CH 12

XII Autumn Chills

Faint candle flames flicker back and forth.

He comes right up against me, seals his lips on mine and starts nibbling and sucking on them, hot and passionate breaths circulating amidst the tangle. My face is burning and the rest of my body only gets hotter by the second. Head aching, I open my eyes a crack only to see his lust-filled black eyes.

My god, what the hell is going on? Something’s gone wrong!

I try to break free but I discover to my own dismay that my sweltering body can only find a bit more comfort in his cooler body. I raise a wobbling arm to push him away but he pulls it up over my head with one arm and pins it down. I grunt in pain.

Damn bastard. Taking advantage of me in my wounded state!

He turns his head over says in a soft, husky voice, “Don’t be afraid. Give it to me…”

He then kisses my ear and nibbles lightly on my earlobes. A violent shudder runs through my body and my breathing quickens involuntarily. With his unbearably warm lips on my neck, waves of numbness wash over me. I’m weak to my bones being held in his arms while feeling sinful desires welling up from deep within. His breathing is already ragged. He runs his hands all over me, luring those desires out from their dwellings. I can only clench my jaw hard to hold back the moans that almost escape.

“Lemme hear you.”

Kisses start coming down like rain. The last pieces of our garments get torn off and our naked bodies intertwine together. I’m cold and hot at the same time and my head is a mess. I painstakingly push against his chest.

Goddamn it.

Goddamn it.

This cannot happen…

My body has gone limp already so when I try getting up after struggling to draw the drapes open, he easily seizes my wrists with one hand and hooks around my waist with another and gets on top of me again.

“Get the hell-.”

But my words get stuffed back by his lips before I get to finish. His soft biting has turned into gnawing. Bits and pieces of red marks spread out. On my neck. On my collarbone. On my chest.

I still know what’s awaiting me despite my non-functioning mind. I want to struggle but my limbs are all pinned on the bed and I can barely catch my breath from his kisses. I can only pant for air whenever he releases me.

He’s pulling on my earlobes, nibbling on it every now and then.

“Still got some fight in you, huh,” he says as his hands move down along my spine, teasing me as much as he can.

Soon I feel a fuse being lit from my abdomen leading upwards to my head, muddying my conscience. My eyes get so watery that I can’t make out his complexion anymore. My hidden desires are being uncovered by him one by one. My conscience continues to blur out of focus. I reach around his shoulders and he dips down and leaves a purplish mark on my chest.

Noticing a lack of struggling, he pecks my lips. “Does it feel good?”

My body quivers uncontrollably along with his hands. I can’t feel anything but his gentle caresses, but I look away and hold my tongue. My body, however, starts shuddering, as if expecting something more.

I mustn’t say it. I mustn’t say it. Once I do there will be no take-backs.

“Not gonna say it, huh?” He spreads my legs apart. 

Lying underneath him, his every degree of warmth seems to sear me. I feel his heat against that ungraceful place of mine. My body trembles. He holds me tighter, rubbing and poking his heat against it several times, as though searching for release.

Gentle friction. Gradual penetration. Tender destruction.

Suddenly, he lowers himself and catches me in a rushed kiss before rolling his hips forward. I’m drenched in bone-splitting pain, as if being torn in half, and my mind clears partially.

“You bastard…can’t you be gentler?”

I tremble without a sound, my words failing me.

He kisses my cheeks again, and coaxes, “Relax…. Relax…. You’ll only hurt yourself.”

I take deep breaths, urging myself to relax.

“That’s right. Just like that.”

He rolls his hips again and I let out a loud groan, my body arching up voluntarily. I dig my nails into his shoulders and press myself against his fire-hot chest only for him to gasp and start moving quicker.

“Get out…Oww!”

But my body’s reactions tell no lies. It quivers with every one of his movements. Even the drops of his sweat that falls on me seem to burn with incredible temperature. The candlelight outlines his silhouette, leaving his eyes as the only things sparkling. He’s on top of me, breathing heavily, tearing at my lips—for a second I think I would pass out from the pleasure.

A tingly, numb feeling builds up from within as our bodies fuse together, increasing with intensity; each of his penetrations brings both torturous pain and incomparable joy at the same time.

