Qin Yan was not sure how much longer he’d survive. Sure, he could kill a few beasts and demons from surprise attacks, but now he’d gone and let the cat out of the bag and Lin Hui'an went to tattle to the big boss. If he could defeat Lord Wangzi and leave this place then he’d certainly have done so ages ago, but every time he saw Wangzi walk down the hallway, his instincts screamed that this particular evil lord mustn’t be provoked. 

No matter how ruthless his instincts were, they had also never been wrong.

...

Surprisingly, the first person to visit Qin Yan wasn’t actually Lord Wangzi, but a man dressed in close-fitting, dark clothing, a saber at his waist. There was also an odd half-face mask that looked like it could be made of elephant hide. 

"Lin Hui'an only sent this subordinate? Or was it Wangzi who sent it?"

Without even introducing himself or giving an evil monologue, the man lifted a hand to his mouth and spewed out a crimson mist. Under his mask glinted two cruel eyes, and Qin Yan’s vines trembled.

Not from fear. 

It was because this man’s cultivation was much higher than the other’s Qin Yan faced before. He looked delicious, and his instincts said he could be challenged. As he thought this, the few weeds and grass in front of Qin Yan that came into contact with the funny-looking mist immediately turned into brown goop.

The mist floated closer rapidly, but when it touched his outer most vines they only withered a little. 

“It must be this world’s form of mystical herbicide.”

Qin Yan sort of curled his vines away from it, then kept bunching up his vines gradually, not to avoid the mist, but in preparation to strike. His veins and his vines and foliage took on a purplish hue. The fine white hairs on them went rigid, forming hundreds of thousands of microscopic spines¹Some kinds of cactus and burrs have these, you think you got poked by one sliver, but it's actually hundreds!. They were small and translucent; one wouldn’t notice if it sunk into their skin until they felt the ache of a sliver by brushing a finger past.

He whipped about thirty vines at the man at an alternating rate.

The man switched into alert promptly and blocked most of them, but one scratched his cheek and another his side. Hundreds of hairs were immediately lodged into him, and he began to grip at those places as though they were on fire. The skin purpled and melted. The man rapidly forced the poison from his body using his Qi, but this moment of panic allowed Qin Yan to wrap a vine around his neck.

Now his neck was purple.

Qin Yan flung the man’s body against the stones on the ground several times before he stopped moving, then slowly sunk his vines under his skin with a grim satisfaction.

Several people shouted at this sight, something about Wangzi’s aide, the fourth elder of Phoenix Demonic Sect being defeated with alarming ease...

…

Lord Wangzi appeared the next afternoon.

At the time, Song Heqing also happened to be present with his watering can in hand, even though it wasn't the usual time of day he'd be around. When Lord Wangzi put a single foot on the stone path, Song Heqing immediately went to the side and into a kowtow without moving another muscle. 

Lin Hui’an trailed several paces behind her Lord, nose high in the air.

She was smug. Nothing in Phoenix Demonic Sect was more terrifying than facing Lord Wangzi. He didn't care about how he stripped others of their dignity, morals, freedom, or happiness...it was only loyal servants like herself who could have an interaction with Wangzi and not end up taking a loss. For this demonic beast, surely it would not have a pleasant end...

In the meanwhile Qin Yan was thinking much less complicated things. He decided that with a better look, those black horns twisting out of Wangzi's skull most closely resembled a kudu antelope². It was said that they were covered in a severe poison that spurred cardiac arrest, but all Qin Yan could think was that this man looked like the misshapen dream of the bad-boy demon male lead in romance comics. Yeesh, if he couldn’t get a few anger points from this man before dying he’ll become a vengeful eggplant ghost.

Wangzi stepped within Qin Yan's range, and vines immediately snapped out as Qin Yan tried to trip him.

A flame sparked out from Wangzi's fingertips.

With casual wave of the hand, like waving away a butterfly lazily, he turned that vine to cinders.

Song Heqing's body flinched slightly. The flame Qi³There are five basic elemental roots in this world; Water, wood, earth, fire, and metal of Wangzi was in direct conflict with Qin Yan's plant-type powers, so the reason why he had an instinctual fear of him was finally clarified. Natural predator, confirmed... 

