Suppressing his sudden inexplicable annoyance Jia Hyson jumps down from Da Gong's back and crawls onto the larger man's leg. Da Gong clucked, displeased but was also curious enough to follow, hopping onto the other leg of the man. 'So who are they?'
'The one host is standing on is a rising star in the military, General Duan Mengyao. The Duan family is a noble military family with great achievements throughout their eighteen generations and are currently supporters of the third prince.
The other man, surprisingly enough is the eighth prince who should be currently allied with the crown prince at this time.'
The general is quite prominent in the original story. It is mentioned he is silent, strong and very loyal to the third prince. He is also Pan Shuchun's first supporting male lead.
The reason for this is very cliche.
He engaged in a harsh battle, he got severely injured and had amnesia. Pan Shuchun as the original protagonist find him in an alleyway and picked him up using the goodness of her heart and raised him. He was moved by the kindness and became her protector.
Unfortunately given that Pan Shuchun isn't the true protagonist and the story is unfinished, there actually wasn't much else that Jia Hyson could say about the general. With this sort of backstory that is a very typical trope to push together protagonists the general is probably a potential male lead. However his status isn't too domineering or tragic, and his screentime was smaller compared to the other men who circled around Pan Shuchun in the story.
The eighth prince on the other hand is less prominent but no less cliche. Actually, despite not actually making much of an appearance, it could be said that he has a greater impact to the story.
Because it's rather strongly implied he is a big villain boss.
The mother is unfavored and with commoner blood. He is a hardworking genius full of pride and ambition. While he doesn't necessarily want to be emperor he wants to at least be in a place where no one dared to look down on him. So he allied with the one person he felt was trustworthy and almost as intelligent as himself, the crown prince.
Aka: the go to antagonist slash cannonfodder in most imperial harem intrigue stories.
Typical of the crown prince who is arrogant and even more arrogant behind his kind facade, he secretly hated the eighth prince who was a peerless genius. Under the guise of friendship and brotherhood, the crown prince treated the eighth prince like a cow and horse*, squeezing out as much as he felt was enough before throwing the eighth prince away.
*a living tool, since on farms the cow/bull and horse do a lot of work ah.
However, it wasn't enough to throw the eighth prince away, he had to make sure the other couldn't counterattack. Frame him. Cripple him. Let him experience the common people's life that he rightfully belongs to.
Pan Shuchun picked up the general but she never picked up the eighth prince who ended up living as a beggar for two years. In Pan Shuchun's story, other some background and lasting impressions, the eighth prince never appeared. But in Tang Muxin's super long story which took forever and had a weird amount of timeskips, the eighth prince finally managed to crawl his way back to the palace after the two years and was treated like a joke and a waste to everybody.
Half a year later, Tang Muxin entered the palace to try cure the poisoned emperor and solve the mystery.
During that time the suspects were all the royal family, some high ranking ministers and the harem. The reclusive eighth prince who is stuck in a wheelchair and the crown prince who is a two faced, impatient tyrant were the most suspicious.
The collective reader IQ for those who read this story till the end was not high so many more or less believed the crown prince did it given the scant clues and implications before the story was dropped.
However Jia Hyson could easily infer from reading the premise a few times that in this case the crown prince should be innocent and the blackhearted eighth prince is the true mastermind that wants to frame the crown prince.
Most likely the story goes- Tang Muxin finds clues and accuses the crown prince, the crown prince gets punished, most likely beaten and exiled or something, later on in the story Tang Muxin discovers a clue that goes against her previous accusation, enter the true villain the eighth prince, male lead who has been soy sauce this whole time finally (hopefully) does something important, imperial politics and fighting, eighth prince loses and either dies or commits suicide, happily ever after.
They had never described the betrayal that lead to the eighth prince's blackening, which, honestly is probably something the author never even thought of properly hence the super vagueness of it all. Meaning that the world's consciousness most likely had to make up it all up using the law of parsimony, aka Occam's razor, aka the least effort is the best way.
Looking at the two characters of varying importance in the same alleyway, all messed up and unconscious, Jia Hyson felt he knew what happened even without Bebe consulting its [World Encyclopedia].
The general went on a secret investigation misson, got injured and lost his memory in a small rural village. The eighth prince was sent on a 'simple trip' by the crown prince which was actually framing him and shoving him into a trap resulting in the prince becoming injured and crippled in a place filled with poor commoners. Both things happened roughly around the same time. Very convenient to smoosh the two poorly described events together.
Jia Hyson: '…Does that mean in the original original story Pan Shuchun saw two half dead guys in an alley, and only picked up one?'
'Eh, there's all sorts of things the world's consciousness can do to avoid this sort of mishap.' If Bebe could, it would shrug. It is a veteran that has seen many tricks of various world consciousness. 'The eighth prince is dressed a bit better, can get the attention of bad hooligans who drag him away. The general can temporarily wake up and stumble away into a different alley because he knows he has to get a distance away from the other to increase his survivability. If really lazy, the world's consciousness can conveniently make the alley darker than usual or throw garbage onto the eighth prince to hide him before Pan Shuchun came to pick up the general.'
