"C'mon, Your Highness, please, act like the reasonable king that you are, and come inside! Did you forget about Peony? Your life is not only yours, to decide to end it just like that! It belongs to the Peony's people, who need their king!
Brr, the blizzard has stopped, but it's still extremely cold!
It's freezing, even for a wolf! Please, my King, we can talk inside. You said that you didn't take the human form last night, so, it must happen any moment,  today.
Please, do it for me, if not for yourself or for Peony! You said once that you love me...And please, please, don't refuse again to eat! You are skin and bones, please, don't make my life harder than it already is! I simply don't know what to do anymore!", Liu HaiKuan kept begging and whining, while almost pulling his hair in frustration at the sight of the white wolf that buried himself in the snowdrifts after announcing to him that he couldn't bear anymore to live this kind of life and decided to try getting frozen to death.

"Stop calling me Your Highness!", a growl  came as a  reply,  along with two white ears popping out from the snowdrifts.

"Whatever you wish for my King! Do you want me to call you Snowflake instead, or maybe you would allow me to call you my sweet friend Yibao? Anything you want, just please come with me inside!", Liu HaiKuan quickly wiped his  wet cheeks, a ray of hope gleaming in his teary eyes when the wolf had finally jumped out from the snow and started to walk weakly towards him.

"None of them, from  now on call me only by my real name! Call me Beast!
That is who I am!
I am a selfish Beast on top of that, you were right! I thought only about myself, forgetting about  Peony! Thank you Lord Liu HaiKuan, you should be the one to sit on the Peony throne!
Thank you, KuanKuan, I meant it when telling you that I love you, I really love you my friend!
I can't die before leaving a signed and sealed will about my successor to the throne, as I have no heirs and never will have! I think that I know who that should  be!", the wolf  kept talking in his growled half-human half-wolf voice, while HaiKuan was wiping his dirty and soaked fur with a thick towel.

"Don't talk about death anymore! There will be no need for any successor, because  Wang Yibo is the only King of Peony, and will be for dozens of years ahead!
While you will get warmed up a bit, let me make  breakfast for you. What would you like to eat, my King?", HaiKuan asked, after wrapping the wolf in a thick blanket.

"KuanKuan, I didn't joke when asking you to call me Beast! Take it as an order from your King, if you can't follow your friend Yibao's request. It makes me feel more...I don't know how to explain myself!
Look  how I'm hurting innocent animals, eating them alive! Am I not a beast? And you wonder why I don't want to eat anymore!
Look how I hurt you, my best friend who loves me and I love him back, making your life a nightmare! Am I not a beast?
Look how I let down my Peony nation,  King Yang's trust in me and his legacy! Am I not a beast?
Look how I hurt him, look what I've done to the love of my life! Am I not a beast?
Call me only by my name! Call me Beast!", Wang Yibo spoke in his growled voice.

"Alright, I will obey, but In the name of the love that you say you still have for me, I want something in exchange, Beast.", HaiKuan managed to  utter in a strangled voice,  swallowing his tears of pain.

"Fair enough, tell me what do you want?", the wolf asked while jumping down from the bed.

"I want you to stop starving yourself. Ok, you don't want to eat alive animals anymore, but you could try eating cooked food even when you are not in the human form. I really didn't understand why you suddenly stopped eating, even when you are human,  though."

"Alright, I will do that, only because I agreed with your deal proposal.
And I'll answer your question, with another question: Did you see him, how  much weight he lost? Daily, I go in his garden as soon as I shift into the wolf state and stay there until  sunset when it would be the time to shift into my real self, meaning to become Beast, and I never see him eating, the whole day! How could I even swallow that food, when I know that he is starving.
Oh, my god, do you think that he could be sick?
Should we ask for the  king's doctors to come see him?", the wolf started to  nervously pace around the room.

"Calm down, Your Hi...Beast, we can't do that. Don't you remember that he supposedly suffers from the same contagious sickness you do, so nobody from outside would be allowed to approach him?
Besides, I'm sure that the prince is not sick, or else Cheng Di would have told me about it.
Maybe he has his legit reasons that he doesn't eat during the time you two  are keeping staring at each other for hours, ha, ha. ", HaiKuan tried to lighten up Wang Yibo's heavy heart with his laughter.