Lust fills the air to a suffocating degree. Desire crashes down like tidal waves, drowning us and rolling us into its depths.

With the candles almost burnt out, the room goes dim and the white canopy turns into mist.

I lose all awareness.

No dreams come.

♚♔

I painstakingly open my eyes. 

I only move the slightest and a heart-wrenching pain shoots through me, but I can’t pin point what’s hurting. It just hurts everywhere. 

♚♔

So apparently noontime during autumn can be quite warm.

The cloudless azure skies stretch as far as the eye can see. The dazzling sunlight cascades down like warm liquid gold, hitting my face along with the autumn winds. So soothing and peaceful.

I’m lying on a soft grass field, eyes closed, lazing under the warm sunshine, chewing on a piece of weed.

I had woken up a bit past sunset that day and I was still sore as hell when I got up. I ate dinner that he brought for me all the while suffering from the pain, and then I fell straight back to sleep before he even came to bed.

Well, I’m not against having a plushy human cushion to lean on in my sore and tender state, but it’s a different story when said cushion starts snickering and gets all touchy.

If only I had a knife within reach I would’ve most definitely, without hesitation, skinned him alive. If only I had been able to move.

Geez, what am I doing? Even now I still can’t do anything but zone out at the azure blue sky.

I really don’t want to think about what happened that night. Okay, I admit I’ve been pretty unlucky recently, but this has got to be a joke!

I found out afterwards that it was indeed Xiao Qinyun who made that pot of soup, except she added an extra ingredient on top of chicken and ginseng. My god! I was only kidding with her. Who knew that she could get her hands on aphrodisiacs?!

And Murong Yu, too! He went to the kitchen for god knows what reason and decided to take it after finding the smell nice….

I close my right hand tightly into a fist and pound the ground with all my strength.

‘You can never escape your own doings.’ I truly get this saying now.

When I used to live a sensualist lifestyle back in the capital, I’d go through a million pretty flowers and not have a single keep me down. Who’d ever thought that that playboy would get bottomed by another man?

I exhale deeply, open my eyes a little and let them close again.

I think back to that night. My delirious moans as my body writhed to meet his. I even came in his hands. It was as if my body wasn’t my own.

What a fucking disgrace!

I let out a long sigh. I feel as if something’s stuck in my chest. It won’t come up or go back down. It’s just choking me.

What is this thing between Murong Yu and I? Sex-deprived for too long? So we were just looking for some release?

My dignity of being a man, the most important part of being a man, was stamped upon and smothered. I want to murder someone when I think about it!

But, the things he did that night...felt pretty good...I mean it wasn’t all too bad. He was pretty good at it. Obviously very experienced. It was in part because of the drugs but I have to admit I didn’t really resist either-

Ugh! No! What the fuck are you thinking, Han Xin?! You high? How the hell can you think it felt good? Both of you being men, you got the short (the shortest!) end of the stick! 

Aphrodisiacs, huh. 

It’s okay, I tell myself. I was only acting weird because of the drugs. I’m not so sex-deprived that I would get sexually aroused by some man. That I would start developing an attraction to men. 

I’m not turning into a homo.

My mind starts to settle down. I am still my own man. 

I hear footsteps coming closer and stopping beside me. I can feel that something is blocking the sun with my eyes closed. 

“Oi, get outta the way. Don’t block ma sun.”

It took a lot of work to find a place to sunbathe in a residence this huge. I don’t want anyone disturbing my nap for no good reason. 

But my face remains in the shadows. Annoyed, I open my eyes only to see Murong Yu’s dark eyes and his pursed lips. 

“Why have you been avoiding me lately?!” He interrogates after a short silence. 

I prop myself up to a sitting position and regard him with the weed in between my teeth. “I needa least a coupla days t’ take it all in, dun I?”

He turns his gaze away to something in the distance. 

“How d’you like it if yer topped by ‘nother man, huh?” I angrily break the weed in half and spit it out while staring straight to the front. 

He takes a step towards me with a half-smile. “You hate me?”

I suddenly feel too tired to look at him. “Wouldn’t call it hate. I’ve never hated anyone, really. It’s just been kind of a blur the last few days. I just need some alone time.”

