The air was thick with a miasma of negative energy. Not only from the curse, but from a desperation mingled with a sadness that defied explanation.
The walls were familiar—just as they had been ten years ago. The same walls. The same room. But colder. Darker. As if the violet curtains and stone were trying to swallow him whole.
"All insects are nothing but selfish," Wèi hissed. His voice was low, trembling, yet stubbornly trying to be dangerous.
He was sealed. His eyeballs were black with red lenses. He struggled a few more times, a futile waste of his last strength. His pale skin burned where the spiritual chains touched—an almost unbearable agony over his exhausted body.
He added with more venom, "Insects are crueler than Wèi. Wèi at least doesn't hold on if Wèi plans to let go in the end." He said it like a personal creed, a rule he never broke.
In front of him stood the well-known cultivator, Hàng Wàng Wùjī—now thirty years old, not the twenty-year-old youth who had once crossed his path. He was the official Dàozǔ, successor to the father who had given the order.
The man said nothing at first, then took a single step closer. The movement felt different. It carried a motive beyond mere inspection—something not normal. Something dangerous.
"Stay. Back. Violet insect," Wèi hissed louder, like an untamed snake. His mouth hung open as he hissed, sticky venom dripping from the tip of his sharpened tongue. When Wùjī gave him no heed, he breathed sharply, widening his maw to bare his fangs. "Wèi hates being ignored."
"I don't like noise," Wùjī whispered. His hand shot out, gripping Wèi's face—thumb and fingers pressing hard into the hinge of his jaw, the way one handles a snake to prevent a bite. "Don't hiss. Don't talk."
Wèi's eyes widened. He couldn't close his mouth, couldn't twist away. He tried to pull back, thrashing his head left and right. When it proved useless, he snapped, the words spilling out like a dark, sharp incantation. "What will you do with Wèi?! Stop gripping Wèi like that!"
"What a peculiar… special-grade yào-type curse," Wùjī mused, his violet gaze analytical as it swept over Wèi. "Sealed himself into the Crimson Heart gem. And now you're a half-portion of what I last saw." He observed the desperation, the lifelessness. This curse had become a vessel with no will left.
"So… you remember Wèi," Wèi whispered, the words ragged with unstable breath.
"Who doesn't?You made far too many memories ten years ago. The whole Hàngwō Sect had no time to sit." His tone was light, faintly mocking, perfectly composed. "The marble floor still seems to ring from that performance on the Yinglòu stage…" A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips as his eyes drifted toward the tiny window, where silver moonlight dared a secret kiss.
Wèi also remember it too. The arguments between Sùjǐ and wùjī . The iconic, defiant dance upon the marble when people cheered for him without knowing who he was.
His eyes snapped to him. His mind snagged on the memories. They were like old, rusted needles working bacteria under his skin.
Nothing less than the humans who had hurt him from the start—yet he was the one they called villain.
That time… it had felt like something. When this curse had felt like a blessing. Now, even the curse was silent..or gone. Their goal lay unfulfilled, and he was unwilling to go back. Not again. Not into the same cycle.
"Shut up. Just tell Wèi your purpose here. Or leave Wèi alone." He rolled his eyes away, unable to move his neck, fighting to show neither emotion nor the pain lancing through his arms, his head, his lower body. "Wèi isn't in any mood for talking with anyone… not even for killing," he said, quieter now, suffused with a sullen misery.
A pause. Not for tenderness, but for a more refined cruelty.
Wùjī leaned close enough for Wèi to feel the heat of his breath against his ear. "The Hàngwō Sect," he began, pausing with dramatic weight.
Wèi froze. His gut whispered of a danger he already knew.
And it came. A sudden, psychic stab to the chest.
"…requires a cub of special grade. Like you." Wùjī finished, leaving the rest unsaid. The half-revelation was more terrifying than the whole.
Wèi's breath hitched. Cubs? Heir? Babies… from Wèi?That was his duty? Impossible!
He tried to bite the finger near his mouth, a reflexive strike against the words. He hated them. Now more than ever.
Wùjī moved his thumb away smoothly, a practitioner well-versed in handling wild things.
