SHI MEI PRESSED a sacred healing pill between Chu Wanning's lips, then sank his fine-boned fingers into his ink-dark hair like ten devilish white snakes. Lifting Chu Wanning's head, he pressed their foreheads together.
"Butterfly dreams haunt your slumber each night…" Quietly, he began to recite the incantation, but fell silent almost at once. He had intended to erase some of Chu Wanning's memories. This was one of his best-honed skills, which he'd previously used on Mo Ran. But perhaps Chu Wanning's souls were in too much disarray: It was entirely ineffectual.
"This might be rather difficult." Shi Mei sighed. He closed his eyes, then opened them once more, his sultry gaze now emanating a bewitching glow. He stared fixedly at Chu Wanning, then recited the incantation once more. "Butterfly dreams haunt your slumber each night; the past swept away, the present lost in misty mountains…"
This time it worked, but not perfectly. His spell fell like a boulder into water—there was a splash, but its ripples soon subsided.
No matter. A short stretch of time would suffice. When he and Chu Wanning were in the throes of pleasure together, he didn't want Chu Wanning's mind to be full of murderous intent. That wouldn't suit his tastes at all.
"Shizun, you've been asleep for so long. Isn't it time you woke up?" The murmured words had the force of a spell.
Chu Wanning's eyes fluttered open. Shi Mei's enchantment had done its work. His mind was fogged and stuck in the past life, his awareness reverted to the days shortly after Shi Mei had passed away. Mo Ran's grief from back then had wounded him so deeply he unconsciously yearned to change the past. His mind naturally drifted back to that period of time.
But a person's souls were an intricate thing. Souls from both lifetimes were crowded into Chu Wanning's body. Despite Shi Mei's spell, he wasn't quite lucid; his eyes were glassy, as if caught in a waking dream, and his memories were in disarray. He seemed to drift between wakefulness and sleep.
"Shi Mingjing?"
"Mn." Shi Mei's voice was gentle, a tenderness that hid all his twisted desires. "It's me."
Chu Wanning seemed exhausted. The fever had drained him; he made a soft noise of acknowledgment, then closed his eyes once more.
Shi Mei knew he was adjusting. He waited, unhurried, by his side. After a time, he heard Chu Wanning sigh, eyes still closed. "I must've been dreaming… I'm so glad you're still alive."
His mind was stuck in the time after the Heavenly Rift, Shi Mei knew, but he hadn't expected such sorrow from Chu Wanning. Shi Mei felt a rare pang. "You couldn't bear to see me dead?"
"You're so young…and so well-loved," murmured Chu Wanning. "It shouldn't have been you. I'm sorry…"
Shi Mei gazed at him quietly.
"I wish it could've been me. Then no one would grieve, at least."
The ache in Shi Mei's chest intensified, throbbing through his deadened heart. He remembered this feeling. He had felt it the first time he and Chu Wanning had walked home together, sharing an umbrella. In the following years, he'd schemed for ages in secret; those around him either died or drifted away. He had hidden himself in the darkness, pretending to be a heartless boulder. Eventually, he convinced himself he'd become stone.
It was not until this moment that, after so long, he vividly sensed the existence of his heart. It throbbed, it melted, it ached, it itched. He knew he shouldn't feel these emotions. Acid rain would corrode even stone, and soft moss would cause him to crumble.
But he couldn't help grabbing Chu Wanning's hand, heart pounding. Shi Mei opened his mouth, swallowing around his dry throat before he asked: "Then what about you? If I died, would you grieve? Did you grieve?"
Chu Wanning's sharp eyes were half-lidded. Beneath his long and dense lashes, those eyes held too much; Shi Mei stared into them hungrily, hoping to find some identifiable, concrete feeling within—but there was none.
Just as how water left alone remained water, and grain left untouched remained grain, only when kept in isolation would a singular emotion stay the way it was. But human emotions never arose in isolation. Shi Mei's death had caused Chu Wanning heartache, pain, self-reproach, and regret. All those emotions churned together like water stored with grain, a brew that had long fermented into something else entirely.
"Shizun," Shi Mei asked with single-minded fixation, "if you could do it all over again, would you do for me what you did for him? Would you sacrifice your own life to save mine?"
Silence.
"Would you?"
Chu Wanning's eyes were blank and dull. "Shi Mingjing…"
These three syllables were all he managed before his lips were brutally sealed. Shi Mei had awaited this answer so long, but when the moment of truth finally arrived, he dared not hear it. Didn't want to hear it.
He knew what Chu Wanning would say, Shi Mei thought. Resentment ricocheted through his heart. He kissed the man on the bed like a punishment. Chu Wanning was too stunned to understand what was happening until Shi Mei attempted to pry open his mouth with his tongue. Comprehension hit him like a dream shattering, and Chu Wanning's eyes flew open.
"Mngh!"
