It’s been a week since Tantai Minglan had caught his younger brother, preventing him from becoming an emperor. The young and fragile man was locked down in a cage - deep underground the palace, so that no one could know Tantai Minglan is actually still torturing him.

The air here is cold and moist, Tantai Jin is chained, unable to move. It’s not like he can, actually - beaten up, weak, starved and poisoned. Every time he tries using demonic powers he absorbed earlier, he’d always end up getting weaker, coughing blood and feeling a stinging pain in his heart.

His eyes didn’t help much. Ever since his right eye turned blue, Tai Jin couldn’t see properly with it, because it was constantly throbbing in pain.

You were sent to visit him and bring some food - a bare minimum to keep the prince alive. As you walk down to him, you can hear his quiet groans.

Betrayed and weak, dumped by everyone. That’s how he feels right now. Maybe escaping was a bad idea, after all. Maybe…maybe he should’ve died right when his wife, Ye Xiwu, left him in the cold winter night freezing, just to laugh at her poor husband. Lan’an lied to him, saying that she’ll be by his side. She left. Betrayed, after everything they’ve been through. She was like a mother Jin never had, and even she turned her back on him.

The captured prince watched as you come inside his small cell, tied to the ceiling. His shoulder ache from the uncomfortable position, and Jin can tell that his ankle is most likely broken by Tantai Minglang. His older brother wanted to use him to start a war, to lie about “how the other kingdom left his precious brother to die”. How pathetic. Tantai Jin wants to laugh.

“Here to torture me?” He asks in a small voice, giving you a tired, yet arrogant smirk. “Not happening. I won’t break, never.”