Wèi groaned, a sound trembling with pure rage. He couldn't stand this man—each word from his lips was more poisonous than the brews Wèi had drunk seeking peaceful oblivion.
"Wh-at do you mean, insect? Speak straight! Wèi isn't liking this conversation!" His hiss was loud enough to echo off the cold cell walls, panic rising with each frantic beat of his heart.
Silence again. They stared at each other, their gazes a battlefield—one calm and impenetrable, the other hopelessly aggressive, a pair of crimson rubies burning with futile fire. Wèi's blood boiled, then turned to ice so rapidly it made him nauseous.
"I've been given an order to breed you. I have to sleep with you." He said it as if stating the most mundane fact in the world. "Whether you like it or not."
Wèi blinked. He froze, letting the world distort and sink in. He realized it, then, more properly: a human would use Wèi for a cultivation experiment. And why not? Wèi was no simple creature—a fact they'd realized too late, after Wèi had already vanished.
"N..no… You'll not. Wèi will not." He hissed again, his tongue flicking out in a serpentine gesture of self-defense, though he held no certainty he could follow through. "Wèi is serious… Wèi can… still kill you if Wèi wants."
"You can't," Wùjī confirmed, the words a soft breath. "You're weak."
Wèi sniffed, fighting the breakdown clawing at his throat. His pupils lost focus. "No… Wèi will…" The last of the heat bled from his words.
"You were found after years, while you were the most wanted criminal." Wùjī's hand suddenly fisted in his hair from behind—a grip of pure dominance, meant to tame. He yanked Wèi's head back.
Wèi's breath hitched at the pull. His neck, unused to such movement for a decade, felt like it might crack. It seemed his hair would rip out, his bones dislocate.
Wùjī continued, his voice almost cold, utterly thoughtful, analyzing the possibilities like a physician assessing a flawed specimen. "Barely stable. Not even certain you'll be able to carry a cub to term." His violet eyes showed nothing but the determination to fulfill an order.
Wèi felt his chest twist. Are insects that cold? he thought bitterly.
Maybe yes. Because when Wèi found a good one… it was killed, too. His eyes burned, tears welling.
"Wèi… Wèi isn't any robe for you to use and discard. Wèi will not let any cub be born from Wèi's body." He stated it as final. He would rather die than be touched for such a purpose.
"Consider it your punishment as well," Wùjī added, a gratuitously cruel gift.
Wèi's jaw tightened against a sob as he struggled, a caged bird beating itself against the bars. Wùjī merely held him steady. He knew the struggle was meaningless.
"You're nobody to punish Wèi! It's been ten years! Wèi would have died if Wèi hadn't done those things!" Wèi spat, renewing his fight to be free.
"Silence." The order was rough. Wèi answered with a hiss. "You know how many souls you've consumed? If you'd die without them, then why are you still alive?" Wùjī made sure each word was a hammer blow.
Wèi's eyes flooded with black tears. He felt so weak, so mentally flayed, that coherent speech was beyond him. Only soft, sad animal sounds escaped him—the whimpers of his wild nature. He lowered his eyes.
Everyone hates Wèi. Nobody sees Wèi hurting. Will they'll be kind if Wèi doesn't kill…? The thoughts were a broken record. Tears rolled down, crystallizing upon contact with the air into small, dark jades.
"Good snake, Now stay still. Let me see if tonight will work or not." His voice lowered as he stood , keeping the jades into his robes.
The 'work' was, of course, the breeding.
He began his examination. He checked Wèi's old wounds, assessed his remaining strength. He peered into his eyes, his mouth. Wèi looked bloodless, a phantom of vitality.
Then, he checked his hips—for a yào like him, the hips held great significance for breeding. A quick, responsive sensitivity was a sign of health and readiness. Resistance or deadness meant potential failure.
When Wùjī's fingers squeezed the prominent bone, Wèi whimpered—a sound that could have been pain or over-sensitivity. It was impossible to tell. He hissed louder, defensively trying to bite again. "Don't touch Wèi's hips! Wèi hates it most!"
Wùjī ignored him. "You didn't eat the dragon fruit with the medicine, did you? Though I recall how much you loved them."
