Suppressing the restless heat surging from his core into his limbs, the Ghost-Faced Man looked the person before him up and down and chuckled softly. “Master Pei’s energy has recovered.”
His voice was hoarse and raspy. When he laughed, his chest fluctuated slightly, full of the throbbing, powerful presence of a mature male. Before, Pei Lianyi had only felt disgust and fear at this, but tonight, a strange feeling arose in his heart.
“Does your stomach still hurt?” the Ghost-Faced Man asked with another laugh.
“…” Thinking of how he had collapsed into this madman’s embrace that night, evading his roughness while begging for his gentleness, appearing so fragile and broken, Pei Lianyi lowered his gaze. Deep in his chest, a burning heat flustered him.
Seeing his tall, jade-like figure, his composed and noble bearing, Huo Jingzhao’s dark eyes deepened. The fire within him burned hotter, and he let out a cold shout. “Pei Lianyi, it seems I need to cause you a little more pain to make you behave obediently.”
“What are you going to do… ah!”
Before Pei Lianyi could voice his rebuke, the man raised his hand and swung it, using a fierce, impatient Palm Wind to slam the door shut.
“Got… you.”
Hearing the door crash shut and the lock click into place, Pei Lianyi’s lips trembled in shock. As the Ghost-Faced Man’s deliberately drawn-out tone reached his ears, he twisted his fingers together, too ashamed to face any of this.
“Just what are you trying to do? What are you doing locking the door…!”
This strange madman, does he intend to lock him in? Pei Lianyi clutched his sleeves, his heart filled with wariness.
The Ghost-Faced Man didn’t move from where he stood. He placed his hands on the table and suddenly asked in a slow drawl, “What did I say last time? Hm?”
I’ll let tonight pass, but next time, Respected Father-in-law should make preparations for his son-in-law…
Remembering his audacious, blatantly suggestive words, Pei Lianyi’s eyelashes trembled. Crimson rapidly spread up his originally jade-white neck.
“Every word I say, Master Pei should carefully keep in his heart.”
At this moment, the Ghost-Faced Man tilted his head up, staring at the thick, symmetrical roof beam. His dark, deep pupils abruptly contracted, as if tinged with a hint of helplessness, as he let out a hoarse sigh:
“If your heart can’t remember, I will firmly inscribe it upon your body!”
“Shut up—! Shut up…!” Pei Lianyi could listen no longer. Recalling the night he had been struck speechless, screaming by this very table in the rain, he immediately retreated beside the incense table. He looked at the Ghost-Faced Man with a mixture of terror and evasion.
Unlike that night, the room was now lightly burning with Goose-Pear Tent Incense, mingling with the faint magnolia scent from his own body, making Huo Jingzhao practically dizzy with infatuation.
He casually picked up the red undergarment from the table and unfolded it towards Pei Lianyi. His smile was wicked and frivolous.
“But tonight, when I came, you were making preparations for another man. I’m so jealous, so envious.”
Pei Lianyi turned his head away, refusing to look at him, his Adam’s apple sliding. “Only you could utter such shameless words.”
Watching him, clearly panicked yet still forcing out resilience and stubbornness, Huo Jingzhao’s heart skipped half a beat. He stared blankly at him, his voice hoarse as he said, “I not only speak them, I’ll act on them.”
This sentence caused the atmosphere in the room to freeze for a moment.
Pei Lianyi bit his lower lip gently, so afraid that cold sweat beaded on his palms.
Suddenly, the Ghost-Faced Man turned towards the table and said slowly, “However, you’re still missing one item here.”
Pei Lianyi subconsciously looked at the red-bedecked table, his expression somewhat dazed. “What… item?”
The Ghost-Faced Man released his hand, letting the silky undergarment fall to the floor. Tilting his head, he said, “A Spring Palace Painting.”
Hearing those three words, Pei Lianyi’s face went pale then flushed. He tensed his long, slender neck, his hands digging fiercely into his palms, yet feeling no pain.
Huo Jingzhao clicked his tongue, continuing to provoke the nerves already close to breaking. “On a newlywed’s consummation night, how can you do without a Spring Palace Painting?”
