Moonlight divided the entire terrace into a checkerboard of alternating light and shadow.
Yu Weiming sat at the boundary between brightness and darkness, his long hair flowing with the cold radiance of the moon. His cloak hung languidly from his shoulders, its layers pooling across the dark, intricately woven carpet like a sea of crimson blossoms crushed beneath merciless feet.
It was a red so intense that it almost seemed capable of scorching the eyes.
The red of the Empire. The red of power. More than anything, it resembled the dried blood that stained one’s fingertips, a filth that could never be washed away.
At his feet rested an exquisitely crafted gift box.
…
The entire box was wrapped in dark red velvet, its recessed compartments filled with the shimmering fragments of mother of pearl. The gold plating at its four corners had been meticulously engraved with the iris crest of the Imperial Royal Family, the craftsmanship so obsequiously elaborate that it bordered on flattery.
It was the so called sincere gift that someone from the Federation had just presented to him.
The lid was made of a single sheet of mist colored glass. Within it, indistinct bronze colored shadows seemed to drift and stir. The silhouette was unmistakably that of a living person, still breathing faintly, the damp contours of their body pressed against the inner surface of the glass.
Beneath the moonlight, a cold, blade like gleam flashed through Yu Weiming’s ash gray eyes.
…The box most likely contained a body that had been soaked in essential oils and prepared as a sex slave.
A jeweled leather collar encircled the person’s neck, while a golden chain adorned with tiny bells was wrapped around their waist. It was just like the collections he had seen years ago, when he was a child accompanying his second elder brother into the private chambers of a certain duke to broaden his horizons.
Although both the Empire and the Federation had explicitly prohibited the buying and selling of sex slaves for years, many powerful nobles and high ranking officials on both sides continued to indulge in this filthy pastime behind closed doors.
They twisted living human beings into playthings designed to satisfy their own selfish desires, using the pleasures of unrestrained lust to conceal the emptiness within themselves.
Vulgar and boring.
He genuinely could not understand why anyone would enjoy such a thing.
…
The scent of rose essential oil seeped through the seams of the box, so cloyingly sweet that it was almost suffocating.
Yu Weiming could tell that it was no ordinary floral fragrance. It was the Federation’s most precious Blood Kissed Rose essential oil.
Every single drop required the extraction of the essence from more than a thousand exceptionally expensive, specially cultivated flower buds before this intoxicating, soul stealing fragrance of decadent beauty could be produced.
The Yu family, the Imperial Royal Family, had East Asian ancestry. However, because successive generations had continuously used genetic engineering to produce what they considered the most superior offspring for more than a dozen generations, Yu Weiming now possessed a tall, well proportioned physique, flawless, cold white skin, a high nose bridge, smoke gray eyes, and silver hair.
At that moment, his handsome face was reflected on the translucent glass lid.
Yu Weiming’s thin lips curved into a languid smile as he watched his reflection overlap with the silhouette of the person inside the box. The two images merged in a grotesque, distorted manner, creating a strangely sinister and almost ferocious appearance.
He had absolutely no interest in this sort of entertainment.
However, the Yu Imperial Family’s infamous reputation for debauchery and unrestrained indulgence had spread far and wide. No one would believe that someone who had inherited a bloodline associated with more than a dozen generations of decadence, filth, lust, and madness could possibly have no taste for perversion.
Yu Weiming lowered his gray eyes and idly rubbed his fingers over the box’s lock.
He still remembered the scene during their recent video call. Federation Councilor Wusen had been so terrified that his eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. He had prostrated himself before the screen, repeatedly banging his forehead against the ground as he pleaded with an almost frenzied expression.
“Your Majesty! You will definitely like this gift! You absolutely will! Your Highness, I guarantee it! He will make you happy, Your Highness! Please, just trust this humble man for once!”
Just last week, the Imperial Army had marched into the Federation’s capital.
