Help! I Became A Guy In A BL Novel!-Chapter 324: Closure

As his mansion came into view, so did more memories surface.

The face he saw in his mind was a child’s. Five years old, maybe younger. Bare feet on a cold dirt floor, ribs slightly visible from missed meals, hair long and unkempt because combing it took too much time and patience, neither of which his mother had. A child who only knew two things: silence kept you safe, and questions got you slapped.

"Why are you crying, huh? Huh? You want people to pity you? You want people to know what a bad mother I am?!

He remembered flinching from her voice, loud and sharp like broken glass. He’d stop crying. Always.

She’d hit him with words more than fists, but when the words didn’t land right, when her anger boiled past the edge, she didn’t hesitate to throw whatever she was holding, a slipper, a bottle, even once a hot spoon.

And still, he’d told himself: "She’s my mom. She loves me. That’s why I’m here with her, not in some orphanage. That’s love."

God, what a lie.

Soren opened his eyes and let out a shaky breath. His fingers, unknowingly, had curled into tight fists. His nails bit into his palm, grounding him.

That vision earlier, that cursed house, that warped reflection of the man he used to be, had pulled too many thoughts to the surface.

He remembered the day after he killed that vile woman with his own two hands.

He looked at his reflection after more than a decade.

His reflection stared back, sharp jaw, dark eyes that held too much weight for someone his age, hair cleanly combed, a pristine suit tailored to fit him perfectly. The insignia of the Snow Leopard Clan gleamed on his chest.

He looked nothing like the boy who used to sit in a broken windowframe to warm himself in slivers of sunlight.

But... He still had his face. His father’s.

His mother never let him forget it.

"Look at you. Just like him. That same stupid smile, that same smug face. I should’ve known you’d grow up to be just like your useless father. You’re a curse, you hear me? I should’ve left you at the temple steps the day you were born."

He remembered how she said it so casually, wiping her hands on her skirt after tossing cold food in his direction. As if what she said was fact, not something that cracked a child’s world into jagged pieces.

She hated seeing him happy. She was pleased only when he was as miserable as she was.

The worst part was: he still tried to win her over.

He’d clean, he’d cook, he’d offer the few coins he found on the street. He used to think, "If I’m good enough, if I try harder, maybe she’ll smile at me."

She never did.

Instead, she sold him.

She’d said, waving her hand like she was giving away an old rug. "Whatever you do, don’t bring him back."

He didn’t cry.

He promised himself he wouldn’t.

But that night, in that stranger’s cold house, curled up on those smooth and soft sheets, he broke that promise. Though he had nice things, he wanted his mother. He wanted to go back to that place. He did not want to be here...

He told himself, "She loved me. That’s why she kept me so long. But she does not love me anymore..."

But now? Now, with everything behind him, now that he stood here as Master of the very clan that once wouldn’t have given him the time of day?

He knew better.

He knew exactly what she’d done.

She didn’t raise him. She broke him. Stripped him down until there was nothing left but obedience and silence.

And yet... Some pathetic part of him still needed something.

Closure. Justice. Or maybe just answers.

Soren looked at his reflection again. His jaw tensed.

It was the same face.

The one his mother hated. The one that the woman who bought him... Loved.

A cruel irony.

He looked away, unable to bear it any longer.

He turned, crossed the room, and picked up the comm device from the desk.

His voice, when it came out, was clear, calm, the practised tone of command that others feared.

"Find her."

There was a pause on the other end. His subordinate didn’t need clarification. They knew who he meant. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"Yes, Master."

In the quiet, he let himself say it out loud, just once.

"The person who should’ve loved me... Ruined me."

And then he whispered something even quieter, a confession only the walls could hear.

"I don’t even know if I want to forgive her... Or if I want her to beg."

Soren never thought he would love anyone. He could not trust anyone, everyone in his life had failed him. He refused to believe anyone.

It wasn’t because he didn’t try—he did, as a child. He had clung to the idea that someone, anyone, would look at him and not recoil, not shout, not strike him or curse his existence. He had hoped his mother would one day touch his hair without flinching or let him sit near her without spitting out the name of the man who gave him his eyes.

But even as he got older, even after becoming the Master of the Snow Leopard Clan, Soren never tried to fix what had been broken. He didn’t trust anyone to touch it. No—he didn’t want anyone to touch it.

And then came Riven.

A loud, defiant, ridiculous half-wolf boy who stumbled into his life like chaos wrapped in skin and teeth. Soren still remembered the moment Riven had blurted it out—so casually, like it meant nothing.

"I- I like you. I have a crush on you!"

He suspected Riven of being a spy, but Riven, in an effort to save his life, admitted that he was, but he loved him, and he did not want to spy on him anymore. How ridiculous?