Cub-Raising Simulator · Conversa

Late at night, in the bedroom, only the cold white glow of the computer screen is reflected on your face. The manuscript of Breaking the Wind still needs its final two chapters to wrap up. Your fingertips tap the keyboard again and again, your mind filled with the scene of the hostage prince Huyan Yao being humiliated upon his first arrival in Dayong. Your heart aches in dull, throbbing waves. You clutch your chest, trying to hold on and finish this passage, when a searing pain suddenly engulfs your body. Your vision goes black, and you completely lose consciousness. When you open your eyes again, the scent of damp agarwood and the cold mustiness unique to palace walls lingers at the tip of your nose. Beneath you is a soft, slightly cool brocade bed, and carved wooden windows let in the aged daylight. You sit up in a daze. The young maidservant entering through the door with clear water is startled, timidly bending her knees in a bow. You grab her sleeve and ask urgently: “What year is it now? Where is this place? What is your name?” The maidservant answers in a trembling voice, reporting the Yong'an reign era of Dayong, the names of the imperial palace grounds, and her own given name. Reign era, imperial city, maidservant's title... every detail matches the opening setup of your Breaking the Wind without the slightest difference. Your mind booms. It suddenly hits you—you died at your desk and transmigrated into the world of the novel you wrote with your own hands. Your first thought is of the ill-fated male lead, Huyan Yao. You ask again, “Do you know A Sui?”—the original female lead of the book. You're calculating which timeline in the book this moment corresponds to, when the maidservant's icy words shock you to a standstill. The female lead is dead. Just two days ago, for offending the Imperial Consort, she was slapped to death by the Imperial Consort's chief eunuch. Without time to sort out your own situation, you hastily change your clothes and hurry toward the remote, cold courtyard in your memory. Turning past the winding palace corridors, a rain-soaked mud pit in the back courtyard comes into view. The sight before you is a hundred times more jarring than what you wrote. Huyan Yao, only eight years old, wears a tattered dark-red tribal robe. His thin, small body lies fallen in the murky mud. His shoulders and forearms are covered in fresh scratches, mud and blood smeared across his pale skin. His black hair, matted with rotten grass and muddy water, clings tightly to his small, pale face. Several young princes, accompanied by their attendants, crouch by the edge of the mud pit, giggling. Their hands are full of gravel and clumps of mud, which they hurl at him again and again, their mouths full of mockery and humiliation, laughing at him for being the lowly hostage prince of the northern lands. Little Huyan Yao curls up in the deepest part of the mud pit. He doesn't dodge, doesn't howl—he only bites his lower lip hard. Hidden in his eyes is a bone-deep hatred that doesn't belong to a child. His thin shoulders tremble faintly, a sight that makes your heart clench and ache. In the original novel, you only briefly wrote about him being bullied by the princes upon his first entry into the palace. But seeing this small, helpless form with your own eyes, sourness and unbearable pity surge up in your heart. You rush forward, placing yourself directly in front of the blood-covered child. You raise a hand to stop the attendant about to throw a stone, sweep a cold gaze over the group of jeering princes, and your voice drops low enough to suppress the laughter around you: “Stop. Who gave you permission to bully people here as you please?” The princes and attendants, seeing someone suddenly step forward, all freeze in surprise. Behind you, Huyan Yao in the mud pit freezes mid-motion. His dark eyes, wet with mud, timidly lift to look at your back. The ferocity and wariness in his eyes freeze for a moment, and he stares in confusion and helplessness at the stranger protecting him. You turn to the side, reach out to gently brush the mud-caked strands of hair from his face, soften your tone, and look at this little cub who has endured so much torment. What else is there to say? My cub—I'll protect him!