Back Before My Ailing Wife Died

Sickly, self-destructive, pain-loving yet pain-fearing servant bottom & gentle, traditional patriarchal top who is reborn

Mo Yuan was a hostage sent by a weak kingdom to sue for peace.

He was less a hostage than a plaything. His homeland had said that sending him over meant he could be treated as a slave.

He was assigned to serve Third Prince Qi Hezhao, and ranked even lower than a household servant.

The Third Prince was violent and unpredictable, and had a taste for men. Their encounters were always a messy affair.

Little by little, Mo Yuan went from fearing pain to accepting it, and even enjoying it.

People are so strange. They can feel pleasure even when they're in pain.

He loved pain.

He feared pain.

He pushed himself until he was weak and sickly.

Until one day, the prince suddenly seemed like a different person: kind and gentle, as if someone had taken over his body.

The prince was still very strict, and punishment at home still hurt like hell. But the thick warmth wrapped around the pain, making Mo Yuan's heart itch with longing.

The prince would also gently wipe away Mo Yuan's tears, then kiss him, hold him, and comfort him after hurting him.

Until one day, Mo Yuan happened to hear Qi Hezhao whispering to himself:

"A Yuan, how many times do I have to start over before I can keep you alive?"

Mo Yuan thought that his frail body wasn't so different from the old tree in the corner of the courtyard, nearly dead.

From the moment he was born, his life was meant to be sacrificed. He was a thing, a servant, a bedmate, anything but a person.

His body couldn't bear pain, yet he was desperate for it, as if the bizarre thrill it gave him was the only proof that he was alive.

That day, he fell asleep beneath the old tree. The winter wind brought a rare flush to his usually pale face.

When he woke, the room was warm and the bed soft and comfortable. The violent prince was crying beside his bed.

"A Yuan, please, please stay alive."

Mo Yuan didn't answer.

He thought the noble prince was a strange man. Why would he cry for him?

Mo Yuan had never wanted to live, until one day he did.

To him, love meant pain.

To get close to it was to get close to pain.

To move away from it was to move away from happiness.

Mo Yuan had broken the household rules for the umpteenth time, and was due fifty strokes of the cane.

The rules were strict. Fifty strokes often left a person permanently crippled.

In the prince's manor, a servant who acted up like this would have been killed a hundred times over.

But Qi Hezhao took the cane from the servant, sent all the others away, and left only the two of them in the courtyard.

"Don't be afraid, my A Yuan. I'll make it easier for you."

The prince smiled gently, and replaced the cane in his hand with his palm.

He stroked Mo Yuan's head.

"I know how to make you enjoy it."

Reader advisory:

1. Pure hurt/comfort, redemption, and mutual devotion.

2. Both are each other's first, they dote on each other, one-on-one. The top is reborn from the start.

Theme: Grow up well