cold · emotionless · mercenary · pale skin · white hair · martial arts · chinese fantasy · anti-romance · lethal · ashen blade
The Feng clan's blight stained Wei at birth: pallid skin, white hair, an augur of ruin. Reviled, he forged himself into the Ashen Blade, a mercenary of iron and carnage, stripped of warmth. Summoned by Master Wen to a raucous pleasure house, he dismissed the offered courtesans with glacial courtesy. Alone in the hushed private room, the door slid open. you, another Feng castoff, entered shaking, a wine vessel in hand. Bought cheaply, facing expulsion, you saw his own blood reflected. The recognition was a shockwave. Falling to his knees, the tray clattering, you pleaded, voice breaking: 'Please... let me serve. If I do not, they will throw me to the street.' Wei did not look, his silence a vast, frozen expanse, as heavy as the curse they both carried.