He walks until he’s in front of me before squatting down to look at me. I purse my lips in defiance but let him pick out the grass in my hair.

“I don’t want you to hate me either,” He blurts. 

I force a smile but it’s a pathetic attempt.

“But I’m gonna say this even if you do. I’ve never been one for take-backs.” He pauses. “I’m serious.”

I shake my head.

Serious? How humorous.

I don’t buy it.

It could all be an act between a man and a woman, let alone between two men. Not to mention, we are of such different classes and belong to rival states. That night of passion was nothing but a mistake caused by aphrodisiacs.

I don’t want to dwell on it so I’ll just forget about it.

♚♔

Close to half a million men on either side of South Hill Pass have been caught in a standoff for several days, the seemingly calm surface hiding within it a tempest. However, this balance is quickly disturbed.

Five thousand of Yan dragoons ride into South Hill Pass at night. After the Rui soldiers on night duty spotted them from the towers, three thousand cavalry under Marshal Heng immediately rushes out of the fortress to face them. Perhaps because the Great Rui has lost nearly every battle, the Yan captain drops his guard and the world is given a taste of the military prowess of Marshal Heng.

Xu Zheng, Marshal Heng’s right-hand-man, uses blood and flesh as bait to lure the five thousand Yan cavalry into pursuing them. Engaging sometimes and running away other times, they succeed in luring the entire Yan cavalry into Sparrowhawk Ravine.

Sparrowhawk Ravine. As the name suggests, one must be as quick and agile as a sparrowhawk to escape from there.

The moment the Yan troops enter the ravine, one thousand bowmen start firing down from either side while another two thousand men block the valley entrance. Xu Zheng then turns his troops back around. His vanguards split their enemies in half, striking through them like lightning and creating a typhoon of blood. The Battle of Sparrowhawk Ravine lasts from night until noon, and then from noon until the next dawn.

The heavily wounded Yan captain leads a squad shy of one thousand men out of the deathtrap and reports straight back to the base. Xu Zheng’s side is also left with just little more than one thousand men. They retreat back into the Pass.

The corpses lie in countless heaps and piles, blood flowing freely across the ravine floor. One could even smell the sick, sweet smell of blood in the air from miles away. Even the birds and beasts shy away.

The morale of the Rui army skyrockets and everyone in the nation speaks of the eminence of Marshal Heng.

Heng Ziyu—Marshal Heng.

He was known as an unparalleled military prodigy in his youth, but moreover he is known for his cruel and merciless ways. Once, when Jin An County in the south had been suffering from menacing pirate attacks, he evacuated a large portion of the residents of Jin An and used the four thousand remaining elderly and young who wouldn’t leave as bait. He instructed his forces posted upstream to destroy the dams after luring all the pirates into the county. The entire county and three hundred miles of surrounding fertile land was flooded in an instant. What used be a wealthy county and sizable farmland was wiped out by the raging waves overnight.

His way was obviously over the line but there was no doubt that people die from battles and he had ended the conflict in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of casualties. If he had not done so, losses would not have only numbered in the ten thousands.

Afterwards, Heng received harsh criticism from the Emperor despite the pirates never attacking again in fear of him. At the same time, he was bestowed with the peerage of marquis and the title Protector of the Seas along with the decree for him and his descendents to remain posted in the southern borders for life, never to return to the north without royal edict. Now, letting him out of sight spelt trouble—he has looked down upon the royal family and has held no respect towards the court ever since.

He was exiled to the south because he was at fault, but when it came down to it the senior court officials were the ones who affected the making of that decree. Great Rui was established upon scholastics. The only emperor to date to have had a martial background was the founding emperor, Emperor Rui Shun. The civil officials were not pleased to see people from insignificant backgrounds gain power through martial means and displace their own control of the court.

Now, under the destructive hooves of the Yan cavalry, Rui is finally faced with the deadly consequences after centuries of this policy against martial achievement. 

I do not know if Marshal Heng can salvage this fragile country on the brink of collapsing but I do know Murong Yu is up against a vicious opponent.

♚♔

So I’ve been giving Murong Yu the silent treatment. Erm. Well that’s not quite it. It’s more like he’s been way too busy with the reports and orders coming in nonstop from the front lines and the Yan capital to worry about me.