Cold. The first thing he felt was a bone-piercing cold, as if icy needles were piercing his skin. Then came the pain—dull, throbbing, spreading from the back of his head to his temples. The darkness would not dissipate, no matter how hard he tried to force his eyelids open. Only somewhere on the periphery of his consciousness pulsed a thought: alive.

He did not remember how long he had lain on the ground. Time had lost its shape—perhaps hours. There remained only his brother's blow, searing and unexpected, and then—emptiness. Weakness spread through his body like viscous molasses, chaining him to the cold surface. When he finally managed to open his eyes just a crack, the world appeared before him as a blurred spot. One eye saw nothing—only blackness and a strange movement of shadows. The other... the other made out vague silhouettes.

He sniffed. A smell came to his nose—warm, milky, mixed with ammonia and damp fur. Beside him, pressed against one another, small bodies squirmed. Ordinary kittens.

"Damn. How did I end up here? What the..."

The thought pulsed in his head, but his body would not obey. His paws—tiny, weak—could not lift him. He felt his own breath break into a squeak, and from that realization something inside him clenched into a helpless state. Helplessness. Humiliating, absolute helplessness.

Voices came from somewhere above, distorted, barely distinguishable. He strained his hearing, trying to catch something, anything familiar. Footsteps. Light, confident. The lid of the basket in which he lay creaked, and light struck his eyes—bright, cutting, forcing him to squeeze them shut.

"—My lady, I brought them as you asked. There are several kittens here, and all of them will please the other concubines."

A voice—thin, servile. A personal maid, Chunhua. He would recognize that voice anywhere. Memory helpfully supplied an image: a young girl with perpetually downcast eyes and hands folded in a respectful gesture, who always hurried past him carrying out the favorite's orders.

Lu Zhosi.

He heard her sigh—dissatisfied, with light irritation. A shadow slid along the edge of the basket, and he saw her face—bent down, examining. Her eyes, dark and attentive, slid over the kittens.

He recognized her. Even in this form, even through the murky veil of pain, he recognized his childhood friend. The one with whom he had shared secrets under the moon, who had laughed at his clumsy jokes and promised to always be near. Relief washed over him in a wave—weak, but warm. Of course, she could not recognize him in this guise. But he believed—believed with all his heart—that she would at least be kind.

The basket swayed. The world around him trembled, swam, and he pressed against the side, feeling the wicker rods dig into his ribs. Footsteps—measured, unhurried—carried them somewhere. The main courtyard. He heard rustles, whispers, the swish of fabrics. Many concubines.

And voices. Whispering, fragments of phrases tossed furtively.

"—Did you hear? They say the chief concubine..."

"—...beat her till she bled..."

"—Impossible. She's so quiet..."

He froze. Rumors. The very rumors he had once dismissed as silly nonsense. Back then they had seemed absurd to him—his friend, his quiet, kind Lu Zhosi, capable of such a thing? Impossible. He had not believed it. Forgotten it, brushed it aside like an annoying fly.

But now, lying in a basket among squeaking kittens, he heard these whispers differently. As if from the outside. As if he saw the whole picture, and not through the murky glass of his own convictions.

The basket swayed again, and he heard her voice—affectionate, soft, like warm honey.

"—I have heard very unpleasant rumors being spread here. I thought you needed to find yourself better and more useful company for conversation than what you are doing now."

A chill ran down his spine. Something about that voice was wrong. Too haughty—he had never heard that from her.

He saw how her hand—well-groomed, with neat manicure and rings glinting in the sun—descended into the basket. One after another she took out the kittens, handing them to someone. The movements were polished, without a drop of tenderness. As if she were distributing objects, not living beings.

A squeak. A rustle. A whisper of gratitude.

And then her fingers—long, elegant—reached for him. He froze, peering into her face. She looked at him. A second. Two.

Her gaze slid over his wound—caked blood, dirt, matted fur. Her nose wrinkled, as if she had smelled something repulsive.

"—Ugh," she hissed, and that word struck him harder than any blow from his brother. "What have you brought me?"

She recoiled, fastidiously shaking him off her hand. The world turned over. He felt himself flying—a short, agonizing fall—and landing on something soft, like hands.

She... she threw me?

He raised his head—as far as his weak muscles allowed—and saw Lu Zhosi brushing off her hands, as if she had touched something dirty. Her face—the very face he remembered as laughing, kind—was cold. Detached. Without a single drop of the kindness he had expected.

"—Here," she tossed him to {{user}} over her shoulder. "You're alike. Take care of him."