The Federation’s high ranking officials, who had once stood above everyone else with pockets overflowing with ill gotten wealth, had finally begun to panic. They scrambled about like ants on a hot pan, exhausting every possible means to save themselves. One after another, they rummaged through their entire collections, bringing out the rare treasures and priceless curiosities they had accumulated over half a lifetime and laying them at the feet of the new emperor, all in the hope of securing a slim chance of survival.
Compared with the gallows, kneeling down to lick the imperial scepter was undoubtedly the better choice.
Consequently, Yu Weiming had received countless precious gifts over the past several days.
Presumably, even his subordinates and political rivals had amassed fortunes from the endless streams of gold, jewels, antiques, and paintings they had received, filling their coffers to the brim.
“But… definitely like it?”
Yu Weiming lifted the lid of the box, the corners of his lips curling upward with a hint of malice.
His recent days had been tedious and interminable. Perhaps it was time to find himself a little amusement.
He hoped that whatever lay inside would not disappoint him too much.
When Yu Weiming opened the box, Qi Shaozhou, the Imperial Court Physician of the Empire, was standing beside him, attending to his needs.
The two had grown up together, and Qi Shaozhou understood the new emperor’s temperament better than almost anyone else. These people had actually sent him a sex slave? What on earth were they thinking?
Qi Shaozhou could already imagine the despair on Councilor Wusen’s face when his grand dreams came crashing down.
Even if they did not know that the new emperor was exceptionally disciplined and impossibly particular about whom he allowed near him, they should at least have made some inquiries about his contempt for the previous emperor, who had indulged in debauchery until it ultimately cost him his life.
As the lid was lifted, the scent of roses mingled with the heady fragrance of desire, blending into an indescribable, chilling aroma.
The instant Qi Shaozhou saw the person inside the box clearly, his eyes widened. An icy sensation of horror crept up his spine, raising goosebumps across his skin.
Yu Weiming was also momentarily stunned.
But only for a moment.
In the next instant, a wild, feverish brightness gradually emerged in the new emperor’s smoke gray eyes. The corners of his mouth even began to twitch uncontrollably, although he seemed entirely unaware that he was smiling.
The new emperor drew a deep breath.
His gray eyes resembled a dark abyss. He stared straight at the person inside the box, greedily and silently, without looking away, as though he could not bear to tear his gaze away for even a second. He remained like that for an indeterminate length of time.
The desire he displayed so openly made his already striking face, ordinarily as sharp and cold as ice and snow, appear all the more terrifying and ferocious.
The person lying inside the box was indeed a bronze colored body that had been meticulously prepared and displayed.
Or, more accurately, a mutilated body.
It was none other than the sworn enemy of the Empire’s new emperor, Gu Yuanze, Commander of the Federation Fleet.
He had once been a hero of the Federation, revered by countless people as the Guardian of the Celestial Fortress and the Commander of the Cloudship Fleet. Now, however, he had been reduced to the lowest and filthiest kind of plaything, his broken body laid out inside a gift box presented to the new emperor as though he were some prized possession.
The person who had sent the gift had not even bothered to dress him in a single piece of clothing. Instead, they had wrapped an exceedingly fine golden chain around his waist and abdomen, ensuring that the humiliation was as thorough as possible.
Gu Yuanze’s eyes appeared to have been blinded.
They remained open and vacant, devoid of even the faintest glimmer of light. His cheeks had grown considerably thinner, and the ends of his severed limbs, where his bionic prostheses had once been attached, lay exposed. His broken body was half buried beneath layer upon layer of fragrant white roses.
Apart from the faint rise and fall of his chest, he looked almost like a corpse that had been carefully preserved for display.
One second. Two seconds.
Qi Shaozhou heard the new emperor let out a soft laugh. His voice was obscure and hoarse, trembling with an excitement he could scarcely contain.
“Shaozhou, look,” Yu Weiming said in a low, husky voice. “They certainly went to great lengths to dress Commander Gu… so exquisitely.”
