The sweetness was brief. The cold returned sharper, closer, cutting through him like steel.
"Excellent," Hàn Zài murmured, voice low and deliberate. "Raise your hand. Keep it relaxed. Don't move away. You dared answer such a hard question, little one?" His piercing gaze silently asked for the truth of his name.
Innocent Hùa Yǐng let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He said his name. "It's… Hùa Yǐng, Shizun."
"I see," Hàn Zài said, before murmuring, "A sweet name."
The other students were taken aback, hurriedly flipping their books, wondering if they had been wrong .
"No one will open their book," Hàn Zài's voice cut through the rustling air. "Or it is not my responsibility if anything… bad happens." He looked at his fingernails thoughtfully. Students instantly closed their books.
Hùa Yǐng thought everything was fine. He raised his hand silently, but his throat tightened when Hàn Zài gently placed his handfan beneath the boy's palm, lifting it higher, then setting it directly on his palm—a terrifyingly gentle sizing up.
"P–Pardon, Shizun!" Hùa Yǐng gasped, voice trembling in light panic as he instinctively tried to pull his hand back, realizing the cruel intent behind that calm gaze.
"Don't move," Hàn Zài hissed under his breath, tone dropping to a deadly whisper. "Or your whole hand will be cut."
Then he struck.
A sharp, echoing thwack cracked through the heavy silence of the room—the handfan snapping against the soft center of Hùa Yǐng's palm. Every student flinched, the sound slicing through them as if the blow had landed on their own skin.
Hùa Yǐng hissed, biting his lower lip hard to stop a childish whimper. His palm was already starting to bleed.
Outside, Míng Sū hissed softly, as though he could feel the pain himself. "He strikes just like his father," he murmured.
Wèi Lún's expression darkened. "Poor boy… he never saw it coming. Too innocent—like a little rose in the middle of a battlefield. He won't survive this world unless he's hardened properly."
Hùa Yǐng felt the cold jade-and-silk fan under his chin, tilting his face up to meet the piercing gaze. Hàn Zài held the boy's wounded hand in his other, warm and strong against Hùa Yǐng's small, cold, trembling palm.
"What is this over your palm?" Hàn Zài demanded, then murmured, "I hope you at least know this."
"B-Blood, Shizun," Hùa Yǐng mumbled, his voice small and trembling with fear.
"Exactly," Hàn Zài said, his tone smooth as glass. "That's the rule. Men are allowed to bleed—but never to cry. Rule number 465: No man is permitted to shed tears; only blood. Because men are meant to be strong—strong enough to dominate."
He flicked his fan open with a sharp snap, the motion elegant and final, then fanned himself lazily. "Not so delicate that a single strike would make you weep. Understood?"
Hùa Yǐng quickly nodded. Hàn Zài released his hand, then, with a casual movement that sent a fresh wave of panic through Hùa Yǐng, he took the boy's notebook from the desk. He didn't check the homework; he was already flipping through the pages, examining the handwriting.
Hùa Yǐng gasped , his mind raced: If he sees the drawing, I'm done for life!
"Um… S-Shizun! Actually, it's not the homework you'll check. I'll give you the correct one. There's nothing in there!" He tried desperately to stop him.
Hàn Zài paused mid-step, holding the notebook. "It's not only about homework. It's about checking your activity. I'm interested in seeing it." He murmured the final, crushing insult while walking back to his table: "And to see how truly dumb you are."
Hùa Yǐng stood there, mouth parted, no words coming out. Yǐn Chàng and Chéng Yǐn made silent, throat-slitting gestures: He's dead now. Hùa Yǐng glared at them: I'll kill you if I come back with my life!
"Hàn Zài Kumsun, you've done well," one of the senior supervisors, Míng Sū, announced, stepping into the room. "You may go back to your own class now. Your testing class ends here."
Hàn Zài gave a curt nod, but before leaving, he pointed his handfan directly at Hùa Yǐng. "Make sure he does not sit down for the rest of the class, Shizun. He is a weak and distracted student."
The seniors nodded, and Hàn Zài turned to leave—taking Hùa Yǐng's notebook with him.
"S-Shizun, please give me back my notebook!" Hùa Yǐng called out, his injured hand raised. He huffed when Hàn Zài didn't even glance back, clenching his wounded fist and biting his lower lip. " he's Crueler than the elders," he hissed under his breath.
Hàn Zài stopped just outside the door, glanced back, and made an unmistakable gesture: Two fingers touched his eyes , and then pointed directly at Hùa Yǐng. The silent message: My eyes are always on you.
Hùa Yǐng swallowed hard, a cold dread washing over him. He was on Hàn Zài's blacklist. He was marked.