“Or could it be that Master Pei intends to personally guide them?” He slowly lowered his voice, a flash of interest in his eyes. “Just how long do you plan to seduce your son-in-law? Slut.”
“Don’t say it… stop it!” Thinking of Huo Jingzhao holding Ziying, the scene of the two being intimate together, Pei Lianyi’s heart ached like a knife twisted. He yelled fiercely, like a lion struck at its fatal point, rushing forward and sweeping his hand to knock over the bamboo basket of red beans.
Red beans and lotus seeds scattered everywhere with a loud clatter, some even hitting Huo Jingzhao. After a brief, sharp sting, he tilted his head slightly, staring at Pei Lianyi’s trembling hand. Then he suddenly smiled.
“This time you’ve taken the initiative to throw yourself at me, Respected Father-in-law.”
Pei Lianyi ignored his humiliation. He stood motionless, only repeating over and over: “Please… stop, don’t say anymore.”
Seeing him like a broken doll, staring out the door with a lost soul, the Ghost-Faced Man’s mood suddenly improved greatly.
He lazily extinguished the candles in the room, walked around behind Pei Lianyi, and grasped his waist with both hands, stroking the gourd-shaped buttons there. “Gourds have many seeds. If you’re so eager to bring more children to Pei Manor, why not bear another yourself?”
As he spoke, Huo Jingzhao sat down, pulling the person in his arms onto his lap.
Sitting on a strange man’s thigh for the first time, Pei Lianyi’s back went completely rigid. Clenching his jaw, he said angrily, “So those threatening letters were indeed written by you, you shameless bastard.”
This man, much younger than him, knew him inside and out, while he knew nothing of who the other was or where he came from. This feeling of losing control was excruciatingly painful and helpless for Pei Lianyi, who had always kept a firm grip on everything.
“You called them threatening letters?” The Ghost-Faced Man’s tone suddenly changed as he tightened his hold on Pei Lianyi’s waist.
What else would he call them? Pei Lianyi winced at the sudden increase in pressure, frowning.
He truly didn’t understand why this madman was angry…
And the next second, the Ghost-Faced Man leaned close to him, pressed against his raven-dark hair, and enunciated each word clearly: “Remember this well: those were love letters from me to you.”
“Ugh… ah.” Touching his icy, hard Ghost Mask, Pei Lianyi only felt a chill go down his spine, though a thin flush of crimson rose on his ear tips.
This Ghost-Faced Man seemed wildly unprincipled, but the nervousness and clumsiness he had inadvertently shown while rubbing his stomach that night, along with an untamed beast-like quality about him, actually reminded Pei Lianyi of Huo Jingzhao.
The warm, jade-like Jingzhao, occasionally overbearing but so bright and clear.
The Jingzhao who had once held him tightly here, coaxed him with dried fruit, comforted him.
But the image shifted, and it was his measured, distant back.
“I will follow Master Pei’s instructions in all matters.” The man had smiled so gently and politely, yet it had left him so hopeless he couldn’t speak.
Seeing no reaction from Pei Lianyi, the Ghost-Faced Man grew frantic with impatience and started to urge, “Speak! Speak to me…”
Just as he was burning with impatience, demanding a response, the person in his arms suddenly leaned his head against his shoulder and murmured softly:
“Huo Jingzhao, why do you treat me this way?”
Hearing this line clearly, Huo Jingzhao froze completely.
His hands and legs went numb and swollen. Beneath the mask, his stern features contorted, nearly twisting together.
Had he been discovered? Since when—?!
How could this be possible?!
The man’s mind reeled rapidly, utterly unable to figure it out or imagine when he had been exposed…!
After a long, silent moment, forcefully suppressing the wild pounding in his chest, Huo Jingzhao looked down and saw that Pei Lianyi’s eyes were vacant, his mouth silently mouthing Jingzhao.
All the previous shock and surprise transformed into immense excitement. The man covered by the Azure-Fanged Ghost Mask felt his scalp tingle, and a muffled laugh rumbled from his chest. “Mistaking me for him?”
