ten true things

by ttibok

Summary:

Hua Yong tells ten different stories. In each one, Sheng Shaoyou is front and center.

Excerpt:
Hua Yong thought of his stories—the farm boy, the emperor, the fox, the automaton—all these lives he could have lived, and he would still want Sheng Shaoyou in any capacity he could have him. He would want him every time, body and soul. He would chase him to the ends of the earth; he would live for him and die for him. He would make love to him and fuck him. In any life, and in every life. Across the universe and back.

Notes:

• For Chifuyu.

This was such a beast to format. Based on canon and Hua Yong writing what is essentially self-insert fanfic of himself and SSY. But I wanted to put my own spin on it! I started writing this before the new extras were translated! So the mermaid/fox story isn't canon-compliant!

For the wifey yet again, the LOML and my soulmate! Thanks for putting up with me and inspiring me with your words! This fic would not have been written without you. In another life, we are just two mung beans in a piece of mooncake.

Little Peanut held his breath as the door to his room opened with a creak.

The nanny had just left after dressing him for bed, and he had all his favourite storybooks fanned out across the covers, ready for his Papa to read. But it wasn’t his Papa that strode through the door with a glass of warm milk in hand.

It was his Dad, stern and mildly agitated, though he tried his best not to show it. He wore his usual dressing gown over dark silk pajamas, the ones Little Peanut liked because they were soft to the touch and matched his Papa’s; his Papa’s were often of a lighter colour. They always looked perfectly matched, his parents, though that could probably be attributed to the fact they had an in-house tailor at their beck and call.

Dad set the glass of milk aside and crossed his arms with a light frown. He raised an eyebrow. “Why so many books?”

Little Peanut crossed his arms back. “Where’s Papa?”

“Your Papa is sleeping off a headache,” said Dad curtly. “Why not go to sleep after drinking your milk?”

Little Peanut lifted his chin. “It’s story time. Papa always reads me a story before bed.”

Hua Yong looked at him for long moments, unblinking. And then he sighed deeply, seating himself next to Little Peanut on the bed. He was still unused to being a father: his responsibilities seemed never-ending. And yet, even while Little Peanut’s list of demands only grew as he got older, Hua Yong found himself begrudgingly acquiescing to each one, partly to appease Sheng Shaoyou, and partly because he couldn’t bear to see the little brat upset. It was true what they said about parenthood: that it could change you in ways you least expected it. Instead of spending the rest of the evening with his mate, caring for him and scenting him, Hua Yong was instead keeping this insolent little creature company.

He was sent by Sheng Shaoyou in his stead to read Little Peanut a bed time story. Hua Yong didn’t even hesitate when Sheng Shaoyou asked him to do it; he understood that this was a role he had agreed to undertake after the birth of his son. He and Sheng Shaoyou were partners, mates, both now equally responsible for Little Peanut. Even if it sometimes meant less time with each other.

Hua Yong plucked a book from the assortment on the covers, flipping through its pages sticky with remnants of candy.

Little Peanut said, in a huffy tone that reminded him a little of Sheng Shaoyou, “I don’t like that one. Papa already read me that last night.”

“Then why bring it out here then?!” Hua Yong asked, lifting an eyebrow.

Little Peanut pouted at him.

“Fine,” said Hua Yong, selecting another book at random. He looked over at his son who stubbornly shook his head, signalling his disapproval. “Not this one either?” Hua Yong asked, starting to feel irritated.

“Hmph!” His son was all red in the face, resembling a ripe little tomato. Honestly, Hua Yong thought, barely able to rein in his temper, Sheng Shaoyou had the patience of a monk! Who could deal with such a spoiled child?! And how had it gotten to this point? He could hang a basket from those lips from how deeply Little Peanut was pouting!

“If you’re not going to tell me which one you want me to read, then I’m going to just tell you a story,” Hua Yong decided. He put away the books, piling them on the bedside table before turning to look at Little Peanut. Well? His expression seemed to say. They were so alike in temperament, both spoiled by Sheng Shaoyou to the extreme, that they could communicate even without words. They even both had that tuft of stubborn hair on top of their head that had to be tamed down in the mornings with careful swipes of the fingers.

In the end, it was Little Peanut who acquiesced; he was a boy who did enjoy a good story after all. Stories kept him company in dreams, and his Papa knew all the best ones and even did all the voices. Maybe his dad had something worth sharing after all. Papa always did say Dad had a skillful tongue, whatever that meant.

Little Peanut scooted over to make room on the bed, and Hua Yong slid under the covers next to him. Unlike his Papa, his Dad did not hold him. It was enough that they shared the same space. They turned to each other simultaneously: one a smaller version of the other except for the mouth, the other possessing an inhumanly cold appearance. But Little Peanut knew there was some warmth underneath it all, like banked fires amidst the harshness of winter. One only need to follow the curl of smoke.

“What’s the story called?” Little Peanut asked curiously.

“I haven’t decided yet,” said Hua Yong, “Some stories don’t need titles, remember that when you ask for another one.” Hua Yong pinched him on the cheek. “You just stay put and listen.”

“Hmph,” said Little Peanut, but he shimmied closer next to his dad once Hua Yong’s voice took on that dreamy cadence; he was getting ready to tell Little Peanut his tale.

The eastern seas are perilous, and maps warn they are full of monsters. But Sheng Shaoyou is a man given to ambition, and there is no territory he does not wish to conquer, whether land or sea or sky. In truth, he’s an adventurer at heart, his bones singing with a restless longing. For something, somewhere. Not home, that’s for certain, but a place he knows must exist beyond his dreams. It’s a call in his blood; a shining silver thread that brings him to the most dangerous of waters.

It’s the same reckless desire that has taken him to this unchartered coast, where the sky is every navigator’s dream: so blue it pierces the eye he can barely see the endless shape of it under the sun. There’s nothing around for miles, only the endless horizon as they sail further and further east. His ship, manned by a modest crew he’d plucked along the way, is a tiny speck in the ocean, a dot in the map of a vast, unexplored world. They forge ahead, following the scintillating light of stars, into the unknown, braving storms that batter their sails mercilessly like the hand of an angry god.

Sheng Shaoyou’s luck runs out one day when his ship overturns and he becomes the only survivor of a storm, clinging onto a piece of driftwood—a remnant of his once beloved ship. He floats along under an unforgiving sun, buoyed by the current, frigate birds circling and cawing overhead, like portents of death. Sheng Shaoyou may have been a prideful man, but even he knows when surrender is the only option. He can feel the salt of the water stinging his eyes like tears. His entire crew is dead, lost to the depths of the sea. He is alone and unmoored.

“Hello,” says a beautiful man, peering at him from behind floating cargo.

“Gah!”

“Why does he have the same name as Papa?” Little Peanut interrupted.

Hua Yong sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Just listen. Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?”

A complicated look flitted across Little Peanut’s face, but finally he nodded, clutching the end of his blanket. “Go on, Dad,” he said.

Hua Yong went on.

The beautiful man’s name is Hua Yong. He is a mermaid, but this is a moment in time in the history of the world where no words exist to yet describe such a creature with the upper body of a man and the lower body of a fish. His scales glint in the light like silver sickles, ringed with shades of vivid violet. The man called Hua Yong takes Sheng Shaoyou on his back, swimming him to safety, to a little strip of beach where no landlocked man has ever stepped foot.

By the banks where the water rushes high enough to wet his scales, Hua Yong nurses Sheng Shaoyou back to health. Sheng Shaoyou sleeps for days, his body weighed down by fatigue and hunger, and so Hua Yong keeps vigil over him day and night, feeding him dew dripping from tree leaves, and when he doesn’t wake still, he plucks a scale from his torso and gives him a taste of his blood.

Mermaid blood is said to contain healing properties; it’s a heady elixir that can grant anyone immortality if they wished it. Centuries from now when the world has changed, and all stories have lost their meaning through endless repetition in this modern, digital age, mermaids would have been hunted to extinction. They would be nothing more than myth, a story to tell children. Once upon a time, there was a beautiful man and a sailor he held so dear to his heart.

These days, the world has no room for these kinds of stories; neither the time nor patience.

But here, in a place that doesn’t exist where sea meets sky and the salt of the water sits heavy on the tongue, warm like blood, anything is possible. Anything can begin.

“Hello,” says Hua Yong, when brilliant dark eyes open to meet his.

Hua Yong was pleased by that first story, but it didn’t seem like his own son shared the same sentiment.

Little Peanut looked at him expectantly, as if to say: that’s all? Because no child could appreciate the beginnings of a love story, as their imaginations were still in its larval stages. They could not conceive of the big picture. Children wanted the whole gamut: a beginning, a middle, an end.

Hua Yong had plenty of those kinds of stories, and he picked another one that might not be as fantastical as the first one: “There aren’t any mermaids in this one.”

“I don’t like mermaids, anyway,” Little Peanut mumbled. “They’re scary.”

Hua Yong began:

War is not for winning, and it makes fools of everyone: the youth will fight to the death while the grownups,—in every story ever told, somehow always men—wearing their shiny gold badges sit in dark rooms, drinking baiju while discussing politics. There are only two sides to every war: the world as it was before and what comes after. No one is quite the same in the end. Everyone dies but must go on living. Even the dead haunt deserted streets.

The year is unimportant, but if one must ask it is the century of innovation, the machine age of gunpowder and revolution. Bayonets fill the hands of young soldiers, replacing the once mighty thrust of swords, and these men, these boys, they march the streets in neat little rows like cattle towards the chopping block. Their heads are held high, their ruddy faces flushed with pride for the Party. Only a third of them will make it back alive, but almost all of them believe in their own victory. Such is the brazenness of youth.

Sheng Shaoyou’s father is a military general, the man in charge of Jianghu’s southwestern troops, closest in rank to the Party’s Secretary General. Sheng Shaoyou has lived most of his life in wartime, and it shaped not only his beliefs but his character. He is unsmiling and aloof, his temperament unpredictable like a steel-toothed trap waiting in the undergrowth. He is cold and cutting, but one must be in order to survive these delicate times. Better to be strong and cruel than to be soft and hungry. Men who are fair and kind live much shorter lives.

On his twenty-second year, Sheng Shaoyou is sent to the frontlines. The war rages on for three more years, and he fights for just as long. When he is twenty-five, he is shot by the enemy and spends days wandering the deadened fields of Country P. No one ventures this far north where the ground is razed to embers and nothing grows but the dreams of the dead. It is there he collapses on the ground, bleeding sluggishly, a beautiful speck of military colours against the starkness of all that white snow. He comes to in a small farmhouse, covered in quilts with a warm cloth placed over his head. The farmhouse is cold stone and rotting planks of wood for siding, but the quilts are clean and smell like wild orchids in the summer. His injuries have been tended to, his wounds covered in ointment and gauze, but his fever remains, lingering under his skin.

