He saved a slave who was on the verge of death.
The man's body was covered in bloody wounds, every bone and tendon shattered. Even crawling forward while propping himself up with his palms was almost impossible.
He used precious medicinal herbs to keep the man alive, even sacrificing years of his own cultivation in the process.
Every immortal official called him insane and warned him that meddling in a mortal's fate would damage the foundations of his own cultivation.
But he only stared at the little slave with a hint of obsession. "If he dies, where else will I find a face so much like Master's?"
For three hundred years, he had coveted a man. He had done everything he could to catch up and follow in that man's footsteps, asking for nothing more than to be by his side at all times.
But after his master ascended, he abandoned him outright and vanished without a trace, never looking at him again.
He patted the little slave on the head and chuckled.
"I saved you, and I don't expect anything in return. I only hope you'll keep me company for a while. Then we'll have each other."
Watching the light kindle in the little slave's eyes, he curled his lips in a rather cruel smile.
Once he was certain the other man could no longer live without him, he flicked his sleeve and vanished without a trace.
His master had abandoned him once, so he had discarded this little replacement in turn. Fair enough.
After all, he was only a mortal, a plaything.
But decades later, turmoil erupted in the ghost realm. He was captured in the fighting, his meridians shattered and a criminal's yoke locked around him as he was imprisoned in a dungeon.
He closed his eyes, already prepared to be tortured until his soul was scattered.
But then he saw that the legendary Ghost King had the very face he'd once known so well.
The man approached one step at a time. His scalp prickled and he tried to back away, only to hit the cold iron bars.
He watched helplessly as his slave, his master, effortlessly clamped a hand around his throat and wedged a knee between his legs, grinning through clenched teeth.
"You shameless beast... Master, shall we settle the score?"
#Both are each other's first and only, happy ending
#Content warnings at the end of Chapter One
Theme: Break free of shackles and shatter the rules
