The Fallen's Guide - chapter 21

“You just rest here.” Tang Nian clapped her hands, intending to leave.

“I’m afraid of the dark.”

The boy reached out and gently grasped her sleeve. His voice was very low, almost as if talking to himself.

His words were neither loud nor soft, but Tang Nian heard them clearly.

She looked, headache rising, at the only window in the room. It was very small, covered with heavy curtains, and faced away from the light.

It seemed that the windows here were only for ventilation.

She went over and pulled open the curtains, unconsciously wondering, why was she doing all this? Wasn’t she supposed to be the Master now? The other party was clearly just a plaything bought and sold, yet the words he spoke carried a gentle, noble command.

It made Tang Nian obey without knowing why.

In the darkness, those writhing substances began to boil again, just a little.

They seemed indignant at the boy’s lie, and irritated by the coming light.

But all this restlessness was unwillingly subdued under the boy’s slightly darkened gaze.

A ray of light spilled in through the window. Tang Nian shrank her hand back, feeling the morning light on her skin was especially scorching.

The reflexive movement shifted her body, and suddenly the old table wobbled unstably, as if one of its legs had been tripped by something, and it tilted to one side.

The boy standing behind her immediately reached out to steady her shoulder. With a muffled thud, Tang Nian’s back crashed straight into his arms.

She hadn’t expected that even such a slight touch would make the boy furrow his beautiful brows and let out a faint, pained whimper.

“Are you alright?”

Tang Nian stood up and looked at him in confusion. “Does it really hurt that much? I’m not that heavy, am I?”

“I’m fine…” He seemed to be in pain, enduring it with effort, but didn’t let go of Tang Nian’s shoulder. His long lashes drooped, his weight pressing on her.

As if he couldn’t stand anymore.

Tang Nian glanced at the table leg in confusion, but her attention was drawn back to the boy, who was suppressing his pain. Ignoring his resistance, she pulled his wrist over and pushed up his sleeve.

Her gaze fell on it, and she couldn’t help but gasp.

The skin under her hand was very pale, delicate and warm, but covered in hideous scars, shockingly conspicuous on such a clean canvas of skin.

Tang Nian finally understood how much the craftsmen who restored artworks must ache when they saw broken porcelain. Even she, who had always been indifferent and restrained, couldn’t help but feel a surge of pity.

“Why are there so many wounds?”

She asked softly, “Does it still hurt?”

The boy unconsciously looked at Tang Nian, observing her from an angle she couldn’t see.

Then he obediently shook his head. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Then why did you just flinch?” Her eyes showed a hint of annoyance, displeased that he wanted to hide his injuries. “If you’re uncomfortable, just say so. Don’t hem and haw.”

The scars extended up his slender arm, disappearing into the rolled-up sleeve. Through the open collar, she could see many such hideous, crimson marks on his body.

At the ball that night, with the dim lights and his ambiguous, seductive demeanor, Tang Nian hadn’t looked closely at all.

Now that she recalled, when the Servants had roughly dragged him out of the cage, he was already covered in wounds.

When Rose introduced him, she had said that this Beautiful Slave had almost been executed. The Servant who was obsessed with him, under his seduction, set fire and burned his former Master to death. In the entire estate, only he, kept as a pet in the conservatory, survived.

Killing one’s Master, under the laws of the Auglas Empire, would mean being sent to the gallows or burned alive.

But he was too beautiful. The executioner who escorted him stole him away, yet was unwilling to sell him.
It was also because of this enchanting appearance that countless disasters befell him. Almost everyone who had possessed him met a miserable end. The boy, like an object, was frantically pursued by those who coveted him, and the scars on his body grew ever more numerous.

Everyone who had ever possessed him wanted to leave their own mark on him, to create more imprints, to make him hurt, to make him cry, to hear his pleading voice, and would commit deranged acts for that purpose.

An NPC that could get its Master killed-truly a headache.

–

The sun climbed higher, and the sunlight gradually became blinding.

Tang Nian, acting like a cold and qualified Master, found him a room and then threw him in to fend for himself, leaving to return to her own room to rest.

At least, that’s how it appeared on the surface.

The boy sat quietly.

On the bed was her quilt, still lingering with her scent.

His slender, pale fingers gently touched the bedding. He lowered his head, burying his face in it, taking a deep breath, a faint, almost unnoticeable blush appearing at the tips of his ears.

It was as if he had become a vine, clinging to the fabric that carried her presence, weaving his own breath into it, inseparable.

Tang Nian, who had left, did not know that when she was not near this Slave, the Little Hedgehog would retract its spines and cautiously draw closer.

After all, for a Slave who had often been bought, sold, abandoned, and tormented, Tang Nian was his new Master-a Master who seemed a bit odd, outwardly cold yet revealing gentleness in the details.

She was the Master he had chosen for himself.

Sunlight streamed through the small window, falling upon him, making his skin shimmer with a strange, fragmented light, as if there were some kind of cut surface. In the darkness, something tugged anxiously at his sleeve, trying to pull him aside, as if wanting him to avoid the scorching rays.

The boy’s skin quickly reddened and swelled as if scalded, then rapidly healed, the cycle repeating over and over.

Yet he seemed to feel no pain. He lowered his eyes, reached out, and grabbed the ever-multiplying Black Tentacles. In his cold, dark purple eyes was a mix of curiosity and indifference.

“What are you?”

The tentacles squirmed between his fingers, timidly wrapping around his slender, beautiful hand. At a glance, it looked as if intricate, bizarre tattoos were etched onto his pale skin.

They caressed him ingratiatingly.

Like a sticky little animal, only its appearance was hideous and terrifying, like pitch, or the night split open by a dagger.

The boy tossed it to the ground, and the black substance quickly shrank back into the shadows.

He frowned, annoyance flickering in his eyes.

“So ugly.”

–

In fact, after the seemingly cold and heartless Master left the Slave’s room, she went to pry open the Maid’s door.

Under the other’s pained and despairing gaze, Tang Nian took an Ointment, then quietly slipped away with it, walking through the empty Earl’s Manor.

What exactly was the Morning Curfew about? Judging by the Maid’s reaction, she had thought something terrifying would happen after sunrise, but along the way, nothing happened at all.

So was the Morning Curfew merely a restriction on daily routine?

The more she thought about it, the less sense it made. For now, she could only attribute it to some peculiar requirement of the Nobles. Indeed, many ancient Nobles had all sorts of strange rules.

Tang Nian pushed open the door to the storeroom.

The room was quiet, and there was a lump on the bed.

The boy seemed to be asleep.

His thin, slender body was curled up beneath the soft bedding, lying on his side, his cheek deeply buried in the quilt, presenting a posture that spoke of a lack of security.