Song Heqing was having trouble falling asleep. He felt a rare emotion; 'indecisiveness', which he hadn't felt since he was a toddler and allowed to pick a toy out at a street stall. To think this demon would cause him to have such conflicted emotions.

He couldn't deny it...the thought of Wangzi having the eggplant demon...he abhorred it. He couldn't accept it!¹Age 14, ML eats vinegar, confirmed.

Song Heqing went back under his sheet, but only gained another hour of shallow sleep.

…

Qin Yan slept peacefully until he heard a familiar clear tone.

“Wake up. What are you doing here?”

He cracked open his eyes and saw Song Heqing standing in front of him. Sun came through the window, so he realized that he hadn’t just blinked, but slept a long time.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” said Song Heqing, sounding awfully more agitated than usual, then he pointed at the food next to his bed. “Those things and other things you’ve brought here before…I don’t want what’s stolen. You don't need to go out of your way to get them.”

“Oh…” Qin Yan just stared at him. Song Heqing looked very pretty when the sunlight reflected off his amber eyes.

“Where have you been this past week? It was as though you disappeared.”

Qin Yan ‘oh-ed’ again, but then replied, “I went to the right wing. There was basement there, it was very cold, and a lady in a coffin—”

Song Heqing lunged over and clamped a hand over Qin Yan’s mouth.

“Don’t say anything more!” Song Heqing lowered his tone, “That place was once mentioned by Lord Wangzi when he founded Phoenix Demonic Sect. He gave one order; ‘Touch, see, and hear nothing in the inner right wing’. Afterwards, anyone who was foolish enough to go there or mention anything was killed. Don't speak of it again...unless we are in private.”

Qin Yan waited for the hand to be removed, then said, “I got kicked out of there anyway.” 

“To think you'd just fearlessly wander…huh? What's that?”

Qin Yan had moved his arms away from his chest to adjust his sitting position, so when Song Heqing peered slightly downwards, he saw a dark stain on his stomach. Without thinking he crouched down and put a hand on it immediately. It came up with a greenish, blackish substance.

“…blood?”

It was 100% poisonous, but only if you ingest it. Hopefully Song Heqing would wash his hands promptly.

Although the clothes somewhat covered it, the odd green blood seeped down the front of Qin Yan’s robe and onto the floor in a few places since he'd been sitting in the same spot all night. Song Heqing lifted his boot and saw that the bottom was stained green-black, then his brow furrowed greatly. It appeared he wanted to ask a hundred questions…but in the end he just turned rigid.

“…how badly are you hurt?”

Qin Yan paused, then slowly looked down at his stomach. He placed his hand over it with an assumption that there would be an improvement in the wound, but his hand sunk into the cloth without any resistance, indenting the clothing part way through the hole in his stomach.

It…actually hadn’t regrown at all.

Song Heqing was visibly cringing, so Qin Yan quickly removed his hand and superficially straightened that clothing back out. Now it looked like he had a lower abdomen again.

Qin Yan spoke while averting his gaze. “…not that bad…”

Song Heqing was not blind, underneath those thin layers of clothes there was a gaping hole in his stomach—it was obviously a lie! This demon is so horrible at lying! Looking at the wound, and thinking on how the demon had walked around and curled into a corner all night acting as though nothing was wrong was physically paining his mind. 

Now Qin Yan went as far as to lean himself to the side slightly to try and hide the wound as a twinge of some emotion hit…uh, embarrassment? He knew there was a hole in his stomach, he also knew it was bleeding, but when he changed clothes earlier he didn’t bandage it. That's because he thought that it would close up on its own like all his other injuries, but well! That spear really did a number on him. He didn’t even feel all that energetic now.

Upon seeing Qin Yan trying to hide it further, more blood oozing out from the clothing, Song Heqing finally lost his composure.

“You- you- you- just stay there! Don’t move! I’ll be right back!”  

Seeing Song Heqing so riled up also made Qin Yan panic. It was like a domino reaction. 

“NO NEED!" he scrambled to his feet in a hurry and made for the door. "I'm fine.” 

A wide-eyed Song Heqing watched as Qin Yan slipped in his own blood and keeled over like flaccid corpse. He looked like a sickly houseplant close to dying, the bags under his eyes an alarming shade of purple, but he was still trying to get up.

Song Heqing was horrified beyond wits. 

“STOP MOVING OR IT’S GOING TO AGGRAVATE IT. YOU WAIT HERE!”

Song Heqing had already sprinted out of the room, so Qin Yan had no choice but to lie there obediently. He couldn’t really move anyway. 

It was still embarrassing that he troubled Song Heqing like this. He just wanted to stop by and say ‘hi’ like you do with most of your friends. You know, keep in touch, chat about the firebirds. But instead he bled all over the floor and it was slowly corroding the wood…at least Qin Yan finally knew why his predatory instincts hadn’t kicked in lately. It was because this clonal body was already so injured that even those instincts went into energy-saving mode, thus, he’d just been in an inactive and sluggish state.

