The first rays of dawn were a trespass, slicing through the high, arched window of Lu Ren's chamber, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the silent air. I lay on the floor, on the thin, scratchy cot she had designated for her "dog," my body a tapestry of fading aches and the phantom sting of her whip. The night had been a brutal, masterful performance. She believed she had flayed my soul and laid it bare. In reality, she had merely given me a front-row seat to her own deepest insecurities, and I had walked away with the playbill.
Her diary was a small, heavy weight in the inner pocket of my robes, a secret sun warming my skin. It was the most valuable artifact I had yet acquired in this world, more precious than any spirit stone, more powerful than any sword. It was the source code to my jailer's operating system.
I rose before she stirred. My movements were silent, practiced. I dressed, not looking at her sleeping form, a goddess of pale marble in a sea of black silk. My desire for her was a complex, twisted thing, but in the cold light of day, she was not my queen; she was my target. The primary obstacle on my path to true freedom.
I slipped out of her chambers as the clan was beginning to stir. I needed a secure location, a place of absolute privacy. I found it in the clan's archives, a dusty, forgotten library filled with the crumbling records of a hundred generations of Lu family mediocrity. No one ever came here. It was a tomb of forgotten history, the perfect place to dissect a living soul.
I sat at a long, dust-covered table, the morning light filtering through a grimy window, and I opened the journal.
My eyes devoured the elegant, severe script, my mind a high-speed processor downloading her life's data. I read of her frustrations with her cultivation, the "iron ceiling" that tormented her soul. It was a useful, but expected, weakness. I read of her political maneuvering, her contempt for her husband, Lu Tao, her ambitions for her own son, Lu Peng. All valuable intelligence.
And then I found it. An entry from years ago, its ink slightly faded, the words cold and precise.
'The second wife is dead. Good. Her son is a fat, weeping disappointment. He will be no threat to Peng'er's inheritance. Lu Tao mourns her with the shallow grief of a man who has lost a pretty vase. He does not understand that I was the one who… ensured the midwife was clumsy. A simple, untraceable poison to induce a difficult birth. One less rival for my son. One less distraction for my husband. It was a necessary act. I feel no guilt. I feel nothing.'
The world tilted. The air in the dusty archive seemed to grow thin, the motes of dust swirling in the sunbeam freezing in place. The words on the page were not just ink; they were venom, seeping off the parchment and into my soul. She murdered my mother.
It was not my mother, not the woman who had raised Barry Drake on Earth. It was the mother of this body, the woman whose name I didn't even know, the woman who had died bringing the original, pathetic Lu Bing into the world. And yet, the violation felt intensely, profoundly personal. This body was my vessel, my home. And this woman, this cold, beautiful monster I had knelt before, the woman whose piss I had willingly drunk, whose asshole I had worshipped… she had poisoned the well from which this life had sprung.
In that instant, something inside me broke. The complex, twisted, and undeniably real sexual attraction I felt for her vanished. It did not fade; it was snuffed out, instantly, like a candle flame in a vacuum. The ashes that remained were a cold, hard, and infinitely dense pellet of pure, unadulterated hatred. The fetish, the desire for her dominance, the thrill of her cruelty—it was all gone, revealed as a pathetic illusion. I had been playing a dark, exhilarating game with a beautiful predator. Now I knew I had been licking the boots of my mother's murderer.
There was no more game. There was only one thought, a single, burning imperative that consumed my entire being: She has to die.
'Ah,' the Author's voice noted, its usual sarcasm completely absent, replaced by a tone of grim finality. 'The plot thickens. And curdles. The transition from 'kinky power dynamic' to 'blood feud' is often an abrupt one. This complicates things. Beautifully.'
Complicate was an understatement. My mind, free from the fog of lust, began to race, processing the new reality with the cold, brutal logic of a machine.
Problem: Kill Lu Ren.
Obstacle 1: Power disparity. She is a Golden Core master. I am a Qi Crystallization weakling. Direct confrontation is suicide.
Obstacle 2: The Slave Seal. She can kill me with a thought. Any overt act of aggression is impossible.
Obstacle 3: Lack of evidence. Her diary is my word against hers. No one would believe the clan's waste of a son over its powerful, respected matriarch.
Obstacle 4: Mutual Assured Destruction. If I somehow managed to expose her to Lu Tao, her final act would be to expose our affair. A man who sleeps with his step-mother, especially one who murdered his mother, would be flayed alive by his own clan, regardless of the circumstances.
The conclusion was inescapable. I was trapped. I could not kill her. I could not expose her. I was bound to her by a magical leash, and now, by a secret that would destroy us both if it ever came to light.