An unusual light gleamed in his eyes, and the smile curling his lips was decadent and unhinged, carrying an almost frenzied beauty.
Outside the window, a nightingale began to cry. Yet its song was anything but melodious; instead, it sounded so mournful and piercing that it was almost unbearable. A violent wind began to rise, and the acrid scent of impending rain spread through the air.
Qi Shaozhou lowered his eyes, doing his best to maintain his composure.
After all, it was hardly as though Yu Weiming had only just gone mad.
According to what he had heard, the previous emperor had behaved in much the same way. One day, he had still been a benevolent ruler who diligently attended to state affairs and cared for his people. Then, without the slightest warning, he had suddenly gone insane.
……
After leaving the emperor’s bedchamber, Qi Shaozhou encountered Natalie of the Blood Rose and Ludwig the Silent in the corridor.
Natalie, the Empire’s strategic adviser, was the eldest daughter of Duke Campbell’s family, while Ludwig, the intelligence officer, was the youngest son of the director of the Empire’s First Manufacturing Bureau.
Like Qi Shaozhou, who served as both an imperial physician and a scientist, the two were Yu Weiming’s childhood friends. They had grown up alongside him and had steadfastly followed him since long before he became the crown prince.
As his title suggested, Ludwig the Silent rarely spoke.
However, whenever he did open his mouth, his words were invariably astonishing enough to leave everyone speechless.
After hearing that the new gift was the Federation’s commander, he merely nodded with his usual composure. “That’s pretty good.”
Several months earlier, Gu Yuanze, the Federation Fleet Commander, had been tried for treason. After being imprisoned, he had disappeared without a trace. Rumors claimed that he had already been secretly executed.
Ludwig continued, “Actually, last week, before His Majesty launched the assault on the Federation’s capital, he went to see my father.”
“According to my father, His Majesty’s exact words were, ‘I hope the Manufacturing Bureau will erect an extraordinarily lifelike bronze statue of my beloved nemesis, Gu Yuanze, in the central square of the Federation’s capital. I want the commander to be dressed in his immaculate uniform as he receives the remembrance, worship, repentance, and reverent admiration of those foolish citizens who betrayed him.'”
If that had been all, the request would not have been particularly outrageous.
“However, His Majesty also wanted my father to find the finest craftsmen in the Empire and have them manufacture a soft silicone doll that could faithfully reproduce the beautiful body of his beloved nemesis… in every conceivable detail.”
“So that he could keep it in his bedchamber every day and admire it to his heart’s content.”
Qi Shaozhou: “…”
Natalie: “…”
Ludwig said calmly, “It’s a good thing Gu Yuanze is still alive. That saves us the trouble of making both a bronze statue and a silicone doll.”
Qi Shaozhou: “…”
Natalie: “…”
…….
That night, after returning home, Qi Shaozhou found himself suffering from insomnia, something that rarely happened to him.
A person could go mad.
But surely there had to be some basic limit to it, right? A silicone doll!?
His childhood friend, Yu Weiming, had always been aloof and arrogant, ever since they were young. He had looked down on practically everyone he met. Since when had he developed such a perverted interest?
He suddenly remembered the trial footage of Gu Yuanze that had circulated through the black market half a year ago. He had watched it together with His Majesty, the esteemed emperor himself.
In the footage, Gu Yuanze’s once immaculate Federation military uniform hung in wrinkled folds from his thin yet still upright frame. The stars of his rank had been brutally torn from his sleeves.
The commander of the Federation Fleet, who had created one military miracle after another for six consecutive years, was actually only twenty eight years old.
He had black hair and black eyes. He was not an extraordinarily beautiful man, but his features were regular and handsome, giving him a dignified, attractive appearance.
Beneath the outer corner of his left eye lay an inconspicuous old scar. Together with the deafness in his left ear, it was a lasting injury from the explosion during the Second War of the Celestial Fortress.
