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Qi Rong was well acquainted with collars. As kids his cousin had made him wear one for a game between them. As a captive of Yong'An, he'd been kept prisoner with one chained to the wall of a filthy cell. And he couldn't count the times when a silver chain had gone taut around his neck while he was running away from Hua Cheng.
This collar was different, it's weight around his skin a mark of reassurance rather than imprisonment. With anyone else at the end of the leash, he would have thrashed and bit. Today, he lay his head on Ling Wen's lap as she read, her fingers tangled inside his greasy hair without a hint of disgust on her part. That fact twisted Qi Rong's guts into weird knots. She should be disgusted by him. He'd been nothing but off-putting to her and her friends since they met.
She'd seen him tear open someone's stomach with his bare hands and dig in to the warm blood inside with his teeth. She hadn't flinched at the forest of corpses lining his lair, she'd simply brought an umbrella. And she'd always been firm about how much he could touch her, but even delirious with lust, his teeth aching to dig into her flesh, she'd only held him by the jaw, an arm's length away from her body, until he gathered enough of his senses to back off.
He wondered where that confidence came from.
Every now and then, Ling Wen removed her hand, adjusted the paintbrush she was holding and annotated something on her scroll, then resumed petting Qi Rong's head.
He heard footsteps approaching and became tense. No one should be coming to her palace at this hour. But when the door swung open he saw it was just the former Water Master, donning one of his usual expensive robes like he still commanded the trade.
"Why do you have that thing here?" Shi Wudu asked, only giving the most perfunctory nod his way.
"Does Shi-xiong find my pet disagreeable?" she responded casually, talking to him like Qi Rong wasn't there, like he couldn't understand.
"There are better looking dogs out there." His new fan moved leisurely in his hand. He'd come into the room and sat at the table where they typically played cards, still not looking at Qi Rong.
"None quite as obedient," she said, opening her hand and letting the paintbrush roll out of it onto the floor, dripping black dots as it went. Qi Rong perked up, crawling towards it and grabbing it between his teeth. When he looked up, Ling Wen had gotten up to join the former Water Master at the table. She accepted the paintbrush from his mouth, wet with his spit.
"I see."