Pei Lianyi’s waist visibly jerked, his raven hair spilling over both of them.
“You want him that badly?” Huo Jingzhao squeezed his waist tightly and sneered coldly, mocking, “Too bad, that spineless waste Huo Jingzhao belongs to Pei Ziying. He won’t abandon everything to hold you and cherish you. You can only rely on me, this madman, this filthy beast, this depraved wretch, and lie obediently in my arms, cavorting and mingling with me in debauchery!”
“Ah…! Ugh—” Squeezed hard enough to hurt, Pei Lianyi braced a hand against the man’s thigh to steady himself and shrank back slightly.
The room was pitch-black. In the depths of the moonlight, the lines of his throat and neck rose and fell, causing Huo Jingzhao’s blood to surge.
Pei Lianyi came back to himself from the pain. He took the Ghost-Faced Man’s hand and placed it on his cinched waist.
“Don’t you want it?” he asked flatly.
“…” The skin beneath the mask grew hot again.
“You’ve sought me out time and again, isn’t it for this?” Pei Lianyi undid the complicated buttons, and his clothes opened.
Huo Jingzhao instantly stared. He touched the scar on Pei Lianyi’s stomach, his rough voice unable to hide his excitement. “You bore yourself a little love rival.”
“The way Pei Ziying looks at Huo Jingzhao, it’s as if he can’t wait to be devoured by him right then and there.”
Pressing the pad of his finger against that scar, he swallowed. “How does it feel to steal a man from your own son? Hm?”
Pei Lianyi’s face was flushed crimson. He ignored these licentious remarks and merely said lightly, “Offering it to you and you still don’t want it. Useless.”
He used the same insult the Ghost-Faced Man had used against Huo Jingzhao on him.
After cursing, a provocative smile played at the corner of his lips. He looked down and began to fasten the buttons again.
Provoked to the point of flushing red, the Ghost-Faced Man roughly swatted Pei Lianyi’s hand away, pulled his waist close, and burrowed into his chest.
“Pei Lianyi… Master Pei, you… you wretch!” Longing for Jingzhao on his lips, yet daring to disrobe for another man in the night! Huo Jingzhao inhaled his scent madly. He was furious, mad with jealousy, all while condemning the other’s audacious actions.
Pei Lianyi let out a couple of “Woo, mm” sounds, his brow furrowing. He suddenly felt a wave of confusion.
The black-haired head in his embrace seemed to alternate between the refreshing, handsome Huo Jingzhao and the brutal, mad Ghost-Faced Man, as if two men were wreaking havoc on him.
Pained by the hard material of the Azure-Fanged Ghost Mask poking him, Pei Lianyi abruptly jolted awake and smacked the Ghost-Faced Man’s back. “Not like this… not.”
“…” Suddenly halted, Huo Jingzhao looked up, meeting his reddening eyes.
Pei Lianyi said coldly, “You are not him. You’re not Huo Jingzhao. He is gentle and considerate, treating me with utmost care. He never hurts or insults me. Let me go. Get out.”
Huo Jingzhao’s wild desire had nowhere to vent. He actually told him to get lost at this moment.
“Pei Lianyi, you…” He was about to explode in rage, but through the moonlight, he glimpsed the tear tracks at the corner of Pei Lianyi’s eyes.
The unyielding melancholy in his eyes was like a drop of wax, scalding Huo Jingzhao’s heart.
“Your… clothes. Put them on yourself. I’m leaving.”
Leaving behind these dry words, Huo Jingzhao scrambled off the bed like a panicked dog, like a bird of prey that had trespassed and erred, frantically stepping over the clothes on the floor, his face dark as he barged out the door.
The hasty footsteps faded away. Pei Lianyi draped the clothes over himself. He sat in the darkness, staring for a long time in the direction of the Side Courtyard.
The Huo Jingzhao who had fled in a rush first went to the Kitchen and plunged his head straight into a vat of ice, only then managing to calm down slightly.
Gazing at the water vat reflecting the moon, he furrowed his brows and smiled wryly.
He knew, what he feared wasn’t that single tear, but the fear that he would want it to continue falling even more.
