The King's Mate - Part 2: Yaoshi

Chapter 4

Hua Cheng's new acquaintances had left shortly after the deal had been signed, and he couldn't help the sigh of relief that escaped him once he was alone in his temporary abode. And while he would prefer to write to his gege this very moment, he needed to make sense of the situation he had on his hands first. Writing a letter with his thoughts being all over the place like this would only cause his husband to worry. Which he should never have to, especially not about someone like Hua Cheng.

This was why Hua Cheng sat down in the middle of the floor, and started to meditate. Clearing his mind was important to do first, if he wanted to retrieve some sense of balance. After all, he wasn't used to feeling as caught off guard and unbalanced as he'd constantly been for the past few hours.

It was a bit more difficult than usual for Hua Cheng to clear his mind this time, which didn't really surprise him; he had one unbidden thought after another entering his mind, even well into his meditation.

Eventually however, he succeeded and kept his mind clear of anything for longer than was strictly necessary, just for the peace of it.

But once he felt at ease entirely, he began to sort through his experiences of the day.

First of all, there was the fact that supernatural things were real. This was already a fact that every fibre of Hua Cheng's being wanted to argue against, but only moronic dimwits argued against something that was undeniably real. And it was indeed undeniably real. Hua Cheng had seen and done things that were not explainable by natural means, no matter how much he racked his brain for a traditional explanation. He couldn't come up with any though, and thus, going by his own logic, he had to accept these things as real, since he certainly was no idiot. Still, it was a rather difficult thing to accept, and Hua Cheng had to chew on this revelation for longer than he would have liked before he permitted himself to move on to the next thing he needed to come to terms with.

Hua Cheng had never been particularly vain. Sure, he wore fancy robes and garments and whatnot, but most of it was in order to display his status as king, at least according to his seamstresses. The only thing he truly cared about was the butterfly clasp he'd received from his husband early on in their courting. And while he did make sure to wear it every single day, he couldn't care less about it actually fitting to the rest of his clothes.

Apart from that, he didn't particularly like to see himself in a mirror either; his face wasn't very pleasing to look at after all, and he could only be eternally grateful that his gege didn't mind his subpar appearance. While the main reason for his aversion to his own looks was his right eye, he didn't like the rest of his face either. Though none of that was important as long as his husband accepted him.

However, there were more serious issues with his appearance now.

He hadn't seen himself in a mirror yet, but he frankly didn't need to. He knew he had grown horns the moment he'd entered this place, and he knew their size was too significant to try and hide them. Apart from that, his arms, and most likely his legs as well, had turned black, as if he'd stuck them elbow deep into ink. Almost worse was the fact that his nails had turned into black, elongated claws. Another thing he'd noticed while talking was that his canines had grown into proper fangs. In fact, since he'd become aware of that particular change, he'd noticed that they stuck out of his mouth even when he pressed his lips together. They were disgustingly long, too and reached well below his lower lip. He couldn't fathom showing himself to his gege like this. And to top it all off, he'd been running around without his eyepatch for the whole day, and his vision was even. It could only mean that his left eye was matching his right one now. Otherwise his vision wouldn't have improved to such a degree.