else clashes. even i don't claim he will be a full-fledged villain - but he's part of the hotheaded house for a reason. he's so heavily affiliated with the current known antags of the series, so ofc he's going to lean closer to that side. more than anything, i feel like he will be manipulated to work against the main trio. that, or he picks up his own reasons to work against them / betray them, etc. ( not new info, ive mentioned this bit a million times but yea )