"Today we will not do that because I can't take the risk to shift into the human form right before his eyes. I have just figured out that today I can't see him , dammit!
I'm just going to spend my time writing in my journal in that hour of human state. "

"It's just for a day, you will see him tomorrow, now let me bring you the food.", HaiKuan tried to comfort his upset lovesick friend. 

Wang Yibo  hoped that he would take the human form earlier and he would still  have time to go  to see  Beauty. But he shifted only around five in the evening, so he will shift tonight into the werewolf directly from the human form.

"KuanKuan! KuanKuan!
Did you clean inside the library, and maybe you had moved my stuff? I can't find anywhere my...", Yibo shouted  from the library, right after taking the human form.

"Oh, god you really scared me, I thought that something bad happened to you!", HaiKuan came running to the library at the king's shouts.
"Glad to see you like this, I really missed my handsome human. You shifted into a human only in the night time, lately, and I never got to see you, as you are always hiding in the forest.
But no, I didn't clean or move anything,  didn't you tell me to not come here without you?
But what didn't you find?"  

"My journal...Oh my goodness! What if he took it?
What if he will read it and will  learn that I..."

"He took it?
Who?   
Since we brought Prince Beauty and Cheng Di in here and after they left , nobody else stepped inside the palace , much less in the library.
Who could be that 'he' you were referring to?"

"He is HIM, the Prince of Rose, of course!
Didn't I tell you that Beauty was in here and Snowflake had to chase him  away? I even ripped his leg pants to scare him away, as he was about to touch and smell that damn cursed rose!
Thinking about it now,  I remember that he tossed something  in his quiver, probably some books that I see now are missing from the table! Oh god, oh god! He took the journal, too, along with the other books!
I had my journal hidden in between the covers of an ancient Astrology  treatise. 
What to do now?", Yibo started to agitatedly pace around the room, same as Snowflake would do.

"Your Highness!
Your Highness!
Look, look!", HaiKuan shouted, completely forgetting about the title banning.

"What? Why are you screaming like that? And why do you still call me Your Hi...?", Yibo angrily  punched his fist onto the desk, but  got frozen in the spot when looking at what his friend was pointing at.

The cursed rose was flickering its color from red to green and red again. The petals seemed heavy with dew and a huge drop of water was sliding down the stem but vanishing to the bottom of the crystal case.

"What  does  this even mean?",  both men whispered at the same time.

~Next day~

Wang ZhuoCheng tried again, for the nth time, to remove Beauty from the window.
The prince's daily routine after waking up and cleaning himself, was to drink his coffee and have a very summary breakfast, then to  plaster himself against the window. He wouldn't leave that spot until the evening time, except for a few short bathroom breaks or for drinking water.
And this was going on for more than ten days already.

 "C'mon Your Royal Highness, look, the sun is soon slipping below the horizon! And you didn't eat anything yet, today!
I cooked the whole day, and you didn't want to take at least one bite. It's your favorite, you know?
Please, ZhanZhan, you will fall sick. Come eat something, at least  as a reward for your friend.
I'm seriously getting worried about your intentions. What do you think that you would get from starving yourself?
Except upsetting your father, if he would find out.
Even Snowflake left the garden already.
Please, Beauty, forget about that bastard, he doesn't deserve all this terrible pain bleeding your beautiful heart.", ZhuoCheng begged his  beloved prince, tears choking his voice.

"What are you talking about ChiangCheng, I ate a lot in the morning, my stomach is so full that I would explode if I ate more.
I am sorry that you worked so much in the kitchen, but I really don't feel like eating. I promise to eat everything you cooked tomorrow...but right now I really can't. It would make me sick to my stomach...especially after seeing Snowflake.
I was so worried about the reason he didn't come yesterday. Is it only me, or has he lost a lot of weight? And his sad eyes...
Do you think that he is sick? What if he is injured? Should we try tomorrow to get him inside and check him out?  I mean, you should try that, because he hates me and he wouldn't let me approach him.", Beauty sighed, finally allowing his friend to lead him away from the window.

