Jenjibread
Ok. I am sorry, but you WILL have to expand more on this man. This man is fascinating. The way you write him, he DOES NOT want to rape Youshi. But at all. Which is not especially surprising, but still surprising to a certaine extent, taking into account that women, mostly in Han societies, were considered as commodities and would be raped without a man a much as blinking his eyes. But this man, his soft tone, the way he does everything slowly, almost mathematically, does not want to be here. That is how you portray him. You remember those few chapters of a webcomic I showed you yesterday, that supremely loyal woman who, to save her people from genocide, played the wh*re as a child, murdered women and tortured children, and in the end had her family destroyed, her people crushed, etc. This is the feel this man gives, in a much less dramatic fashion. He gives the impression of a man wholly loyal to his own people, who was forced, because of his loyalty, to take part in an action that went completely against his morals. And who, because he lacked in strength, because he preferred for the woman to scream (and let us be honest, it wouldn't have been catastrophic on a personal point of view, she was a princess, she would have gotten married anyways, just not into Sui - Liu Chuyu, Liu Ziye's sister had a whole harem of handsome men and was still married) and get both of them out of this situation, lost and could not complete this mission that was forced onto him. The fact he believes that when he will r*pe her, she will scream defeats the purpose of him giving her a chance to get out of this. Any other thug would have just went right in to just do it. I am sorry for this man! Eventually, you will have to explain what happened, and then, out of respect for this man, I want to know who he was, what his characteristics were and who the animal who took THIS man, when there are thugs galore in this world, to do something so filthy was. I am livid right now. Loyalty is the one thing that should never be defiled in this disloyal world full of treacherous beasts. As for pace, remember when I told you that what you desire to achieve as author has nothing to do with the perception of the readers? We did not even notice the change of pace. We were too excited with what was happening in the story. The writing is great, the grammar is perfect. The story is exciting to the max and makes me think as well. What more do you want, woman?!