The Worst Painter in the Empire [BL]

Chapter 1

I might as well be dead. 

That was the only thought that ran through my head as my boots squelched on the blood-soaked floor. The gruesome red of blood and its foul smell has long since fazed me. I no longer attempt to search for my nonexistent emotion as I walked down the hall. I knew that I would come up empty. 

Blood dripped from the tip of my sword. The noise echoed loudly in the room within my mind. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. I walked to the far end of the hall until my feet were inches away from one of the many bodies lying lifelessly around me in pools of blood. His back was facing me and for some reason, I felt a sense of familiarity as I stood over the body and surveyed his silhouette. All of a sudden, a lump formed in the back of my throat as regret washed through my long-frozen husk of a heart like an unforeseen swell of a tsunami. I crouched down, my free hand naturally reaching out to him like it was something that I had done countless times. As my hand landed on the small of his arm, I turned his body to face me so that I could finally see his face.

"Huan Zheng! Wake up!"

Huan Zheng gasped, clamoring for breath as he tried to differentiate reality from dream. That nightmare again. It was the ninth time this month and it was barely past the middle of the month. The nightmare always ended at exactly the same moment.

"Xu Huan Zheng! Your good-for-nothing friend is here! If mother finds out, you're dead meat! " Xu Si Wei bellowed at the top of her lungs as she barged into Huan Zheng's room uninvited.

Huan Zheng pulled the blankets over himself in reflex. "Shush! Stop yelling! The only way mother will find out is if you keep roaring in that voice of yours! And didn't the governesses at your ladies' academy teach you not to enter the private chambers of a man!"

"Hah! Don't make me laugh. What man? You're just my idiot brother." Si Wei rolled her eyes at Huan Zheng. Xu Si Wei was Lord Xu's youngest and only daughter. She was Huan Zheng's younger half-sister and despite the crassness in her words, she was the only one in the family who treated him as an equal. The rest of the family only thought of Huan Zheng as nothing but dirt in the corner of their eyes.

"Yeah, yeah. And you are my sister who probably won't get married her entire life." Huan Zheng stuck his tongue out at Si Wei as he got off his bed. Before Si Wei could continue their argument, Huan Zheng continued. "Do you want me to see Da Bai while I'm in my night robes? Let me dress. I'll make it quick. Kick Da Bai out and ask him to wait for me outside."

Si Wei grinned devilishly and made a beeline to remove Da Bai from the property. "As you wish!"

Huan Zheng smiled fondly as he shook his head at Si Wei's rapidly retreating body. She made it so obvious that she can't wait to chase Da Bai out.

Much to Si Wei's disdain, Da Bai once confessed his feelings to her and she had been holding a grudge against Da Bai ever since then. And Si Wei wasn't one to hide her grudges. Come to think of it maybe it was his fault that Da Bai was at the receiving end of Si Wei's rage, he did have a vision of them being happily married when he accidentally brushed Da Bai's hand that one time. And he told Da Bai about it, assuming that his friend wouldn't do anything about it. Who knew that Da Bai would actually confess to Si Wei. Huan Zheng didn't even know that Da Bai actually had a crush on Si Wei for the longest time. It made him think through their entire friendship, wondering if Da Bai approached him so that he could be near Si Wei. In the end, Huan Zheng concluded that Da Bai didn't have the capacity to be that slick.