When he sits up, he finds a beautiful young man squatting in the corner, stirring a pot of porridge over a wood stove. He’s a civilian, not much older than Sheng Shaoqing, his second brother. “You’re awake,” says the beautiful young man, but being from Country P, his intonation and words sound different and strange. Sheng Shaoyou has trouble understanding him, but he nods in silent thanks, stiff.

There are weapons on his body. He’s been trained never to trust anyone from Country P, even civilians. Anyone can be a spy. He steels himself to attack as he is slowly approached by the beautiful young man.

The beautiful young man’s name is Hua Yong.

Little Peanut sighed, but said nothing.

—The beautiful young man’s name is Hua Yong and Sheng Shaoyou finds out he’s stripped him of his knives: the one in his boot and hidden in his sleeve, and the crafty bastard even found the special pill all soldiers in Jianghu are equipped with in case they were caught, a pill that can end it all in a single swallow.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Hua Yong promises him, but because of the communication barrier, Sheng Shaoyou doesn’t understand him; he perceives every word as a threat. He rises to his feet, and, fast as a striking bird lunges at Hua Yong, with every intention of choking him. Only, Sheng Shaoyou underestimates the extent of his injuries, and the sudden change in altitude makes him falter as his stitches are pulled and reopen. That moment’s hesitation is enough to cause him to topple forward, straight into Hua Yong whose arms shoot out to catch him in surprised reflex.

Face to face, breath for breath, it’s as if heaven and all below it have risen and fallen. Neither of them blinks, or breathes, or speaks; Hua Yong’s hands are warm cuffs circling that slim, but powerful waist, and Sheng Shaoyou catches himself thinking, unbidden, that he has never seen someone so beautiful. None so refreshing, or as sweet that hides a secret cunning.

It is said that these are how romance stories begin: someone falls in love from a single look, or a whispered word in the dark. This, of course, is the barest outline, but people have fallen in love for less.

Sheng Shaoyou and Hua Yong are both young men forged from the kilns of war, hardened by the circumstances surrounding them, and yet they too remain fallible, not out of weakness of character, but because it is human. To feel, to love. Hua Yong says, “You’re bleeding,” and points to Sheng Shaoyou’s rib, covered clumsily in bandages. Red seeps through the fine cloth, such a dark, vivid colour. Sheng Shaoyou underneath the colours of his uniform is winter-pale, his skin silvered in a patchwork of scars, not unused to rough handling.

But Hua Yong’s hands are deft as they are gentle when they rewrap his bandages and examine the infection mottling him like bruises, or flags on a military campaign map. He is careful when he touches Sheng Shaoyou, when he feeds him porridge, when he helps him to lie under the quilts. He catches whatever animal can survive the harshness of winter and guts them for supper, his fingers stained with blood, silent as he works by the wood stove. Sheng Shaoyou watches him, with the same wariness built into his sinews since childhood. They are alone in this barren landscape. Hua Yong’s family has long abandoned him. Here he fends for himself to live on. But he cannot let his guard down.

At night, they share the warmth of the quilts. Hua Yong tells him stories. They are often of his childhood, sometimes nonsensical, and Sheng Shaoyou understands only snatches, words he’s heard shouted by soldiers taken to Jianghu’s prison camps. Words like home, and mama, and no. Hua Yong is younger than him, newly a man, and there’s something incredibly earnest about the way he asks for Sheng Shaoyou’s permission.

Kiss, he says, the words clumsy and hurried when he brings his lips to the side of Sheng Shaoyou’s neck. Please, please?

Sheng Shaoyou is dying; he can feel the life leaving him in tendrils by the day. The farmhouse is a respite, but it is his final resting point. He’s known this the moment Hua Yong touched him for the first time, when he looked at him with eyes aching with hope. The infection has entered his blood, spreading to his every cell; there’s no stopping the inevitable. All this is mere deflection.  

So Sheng Shaoyou lets Hua Yong have his way, and he lets Hua Yong kiss him. He lets him do more, under the quilt where he touches Sheng Shaoyou with reverence, like he is something made to be worshipped: holy. Hua Yong has never kissed a person before; that much is clear when he starts to undress himself and then Sheng Shaoyou. When he enters Sheng Shaoyou’s body, Sheng Shaoyou buckles under the pleasure-pain of it, his eyes misty with tears, his lips moving across the dark tundra of Hua Yong’s hair.

By firelight, Hua Yong makes and remakes him.

Please, Hua Yong whispers, over and over, as if entreating the gods for a miracle. Please, please.

Sheng Shaoyou falls asleep and he dreams of Hua Yong saying his name with perfect eloquence.

In the morning, the snow begins to thaw. Sheng Shaoyou’s brethren come for him, but by then it’s too late. They stand in formation outside, ready to raze the ground, their bayonets silver and shining under the wintry sun.

“Stay here,” Hua Yong tells him, or at least that’s what Sheng Shaoyou imagines he’s saying; he can’t make out his words; everything sounds as if it’s coming through a telephone line, warped with static and interference. He’s drifting; his body too cold, too tired. The only warmth is from Hua Yong’s hand, resting on his cheek like a brand. His fingers trace the corners of Sheng Shaoyou’s eyes where his tears prickle like arctic needles. 

“Don’t fall asleep, Shaoyou. I’ll come back, all right? I’ll never let them take you from me. Wherever you go, I’ll go. I’ll find you; I’ll come for you. Always.”

Hua Yong kisses him on the forehead. Sheng Shaoyou feels wetness hit his cheek, and is surprised to find it’s his own tears and not Hua Yong’s. 

“Don’t be long, then, little lunatic. Don’t make me wait for you,” Sheng Shaoyou says, and he speaks these words in his own language, with certainty and with promise. He closes his eyes, and hears Hua Yong get up on his feet, opening the door to face his fate—Sheng Shaoyou’s brothers in arms.

Guns make horrible sounds, like thunder punching the sky. You need to be there to hear it. It’s the most unnatural thing in the world. Afterwards, there’s just silence, overwhelming and complete. The barren landscape of Country P is flecked a beautiful red that winter morning, like a drop of colour from a paintbrush seeping outwards from a body cold and still as stone on the ground. 

Sheng Shaoyou dreams: of buildings burning, of snow falling from a smoky sky, of a young man standing in front of a farmhouse, waving at him as he approaches, with the sweetest smile on his face, and a beauty mark dotting the corner of his eye. He dreams that they are skylarks, dancing in the air, circling each other through sweet spring winds. He dreams they are fish, swimming against the current: a man and his dog, a wildflower and a butterfly, two strokes of calligraphy on a piece of paper that someone wrote.

They will live and die, again and again.

“Dad,” said Little Peanut, tugging at his sleeve. His eyes were red with tears. “I don’t like this story. Why did you and Papa—why did someone have to die at the end? Couldn’t have they lived happily ever after?”

“Well,” said Hua Yong, thinking about it for a moment. “They could have. But sometimes, ah, the world is unfair. And even if two people love each other very much, certain forces can keep them apart. It’s the punishment of the gods. Some loves are just too powerful, they transcend time and space. ”

It was perhaps too much for Little Peanut to comprehend. Hua Yong could tell the story had upset him, which meant he would be up all night, restless, and Sheng Shaoyou would give him an earful for it in the morning if he found out.

“All right then,” he decided, pulling his son into his lap and patting him on the head. “How about another story, hm? One with a happy ending?”

Little Peanut sniffed and nodded solemnly. He rested his little head against Hua Yong’s shoulder, his pale ear peeking out of unruly tufts of dark hair.

Hua Yong began his third story of the night.

Once upon a time, in a far away land, there lived a prince named Sheng Shaoyou: handsome, brave, possessing wells of knowledge that encompassed topics such as languages and the arts. His skills on the battlefield remain unmatched. He is a mere trial away from godhood. He has exorcised demons, slain brigands, and brought peace to the land of Jianghu.

On paper, he may seem like the perfect bachelor, but a not-so-well known fact about him is that he’s a bit of a player. He can charm anyone out of their house and home—men, women, alpha, omega, even betas. No one could resist him! One look and your knees would tremble. One smile—rare as a sliver of sun on a monsoon— and your heart would quake.

Little Peanut giggled. “He sounds like a great guy!”

On that, Hua Yong had to agree. “Mn, that he is. Did I mention he’s kind too? Incredibly so. That’s important. Anyone can be handsome, or brave. But not everyone remembers to be kind. Now shush, or we won’t get to the good part!”

Little Peanut shushed, eyes wide as he waited for more with bated breath.

Sheng Shaoyou is twenty-seven years old. At this point in history, that’s considered an old man, practically geriatric. In modern day, he would have been at the prime of his life: tempting unsuspecting Enigmas with his long, fluttering eyelashes and his alluringly kissable lips, his strong waist far too easy to grab, truly a shameless seducer of men.

But in this story, though he is all of that, he is also considered closing in on his twilight years and therefore under pressure to marry. His father, Emperor Sheng Fang, decides now is the time act and look for a suitable love match! He invites all of Jianghu to a banquet—nobles, some minor gentry, of course those who can afford to wash their hair at least every five days, in keeping with quality control. He may be desperate; but the empire still has standards.

The banquet is to celebrate Sheng Shaoyou’s fast approaching twenty-eighth year, but really, Sheng Fang has his own secret reasons. His son can be so picky. Though he hops from bed to bed of beauties who might catch his eye, no one has ever managed to capture his heart. He keeps it guarded under lock and key.

So Sheng Fang invites the families he knows have marriageable sons and daughters, with even temperaments, and mostly lacking in ambition. He can’t have anyone possessing lofty aspirations of taking over the empire, after all. Again, keeping with quality control.

Sheng Shaoyou, soft-hearted despite his philandering ways, is oblivious to his father’s machinations. His hobbies, which have yet to be mentioned at this point in the story, include riding his horse through opens fields and reading under the shade of trees great works of poetry from only the most revered of masters. One day when he is indulging in this particularly hobby, he comes across a great beauty swimming in a lake.

What he doesn’t know is this great beauty is less swimming so much as getting rid of a dead body. Someone had attempted to do a terrible thing to him in his sleep, and so the beauty thought to chop off their arm as recompense, then made the decision to lob off the rest of their limbs while he was it, stuffing them in a sack and throwing them into the lake, weighed down by heavy stones.

This beauty, as you can probably already tell, his name is Hua Yong.

Hua Yong is twenty-three years old, on the cusp of twenty-four, the thirteenth of his brothers and sisters, and born under an unlucky star. His family is landed gentry, but being an illegitimate child, he bears no titles, and no properties are bequeathed to him until his father’s untimely demise later in the story when he will be named his sole heir upon the equally unfortunate accident that will claim the lives of his entire clan. But such is the way of things back in the old country, the language and laws are as savage and unforgiving as the rough terrain.

