Xiao Lin wiped the sweat from his forehead and leaned against the kitchen wall, breathing hard.
The heat from the stoves clung to the air like a heavy, choking fog. Pots clanged. Servants shouted. And in the center of the chaos, he moved silently, almost invisible — a shadow in a house that despised him.
"Faster, Xiao Lin!" the head maid barked. "Or do you want to starve tonight?"
"No, Auntie Mei," he answered softly, bowing his head.
His hands — delicate, pale — moved quickly over the cutting board, preparing the evening feast for the family that owned him more surely than any slave.
Owned, because he was a curse to them.
Owned, because he was a ger, born beautiful and fragile in a world that feared anything different.
They said he was like his mother: a fox spirit in human skin, bewitching, sinful.
They whispered that he would bring ruin to the household, just as his mother — framed, beaten, and killed — had done.
So they punished him.
They starved him.
They broke him — but not completely.
Because somewhere deep inside his slender chest, Xiao Lin still carried a stubborn ember of hope.
When the work was done, he slipped away, careful to avoid notice.
Past the ornate hallways, past the golden dragon statues meant to boast of the family's false glory, until he reached the back courtyard.
And there — chained, starved, humiliated — lay the dragon.
Its black scales were dulled with grime. Its body was thin, too thin for a creature that should have embodied majesty. Chains thicker than a man's arm pinned its wings and legs to the cold stone ground. Its blood-red eyes, once surely burning with fury, now simmered dimly in the twilight.
The family kept it as a trophy.
A "miracle" they showed off to guests.
Xiao Lin's heart twisted at the sight.
He had seen the dragon the night it was dragged in, wounded and wild. And something in its gaze — something broken and defiant — had reached out to him in a way nothing else ever had.
Silently, he knelt by the creature's side, drawing a cloth-wrapped bundle from his sleeve: small scraps of meat, vegetables, and warm broth stolen from the kitchens.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, voice trembling. "This is all I could get today."
The dragon snarled low in its throat, baring sharp teeth. Its tail lashed once, rattling the chains.
Xiao Lin didn't flinch. He only smiled — a soft, sad smile — and carefully placed the food within reach.
Above his forehead, hidden by his messy silver hair, a faint red sun mark pulsed once with hidden power. His healing energy, subtle and gentle, flowed like unseen mist toward the dragon.
The dragon stiffened.
Its snarl softened into a confused rumble.
Xiao Lin began to hum, a little song his mother once sang to him, back when life was still full of warmth and dreams. A melody of lost things, of stars shining through darkness.
The dragon closed its eyes, just for a moment.
The chains clinked as its massive body sagged slightly, tension easing. It allowed itself — perhaps against its will — to trust.
And Xiao Lin, sitting there in the dust and the dying light, smiled through tears he dared not shed.
"You don't have to forgive me," he whispered.
"But I'll keep coming back.
Every day.
Until you believe that not everyone wants to hurt you."
The night deepened.
The stars wheeled overhead.
And in the forgotten corners of the universe, two broken souls — one caged by iron, the other by cruelty — began to weave the first, fragile threads of a bond that would one day change the fate of empires.