[Strong Female Lead, Weak Male Lead | Both Leads Are Inexperienced | Unhinged, Repressed Male Lead | Coercive Taming | Possessiveness | Intense Push and Pull | Yandere Strikes Back]
I want him dressed in spotless white, untouched by the world, yet willingly untying my sash beneath the candlelight.
I want him to be my husband in a proper wedding, and my private entertainer behind closed doors.
I want him steady and dependable like an older brother, yet timid and meek like a younger one.
I demand everything of him, except that he have a soul of his own.
For three years, she kept him by her side, sculpting him with her own hands into the man she wanted.
In public, he was her dignified, gentle, and composed husband. In private, he bowed and knelt, obedient to her every command as her personal entertainer.
He was her elder brother, her little brother, an object in the palm of her hand that she could mold at will. He could be anything but himself.
At first, all he wanted was a quiet corner where he could play the qin in peace for the rest of his life. Instead, she trapped him in the palace and forced him to live behind countless masks.
Then, when three years had passed, he handed her a book filled with every role he had played. All trace of meekness and timidity had vanished from his eyes.
“Your Highness, choose one. I’ll cast all the others aside.”
She turned to the final page and saw a single, solitary word: Me.
She had used her power to tame his very bones, raising a whole houseful of personas, yet in the end she lost the boy he had once been and awakened the mad demon lurking beneath his obedience.
