Lanterns Ablaze in the Nine Hells

After a palace coup, his father was convicted, his mother died, and disaster threatened to strike the whole family. Mu Yao (yao) took his newborn baby sister and fled in the dead of night to seek refuge at the door of his sworn enemy, Wan Yunzhou.

The Wan family took Mu Yao in, but Wan Yunzhou had one condition: Mu Yao would have to serve him as a slave.

Mu Yao agreed.

Once his sister was settled and they had left the imperial city, the threat to Mu Yao's life was gone.

But he realized that Wan Yunzhou intended to make him his bed slave.

Mu Yao refused.

“Either you become mine, or you die. Pick one,” Wan Yunzhou said.

Mu Yao chose to run away...

Thirteen years later, Mu Yao's childhood best friend, Qing Lang, arrived in Yunchou in dire straits. He discovered that Mu Yao had become Yue Hanjiang and given himself to a man!

And that man was none other than Wan Yunzhou, whom Mu Ran had despised since childhood.

Qing Lang was utterly shocked:

“I never thought you'd fall in love with him.”

Mu Yao's expression remained calm.

“I don't love him.”

“I just don't want to leave him.”

The three things Wan Yunzhou enjoyed most in his life all had to do with Mu Yao:

First, Mu Yao, who had looked down on him, came to beg him after his family was destroyed.

Second, Mu Yao's first night belonged to him, and Mu Yao had begged him to take it.

Third, he kept Mu Yao firmly in his grasp and never let him go.

The three things that hurt Mu Yao most in his life:

First, watching his mother die and his father be killed, powerless to do anything.

Second, watching Wan Yunzhou near death, powerless to do anything.

Third, wanting to escape Wan Yunzhou, but being just as powerless...

Wan Yunzhou felt his life had been worthwhile. He had protected the person he wanted to protect and obtained the person he wanted.

Mu Yao felt that life had been hopeless, with far too many things he couldn't control or choose...

Nothing was up to him, not even life or death.

When Mu Yao refused to choose, Wan Yunzhou chose for him.

So Mu Yao was forced to have Wan Yunzhou, and in the end was forced to lose him.

He had been forced into it.

That's what he had always believed.

When they truly reached the moment of parting ways, Mu Yao's naive yet unyielding feelings finally began to waver.

Wan Zhanchun/Wan Yunzhou: a domineering, perverse emperor who is only perverse toward Yue Hanjiang (for real)

Mu Yao/Mu Ranzhi (Yue Hanjiang): cold on the outside, soft-hearted, and supremely skilled in martial arts, but completely unable to resist Wan Zhanchun alone (not really)

[This story is set in a fictional world, with a happy ending]

, the complete story will be finished!

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[Content warnings]

* The top isn't entirely chaste and has a past of losing himself to madness. Readers who require a chaste top, proceed with caution.

* The top is perverse and loveless early on, and the romance develops slowly. Proceed with caution if that bothers you.

(Please don't judge the characters by the standards of normal people, because not all of them are normal.)

* The characters' values do not represent the author's. Please read with an open mind.

Theme: Good and evil are always repaid, if not by heaven, then by people.