I'M THE ONE who didn't protect you properly. I let you become someone else's pawn. I let you become a monstrous tyrant.
No one knows who you really are. No one knows you were once kind and innocent. No one knows how you once fretted over the earthworms you couldn't save on a rainy day, how you once smiled brilliantly before a pond of lotuses in full bloom.
Everyone thinks you're cold-blooded and heartless. They don't know you once scratched your head and said bashfully, "It—it's not like I can do anything special. But when I was little, I didn't have a place to stay. When I have money to spare in the future, I'll build lots of houses so people like me have somewhere to live. Wouldn't that be nice?"
Everyone hates you for being a ruthless butcher, but they don't know you once told me, "Shizun, I want a holy weapon like Tianwen. It can tell lies from truth, and it can save lives."
Everyone curses your existence, wishes you'd meet a terrible end. And even though I know the truth now, I still can't give your dignity back to you.
Perhaps Mo Ran was sensitive to being watched, even while sleeping. His eyelids twitched. Before Chu Wanning could react, his eyes snapped open. "You…"
Their gazes met.
"What are you looking at?"
Chu Wanning's emotions were strained to the breaking point. He didn't know how to answer, so he flipped over to avoid Mo Ran's eyes. "Nothing."
Mo Ran didn't reply. After a beat, Chu Wanning found himself drawn into a heated embrace, a broad, firm chest pressed to his back.
In the darkness, Chu Wanning opened his eyes. The canopy fluttered idly before him, while Taxian-jun's body was warm against his back. "You're so cold," Mo Ran remarked. His tone was indifferent; whether out of scorn or indolence, it was hard to say. "But you're sweating."
He nuzzled his face into the crook of Chu Wanning's neck and inhaled. "Did you have a nightmare?" Mo Ran laughed softly, his words slow with drowsiness. "I can smell the fear on you."
Chu Wanning said nothing, but he could feel himself trembling. Not out of fear, but because he was about to shatter under the weight of his pain and guilt. He summoned all his strength, willing himself to keep calm.
At last, Taxian-jun's interest seemed to wane. Mo Ran yawned, gradually growing more alert. He sniffed at Chu Wanning's shoulders and temples, then hummed in satisfaction. "Come to think of it, why do you smell like flowers even when you're sweating?" He sounded amused. "You're like a plant spirit that's cultivated into a human."
Such ridicule would usually earn him a furious retort. But on this night, Mo Ran waited, yet got no reaction at all. Bemused, he sat up and flipped Chu Wanning onto his back. Mo Ran climbed on top of him, his solid bulk pinning Chu Wanning to the bed.
When their eyes met, they left no room for anything but each other.
The hall was lit by only a single guttering candle, its light blurring as it wound its way through layers of gauze. In the gloom, Mo Ran stared down his nose at Chu Wanning's handsome features. Those sword-straight brows remained forbidding above his upturned phoenix eyes and regal nose, as haughty and proud as ever they had been. Yet for some reason, there was something queer about his expression tonight.
"What's wrong with you?" Mo Ran reached out and cupped Chu Wanning's cheek. He felt a tremor ripple through his fingertips. The man beneath him closed his eyes, suppressing an onslaught of unknowable emotions.
Mo Ran found himself jolted fully awake by his own arousal. Whether it was Chu Wanning's knitted brows or his pale, delicate lips, or that face like brittle porcelain… Everything fed the burning hunger in his chest, stoking his urge to conquer. Even so, a gnawing sense of unease stayed Mo Ran's hand. "Seriously, what's wrong with you?"
Chu Wanning opened his eyes, irises glimmering unsteadily beneath lowered lashes. He had no outlet for any of his pain and frustration. At last, he said hoarsely, "How did the two of us…come to this?"
Silence.
"If I could've stopped you earlier, would things be different now?"
Mo Ran didn't answer. He found Chu Wanning's question laughable. After all, he'd triumphed over Chu Wanning so long ago. He'd forced Chu Wanning to wed him, made him his consort, turned him into his plaything. All this was set in stone. What would possess Chu Wanning to suddenly ask such outlandish questions?
Wushan Palace was deserted save for that pair of adversaries lying naked together in bed. The soothing smell of flowers drifted in through the window, dulling Mo Ran's desire to snarl at this insubordinate man. He'd always had far more patience for his Consort Chu than his empress.