Anyway, what happens if this body dies? Does his soul zap back into his main plant-y body? Is there any penalty or lag? Qin Yan supposed he would only lose the remaining energy stored in this clonal body and be perfectly all right otherwise, but Song Heqing already went out to help him, so he couldn’t just disappear now...oh. Qin Yan suddenly had an idea on how to avoid Wangzi from these thoughts. If he could switch his consciousness from this body to his main eggplant in the garden...

When Song Heqing returned, he had an anxious, somewhat exhausted expression, but Qin Yan didn’t see it because he’d once again been half unconscious. Qin Yan only heard an odd sound, as though Song Heqing was dragging a sack of rice behind him. 

Song Heqing crouched in front of Qin Yan who was sprawled in his own blood on the floor.

“Open your eyes.”

Qin Yan sort of wanted to, but it was sooo much effort, and going back to sleep was surely better…Song Heqing began to nudge him persistently.  

“Look. I brought something to eat.”

Eat? Food? …as in, life energy? Qin Yan could hardly believe his ears. Seeing that Song Heqing wouldn’t stop nudging him, Qin Yan slowly roused himself and opened his eyes with some anticipation.

…the source of the noise was close to a bag of rice, just that there wasn’t any rice in the bag, but a giant, writhing centipede. It had a very shiny, robust, and reddish carapace, and was longer than Song Heqing’s height. Who knew how he had the strength to wrestle it into a sack and drag it over. The giant centipede squirmed back and forth in the sack, but it was pinned down by Song Heqing's elbow against the floor and couldn’t get anywhere. 

Qin Yan was exhausted, so his voice was quieter than usual. “I thought I killed all those?”

“In the enclosure, yes. You can find them in any dark place around here…that doesn’t matter. ”

Song Heqing shoved the centipede across the floor, right next to Qin Yan’s head.

Eggplant is predatory by nature. Nothing could stop Qin Yan as his eyes glazed over at the thought of nourishment, instincts taking the wheel. He reached his arms out to the centipede and it almost appeared as if he was hugging the nasty creature, but it was a hug of death. Numerous small roots came from his palms and dug into the carapace of the centipede. Song Heqing pressed into it harder to hold it still as the creature let out a high-pitched hiss and shuddered. He seemed quite used to it, and the boy’s amber eyes moved to watch Qin Yan eating with some intrigue.

The matter of the eggplant demon sucking the life from something else wasn’t that horrifying of a process, he thought.

Qin Yan suddenly realized how ravenous he was. He hadn’t eaten anything in over a week…the instinctual expression in his eyes didn’t fade as he sat upright.

The difference in his attitude was clear, so Song Heqing also turned wary in an instant. He moved back. His hand groped at the bed behind him where there seemed to be the outline of a knife placed below the hemp sheet, but Qin Yan came over in a flash and circled his arms around him.

“You…let go,” Song Heqing said. Would he finally learn the price of trusting a demon? But, he was the one who got near him and put himself at risk, so if the eggplant demon really killed him he could only blame himself...

Qin Yan put his face very close to Song Heqing and stared at him. He vaguely thought that the veins under his skin didn’t look like the best food because same as the man protecting the Blue Lady, it was spiritual energy. He preferred demonic.

The confused and dazed Qin Yan stuck out his tongue and licked the cheek of Song Heqing.

The skin on his cheek was soft, but not tasty at all!

***Humiliation +22—

Song Heqing was so shocked he didn’t react for a few seconds, then his face slowly grew flushed. He covered Qin Yan’s mouth with a hand to prevent any further licking, and was half angry and half helpless. This situation was so foreign to him that he wasn't even sure what to do.

“You naughty eggplant!” this was somehow what came out of Song Heqing's mouth, then he felt a lick on his palm.

“STOP LICKING ME!”

**Frustration +12—

*Humiliation +4—

A few voices sounded outside, startling the both of them. A group of servants were walking out to start their work, and Qin Yan’s pupils twitched in that direction.

“Wait." Song Heqing immediately turned more serious. After all...he wanted to escape with the eggplant demon, not Lin Hui'an. "…I’ll get more centipedes. There’s something I need to tell you about! It's important.”

Qin Yan did not even glance at him. He opened the door only to be pulled back by a tug on his robe sleeve, then almost seemed to cock his head a little in confusion. 

“Have you really lost it? Listen! At least, let’s bandage the wound on your-”

Qin Yan threw him off and was out of sight by the time Song Heqing scrambled back up. Truly an eat and run situation!

Song Heqing cursed once. Slowly, he brought a hand up to his cheek and rubbed it.

"Wait..."