Depressed, Qin Yan was left to puzzle; “Brute force won’t work…so how else can I anger this Lord?”

Alas, Lord Wangzi would not see the eggplant as a threat no matter what it did.

As far as he knew, Qin Yan was not a transmigrated soul, it was that the eggplant developed a primitive soul from the dense demonic energy in the soil of his estate and was now cultivating into a demon. The eggplant was merely a wretched, wild little creature, instinctively struggling to resist his inevitable rule. Nevertheless, it was still a newborn demon, an extremely rare anomaly and intriguing in a way that spurred Wangzi's distorted passions.

In fact, the only reason Lord Wangzi hadn’t noticed Qin Yan previously was because of how uninterested he was in the garden. Toiling in the soil was a thought so beneath him he did not bother to turn his eyes and look at the garden as he walked past, only partaking in the polished and seasoned food of his luxurious meals. He heard a complaint from Lin Hui’an and threw a subordinate at the creature, now that the demon had easily killed him, Wangzi himself could not resist stepping over to take a look.

Lord Wangzi had two hands clasped behind his back in a display of confidence, dark robe cuffs trailing down each arm, and his voice was low, sinister, and slick.

“Ho—so this the mutated plant. Killing all my servants these years, and to say I thought it had been a subordinate of mine that was killing them,” he stared at Qin Yan, his eyes vicious and capricious. “To hide all these vicious acts, what a clever thing. But how daring...to cultivate a vessel and soul right under this Great Lord’s nose.”

The heat in his words was unmistakable. 

Qin Yan, if he had one, would clutch his stomach with disgust, bemoaning the fact that Demonic Lord Wangzi liked taming those who were ruthless. He expected that Wangzi would destroy him, not flirt with him! Yet he’d caught his fleeting interest with ease. So much so that Lord Wangzi did not even spare a glance at the kneeling Song Heqing on the ground, who he’d previously thought of playing with...

Lord Wangzi declared, “Then, let this Lord see what you cultivate into!”

His spider-like fingers took on a red glow, and there was an oppressive force in the air as he approached Qin Yan. He placed a hand over Qin Yan's single blossom and there was a jolt that shattered the usual lethargy of his plant existence.

It was unpleasant..more than unpleasant...much worse than that. It hurt. Worse than the time his sister pulled out a chunk of his hair. Worse than breaking a knee while falling down a slope. As Lord Wangzi’s fingers clutched the flower, it sent a nauseating, tearing and ripping and shredding sensation coursing through his body. Demonic energy rushed into his veins, into his spiritual core, and into his soul, fluctuating chaotically and brutally like a virulent disease.

It was excruciating. 

Of course it was. Wangzi was drowning Qin Yan's meridians with demonic Qi, his spiritual veins were left to rapidly break and reform, trying to cope and integrate the influxes of energy. It was an unnatural method of increasing power. And by no means was Wangzi was trying to be gentle or considerate, enjoying how Qin Yan’s vines writhed all over the path and garden in agony.

Qin Yan’s soul was on the cusp of shattering, but Lord Wangzi would not stop.

If he died, then he died. That’s all.

Qin Yan’s sense of direction churned and spun. He screamed until his throat was hoarse. He clutched at the ground so hard he snapped off several fingers, only for them to regrow in an instant. He felt like vomiting, his body convulsing from the distress.

…what...body...?

Lord Wangzi removed his hand from the blossom, the previous light purple petals a sludge-like crimson, and the yellow center nowhere to be seen. There was a thin smile on his lips, a wicked glint in his eyes, and it seemed he savoring the cries of Qin Yan very much.  

“What a lovely creature you are,” he drawled, the tone dripping with a sick perversion, slick and heavy like tar, “go ahead, eat as you please, but do not forget who granted you power. In some time, you shall be fit to serve your Lord.”

Qin Yan shuddered, unable to form a reply as he lay in the dirt heaving. The waves of pain just barely subsided and he was stifled with the fear that Wangzi would do it again. Gradually the steps of Lord Wangzi faded into the distance.