My only path was the long one. The slow one. The path of the viper. I had to get stronger. Strong enough to resist the seal, strong enough to challenge Lu Tao himself, strong enough to be the one holding the knife when the time for justice finally came. And until then… until then, I had to play the game. I had to continue being her dog, her slave, her devoted, broken toy. The performance of my life had just been cast, and the role was that of a man who worships the woman he is plotting to murder in the most painful way imaginable.
I heard footsteps approaching the archives. I shoved the diary into my robes, the leather feeling like a block of ice against my skin. My face, which had been a mask of cold fury, instantly relaxed into the familiar, servile expression she expected. The mask had to be perfect.
A clan servant entered and bowed. "Young Master. The Lady Lu Ren summons you to her chambers. She is… waiting."
Of course she was. She needed another dose of her drug, another affirmation of her power. I felt a wave of profound, soul-deep revulsion wash over me. The thought of touching her, of her touching me, was like swallowing broken glass. But I smiled, a vacant, eager-to-please smile.
"Inform the Mistress that her loyal servant will be there shortly," I said.
As I walked back to her courtyard, my mind became a fortress. I had to compartmentalize. The Barry Drake who hated her, who was meticulously planning her agonizing death, had to be locked away in a deep, dark room in my mind. The Lu Bing who would enter her chamber had to be the one she knew: the pathetic, brilliant, perverted dog who lived for her contempt. I would have to find a way to make the performance real. I would have to find a new source for my arousal, a new fuel for the fetish.
I found it in my hatred.
I would reframe the act. Every touch would no longer be a submission, but an act of data collection. Every lick would be an act of poison, a secret curse. Every feigned moan of pleasure would be a nail I was hammering into her future coffin. I would get off not on her dominance, but on the sheer, exquisite perfection of my own deception. I would be fucking her with my hatred, and she would think it was her victory.
I entered her chambers. The scene was sickeningly familiar. She was reclining on the chaise, her black silk robe a whisper against her skin.
"You took your time," she purred, a predatory glint in her eyes. "Were you re-living our last session in your mind? Soaking in the memory of your purification?"
"Yes, Mistress," I said, my voice a husky breath of feigned desire as I knelt before her. "I was contemplating the profound honor of being so thoroughly… owned." Inside, I was thinking about the entry on the phylactery. The safest place is the one no one would ever think to look. The chaise lounge. It had to be.
"Good," she said, clearly pleased. "Because your education is not yet complete. I find myself in need of… recreation. Your she-wolf partner in the north, she is a merchant, is she not? A creature of commerce. I imagine her pleasures are crude, transactional. Show me. Show me the difference between the clumsy groping of a merchant and the refined ownership of a true aristocrat."
She wanted me to roleplay. To act out my encounters with Lihua, so she could critique and surpass them. The sheer, narcissistic arrogance of it was breathtaking. It was also a perfect opportunity.
I began the performance. I described Lihua's power, her ambition, framing it all as a crude, nouveau-riche grasping for a status she could never truly possess. I was a storyteller, weaving a tale that both denigrated my true partner and elevated my current jailer, feeding her ego with every word.
"She commands, but she does not own," I whispered, my lips brushing against the instep of her foot. "Her touch is that of a buyer inspecting goods. Your touch, Mistress… is that of a goddess claiming a soul."
She purred, a low, satisfied sound in her throat. She was eating it up. As I worked my way up her body, my mind was a whirlwind of activity. I needed to get closer to the chaise lounge. I needed to confirm my suspicion about the hidden compartment.
I moved to kneel beside her, my hands beginning a slow, worshipful massage of her powerful calves. "Her legs are strong," I murmured, "but they are the legs of a workhorse. Yours, Mistress, are the pillars of a temple."
My fingers brushed against the carved leg of the chaise. I felt it. A tiny, almost imperceptible line that broke the pattern of the wood. My heart hammered in my chest. It was there. The phylactery, the key to my freedom, was less than an inch from my hand.
Lu Ren, lost in the throes of my expert flattery and skilled touch, was completely oblivious. She moaned softly, her eyes closing as she gave herself over to the sensation.
This was the core of my new existence. A life of dualities. The outward performance of a devoted slave, and the inward reality of a cold, calculating avenger. The feigned pleasure and the real, burning hatred. The worship of the goddess and the secret search for the flaw in her divinity.
I continued my work, my touch becoming more intimate, my words more profane. I brought her to the edge of pleasure, my mind a cold, clear instrument of her undoing. She thought she was playing with her dog. She had no idea she was dancing with a viper, and I had already chosen the moment I was going to strike. It would not be today, or tomorrow. But it would be soon. And it would be absolute.