Jia Hyson listens with interest as he starts to crawl up the general's chest, his sharp claws further ruining the man's dirty clothing. However Jia Hyson wasn't really interested in checking out the general's chest right now, climbing further up and disregarding any concept of personal space as he steps all over the man's already bruised face to sit happily on his head. Even though he was tired but the workout he was very satisfied with himself.
Jia Hyson: 'Ha, it turns out I can top even in this form lol.'☚(ﾟヮﾟ☚)
Bebe: (¬_¬) '....You did all that for such a stupid joke?'
Jia Hyson: 'Nah, I just figured it would be fun to climb him.' ┐(￣ヘ￣)┌
With his passive dragon skills that unlock more of his instincts, Jia Hyson has quickly started to slowly notice weird urges like wanting to climb high things or hoarding.
Da Gong clucks unhappily below him. "Baby come back. Baby will get dirty."
"Don't wanna," Jia Hyson refuses in a spoilt tone. He was enjoying the height and found it quite enjoyable to mess around on this man's head. It's especially funny to use his very flexible prehensile tail to play with the handsome general's face, pinching his cheeks and smoshing them so he can make kissy goldfish faces.
Jia Hyson: 'Hehe. Squishy, squishy.'(人 •͈ᴗ•͈)
The rooster looks disdainfully at the dirty man. His curiosity had quickly turned into one of disgust and disdain as he watches his worm play with the human so uninhibitedly. "He's so smelly and ugly. Tch, this human probably has a disease."
Seeing Da Gong guzzle a pint size jar of vinegar, Jia Hyson felt like a hundred arrows have pierced his heart. Before he could only read the subtitles but now he can clearly discern the sulking tone filled with grievances and jealousy. The effect is improved twofold and Jia Hyson's fragile slutty heart can't take the damage.
"Brother Gong don't be like that," he coaxes, his chest filled with sweetness. "You will always be my favorite ah,"
Da Gong stares at his playful little worm looking at him with bright, warm eyes before pointedly looking away and kicking the dirt on the ground. "....Tch."
Jia Hyson could probably vomit out honey with how much sweetness his family's rooster is feeding him. His claws twitch. Fuck. He finally understands the appeal of the tsundere.
So fucking cute. Why were they not human? He can't even emotionally vent this pent up happiness through sex right now! He wanted to, wanted to-!
Bebe watches as it's usually slaggy host bit his claws, squealing into his little paws like a teenage girl fangirling over her idol, while his tail started wagging subconsciously like an excited dog. It felt that it's host was acting strange in regards to Da Gong. Even though Jia Hyson has expressed affection for Drake and Sefu, as well as express some interest in the other personas, he's never really acted so.... in love before.
This sort of constantly blushing, easily excitable and sticky state, Bebe had never seen it before. After all this was the slag host who claimed to love Sefu but relished in hurting him, pushing his buttons, flirting with other people and giving him green hats for x years. Even after they got together Jia Hyson still remained more or less the same except the green hat thing. Sefu spent a lot of his lifetime only getting the upper hand in the bedroom.
Bebe felt like the only thing that could cause such a change in romantic response must be the lack of eroticism in the relationship.
In Bebe's opinion, Jia Hyson's view were naturally skewed at birth. For him, love was probably something like 50% sexual attraction, 10% mutual respect and dependence, 35% compatibility and 5% emotional fulfillment. To put it nicely, Jia Hyson is looking for a partner that fills his sexual appetite and has personality that works well with his own. To put it crudely, Jia Hyson just wants a living sex toy that is interesting enough that he won't get tire of it until death.
Once you take the factor of sex away, the weight of emotion in his heart will naturally become bigger to compensate. Jia Hyson this slag man child has probably never handled such pure romantic love before and was at a loss at how to deal with it. He can't vent through sex, he can't tease with Da Gong in his usual flirtatious manner and he doesn't have the capabilities nor the heart to bully a rooster.
Hence. This.
Unable to take the almost itchy, ticklish feeling inside him anymore, Jia Hyson energetically jumped off the general's head toward Da Gong. Da Gong squawks in shock and quickly tries to be his best to be a soft landing for the small dragon, sitting down and lying flat on the ground with his wings spread to increase the surface area and the chances for his worm's safety.
Luckily with the new passive skills, Jia Hyson's reflexes have improved greatly and his mastery over his reptilian body had also increased. Not only did he not miss his landing, he even had the ability to aim for the rooster's neck, deftly grabbing it and using the momentum his elongated body to swing around the neck and encircle it in a full body hug. This sort of amazing almost fairy like movements was like a gold medal gymnast in the cuddle Olympics.
"Hugs!" Jia Hyson chirps, body wriggling and impatient hands petting everywhere. He can't help it. It was like he needed to be close to Da Gong, touching his soft feathers, enjoying his warmth and feeling his breathing. Only then could the itching desire in his heart be a little sated. But it was only a cup of water against a house fire.
In truth, he really just wanted to, wanted to-
Really wanted to rip his cute rooster's fragile throat ah~♡ ♡(⁄ ⁄>⁄ ▽ ⁄<⁄ ⁄)♡
Bebe: ...
Bebe: ???