Wèi glanced at the table where a lone lamp burned and the dragon fruit lay untouched, then back at Wùjī. "Wèi doesn't eat your clan's cheap fruits. Wèi would rather die," he mumbled, invoking death more readily than he could muster a true struggle.
"You are not allowed to die until my responsibility is done," Wùjī stated, then took the fruit to force-feed him. A cursed yào needed to eat what they once loved to regain a sliver of stability. He brought it to Wèi's mouth. The pale lips grew dark pink from the juice.
Wèi turned his face away with a faint gag. The once-beloved fruit now smelled rotten. "Wèi said Wèi will NOT eat."
Wùjī's eyes narrowed slightly in annoyance. "Stop resisting," he said quietly, his voice a sharp blade.
"No. Never from an insect," Wèi muttered, his voice finally cracking.
At first, he was disappointingly stubborn, refusing to swallow. When Wùjī managed to push a piece past his lips, it fell out; Wèi was too weak to chew. Wùjī understood then—the curse-type yào was too feeble to eat, yet straining every nerve to appear defiant.
So, he hauled Wèi toward the bed. The movement sent a fresh bolt of alertness through Wèi—he was going to do it now, here—and when Wèi almost broke free, Wùjī lifted him effortlessly over his shoulder. Wèi hissed, biting at his neck, digging his nails into Wùjī's back. But his weakness was absolute; not a scratch marred the cultivator's skin, nor did a drop of venom inject.
When Wùjī laid him down and pinned him to the bed, Wèi began to hiss again—a desperate, trapped sound like a bird caught half-in, half-out of a cage door. It was the raw cry of a hurting, panicked animal.
"Shh," Wùjī hushed him, his mouth close to Wèi's ear. Wèi's own mouth was open, drawing ragged breaths, his eyes glittering with a cocktail of fury and primal fear.
Wùjī employed the methods used to calm animalistic yào. The sudden, calculated softness made Wèi's shoulders stiffen. He issued a small, confused hiss, glaring up through a veil of pain.
Wùjī watched him, then took a piece of the dragon fruit into his own mouth. Since the yào could not feed himself, he would do it for him.
Wèi cried out—a sound muffled the instant Wùjī covered his mouth with his own. It was not a kiss. It was an act of forceful, purposeful care.
Wèi's eyes blinked rapidly, unfocused, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. His parched throat was finally soaked by the juice, but the bitter aftertaste of medicine made him want to retch. Mint—an herb all yào despised, yet one that was their medicine in this weakened state.
Wèi whimpered when Wùjī's mouth finally left his. The taste was torture. He bit into the pillow, trying to scrub the flavor from his tongue.
"Wèi hates you a lot," Wèi said, teeth sunk into fabric, eyes half-closed like a sick creature.
"You're not done eating yet," Wùjī confirmed, his tone leaving no room for argument. He would feed him the entire mint-laced fruit, regardless. "Do what you want. I just need to do my duty."
Wèi's fangs punctured the pillow as he shot Wùjī an aggressive side-eye. It was a painful contradiction—he was doing as he was told, just as Wèi himself had once been forced to obey.
The difference was, Wùjī wasn't blindly obedient; he was the system's perfect executor. He's more like the System Tearstone than Wèi ever was as its vessel, Wèi thought bitterly. He was lost for a moment in the leftover past, his struggles ceasing briefly.
The foul-tasting fruit did a little to steady his pounding head and trembling limbs. He wondered, faintly, if it would also stop the aching in his heart. If so, he might even willingly eat it again.
Wùjī guided his head by the hair again, turning his face back for another round.
Wèi shut his eyes tight. His throat worked with loud, gulping sounds. Movement was still an agony with his careful bindings. He simply breathed faster, but did not speak or struggle. Submission? Exhaustion? He didn't know.
But his body arched off the bed with a choked, muffled whimper when he felt Wùjī's hot, deft fingers trace the crests of his hip bones. Nothing had started yet. This was just a more intimate check.
No, no… Insect is touching Wèi there! Wèi can't bear babies! Wèi wants to die, not to be a 'fummy' for his little snake-cubs! The thought was a spike of anxiety. Fummy—the pet name for a genderless yào who gives birth.
