How to Save a Poor Little Demi-Human

Pitiful intersex little demon bottom vs. gentle, possessive swordsmanship champion top

Xiao Ci vs. Shen Yushu

Angst warning: being kept as a mistress + childbirth + a clash between good and evil

Xiao Ci's perspective:

Xuelou threatened me, using my demon friends to force me back to its side. As I listened to the shrill screams of the Red Fox and Brittle Snake being tortured through the message conch, I felt as if I had fallen into an icy abyss.

By then, Shen Yushu and I had already been in love for some time.

Naturally, he didn't want me to leave him, and I didn't want to, either.

But I had grown up with them, and besides, they'd been captured by Xuelou because they were searching for me after I went missing.

I had to go save them.

I left Shen Yushu without saying goodbye.

I was taken back to that damned Yulan Courtyard.

I glared at Xuelou, seated at the head of the room, my eyes burning with poison.

It only looked at me with an inscrutable smile.

I returned to Yulan Courtyard at night. My only purpose there was to be Xuelou's captive lover, and that very night, just as before, it came to use me.

My heart had always belonged to Shen Yushu.

I fought back, but, just like before, it was useless.

I was dirty again.

I was miserable, but I didn't dare die.

I kept thinking that Shen Yushu would come save me. If I died, I would never see him again, that bright and gentle man like a clear breeze beneath a moonlit sky.

Xuelou brought me the child it had fathered by raping me before.

He was exquisitely beautiful, far more so than I was.

Only his eyes were dark like mine. Everything else about him was just like the other one.

I'd given birth to him in the mountains while fleeing. I was too overwhelmed to do anything but abandon him and run.

Even so, he seemed to like me very much.

Every day, he called me "Li'a, Li'a."

Even so, I still couldn't bring myself to care for him. I knew exactly how he had come into the world.

He was proof that Xuelou had raped me.

I paid little attention to the child. Even when he cried, I never comforted him.

All I could think about was Shen Yushu, who had once brought me happiness.

Xuelou naturally saw this, too.

It flew into a rage at me several times. It forbade me from copying Shen Yushu's calligraphy, threw away the prayer beads, hairpin, dresses, and message conch he'd given me, then abused me again.

Before long, I was pregnant again.

Xuelou was delighted. I remained silent.

Later, I don't know what Xuelou fed me. Little by little, I forgot who Shen Yushu was, and instead began to feel my heart flutter for Xuelou.

It planted a love spell in me, and I completely forgot Shen Yushu.

Xuelou took its demon army to Dragon City to seize power. Taking advantage of its absence, the Red Fox brought Shen Yushu and his weary companions to find me.

By then, my belly had begun to show. I clutched the child in my arms, staring in alarm at the human intruder.

I clearly saw his gaze turn sinister and terrifying the instant he recognized me.

My palms were clammy. Worried that something had happened to Xuelou, I held Nian Ci tightly and looked at him in fear.

"You... who are you?"

A look of shock mingled with sorrow seemed to flash across his eyes.

Before I could react, he took Nian Ci from my arms and handed him to one of his subordinates. Then he wrapped an arm around my waist and carried me away by force.

I was still dazed, thinking of what Brittle Snake had told me: "His name is Shen Yushu. He's the one you love most."

I didn't know if it was true. I couldn't remember ever knowing this man.

Coming soon:

ABO childbirth, bittersweet romance, melodrama, Hong Kong flair, youthful love

Li Jiayou -- Chen Xirong

So I'm begging you,

Please don't ever leave me.

-- "I Only Care About You" by Teresa Teng

Because my grandmother once shared an inexplicable connection with Li Boxiong, the famous "Lion King" of Hong Kong, my family wasn't terribly poor. Still, I was fortunate enough to receive sponsorship from the Li family when I was thirteen. The elderly Lion King, old enough to be my grandfather, even took me off Nandun Island and sponsored me to study in bustling Hong Kong, where the educational resources were better. He even arranged for me to live with his third wife, the mildest-tempered of his five wives.

At first, everyone thought it was a windfall from heaven. The neighbors said our family was lucky, that I was lucky, and even I thought it was an opportunity that came once in a lifetime.

Later, in some ways, it really was a good thing that no one could deny, even to this day, despite all the heartache I endured. After all, the money had truly gone to my family.

I came to the Li household at thirteen and met Li Jiayou, who was sixteen. I could tell at a glance that he despised me. Back then, I had no idea how painful it would be to be ignored by everyone.

Master Li sponsored me mainly because I looked so much like my grandmother. Because of that, the people in the third household may have assumed that I would eventually become their family's sixth wife. Even if that wasn't the case, there was nothing respectable about the reason I'd been brought here.

I was badly ostracized in their home. At the elite international school I attended, everyone talked about things I couldn't afford. I couldn't make friends, and often went a week, even a month, without anyone speaking to me.

When I was fourteen, I finally couldn't stand the loneliness anymore. I ran away from home with my cat.

In the end, though, I failed completely.

My parents wouldn't agree to it.

That winter, I was in eighth grade and Li Jiayou was in eleventh. Our relationship had turned terrible. We hurled insults at each other. I called him a boy with a bunch of half-siblings, and he called me someone abandoned by my family.

We fought. I bit his hand first, leaving a bloody tooth mark. He'd trained in Muay Thai and kicked me in the stomach. I spent nearly a month in the hospital.

Our relationship reached a boiling point. He hated me, and I hated him, too.

But instead of worrying about him and his strange family, all I wanted was to go home, back to Nandun Island, where it was summer three seasons a year. I wanted to live with my family. It was terribly lonely when no one spoke to me.

Li Jiayou despised his strange family, but he wasn't strong enough to break free. Maybe to relieve the pressure and his mother's excessive expectations, he started smoking, dyed his hair, and talked back. In the end, he got sick.

A recurring susceptibility episode. He needed to relieve his excess pheromones by marking a beta or an omega.

His first episode came on unexpectedly. He couldn't bite his family, so in the end his mother made me take his place.

Helping a patient with a temporary bite on the neck was a small favor for me, a beta who couldn't be marked.

But what did he and I have to do with each other? I could grit my teeth and let him bite me once, but if he tried a second time, I'd want to hit him.

But things never go as planned. His mother said he absolutely refused to accept any of the betas she'd found for him. Since he'd already bitten me once, she asked me to help him out.

In the end, the money won me over. I was only staying in their home because of the sponsorship, and if I saved enough ahead of time, I could go home.

Compared to leaving this place early and going home, getting bitten was nothing. I could take it.

Li Jiayou was nineteen, and I was sixteen. More than a year had passed, and Li Jiayou still hadn't recovered. But I'd saved enough money to go home.

What a load of nonsense, saying Hong Kong had better educational resources. Being ignored and ostracized was the worst part.

I want to go home!!!

When I told the Li family I wanted to go home, I never expected Li Jiayou to fly into a rage and forbid me from leaving.

Theme: Equality between humans and demons, and the consequences of good and evil