A heavy sound of footsteps echoed from outside the door, and a silhouette emerged upon the lattice windows.
“Dharma Master, His Excellency extends his invitation.”
“Alright, give me a moment to tidy up.”
Puding cast a glance toward Xiaobai before pushing the door open and leaving together with the servant.
Inside the room, white sandalwood was burning in the Boshan censer. Puding furrowed his brow slightly how was it that he burned sandalwood?
A person like him was fundamentally incompatible with sandalwood.
“I had this specially burned for the Dharma Master. I do not usually use sandalwood myself.”
The charcoal inside the room burned with vigorous, fiery redness. Having removed his crane cloak, Pei Yaoguang still felt no chill.
He lay sideways upon the bed, his hair cascading loosely over his shoulders with a trace of lazy indolence.
Keeping his head lowered with his hands joined together before his chest, Puding silently recited Buddhist chants.
What a blockhead, so wooden and dull! And yet he wouldn’t take the initiative.
Though ruthless and decisive in his usual affairs, Pei Yaoguang always seemed somewhat different when it came to him compared to others.
“What, are you waiting for me to take the initiative?” Half-closing his eyes with a dreamy, intoxicated expression, Pei Yaoguang propped his temple with one hand.
Halting his internal recitation of Buddhist chants, Puding slowly spoke: “Why must… Your Excellency force others into difficult situations?”
The things he liked had never required a reason!
“Rest assured, I won’t touch that!”
He could not yet let Puding discover his fake eunuch identity.
That? Where was that? Puding inwardly muttered to himself.
He dropped to his knees once more: “Your Excellency, regardless of anything else, this poor monk is a person who has left the secular world and must uphold the pure monastic precepts and rules of discipline. I can never harbor such sentiments.”
With a lewd and affectionate look in his eyes, Pei Yaoguang said coldly, “Then has the Dharma Master ever heard of such an anecdote? Two monks were carrying a young woman across a river; the monk who carried the woman across remained calm and unperturbed in his heart, whereas the monk who never touched the woman felt emotional turbulence within his heart consequently, the monk who broke the precepts was actually the one who did nothing at all!”
“Therefore, as long as your heart remains undisturbed, Dharma Master, you are not breaking the precepts!” A trace of unspeakable cunning gleamed within Pei Yaoguang’s expression.
Puding’s eyes remained tightly shut while he maintained his joined-hand posture.
“What Your Excellency says is not incorrect, but why must you force this poor monk? You could easily find someone mutually affectionate with you. After all, matters of this sort rely on mutual consent before body and mind can truly attain harmony.”
A hint of gloomy darkness permeated the man’s gaze, as if it could swallow a person’s soul entirely.
“If you refuse to submit, my mind will not attain harmony!”
Puding’s pupils trembled as beads of sweat the size of peas slipped down from his brow. Although it was the dead of winter, his palms and the soles of his feet were slick with cold sweat.
The abhorrent sensation of being forced washed over him once more, making him feel as though all the tendons and bones in his whole body were snapping and his flesh was spasming in cramps.
Slowly rising to his feet, he sat sideways before Pei Yaoguang, remaining quietly seated as chants of Buddha’s name continuously echoed within his mind. His fingertips pinched and counted the bodhi beads, rolling them one by one while silently praying for the Buddha to grant his protection.
Reaching out, Pei Yaoguang pressed his fingertips against Puding’s prayer beads, rubbing them one by one before slowly moving upward, as if time itself had frozen around them.
Puding didn’t dare to take a full breath.
Touched lightly by those calloused fingertips, Puding shuddered as if struck by lightning, hastily lowering both hands.
“Praying to the Buddha is useless! Has your Buddha ever protected you from anything?”
The corners of Pei Yaoguang’s lips curled upward: “You might as well pray to me, I am your Buddha! The kind that answers every single prayer!”
Puding’s frame trembled as he dropped to his knees once more: “I beg Your Excellency to spare this poor monk!”
The man frowned, his expression displaying displeasure: “Why are you acting just like a woman, opening your mouth with pleas for mercy and closing it with pleas for mercy.”
As the words fell, that powerful, vigorous hand seized him ruthlessly by the collar, hauling him straight up onto the bed with a single heave.
Dragging Puding along as easily as an eagle snatching a baby chick, he rendered him completely helpless and devoid of any means to resist.
The next instant, Pei Yaoguang extended the back of his foot: “Mhm?”
Signaling with his eyes, Puding caught on instantly, comprehending his filthy and wretched intentions.
With an expression of utter despair, he said, “Why doesn’t Your Excellency just kill me instead!”
How could he endure such a perverted and unruly act? What was more, he was a man of the cloth!
He had long since stopped wanting to live.
A flash of inspiration striking him, Puding said, “Since Your Excellency knows my identity, are you not afraid that Imperial Noble Consort An will hold it against you?”