"Why would you think something like that? Why would Snowflake come every day in your garden and stare at your window for hours, if he would hate you?
Look here, it's  a small cup of hot tea to warm up your guts and just three freshly baked cookies. ", ZhuoCheng spoke while sitting the wobbling man on the living room sofa. Wobbling, because his legs were numb from the many hours of not sitting down at all.
ZhuoCheng got extremely happy when the prince didn't push away the plate that he placed  into his lap.

"Thank you ChiangCheng for everything, especially for your patience with me. I don't know what I would do without you, you are the only one in the whole world who loves me, besides my father of course.
I must be a horrible person that everyone is hating on me, some  would even want me dead, ha, ha.", Beauty laughed bitterly while biting from a cookie, just to not get upset anymore the only person who loves him.
"And do not worry anymore about my bleeding heart. I  pulled him out  of my heart, I really did that! I could never love someone who hates me,  look I am not hurting anymore, I am smiling.", Beauty smiled widely...but wiping the hot tears wetting his cheeks with the back of his sleeve.

"Oh, my sweet, sweet ZhanZhan, you don't have to pretend, not in front of me!
You can cry how  much you feel the need to, just, please stop refusing to eat.
We can cry together, though, nobody stops us.", ZhuoCheng smiled back, hugging his friend, while tears were falling down his cheeks too.

Prince Beauty raised his head from his friend's shoulder:
"By the way, are you  finally on good terms with lord Liu HaiKuan?
I saw that you talked with him in the yard today,  when he brought the food supplies. He still looked very sad.
I'd hate it if I would be  the reason  you ruined your beautiful friendship with him."

"Don't worry, it's not because of you. It's just that...but let's forget about me and him.
You saw me talking to him, because I told him about this idea bothering me lately.
I asked him to tell princess Yang Zi, when he goes again to the palace, that we are no more sick, and we could go back to live there.
I wanted to tell you about this, but you were  not in the right state of mind to listen to me until now.", ZhuoCheng explained.

"Actually I was thinking about this, too. Even though I'd hated to  live there, it would be better than here where I feel like a burden to...
Also,  the creepy sounds I hear every  single night, probably coming from the forest direction are giving me nightmares. I know that lord HaiKuan said that he didn't see any  dangerous animals around, but those horror howls and screams are not  coming from some innocent deer, for sure.
Lucky with the books I took from King Wa...from the library. I read from them every night when the howls woke me up. I read them all, except one that I might start reading tonight, as I don't feel sleepy at all.  
So, what did lord HaiKuan say? Did he accept trying to convince princess Yang Zi that we are not sick anymore? And do you think that she will believe him?"

"He listened to my request, but he didn't advise us to do that, because something fishy is going on at the main palace, according to all kinds of rumors circulating among the palace staff. He will go to the palace tomorrow, early in the morning, and he will investigate the credibility of the rumors. When he'll be back, he promised to stop by and inform me about what he found out."

"What are those rumors about?"

"Lord HaiKuan heard two guards gossiping about an anonymous lover that princess Yang Zi is often hiding him in her royal bedroom  in the night, while the princess is vanishing from the palace for hours, on a daily basis. She even refuses any bodyguard to accompany her in the so-called long walks to the lake  from the mountain.
Those guards said that the secret lover might  be a thug who lives and hides in the cavern near the lake."

"Nah, I think that  there is just  stupid gossip, nothing more. That spoiled princess would never hook up with someone who has no royal blood running in his veins, much less a thug, with no noble title, no money and no power to make her a queen!"

"You're right, but let's wait for Lord Liu HaiKuan's investigation."

"Why don't you call him Kuan Ge anymore, as you used to?
ChiangCheng, I want you to do something for me, and I don't want to wait until tomorrow morning when you'll meet Lord Liu HaiKuan.
It's not too late in the evening, yet, I don't think that we would bother  them.
I want you to go right