~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 60→1ch | 100→2ch | 200→5ch ⏰ Resets Monday!
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The soft mattress sank deep.
Rurikawa Tsubaki lay at the center, her body stiff as a doll.
Li Ancheng had both hands braced on either side of her, trapping her in the narrow space between the bed and his chest.
He looked down at her, a smile in his eyes, his gaze lingering on her pale-pink cheeks.
“If you’re unwilling, you can say so.” Rurikawa Tsubaki turned her face away.
She avoided that scorching gaze and bit softly at her lower lip.
Her shapely legs were pressed together.
Both hands gripped the hem of her skirt like a last line of defense.
…Actually, there’s not much difference, is there?
It’s just a different person.
She had understood that long ago.
Even if Li Ancheng had never appeared out of nowhere, Boiman would have done the same thing.
She had prepared herself for it even before that.
As a former noble lady who had lost everything, reduced to a maid, this was one of the futures she had already seen coming.
It’s just…
That thing rooted in her blood and her upbringing.
The pride and fastidiousness that belonged to the former young lady of the Rurikawa family still stirred, stubborn as ever.
Making that visceral disgust impossible to shake.
As if gathering a lifetime’s worth of courage into a single breath, she slowly shifted her gaze back and met Li Ancheng’s smiling eyes.
“M-Master…” “What if…” “I mean, what if I were unwilling…
what would…
happen?” Li Ancheng let out a soft laugh.
He freed one hand, fingertips idly twirling a loose strand of her hair splayed across the pillow.
“Nothing would happen.” “I hate forcing people.
It’s boring.” …Nothing?
Rurikawa Tsubaki’s heart had just begun to settle when she heard him continue, unhurried as ever.
“However, our master-servant relationship would probably end there.” “You’d go back to Boiman.
Continue being his maid.” “Hm…
that’s how it should be, isn’t it?” “I’m willing!” The words were out before he’d even finished.
Rurikawa Tsubaki’s reply burst from her lips so fast that even she was startled.
Are you kidding me?!
Go back to Boiman’s side?
Just picturing it made her stomach turn.
The Rurikawa family had once stood far above the Boimans in rank and prestige.
Even now, fallen as she was, that pride soaked into her very bones would never — absolutely never — allow her to bow her head and call scum like Boiman her master again.
Much less endure that nauseating gaze of his.
At least…
Her focus settled back on the face in front of her.
Unreasonably handsome.
Her heart was still racing.
But underneath the fear and disgust that had come first, something else had slipped in.
Something she couldn’t quite name.
At least by his side, she wouldn’t have to face Boiman.
Or anyone else.
The hands pressing down her skirt loosened, just slightly.
She said it again.
“…I’m willing, Master.” Li Ancheng let out a low, satisfied laugh.
“Good.
From now on, you only need to listen to one voice.” He lowered his head slowly, stopping just short of contact.
Their breath mingled.
A faint, delicate fragrance wound into his senses.
Rurikawa Tsubaki’s pupils trembled.
Li Ancheng’s thumb traced across her lower lip, testing its softness the way one might test the petal of a flower.
“Mmph…” Her breath caught.
Her fingers curled into the front of his shirt.
A clean, cool scent flooded in.
The tension drained from Rurikawa Tsubaki’s shoulders all at once.
Her lashes lowered slowly.
Her lips parted.
An invitation, plain and simple.
It satisfied Li Ancheng far more than words would have.
He spoke low, in the space between their shared breaths.
“Good girl.” …
Outside the room.
Boiman stood before the door like a stone statue.
The sounds leaking through the gap started long and drawn-out.
Gradually, they became broken.
He pressed his tongue lightly against his teeth, using the sting to keep himself lucid, and waited in silence for Li Ancheng’s instructions.
He had no idea how much time passed.
“Tap, tap…” Footsteps approached.
A girl in a maid’s uniform, brown hair falling to her shoulders, came around the corner and tilted her head with a puzzled look.
“Master?
It’s so late — why haven’t you gone to bed yet…
Is Tsubaki-senpai inside?” Boiman looked at her.
“…Karen.” He paused.
“What’s happening here is none of your concern.” “M-Master…” A voice came from inside the bedroom.
Not ordinary words.
It was threaded through with suppressed, uneven breathing.
Karen went still.
Her gaze moved to the closed door.
Her pupils dilated, just slightly.
In almost the same instant, the fraying thread of Boiman’s self-control snapped completely.
He drew a slow, deep breath.
His eyes moved to Karen.
They swept over her fair neck.
The taut neckline of her uniform.
The slender waist cinched by her apron sash.
“Karen.
Come here.” “…Eh?” Karen jolted back to herself.
Her hands pressed instinctively to her chest, and she took half a step back.
Boiman narrowed his eyes and closed the distance in long strides.
