Chapter 4 - The Death of Nail
"The humiliation did not destroy me.
She sculpted me. "
Three months have passed since Yuèyao's gaze.
A look so sharp that he had left an invisible scar.
She hadn't ignored him.
She had erased it.
But Nail had not collapsed.
He had observed.
Every day, he followed Liyan without a word.
But his eyes saw everything.
The wear of the chin.
The controlled elegance of each movement.
The tone of the voice, never too loud, never too weak.
The way of smiling without giving, of seducing without promising.
Nail had understood: Liyan was not only a prince.
It was a theatre on its own.
Then Nail learned.
He copied. Affinate. Overcome.
He stood straight.
His gaze, still black, was now even deeper.
No longer empty - but loaded.
He had his hair differently.
His gestures were slow, precise, polite.
And for the first time... he was talking.
Not much.
But always fair.
The servants no longer looked at him like a dog.
They looked down when he passed.
Some concubines whispered:
Who is this boy with night eyes?
He never really smiled.
But he made hearts beat.
He wasn't Liyan yet.
But he was above all the others.
And above all, he had not forgotten anything.
Nor Yuèyao's look.
Nor the tone of his voice.
Nor the arrogance of rejection.
One day, she would see.
One day, she would no longer be able to look away.
ー
That day, in the tea room, an old eunuch looked at him for a long time.
- "You were the Prince's animal, weren't you? "
Nail stared at him.
The old man nodded slowly.
— "You're not anymore. "
But Nail didn't answer.
Because he knew:
He has never been a dog.
He was not just a 15-year-old teenager, stuck in a cruel world.
Now he was 16 years old.
He had crossed a threshold.
A silent cape. An invisible moult.
The "Nail" of the beginning was dead.
In the eyes of others, he was called Xu Fang.
But inside... there was still Ken.
And soon, even Liyan should turn around.
End of Chapter 4