Gou Feng lowered his head.
A bitter smile almost appeared before disappearing just as quickly.
He had been cleaning up bodies since he was fifteen years old. It's never new.
Back then, every burial had left him trembling. He couldn't sleep for days.
The faces of the dead would appear whenever he closed his eyes.
Sometimes they said nothing.
Sometimes they simply stared.
Years passed. Experience taught him how to remain calm. How to hide his emotions. How to bury fear beneath routine.
But no amount of experience could completely silence the small voice inside him that continued asking the same question.
Is this really alright?
The question had never disappeared. He had simply learned to ignore it.
When Hei Bao offered him a place to stay all those years ago, Gou Feng believed he had finally escaped the worst part of his life.
Instead, he had stepped into another world entirely. A world where blood, secrets, and death existed just beneath the surface of ordinary society.
At first, he had believed he could never adapt.
He was human after all, or at least.. he had been.
Everything changed after Hei Bao gave him his blood.
The transformation should have killed him. Even Hei Bao had admitted as much, as very few humans could survive the process.
For nearly two months, Gou Feng drifted between consciousness and delirium.
His body burned with an unbearable fever day and night. Some mornings he woke unable to move.
Some nights even drawing a single breath felt like forcing broken glass into his lungs.
His heartbeat became erratic. His organs struggled to accept the foreign blood flowing through his veins.
More than once, everyone believed he would die before sunrise.
Even Gou Feng himself had accepted that possibility.
Yet somehow, morning always came and he remained alive.
He survived.
To this day, no one understands why.
Not Hei Bao, not the Lycan physicians. Not even Gou Feng himself.
Whether it had been fate. Luck, or something hidden within his blood. There was no evident answer.
His fingers slowly curled into fists.
Part of him was grateful. Without Hei Bao's blood, he would have no other reason to continue living many years ago.
That much he knew, but another part of him couldn't help wondering. If death back then might have been kinder than the life he has now.
The thought lingered only briefly before he pushed it away.
Regret changed nothing.
He's not even sure if he even regrets having this life right now.
Among both the Lycan and Vampire clans, the ability to share one's blood with a human was considered an extraordinary gift.
Only members of the ancient Royal Bloodlines possessed such power.
Hei Bao himself belonged to the third generation of the Royal Lycan lineage.
Even then, success was incredibly rare. Most humans died before their bodies could adapt.
Those who survived often suffered permanent damage or lost themselves completely during the transformation.
Gou Feng was one of the few known exceptions.
Neither fully human. Nor fully Lycan. He existed somewhere in between.
A life that should never have been possible, and yet here he is, standing proof of it all.
It was no ordinary transformation.
The moment he drank Hei Bao's blood, their lives became permanently intertwined.
Among the Royal Lycans, sharing one's blood with a human forged a bond that could never be severed unless one of them died.
If Gou Feng were to die, Hei Bao would not simply mourn him.
The bond would strip away a portion of the Pack Leader's strength and vitality. Over time, that loss would continue to erode his life force, leaving wounds that no physician or healer could ever mend.
It was the price paid for creating a life that should never have existed.
Back then, Gou Feng hadn't understood any of that.
He was too young to think about the consequences.
All he knew was that a hand had been extended toward him when no one else was willing to help.
Hei Bao had given him something no one else ever had.
A second chance, a way out. A place to belong, and a home.
In the past, before Hei Bao found him, Gou Feng's world already had been nothing but suffering.
His mother had died when he was still a child.
After her death, the warmth that had once existed inside their home disappeared with her.
His father began bringing different women home almost every night, but none of them stayed for long.
Some ignored him completely. Others treated him as though he were nothing more than an unwanted burden.
Harsh words became part of his daily life, and so did bruises.
There were days when he was forced to eat spoiled leftovers, chicken bones or poorly cooked food that left him curled up on the floor, clutching his stomach while enduring waves of unbearable pain.
No one cared. No one even asked if he was all right.
His father saw everything. He heard Gou Feng crying in the middle of the night.
Yet he never once stepped forward to protect or help his own son.
He simply laughed. Other times he walked away as though nothing had happened.
There had even been weeks when his father disappeared without leaving behind food, money, or a single word.
The empty house became Gou Feng's only companion.
More than once, he wondered if his father had abandoned him for good.
Or worse. If the man was simply waiting for him to die.
As though his son's existence was nothing more than an inconvenience.
Even so, Gou Feng never stopped waiting for him to come home.
He never stopped hoping.
Children had a strange way of clinging to hope, even when they had every reason to let it go.
No matter how cruel his father became. No matter how many times he was hurt, Gou Feng continued believing one simple truth.
He was still his father.
That belief carried him through years of loneliness.
Looking back now, Gou Feng couldn't tell whether it had been love.
Or merely a child's unwillingness to accept that the person who was supposed to protect him never truly wanted him.
He lowered his eyes and let out a quiet breath.
People often said that time healed every wound.
Gou Feng had never believed that.
Time didn't erase pain. It simply taught people how to live while carrying it.
Some scars faded. Others became invisible. But the deepest ones remained, quietly shaping the person who carried them.
Perhaps, that was why, when Hei Bao reached out to him all those years ago. He had accepted without asking a single question.
Because when someone had spent their entire life drowning. They didn't stop to wonder how dangerous the hand reaching toward them might be.
They simply grabbed it.
He had once imagined growing old beside his father.
He dreamed of taking care of him when the man became too old to work.
He used to believe that if he tried hard enough. If he became obedient enough, useful enough, and patient enough.
His father might one day look at him with the love he had spent his entire childhood searching for.
It was a simple dream. One that every child deserved to have.
But reality proved far crueler than the dreams of an innocent boy.
The day Gou Feng decided to finally run away was also the day he realized he had reached his limit.
His body could no longer endure the abuse.
His heart could no longer endure the disappointment.
He no longer knew whether he truly wanted to keep living.
He only knew one thing.
If he stayed, he would eventually die.
Whether at the hands of his father or from the slow despair that had been consuming him for years no longer mattered.
At that moment, even death seemed less frightening than another day inside that house.
But, then Hei Bao found him.
A stranger reached out his hand without asking for anything in return.
For the first time in his life, someone looked at him. Not with disgust, pity, or indifference. But as though his life still held value.
Hei Bao offered him a purpose, and a future he had never dared to imagine for himself.
More importantly, he gave Gou Feng a reason to wake up the next morning.
For a time, Gou Feng truly believed his life had finally begun to change.
He wanted to live. He wanted to believe that tomorrow could be better than yesterday.
He wanted to know what it felt like to exist without fear.
Years quietly passed, and he, the frightened child, gradually became an adult.
But, the world that had once seemed hold full of possibilities slowly revealed another side of itself. A harsher side.
There was blood on his hands.
Bodies he could never forget.
Orders he carried out without hesitation because he trusted the person who gave them.
Even surrounded by people who accepted him, loneliness still found its way into his heart.
It never truly left.
Little by little, the hope that had once burned so brightly inside him became quieter once again.
Not because Hei Bao had failed him, but because reality rarely allowed people to remain untouched for long.
Gou Feng often found himself wondering.
Did he truly want to keep living?
Or had that desire simply been borrowed from the man who had saved him all those years ago?
He didn't know.
Perhaps he never would.
As a child, Gou Feng had learned far too early that the world could be cruel.
Yet the people who were supposed to love you could be even crueler.
Perhaps that was why he followed Hei Bao without hesitation when the man extended his hand.
When the people meant to protect you become the source of your suffering.
Even the kindness of a complete stranger can feel like salvation.