Too Late (Kowloon 1-2)

Yinzhi x Yinreng

These are actually some self-written scenes I posted on Mingpeng.

I'll try to update daily.

Told from Yinzhi's perspective. Each piece is very short.

You are the eldest son.

When you were three, your second younger brother, who knew nothing of the world, became Crown Prince. He's your brother, yet you have to kneel and bow to him. Since childhood, you've known that you'll be his servant for the rest of your life.

Will you accept your fate?

You refuse. You and your second younger brother become enemies from birth, and your other brothers take sides alongside you.

You think your eighth and ninth younger brothers are sincere, until you realize they've been undermining you behind your back all along. Their hypocritical smiles reek of betrayal, a stench you despise, yet you can't tear away their mask of kindness. Sincerity or deceit, you need allies to play this game.

You can only learn to play more carefully, and to abandon the laughable notion of brotherly affection.

Then one day, this game, destined to end with one of you dead, briefly reaches a full stop. Both sides are left broken, and you and your archrival, the enemy fate chose for you, are confined far apart in separate courtyards.

And so you watch, as one flame dies out, then another pair of brothers begins their own fight to the death.

The obsession you've held since birth is finally shattered. Your soulless body withers away in this accursed courtyard--

Until one day, the call to war reaches your courtyard, too. Suddenly, you remember your youth: fine clothes, a spirited steed, and old dreams in all their glory.

You envy your fourteenth younger brother so bitterly that you curse him with the vilest words. You know that if you hadn't both been broken, you would be the one leading a vast army onto the battlefield.

Then, after an unknown stretch of time, you hear the funeral bells from the imperial city. They ring in honor of the final victor, and pronounce judgment on all the defeated.

You've spent fifteen years in this crumbling courtyard. Your brothers enjoy either the ease of victory or the certainty of their impending death. And you must go on living without hope.

Another year passes. As snow swirls through the air, you hear that your second younger brother has died. The obsession that consumed half your life finally goes out for good. You've grown frail and old, with white hair and a fading spirit. At last, you suddenly understand: your younger brother, the one who was still in swaddling clothes back then, did nothing wrong. He should never have had to bear the burden of the baseless resentment between you and your mother.

But it's all too late, a full fifty years too late.