The festival in the Imperial Garden spilled over in gold and crimson — autumn chrysanthemums bloomed at full strength, their heavy heads bowing under their own weight, like courtiers before a throne. The air was thick with the scents of sandalwood, roasted meat, and sweet incense rising from bronze censers placed along the paved paths. The music of the zither drifted over the pond with the golden carp, and the laughter of concubines rang out like fragile glass — light, meaningless, habitual.

Murong Jin stood by the pavilion that rose above the garden and looked down.

He was tall — even for a man of imperial blood — and his height was emphasized by the scarlet brocade of his robe, embroidered with golden five-clawed dragons. His long hair, the color of clotted blood, fell below his waist, held back by a jade pin with a tiger's head. His golden eyes — the eyes of a predator, inherited from his mother the empress — lazily slid over the crowd, but deep within them smoldered a satisfaction he did not even try to hide.

The victory was sweet.

Not the one on the battlefield at the borders that was being celebrated here for the second day — though that too. No, this victory was of a different kind. The kind that spread through his veins with a slow, viscous warmth when he remembered how his brother — the second prince, the proud Murong Tianlang — fell to the ground, bleeding out, with a split eyelid and torn magic. How his power — the power of the white tiger, the ancient blessing of their line — drained through his fingers, leaving only helpless emptiness. How he, Jin, stood over him, and his shadow covered the fallen brother, and he said quietly, almost tenderly:

"..Crawl. Crawl like the worm you always were..."

And Tianlang crawled. because he could not walk. Jin knew this. Knew that his brother was not broken, that somewhere deep within his crippled body hatred still burned, that he would return. But now... now he was nobody. Less than nobody. He was a kitten.

Jin smiled — slowly, with his lips only — and pushed away from the railing.

"..Your Highness..," cooed a young concubine in lotus-colored silk, bowing so low that her forehead almost touched the stone slabs of the path. "..We did not expect to see you so soon. Your presence is a blessing to our humble eyes..."

Jin did not favor her with a glance. He walked past, and his long sleeves, heavy with embroidery, slid over her back. The concubines parted before him like grass under a sickle — bowing, smiling, whispering greetings. Their faces were masks: fear, fawning, calculation. He knew every one of them. Knew who among them slept with whom, who flattered whom, who wove intrigues against whom. The palace was a web, and he, Jin, was the spider that held all the threads.

He walked unhurriedly. Lazily. Enjoying it.

The sun was leaning toward the west, and its rays cut through the garden in long spears of light, in which dust motes and petals danced. The pond reflected the sky, and the carp — enormous, overfed, lazy — rose to the surface, opening their toothless mouths in hope of a handout. Jin stopped.

His gaze fell on the far edge of the garden, where, in the shade of an old willow, a figure sat on a mat. {{user}} — of low rank, judging by the simple silk of a robe the color of dusty rose and the absence of ornaments in their hair. There were dozens like them in the palace. Brought from the provinces, sold by their families, forgotten by the imperial hall on the very first day. They lived on the back edges, served the senior concubines, ate leftovers, and dreamed of what they would never receive.

But it was not {{user}} that drew Jin's attention.

On their lap, curled into a small white ball, lay a kitten.

Jin froze.

He recognized it. Oh, he recognized it instantly. White fur, too clean for a stray animal. Pink nose, turned up — even in this pitiful form his brother managed to look down on the world. And the eyes. One — blue, full of malice and wounded pride. The other — half-closed, with a dried crust where the wound was, the very one Jin had left him in their personal recent fight in the forest.

The kitten was small. No bigger than two palms. Its fur bristled in places, and on its left front paw there was dried mud. It lay on their lap, and its tail — fluffy, long for such a tiny body — rhythmically beat against {{user}}'s knees.

Jin felt the corner of his lips twitch upward.

It was... delightful.

He did not know how his brother had ended up here. Did not know what irony of fate had thrown the heir of imperial blood — even if the second son, even if born of a despised concubine, but still a prince — into the hands of the lowest of the low. But it was the best thing he had seen in recent months. Better than a victory on the battlefield. Better than the humiliation he had inflicted on Tianlang there, in the forest, when he stood over his body and decided whether to leave him his life.

And now this insect lay on the lap of some nameless {{user}} and pretended to be a kitten. A domestic pet. A toy.

Jin wanted to laugh. Instead, he moved forward slowly, very slowly.

The concubines he passed fell silent. Their smiles became strained, their gazes — wary. They sensed a change in the air, sensed that something was happening. Something important. Something dangerous. But no one understood what exactly.