"Shh, quiet." Shi Mei panted, tapping Chu Wanning's throat to magically muffle his voice. "You taught us this spell; you said it would help us stay silent in dangerous situations. Did you imagine there'd come a day I'd use it for this?"
He didn't stop to take in the confusion and fury in Chu Wanning's eyes; his jealousy and hunger had pushed him past the bounds of rationality. "Did you know, Shizun? It's been two lifetimes. I've worked so hard, so carefully—I've never had a single day of peace."
He paused to tie Chu Wanning's wrists and ankles to the bed. "I'm not a normal person," he said through gritted teeth. "Considering what I have to do, I'm not allowed to be a normal person. But what does that matter? Even a puppet like Emperor Taxian-jun can do as he likes—why should I be the only one to deny myself?"
Shi Mei gazed at Chu Wanning struggling furiously beneath him, pain and satisfaction filling his heart.
"Now I understand. Whether in good times or bad, one must enjoy life to the fullest, Shizun." He bent over Chu Wanning, yanking Chu Wanning's clothes aside with desperate haste. "It's cost me so much to get here—shouldn't it be my turn to taste you? Think of it as a reward for your disciple, hm?"
Chu Wanning couldn't summon the strength to fight back; Shi Mei stripped off his robes with ease. Bathed in the chill air and the haze of the lanterns, the lean, muscular lines of his body were mottled with purple bruises Mo Ran had left behind.
Shi Mei's eyes darkened. "Really now," he murmured. "He did go a bit overboard."
He reached out and grasped Chu Wanning's chin, gazing into his phoenix eyes. Chu Wanning's gaze seemed veiled by mist; he was still trapped between dreams and reality, sensing that this was too absurd to be real yet too vivid to be fake. Combined with the chaos wrought by two lifetimes of memories flooding his mind, he couldn't respond.
"He and I are different." Shi Mei stared at Chu Wanning. His eyes softened, but within that softness was a hint of something darker. "He doesn't know how to make it good for you. Once you've tried me, you'll think no more of him."
He began to undress. He'd just bathed and was wearing only the bathrobe. It slithered quietly to the ground to expose a body as exquisite as fine jade. "Shizun…" he whispered, draping his weight over Chu Wanning.
Whether it was dream or reality, Chu Wanning could no longer contain his revulsion. He trembled from head to toe, face ashen.
"You're so warm…" Shi Mei knew the man beneath him would burst into furious castigation if he lifted the silencing spell, yet he couldn't resist caressing him as he breathed, "Will you be even hotter inside?"
"Shi…Mingjing!"
Shi Mei blinked in surprise. "You broke the spell yourself?" He lifted his eyes to stare into Chu Wanning's. "Oh, you. You really are…"
Chu Wanning's throat spasmed as he coughed up a mouthful of blood. "How dare you," he rasped. "Get the fuck away from me!"
Shi Mei fell silent, gazing down at the man beneath him. He really was too vicious, too stubborn, too unwilling to accept his fate and admit defeat. There was so much Shi Mei wanted to say, but none of it passed through his lips. In the end, he just smiled.
As Chu Wanning drew breath to snap at him again, Shi Mei clapped a hand over his mouth. Working quickly, he pulled out his own hair ribbon and tied it between Chu Wanning's teeth. "Since you can break the spell, I'll have to use this instead. Sorry, Shizun."
The sight of those dazed, wrathful, humiliated eyes inflamed Shi Mei. He bent to whisper in Chu Wanning's ear, "Remember now, you have to stay quiet no matter how good I make you feel. Your revered emperor is just on the other side of the door. If he hears you begging for me like a slut, do you think he'll be pleased?"
Shi Mei dragged his fingertips lower, drawing circles around every blue-black mark. When his touch drifted further down, Chu Wanning felt he had been skewered by humiliation.
His memories were a mess, and his awareness was stuck in the past life, before he'd discovered Mo Ran had fallen victim to a mysterious spell. In this state, he hated Mo Ran, but he hated his own shameless heart more. Despite his humiliation, his hatred, and his painful disappointment in Mo Weiyu, he couldn't help a thrill of pleasure when Mo Ran held him, when Mo Ran panted in his ear, when sweat dripped from Mo Ran's torso onto his bare skin. There were even a few instances, during the most frenzied of their entanglements, when he had sensed his own secret craving—for Mo Ran to never stop, to tear him apart, to pierce his soul through.
Those tempestuous trysts had given him an illusion of peace. When he lay wrapped in Mo Ran's arms, he'd sometimes feel as if none of those terrible things had ever happened. As if this man who entwined unceasingly with him might've loved him too.
But it wasn't the same with Shi Mei. He didn't know how he'd fallen into such a strange and vivid nightmare, but when Shi Mei laid his hands on him, he felt only fury and disgust. His stomach roiled at his touch—he didn't like it in the least.