He bit Wùjī's lip with a final, desperate hiss, a last attempt to prove he was still the Wèi Yīlíng who had once made this man lose all sense on a battlefield.
Wùjī hissed in a brief spark of pain—or more accurately, anger. He pulled back, his hand coming up to his own lips to assess the damage.
The yào had spent his last reserves on that bite.
Warm, crimson iron painted Wùjī's pale finger. He looked down at Wèi. His violet gaze was sharp, disappointed.
Wèi stared back, wide-eyed, his head tilted against the pillow, black hair fanning out like a shattered halo.
He licked his own lips clean, savoring the taste of Wùjī's blood. He blinked slowly, an almost innocent gesture as he sampled the flavor like a connoisseur of his favorite vintage—the action reminiscent of birds gently rubbing beaks before sleep. His behavior was a chaotic blend of wild snake and fragile bird.
Not bad… Violet Insect's blood has no fat… Pure sweetness, after all these years. His eyes softened momentarily. Thoughtful.
But he was alert again in a flash of lightning when Wùjī moved closer, his grip shifting to Wèi's already-bound wrists.
Wèi hissed again—a sound weary from overuse, a warning that never seemed to land. The man gave no weight to the threats Wèi didn't even know he was seeking to have validated.
"My clan cannot wait for an heir," Wùjī whispered, the words a hot reminder against the cold shell of Wèi's ear. "Nor can I. So stop struggling. Just like that."
Wèi went still. His eyes fluttered shut at the intimate, dangerous cadence. A yào's ears were sensitive to touch, to scent, to the timbre of a voice. Especially one like Wùjī's—a deep resonance that performed a cruel alchemy, confusing care with dominance.
And Wèi, hopelessly, wanted to believe the illusion. That perhaps this human would not, at the very least, abandon him after the breeding was done.
It was the lowest hope, scraped from the bottom of his being. He was no longer what he had once been. All he craved was a sliver of peace, a ghost of affection, a shred of acceptance—things never meant to be written under his name.
Then he struggled again, a panicked, bird-like scream tangling with a serpent's hiss as Wùjī pressed a deliberate thumb against the prominent ridge of his hip bone. Wèi spat a raw, guttural phrase in the old yào tongue, words meant for himself alone.
"Silence." Wùjī's command was cool, his other hand sealing over Wèi's mouth, stifling all sound. "No distraction."
Wèi looked up at him with burning, tear-filled eyes. He looked utterly spent, hollowed out by a hopelessness so profound it could make any onlooker feel like a monster of greater magnitude.
For a fleeting moment, Wùjī's violet gaze lowered, as if avoiding the stark truth of what he saw. Then, he began the first trial.
His touch was methodical, dispassionately skilled, mapping the sensitive points he had studied: the dip of the waist, the flat plane of the chest, the vulnerable column of the throat. Each touch was purposeful, scalding hot against Wèi's cold fear. Wùjī murmured low, meaningless nothings, his voice a weaponized caress.
"As long as you are a good snake, I will not hurt you. So do as I say… Wèi Yīlíng." The name was a whisper against his skin, an intimacy that felt like a violation. Wùjī's own heart hammered against Wèi's chest as he pressed open-mouthed kisses to his neck, slow and deliberate.
And just like everything else in Wèi's cursed life, his body betrayed him.
His name, spoken like that. Those small, incendiary kisses. They alone felt capable of burning him alive from the inside out.
His body began to respond against his will. A fine tremor took hold of his limbs; his back arched as heat pooled low in his belly. The air grew thick with the unique, cloyingly sweet scent of a yào entering mating mode—a scent that now filled Wèi with shame.
His hand tightened around the chain until his knuckles bleached white. Helpless moans and whimpers escaped him, traitorous sounds he did not consent to make.
His body grew slick, fluids leaking from his genderless core, readying itself. What was once a natural function a decade ago was now a curse he was forced to embrace, the final step before the inevitable punishment of abandonment and utter disregard.
"St—op… calling Wèi like that… in Wèi's ear," he whispered, eyes half-rolled back, vision blurring. He could feel the cruel readiness of his own body.