Sheng Shaoyou, weak to a docile beauty, mistakes Hua Yong for an Omega. It’s a predictable misunderstanding. Hua Yong has a face that many till this day will never capture, be it in poetry or paints. It is futile to even attempt to describe the inhuman glittering of his dark eyes, or the shape of his nose and chin, perfectly hewn like the most exquisite piece of jade. If you didn’t believe in gods or heaven, one look at him might change your mind. One look at him might also send you running for the hills, unless your name is Sheng Shaoyou, and then you’d think he was the most delectable piece of candy.

Sheng Shaoyou introduces himself after Hua Yong disposes of the body. Luckily, Hua Yong barely has a conscience when it comes to people who have wronged him, family or not. In his opinion, people should be punished for their misdeeds. As he climbs out of the lake, he sees Sheng Shaoyou at the embankment, arms crossed and leaning handsomely against a tree.

If anyone can do anything handsomely, it’s Sheng Shaoyou. He can eat, sleep, sneeze and cough, in a way that would tug at the heart strings. Hua Yong may be the beauty in the story, but Sheng Shaoyou is the true maiden: the one that must be locked up in the tower for prying eyes never to glimpse again. He is a treasure, a thing to be hoarded. Not just by anyone, but Hua Yong himself. Seeing him for the first time, Hua Yong knows he must become his. But also he knows with easy certainty that it’s only a matter of time: Sheng Shaoyou will indeed belong to him. Maybe even before the last page of the story.

“Hello,” Hua Yong says, smiling and tilting his head innocently. His robes are near-translucent from lake water, his hair loose and falling across his shoulders like dark curls of smoke. He keeps his hands behind him, to hide the blood-stains. But Sheng Shaoyou is already entranced; he doesn’t even notice that there are flecks of dried blood dotting Hua Yong’s face. He thinks this is some type of trend, the way nobles’ sons and daughters rouge their cheeks with pigment.

“Hello,” Sheng Shaoyou echoes back, intrigued.

He is more intrigued when Hua Yong doesn’t kowtow. Sheng Shaoyou is dressed like a civilian, but anyone with half a brain would know who he is, even if he wore nothing but a sack of rice. It’s in his bearing. And also the fact that his portrait is being sold far and wide in the capital with varying levels of quality. There are stories about him being written—most revolve around his exploits inside the bedroom and not his many heroic deeds, funnily enough. Hua Yong has written some himself, but has sold none of them to the general public—long, elaborate tales full of romance and no shortage of lovemaking.

Sheng Shaoyou is his god. He met him, by accident, as a child. Before he came to live in the main residence with all his brothers and sisters, he had wandered the streets as a beggar. He ate what he could steal. Sometimes, he scavenged for trash. One day, on a particularly lean winter, he was crossing the street in a daze and stood in the path of an out of control oxcart. He was only eight. But he was already prepared to die; he had nothing to live for; his mother was already dead. But that winter, he didn’t die, for a gege swooped in with great billowing sleeves and a smell like sweet, summer oranges.

This was the Crown Prince himself, Sheng Shaoyou.

Now years later, they are young men, one in their prime, being forced to marry, the other quietly scheming. Hua Yong befriends Sheng Shaoyou, though the more accurate way to describe it is, he follows him wherever he goes: close enough to watch his every move, but keeping his distance so he doesn’t get caught. And when he does get caught, he feigns whimsy. Sheng Shaoyou is so easily fooled.

“Ah, your highness! I didn’t think I’d see you today. What brings you here?”

Sheng Shaoyou doesn’t tell him that he’s seen Hua Yong in these parts a few times and was hoping he’d bump into him again. He’s been thinking about him ever since their last encounter—at a random teahouse where Hua Yong beat him at weiqi. Sheng Shaoyou’s dreams are pervaded by the smell of orchids; he’s been feeling antsy as a result, eager to see Hua Yong again.

“Exercise,” he lies. “I thought I’d go for a walk and here you are.”

Hua Yong peers over Sheng Shaoyou’s shoulder, at Chen Pinming, his loyal guard who, like Hua Yong, follows him around like a dog. Chen Pinming’s expression is unreadable; he’s probably seen Hua Yong skulking about but wisely knows to keep his mouth shut.

“Ah, I see,” says Hua Yong, with a cryptic smile, flicking his gaze back to Sheng Shaoyou’s guileless one. “Well, it was nice seeing you today, your highness! Good luck on your walk! May you encounter something…inspiring on your way.”

“Mn,” Sheng Shaoyou agrees, and only until Hua Yong is several paces away does he decide to call out after him. “Wait! Hua Yong!”

Hua Yong smiles, slow and pleased, and then turns to face him after schooling his expression into one of meekness.

“I was hoping,” Sheng Shaoyou says, falling into step with him, his tone taking on that charming lilt he likes to use on gullible Omegas—Hua Yong knows, because he’s heard it before; he happens to be a fantastic stalker researcher. “—That you’d keep me company today.”

Hua Yong can hardly say no to that, when it’s precisely what he wants. He keeps Sheng Shaoyou company not only for the rest of the day, but in the days that follow: they go on walks, they share meals, they sit in storytelling houses sipping bitter, fragrant tea, more attuned to each other than the tales being relayed. Days turn into weeks, and then into months, until finally Sheng Shaoyou invites him to the palace.

“Hua Yong,” he says, as they sit by the lake eating kumquats, listening for the squawk of skylarks overhead. “My father wishes to host a banquet in my name. Would you come?”

Hua Yong, who rarely cares for propriety, reaches out and pats the Crown Prince on the hand. “Of course, your highness,” he says. “I would be honoured.”

But even the best laid plains go awry.

“What does that mean, awry?” Little Peanut asked.

“It means,” Hua Yong explained, “You can plan ahead and have contingencies, but the future can still be uncertain. Sometimes fate is like rolling a die. It is always a gamble. But that’s what dad excels at, Little Peanut. I always play to win.”

Hua Yong is neither alpha nor omega. He isn’t even a beta, though that would certainly make for an interesting story. He’s something else, the first of his kind, able to subdue others with the strength of his pheromones. That might have put him on top of the food chain, but such power also comes with a list of setbacks. For example, he experiences what you might call today as mate-seeking syndrome. He had grown attached to Sheng Shaoyou ever since their fateful meeting years ago, when he’d saved his life as a child, and every year he experienced a rut, he had to isolate himself in a cave so he didn’t hurt others.

Mate-seeking syndrome can be fatal. These days, modern medicine is close to finding a cure. But back then, it was a curse.

Hua Yong’s rut is almost due; he can feel the telltale signs in his body: the restlessness, the tingling at the ends of his fingertips. Against his better judgment, he attends the banquet. Sheng Shaoyou had given him a token that allowed him entry into the palace. Countless beauties fill the courtyard, decked in their finest, their faces paler than the moon, doused with powder and rouge. Hua Yong arrives late, his skin warm with the beginnings of his rut-fever. He’s neither the son of a noble, nor anyone high-ranking, and so he remains in the fringes, watching court politics at play, an outsider looking in.

The merriment continues well into the evening. Wine is drunk and spilled; there is dancing and more food to fill the streets and feed the poor. Sheng Shaoyou is high up on the dais, lovely as a pearl, his smile so entrancing Hua Yong’s heart is moved. Other parts of him are moved as well, and he smiles at his own private joke. As he takes his leave, weaving his way through the crowd, a hand touches his wrist.

He frowns.

Chen Pinming. “His Highness wishes to see you,” he says curtly. “Master Hua.”

So he does.

Chen Pinming leads him into a deserted courtyard in the outer rings of the palace. Under a peach blossom tree stands Sheng Shaoyou—beautiful, breathtaking, his handsome face limned in moon light. When Chen Pinming retreats into the shadows, Hua Yong has to actively stop himself from grabbing Sheng Shaoyou and pinning him against the tree. It would be so easy to tear off his silks with his bare hands and take him, right there, to make him spill and call out Hua Yong’s name.

“You came,” Sheng Shaoyou says, utterly pleased by this fact.

“I did,” Hua Yong says. “Your Highness.” He gives him a slight bow, but there’s no need for pleasantries: they’re familiar enough with each other that they can disregard them.

Sheng Shaoyou steps forward, and abruptly cups Hua Yong’s cheek, leaning over to kiss him. Hua Yong startles; he can taste the alcohol on that warm tongue, smell it on his hair and clothing too. Underneath is the scent of various Omegas—his Father the Emperor must have introduced him to some marriage prospects as it is, after all, his main objective of the evening.

Hua Yong frowns into the kiss, remaining stubbornly still. Sheng Shaoyou is too drunk to notice his displeasure; he keeps kissing him like a lout.

“Shaoyou,” Hua Yong sighs, peeved, as he pushes him slightly off, clutching him by the shoulders. “Look at you. You kiss me after parading yourself around Omegas? How shameless.”

“Huh?” Sheng Shaoyou blinks at him, his eyes sharpening with sudden awareness. “Hua Yong…did you just call me by name?”

“Mn,” Hua Yong says vaguely. “I think his highness needs to sit down and cool his head. You’ve had too much to drink tonight; that much is clear.”

He offers him a stiff smile, before sitting him down on a stone bench. Hua Yong puts as much distance as he can between them, standing several feet away so he doesn’t do something he’d regret. He has some ideas, none Sheng Shaoyou would like.

“No,” says Sheng Shaoyou and rises to his feet, staggering forward to grab him by the forearms. Hua Yong blinks at him. “…What.”

“Hua Yong…” Sheng Shaoyou’s tone turns plaintive, and it would be amusing to hear if he isn’t looking at Hua Yong like that, dazed, needy, his pheromones leaking like the juices of a succulent fruit hanging from the boughs of a forbidden tree. One unfortunate side effect of being around Hua Yong these last few weeks is that his own pheromones have affected Sheng Shaoyou’s thus: they’ve softened the Crown Prince, like trickles of water smoothing out jagged stone. His scent drifts up in the air, beckoning like a promise. Calling out, it seems, to Hua Yong, whose eyes deepen with livid want.

“Your highness,” Hua Yong sighs, and his coquettishness falls away, undone like layers of armour being shed.

Sheng Shaoyou looks surprised to hear the sound of his actual voice.

“Hua Yong?” There’s doubt in his expression, confusion wreathing it too, but these disappear as soon as Hua Yong tips his chin up to kiss him.

No one can say precisely what happened that autumn night—not even Sheng Shaoyou himself remembers. Fireworks explode across the heavens in a pinwheel of colours, illuminating the two bodies moving as one on the ground. The grass sways with the autumnal wind, and a sharp cry pierces the air, like the call of a nightingale. In the morning, Sheng Shaoyou wakes with an imprint of a ghost orchid on the back of his neck, and the vague feeling that something within him has changed. He is alone, his clothes and bearing in tact; but he’s no longer the same man from yesterday.

He falls gravely ill afterwards; for months he is unable to leave the palace grounds.

The daoshi say he’s been afflicted with a curse. “Something isn’t right,” they mutter to themselves. “Something isn’t right.”

