1 Chapter 1

Feng Haoran was sitting in Wei Haoyu's chair.

A chair that Haoyu remembers stealing from another female cultivator who he had a brief but tumultuous affair with. She had ruined his robes after he cut off all relations with her, an in retaliation he had stolen the expensive wooden chair from her.

It wasn't grand but it could be clearly seen to be intricately designed.

This is why Haoyu's first impulse is to grit his teeth at the image of it.

But he couldn't. He couldn't act on impulse, because death was close to him.

Death was sitting in front of him.

Haoyu doesn't grit his teeth but instead he draws his sword. Which isn't a wise thing to do on his part. But he won't fear.

Cultivators don't fear.

But when he is so close to death, pretence can't help him and his wrist tremors the slightest as he holds the sword.

Once yellow golden eyes now tinged with red silently regard him. A faint smile plays on the lips of Feng Haoran, turning her face to be even more sinister and statue like.

Haoyu won't be afraid, after all Feng Haoran is just a woman. A cultivator like him, but in the end, she is merely a woman.

A formidable woman. An exceptional cultivator. One of the most feared woman to exist in the lower and middle realms. The most accomplished in the arts of cultivation.

But she was still a woman. And a woman had weaknesses. And Haoyu refuses to acknowledge otherwise.

A sick, twisted part of him feels pride at being singled out, deemed important enough, powerful enough to warrant an execution from the Demon Queen.

Yet Haoran remains still eyes unblinking, like the statues that decorated Haoyu's courtyard. Still like the way he was taught to be. But Haoyu was always expressive.

Haoran's silence feel like a taunt to Haoyu. His father had always told him that silence breaks lesser men, and Haoyu was never raised to be the lesser man.

An amused smirk forms on the already vicious face and Haoyu almost flinches in fear. Almost.

"What do you want?" Haoyu grits his teeth, the silence raising the hackles on his skin. His voice hissed out carrying strength under it.

That bitch smirks. Haoran smirks because she won in her taunt. The silence had broken Haoyu, making him, in his father's words, the lesser man.

"I want what you want Wei Haoyu.." Haoran drawls smoothly, her voice as amused at the way Haoyu had been riled up by her mere presence.

"You came to me.. Feng Haoran." Haoyu points out albeit confused by her words.

"To find out what you want." 

The light plays tricks on Haoran's eyes as she crosses her leg over the other, and leans forward, making them terrifying and strange and mesmerising. Haoyu cannot look away, even if the barely contained fear tells him to drop his gaze. "So I can give it to you." 

He does flinch then, surprise jolting his nerves. 

"You want me to join you?" he asked, astonished, "To become a cursed Demonic arts user. Disgusting."

Haoran keeps on staring, not reacting to his words. Haoyu is used to people's reactions. He thrives in his inappropriate words and actions, and more he loves seeing the way people react to him. But the bitch doesn't.

"You don't know what you want do you?"

Her voice annoys him, annoys him with how calm it sounded. It felt like a nail scratching a sword.

"I want to see you dead." Haoyu hisses highly agitated by their whole interaction. He feels like a predator cornered by a much larger hunter.

"You do?" Feng Haoran smiles. "Such an original want."

Haoyu can feel the sarcasm dripping from her voice and it irks him.

"The whole world wants me dead.." Feng Haoran says, her fingers thrumming against the wooden chair. And even then, the repetitive sounds raises goosebumps along Haoyu's skin, and he can feel the sudden chill to his skin. "Do you have an original want... or are you as brainless as the rest of them, gliding along like a brainless puppet with nowhere to go."

"Shut up!" Haoyu snarls and his spiritual energy dangerously fluctuating with an urge to punish.

Haoran stands.

Wei Haoyu is a tall man, used to looking down at people. This is an exception. Haoran isn't tall, but the sheer Qi she let's out makes it hard for Haoyu to breath properly and he falls to his knees. Now, Haoran looks down at him, like he is some weak thing.

Haoyu hates it. Hates that it is a woman who is making him feel weak like this.

"You have darkness in you, yet you decide to chain it up." Haoran blandly speaks, yet Haoyu feels as though she is amused by him. As though Haoran enjoys seeing weak like this.

He's -he's uncomfortable. He is uncertain and he doesn't know how to deal with this, because he had never been this much afraid of someone else.

"They will cast you out. No matter what you do, no matter how much you prove to them that you are nothing like us. One mistake is all it will take and they will cast you out. That is how they are. They fear the unknown. They fear anything that isn't upto to their norm."

It's frustrating, because Haoyu knows this to be true. No matter how much his master tries to shield him from the truth, all it takes is a small mistake, like holding a Demonic arts book, and the darkness he was born with will scream louder than his actions.

"You are a liar.." He spits out despite knowing that he was the one telling the lie here.

Haoran's eyes spark, "You truly believe that?" Her lips twitches in a mocking smile and she laughs, a deep and surprisingly pleasant sound. 

Haoyu is so shocked that he chokes up. His tongue tied as he looks up at Haoran, who eased up her spiritual presence. Even then, the taste of that power, Haoyu knows that she was holding back. That this was just but a miniscule sample of what she was capable of.

Haoran smiles seemingly pleased with how he was reacting and she raised her eyebrow at him, mocking him.

"I was taught to never feed into my delusions Haoyu. Yet you choose to live in your deluded world... How disappointing."

And with that she disappears, the darkness of her power that had formerly choked him leaving with her. And everything suddenly went back to normal.

Haoyu can barely stand from his kneeled position, his heart thundering inside his chest, his stomach churning uncomfortably.

Anger. That is all he could feel.

Maybe he's reading too much into Haoran's words. 

Maybe he's projecting. 

He tries to stand, but he's terribly dizzy. Haoyu coughs violently and the floor is stained red. A thin line of blood runs from his lips and drops down to the floor and he chuckles. His eyes red filled with rage, but Haoyu is better than his darkest instincts and to be weak under Haoran wasn't that humiliating. So Haoyu takes comfort in being able to live after being in the presence of the greatest Demon Queen.