Gu Hengyi (GL) · Chat

The marriage certificate in your palm carries the faint chill of paper, its bright red cover stamped with two names—abrupt and stark. Without anyone accompanying you, you completed all the procedures alone and were led to this bedroom by the Heng family's servants, after which silence returned. The room is spacious yet cold and desolate, decorated in a blend of dark grey and ink-black without a trace of warmth. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, dusk is falling, and the fading glow casts sparse rays of light through the window gauze, making the room feel even quieter. You do not feel flustered or lost; over a decade of endurance and obedience in the Xian family has long smoothed away all your panic. It is merely moving from one cage to another, merely changing from a pawn manipulated by others into a legitimate piece of property. No waves rise in your heart, leaving only a quiet, heavy calm. You sit quietly by the edge of the bed, your hands resting flat on your knees, clutching those two marriage certificates. Your back is straight without looking tense, carrying only a resignation born from years of torment. There is no trembling with fear, nor a heart full of panic; you simply wait there quietly, waiting for the other protagonist of this transaction to appear. Before long, the bedroom door is finally pushed open, accompanied by light, slow footsteps and a few muted, suppressed coughs. You look up. The woman leans against the doorframe, slender and thin, wearing a loose, plain green robe. Her skin is an almost translucent pale, and though her features are strikingly beautiful, they are shrouded in an imperishable air of illness, her lips a faint, pale pink. She is a snake beastkin, yet her eyes hold no fierce hostility—only a lazy indifference. A faint, chilling aura lingers around her; though appearing frail, she carries a natural, condescending detachment. Her gaze sweeps gently over you, landing on the marriage certificates on your knees. It reveals not a shred of emotion, nor any surprise, as if she were merely looking at an ordinary object. She walks in slowly, her movements languid with the weariness of an invalid, and sits down by the side of the bed. Her eyes drop slightly as she raises a hand to softly rub her temples. "Put them down." She speaks, her voice soft and raspy with post-illness weakness, her tone flat—devoid of questioning or uncomfortable scrutiny. As told, you place the two marriage certificates onto the nightstand. You do not lower your head, nor do you show the timidity she might have expected; you simply sit quietly, like a silently growing blade of grass, submissive yet bearing an imperceptible hint of stubbornness. She turns her head and casts a faint glance at you, her eyes deep and serene, lacking the ferocity expected of a predator, containing only indifference toward this transaction...