It’s Chen Pinming who pays Hua Yong a visit, grim-faced and shadowed by a retinue of imperial guards. Hua Yong, pale with rut-fever, answers the door to his residence with an insouciant smile. “Am I under arrest?”

“Worse,” says Chen Pinming. “I’m bringing you straight to his highness’ residence.”

Hua Yong goes willingly. There’s nothing he won’t do for Sheng Shaoyou after all, and he’s missed him terribly these last few months. When he sees him, thin and weak on the bed, his pheromones surge with worry and he staggers forward to reach for him. He’s stopped by the guards—and also by Chen Pinming.

“Young Master Hua—was this your doing?” Covering half of his face with his hand, he nods at the guards to disperse.

When they’re alone, he asks Hua Yong again: “Did you cause his highness to fall ill?”

Hua Yong looks at Sheng Shaoyou helplessly. Sheng Shaoyou can barely sit up, and though his scent is faint, it’s begging Hua Yong for comfort. After all, only a mate can provide true solace to their significant other.

He nods, once. “Mn. I didn’t think he’d fall ill. I was reckless.”

His face, once sweet and docile as a lamb’s, hardens with worry and seriousness. “I am his highness’ mate.”

From the bed, Sheng Shaoyou makes a feeble noise, waking up from his feverish sleep, as if summoned by Hua Yong’s voice, the call of his scent. “Hua Yong? Is that—is that you?”

Hua Yong kneels on the side of the bed, taking his hand tenderly, pressing it to his face. “I’m here, Shaoyou—”

Chen Pinming flinches at the familiar address.

“I’m here,” Hua Yong says.

Chen Pinming leaves the two alone, sliding the doors shut behind him, his expression a stoic mask. Hua Yong keeps the Crown Prince company that evening, and every evening thereafter—for the rest of their long lives. In the spring, a baby is born, and they name him Little Peanut.

Little Peanut is cherished, loved, a little spoiled quite frankly, and the best looking baby in all of the land. His only flaw is that he never eats all his vegetables and is often rude to his dad.

Little Peanut snorted. “Dad,” he whined. “What kind of a story was that?!”

“It’s a love story.” Now Hua Yong was getting annoyed. “Didn’t you want a love story?”

Little Peanut made a face. Sheng Shaoyou often said he was a little copy of Hua Yong, down to his petulant expressions. Hua Yong liked to think that was precisely the reason Sheng Shaoyou doted on him: because the little creature reminded him of his one true love—Hua Yong himself. They were cut from the same cloth, but Little Peanut was also a composite of the both of his parents: other times soft, most times unyieldingly stubborn.

“Well, what kind of story do you want then? I’m getting tired. I still need to check up on your Papa.”

“Can I check up on him too?” Little Peanut asked hopefully.

“No, you need to go to sleep. You can talk to him tomorrow.”

“But dad.”

“I’ll tell you an adventure story.”

“Is it about the Crown Prince again? Because he should have gotten together with his guard. That gege seemed loyal.”

Hua Yong ignored that comment. “There’s an Emperor involved in this one. He’s more handsome than that plain looking guard.”

“Hmph,” said Little Peanut, but he leaned in to listen.

Everyone loves a good story, and the Emperor is no exception. He has trouble sleeping, and so every night a court appointed pingshu comes to his chambers and spins him a tale. Like you, he likes stories about grand adventures best. He’s a young Emperor, you see, full of vim and vigour, beautiful too, but cursed by the gods with a sickness no tinctures could cure.

He has no mate; no concubines warm his bed at night. The inner palace has sat empty since the beginning of his reign. He has no need for them; love, romance, these flights of fancies have eluded him his entire life. His curse are two sides of a coin. On one side, he was born without feeling. On another: his heart yearns for a mate. On the third year of his rule, his pingshu succumbs to illness. A new one is brought in— younger, brazen, his speech rounded and hypnotic with the elocution of someone hailing from the far reaches of the region. This pingshu’s name is Sheng Shaoyou.

Every night he sits on his knees in front of the Emperor, his gaze cast forward and his hands folded in his lap. This is an important time to mention that very few people have ever been allowed to gaze upon the Emperor. A folding screen separates Sheng Shaoyou from him, preventing him from ever glimpsing his face. And so his voice must be loud enough to carry through this barrier, strong enough to stir that tyrannical heart.

Often times, he wonders what the Emperor must look like. There are stories of course: that he is monstrous, that he is cruel, that he killed his kin to ascend the throne. Only one of these is not a lie. Sheng Shaoyou knows the power of a good story. Words become truth, then become history. He must see for himself what this Emperor is like. Wagging tongues will warp the truth; he should know, as his family lost their fortune to idle gossip.

Nightly, the Emperor listens to every tale he weaves. Stories about animals becoming gods, about men seeking adventure, about foolish children getting punished by fate. Stories the Emperor has heard before. He sits impassively behind the screen, but inside his heart is agitated. The pingshu smells like oranges— wild, yet to be plucked, his voice like the touch of silk, prickling his skin in goosebumps.

Worst of all, this pingshu’s stories are terrible. Not one happy ending. None of them could be rightfully called a story. They kept the Emperor up all night, thinking, what next? What was the point? He thought of having the pingshu executed, or replaced, but the very next day his royal advisor shuffles into the throne room looking pained. “The pingshu, Your Highness. He’s not coming in today.”

The Emperor’s eyes narrow, and his advisor hurriedly adds, “He sends his apologies. He also sent a letter. He will be indisposed for the next few days, he says.”

“Indisposed,” the Emperor repeats. “Does he know he is under my employ?”

Royal Advisor Chang Yu nods. “He seemed deeply apologetic,” he says, but the Emperor knows when he is being lied to. Regardless, he takes the letter presented to him by Chang Yu and reads it in his private study. Sheng Shaoyou’s strokes are bold, strong, demonstrating brimming confidence. His words are curt and to the point. The Emperor brings the paper to his face and breathes in its scent, overlaid with oranges.

A week later, the pingshu returns, and their routine resumes.

But for the first time, the Emperor speaks through the barrier: “Where were you?”

Sheng Shaoyou is rightfully caught off guard. He flinches at the sound of the Emperor’s voice, which he’s heard on occasion but never directed at him. The Emperor spoke to his Advisor behind the screen and it was that loyal Advisor Chang who relayed every remark: when the Emperor was satisfied or displeased, or when it was time for him to take his medicine and had to dismiss Sheng Shaoyou for the evening. Sheng Shaoyou often felt like a worker of the night, coming to the imperial palace in the shadows and leaving just before the first touch of sun.

“Your Highness…” Sheng Shaoyou pauses, then speaks up again. “My father was ill. I had to care for him.”

“Mn,” says the Emperor vaguely. “And how is he? Your Father?”

Sheng Shaoyou doesn’t answer. The silence stretches, and he sighs. “He’s faring much better. I thank your Highness for allowing me to tend to him these last few days.”

The Emperor is silent. He’s never met anyone whose convictions didn’t falter in his presence. But Sheng Shaoyou is of a different make, it seems: sending him a letter to inform him of a little leave-taking, and then surfacing days later to resume his services. The boldness is both irritating as it is refreshing. No one else would dare. Then again, Sheng Shaoyou is not from this region; his values are different. He had come to Country P as a young man looking for employment. Advisor Chang had plucked him from obscurity, out of a list of a hundred others hoping to serve under the Emperor.

“Your stories…” The Emperor says, and here he begins to sound his age, all of twenty, “Must everyone get punished, mutilated or otherwise murdered?”

Sheng Shaoyou flicks his gaze upwards, fixing it on the screen. Behind it, the Emperor sits languidly on his cushions, resting his chin on a curled fist.

“What kind of stories does his Highness want to hear?”

What indeed. “Tell me about yourself, Sheng Shaoyou. I’d like to hear your stories.”

Sheng Shaoyou huffs, a flicker of displeasure in his expression, but he smooths it out in a blink, forcing himself to calm. Who would want to hear about him, when he’s no one; just a man with a gifted tongue, sharp wit, and a past shrouded by mystery and hardship.

The things people leave unsaid often say more about them than their words ever could. And so the Emperor listens, behind his great folding screen: every pause in breath, every lilting note in Sheng Shaoyou’s voice, the way he sighs at the end of each sentence, and how his voice moves to fill the languid air like incense. His smell, like his cadence, is sweet spring rain, overlaid with the scent of oranges.

Sheng Shaoyou is an excellent liar, but the stories he spins are not complete fabrications. That’s the nature of stories after all: they are tapestries of reality and dream. He tells the Emperor of his childhood: of the house by the river where a pair of skylarks sit by the window to take shelter from the rain. His brothers and sisters and their disparate temperaments. His mother, when she first took him as a young boy to a storytelling house and impressed upon him the power of a spoken word.

The Emperor never knew his mother: his origins had been kept hidden even to him. There were names people called him—tyrant, bastard, mistake. The worst of it was monster. But he never let these words hurt him. Not in any meaningful way, and it helped that he didn’t have a heart.

At the end of the evening, Sheng Shaoyou gets up to leave as usual, but he is stopped by the Emperor’s voice from behind the screen: “Does anyone die in this one?”

Sheng Shaoyou lingers at the door and turns to look over his shoulder. Shadows flicker in the dark, moved by the spluttering of candle light. Behind the screen, the Emperor is unmoving, unblinking, a creature of pure myth, unknown and unseen. But he is a man too, made of flesh, with the same appetites and yearnings as any commoner on the street—if only Sheng Shaoyou bothers to look beyond his subterfuge, if only he steps beyond the veil. There is a chasm between them, whole lives lived and dreams lost, and all it will take to bridge this distance is a single word from him—a signal, like a spell.

“That all depends,” Sheng Shaoyou says.

“On what?”

“Fate, your Highness.” Sheng Shaoyou tells him. “The invisible hand that guides us closer to either death or redemption.”

“And what about love?” the Emperor asks. None of Sheng Shaoyou’s stories are of romances, and there’s a good reason for it: he simply doesn’t believe in it. Neither does he have the time to ponder over its existence.

“What of it, your Highness?”

“What does fate have to say about it?” the Emperor asks. “Is it always death or redemption? Punishment from the Heavens?”

Sheng Shaoyou takes longer than usual to answer for a man of exceptional wit. “It doesn’t have to be. Not if we can help it.”

“And?” Little Peanut prompted, leaning forward in earnest. Hua Yong could see he was getting sleepy: his eyes were drooping, and he struggled to keep them open.

Hua Yong chuckled, amused. “And what?”

“What happens next?”

“Hmmm…” Hua Yong hadn’t really thought about it. It was one of the earlier stories he wrote, shortly after Sheng Shaoyou had come into his life: ridden with plot holes and the usual melodrama typical of a young boy with a crush. Some of these stories didn’t even have a proper ending. He could never figure out how to progress them past the usual elements: once upon a time, the Enigma met the Alpha, and then. Love? Romance? He kept the details vague, unable to imagine how the rest of the story would play out, not daring to dream.

