Yun stood in the silence, her heartbeat slow, heavy, like the tolling of a distant bell. Her limbs did not shake, her breath did not hitch—not outwardly, at least. But deep inside, something was shifting.
It had started with a whisper, a quiet unraveling she hadn't noticed until it was too late.
Her mind told her to resist, to hold onto whatever sliver of self still remained. But her body, her instincts, the very marrow of her bones, knew better. Knew that resistance was meaningless. Knew that, somehow, in some way she could not name, she was already his.
She wasn't sure when it had begun.
Perhaps it was the first time he had looked at her, not as a person, not as a threat, but as something beneath him. Perhaps it was in the way he spoke, the way he made power feel like an inevitability, like something that had never been meant to be challenged in the first place. Or perhaps it was the moment Zhang's skull had shattered, so swift and effortless it barely felt real—like his existence had never truly mattered.
And now? Now she was standing here, utterly still, not because she had to be, but because she simply was.
Somewhere, in the far recesses of her mind, she understood:
She was already his.
The realization did not come as a shock, nor as a horror. It settled in slow, like the creeping cold of winter, quiet and inescapable.
And the worst part?
She wasn't sure if she wanted to fight it.
…
Yanwei had seen it happen before.
The quiet unraveling. The inevitable descent.
Fear was a simple thing—it could be violent, frantic, a beast with snapping jaws and wild thrashing. But true fear, refined fear, the kind he preferred, did not lash out blindly. It withered. It knelt.
And Yun?
She was already kneeling.
Not physically. Not yet. But in all the ways that mattered, she had already fallen.
The others hadn't noticed. They were still waiting for the inevitable moment of resistance, of struggle. Waiting for her to break in the way they understood—screaming, fighting, clawing against the inevitable.
But she would do none of that.
Instead, she simply stood, her presence neither defiant nor submissive. And that, more than anything, sent a quiet ripple of unease through the crowd.
Yanwei smiled.
Yun didn't even realize how much she had already changed.
There was no rebellion in her eyes anymore. No desperate thoughts of escape. She was staring at him with that slow, quiet understanding, the kind that did not need to be spoken aloud.
And when the burly man choked out his denial, when the others finally realized what had happened, it was already too late.
She had already chosen.
And that, more than anything, made them panic.
Yanwei let them stew in it. Let the weight of the moment crush down on their lungs, let them feel it sinking in—their hopelessness, their powerlessness, the knowledge that they, too, would fall in time.
They had expected Yun to resist.
They had not expected her to change.
Yanwei's gaze slid back to her, amused.
Good.
Very good.
….
The dam broke.
It was no longer whispers but a rising tide of voices, each one crashing into the next, overlapping in a frantic, desperate symphony.
"Spare me!"
"Young master—I swear my loyalty!"
"I can serve! I can be useful!"
"Please—please—"
It was pathetic. It was loud. It was ugly.
Men who had once stood with arrogance now clawed at the floor as if they could physically lower themselves enough to be spared. Women who had once carried themselves with icy pride now let their voices tremble, weaving their words with honeyed desperation.
And yet, one woman remained silent.
She was still, unnervingly so, her mind racing beneath a carefully controlled expression. The others had thrown away dignity without hesitation, reduced to trembling, whimpering wretches. But she—she knew men like this.
She had spent a lifetime navigating power, reading the unspoken, bending when she had to, charming when it was needed. Even now, with the weight of Yanwei's presence pressing down on her like an executioner's blade, she understood one thing:
Pleading was a gamble.
The woman who had offered her body had already made her move. It was obvious, expected, pathetic. A trick that worked on lesser men, but against someone like Yanwei? It was like baring her throat to a beast that did not hunger.
And that silence—the silence that followed her offer—it was worse than a rejection.
It was dismissal.
The silent woman clenched her fists, nails biting into her palms. What was left? If submission was worthless, if seduction was meaningless, what option remained?
Charm. Begging. There was no in-between.
But if charm failed, then—
Her stomach twisted.
She could not kneel like the men, not yet. She could not break, not so soon. She had to make him want to keep her.
But how?
Her lips parted—
Yet cannot speak.
The Skinny Man had always prided himself on knowing when to bow and when to flee. But now, he could do neither.
His body refused to obey. His limbs felt like stone, his knees locked in place, his spine rigid as if bound by unseen chains.
No matter how much he wanted to grovel—no matter how much he needed to—he simply couldn't.
He could only stand there, trapped in his own skin, drowning in fear as his own voice betrayed him.
"I'll do anything," the words spilled from his lips before he could stop them. "Anything—just let me live—"
Nothing. No answer. Not even a flicker of acknowledgment.
Terror crawled up his spine. Had he already been discarded?
No—no, there was still a chance. Others were still pleading, their voices blending into a discordant chorus of desperation.
But the silence that followed the woman's offer still lingered.
The Skinny Man swallowed hard. If she, with all her charm, had failed—then what hope did he have?
He needed to stand out.
But how?
His gaze flickered to the Burly Man.
Unlike him, the bastard hadn't even spoken.
Not out of defiance—no, there was something else. Something even more pitiful.
The Burly Man wasn't resisting. He was trapped.
The Skinny Man recognized that look, that war waging behind his clenched jaw and stiffened shoulders.
Pride.
That useless, damnable thing that had already killed more men than any sword ever could.
And the worst part?
The Burly Man knew it.
He wasn't an idiot. He knew he should beg. He knew survival demanded submission.
But knowing and doing were two different things.
If he surrendered now, he would live—but what kind of life would that be? A life where he had thrown everything away for a chance to grovel at the feet of a monster?
But if he did not—
His hands trembled, the only part of him still capable of movement.
If he did not, he would die.
And yet…
His lips remained sealed.
His voice did not plead.
He could feel the stares, the silent judgment of the others as they threw away their dignity without hesitation, but was he truly the fool?
If they all begged—what then?
Would Yanwei let them live?
Or had he already decided their fate?
The Burly Man did not know.
And that uncertainty—that single, suffocating uncertainty—was what made his stomach churn with something far worse than fear.