"We have a long way to go, and I don’t want you getting scurvy before we reach the capital."

In the corner of the carriage, Xiao Yichen watched her look away.

He watched her actively, deliberately choosing to ignore the raw, bleeding wound he had just exposed to her.

Yichen slowly turned back around, facing the rain-lashed window. He raised his hand, resting it against the cold glass.

His hand was trembling.

***

What crime did I commit?

The thought echoed in the dark, twisted labyrinth of Xiao Yichen’s mind, a relentless, agonizing drumbeat that drowned out the sound of the storm outside.

He was the Imperial Second Prince. He was blessed with supreme intellect, unparalleled beauty, and a cultivation base that rivaled the greatest geniuses of his generation.

From the moment he was born, the world had bowed to him.

Every variable, every person, every situation was a puzzle he could effortlessly solve, manipulate, and control.

He always got whatever he wanted, or whoever he wanted, effortlessly.

Even the Crown Prince or other brothers didn’t find it easy to compete with him; to stay in their position, they desperately worked hard to obtain the Emperor’s trust with things, while he was given those things delightfully and willingly.

The Emperor always indulged him since childhood due to his exceptional abilities, but he wasn’t interested in the binding, boring position of Crown Prince. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

That’s why he was free to go in and out of the Palace as he wished, to do whatever he wanted without question.

Until he met a foul-mouthed, soot-stained cook with a spatula.

One whom he had to playfully bow his head right after the Emperor, his Weird Royal Uncle, Lin Ji’an.

Yichen closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cold glass of the carriage window, his chest tight with a pain he had no context for, no defense against.

He remembered the first time he saw Ji’an in the arena.

The arrogant smirk, the utter fearlessness in those sparkling eyes.

The way he had effortlessly commanded the attention of the entire sect without swinging a single sword.

And when he saw Ji’an guarding against him so cautiously, it felt even more fun.

He had intended to break him.

He had intended to use him as a pawn to destabilize Xie Wangchen and Gu Zhiwei.

But unfortunately, the pawn had flipped the board.

’She looks at them,’ Yichen thought, his fingernails digging into the plush velvet of the bench until the fabric tore. ’He looks at Brother Gu with that soft, exasperated fondness. He cooks for him. He laughs with him.’

The memory of Gu Zhiwei bounding up to her on the bridge flashed in his mind like a physical blow.

’And the Ice Demon...’ Yichen’s jaw clenched so tightly his teeth ached. ’He looks at that broken, emotionally stunted sociopath as if he hung the stars in the sky. He braves his freezing courtyards just to bring him warm food right on time. He prepares his meals with surgical devotion, defends his honor against his own master.’

But when she looked at him?

When Lin Ji’an looked at Xiao Yichen, she built walls.

She threw up defensive, sarcastic banter, she always guarded her expressions, and she treated him like a bomb waiting to go off.

’I am royalty,’ Yichen’s pride screamed, warring violently with the pathetic, desperate yearning in his heart. ’I could give him the imperial treasury. I could drape him in silks woven from sunlight. I could slaughter anyone who dared to speak ill of him. What does Xie Wangchen have that I do not? What is it that makes him so special?’

He had felt her pulse beneath his hand. He had smelled the sweet, intoxicating scent of her Yin Qi, confirming what his sharp eyes had already deduced about her disguise.

He had held her pinned against the velvet, completely at his mercy.

For a fraction of a second, before the brat had interrupted, Yichen had felt a surge of absolute, euphoric triumph.

He had thought he could force her to see him. He thought he could consume her so completely that she would forget the others existed.

But when the spell broke, she had run away.

And worse, when she saw the truth in his eyes, when he had stripped away his royal mask and laid his desperate, agonizing hunger bare for her to see, she had looked away.

She didn’t want him.

The realization was a slow-acting poison, festering in the dark corners of his soul.

’What must I do?’ Yichen’s internal monologue fractured, descending into a dark, terrifying spiral of toxic obsession. ’How do I make her acknowledge me? How do I make her want me?’

If kindness failed, if charm failed, if offering her the world failed... what was left?

A slow, chilling, and entirely broken smile spread across Xiao Yichen’s lips in the reflection of the dark glass.

’If she will not look at me willingly,’ Yichen reasoned, the sociopathic tactician reclaiming control from the wounded boy, ’then I must simply remove the distractions. I must burn away everything and shatter them, make her unable to seek them out. I must tear down every single wall she has built, until she has absolutely no choice but to fall into my arms.’

He slowly turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto the back of Ji’an’s head as she animatedly told a story to her little brother.

If he destroyed everything and everyone around her, would she then finally look at him properly, even once?

The resentment was still there, burning like a dark, Abyssal flame. But it was no longer a wound. It was a fuel that burned the fire intensely, that devoured everything around it.

’You belong to me, Royal Uncle,’ Xiao Yichen vowed silently, the thunderstorm outside mirroring the catastrophic violence brewing in his heart. ’You just do not realize it yet. But you will. Even if I have to break this entire empire to make you see it.’