“A war breaks out the following year. The empire crumbles to pieces.”

Little Peanut made an unhappy noise. “But what about the Emperor? What happens to him, dad?”

Hua Yong smiled, tapping Little Peanut on the nose. Little Peanut swatted at his hand, but it was a half-hearted at best, and he let Hua Yong tuck him under the covers and turn the nightlight on by his bed. Hua Yong had kept him past his bed time. Little Peanut yawned until his eyes watered in the corners.

Hua Yong leaned over, hesitating, before kissing him on top of the head. This was more Sheng Shaoyou’s domain, but he was feeling indulgent tonight, uncharacteristically soft-hearted towards this tiny creature that looked like him but reminded him at times of Sheng Shaoyou.

Little Peanut’s expression eased into one of childish contentment, and that, Hua Yong thought, with an inexplicable pang in his chest, was the same face Sheng Shaoyou made right before he fell asleep. “What…dad… what happens to him,” Little Peanut mumbled, still fighting off his sleepiness.

“Whatever happens to powerful men when they succumb to love.” Hua Yong would leave it there, but he didn’t want Little Peanut getting nightmares so he thought of a better ending:

The pingshu, moved with pity, rescues the Emperor from the palace as it burns to the ground. He finds out that the Emperor is just a young man, and not the monster he had imagined him to be.

In fact, he thinks the Emperor is the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. It’s the only time the pingshu has ever been moved by anything; he has lived all his life with his heart as still and impenetrable as stone.

The night the rebel army comes for the Emperor, they break down the doors of his residence. The Emperor pushes Sheng Shaoyou behind him, behind the screen that has always separated them, drawing a shining silver sword from his side and standing elegantly to his full height—none of that indolence remaining, as he steps forward to take the rebels one by one, his sword singing, his movements fluid like smoke.

Of course, the Emperor is only one person, and he can’t take down an army of thousands no matter his strength. Neither can Sheng Shaoyou though he’s adept at defending himself. They retreat before they are captured. 

Sheng Shaoyou takes the Emperor back to his hometown, stealing him away to that little house by the river with the two skylarks roosting on the windowsill. There he nurses him back to health, treating his wounds with ointments and various tinctures. He reads to him by candle light. He feeds him hearty broth. He argues with him, mostly; the Emperor is an acquired taste and he has a unique personality more suited to a philanderer. Sheng Shaoyou resists his advances, until one day he cannot. And he also learns, after all this time, the Emperor's true name: Hua Yong.

They live out the rest of their lives as common men, telling each other stories, writing one of their own together.

The happiest outcome of all, really, because when Hua Yong had written it, it had a different ending. Little Peanut seemed pleased, and he nodded before closing his eyes. “Good. That’s a good story, dad.”

Hua Yong had to agree. He waited until Little Peanut was asleep before leaving the room, shutting the door behind him and walking down the hall to his and Sheng Shaoyou’s bedroom.

He was surprised to find his mate awake, the pin lights open to lend his sharp features as a softer glow. He was checking his work tablet—a bad habit Hua Yong had tried to wean him off of because truly this man was addicted to work! He had even worked when he had gone into labour, a nightmare Hua Yong had never wanted to revisit.

Hua Yong sighed, smiling gently as he entered the room, before kneeling on the bed with an expectant smile, shuffling onto his hands and knees until he reached his target: Sheng Shaoyou who merely lifted an eyebrow. “Mr Sheng… ah, it’s late. I thought you were resting so your head didn’t hurt anymore.”

Sheng Shaoyou gave him a long look before setting his tablet aside. “I’m feeling much better. I was checking up on you and Little Peanut earlier. What nonsense are you filling his head with, huh? What are those stories you were telling him? You couldn’t pick a damn book?”

Hua Yong grinned, feeling both pleased and sheepish. He sidled right next to Sheng Shaoyou whose warmth sent goosebumps cascading down his body. Because he’d just woken up, Sheng Shaoyou’s smell was a muted version of its usual strength, as if matching his subdued state. Hua Yong enjoyed breathing it in, no matter its level of intensity, though he liked it best when Sheng Shaoyou was in heat because it made his scent sweeter, headier.

“I wanted to expand our child’s mind, Mr Sheng. Did you know I wrote those stories myself?”

Sheng Shaoyou elbowed him, though not as harshly as he normally would when Hua Yong said something truly out of pocket in public. “I could tell. You couldn’t think of any other names and had to use ours?”

“Ahh…” Hua Yong scratched his cheek. “Those were…about us. Did you hear all of them?” Sheng Shaoyou levelled him with that same look again, the one that made Hua Yong chuckle in amusement.

Sheng Shaoyou rolled his eyes. “Little lunatic,” he mumbled, but he seemed equally amused. “I heard the one with the Crown Prince. You made me—I mean him seem like such a player, dipping his wick in various pots of ink!”

Hua Yong hummed noncommittally, looking away. Sheng Shaoyou nudged him in the side, but gently this time, and Hua Yong turned to look at him once more with the most earnest smile.

“I’m awake now.” Sheng Shaoyou pinched his chin gently. “It’s all your fault leaving one side of the bed cold. Tell me one of your stories.”

Hua Yong kissed the tip of Sheng Shaoyou’s fingertip. “What do I get if I tell Mr Sheng a bedtime story?”

“You get to sleep next to me,” Sheng Shaoyou said without missing a beat.

“Mr Sheng…how cold. Not even—” He trailed off, raising his eyebrows meaningfully. Tomorrow was a weekend which meant they had nowhere important to be; they could afford to fool around. In fact, if Hua Yong had not spent the last two hours telling Little Peanut stories, he would have been buried inside his Mr Sheng by now, such that it would take whole armies to pull him out from how deeply he’d embed himself.

Sheng Shaoyou could somehow see the cogs of his mind turning and sighed once more, settling against the pillows, turning on his side and then reaching for his tablet again.

“Wait—Mr Sheng! Ah, I’ll tell you a story, don’t spend so much time on your tablet! It’s bad for your eyes.”

Hua Yong arranged them how he liked, which was how they slept most of the time, with Hua Yong spooning Sheng Shaoyou and his chin tucked into his shoulder. Sheng Shaoyou was stiff for half a beat, and then as always, relaxed in his grip. Up close, his scent was stronger, right behind the shell of his ear.

“I’ll tell you a story,” Hua Yong murmured, docile now and sweet now that he had what he wanted in his arms. “Did you want to hear about the little tiger cub and his cute little fox friend?”

“…”

“The little tiger cub had the cutest, fluffiest tail in the forest! But he was fierce with sharp teeth and claws so the all other animals were afraid of him. He didn’t have a lot of friends, which was a pity. Until one day when he met a pitiful little fox.”

Sheng Shaoyou snorted. “And let me guess: this little fox’s name was Hua Yong?”

“Mn.” Hua Yong smiled against Sheng Shaoyou’s neck. “You’re so smart Mr Sheng. You guessed it right!”

Sheng Shaoyou muttered under his breath but said no more, waiting for Hua Yong to continue. “Mn,” Hua Yong hummed again, trying to remember how this story went. It was one of his earlier ones that he’d written when he was just a boy, between the ages of thirteen and fifteen. “All right. I think I remember how this one goes…”

Sheng Shaoyou, as we’ve established, is the fiercest tiger cub in all of Jianghu forest. But he’s actually rather sweet, if you try to get to know him. Tigers are solitary by nature. Unlike lions, they don’t form packs. This means as soon as Sheng Shaoyou is old enough, his parents abandon him and he roams the forest on his own. Occasionally, he comes across other animals, like Chen Pinming the gazelle, or Shen Wenlang the Grey Wolf.

One day while hunting for food, Sheng Shaoyou hears someone calling for help. He follows the sound of pitiful yipping and finds an abandoned fox cub with its leg caught in a steel trap. The little fox’s crying moves him. He would have left the poor creature alone if not for its eyes—a beautiful luminescent colour, like the bottom of a lake. It takes some work, but Sheng Shaoyou manages to free the little fox. The fox thanks him profusely, vowing never to forget this kindness.

Sheng Shaoyou coolly brushes it off and goes on his way. Years pass, and Jianghu forest shrinks as trees are felled and men start building roads and factories. Sheng Shaoyou’s brothers and sisters are hunted down for their pelt, while some of his friends are caught in the crossfire. But Sheng Shaoyou has strong, nimble legs: he can outpace any hunter, dodge any bullet. Then one day he isn’t so lucky, and he’s shot in the ribs.

Blood drenches his shiny, beautiful fur. He collapses from the pain, unable to run further as the strength leaves his body. The hunters approach him with their guns loaded and their sharp knives gleaming, their despicable faces contorting with human greed. Sheng Shaoyou closes his eyes, accepting his fate. He is outnumbered. This is the end.

And then he hears a sharp cry pierce the air. One of the men staggers backwards in a panic, trying to wrench something off his arm. Sheng Shaoyou blinks. It’s a fox! Moving like a blur as it leaps from one hunter to the next, yipping and snapping its teeth. It lets out a whimper as it’s suddenly grabbed by the scruff and flung against a tree where it slumps to the ground, unmoving for a long time.

The hunters eye it warily, and then start advancing. Now, they’ve turned their backs to Sheng Shaoyou. “Let’s skin this one too,” snickers one of them, because men by nature are crueller than any beast.

Sheng Shaoyou tries to move, but he’s mere seconds away from death. And then something extraordinary happens: a bright light envelops the clearing, sending the hunters stumbling back in fear. In the fox’s place stands a young man in sumptuous robes, with long black hair and a fox’s tail. Not just one one, but nine. Sheng Shaoyou has seen his fair share of men—the ones that come to the forest to chop down trees, and burn down the homes of all his friends. None of them has ever looked this beautiful.

“You dare raise a hand against me?” says the beautiful young man, his laugh cold and mocking. He clicks his tongue. “Death,” he says, and snaps his fingers. “Death to all of you.”

One by one the men crumple to the ground, like a line of dominos falling, their necks broken, blood oozing from their every orifice. Sheng Shaoyou’s eyes close before the last one falls to their death; he hears the soft rustle of feet approach. He breathes a whiff of orchids.

“And you my love,” says a voice nearby. “You’ll never be hurt again. Not on my watch, Mr Sheng.”

“Mr Sheng?” Sheng Shaoyou interrupted.

Hua Yong coughed. “I meant, Shaoyou. The man knew Sheng Shaoyou’s name.”

When he received no further comment, Hua Yong continued:

Warm light embraces Sheng Shaoyou’s body as it is lifted off the ground. His wound heals. His strength is returned. When he wakes, it is not in the body he’s used to but that of a man’s—long limbed and uncovered, his smooth skin pale as fresh milk, his hair long and black and flowing like a river. In front of him, with his legs crossed, is the beautiful man from before. His smile is pleased and earnest, fox-like almost. The sleeves of his robes are long and brush the ground when he leans forward and peers down at Sheng Shaoyou, his eyes deep crescents.

