When Xiao Biehe opened his eyes again, the sky was pitch black.
The bedding had been replaced with new, thick, and soft linens. He had been placed on the bed face down, his clothes mostly removed. On a nearby table sat medicinal ointment and blood-stained white gauze. Beneath his inner garments, he felt the presence of two hands.
Biehe’s body instinctively trembled. He wondered what this person could possibly want from him.
Seeing him wake, Lu Guanyan who had been gently applying medicine leaned over and hugged him from behind. “Brother, don’t be afraid. You have too many injuries; I’m just applying medicine first.”
Held tightly and lacking any strength, Biehe gave up his resistance and let the youth continue.
Outside the window, the world was a void of white as heavy snow fell like goose feathers. The air was chilly, but the hands against his skin were warm, bordering on scorching. Biehe hadn’t expected to wake up at all; he thought this unsolvable deadlock of a life was finally over.
The “beauty’s” quiet submission caught the “Little Madman” off guard. His wicked impulses and desires began to battle with a sudden, sharp pang of heartache.
Once the medicine was applied, Lu Guanyan remained pressed against Biehe, sniffing the nape of his neck. He wanted to bite. Biehe’s neck was long, slender, and pale it would surely break at the slightest nip. His blood would surely be incredibly fragrant.
Lu Guanyan’s deep blue pupils grew darker. He opened his mouth, baring his sharp fangs, and moved to bite the side of Biehe’s neck. But the moment his teeth touched skin, he regretted it. He pulled back, his predatory instinct softening into a gentle lick and nuzzle.
He heard the beauty let out a soft hum. “What are you doing?” Biehe asked in a low, breathless voice.
Lu Guanyan rubbed his face against Biehe’s neck like a beast savoring a delicious meal. He smirked. “I want to kiss you. I want to possess you. I want to hide you away where no one can find you, so that I’m the only one who can play with you.”
Biehe stiffened. His mind went blank, exhausted and powerless under the youth’s weight. After a long while, as the licking continued, Biehe’s eyelashes fluttered. Knowing he couldn’t resist, he thought of the “enemies” the boy had mentioned before.
“May I ask one thing of you?” Biehe asked softly.
The “Little Madman,” on the verge of losing his mind to lust, was pulled back to reality by the sight of the “white jade beauty” who looked ready to shatter. Heartache took over. “Speak, Brother.”
Biehe’s voice was light, devoid of attachment to the world. “After I die, burn my body, or bury it here. Lu Guanyan.”
The way he said the name was gentle, as if discussing something mundane. He didn’t want anyone to see him or judge his corpse after death. Since he was dying anyway, he found it acceptable for this boy who had saved and accompanied him to do as he wished with his body. He simply had no strength left to say no.
It was Lu Guanyan’s turn to freeze. He pulled his teeth away and looked at Biehe from the side. His blood boiled. In a moment of lost control, he pulled a bright red ribbon from his own hair and used it to bind Biehe’s hands together.
Without the ribbon, Lu Guanyan’s thick, wavy hair tumbled down, spilling over Biehe’s back and neck. His eyes burned with the hunger of a wild animal. “Are you saying, Brother… that you’re willing to let me have you?”
Biehe trembled and closed his eyes, looking like a man facing execution. He said nothing more.
The fire in those blue eyes grew until it nearly consumed the youth. He ripped away the last of Biehe’s inner garments with a deafening crrrrack. The sound snapped Lu Guanyan back to his senses. Before he could look too closely, he grabbed the quilt, covered Biehe entirely, and scrambled back several steps.
He gasped for air, his blue eyes stabilizing. He rushed forward to untie Biehe’s hands before retreating again, nervously fixing his hair to hide his blunder. Once composed, he flashed a fanged smile as if nothing had happened. “Brother, did you know who I was all along?”
Biehe didn’t answer. He opened his eyes, his lashes still trembling.
Lu Guanyan stared at him for a while. His lust had cooled, but his rage had grown cold and murderous. Without another word, he turned and fled the hut.
How dare those bastards hurt my beauty like this!
The night was a blur of darkness and snow. Lu Guanyan left the peach grove, moving through the night like a ghost.
He slipped into the General’s Manor. Finding the treasury, he stole 3,000 taels of silver notes, replaced them all with Joss paper (spirit money for the dead), and scared an old man into breaking his leg by pretending to be a ghost.
“So poor,” he scoffed. “The Great General of Liang is nothing special.”
He walked the streets, tossing the silver notes into the air like funeral confetti until the whole street was covered in paper. Still unsatisfied, he broke into the Eastern Palace and the Imperial Palace.
In the Eastern Palace, he saw a group of men dressed in white with cinnabar moles on their foreheads, all groveling for the Prince’s attention. Disgusted, he set the Eastern Palace on fire. Before leaving the Imperial Palace, he carved the word “DEATH” (亡) in massive letters on the palace gates.
That night, the capital was in chaos. The army fought fires, guards hunted for intruders, and wanted posters for the Third Prince of Yan were plastered everywhere. Meanwhile, the commoners scrambled through the streets to pick up the scattered money.
Later, Lu Guanyan sat on a roof with three jars of wine he had stolen from Biehe’s cellar. He sat there until he was covered in a thick layer of snow. He shook it off and gulped down the wine.
He remembered the first time he met the “beauty.” It had also been winter.
That year, Lu Guanyan’s mother had been burned as a “demon concubine,” and his tribe had been slaughtered because of a prophecy that the Emperor of Yan would fall to a genius aided by the Kingdom of Liang. The Emperor didn’t spare his own son, the “demon-eyed” Third Prince.
The young Lu Guanyan had fled to the border of Liang. There, he encountered a ten-year-old Xiao Biehe on patrol. Young Biehe, already looking like a little general in his silver armor, found the “little demon” collapsed in the snow.
Instead of reporting him, Biehe fed him warm water and bandaged his wounds. He sat by a campfire in the dark and handed the starving boy a roasted rabbit. The little demon snatched it and ate like a wild animal, never saying a word. After he finished, he ran away while the beauty wasn’t looking.
Lu Guanyan was eventually caught by the Emperor of Yan and thrown into a dungeon for two years, where he was tortured in an attempt to break him. But a beast cannot be tamed by its enemies. At ten years old, he broke out, killed every guard in the dungeon, and went on a rampage through the palace. He stabbed the Emperor, killed four of his brothers, and blinded or maimed the rest. He slaughtered half the court and set the palace on fire.
From that night on, the “Little Demon” became the “Little Madman.”
Suddenly, he wanted roasted rabbit again. He had caught many over the years, but none tasted as good as the one the beauty had made.
As dawn broke, the “Little Madman” now a literal snowman stood up and shook off the frost. He finished the last of the wine and jumped down to catch some rabbits.
By the time the snow stopped, he had roasted the rabbits, cooked white porridge, and placed several sets of clean, new clothes in Biehe’s room.