Hell Hath No Fury

chapter 1

"Li Xiangyi... Upmost hero of the Jianghu, unparalleled, best under the sun... And yet, here you are. Bound, defenceless and ready for me..."

The voice was wrong. It was Di Feisheng, yes... His low tone, his cadence laced with pride and arrogance, even with the subtle hints that betrayed his low tolerance for anything he didn't deem worthy or -in his own moral scale- right...

But it was completely wrong. Starting with said moral scale, which was completely out of balance by the weight of those words alone.

Li Lianhua didn't need his eyesight to know this wasn't Di Feisheng.

Unfortunately, he didn't need it either to fear it was.

"How kind of you to visit," he said, because he needed time to push his thoughts back in order.

Di Feisheng snorted. Li Lianhua smiled and tilted his head further down, half reclining as he was when the door's heavy locks had been open.

It was a-Fei's voice, no doubt. But those were Shan Gudao's words. It was...

A sudden spark of pain made him jolt, as his hair was yanked up and he felt hot breath on his face. Di Feisheng throttled him with his other hand, having crossed the room in the blink of an eye. Li Lianhua could smell blood on him.

"I have been waiting for so long to have you at my mercy..." said the nominal leader of Jinyuan Alliance, and in every word Li Lianhua could see the strings of the puppet master moving his lips. "No point in screaming. I sent away the guards, so don't bother wasting your voice. Although... If you're good, I might do this again, with an audience..."

This very clearly being the way he rubbed himself against the blind man under him.

Claiming by right of conquest wasn't the same as taking shamelessly from a fallen enemy. Shan Gudao had never understood the difference, but Di Feisheng would be sooner caught dead than taking advantage from an unbalanced position.

So it really was the karmic bugs...

It was Shan Gudao, the one obsessed with humiliating Li Xiangyi by any means possible. Making him despair. Breaking him thoroughly before he could finally kill him in peace. Li Lianhua should seek comfort in knowing that he had seen so easily through his attempt to make him believe Di Feisheng had turned against him.

He should not feel bad, since there was no betrayal, unlike his so-called shixiong... So why, as Di Feisheng kept gloating with his words and hands on him, why did Li Lianhua feel like his heart was being flayed from the inside out...?

Was it because, in using a-Fei, Shan Gudao had actually found a crack in Li Lianhua's impenetrable...