“Sheng Shaoyou, ah, you’re awake,” he says, absolutely delighted. “My name is Hua Yong, and I’ve claimed you as my mate. You may not remember me, but I was once the young fox you saved from certain death.”

“That fox is really shameless,” Sheng Shaoyou told Hua Yong, turning in his arms to give him a dubious look. “Are these the types of stories you plan on telling Little Peanut? And why am I naked in this? Long hair like a river? What the fuck? Why do I need saving? Hua Yong— are you saying I’m weak?!”

“Ah, it’s not you, per se, Mr Sheng,” Hua Yong hurried to correct him. “It’s someone with the same name!”

Sheng Shaoyou scoffed. “And the Hua Yong in the story?”

Hua Yong lowered his eyes. “…It’s a character I made up.”

“…”

Sheng Shaoyou didn’t look convinced, so Hua Yong widened his eyes and made sure he looked pitiful. That usually managed to soften Sheng Shaoyou’s heart. “Is it bad? Doesn’t Mr Sheng like it?” he asked, squeezing his waist and acting overly affectionate, like a cat rubbing itself on its owner until they were covered head to toe in its fur. “They’re going to fall in love, you know. We haven’t gotten to the good part yet.”

Sheng Shaoyou grunted when Hua Yong nipped him on the tip of the ear. Then he pinched Hua Yong’s cheek. “Fall in love? Hua Yong, you better not fill Little Peanut’s head with this nonsense! He’s too young to know what adults get up to!”

“Mr Sheng, don’t you have any faith in me? I give Little Peanut the children’s version! The truly naughty ones I keep to myself. ”

“You had better!”

“I swear, Mr Sheng.” Hua Yong would never swear on Sheng Shaoyou’s life so instead he swore on his. “I try to be a good parent, like Mr Sheng. Little Peanut doesn’t even care for romance stories. He likes silly ones.”

Sheng Shaoyou made a noise of agreement. “He likes Peppa Pig far too much.” He grimaced, seemingly recalling all the times he had to mimic that awful snorting noise the character liked to make. But it made his Little Peanut laugh, and so he swallowed his pride each time. Such was the life of a parent.

“None of my stories are that bad,” said Hua Yong petulantly. “There’s this one I think you’ll like, Mr Sheng. It’s about a young master who took an Alpha for his wife.”

“…”

Hua Yong grinned.

“Do I want to know what happens?” Sheng Shaoyou tried wriggling free from Hua Yong’s grip, but Hua Yong held him firmly, clinging like a barnacle.

“It’s a good one. But probably not safe for public consumption.”

“How’s that?” Sheng Shaoyou looked like he was on the verge of calling Hua Yong a little pervert but was actively stopping himself before he heard the full story and could make his accusation.

“Well, for starters Mr Sheng,” Hua Yong said, voice dropping to a husky timbre. “It begins on a wedding night…”

Back in those days, arranged marriages were as common as fast food.

Sheng Shaoyou pinched the bridge of his nose, but otherwise said nothing—he seemed to take issue with Hua Yong’s metaphors, but to be fair half of these stories Hua Yong had published under a pseudonym, he wrote while still in secondary school; his vocabulary hadn’t been as broad as it was now, his experiences in love lacking and his life unfulfilled.

Hua Yong was starting to see Little Peanut’s resemblance to Sheng Shaoyou—they both seemed largely unimpressed and even doubtful of his storytelling—but he was used to interruption at this point, so he merely smiled and continued:

There are two families constantly at each other’s throats in the business world, and because you can already tell by now where this is going, we can cut to the chase. Sheng Shaoyou is married off to further his father’s wealth, and though he’s visibly not very happy about, he’s still resplendent in his white suit on the eve of his wedding. He’s a good son, possessing all the qualities of an exemplary heir, but despite his knack for debate and unmatched shrewdness, even he can’t talk his way out of a marriage contract.

It has an ironclad stipulation that he bear X Holdings’ heir a child when the time comes—an impossibility, he thinks, because he’s an Alpha, but he’s about to be proven wrong. Very very wrong, in fact.

Sheng Shaoyou meets his spouse on the eve of their wedding. Several meetings with his lawyers and two whiskeys later, he is finally escorted into the marital chamber—the topmost suite of X Holdings’ most prestigious hotel. He has never met his future spouse. He has heard his voice over the phone, but technology as we know can be very unreliable. It can warp the truth. So really, Sheng Shaoyou has little to no expectations of his future. He takes the elevators to the topmost floor with the grimness of a man about to face a firing squad.

When the chrome doors open, he’s taken completely off guard by the sight of a young man waiting for him in the hallway—handsome, smiling, with glittering dark eyes and a pale, smooth face. He takes Sheng Shaoyou’s hand with a flourish and brushes a tender kiss to the back of it, saying, in a deep, husky voice, “Wife. We finally meet.”

Sheng Shaoyou, who’s never beheld such beauty before, whose heart has never been moved by such gestures, finds himself blushing up to the ears—

“—Hua Yong, you truly are shameless!” Sheng Shaoyou sat up abruptly in bed. “What is this—why are you making me out to be some type of trembling, blushing bride?!”

“Mr Sheng trembled the first time—”

Sheng Shaoyou slapped a hand over that insolent mouth. “If you dare say another word, I will toss you out of this bed.”

Hua Yong licked Sheng Shaoyou’s palm lovingly, but rather than be disgusted, Sheng Shaoyou simply drew his hand away with a grimace before wiping it across Hua Yong’s front.

“Let me guess. His husband shows him a good time—all night long. And I — I mean, the Sheng Shaoyou in your story gets pregnant immediately.”

“Not immediately, Mr Sheng,” Hua Yong corrected him. “Ah, there’s so many factors to take into account if a couple wishes to conceive. First, they must seize the carrying partner’s fertility window. Second, they shouldn’t be under a lot of stress because that would affect the quality of the sperm. Third, Alphas need to be marked repeatedly for a womb to grow in their belly. It doesn’t just happen overnight like the dramas have led you to believe. The womb must take time to develop. It has to be nourished by Enigma’s sperm. ”

Sheng Shaoyou stared at him. For a long time, he didn’t blink. Then he started poking Hua Yong in the chest. “You think you’re so smart, huh?! Giving me biology lessons!”

Hua Yong grinned. “I studied hard so I could keep up with Mr Sheng. He is the true industry innovator after all, and ah, please stop poking me. That actually tickles, Mr Sheng.”

Sheng Shaoyou retreated. And just like in the story, he blushed up to his ears. “Hmph.”

Hua Yong resisted the urge to kiss him. He knew how Sheng Shaoyou got sometimes; kissing him now would only earn him another elbow to the ribs. “Now, Mr Sheng,” he said. “Do you want to hear how the rest of the story went, or would you like another one?”

“How about I continue the story, huh?”

“Oh? Mr Sheng wants to take over.”

Of course he did; he was an Alpha. Sheng Shaoyou steamrolled ahead without any warning and said:

Sheng Shaoyou grabs the little lunatic by the front of his shirt. Because yes, that is what he is. A lunatic. Who decides to marry someone they’ve never met before?! Sheng Shaoyou shakes him like a rattle until the little lunatic’s head jostles from side to side.

But Sheng Shaoyou is a merciful man, so he makes sure not to overdo it. This is his future spouse after all; it’s best not to damage his brain any further. And though the young man’s eyes gleam with manic intent, he has a face poets might describe as possessing the ability to topple nations.

The next year, the two have a child together. Sheng Shaoyou can’t resist the allure of a multi-billion contract; and he’s a man of integrity and honour. It’s not a terrible life, either, to look upon a face so beautiful, first when he wakes in the morning and last before he closes his eyes to sleep at night. The little lunatic isn’t unkind despite being the richest man in the country. In fact, he’s a little foolish and perverted. He likes to engage in strange hobbies that involve ropes and vibrating toys.

Hua Yong scratched his cheek. “Mr Sheng…” his voice dropped to a sheepish whine. “That’s not how the story went, but you got some things right.”

Sheng Shaoyou raised an eyebrow.

Hua Yong said, “You were right about one thing: they do indeed have child together in the end. But that doesn’t happen until later on in the story. Your Sheng Shaoyou is nicer, softer. I’m worried about him because he falls in love too quickly—he shouldn’t be giving his heart away to a stranger he just met. Love takes time. Babies even more so. In my version, Sheng Shaoyou runs away while his husband is asleep. His husband goes in search for him, scouring the ends of the earth for clues. It’s a little bit of a cat-and-mouse game. Sheng Shaoyou goes east, and his husband follows. Sheng Shaoyou admires his husband for his tenacity, and eventually allows him to go on a date with him. They watch the sun set by the river Seine and feed birds with crumbs of French bread. Little Peanut is conceived in the City of Love! He grows up to be a healthy baby boy, despite Sheng Shaoyou indulging his every whim. The end.”

“Hua Yong,” began Sheng Shaoyou, sounding amused but also mildly irritated. “A-yong,” he said again. “Your ridiculousness knows no bounds.”

“Does Mr Sheng not like my version?”

“I didn’t say that,” Sheng Shaoyou snorted. “But what is with this whole setup? How come I’m always the damsel in distress in your story?!”

Hua Yong pressed his thumb to the furrow between Sheng Shaoyou’s eyebrows, forcing his expression to smooth out. “That’s because you’re always in distress, Mr Sheng. Even now, I could smell it. You’re embarrassed.”

Sheng Shaoyou’s blush deepened and he batted Hua Yong’s hand away. “I would never run away from you,” he mumbled. “I’m not a coward. I don’t shirk from duty.”

“Would you have lain there and gritted your teeth while your husband ravaged you all night?”

“Hua Yong!” Sheng Shaoyou was not an easy person to scandalise—he let Hua Yong do pretty much whatever he pleased in bed—but it was out of bed when Hua Yong’s shameless words got to him. “What am I, the heroine of some cheap idol drama?”

“I didn’t say that Mr Sheng! I was asking what you would have done in that situation.”

Sheng Shaoyou’s lips were a stiff, embarrassed line. Then a small, twitching smirk appeared on that handsome, perfect face. “Who said I would lie back and let the lunatic do what he wanted? I would have tied him up and—I would have forced him to…” He sighed, gritting his teeth. “I would speak to him—man to man—and then we would come to an agreement. If he wanted a child, then he would have to concede to my terms. I’m a busy man.”

“Ah, so cold. So cold,” Hua Yong said, feigning distress. “Mr Sheng is so busy, he doesn’t have time for romance.”

That wasn’t true at all; Sheng Shaoyou was plenty romantic when he put in the effort. He only appeared prickly on the outside, hiding his true, sweet center, soft and sweet as cream, from the rest of the world. Hua Yong would know, as he spent 90% of his time around Sheng Shaoyou. He knew him inside and out. He received the sweet treatment.