His core clenched tightly around nothing as Wùjī teased him with slow, deliberate rolls of his hips—dry, torturous friction through the layers of their robes. Wèi whimpered, his mouth falling open in a silent scream. It was too much. His body was forcing him to beg.
But then Wùjī took his pace. The rhythm became faster, urgent, punctuated by soft, claiming bites at the junction of Wèi's neck and shoulder. His own deep, ragged moans filled Wèi's senses until they were the only sound in the universe.
Wèi's body jerked with each movement, his breathing sharpening into gasps. He whimpered and moaned in a pathetic, unwanted harmony. He felt he was going to die from the dissonance—the searing pain in his heart at war with the aching, shameless craving of his sensitive body. His legs wound around Wùjī's hips, a futile attempt to either stop the torturous pace or hold him still.
"N..no… please… can't…" he whimpered, his voice shattered, his pale face flushed with a heat that felt like fever.
Wùjī squeezed his hips, a gesture that forced a sharp, punched-out whimper from Wèi and made his inner muscles clamp down harder. Wùjī's own control was fraying at the edges, captivated by the devastating, responsive body beneath him—a vessel that seemed crafted for ruin.
But Wèi's legs fell slack when a sharp, familiar pain lanced through his lower belly. He tried to conceal it, but Wùjī was momentarily lost in the pleasure, their bodies pressed so close there was not a sliver of space between them. Wèi could feel every hard, insistent inch of him.
"That's a good snake… aren't you?" Wùjī's whisper was heavy with a desire that was breathtaking in its intensity. His sweet nothings were expert manipulations, weaving a spell of obedience. Wèi's body was willing to obey. His mind had gone blank.
Wùjī kissed him then—fast, sloppy, hungry. It was as if a dam had broken, releasing a passion honed by a thousand practiced encounters. He sucked on Wèi's tongue with a starving fervor.
Wèi was utterly overwhelmed. His core, now a traitorous, empty ache, desperately sought fulfillment.
"Good. You're ready," Wùjī whispered, breathless, before moving to the second step. He tested Wèi's wetness with two fingers, sliding into the unique mating slit. It was so slick and desperately hungry that it seemed to suck his fingers deeper of its own volition. He moved them, and they disappeared inside without resistance.
The intrusion made Wèi yelp, his body trying instinctively to clamp shut, to protect itself. His bound hands could only claw at the chains, a futile attempt to pull himself away.
"S…stop! Wèi can't handle any more!" he cried out. Tears and a thin trickle of blood—his curse's physical reaction to profound distress—streaked his face. The pure, unadulterated guilt in his voice was devastating. He hated this weakness, this exposure, but he was powerless.
His mouth hung open in a silent gasp of shock and pain that radiated from his core. He wanted to clap his hands over his ears to block out the obscenely wet, rhythmic sound coming from his own body.
Wùjī did not stop. He merely slowed, a concession so slight it was almost crueler. He blinked, his attention caught. With brisk efficiency, he pushed Wèi's robe higher, up past his trembling legs to his stomach.
What he saw made him freeze, his own racing heart stuttering in his chest.
Etched into the pale skin of Wèi's lower abdomen were a series of old, precise cut marks—as if someone had once tried, with clinical intent, to carve him open. They had not healed as a yào's wounds should; they remained, silvery and stark, a permanent record of violation. The once-beautiful skin of his inner thighs was mottled with angry, reddish streaks, like fierce, old scratches.
Was this the truth of what a curse-system yào endured?
His two fingers were still sheathed within Wèi's warmth. He withdrew them, wet and glistening, and wiped them clean. He studied Wèi's tear-streaked face with a thoughtful, inscrutable expression.
The body was technically ready, responsive. But the story told by the skin, by the shattered psyche… The clan needed a viable vessel, not one broken beyond function. The dozens of killings in the reports were one thing; this silent history of torment was another.
Wèi trembled in faint, constant shivers, eyes screwed shut. What little energy he'd had was gone. A deep, miserable ache throbbed in his lower body. His slit felt raw and aching, like a beached creature stranded between his legs. And lower, in his stomach—a sharper, familiar pain uncurled, a memory stirring from its decade-long sleep. He whimpered, muscles clenching in a futile attempt to hold the past inside. His eyes flew open. This pain was different—a hard, clear rumble of something coming apart.