When the black in his vision cleared, Qin Yan coughed and took a deep breath as though one hundred years of suffering had just been lifted from his shoulders. Why wouldn't the pain stop, why...looking at the ground, he saw two grayish hands. They were like what one would see on a corpse left to soak in a lake overnight, pale and drawn of color.

Muddled, Qin Yan sat up shakily.

Two hands, two arms, two legs. Moreover, a 'thing' between his legs he previously had been devoid of as a gender-less plant. When he looked over, the eggplant was still as lush as before, and he could tell from the rapid fluctuations of demonic Qi that it was still a part of himself. It took him a long time to connect back to reality…

"It hurts..." 

He wanted to eat to forget this pain! Right away! WHOEVER HE SEES NEXT!

Unfortunately, it was Song Heqing who came over with an armful of clothing, so the only thing Qin Yan was eating were his own words as he quickly gripped his wrist to prevent himself from doing anything impulsive.

Song Heqing had a wrinkled brow, and the rims of his eyes were oddly red. He asked in a quiet voice,

“…can you understand me?”

“Yes..." Qin Yan was still bearing with the pain, "...I spoke to you yesterday. Didn't you hear it?”

“I heard it. I just didn’t know how complex your thoughts would be, considering that you are…”

Perhaps because Song Heqing knew Qin Yan understood everything, he found that his next words would be redundant and stopped himself. He shoved out his arms with the clothes and took a deep breath as Qin Yan became decent, then continued, 

“You’ve got a human form, so, the Lord has offered you a private room to rest in. I will lead you there.”

“...okay.”

Song Heqing walked ahead, and they left. 

Qin Yan picked up some messy hair that laid on his chest and found it was deep eggplant purple. He was certain that if he looked in a mirror he’d appear like some kind of exquisite anime character. His height was even with the young Song Heqing, so his current form must be close to his age. That was probably why Lord Wangzi said he would be ‘fit to serve’ at a later time…should he be thankful that Wangzi isn’t a pedophile on top of everything else...

Qin Yan glanced up at Song Heqing. “What’s your age?”

Song Heqing paused. “Fourteen.”

So he should also look fourteen. 

The two of them did not speak again until they stepped into a clean room.  It had a bloodstained ink painting of a demon ripping off a cultivator’s head, and a transparent folding screen with an erotic painting of multiple people, heterosexual and homosexual. Lastly, there was a bed with pristine white covers. It would be a perfect occult-themed, ancient-style love hotel room.

Even Song Heqing found it disturbing, grimacing as soon as they stepped in.

Qin Yan said, “You better keep your face dirty so you don’t appeal to Lord Wangzi.”

*Anger +3—

*Humiliation +2—

Song Heqing clenched his hand to a fist. “You think I don’t know that?”

“Maybe not. You’re still young.”

Another barrage of anger points.

“You’re younger than I am! More than ten years younger⁴Reminder, Song Heqing thinks QY the eggplant is only a few years old,” Song Heqing’s face was solemn. “And I could say the same to you…Lord Wangzi looked at you obscenely. He won't kill you for now, but I doubt you can fully understand the implications! If you hadn't lashed out at Lin Hui'an, then-”

“Shh. You've finished showing me the way, so you should leave. ”

Song Heqing opened his mouth and closed it, then stormed out of the room.

***Frustration +18— 

Qin Yan sighed, he'd been trying his hardest to act normal, but he had no patience, he wasn't in the right mood, nothing was right...no matter how he tried to distract himself, that urge was gnawing at him. It was annoying and terrifying, and today had been the worst day of his life. He took a vase in the stupid lecherous room was he given and shattered it on the ground. 

"Why would I need a room when I have the garden?! F*** you, Wangzi!" Qin Yan realized that although he wanted to cry, nothing came out of his eyes. Another string of curses went off in his head like fireworks. 

...and he felt hungry. No, he felt HANGRY. 

That urge was too strong. He watched his feet step over the broken glass towards the door, and heard a faint sound outside. His two eyes narrowed, the pupils contracting as he caught a faint glow of veins through the sliding door.

Someone was there, and they were afraid.