The damage had left both his eyesight and hearing dangerously impaired, forcing him to wear assistive devices during his trial.
In addition to those injuries, he had also lost his left hand and right leg during the war.
The Federation’s technology lagged behind the Empire’s, so for years, he had been using outdated mechanical prostheses.
Qi Shaozhou had heard that standing for too long while wearing such prostheses could compress the nerves and cause excruciating pain. Yet, even when confronted with a hero who had sacrificed so much for his country, whose body was broken and whose strength was on the verge of collapse, the Federation’s bloated, pampered, and power hungry nobles sitting opposite him in the courtroom had only become more enthusiastic about bullying and persecuting him.
Countless accusations, false charges, humiliations, and insults were heaped upon this commander, who had devoted years of tireless service to protecting the Federation.
Qi Shaozhou was, after all, a normal person.
Even though the man sitting in the defendant’s seat was the enemy general who had caused the Empire the most headaches, Qi Shaozhou could not help frowning when he saw those people continue interrogating Gu Yuanze even after his suffering had become unbearable and he could barely hold himself together.
However, Yu Weiming, who had been sitting beside him that day, had been anything but normal.
Qi Shaozhou would never forget the sight of the Empire’s sun sitting beside him that day. On that usually cold, restrained face, which rarely revealed the slightest emotion, madness and excitement had remained completely undisguised throughout the entire trial.
At the time, however, Qi Shaozhou had assumed that Yu Weiming was merely excited to witness the tragic downfall of his longtime nemesis. Perhaps he was laughing at the fact that Gu Yuanze had failed to die on the battlefield and had instead met his end in the unjust prison of the very Federation he had sworn to serve.
But now, as Qi Shaozhou recalled those events, he realized that he had been wrong.
That day, His Majesty’s gaze had remained greedily fixed on Gu Yuanze throughout the entire trial. It had lingered on the way the commander furrowed his brows and trembled as he endured his pain, on his tightly pressed lips, and on the contours of his waist.
And when Gu Yuanze finally reached his limit and completely broke down under the unbearable suffering, the pleasure on the new emperor’s face had visibly reached its peak.
Afterward, Yu Weiming had taken possession of all the trial footage.
From time to time, Qi Shaozhou heard rumors that the new emperor frequently shut himself away behind closed doors and watched those recordings over and over again.
No one would have been deranged enough to imagine that Yu Weiming might use footage of his nemesis’s trial as some sort of personal aid.
Not until he heard that the emperor had even approached Ludwig’s father to have a silicone… Ahem!
Qi Shaozhou suddenly thought of his own father, General Qi.
He still remembered how, when he was young, General Qi would often tell him stories about the days when he had followed the previous emperor, back when the latter had not yet fallen into depravity. A group of young men had once been filled with hope, determined to change this corrupt and decaying Empire.
His father had called it an era as brilliant as the scorching sun, an era he would never forget.
But later, the previous emperor had suddenly gone mad. He had sunk into a life of unrestrained debauchery and never regained his senses, and the Qi family had begun to decline from that point onward.
However, General Qi had possessed an exceptionally discerning eye. Even back then, he had already set his sights on Yu Weiming, who was still the Third Prince at the time, and arranged for Qi Shaozhou to begin serving him from childhood.
General Qi had passed away the previous year. His final wish had been for Qi Shaozhou to assist the new emperor faithfully and restore the Empire to its former glory.
“Shaozhou, only Yu Weiming is the sole remaining hope for this decaying Empire.”
Qi Shaozhou had always been an obedient son, and he was certainly loyal to his friend.
It was just that, lately, Yu Weiming seemed increasingly unhinged, as though the depraved bloodline of the Imperial Family was finally awakening within him.
And yet, his father had called this man the sole hope.
In what way did his mad friend look like someone who could offer any hope at all?
Here we are with another brand new short novel! I hope everyone enjoys it! 🤗