"No," Wèi breathed painfully.
Wùjī sensed the shift immediately. He hooked his hands around Wèi's knees and spread his legs once more. What met his violet gaze was disturbingly tragic. His pupils contracted, the only sign of his silent, profound shock.
There, mingled with fluids, were clutches of tiny, white eggs—undeveloped, long dead, expelled from Wèi's body. They were old, their surfaces dull and sticky, a grotesque offering. It was clear they had been held inside for far too long, a forced retention through what must have been a painful, incomplete miscarriage.
As if the act of letting go was more unbearable than the act of carrying death within.
Wèi's bottom lip trembled violently. He turned his face away, burying his teeth into the already bloodied pillow, a silent scream of shame.
Wùjī's gaze softened for a heartbeat, a crack in his impervious armor, before it hardened again—not with cruelty, but with a resolute, almost grim determination. He was still on his path, but the path had just grown more treacherous.
"Explain." The demand was low, leaving no room for refusal. He needed to know. Who had bred this broken yào a decade ago? And why had Wèi clung to these dead things, carrying them like a perverse, internal memorial?
Wèi shook his head rapidly, a child's denial. "Wèi… hates you," he whispered into the blood-stained fabric, the defiance pathetic. "Wèi hates everyone. You don't need to know anything about Wèi."
Wùjī's hand rose to pinch the bridge of his nose, his eyes closing.
He looked at him again, remembering a time when his sole purpose had been to chase this yào, to seal him. The victory had felt hollow, pale. Perhaps it would have felt like an achievement if Wèi had fought him with that legendary ferocity. But that fight had never come.
He let out a slow breath, a quiet exhalation of displaced conflict. Wordlessly, he set about cleaning him up. He would remove the remnants, wipe the blood. He would breed him. The order was absolute.
"Don't touch them. Those are Wèi's," Wèi hissed, suddenly overprotective, his body straining weakly. It was a sick, terrible act of desperation.
Wùjī could only witness the depth of his derangement. How could this be a request?
"No. You are not going to stay fouled like this," Wùjī said, his expression hardening once more against the shock. "Those are not something to keep. They are not memories."
"You can't understand Wèi!!" Wèi cried again, fresh tears overflowing as he tried to kick out with his bound feet.
Wùjī held his legs aside effortlessly. "I do not break my commitments," he stated with a faint, frustrated groan, and forcefully cleaned the last of it away.
Wèi watched him, silent. His pupils, once sharp, had dilated into doe-like softness. He watched as the eggs were discarded as if they were nothing.
"You dropped them… like they are trash," Wèi mumbled, his voice small, his heart breaking all over again.
Wùjī suddenly fisted a hand in his hair—not to hurt, but to force his gaze up.
Wèi whimpered at the tug. Every single thing hurt like hell. He looked into Wùjī's eyes, which burned like violet fire. Today's Wèi Yīlíng felt the last warmth bleed from his own blood. Those once-young violet eyes were mature, sharper, and colder than he remembered.
"Listen carefully," Wùjī whispered sharply, raising goosebumps on Wèi's skin. "They. Are. Trash. Who carries such things within their body? It is sickening." He paused, letting the brutality of the judgment sink in.
"B..but… Wèi—"
"I said I do not expect to see anything like this again. Understood?" Wùjī's voice was a little louder, his eyes sharp, lips pressed into a thin line. He leaned in, pressing his forehead firmly against Wèi's.
Wèi shut his eyes, his eyelids fluttering. But he interpreted the forehead press through the lens of his own fractured culture—a gesture that meant care. A faint, involuntary purr vibrated in his throat, an unremarkable, instinctual habit.
Wùjī blinked tightly, his stern expression unwavering. "Answer me," he ordered, his tone lower, more dangerous.
Wèi's gaze dropped to Wùjī's collarbone, and he felt a sudden, bizarre longing for the taste of his blood. He nodded, hesitant.
Wùjī moved away and resumed cleaning in silence. "Good. You're learning obedience."