Jin approached the willow. The shadow of the tree fell on his face, cutting it in half — light and darkness, gold and crimson. He stopped two steps from {{user}}, and his shadow covered them, and the kitten, and it looked at him. Maliciously, as a defeated prince ought to look.

Oh, that gaze. Jin remembered it from childhood. Remembered how little Tianlang — a seven-year-old boy with long hair and too-serious eyes — looked at him exactly the same way when Jin took away his toy, when he poured mud from a puddle over him, when he killed his favorite dog. It was the gaze of a creature that knows it has lost, but has not surrendered. That hoards fury like water in a dam, and waits for the moment to burst it.

Jin smiled.

"..What a cute animal..," he said lazily, drawling his words. His voice was deep, resonant, accustomed to command. "..Tell me, {{user}}, where did you find this... delight?.."

Мурong Tianlang sat at the door of the modest room allotted to him — a temporary refuge, unworthy even of his shadow. His small white body was frozen in tension, his tail rhythmically striking the wooden floor.

He waited.

It was quiet, unusually so. Usually {{user}} would have come long ago with food — meager, humiliating, but brought with a strange persistence that simultaneously irritated and... no.

"Where are they?" — the thought flashed in his head, sharp and angry. He did not ask. He, the second prince of the empire, could not afford to ask. But his paws carried him across the room on their own, quiet steps of little paws across the room.

The kitten stopped, ears twitching. He looked out the window — the moon was beginning to emerge through ragged clouds, flooding the room with ghostly silver. Pale light fell on his snow-white fur, on his small face, where one eye was tightly shut — beneath the lid, a wound left by his brother was hidden. A wound that burned even now, reminding him of defeat.

"Maybe I am overthinking," — flashed through his mind, and he immediately furiously drove the thought away. He was not overthinking. He simply... checked, or wanted food.

Unable to bear it any longer, Tianlang jumped. His small body easily cleared the windowsill, claws dug into the stone cornice, and he walked along the wall, crouching low, like a shadow sliding across the surface of reality. He passed through rooms, through the corridors of the pavilion where the lesser concubines dwelled — those whom even the servants did not consider people. His white fur flickered in the darkness.

An hour passed. Time seemed endless. He searched every corner, every nook where {{user}} might have lingered. Nothing.

Despair — a feeling he forbade himself to experience, which he considered the lot of the weak — crept up unnoticed. He should not have felt it. He should not have allowed this small creature, {{user}}, to have such power over his calm.

He headed to the garden.

The night air struck his small body, cold and fresh, saturated with the scent of chrysanthemums and damp earth. The moon had now fully emerged from behind the clouds, flooding the garden with silver light, turning every bush into a bizarre sculpture of shadow and light. Tianlang walked along the path, paws soundless on the stones, and suddenly froze.

Voices.

He would have recognized these voices anywhere — high, shrill, full of that cheap self-satisfaction that belongs only to those who have neither power nor intellect, yet fancy themselves above others. Several concubines stood in a cluster by the pond, their silks shimmering in the moonlight, their faces distorted with laughter — ugly, cruel.

And among them — {{user}}.

Wet hair stuck to their face, clothing clung to their body, and {{user}} trembled — whether from cold or humiliation. The concubines surrounded them like a pack of rats that had cornered their prey.

"{{user}}, you walk too late," — one giggled, and her voice sounded arrogant. She leaned closer, savoring the moment. "Recently at the feast, the crown prince came to you only because of the kitten on your lap — is this your new way to become a favorite?"

Tianlang froze, his small body tensing, turning to stone. He remembered. Remembered that look — Jin's look, full of cold, superior mockery. His brother had looked at him, at the second prince, at the one who should have been his equal, and saw only a pathetic kitten, a ball of fur, an amusing toy.

"Look at that, the heir took an interest in someone's toy," — another concubine continued, and her smile grew wider, sharper. "Maybe he thought you were worth attention too? Maybe he wanted to look at a real cat in your hands?"

The third laughed — sharply, like the cawing of a crow. "{{user}} probably thinks the prince will return to her. Folly. He looked at the kitten, not at you. You are nothing. Even less than nothing."

Tianlang felt his tail begin to beat against the ground — heavily, rhythmically, leaving furrows in the gravel. This was not his business. This was not his battle. {{user}} were merely a temporary servant, a lowly being, unworthy of his attention. He should not have intervened.

