Don't Pick Up Sickly Guides

A Sentinel and Guide story, with the Guide as the top.

Sickly, scheming top x cold-hearted but utterly biased Sentinel bottom, who is always worried the top will die because he's too frail.

What is a Guide?

Fragile, physically weak, skilled with mental powers, a Sentinel's support and subordinate?

In the six hundred and thirty-first year of the Empire, Xie Zhuo, an S-rank Guide once exiled to District Eleven, casually twists off the emperor's head with one hand, wearing his usual lazy, nonchalant smile.

His face is pale, his body frail and sickly, and he looks as though he might cough up blood at any moment. Yet not one person present dares even breathe too heavily.

The old emperor is dead. A new dynasty has begun.

Outside the palace, the people gather in crowds. Silent as the deep snow of District Eleven, they stand quietly, waiting for the dawn they have long awaited.

The instigator of it all tosses aside the emperor's head and slowly descends from the throne. He extends a hand with clearly defined knuckles toward someone.

"Shen Fuzhou." Xie Zhuo's voice is soft.

"My hand is dirty. Blood makes me dizzy. Wipe it for me."

*

Xie Zhuo died in the bitter winter of District Eleven in his previous life.

He was born into a noble family in the Norman Empire. As an S-rank Guide, he should have had the brightest of futures: inheriting a title, marrying another S-rank Sentinel, and living a wealthy, comfortable life.

Everything changed when he was eighteen. His family went bankrupt, his fiance betrayed him, and he was exiled to District Eleven, the most desolate place, where snow fell all year round.

Penniless and forced to conceal his identity as a Guide to keep the many covetous Sentinels from abducting him, Xie Zhuo killed his own spirit companion, turning himself into a disabled Guide.

After years of struggling to survive, he still couldn't escape the Empire's pursuit. He died in the winter of his twentieth year.

When he woke again, he had been reborn at eighteen.

Good news: He was alive.

Bad news: His spirit companion was still dead, and he was already on a train bound for District Eleven.

In five minutes, the train would be hijacked by the legendary Dark Sentinel. Back then, he had jumped off the train to escape and broken one of his legs in the process.

With his spirit companion gone and his body so frail, it was obvious he couldn't jump off the train again.

Xie Zhuo lowered his eyes and thought: He had to survive.

*

It was an ordinary hijacking. Shen Fuzhou boarded the train, calculating how long the supplies he was taking back to District Eleven would last.

"Boss! There's a young nobleman here! He looks like he's about to die!"

Hearing his subordinate's voice, Shen Fuzhou looked up.

A white-haired boy sat quietly in his seat, pale as snow. A long gash had been cut into his wrist with a small knife, and blood streamed from it.

His voice was as cool and cold as snow, and his quiet words landed like thunder:

"I'm a Guide."

"Sentinel, do you need Guide pheromones?"

The white-haired boy raised his hand and smiled as he offered his bleeding wrist to him.

Shen Fuzhou finally caught a faint trace of Guide pheromones.

A weak, disabled Guide.

That was what Shen Fuzhou thought.

He was ruthless enough, at least. Shen Fuzhou didn't mind taking care of one more useless little thing.

He just never imagined that he would end up looking after him for the rest of his life.

*

A thrilling, feel-good rise-to-power story about an ambitious schemer and his sharpest blade.

At first, the top uses the bottom for revenge, while the bottom raises the top as if he were raising a son.

They realize their feelings at roughly the same time. If anything, the bottom notices first. The top falls hard: the heartless man falls in love, and all the love and sincerity he has left are reserved for one person.

Everyone except the two main characters could be killed off at any time, so please be warned.

March 28, 2024: The synopsis may change, but the central premise will not.

Theme: A sickly, masterful, top-tier heartthrob top. Yes, yes, yes.