A soft, heavy quiet settled between them.
Wèi felt a fragile stability return, born from this cold yet meticulous treatment. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been tended to, even if the motive was a duty he could barely recognize—it felt more like a harsh father pushing a son to the limit.
But at least the sharp edge of new pain had receded. He hoped it wouldn't return. He watched Wùjī silently. A hollow sadness remained for his lost eggs. Perhaps he could bear that they were dead. His eyes were on the pillow.
Wùjī stepped closer again. Wèi flinched instinctively, bracing for a grip on his hair or throat. He would never believe anyone. That was certain—even if they spoke trustworthy words.
But Wùjī only reached for the soiled pillow. He slid a hand beneath Wèi's neck, lifting his head with an impersonal efficiency, and replaced it with a clean one. As he laid him back down, their eyes met.
Red gaze, deep as a wound, locked with violet, cool as a mountain lake.
"Sadly," Wùjī whispered, his voice a low confession in the dark, "I never learned how to disobey." His violet eyes darkened, not with anger, but with a truth that shamed him. " to fulfill your wish "
Wèi felt the realization settle like a cold stone in his gut. He had been fooled. The discovery changed nothing. Wùjī would not stop. This night would not end in peace.
His body didn't hear his command to struggle. His breath grew shallow.
Then he felt it again. Lower. Not fingers this time, but a solid thing itself. Filling him up from the inside out. His slit tightened around Wùjī, taking him deeper in a way he couldn't stop. His mouth fell open in a soundless scream when Wùjī hit somewhere he couldn't name. His eyes flew open, and he gripped Wùjī's arm with one hand, the other balled into the bedsheet hard enough for his nails to puncture holes.
"Move!,.. Wèi's hips will really break…!" Wèi whispered sharply. His legs trembled as Wùjī kept them spread. His eyes watered.
"Shh—!" Wùjī hushed him sharply into his ear, his hand tightening in Wèi's hair, yanking a little as he bit his own shoulder to silence a groan. For a moment, it felt both like a duty and a cruel reminder of his own past.
Everything felt too fast and almost oddly mute this time.
Then, hot fluid filled his senses. His breath hitched with a broken, weak cry. He had never felt this tired from any human. This was not a human, but violet lightning—his whole body decided.
Wèi's hands tightened around his back, leaving faint marks through Wùjī's robes as Wùjī bit him and finished inside him. His breath grew sharply ragged. "W–Wùjī… w–Wèi—" Wèi hissed painfully, without knowing what he meant to say.
As they came down from their height, Wùjī let go of his skin, leaving a series of teeth marks on Wèi's shoulder—like a claim.
"Wèi… hates you like Wèi's life," he mumbled, breathing ragged, half out of his half-self, his eyes still white.
Besides, he was weak again for lacking long-term energy. According to special-grade yào energy systems, he needed fresh blood to regain stability.
"And I duty you," Wùjī said, almost coldly. No hate, nor anything else. Just duty. He pulled out of him. "Don't mistake care for softness. You're still the most wanted criminal. Remember that." His voice was faintly bitter with the taste of his own life.
"Wèi…knows it..properly.." Wèi said, the words stiff with a hurt he could not voice. To be used like this…
"The funniest joke is… it was my first time, and your another one. You cried too loud," Wùjī added with a faint, satisfied smirk.
Wèi's exhausted eyes widened. He couldn't tell if it was an insult or a compliment. He parted his lips to retort, but the lingering pain in his back forced a whimper instead. The hunger was a deeper ache—a craving for the blood feed he had taken for granted in his strength, now a desperate, physical need.
Wùjī looked down at him, his warm breath ghosting across Wèi's face. Wèi's eyes fluttered at the sensation… a fleeting, deceptive peace.
"You're already spent, and tomorrow is the display," Wùjī said, his tone almost clinical. He reached for the remaining dragon fruit laced with mint, intent on force-feeding him again.
The display.
Tomorrow, Wèi would be paraded by the Hàngwō Sect—not sealed away, but shown off. A trophy of their power, a testament to how they would cultivate limitless qì from his broken vessel-body. Even though he was almost nothing like the legend he had been.
