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Sitting in a dank, dark cell in the palace\'s prison, Xiao Zai couldn\'t help marvelling at how something so banal, like going into Haolin\'s busy market streets to look at children toys and perhaps only daydream, perhaps buy something, could have led to his current situation.

When the palace guards surrounded him and told him he was under arrest for causing Xiao Yaun\'s concubine to miscarry, Xiao Zai had thought his brother had finally cottoned on on his desire to take the throne from under him.

Now, hours later, he knew this was all his father\'s doing.

That morning Xiao Zai had decided to visit the market at around the same time he usually visited his dam, and then went out with him to lunch. The King must have sent out his guards to search for him in the busiest streets.

It must have disappointed him to learn that Xiao Zai hadn\'t been arrested in front of Gu Wei. Xiao Zai was certain his father had been counting on it.

Further cementing his certainty that despite his snivelling nature, and pathetic existence, his brother wasn\'t involved in it, was his recent visit.

"Did you do it? Was it you?" Xiao Yuan had asked, his eyes rimmed with red.

"Of course not, I would never do something like that."

That seemed enough for Xiao Yuan who had only nodded, and muttered something along the lines of, "all Father\'s doing," and, "maybe it\'s better this way, this family\'s blood is cursed."

Not even a month ago Xiao Zai would have easily agreed with him, and would even have taken his marriage to Chu Yun and his feelings for him, as a sign from the heavens that he wasn\'t meant to have children. Some family lines should end. 

But now Xiao Zai was going to be a parent himself. His relationship with Xiao Yuan had perhaps been damaged beyond any salvaging, but in that moment he\'d wished he had some words of comfort for share with him.

Things were quiet after Xiao Yuan left, with only the guards coming and going, and looking in into Xiao Zai\'s cell on occasion. He got the impression they were laughing at him.

The entire prison was comprised of 5 cells, separated on each side by stone walls, and closed in front by iron bars. He was the only prisoner at the moment. Which wasn\'t surprising since the palace prison existed exclusively to hold royal family members, and on occasion, their staff. 

The last time it was used Xiao Zai had been an infant, and the person it held had been the treasonous uncle on whose estate he now resided.

On the day they moved into the estate, Chu Yun had pointed at the wooden signboard above the gate and said it was a warning -- now his predictions were coming true.

---

After night fell, Xiao Zai got a visit from his father.

He was wearing his kingly golden robes, his iron-grey hair kept away from his temples in a neat top knot, he approached Xiao Zai\'s bare cell as if he was climbing the dais up to his throne.

He stopped in front of the bars, and one of the guards approached him with a little wooden bench for him to sit.

The King dismissed the guards and took a seat with as much gravity as if he had been sitting down on his throne.

"I trust you\'ve been treated well," the King said, smiling in amusement at Xiao Zai sitting on a makeshift straw bed in the corner of the cell.

Xiao Zai didn\'t move towards the bars, or acknowledge his father\'s presence in any way. He stayed where he was and looked away from him and towards the grimy wall.

That didn\'t seem to upset his father, who derived enough joy from seeing Xiao Zai behind bars. "You remind me so much of the haughty bitch of your dam when you get that pissy look on your face." 

Again, Xiao Zai said nothing.

"It\'s all my fault for letting him raise you, I should have taken you away from his as soon as you were born."

Xiao Zai knew he was just trying to get a reaction out of him, but his father always knew just how to get under his skin. This had been a favourite threat of his when Xiao Zai was a child. Whenever he tried to step in and defend Gu Wei from his father\'s attacks the King would threaten to take him away and hand him over to a random concubine to raise.

The idea of being separated from his dam had almost paralysed Xiao Zai with fear. Now his father was only bringing it up as a reminder of the power he held, not only in the kingdom, but over Xiao Zai\'s live.

"What is it, boy, that gives you enough confidence to look at your father like that? At your king?" he tsked, shaking his head as if Xiao Zai was behaving like a spoiled brat. "I don\'t think you understand the gravity of your situation."

"It doesn\'t matter, because you\'ll do whatever you want," Xiao Zai snapped, unable to hold back his anger any longer. "You\'ll have me arrested without any proof, tried without any proof and executed without any proof either, because as you\'re so fond of reminding me, you are the king."

His father laughed, delighted that Xiao Zai had finally revealed the extent of his rage. "That\'s right, I am the King, something you\'ll never be." He smirked, and looked Xiao Zai in the eyes. "You\'re sorely mistaken if you think I\'m not aware of yours and your dam\'s schemes. Bailiu has always had the eye on the throne for you...he thinks it\'s your right."

He laughed again. "Or rather, his right, for all I\'ve put him through...isn\'t that so? Isn\'t that what he tells you? Isn\'t that what he has been telling you since you were a child?"

Xiao Zai gripped handfuls of the straw under him, tightening his fingers around the limp yellow stems and imagining how much he\'d like to be squeezing his father\'s neck instead. He didn\'t have a right to speak of his dam like that. Gu Wei was worth a thousand of him.

"Look at you, pathetic, on the verge of tears because I\'m insulting your dam! You\'ve always been week, hiding behind his skirts all your life." The King\'s smile only grew as he talked with Xiao Zai, taking immense pleasure in the cruelty of his words and their effect on his son.

Once, Xiao Zai had asked himself why his own father hated him so much. Now, it had been years since he\'d bothered.

"I\'ve always wished my dam was half the whore you\'re constantly accusing him of being," Xiao Zai said his voice low. He allowed himself a humourless chuckle, "maybe that way I\'d be lucky enough to call a different man father."

The King\'s expression immediately darkened and he stood up with a jolt, sending the wooden bench skidding to the floor.

"That would make you a bastard."

Xiao Zai laughed, there was no joy in it, but it was almost cathartic to admit it to his father\'s face. "I\'d rather be a bastard than your son. I\'d rather be a peasants get, than a king\'s, as long as that king is you."

The King\'s mouth flattened into a thin line, his upper lip vibrated with barely suppressed rage. "Insolent, you\'ll pay dearly for this insult."

As if Xiao Zai wasn\'t already.

His father\'s expression cleared all of a sudden, as though he had remembered something. "That Fox is proving more loyal to you than I expected," at the mention of Chu Yun, Xiao Zai was immediately alert. "In fact, he\'s been kneeling on the snow for hours, trying to get an audience with me, presumably so that he can see you."

Xiao Zai\'s face lost all colour. He rose from the straw bed and walked up to the bars for the first time, clinging to them in desperation. "He\'s...he\'s not well, he can\'t stay out in the snow like that."

The King clicked his tongue. "I came here exactly to tell you that, and ask you if you\'d like to see him," he clutched his own chest theatrically, "but after all those hurtful things you said to me, I don\'t think I will. You need to reflect on your unfilial words. He\'s your First husband, it\'s only right he shoulder some of the blame for your sins, too."

A part of Xiao Zai knew that his father was lying -- he never had any intention of letting Chu Yun see him, and was just saying that to get back at him -- but it didn\'t stop his heart from squeezing painfully inside his chest.

"Please, do whatever you want with me, just...just get him out of the snow," he begged, knowing full well that as much as the King was enjoying his humiliation he would do no such thing.

The King shot him an appraising look. "You\'re really are attached to that Fox, uh? I can\'t say I see the appeal, but then again I hate arrogance. It is only slightly more palatable in an alpha than it is in an omega."

He left with one last chuckle, his gold robes swaying behind him as Xiao Zai shook the cell\'s bars.