✧𝔻𝔼𝕍𝕆𝕋𝕀𝕆ℕ~ 𝒶𝓃𝒾𝓂𝑒 𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓈𝒽𝑜𝓉 𝒸𝑜𝓁𝓁𝑒𝒸𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃~✧

✧Nan Feng- Wounded (part two of rebellious)✧

A/N- Have a picture of beat up Fu Yao and Nan Feng ig... they kind of look scary ngl lol.. I wish each of them had more fanart where they were individually drawn rather than them being together but whatever.

YOU WERE SAD to hear that your parents hadn't let Nan Feng go free, but rather were keeping him tied up in their dungeon, which was basically just a giant hole in the ground that they had dug in the small cellar which you used mainly to store food. The guards of the dungeon liked you, and you bribed them with little gifts of sweet candies and small snacks to get them to tell you how your old friend was doing. And what they said made your heart break.

Although the cellar was filled with food, your parents would not allow the guards to feed Nan Feng any of it, claiming that it was too good for a peasant like him. Instead, they fed him pig scraps, and the guards could hear him throwing up and choking on the food as he ate it. The throwing up and choking had stopped, however, after he had been fed the same pig scraps for a week, and got used to it. His skin was pale as milk and he was unhealthy from lack of sun. On top of that, he had twisted his leg around when the guards threw him into the pit, and had ended up breaking his ankle, so every time he moved his body, pain would flash up his leg. He had tried to escape from the ropes that bound him by pushing against them with his wrists, but that had ended up making the rope cut deeply into his wrists, and now he complained of pain from the skinned wrists and broken ankle almost every day.

You looked down into the pit and saw what looked like a pale white stick wearing Nan Feng's clothes. He had lost a lot of weight by throwing up the pig scraps and some days flat out refusing to eat them, and he looked emaciated with how much weight he had lost. He shifted, and you heard him hiss angrily, probably because of the pain in his ankle. He looked like a shadow of his former self, and it pained you to see it.

"Can I go down and see him?" you asked the guards.

They looked at one another with suspicious looks in their eyes, then turned to you and said, "Your parents would probably hate us for letting you do this, but we'll let you go. Wait for us to come back with the ladder, and then we can get you in there safely."

The guards went away to get the ladder, and came back not a minute later holding the shifty seeming rope ladder in their hands. They tied it down to wooden stakes that they pushed firmly into the ground, and then hung it down from the top to the bottom of the dungeon. You held your skirts tightly in your hands (remember, you're female in this oneshot since it's the second part of rebellious) and descended the rope ladder carefully, jumping down the last three rungs and absorbing the shock with bent knees. The guards took the ladder away and moved away from the top of the hole to give you some privacy.

At first glance, it looked like Nan Feng was sleeping. But then you realized that he was awake, just not moving, and breathing shallowly. Clearly, he wasn't in peak physical shape or good health either. His brown eyes were filled with an indescribable amount of sadness, and he didn't even smile when he saw you. You questioned in your mind whether he even loved you anymore now that your parents had done this terrible thing to him, whether he even wanted to see you. Your doubts wore you out, and you wanted to cry, but you didn't want to hurt Nan Feng anymore than he was already hurt, so you took deep breaths, gulped down your tears, and composed yourself.

"Nan Feng? My friend, are you alright?" you asked, laying your hands over his bony, cold ones.

You heard his breath tremble, and he let out a little gasp before reaching up to touch your cheek.

"Y/N.... you... came."

His words sounded labored, as if they hurt him to say. You choked back more tears, and gave his hands a reassuring squeeze- or what was supposed to be a reassuring squeeze, but just turned into you holding so tightly onto him that he winced and moved his hands away from you.

"I'm so sorry my parents are hurting you like this. Please, stay strong. Hopefully I can take most of the blame, and you won't have to sit in here for much longer. It must be hell down here, seeing so much food but only being able to eat pig slops... and having a broken ankle, and having lost so much weight and not being able to move, and-"

"It's... okay... I'm not in any... pain," Nan Feng whispered.

"Don't lie to me," you snapped, getting defensive as you usually did. "The guards told me all about what they did to you. Don't even try to tell me you aren't hurt. I can see the pain in every line of that handsome face of yours!"

"I'm not... anymore..." he breathed, sounding weaker by the moment.

"Not what?" you asked.

"Not handsome," he responded. "Just... go... I'm not handsome... enough... for you..."

His eyes closed, and his breathing became more even, which probably meant he was sleeping. You gave him a kiss on the cheek, and stayed with him for a few more minutes before calling the guards in a soft voice so as not to alert anyone, and sneakily exiting the dungeon, leaving your friend alone and asleep there. You promised him with a soft whisper that you would get him out if it was the last thing you did as a member of your family, even if you got disowned or exiled for it. You wouldn't let such a sweet, handsome young man suffer.

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~A week later~

You stood at the top of the dungeon again, this time not to go in to see Nan Feng, but to let him out for the first- and you hoped the last- time. He climbed up the rope ladder with the help of the guards and ran over to you, throwing his arms around you and thanking you profusely with tears in his eyes for helping get him out of the hellhole that your family's dungeon was.

"Where will you go now?" you asked him as you walked out of your mansion and headed for the river that you had played in back when all this mess started.

"I'll probably be moving around or heading back to Heaven Realm," he responded. "I assume you'll be staying in your home, right?"

"Actually, my family disowned me," you said.

Nan Feng seemed shocked by that terrible news. He gave you a warm hug and apologized for getting you into what he called 'an unfortunate and unneeded mess.' You told him it wasn't his fault, but you knew that he didn't believe that for a second.

"Maybe I can live with you?" you proposed.

He smiled at you warmly and took your hands in his.

"I would be glad to let you stay with me in my palace in Heaven Realm, my love. Come, follow me. We'll be together forever!"

You smiled and walked together, with him, away from your old life and towards a new, brighter one.

One where you could be as rebellious as you wished.