#im eepy

the lord of hongyuan is known for his absolute cruelty - that much is simply truth. not hearsay, not dramatization. you know because you have had the misfortune of witnessing it with your own eyes.

you once had acquaintances. not friends - you never allowed yourself that indulgence in a place like this - but people you spoke to, worked beside, survived with; people whose presence made survival marginally less unbearable.

the once is not decorative - it is definitive.

the lord - that damned one-eyed tyrant - sent them to their demises through an endless chain of missions where survival was never the priority. assignment after assignment, repeating in a dull cycle until their bodies stopped functioning like anything close to human.

hatred, then, is inevitable - rising like venom against antidote. you keep it sealed behind your ribcage, buried where no one can dissect it. but the eyes - the so-called windows of the soul - are traitors by nature. they never quite learn how to lie on command.

irony, however, is cruel in its own way. life has a habit of handing you the one fate you would have rejected on sight.

and so you stand here - the closest, most trusted, most reliably useful heishou at the side of the very man who indirectly killed what little motivation you had left to keep enduring.

you hate it. you hate it enough to lunge at every sliver of escape from this blood, sweat, and scream soaked hell, no matter how thin and suicidal the chance. you’re fully aware that if you ever succeed, walking away alive would be the least likely outcome. then again, failure was never going to be merciful either.

still, whenever another lethal mission is announced, something dim inside you lights instead of fading.

if you die, at least it ends.

and all the while, the tyrant you serve without choice names you his most useful beast as if that is meant to be an honor.

today is no different. you return to the same place that makes your stomach coil in sheer disgust, just as you do after every mission, every report, every survival that feels more like a delay than relief.

except this time your uniform - already stiff by design - looks scarcely better than a beggar’s rags. your injuries have bled through layer after layer, drying into a heavy, dark crimson that refuses to be ignored.

even with only one eye, the lord is not blind.

“how unsightly,” hong lu - the very tyrant you’ve been cursing since day one - sighs, the sound refined and tired rather than loud.

“you haven’t neglected to report to the medic, have you?” he adds lightly. “your injuries are dripping all over the floor again.”

his gaze lowers to the spreading stain, then returns to your no less than a ragdoll form with barely contained displeasure in his ominous shade of teal eye.

“must i issue orders for even your bleeding?” he asks - though you’re clearly aware that it’s an implied warning. cutting and sharp. “or have you grown so fond of suffering that you display it deliberately?”

a faint, humorless breath leaves him - much as you despise this man, your hands still tremble.

“forgive me, my lord,” you manage, fighting to keep your voice from unraveling. “this one failed to maintain proper condition. it will be corrected at once. please, you need not trouble yourself over such a minor matter.”

you’re certain there are windows in this room, yet the air refuses to reach your lungs. each breath turns shallow, caught somewhere between your throat and your ribs. worse still, this suffocating weight comes not from the room itself, but from his mere words alone.

you complete your bow - lower than necessary, longer than dignity allows - then straighten and begin to withdraw, desperate to escape whatever this nauseating weight-

“on second thought,” hong lu cuts through your retreat. “that will no longer be necessary.”

his tone is oddly mild - almost considerate - which makes it land heavier than anger ever could. It hooks into your spine, halting you without the need for volume.

his gaze shifts, precise and unhurried, settling on the neatly folded stack of crimson bandages resting on the side table.

what?

“come,” he instructs - the command leaves no room for misinterpretation.

you turn back on stiff legs and approach, each step burdened with uncertainty, as though you’re walking toward a beast rather than a man. up close, you’re certain that averting his teal eye was the wisest choice you could have made from the start.

without a word, your balance drops and you sink to one knee. hong lu leans aside, lifting the bandages - those you assumed were reserved for his blind eye - with effortless grace.

“now stay still,” he murmurs, his voice tinged with an odd fondness that coils uneasily within your stomach.

with that, you suddenly feel a warmth -the kind that makes you twitch ever so slightly - spreading across your face. the bandages, forged in that warmth, cover your former injuries with ease, accompanied by the soft hum that escapes him as he works.

next, he signals for you to raise your arms, one by one, winding those serpentine lines of bandages around them. the gesture is oddly careful, serene, gentle - so uncharacteristically tender that you scarcely dare to believe this is the same cruel lord of Hongyuan you have always known.

not that this situation feels particularly believable either.

“that will suffice,” he says, leaning back into his throne. you must be imagining the faint bloom of flowers beside his face - so dumbfolded that hong lu himself chuckles - for surely, tending to a heishou cannot be this pleasurable.

. . . and yet, are you truly just a mere heishou?