Shi Mei's body differed from the one in Chu Wanning's memories. He was taller and stronger, yet still fair, with fine features, the lines of his muscles as smooth and elegant as if hewn from frosty jade. The scent on his skin was likewise clear and fragrant. It was nothing like the brute power Chu Wanning was used to.
Mo Ran's body was all he knew. Mo Ran's skin might've been pale, but hot blood surged beneath with a terrifying wildness. He radiated a pure masculinity like the blazing sun, capable of scorching the hearts of those it touched. Even though it sometimes smelled like blood, like iron—a hard, cold smell—his sturdy chest pulsed with warmth.
Chu Wanning's eyes snapped open. He twisted his wrists in his bindings, red welts blooming over the skin. Even the ends of his eyes were twin scarlet streaks of humiliation. But fighting was no use, and the thick furs spread on the bed would muffle any sound.
Shi Mei watched him with distant interest as he struggled like a trapped beast. "Why does Shizun waste his energy fighting?" he asked with an amused quirk of his lips. "Don't you believe I'll make you feel good?"
He lifted one of Chu Wanning's strong and slender legs, fitting his own hips between his thighs. His eyes darkened, ready to claim Chu Wanning as he'd dreamed a thousand times before.
Chu Wanning squeezed his eyes shut. He'd already bitten his lip bloody, and his nails were buried deep in his palms. All the muscles in his body were pulled taut, but not because he feared the pain of intrusion. Rather, what he felt was unbearable shame. Whether this was real or an illusion, it was far too humiliating.
If it was an illusion, he was ashamed of himself for dreaming it up. If it was real, he was ashamed of being so incompetent that two of his three disciples harbored such disgraceful intentions toward him.
He had always been the type to find fault in himself first. If it were just Mo Ran besotted, his desire might have been his own problem. But both Shi Mei and Mo Ran? Chu Wanning couldn't help wondering if he'd done something wrong or inappropriate—if he'd failed to live up to the role of a teacher—for two of his disciples to develop such base urges. Where did he go wrong, to suffer so?
He waited in tense silence, yet even after some moments, there was no movement from Shi Mei.
Chu Wanning slowly opened his eyes, dark brown pupils flitting up to Shi Mei, somehow frozen where he was. No hint of lasciviousness remained in his expression—instead, he looked almost comically aghast. Puzzled, Chu Wanning's gaze drifted downward, whereupon he saw something that truly beggared belief.
What…was that…?
That sensual atmosphere vanished without a trace. Chu Wanning felt as if he'd been struck by lightning.
Shi Mei's exposed member was, uh…g-gold?
It was so absurd Chu Wanning turned his head to keep from giving himself a headache looking at it. But after a few beats, he considered how strange this was. What kind of person had a golden dick?
Blanching, he forced himself to take another glance, facing the sight head-on.
This time, he got a good look. It wasn't that Shi Mei had loins of glittering gold, but rather that a little golden dragon had emerged at some point and coiled itself around Shi Mei's shaft. It was wrapped very tightly with its head stretched up and out, staring at Shi Mingjing in furious silence. The message was clear: It would crush the anatomy in its coils to a pulp should Shi Mei make any rash move.
Chu Wanning blinked. Shi Mei stared mutely.
The demon dragon bared its teeth at its unlucky victim and opened its tiny jaws in a shrill "Rawr!"
If not for his bound wrists, Chu Wanning would've put his head in his hands. He seriously couldn't bear to look.
At long last, Shi Mei spat, "What the hell is this?!"
The answer came in the form of the stone doors rumbling open, revealing Taxian-jun's countenance of displeasure. He strode through the doors with his arms folded over his chest, eyes sweeping over the shining golden dragon coiled around its jade pillar. Ridicule joined the threat in his voice as his thin lips parted in icy comment: "Miss, please get off the bed."
Furious with humiliation, Shi Mei didn't immediately take his meaning. "Miss?" he snarled. "Who are you talking to?"
"Oh, my bad." Taxian-jun squinted in scrutiny at the appendage within the dragon's coils. "It's Mister, after all. You're so small this venerable one couldn't tell at first."
That golden dragon's whiskers twitched as it bared its teeth to echo its master. "Rahhh!"
It was perhaps the greatest insult you could give a man. Shi Mei's vaunted composure wasn't sufficient to keep his face from flushing or the cords in his neck from protruding in rage. Even worse, he was fully undressed and tied up by a fucking miniature dragon no less. In this state, no display of anger would make him imposing, so he chose silence.
Emperor Taxian-jun strode into the room, coming to a stop before the bed. Leaning against the bedpost, he pushed his chin out. "Hua Binan, did you think this venerable one wouldn't know what you were up to as long as you made no sound?" He narrowed his eyes, scorn in every line of his handsome face. "You do think this venerable one is three years old, huh?"