The bell rang—a sudden, jarring clang that shattered the tension. Students rose with a frantic scraping of chairs, desperate to flee the oppressive atmosphere, but Hàn Zài's cold presence lingered.
Hàn Zài held the notebook up. "This stays with me. For review." His eyes locked onto Hùa Yǐng, who felt utterly stripped bare. The senior turned and walked toward the exit, his black-blue robes sweeping majestically behind him.
Hùa Yǐng's legs trembled, threatening to give out. Yǐn Chàng and Chéng Yǐn rushed to his side, their whispers full of alarm, but he barely registered them. He realized, with a powerful, dizzying mix of fear and awe, that he had survived his first lesson under the man he would soon idolize.
The lesson was complete: Control was not something to be achieved; it was something to be surrendered. And now, the most terrifying man in the Han Clan held his secrets.
Míng Sū and Wèi Lún pushed off the wall , walking into the corridor. They shared a exhale of tension leaving them.
" young master really took the boy's book," Míng Sū observed, adjusting his sleeve. "That's a deeper punishment. An invasion of privacy. What is he planning to do with it ?
Wèi Lún looked back toward the classroom, where Hùa Yǐng was being fussed over. "That boy... Hùa Yǐng. He's too soft. Too easily distracted. Hàn Zài knows that mere physical strength isn't enough for him, so he has to control his thoughts. Taking the notebook is taking his private space, stripping his inner self bare. It's the ultimate lesson in Zhǎngkòng—that even your inner self is subject to the rule."
Inside, Chéng Yǐn was dabbing the drying blood from Hùa Yǐng's palm with a damp cloth, while Yǐn Chàng glared at the empty space where Hàn Zài had stood.
"You idiot! Why would you say that nonsense about crying?" Chéng Yǐn whispered frantically. "Rule 465 is the most fundamental! It's in the nursery rhymes! How could you forget it ?! No man is allowed to drop tears, only blood!"
Perfect—I've expanded it with subtle movements, added dialogue beats, and more tension while keeping the fear, awe, and that indirect admiration:
"His… his face… it's too scary. I—I forgot what to say!" Hùa Yǐng stammered, hands clutching the edge of the table as if it could anchor him.
"Really?" Yǐn Chàng's voice was sharp, half-teasing, half-worried, and he leaned closer, eyes scanning Hùa Yǐng's pale expression.
"Does your rosy little heart really think differently?" Chéng Yǐn muttered, arms crossed, leaning against the wall as if already predicting the disaster.
Hùa Yǐng hesitated, biting his lip, before muttering, "I—I just thought… maybe… maybe he wouldn't want us to blindly memorize. I thought… feelings… are for everyone…" His gaze shifted to the doorway, tracing the faint shadow where Hàn Zài had left. The memory of the handfan's sting flared in his palm, the cold edge of the Shizun's stare, the closeness of that terrifying touch—it all clung to him.
Yǐn Chàng's grip tightened on his arm, pulling him back to reality. "He is Hàn Zài! He doesn't care about what you think. He wants absolute… unthinking obedience!" His tone was sharp, the kind that made you nod even when you didn't want to.
Chéng Yǐn shook his head, exhaling in frustration. "Don't stand there whining. Forget the notebook. Move."
"B—But…how can I?? if he sees the…things in there—" Hùa Yǐng huffed, unable to finish his frustrated thought. He clenched his bleeding hand. The sharp pain was a new, thrilling reminder of the most powerful person he had ever known. And that final look: My eyes are always on you. It had just confirmed that he was marked.
"Good. Not to argue about it," Yǐn Chàng said, finally loosening his grip, though his eyes never left Hùa Yǐng. "You're marked now. His eyes… they'll always find you. You're his project, little fool. And trust me—this? This is only the beginning. He's like some novelist… crafting misery in other people's lives."
Hùa Yǐng nodded slowly, a heavy certainty settling in his stomach like lead. He had been terrified, humiliated, and cut, yet beneath it all simmered something sharper, something that made his chest thrum. He understood, with a strange clarity, that he would do anything to keep that gaze—cold, precise, inescapable—focused on him. He had been chosen, singled out for a lesson as agonizing as it was extraordinary.
The fear was real, but the budding idolization burned quietly beneath it. Hàn Zài hadn't merely broken him; he had reshaped him. Wounded and trembling, Hùa Yǐng stood taller than before, ready to face the next brutal rule of the unforgiving law of Zhǎngkòng—Control.
His palm still throbbed, the metallic taste of blood lingering, yet beneath the pain, something faint and wordless began to take root—
something he would not recognize until much later.