Upon hearing this, Pei Yaoguang suddenly burst into a loud, unbridled, and dissolute laugh: “Within the imperial palace, who doesn’t have some dirt on their hands?”
If he wanted to investigate something, wouldn’t he dig right down to the root of it?
“As far as I know, Imperial Noble Consort An maintained close ties with King Han’s maternal clan back then. If I were to fan the flames a few times beside the Emperor’s ear, I wonder what kind of fate Imperial Noble Consort An would meet?”
Puding’s heart skipped a beat, a trace of anger flashing within his pupils he was truly this sinister, vicious, and crafty.
Seeing this, Pei Yaoguang’s expression grew stern and gradually darkened, as if a cloud of dark thunder hung over his brow.
He simply didn’t understand him at all!
“Hurry up, I’ll count to three!”
Three.
Two.
One.
With his eyes half-closed, Puding wore an expression of complete despair.
Leaning closer and closer, his lips lightly brushed against the back of Pei Yaoguang’s foot, touching it as lightly as a dragonfly skimming the water’s surface.
“Just this? You’re far too insincere!” Extending a fingertip, Pei Yaoguang hooked Puding’s chin upward, his gaze burning with a fierce flame as if about to incinerate him entirely.
Tears welled up within Puding’s eye sockets, his gaze vacant and devoid of spirit, resembling a blade of grass utterly devoid of vitality.
“Kill me!” he pleaded tearfully and pitifully.
Atop the roof, a pair of eyes was staring fixedly at the figures inside, their expression brimming with murderous intent, colder even than the winter wind.
Raising his hand, Pei Yaoguang clapped twice, prompting a servant to push the door open carrying a bronze teapot in his hands.
“Your Excellency.”
“Just leave it there.”
The servant withdrew, closing the chamber door tightly behind him.
Lifting his eyes, Puding stared at the teapot in his hands, wondering what trick he wanted to play this time.
Sitting down upon a stool, Pei Yaoguang tilted the teapot, causing goat’s milk to pour out from the spout and spill directly across the back of his foot.
Pei Yaoguang’s foot was not particularly fair, possessing rough skin, and as the goat’s milk flowed across it, the sight appeared exceptionally jarring.
“Come here.”
Stepping off the bed, Puding walked before him and knelt down.
The flirtatious look in his eyes made Puding instantly comprehend his intent.
Glancing sideways at him, Pei Yaoguang commanded, “Lick it off!”
“You…”
“Going too far in bullying others!”
“I won’t deny it, but if you submit to me, naturally I will grant your every request in the future, and I’ll be far more responsive than those gods or Buddhas!”
Puding felt extreme indignation in his heart: “You actually compare yourself to gods and Buddhas it is simply a sacrilege against the divine!”
“Then… has your Buddha ever protected you? If he had, you wouldn’t be suffering the trials I’m giving you tonight.” Fixing his eyes intently upon Puding, Pei Yaoguang feared missing even the slightest nuance of his expression.
Puding remained silent, feeling in his heart that this brief moment dragged on like a year.
This act of his was nearly as agonizing and nauseating as climbing a mountain of swords or plunging into a sea of fire.
The An family’s influence was no longer what it used to be, and currently they could only rely upon Imperial Noble Consort An. However, with Pei Yaoguang bringing it up just now, it was bound to implicate her eventually, meaning he could only rely upon himself.
“If I refuse to obey, what will you do to me?”
“You can try it out and see, I have numerous ways to torture you, leaving you unable to live and unable to die.” With a half-smile, Pei Yaoguang resembled a bloodthirsty demon.
“Matters of this sort rely on mutual consent. To Your Excellency, this poor monk cannot provide a pleasant experience, so why not seek someone who is willing of their own accord?”
Clearly, he behaved no differently toward others on ordinary days.
“Monk, you talk too much! This superintendent will look for whoever he pleases!”
Closing his eyes in obvious dissatisfaction, Pei Yaoguang urged, “Hurry up! While I still have my patience.” He shook his leg to signal him to get on with it.
The moonlight outside the window appeared even colder and more austere than usual, as if suffused with endless pity.
Seeing that Puding remained unresponsive, he suddenly stood up, fished a nine-section whip out from the cabinet—a weapon covered densely in minute iron needles that would inevitably tear flesh apart and splatter fresh blood the moment they pierced human skin.
“Monk, let me ask you one more time: are you willing, or are you not?”
“In that case, you might as well just kill me directly.”
“Stubborn and unyielding!” A cold glint flashing within his eyes, Pei Yaoguang raised his hand and lashed out fiercely, the leather whip striking fiercely across his thin, slender spine.
Crack, crack…
Deafening lashing sounds echoed throughout the room.
Once, twice…
That barbed nine-section whip resembled a treacherous venomous snake baring its fangs as it tore into him with a flurry of bites.