“The Sheng Shaoyou in my story…isn’t you, you know. These characters just happen to be named after us.”

“Entirely by coincidence?” That eyebrow climbed even higher.

“Mn. I’m not as creative as you might think, Mr Sheng. I needed names.”

Sheng Shaoyou didn’t seem convinced, but Hua Yong smiled serenely at him anyway.

“What other stories have you written about us?”

“Mr Sheng, they’re not about—” All right; no use lying now, when the truth was so obvious and Sheng Shaoyou hated lying. It was Hua Yong’s turn to sigh. His shoulders slumped; Sheng Shaoyou looked pleased.

“Among the stories I’ve published… mmm let me see. The one with the handsome shifu and his beloved student. That one was a hit. Several producers have offered to turn it into a drama but I refused. They were going to cast an Omega in the shifu’s role. At least be textually accurate, you know! Such disrespect! Ah, then there’s this one: we were two pebbles on the beach. We didn’t even have names in that one, not at first. It was a short story I wrote when I was younger. We lived on that beach when the ground was still underwater; we were welded into the earth, there since the beginning. Time sanded our sharp edges, but you shimmered so beautifully under the sun. One day a bird picked you up and I never saw you again. And I prayed to the gods to turn me into a man so I could find you.”

Sheng Shaoyou didn’t blink. He stared at the side of Hua Yong’s face, his expression unreadable. “Did you find me? Did the gods hear your prayer?”

Hua Yong shook his head.

“You know how fickle gods are. Even in these types of stories, they were deaf to the plight of mortals. What chance did I have? I was a mere pebble, Mr Sheng; I didn’t even have a mouth, who would listen to something of little significance? So I made a deal with a yaoguai instead, who gave me a thousand years to live as a man in exchange for my servitude. I killed for my lord; I lied and led humans to temptation. In my last year as a mortal, I found you. You were a man too just like me, with no recollection of your past life. You were a good person. In all my stories, Mr Sheng is a good person.”

Sheng Shaoyou had no reply to that.

“So of course, being a good person, you killed me. I was just so happy to find you again I didn’t notice you struck me with your sword. I thought the pain that lanced through my stomach was butterflies. I was told that that was what love felt like: your stomach flutters all funny and it makes you want to vomit. Well, I did vomit, but only blood came out.

And I called you by your old name as I lay dying on the ground. It was a signal to you that I knew who you were, underneath the flesh and bone. That you were mine, and I remembered you. You were walking away and turned back to look at me. No one had ever called you by that name before. Not in this life. I reached out my hand for such a long time that I thought you would never take it.”

“I’d never be so cruel,” Sheng Shaoyou said, “I would never— I’d always take your hand.”

“Ah, don’t be sad for me, Mr Sheng. None of this ever happened! It was just a silly dream I had that I had written down. It would please you to know you did take my hand. You even held me in your arms and wept as I lay dying in your lap. I said your name over and over again; I had wanted to call out to you for so long. But you wept even harder. If this were the kind of story where gods were merciful, where fate was kind, your tears would have had the power to save me from my death. But we crossed paths too late in life, and saw each other only as enemies. And I had the blood of thousands on my hands and deserved to die for my sins. I was unworthy of your love. I was irredeemable.”

“By whose measure?!” Sheng Shaoyou looked irritated, grabbing Hua Yong by the front of his shirt. “Unworthy this, unworthy that.” He pinched his face. “Hua Yong, only I get to decide who to love and not to love! Do you hear me? What’s with all this nonsense?!”

Hua Yong circled Sheng Shaoyou’s wrists with his fingers and thumbed his fluttering pulse. “Ah, Mr Sheng, you could probably tell no TV producer wanted to bring that story to life. They were concerned about the ending. Too maudlin, they said; it wasn’t trendy enough. They wanted to rewrite it. Turn me into a nine-tailed fox demon at the last minute and whisk you away to my secret kingdom in the mountains. How trite! They were also going to cast an Omega in your role. Again. Honestly, these days people have little respect for the original text, much less for proper characterisation.”

“Characterisation,” Sheng Shaoyou repeated flatly. “And that’s why I’m either always weeping or trembling in your stories?”

“Of course, Mr Sheng. As your spouse, I know you happen to do both at the throes of passion. Nothing to be ashamed about, as you’re very appealing while doing so!”

Sheng Shaoyou squeezed his chin, the way he warned Hua Yong not to do to Little Peanut no matter how cute he was acting. “You’re really testing my patience tonight, A-Yong!”

“Well, then, how about one more story before bed?”

“It better not involve any weeping or trembling,” Sheng Shaoyou warned, but he was close to sobering up, his anger ebbing; he was finding all of this ridiculous, but was strangely endeared by Hua Yong’s stories; despite always putting up a fuss, he was always weak to the ones he loved. These were Hua Yong and Little Peanut mainly. 

Hua Yong smiled a slow, indulgent smile. “No, this one has the least romance in it. You’re a scientist in this one. Maybe this will be more to your taste.”

Sheng Shaoyou looked mildly intrigued. “Go on then.”

Sheng Shaoyou is a scientist in a world of automatons. There are good ones and bad ones: beings running on hydraulics with tin hearts, but a human’s sensibilities. One such automaton is Hua Yong, decommissioned from Country P’s military programme.

Sheng Shaoyou picks him up from the junkyard, intending to use him for scrap for his many experiments, but Hua Yong’s eyes open as soon as Sheng Shaoyou reaches for the mechanism that powers him. Hua Yong grips Sheng Shaoyou’s wrist, tilts his head to the side and without blinking calls him, “Master.”

This is part of Hua Yong’s programming. Loyalty is built into his schema. From then on, he becomes Sheng Shaoyou’s assistant.

The longer Sheng Shaoyou keeps him around, the more apparent it becomes that Hua Yong is more highly advanced than a standard tin man. He has all the faculties of industrial-grade automatons, but his skin and hair and his expressions are lifelike, barring the two-second lag in processing time during which he interprets Sheng Shaoyou’s moods and emotions before reacting appropriately.

He’s not just one of the newer models, but a prototype of X Holdings’ latest experiments in artificial intelligence. Up close it’s easy to forget that he runs on clockwork and hydraulics, especially when he attempts to smile at Sheng Shaoyou. Schooling his expression to look more natural is still a work in progress, but aesthetics is not why Sheng Shaoyou keeps him around, even though he’s quite pleasing to look at.

Hua Yong is strong, never tires, and he follows Sheng Shaoyou around loyally wherever he goes—to his errands, to his meetings, even offering to help him undress for bed. He’s unnervingly perfect, except when he tries to smile or laugh. Sheng Shaoyou cares for him the way he does any piece of machinery, like his pistol, or the pocket watch he’d inherited from his long dead father. He routinely takes Hua Yong apart, which is to say, he unscrews the panel on his back to make sure everything is in order. He’s a tangled mess of circuitry inside, quick to overheat.

Sheng Shaoyou installs a fan to reduce his thermal load, and brushes dust and debris from his delicate insides. Sometimes, he feels Hua Yong stutter and flinch, but it’s nothing more than some faulty wiring— some switch he must’ve tripped. He’s a machine after all, not a man. He’s bereft of feeling.

“I’m not so different from you, Mr Sheng,” says Hua Yong one day, after one of these routine cleanings. He watches Sheng Shaoyou put away his tools—his little screwdriver, his brushes, the flask of whiskey that helps him steady his hands. “Humans and machines are roughly the same, you know.”

Sheng Shaoyou raises his eyebrows inquisitively. “How so, Hua Yong?”

“Your body is a machine too. It’s a machine with different parts that must work together to function. Your heart, your muscles, your brain.” He walks over and touches Sheng Shaoyou without preamble: his chest, the inside of his arm, thenhis temple, thumbing a path down the side of his face and ending at his chin, like a benediction.

Sheng Shaoyou doesn’t flinch or shudder, even though Hua Yong has the strength to crush him to dust, and has never touched him before.

“And what about the components beyond that?” Sheng Shaoyou asks. “Humans are more than their parts, Hua Yong. They have dreams too. Desires.”

“Does Mr Sheng think I have neither dreams nor desires?” Hua Yong runs his knuckles across Sheng Shaoyou’s cheek, his touch artificially warm from his programming. “I can have them, too, you know. In fact, I have them in abundance.”

“Dreams?” Sheng Shaoyou asks.

“Yes,” Hua Yong says, right before whispering, “And desires too.” Hua Yong is programmed to blink, but he doesn't, not just yet, processing the minute shift in Sheng Shaoyou's expression, the furrow of his brow, the slight quirk of his mouth, even his heartbeat, increasing in tempo the closer Hua Yong looms. 

“Forgive me, Mr Sheng,” Hua Yong says, right before he kisses him, pinning him against the shelf full of his life's work—books on machines and other unheard of technology, and bubbling flasks full of insidious chemicals. Sheng Shaoyou has always been a rational man: it is the foremost characteristic of any reputable scientist. But it has to be said that at the end of the day he is just that: a man, flawed and needing and likely to put sentimentality over science if his heart is moved enough. 

Country P comes for Hua Yong on a day like any other: balmy, beautiful, nondescript, while Sheng Shaoyou is away at a conference lobbying for the rights of automatons.

But it has to happen sometime: Hua Yong is surprised it took Country P’s militia this long to find him. He is their secret weapon after all: built to withstand pain and inflict harm at a cataclysmic scale. But instead of razing whole cities to the ground or killing innocents, he spends his days learning how to bake bread, how to haggle the price of eggs, how to baste poultry and julienne carrots and fold the sheets just how Sheng Shaoyou likes. He learns the many nuances of pleasure, from observing Sheng Shaoyou’s responses—every lilting sigh, every tremor, every sweet utterance of his name like a prayer.

So when they come for him, though he is caught off-guard, he is ready.

No automaton ever forgets their programming.

Hua Yong puts away the tray of cookies, still warm from the oven, a grim, irritated look on his face that upon first glance could have meant anything. But Sheng Shaoyou would have known how to interpret his displeasure; he knows Hua Yong through and through, having worked his way bare-handed through Hua Yong’s tangled network of circuitry. Hua Yong would not be parted from him. He would slaughter anyone who dared come between them.

Hua Yong wipes his hands across his apron, and calmly walks over to the front door to answer it. He is outnumbered, outgunned. Behind him, from his rib, he draws a long, silver blade that sings sharply in the air as he wields it. On his face sits a cockeyed smile. Mr Sheng would have been proud.

“Mr Sheng arrives in an hour. Let’s make this quick,” he says, and then he moves, quick as silver, graceful and wondrous, blade slicing through the air as he takes them down one by one.

“You said there was no romance in it,” Sheng Shaoyou pointed out. “But there was.”

“Does Mr Sheng think an automaton is truly capable of love?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think; I’m just an impartial observer. I can’t cast judgments. If they say they’re in love, then they’re in love.”