A fresh spike of panic cut through Wèi's fatigue. A plaything? Was that wèi is now? His mind churned, but his words were simpler, born of immediate need. "N..no no! Wèi needs blood… Not that again!"
Wùjī paused, sitting up. His robe hung loose, his long hair slightly disheveled. "Blood…" he murmured, his gaze turning inward, thoughtful. Then he leaned close again, his eyes sharpening as they fixed on Wèi. "What will you offer… if I give it?"
Wèi's mind scrabbled. He had nothing. He was broke, hollow, a shell. What coin did he have to bargain with?
"W–Wèi… will try to be more stable… and helpful," he offered, the words fragile. "So you won't need any cub." The thought of giving birth was a horror he could not face.
"No cub, you say…" Wùjī stated, his voice flat. He was not satisfied. He made his dissatisfaction known with a deliberate, possessive squeeze at Wèi's hip.
Wèi whimpered, arching slightly, eyes shut tight. "W..Wèi… Wèi isn't sure if Wèi can or not… Wèi was never able to be a fummy before," he confessed in a rush, as if admitting a fundamental flaw he'd buried long ago.
"I'm taking both as a deal," Wùjī declared. He shifted away, lying on his side to face Wèi. One hand came up to cup Wèi's jaw, forcing their eyes to meet. It wasn't romantic. It was a transaction, but it was more tangible than the void he'd been floating in.
"You'll be stronger from the inside, but not free from the clan. You'll give a cub, if your broken body allows it. In return…" Wùjī's voice was steady, merciless. "I'll give you my blood to drink." He paused, then laid out the terms. "Only mine. No one else's. No harming others. And lastly…" His gaze didn't waver. "No touching yourself."
Wèi blinked, confusion cutting through his exhaustion. "C..come again… Wèi didn't understand…"
"You heard me," Wùjī said, his explanation cool and logical. "Self-stimulation without physical consummation can over-sensitize a yào's body. It will fail to perform when actual contact is required. Remember that."
Wèi stared at him as if seeing a stranger—or perhaps seeing a part of his own nature he'd never been taught. Maybe he really hadn't known.
"Wèi… agreed," he whispered after a defeated sigh. He swallowed, his mouth already flooding with the phantom sweetness of blood. The odd condition about touching was the least of his concerns.
Wùjī said nothing more. He simply turned his head, exposing the right side of his neck and shoulder, pushing the violet hair aside. "Don't try to play smart. Or you know the consequences," he whispered, a final warning.
Wèi's heart hammered against his ribs—a frantic, hopeful drumbeat. He nodded eagerly, then leaned in, sinking his sharp fangs into the offered flesh, carefully avoiding the pulse point.
Wèi followed him down, lying atop him as he drank in careful, tiny sips—the manner of feeding that spoke of sustenance, not assault.
Wùjī whimpered faintly when Wèi shifted, and his hand came up to cradle the back of Wèi's neck—a gesture not of tenderness, but of control, ensuring the fangs didn't grind against a nerve. "Don't… move too much… inside," he whispered, his voice thick and unsteady.
Wèi held still. His body, traitorously, relaxed into the hold, soothed by the voice and the solid warmth beneath him. His cold skin drank in the heat. After a few more sips, he withdrew.
He couldn't make himself pull away. The steady, powerful thrum of Wùjī's heartbeat was an addiction, a lifeline he hadn't known he was missing. It made him feel, for the first time in years, strangely, painfully alive. His eyelids grew leaden.
"Move. We're done," Wùjī murmured, the command devoid of its earlier force. His eyes remained closed.
Wèi didn't obey. He didn't answer. He simply listened, ear pressed to Wùjī's chest, to the living drum of a heart that was, for this moment, his anchor. It was a stolen peace, the first he'd known in a decade.
They slept, wrapped in an untold, uneasy warmth. But as consciousness fully bled away.
The silence that followed was not soft. It was the quiet of a battlefield after the storm, littered with the wreckage of two broken wills. It was the pause before the next, more public war.
The deal was struck. The blood was shared. The peace was a lie, but it was a lie they would both cling to, because the morning—and the display—was coming.