The pain pierced straight to his bones, hurting him so intensely that he lacked even the strength to cry out. The sensation was akin to being skinned alive.
Even his pearly white teeth felt as though they were about to be shaken loose.
Hurt to the extreme, he couldn’t even feel the pain anymore; there was only a burning, agonizing discomfort, and his body felt as though it no longer belonged to him.
The room was permeated with a rich, heavy scent of blood, masking the fishy sweetness inside his mouth.
After enduring rounds of torture, Puding’s monk robes were already torn to shreds, his entire body covered in bloody, crisscrossing scars resembling dense clusters of small red earthworms.
“Someone come!”
A servant stepped inside: “What are Your Excellency’s instructions?”
“Make sure his wounds are thoroughly cleaned, and use the finest medicines to treat him.”
He wanted to wait until his wounds healed before subjecting him to another round of humiliation.
Paralyzed and breathing on the brink of death from the agony, Puding rasped, “You didn’t need to go to this trouble you might as well have just killed me with a single sword stroke. My life is cheap anyway.”
Pressing his hand down hard upon the back of Puding’s head, Pei Yaoguang maintained a blank expression: “The more you want to die, the less I will let you die.”
As he spoke, he pressed two fingers forcefully against Puding’s lips, carving a shallow, bloody scratch across the corner of his mouth.
“How could I bear to kill you? Hahaha…”
He grinned wide, his expression carrying a demonic, wild enchantment.
As the servant supported Puding and helped him out, Pei Yaoguang suddenly lifted his gaze, staring fixedly up at the roof.
He had sensed someone up there all along!
The next instant, he vaulted up onto the roof, yet the figure in black moved far too swiftly; after chasing for a short while, he lost his trail and failed to catch up.
He had actually managed to escape from his grasp.
The pitch-black night sky stretched out endlessly, leaving only Pei Yaoguang’s solitary figure standing tall amidst the chilling wind.
The Seven Kills Gate.
“I knew you would come back.” Chiyu stood behind Fenxin, gazing at him with infatuated eyes.
“I’ve thought it through just now; whatever the Young Master wants me to do, I agree.”
“Why did you suddenly figure it out? Fenxin, you should have listened to the Young Master’s words long ago.” Speaking in a soft, gentle voice, Chiyu stroked the tips of her hair.
From beginning to end, Fenxin’s sole thought had been to kill Pei Yaoguang.
To kill that dog eunuch, and then kill that dog emperor!
Yet since the timing was not yet ripe, he could only bide his time and keep a low profile; if he broke away from the organization, his plans and his objectives would never be realized.
Chiyu stated, “The Young Master also said that as long as you submit to him, I will be at your beck and call from now on.”
Chiyu was originally the Young Master’s closest confidante. Knowing that Chiyu had long harbored deep affections for Fenxin, the Young Master seized this opportunity to leave her by Fenxin’s side.
“The Young Master is truly thoughtful, even sending me a helper?”
Or rather, planting a spy by his side?
“Following me is far more tiring than following the Young Master. I am not like the Young Master, who treats you well.”
Chiyu replied, “As long as I can follow you, no matter how many storms come our way, I am willing to face them together with you.”
The cold, clear moonlight fell upon Fenxin’s brows and eyes without a shred of warmth.
“Why put yourself through this!” Brushing his sleeve away, Fenxin turned and strode into the house.
Watching Fenxin’s tall, slender figure vanish into the darkness, Chiyu felt deep in her heart that the closer she got to him, the closer she would come to eventually melting his heart and making him look at her properly one day.
She was willing to wait, and she could afford to wait! No matter the outcome, she would have zero regrets.
Lying down upon the bed and looking toward the inner side of the mattress, Fenxin suddenly recalled that night when Puding had lain right in that very spot.
He couldn’t help blushing; that sensation had been rather strange, somewhat capable of stirring confusion and fascination within the mind.
It was his first time experiencing such a thing, so naturally he was somewhat unaccustomed to it.
Stop letting your mind run wild, he told himself secretly.
Sleep, Fenxin muttered inwardly to himself.
Late at night, his vision hazy and blurred, a figure resembling a monk appeared before him, behaving with extreme intimacy. He pushed him away, yet the monk desperately threw his arms around his waist in return.
[Xiaobai, Xiaobai…]
Slowly extending his hand, he rubbed and stroked back and forth across his lips with the pad of his thumb.
As the tip of his tongue accidentally brushed against his calloused thumbpad, Fenxin felt only a soft, moist sensation.
Fenxin’s face flushed bright pink. The monk slowly drew closer to him, the tip of his nose lightly grazing his cheek, and just as their lips were about to meet, the surrounding white mist abruptly materialized, causing him to snap his eyes open.
His entire head was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. With a long, heavy sigh, he realized it was all a dream!