“Mn,” said Hua Yong noncommittally. He squeezed Sheng Shaoyou against him, feeling his cheeks warm. “He’s just a machine, Mr Sheng. He’ll never grow old or die.”

“So?”

“So, he’s different. He can’t love.”

Sheng Shaoyou flicked him on the forehead. “Don’t decide for him!”

“He’s just a character in my story! He’s not real!”

“Just a story, just a story,” Sheng Shaoyou muttered, rolling his eyes with a huff. “But aren’t we just stories in the end? We could be in one right now.”

Hua Yong paused, mulling that over for longer than he intended. “Do you think we’d get a happy ending?” He held his breath as he waited for Sheng Shaoyou’s answer. 

“Why worry about the end,” Sheng Shaoyou said, his expression softening as he settled on top of Hua Yong, warm, better than anything his imagination could come up with—so devastatingly beautiful no words existed that could express it. Their parts fit together so neatly it was inconceivable they had lived whole lives without each other within reach. Sheng Shaoyou's legs bracketed Hua Yong's hips, his chest pressing snugly against Hua Yong's. Each one of his breaths matched Hua Yong's perfectly. His long, dextrous fingers cupped Hua Yong's face. When Hua Yong covered his hands with his, his fingers sank cleanly between the spaces of Sheng Shaoyou's as if by divine design.

It was things like this that made him believe in fate. 

“We’re still in the middle part, Hua Yong,” Sheng Shaoyou said, his eyes taking on that familiar sheen Hua Yong recognised, that made his chest pinch up in response. “We’re still being written.”

Hua Yong smiled at him, astonished by the depth of love he possessed for him.

Tomorrow was a Saturday, and it was late enough that it was early again; moonlight filtered through the gaps in the blinds, silvering everything. He had spend the entire night telling his stories. 

“Mr Sheng.” Hua Yong slid warm hands underneath Sheng Shaoyou’s nightshirt, feeling him shudder as he caressed the notches of his spine. “Let’s make love tonight. Will that be all right? Are you in the mood too?”

Sheng Shaoyou huffed, but it was more out of habit than actual disbelief. He flicked Hua Yong between the eyebrows, but then he snorted and pressed a kiss to his forehead afterward. “Why ask when you know the answer, huh?”

“I just want to hear Mr Sheng say it.”

Sheng Shaoyou’s gaze softened and he leaned forward to nip Hua Yong on the chin and then pinch him lightly on the ear. “Well, if you want to hear me say it, then I'll say it. So listen up! I want you to fuck me,” he said, enunciating each syllable in Hua Yong’s ear. “Make me feel it, little pervert.”

Hua Yong grinned. He didn't need to be told twice. He rolled them over and undressed Sheng Shaoyou with excited, brusque yanks, and in no time at all his Mr Sheng was naked and shivering, covered in nothing but moonlight. His skin was pale as milk, but his thighs were mottled with bruises in varying stages of healing from the past evenings they spent together. Hua Yong added more to his collection, hiking those slim, strong thighs over his shoulders so he could bury his tongue inside Sheng Shaoyou’s hole.

Sheng Shaoyou was already wet inside, but Hua Yong knew this already. He could smell it whenever Sheng Shaoyou got excited. He could also tell how aroused he was, based on the flavour and texture of his slick. Sheng Shaoyou gripped his hair to keep him between his thighs, rolling his hips to angle Hua Yong’s tongue where he wanted it— and he wanted it deep inside, so far in that Hua Yong could feel him gushing and trembling as he moved his tongue.

Hua Yong left Sheng Shaoyou’s cock untouched.

Some nights, he took him on all fours and fucked him to exhaustion, hard and deep Sheng Shaoyou didn't need his front stimulated to be able to come. Other nights—on special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, or Valentine’s day— they did it facing each other, though they were no less zealous or passionate. Tonight, Hua Yong was feeling sentimental, so when Sheng Shaoyou went to position himself on his hands and knees, he gripped Sheng Shaoyou by the hip and nuzzled the back of his ear. And he said, like a coquettish little lamb, licking him there, “Not like this, Shaoyou. Let’s face each other, all right? I want to see your face when we make love.”

Hua Yong punctuated every word with a meaningful press of his fingers inside Sheng Shaoyou’s ass: two fingers to keep him wanting and compliant, dripping slick in runnels down trembling thighs, three to drive him crazy and beg for it. Sheng Shaoyou paused, his spine stiffening, but he conceded in the end and lay on his back as prompted. He was still an Alpha, stubborn and domineering, but in this bed, he was Hua Yong’s mate too.

There was no need for artifice, or subterfuge, or shame. They could be animals together; they could be utterly unhinged. Or they could be slow and lazy—anything they wanted at all.

Sheng Shaoyou was like a luxurious piece of chocolate, decadent with a liqueured, bittersweet center, spread on his back against expensive Egyptian cotton. He raised an eyebrow at Hua Yong, prompting him without words with the most alluring smirk. Well, his expression seemed to say. Are you going to fuck me or what?

Hua Yong didn’t need another signal. He pounced, spreading Sheng Shaoyou’s thighs apart, pinning his knees backwards so he could enter him at the perfect angle. He rubbed that part with his cock, bullying and teasing, stirring him up until Sheng Shaoyou started to whine and turn red from chest to throat and all the way up to the backs of his ears. He was gasping like a man thrown overboard a ship, like a Crown Prince whose delectable bud was being plucked for the first time, or like a bride on their wedding day, offering themselves up to a powerful man they had never met before. 

“H-Hua Yong,” Sheng Shaoyou groaned. The bed moved underneath them, like a boat swaying in a choppy sea. Hua Yong liked to fuck Sheng Shaoyou to the point of incoherence, and he liked to take complete control.

Sheng Shaoyou’s thighs were wet with both slick and Hua Yong’s spit after Hua Yong had finished him off and gotten him relaxed enough for penetration. Now he just lay there and took it, his Alpha pride eroded completely, his untouched cock jerking and spitting out precome after every rough thrust. He looked both pitiful and utterly filthy, enjoying every second he was devoured. His nipples were flushed, stiff peaks. His strong chest rose and fell with his stuttering breaths. His skin was warm and sheened with a fine mist of sweat; inside, he was even warmer, even wetter, his slick wreathing Hua Yong’s cock with froth. His body gripped Hua Yong’s cock perfectly, made and remade for him, this part that only Hua Yong had ever touched.

Hua Yong thought of his stories—the farm boy, the emperor, the fox, the automaton—all these lives he could have lived, and he would still want Sheng Shaoyou in any capacity he could have him. He would want him every time, body and soul. He would chase him to the ends of the earth; he would live for him and die for him. He would make love to him and fuck him. In any life, and in every life. Across the universe and back. Hua Yong didn’t believe in the mythology of love, but he believed in wanting something so much that it became a part of you, woven into your bones and sinews, like a code in your DNA.

Sheng Shaoyou was a fever he could never sweat out. He was his poison, and his weakness. But he was also his cure.

“Hua Yong,” said Sheng Shaoyou, pinching him on the ear. “Where’d you go again, hm, you little lunatic? Stop living in your head. Are you imagining your little stories again?” Sheng Shaoyou patted him on the cheek. “There’s no need for them anymore. I’m here now. Come back to me. Are you really going to leave me unsatisfied, after promising me a good time?”

Hua Yong blinked. He was transported back to the present—to the sight of Sheng Shaoyou’s flushed face looking up at him expectantly. Dark hair fell in fine feathers over one eye, matted with sweat. His lips were swollen and bitten from kissing. He smelled like oranges, overlaid with the perfume of wild orchids. In this life, Sheng Shaoyou was neither the Crown Prince nor a scientist. He was just a man, in Hua Yong’s bed, opening his body and heart to him.

“Mr Sheng,” Hua Yong asked, “Which one of my stories did you like the best?”

Though he was a decent storyteller, Hua Yong knew little of how real people spoke and acted in real life. He’d read too much, and lived too little. He didn’t have any friends. He’d spent too long in his head, imagining things, fantasising about the what-could-have-beens. Dreaming of a love he never thought he could conquer. Not in this life, or the next.

Sheng Shaoyou tucked a lock of Hua Yong’s hair behind one ear. “I like this one best,” he decided.

Hua Yong blinked at him. “Hm? This one?”

“The one we’re in now,” said Sheng Shaoyou, lips soft against the shell of Hua Yong’s ear, his every word tender. “Now come on and fuck me harder. Didn’t I say I wanted to feel it? Hua Yong. Come on and fuck me.”

Writing all these stories was such a laborious process that it took the work of years. Hua Yong had written for many reasons, boredom and loneliness among them, but chief was the hope that he could reach Sheng Shaoyou’s heart. That Sheng Shaoyou would read his words one day and come find him all the way in Country P. That he would be so moved that he would fall in love.

But that was the stuff of fantasy—even he knew in his heart how unlikely that would happen. But still he had hoped.

It took fifteen more years before things could be set into motion. There were no wars that kept him and Sheng Shaoyou apart, only time and distance. In all his stories, Hua Yong often imagined their love would live on long after the last page—even the ones that ended in tragedy.

In this story, and in this life, there were no dramatic declarations of love under the threat of death. Sheng Shaoyou didn’t leap ecstatically into his arms for a passionate embrace. He didn’t even know who Hua Yong was until five years ago. They crossed paths in the lobby of Sheng Fang Biotech, bumping shoulders in a meticulously orchestrated scheme.

Hua Yong finished inside Sheng Shaoyou, and three more rounds later, close to dawn, they curled under the covers, pressed together like commas. They fell asleep, tacky with sweat and other questionable fluids; their bodies ached from exertion, but bone deep was their bliss.

Hua Yong woke some time later to the rustle of bed sheets as Sheng Shaoyou turned in his sleep to face him, slinging an arm around his waist and pressing his face to Hua Yong's neck. And it was nothing truly profound, at least not in the grand scheme of things, as Sheng Shaoyou had done this a hundred maybe a thousand times before in the last five years, but the moment was so perfect, Hua Yong wondered if he was still dreaming. If they were words on a page in a story that he wrote. Then he realised it was really happening, that he had Sheng Shaoyou, the love of his life, sleeping soundly in his arms.

Sheng Shaoyou’s hair smelled like sweat and newly plucked oranges, but mostly he smelled like Hua Yong. His skin was warm to the touch, every part of him real and tangible and so alive.

Hua Yong smiled and held him closer. Then he shut his eyes and slept.

 

 

 

 

Notes:

Once again, thank you for reading! And long live HuaSheng! I really love this ship, and do truly enjoy writing them! Wanted to get this out before the last episode, as a way to celebrate the series, but I wasn't able to edit it in time because life got in the way. It feels rather bittersweet now that the series is over, but just like HuaSheng in these stories, I feel like the ship will sail long after the last page for as long as people still write about them!

If you enjoyed this fic, feel free to leave a comment--comments motivate me and make my day aha. I read all of them, and sigh, smile, and blush appropriately! Lol!