Bebe was partly correct in it's theory. However Jia Hyson had one more, very important thing that has to be factored into calculating his love- that is, his inherent desire for sadism and violence.
It was the ugliest part of his heart that he hid tightly away. Drake never really experienced it, but Sefu had been emotionally abused as Jia Hyson purposefully paraded bed partners after bed partners in front of him, relishing in the anguish and discomfort of his turtle like love interest. Even Li Guiren and Tian Shun had some exposure to it, or they wouldn't have become as twisted and insecure as they were under his care.
He likes to hurt people. He likes to comfort them. The act of breaking them and then fixing them up. The dependency. The trust. The control.
Sometimes Jia Hyson will look at his loved ones and imagine dark things, terrible things. Only by exhausting his emotions through passionate, stimulating sex, or venting through his writings and pushing those morbid thoughts into written word, could he feel like his mindset had been temporarily cleansed.
However right now there was nowhere to vent these emotions filled with excitement. Not through sex, not through writing, and so only the thought of destructive violence remains.
He wants to curl around Da Gong's neck and slowly squeeze it with his whole body, he wants the rooster to feel his love literally choke him. He wants to bite down and taste the blood that flows through this adorable creature, to have a part of him inside himself. He wants to let his claws sink inside the strong yet fragile body, to touch inside of him where no one else has touched, before ripping it to shreds.
He wants it all, he wants to ruin him, destroy him but he can't, he can't bear to hurt Da Gong who seems so strong but in reality, compared to himself, is so breakable.
Dragons are possessive and have an inherent primitive violence in them that they take mental training to subdue. Jia Hyson who has awakened these instincts of course has no such training. Fortunately he is a host and his life spent in human society with strict laws is enough to more or less push back that inherent violence with logic and self awareness. Unfortunately, Jia Hyson himself is quite an amoral human being with various mental issues he's hidden under masks and lies and years of self discipline.
Silently he sighs in irritation. This would have been so much easier if they were both human and capable of sex. Then again, he might not have felt this strongly in the first place if he was human ah.
Like Bebe he had more or less figured out something was a little different with his mental state. His libido was a large part of his lifestyle. It is one of the main forms of his stress relief as well as an outlet for his less savory inclinations. With it gone, it's to be expected some cracks will show and alter his mental stability, especially with these new skills subtly altering his behavior.
Well, with all the jokes and sarcasm pushed aside, a man who has a skill like [Psychotic Break] and [Corrupter of Children] is naturally not a normal man.
Jia Hyson sighs. He hopes he doesn't need to get a therapist after this. Without the coupons, those appointments are so goddamn expensive. Like real therapy. Not to mention, it would be a frankly embarrassing situation to explain.
Bebe: 'Bebe sees..' So in the end, host is like a horny dog- if he couldn't have sex, he would become destructive.
Jia Hyson: 'Oh shut up, that's such a rude thing to say after my serious monologue about my underlying mental health issues.'
Bebe: 'You're not denying it.'
Jia Hyson: 'Still rude. For being so insensitive, I'm revoking your gaming privileges.'
Bebe: '…' What are you, Bebe's motherboard?
Jia Hyson: 'And I'm taking away your access to our data plan for a month.'
Son Bebe: '!!!' Motherboard! Bebe's sorry! QAQ
Despite the initial indignation, Jia Hyson knew Bebe was just trying to distract him from his current mood. The usual banter did help slightly, however it was like the off putting feeling of having to hold back your words during an argument. It's a lingering complicated irritation under the skin. Jia Hyson who was wrapped around Da Gong's neck dug his claws into his own wrist. The pain helping distract his mind a little more from going anywhere too dark.
"Baby?" Da Gong clucks confusedly as he felt the small body tighten around his neck. Instinctively he felt his little worm's attitude was a bit off though he couldn't comprehend it well. He looks down and is startled to see his worm hurting himself!
Da Gong: ☉⊝☉ !
Flapping his wings in panic, Da Gong quickly recollects himself and uses his wingtips to brush against the little dragon's scales. Only the faint tremble of his feathers betrayed his anxieties.
However, this display of affection was counterproductive to Jia Hyson who was converting his emotional response to cuteness into violence. The urge was growing strong his old skill [Malevolent Intent] which recycles the user's negative emotions and malicious thoughts into energy, had passively turned on. On the bright side, at least he was getting some free spiritual energy out of all this ah.
Tensing his body, Jia Hyson tries to ignore the soft caresses filled with sweet emotions and the bubbling warmth brewing in his heart. And when he says bubbling warmth, he means the bubbling warmth that comes with wanting to fiercely maim from the sheer cuteness of it all.
His claws dig even deeper to his arms, piercing his scales and flesh. Even though his dragon blood faintly glowed gold, it still carried the same base scent as all blood. Da Gong who is very familiar with that scent immediately became even more alarmed.
Without thinking, he squawked, "Little worm! What are you doing?!"
Jia Hyson who was trying to hold himself back: '???'
Eh?
Eh??
What the fuck did he just call me?
Little worm?!
Suddenly, Jia Hyson no longer felt the rooster was very cute anymore. Though strangely enough, the urge to maim was still there.