Li Guangzong looked as though he had been stung by his words, a wash of scarlet instantly spreading across the depths of his eyes. “You put on rouge powder?”
Jingzhao was unaware of the scent on his own body, but he knew that Li Guangzong ran a pharmacy. The scent of white cardamom on Jingzhao was thick and intoxicating; the air he breathed in carried a spicy sweetness that went straight to his heart.
“I.” Muddled and dazed, Jingzhao boldly lifted Li Guangzong’s quilt, his small hand pressing against Li Guangzong’s solid chest and stroking downward. “Take me.” He must have been out of his mind. To touch a man so straightforwardly and say such explicit things without feeling a shred of shame.
Li Guangzong’s expression tightened, his breathing turning heavy. He stared with wide, unblinking eyes at Jingzhao, who was radiating such wanton allure, his gaze filled with the most primitive, naked desire. Like a beast starved to the extreme, he abruptly grabbed Jingzhao by the throat with a tight grip, pulled him down, and sealed his lips with a kiss.
Jingzhao’s eyes widened, his eyelashes fluttering frantically. He could hardly believe that he was kissing his enemy’s eldest young master, but his mind was a mess, and unwilling to overthink it, he closed his eyes.
He had never kissed anyone else before and did not know how to do it properly, so he responded with clumsy awkwardness. Li Guangzong, on the other hand, was quite skilled. Holding Jingzhao’s lips, he gently sucked on them as if tasting a delicious sweet pastry. The sucking sent thrilling tremors through Jingzhao’s heart and left his breathing thick and heavy, causing him to part his small mouth unconsciously.
Li Guangzong seized the opportunity, his moist tongue probing into Jingzhao’s mouth, hooking around his tongue base to suck deeply and intimately. Under Li Guangzong’s guidance, Jingzhao gradually learned, his small mouth opening and closing as he clumsily chased the other’s tongue.
Their lips and teeth intertwined, their breaths blended, and the kiss produced soft, wet sounds.
Li Guangzong’s hand slowly moved to Jingzhao’s back, his two fingers giving a gentle tug to pull open the ribbon of his dress. Jingzhao’s back skin flushed hot, exposed to the air like meat jelly.
When Li Guangzong’s large palm moved upward along Jingzhao’s burning spine and his fingertips touched the inflamed bumps on the back of his neck, Jingzhao’s body suddenly went limp, collapsing into Li Guangzong’s arms like a puddle of spring water. His mouth slipped away from Li Guangzong’s lips, and his breaths came in soft, fragmented gasps, just like a fish about to die of thirst on a dry shore.
Li Guangzong did not think much of it, assuming Jingzhao was just overheated and had developed some heat boils there that hurt when touched. He pushed Jingzhao to his side, rolled him over, gripped the waistband at his side, and grabbed it.
The cold wind blew against the window lattice, fierce and merciless.
Jingzhao cried.
His tears were dropping down patter by patter.
He had not wanted to cry, but truly, he had not expected it to hurt this much, and he could not control those fragile tears.
Young Master Li’s aloofness was something he showed to others.
He was no jade bodhisattva untainted by men; he was a wolf and tiger preying on pretty boys, and he was completely wild and tireless in bed. It was just that he was very good at keeping secrets; all his romantic debts were hidden beneath a carefully disguised exterior, unknown to outsiders.
Jingzhao was the youngest prince of the royal residence, a child raised with thousands of favors. Because he was frail and sickly in his youth, his father and mother doted on him and never made him practice martial arts or swordsmanship. Having once possessed power, wealth, and no experience of the world’s malice, the greatest suffering he had ever endured in this life was probably today. His small physique was truly too weak in front of the tall, skilled Li Guangzong.
He could hardly hold his own.
Whether Li Guangzong was too excited or something else, he was experienced and skilled, but he showed no tenderness whatsoever. Instead, he was savage, charging back and forth like the panicked and runaway Mongolian steed on the long street a few days ago, his hooves cruelly trampling the noble and pitiful boy who had collapsed in the center of the road.