He peered down at Chu Wanning's pained expression with renewed interest. The burning itch in his heart sent heat radiating through his chest like a tiny flame. He usually wasn't one to joke, but now he said languidly, "If Wanning had discovered sooner that this venerable one intended to take the throne, how would you have stopped me?" Taxian-jun's fingers trailed downward. Voice alluringly husky, he drawled, "With your body?"
An inscrutable mixture of emotions flitted through Chu Wanning's eyes. Mo Ran's gaze darkened. After a moment, he swore under his breath. He was powerless to resist any manner of temptation from Chu Wanning, intentional or not. There was no warning or foreplay. Like a beast in heat, Mo Ran only lifted one of Chu Wanning's willowy legs and swiftly thrust forward—
His opening was still slick from the last time they'd made love, and his body seemed to remember the sensation of it. Mo Ran slid in easily. Both of them couldn't help a low groan.
Chu Wanning's eyes were misty with unshed tears. He looked at Mo Ran's broad chest and at his handsome face, suffused with fervent arousal. The lovely shape of his full lips parted slightly around his sharp gasps of pleasure…
The eight sorrows, eternal regret—all of these were born of desire. If not for their influence, could this broken body of his still rouse Mo Ran's passion?
He didn't know.
As he and Mo Ran twined their limbs between the sheets, Chu Wanning's heart tied itself in knots. He couldn't muster the strength to struggle as he usually did.
Mo Ran seemed to find the strangeness of his reactions all the more enticing—or perhaps it was simply because Chu Wanning felt even hotter inside than usual from his fever. Mo Ran gathered Chu Wanning in his arms as he buried himself greedily into his pliant body, kissing Chu Wanning's lips over and over. He gripped Chu Wanning's ass, then raised one of Chu Wanning's legs, snapping his own hips fast and hard.
Chu Wanning's emotions were in tatters, and his usual self-control was nowhere to be found. His throat bobbed, low moans leaking unbidden from his lips. This thrilled Mo Ran. Tangled within the disheveled bedding, his labored breaths were low and sensual. "Is it here?" he rasped.
After all the times he'd taken him, Mo Ran should have been intimately familiar with Chu Wanning's most sensitive spots. But Chu Wanning's willpower was such that he rarely made any noise in bed—Mo Ran was not completely certain. He shifted angles and positions several times, gazing down at Chu Wanning's frowning face each time. "Where does it feel best when I fuck you?"
Chu Wanning's world was in shambles. He heard Mo Ran whisper questions into his ear, kissing him, his breaths heavy with an aching urgency, as inescapable as a tempestuous downpour. For the first time, he felt as though he was duckweed floating in a vast river, unable to grasp anything or chart his own course, unable to change a thing. He had never been as helpless as he was on that night.
Though Chu Wanning said nothing, from the trembling of his limbs and the look in his eyes, Mo Ran could tell which position overwhelmed him most. His motions were sharp and forceful, lighting up those nerves within Chu Wanning with every thrust. At first, he bit his lip and stayed silent. Mo Ran began to move with renewed vigor, his balls slapping loudly against Chu Wanning's ass. Fluid seeped from where they joined, making a mess of the sheets…
Mo Ran grabbed his jaw. His hips never stopped moving as his lips sought Chu Wanning's, capturing his mouth in another ravenous kiss.
Chu Wanning's eyes welled with tears. He tried to—wanted to—resist, but for some reason, with that kiss, his willpower evaporated. Helpless, he groaned and panted to the rhythm of Mo Ran's conquest, grabbing at the sheets beneath him as if they were pieces of his shattered pride.
But Mo Ran was relentless. Chu Wanning's legs were shaking, his opening a sloppy mess; he couldn't hold back the whines and soft moans that escaped his lips. As Mo Ran pounded into him with unbridled ferocity, Chu Wanning lost himself completely. He spread his legs wide, toes curling, gasping uncontrollably under the onslaught. "Ah… Nngh… Haaa…"
Mo Ran's eyes grew darker still. The louder and more desperate Chu Wanning's cries, the harder Mo Ran fucked him. In the chaos of their joining, the bedframe creaked in protest, and the pillows tumbled to the ground. Neither of them spared a thought for their surroundings. Their lovemaking was too engrossing, almost soul-stirring. They made such a racket that the guards on duty could scarcely look at Chu Wanning the next day without blushing, their gazes furtive with prurient curiosity.
When Mo Ran at last came inside him, it sent Chu Wanning careening over the edge. The sheets were soaked, the air heavy with musk. In all the years he'd been Mo Ran's prisoner, it was the first time Chu Wanning had come just from Mo Ran's cock, without the use of any aphrodisiacs.