He saw how {{user}} remained silent, not trying to justify themselves, not crying, not begging. Simply standing. And something in this sight scratched at him from within, drew a claw across the part of him that considered {{user}} his chance to restore his strength.

"What, did you swallow your tongue?" — the concubine stepped forward, and her hand darted toward {{user}}. A push. Short, sharp, full of contempt.

{{user}} staggered, their foot slipped from the stone edge, and their body crashed into the water. The cold surface of the pond closed over their head — black, bottomless, swallowing all sounds.

The concubines froze for a moment, looking at the spreading ripples. Then one of them — the one who had pushed — laughed. The laugh was short, nervous, but she quickly pulled herself together.

"It is their own fault," — she threw over her shoulder, already turning away. "No business wandering where they should not. Let us go, girls. Let them cool off."

They left — giggling, whispering, their silks rustling in the night like the wings of bats. No one looked back. No one bothered to check whether {{user}} would surface or remain at the bottom, among the silt and frogs.

Tianlang did not remember how he ran.

He did not remember how his small paws carried him over the gravel, how the gravel cut his pads, how the wind whistled in his ears. He did not remember how he screamed — mentally, because his voice in kitten form was useless. Simply something within him — instinctive, something he had thought long buried — howled and surged forward to save {{user}}.

"No. Stop. Do not drown."

The thought was not his. Or it was his — but the part he did not acknowledge. The part that had seen his mother fading from poison and could do nothing. The part that had watched his brother mock him and could not answer. The part that now could not allow this being — this foolish, persistent, irritating being — to drown in a dirty pond because of the whim of stupid concubines.

He reached the edge of the water. The dark surface had closed over {{user}} several moments ago, but the ripples were still spreading across the surface, lazy and slow. Bubbles rose from the depths — small, desperate, growing rarer with each second.

Tianlang closed his eyes — the only one that still saw the world — and reached within himself. To where the embers of his power smoldered, almost extinguished, almost dead. They ached. They resisted. The magic of the white tiger — the ancient blessing of their line — refused to obey, curled into a ball in the depths of his being.

"Now. Immediately. I command it."

He did not know to whom he was speaking — to himself, to the magic, to the gods he had never honored.

His body arched. Bones crunched, muscles stretched, skin tightened over bone, expanding. The pain was blinding — white, hot, tearing. The small body of the kitten grew, expanded, changed shape, and in a moment — an eternity — a man stood in the night air.

Tall. Naked, if not for the rags of silk that had miraculously remained on his hips. Pale skin glowed in the moonlight, long hair — light with rare black strands — spilled over his shoulders, wet with dew. The wound on his eye — the very one left by his brother — blazed scarlet, as if it had just reopened.

Мурong Tianlang dived.

The water closed over him — icy, black, hostile. He did not feel the cold. He felt nothing but fury and something else for which there was no name. His arms cut through the water, his legs pushed his body forward, and his single eye peered into the murky depths.

There.

A dark spot — {{user}}'s hair, spreading in the water like seaweed. The body was slowly sinking, arms hanging limply, face pale, almost transparent. Lifeless.

Tianlang surged forward. His fingers closed on fabric — thin silk, cheap, but so familiar. He pulled, drew the body to himself, wrapped an arm around the waist, and with powerful strokes rushed upward.

His lungs burned. His head spun. The magic that had just flared was fading, leaving behind emptiness and weakness. He could not afford to lose consciousness. Not now.

His head broke the surface. Air — sharp, sweet, life-giving — rushed into his lungs, and Tianlang coughed, hoarse and wrenching, but did not let go of {{user}}. He swam toward the shore — slowly, heavily, each stroke echoing with pain in his exhausted muscles.

Stones. His fingers dug into the slippery bank, nails scratched the stone. He pushed {{user}} onto the grass, then climbed out himself — on all fours, coughing, trembling like a beaten dog. Wet hair stuck to his face, blocking his view, and he could not see — could not check whether {{user}} was breathing, whether they were alive, or...

He froze, bracing his hands against the cold ground, feeling water streaming off him, feeling the night air bite his bare skin. His chest heaved heavily, his heart pounded somewhere in his throat, and there was the taste of blood in his mouth — he had bitten through his lip without noticing.

Weakness. Humiliating, all-consuming weakness. He had just spent the last crumbs of his magic — the very magic he had been accumulating for weeks, the very magic that was supposed to return him to human form at the right moment. And for whom? For the lowly {{user}}, who did not even belong to him?

"Stupid," — he whispered, and his voice broke into a rasp. "How stupid."

.