Snowflakes began to drift down from the sky, fluttering and scattering.
The atmosphere indoors was tense and oppressive enough to suffocate someone.
“Li Guangzong.”
“Li Guangzong.”
“Li Guangzong, kiss me. Kiss me, please. It hurts so much.”
Instead of kissing him, Li Guangzong’s deep gaze was stained with a chilling, bloodshot haze, making him look even less human.
As if holding a blood feud against Jingzhao, he became increasingly brutal, grabbing Jingzhao’s hair in a frenzy as if trying to chisel him to pieces and consume him flesh and bone alike.
“Wu.” Jingzhao was pulled back so that his head tilted up, his expression extremely pained. “You bastard of a servant! Ah-ma said your grandfather killed my grandfather, your father philandered with my mother, and now you are bullying me as well. Your Li family are truly bandits who all deserve to rot in prison.”
Hearing this, Li Guangzong instantly grew displeased. He leaned down and bit hard onto the back of Jingzhao’s neck, his brows locked as his teeth applied vicious force. This posture was clearly adding salt to the wound to punish him.
Jingzhao’s head buzzed with a ringing sound, and he was instantly struck by a sharp, piercing pain at the back of his neck. It hurt so much that his eyeballs rolled upward and he lost his voice, almost fainting away. But he was strong and did not faint; he only let his tears flow more fiercely.
He wanted to escape, but Li Guangzong still had not let go like a mad dog. That ruthless momentum made it seem as though he would never let go unless Jingzhao apologized to him and fed him a piece of braised pork.
Jingzhao gave up. Having been bitten into submission, he admitted his wrong, acknowledging that he shouldn’t have said his family were all bandits. He took a deep breath to relax himself, trying his best to coax the bastard behind him in hopes that the bastard would release his bite. The bastard’s teeth were like sharp fire tongs, piercing deeply into his skin. The pain was truly unbearable, and he could no longer take it.
Li Guangzong bit into his flesh and blood, swallowing his sweet blood. Sensing him slowly relaxing, he thrust deeper with a sudden, low roar and let go.
The heat bump on the back of Jingzhao’s neck was the size of a copper coin; pressing it made it feel like a pool of water inside, very elastic. Its color had originally only been slightly darker than the surrounding skin, but now that it was bitten open, a deep circle of bloody tooth marks was oozing fresh blood, looking terrifying.
A trace of guilt surfaced on Li Guangzong’s face. Like a kind person, he gently licked away the blood on it and whispered in his ear, “You are different.”
With those words spoken, he straightened up.
“Slap!” Jingzhao was flipped over.
Time passed.
In the room, agarwood blended with the scent of cardamom. The fragrance grew denser, sweet enough to cloy, and the temperature soared straight up, finally reaching boiling point.
Jingzhao’s mind went completely blank. He lost himself, and the moment he was flipped over, he wrapped his arms around the man’s neck and kissed him eagerly. That soul on the verge of perishing came back to life amidst their intertwined lips and teeth, and he could no longer feel any pain.
Sinking into it infinitely.
Dawn broke, and the two finally rested.
As Jingzhao’s final lingering tremors faded, his strength drained as if he had been hollowed out, and he collapsed onto the bed like a lump of mud, falling fast asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.
Perhaps he was simply too exhausted.
Li Guangzong went to bathe, then returned to lie beside him, pulling him into his arms and holding him tightly. He pressed a light kiss on his head and closed his eyes, just like someone who had gone through countless twists and turns without ever obtaining his lover, finally embracing his dearest at this moment with lingering tenderness.
The first to wake was Li Guangzong. He had only slept for two hours, as a foreign merchant was coming to the pharmacy today to discuss an important partnership. In fact, to keep his energy up for this talk, he had gone to sleep early, and if Jingzhao hadn’t suddenly crawled over, he would have practiced celibacy last night. When he left the room, he felt a bit puzzled seeing the new quilt folded neatly on the living room carpet as if untouched, and even more baffled when he saw his overcoat lying in the outdoor corridor.