The master wanted Rurikawa Tsubaki.
As a servant, he would not dare cross that line by even a fraction.
But Karen…
She was a step below Rurikawa Tsubaki, sure.
But as long as she could drive out the images running riot through his head right now, that was enough.
“M-Master…?” Karen stood rigid as his hand came down on her shoulder.
Had Tsubaki-senpai angered the master?
Was what was happening inside the room…
punishment?
A dozen confused guesses crashed through her mind at once.
So was there something she could do for Tsubaki-senpai?
The thought steadied her.
Karen gathered her courage and lifted her eyes, which had gone a little wet.
“Master…
please forgive Tsubaki-senpai…” “If there’s punishment to be given, I-I’ll take it…” “Fine.” Boiman’s lips curved.
The smile held no warmth at all.
“Then you’ll take it.” He wrenched her around and shoved her face-first into the wall.
A cold rush of air hit her skin.
Karen finally understood what she had just agreed to bear.
“N…
no…” The refusal came out like a whimper, scraped thin in her throat.
“Click.” Metal.
A buckle snapping open.
She wanted to run.
The hand flat against her spine made it impossible.
Boiman exhaled a hot breath, mouth opening to speak.
BOOM!
An invisible shockwave erupted from Karen’s body.
Boiman flew backward and slammed into the opposite wall.
He slid down it slowly.
“Cough — cough!” Blood hit the floor.
The bedroom door swung open.
Li Ancheng leaned against the doorframe.
His expression carried a thread of irritation and something close to resignation.
The experience had been genuinely exquisite.
But this body, a Demon Emperor’s body, was nowhere near satisfied.
He’d had to keep a separate thread of his focus peeled away the entire time, using it to hold his own power in check.
Without that, an ordinary person like Rurikawa Tsubaki would have simply come apart.
As it turned out, Rurikawa Tsubaki had been the one who enjoyed herself quite thoroughly.
Li Ancheng cast a glance at Karen, still frozen where she stood, then let his gaze drop to Boiman, slumped against the wall and coughing up blood.
“Go buy yourself a doll.” “What I mean is: everything here belongs to me.” Boiman shook from head to toe.
He forced himself upright and bent into a deep bow.
“Yes…
this subordinate understands.” “Mm.” Li Ancheng responded without much interest.
Then, half-idly, he recalled something Rurikawa Tsubaki had murmured in a daze during her haze of pleasure.
She’d asked whether he was still in school.
He couldn’t remember his exact age.
But his appearance, preserved by cultivation, put him somewhere around twenty no matter how you looked at him.
“Find a university nearby and buy a house close to it.” He gave the instruction flatly.
“Handle the enrollment paperwork too.
Go now.” “At your command!” Boiman left like a man pardoned from death row, half-stumbling toward the office.
He had to find that business card…
That principal, the one who’d pressed a card into his hands with that fawning smile last time, where had he put it…
Outside the window, the night was deep.
Campus life, huh.
It might actually be a little interesting.
Li Ancheng let the corner of his mouth curl and turned to look at Karen.
According to a certain type of reading material he was familiar with, this particular girl was the textbook pure, sweet, hopelessly naive type.
“Y-you…” Karen clutched her skirt hem and looked up, hesitant.
“Just now…
you protected me?” “Protected?” Li Ancheng gave a light nod, still smiling.
“You could say that.
Someone put their hands on what belongs to me.” He walked up to her and reached out, fingertips brushing along her faintly trembling chin.
“Remember this.
From this moment forward…” “I am your one and only master.” Karen’s breath hitched.
Her lashes fluttered several times.
Then, at last, she gathered her skirt and dipped into a proper curtsy.
“…Master.” As she lowered her head, her gaze drifted helplessly toward the bedroom.
Tsubaki-senpai lay sound asleep, her profile still touched with a flush that hadn’t fully faded.
And the clothes scattered across the floor.
Even Karen couldn’t miss what that meant.
“Um…” She worked up her nerve and looked up.
“If Tsubaki-senpai…
did something wrong…
please, please don’t punish her anymore.
Please.” Amusement flickered through Li Ancheng’s eyes.
She thought that was punishment?
He leaned in, warm breath grazing her ear.
“You want to take her share, is that it?” Karen’s whole body jolted like she’d touched a live wire.
Her face drained white in an instant.
But she didn’t step back.
Not even half a step.
She held her ground, trembling, and squeezed her eyes shut with the expression of someone preparing to face a firing squad.
“…Yes.” The word was barely out before something else seemed to occur to her, something worse.
Her lashes began to tremble harder.
“…W-will it hurt?” Li Ancheng laughed low.
His fingertip traced the heat of her cheek, then pointed downward.
“I can promise it won’t hurt.
But I won’t force you.” “The choice is yours.” ➤ Next: Steward of the Demon Court, the Birth of Alpha