Chapter Text
Prologue: Child of the Emperor
Luo Yu’s father does not love him.
To be better put, Luo Yu’s Father only showed a cursory interest in his existence. If anything he is treated like one of his father’s many treasures.
He was an object that belongs to the ruler of this world. Something to be looked at occasionally and kept safe, but ultimately forgotten for the countless other more interesting treasures the Emperor has yet to obtain. There will always be something better his Father’s greed would demand he obtain.
But Luo Yu digressed. None of this matters because Luo Yu is done. He’s done with being one of the many children the Emperor has sired with his ridiculously massive harem. Luo Yu only has to blink and there seems to be three more ‘wives’ crawling around the palace.
Luo Yu found the harem disturbing and tiring. Maybe because his mother had been a part of it before she had died giving birth to him. The idea that his mother may have acted like the countless Emperor obsessed women that lived in the palace was a thought he could not stand.
Luo Yu liked to think that his mother had been tricked into marrying the Emperor. That his Father had swindled her the way he had obviously done with the hundreds of other women that seemed to be hypnotized by his supposed charms.
But the harem doesn't matter. The dozens of siblings that he has don’t matter (all the Emperor’s children fought for their Father’s attention; there was no love between them). Luo Yu has no family in this world built on his Father’s greedy demands for more.
Luo Yu has only ever really seen his Father on one day of each year. It was more than the rest of the Emperor’s children were guaranteed as he was the sole child that permanently resides in the palace. All the rest live with their Mothers in estates or whatever property the Emperor gave them.
With Luo Yu’s mother dead, he is allowed to live in the palace. The servants raised him and the Emperor deigns to visit him one day a year on his birthday. Luo Yu was also the only child to be allowed the surname Luo.
It was a kindness he was told to be grateful for, but each year was the same. The morning of his birthday would come, he would spend the day alone, and then his Father would invite him to dinner.
Luo Yu would never admit it out loud, but his Father was terrifying. At those dinner the Emperor would sit at the end of a long table with narrowed eyes that would stare at Luo Yu. The man would not say anything until halfway through the meal, but it would only be questions about his studies with his tutors. ‘Have you learned to harness your demonic powers properly?’ was always a question the night ended with.
Unfortunately, Luo Yu was apparently defective and had no cool magic demon powers to speak of, much to his Father’s obvious disappointment. So the dinners always ended with his disapproving stares and silent judgment. Before Luo Yu left those dinners, he was given a present.
If it could be called that.
His Father would slit his wrist with a sharp nail and have Luo Yu drink his blood. It was done in the hopes that Luo Yu’s demon blood would awaken with the help of his Father’s. Except, for some reason, it never worked. His tutors had explained that they believe it is an issue with his age, and that once his body had hit his demonic puberty or whatever; the blood would activate his and all would be well.
Except Luo Yu didn’t want his blood to activate. He didn’t want to be like his demonic siblings who had no issue awakening or controlling their demonic powers. Luo Yu wanted only one thing.
A family.
His Father did not care about him. The harem members could be kind, but none of them liked him as he represented how unstable their positions were. The servants were mostly demons, and demons love nothing from what he’d seen. Luo Yu has no one.
But that was going to change.
He was 11 years old today, and he had just had his obligatory birthday/blood drinking/dinner party with his dear old Dad. His Father has been even more disinterested in his existence than usual. Fiddling with a new braid in his hair and staring into the distance with a dark gaze.
He never once looked Luo Yu directly in the eyes. It was the final straw in a long list of disappointments. So Long Yu was leaving the palace to find a place to call home.
He wasn’t stupid enough to think he would find a family or friends. He was a child who nobody wanted. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t find a mountain and learn the one thing his Father had banned him from learning.
Cultivation.
It was a whispered word that had haunted Luo Yu since he had heard of it. Nearly anyone could learn it if they had the aptitude, but it was something his Father declared pointless since he had demonic powers that were ‘far superior’. Fortunately, the palace library was full of all sorts of novels one should never read. Bestiaries, erotica, history, and most importantly cultivation manuals.
They were locked up, but Luo Yu had always been clever. No one ever truly paid him attention so he easily took all the time he needed over the years to figure out how to obtain them.
Now, with the contraband of many books from the library and his few prized possessions, he left the Emperor’s palace in the dead of night in search of a cool mountain with the beautiful scenery he had read of in his studies.
Little did he know that this decision would not only lead him to finding a family. It would lead his Father to learn some lessons, he had spent too long living without.