He had no heart to dwell on these trivial matters. After going to the ancestral hall to offer incense to his mother, he got into his car and left.
When Jingzhao woke up, his head was spinning and his throat felt as dry and thirsty as if it were about to smoke.
He crawled up to look for water, but the moment he moved, his whole body ached and his bones felt like they were falling apart, especially his lower body and the back of his neck, where the burning, stinging pain made him gasp sharply.
As his consciousness gradually returned, he was shocked to realize he was in Li Guangzong’s bed. Last night’s unmentionable memories flooded back all at once, and his small face instantly lost all color. It wasn’t a dream; it had actually, truly happened. He had slept with Li Guangzong, and moreover, he had taken the initiative to crawl into bed and offer himself to him.
How cheap. He felt so cheap.
And how absurd!
Utterly absurd!
He racked his brain but could not understand why he would do something so ridiculous. Mulling it over and over, he concluded there was only one possibility: someone had drugged him. Otherwise, that sudden, uncontrollable lust was completely inexplicable.
His thoughts raced as he recalled every detail from the moment he entered the Li residence, eventually locking onto the coffee he had brewed himself. It was the coffee! There was something wrong with the coffee powder!
You drank it.
You finished it.
“Despicable! Dog.” He gnashed his teeth in hatred. The dog of a servant was taking revenge, using such a despicable method to smash a man’s dignity into pieces. He wanted to curse out loud, but turning over, he found no one beside him. In this large room, there was only himself.
He stepped down from the bed, preparing to go find the dog of a servant to settle scores. The moment his feet touched the floor, “Thump,” weak and boneless, he collapsed to his knees, his hands happening to press onto the maid’s skirt that Li Guangzong had torn apart in his excitement. Suddenly realizing something, he understood that what was done was done, and time could not be turned back to last night. What good would finding him to settle accounts do? What if it displeased him and he refused to lend him money? Wouldn’t that mean a net loss? Having let him sleep with him for nothing?
At this point, he really felt like a brothel gigolo, relying on his body to satisfy a wealthy man’s perverted demands in exchange for wealth.
He gave a bitter laugh, struggled to his feet, returned to the bed, and crawled back under the covers, staring blankly at the ceiling. No one knew what was going through his mind. Perhaps he was thinking that Li Guangzong was his last hope.
“Young Master, are you awake?” A gentle female voice sounded from the outer parlor, startling his guardedness back up.
“Who is it?”
“It is me, Yuqing, here to add wood to the fireplace.”
Jingzhao inwardly muttered a complaint about adding wood at a time like this, but unable to throw a fit, he curled himself further into the quilt, hiding his face entirely and leaving only a pair of eyes exposed. “Come in.”
Yuqing, with her sturdy build and braided pigtails, walked in carrying a bundle of firewood, squatted down, and expertly added it to the fireplace. “When First Master left, he instructed me to ask what you would like to eat once you woke up.”
Eat? It was truly strange; from last night until now, already afternoon, he didn’t feel hungry at all, just parched and sore-throated. “I have no appetite. Just bring me some water.”
“This maid understands.” Yuqing finished tending the fire, curtsied, and withdrew.
Before long, Yuqing returned carrying a cup of water and a bowl of porridge. “Warm water and ginseng porridge. Please have some to nourish your body.” She gently placed the tray on the bedside table.
“Mhm. You may leave.”
Yuqing stepped out. Jingzhao propped himself up on the bed, took the cup of water, and gulped it down. Then, looking at the porridge, he pulled it over and ate it bit by bit. He figured that after being so indulgent last night and consuming so much vital essence, he had better nourish himself even if he wasn’t hungry.
After eating, he picked up a book from the bedside and began reading. It was about human morality, completely dull. The more he read, the heavier his eyelids grew, and before he knew it, he fell asleep again.