Dazed, he heard Mo Ran say, his voice a low rumble, "It's inevitable that we came to this. Do you know why?"
When Chu Wanning said nothing, Mo Ran continued, "Because I've wanted to fuck you for ages." He ran his fingers through Chu Wanning's long, inky hair. "I hated that pretentious, indifferent look on your face. No matter what I did, you never had a single good word to say about it."
Chu Wanning's lashes quivered; Mo Ran's words were like a sharp thorn in his side. Mo Ran had been the ultimate victor, yet he somehow sounded like a jilted bride as he murmured resentfully into Chu Wanning's ear. "No matter how well I did, how hard I worked, you never spared me a glance."
No. That's not true. There was once warmth between us. We shared a jar of wine in a garden; we huddled beneath an umbrella in the rain. But you've forgotten it all, and I can't remind you it happened anymore.
"Don't you see—you're only lying obediently beneath me because I snapped your bones and pulled out your claws." Mo Ran pressed a kiss to Chu Wanning's lips, a manic edge rising in his voice. "I had to become Emperor Taxian-jun to abuse and torment you, to trample you underfoot."
His spent cock throbbed within Chu Wanning, still thick with arousal.
"I don't mind going to hell for the sin of lust if it means I can see you like this right now," Mo Ran said softly. "For such a tantalizing sight, it's worth every torment." He stroked a hand over Chu Wanning's hair, his cock still buried to the hilt in him.
That night seemed to stir something in Mo Ran—afterward, he developed a habit of refusing to pull out, despite knowing Chu Wanning would get sick. An insatiable fire burned in his heart, a beastly desire that couldn't be suppressed. Chu Wanning was the only water that could quench the flames, his only safe harbor. He wanted to ravage him, then retrace the ruined wreckage of his body with kisses.
As for Chu Wanning, he slowly extricated himself from his debilitating sorrow. Working in secret, he gathered up clues. He knew someone had planted the Flower of Eightfold Sorrows in Mo Ran—but what were they plotting, and what did they hope to accomplish?
Although the demon tribe's text said the flower couldn't be excised in the third stage of its development, Chu Wanning didn't intend to give up. As ever, he was obstinate and unwilling to concede defeat. He refused to bend to fate.
The days passed like this, one after another. Ever since the loss of his spiritual energy, Chu Wanning found himself tiring easily. Having to make sure nobody else discovered his investigations made it worse. It would be nigh impossible to find the mastermind behind the scenes, and the thought of uprooting the flower was pure fantasy. At the same time, the goal of whoever was controlling Mo Ran became more and more clear, for Mo Ran began to study the Space-Time Gate of Life and Death.
"This venerable one won't be able to learn the Rebirth technique."
Chu Wanning remembered watching Mo Ran as he stood before a window, hands behind his back, gazing at a twittering oriole outside. "I looked at the scrolls—only people with a heavy yin aura can use it," he'd said calmly, then glanced over his shoulder at Chu Wanning. "I'll learn the first forbidden technique instead."
"The Space-Time Gate?"
"Naturally."
"…You can't master it."
Mo Ran had merely smiled. "I have to at least try before conceding defeat. Who are you to say what I can or can't do? What do you know?"
Chu Wanning shook his head. "The first forbidden technique defies the natural order of the world. It will rip open a portal between two unconnected universes. The will of heaven has never permitted—"
"What's so great about the will of heaven?" Mo Ran retorted, his eyes languid and unconcerned. "Why would I need its permission? This venerable one has never believed in fate."
Mo Ran thus embarked upon his research. Knowledge regarding the first forbidden technique had been lost for a very long time. Even with all his resources as an omnipotent emperor, Mo Ran managed to secure, after much difficulty, merely a fragment of the ancient scrolls, and even this was still missing the most important passages. Without complete instructions, Mo Ran could only create a Space Gate. He was unable to command both space and time.
More and more, Chu Wanning began to understand why the flower's architect had planted this curse in Mo Ran. Vanishingly few people possessed Mo Ran's astonishingly potent reserves of spiritual energy, which would be necessary to accomplish their objectives. Whoever it was didn't want to rule the world. Instead, Chu Wanning suspected that their ultimate goal was to open the Space-Time Gate. And they were seeking more than a small rip in space-time—rather, they very probably intended to fuse two separate universes into one.