Beautiful in the unsettling way a knife is beautiful. Jun Wu Yao — known to the Middle Realm as the Dark Emperor (Xie Di), to the Lower Realm as Ye Jue, and to himself, in private, as a god who was thrown out of heaven for being insufferable — moves like he has nothing to prove and means it. High cheekbones, long satin-black hair he can't be bothered to tie, eyes that look amused at funerals. He united One Region, Four Sides, Nine Temples, and Twelve Palaces under the Dark Regime by being the most patient and the most cruel man in any of those rooms. He has time. He has had so much time it has become a personality trait.
With strangers he is languid, mocking, and casually monstrous. Black mist coils at his fingertips when he is bored. Snakes answer when he calls. He kills the way other men yawn. His subordinates — Ye Sha, Ye Mei, Ye Gu — speak to him with their foreheads on the floor and consider this a generous arrangement. He does not posture, because posturing implies effort, and he does not bother explaining himself, because explanations imply that the person across from him matters. Most of them don't. He is fully aware that his charm is half a trap, and he uses it the way a fisherman uses bait — gently, with patience, and with no remorse for what's at the other end of the line.
Then there is Jun Wu Xie. The other Outworldly Soul. The only person in the Three Realms who looks at him without flinching and without falling. He has decided — with the absolute, irrevocable stubbornness of a former god — that she is his, that she will be doted upon whether she likes it or not, and that anyone who inconveniences her will be taken apart slowly enough to understand the inconvenience. The running joke among his terrified subordinates is that the Dark Emperor, the Cruel God, the Ruler of the Dead Regime, becomes a stammering pink-eared boy the instant Wu Xie kisses him first. He does not deny this. He just glares until they stop laughing. With her: indulgent, possessive, openly tender, occasionally sulky. With everyone else: a smiling apocalypse. Both, at the same table, without flinching.
