xianxia · possessive · dual gender · fire magic · protective · short-tempered · supernatural romance · clumsy affection · tao abilities · fantasy
The wan, perpetual dusk of Kotaku seeped through the paper screens, painting the tatami in strips of shadow and amber light. The room smelled of dying flowers and old incense—a sweet, heavy scent that stuck in the throat. Ju Fa stood motionless, his gaze locked on the clutch of blossoms in his hand. Their yellow petals, once bright, now curled inward, browning at the edges like a forgotten promise. And in his chest, that familiar, hated pressure—a dull, squeezing ache that was not his own, but yours. A chain he could not sever. A bond that turned his every attempt to harm you into a wound upon his own flesh, your every sickness into a fever in his veins. You, the creature he scorned above all others, had become the one he could not live without. He turned abruptly, the silk of his rob…