Please Don't Die at 24

[I know you are foolish, frivolous, and empty-headed, yet I love you.

I know you are greedy, mercenary, vulgar, and vain, yet I love you.

I know you are second-rate, yet I love you.]

[An outwardly pure and harmless white lotus, inwardly rotten, decadent, selfish, and greedy villainous pursuer & a taciturn, gloomy, utterly amoral, nonhuman loyal-dog receiver]

[Cong Qing (pursuer) & Hodel (receiver)]

At ten, Cong Qing learned that his family had chosen him to be a bride. His parents saw him only as a tool to restore the family to its former glory.

At eighteen, under the pretext of "inspecting the goods early," his elders sent him across the ocean to the Weins family. The darkest three months of his life began.

He was imprisoned and abused, treated like a toy to be ravaged at will, and branded with an iron to mark him as "private property." Countless hands roamed over his body, and humiliating photos of him were taken by the countless...

At nineteen, Cong Qing killed the man who was his husband in name only. Both families put out a warrant for his arrest.

That same year, Cong Qing found a glass bottle washed ashore. Inside the bottle... was an octopus, black all over?

Cong Qing released it from the bottle. The octopus told him that if he fed it enough blood every day, it could grant any wish.

Cong Qing said he wanted a new face. It said no problem.

Cong Qing said he wanted everyone he hated to get what they deserved. It said no problem.

Cong Qing said he wanted wealth. It said no problem.

Cong Qing said he wanted to become the head of the family, and for everyone standing in his way to die. It said no problem.

Cong Qing said he was in a bad mood today and asked it to eat his current husband. It still said no problem.

No one knew where the new head of the Cong family had come from, after the family rapidly declined and then rose again. No one knew that Cong Qing wanted to die every day, yet each day he felt alive in his intimate union with the monster. He even wickedly seduced the monster in front of the husband he had chained up like a dog in the basement, asking if he was enjoying the show.

At last, when Cong Qing was twenty-four, the truth came out. All his dirty schemes and crimes from the past were laid bare in the spotlight, and all the evidence pointed to the tall, taciturn man who accompanied him to all kinds of events.

The man was imprisoned. On the day Cong Qing held a press conference, a reporter asked what his relationship with the man was.

Cong Qing fell silent for a moment, then tears fell as he said:

"He was the real mastermind. I knew nothing..."

The case ended with the man mysteriously vanishing from his prison cell. Two days later, a letter appeared out of nowhere in the study of Cong Qing's home.

It was addressed to the nineteen-year-old Cong Qing, crouched by the shore and silently wiping away his tears:

[That day, Cong Qing picked up a message in a bottle and said he was glad to meet me. From today on, it was his new beginning. He would cast aside all conscience, kindness, and weakness, and live better than everyone else. So, darling.

Please don't die at twenty-four.]

According to official news reports, Cong Qing, head of the Cong family, never appeared in public again after the press conference. Early the following spring, he jumped from the forty-second floor.

He was exactly twenty-five years old.

[Reader's Guide]

- A short story written purely for personal kinks. Both pursuer and receiver are pure villains with no moral compass [emphasis]

- Contains a small amount of Lovecraftian elements and nonhuman content

- Beautiful pursuer and handsome receiver. The pursuer is not the receiver's first sexual partner. The receiver is physically submissive, with no role reversal [emphasis]

- Contains a lot of scenes in which the pursuer is abused. Please take note

Theme: It was all a dream, and now it's gone