Chapter 24 Part 4

With his eyes bound, Gu Xiaodeng’s dazed reaction was delayed by half a beat. He instinctively assumed it was another prank or act of bullying from his classmates. “Which one is this? What are you doing? Gonna hit me again?”

A low laugh came from above him. He was suddenly grabbed into a tight embrace. The person looped an arm around his waist and lifted him up, placing him right onto the person’s lap.

He froze. He was first held tightly for a long time. Only after being held silently for who-knew-how-long did his sluggish brain gradually begin to react.

Gu Xiaodeng tried to push at the person holding him. “Hey, hey! Mister, or Uncle, have you got the wrong person? What are you holding me for? I’m not your son or your younger brother.”

He still wanted to reason further, but he was lifted out of the embrace and kissed.

Gu Xiaodeng was monumentally stunned. For a moment, he couldn’t tell if he was drunk or if the other person was drunk. One of them had to be dreaming.

Then pressure came on his lips. The other person not only kissed him but also tried to push his tongue in. Gu Xiaodeng naturally kept his teeth tightly clenched, struggling with all his limbs.

Seeing he couldn’t get the kiss, the man reluctantly loosened his hold slightly, pressed close to his ear, and toyed with his earlobe, speaking in a hoarse, unfamiliar voice: “Be good. I’m very strong. The more you move, the more you excite me. If you keep struggling recklessly, do you believe I’ll f you to death?”

The man holding him laughed in his ear, grasping his waist without any gentleness. His voice was sinister. “I’ve never heard of some Cousin Young Master in the Gu family. Little one, don’t you know you need a draft to lie? And, do you think when I said I’d f you to death, I meant hitting you? Idiot. I meant I’m going to —”

Gu Xiaodeng heard an extremely explicit verb.

He had heard things like this before in the common folk’s quarters, but that was when people cursed incoherently during fights. It wasn’t like now, where the man was breathing into his ear and not using that filthy word to curse him, but seeming genuinely intent on acting upon it.

Gu Xiaodeng was absolutely horrified. If he weren’t currently being held on someone’s lap, he would have certainly tripped flat on the ground.

He was shouting wildly inside: The sun has risen from the west! Hens are crowing! Gu Jinyu has turned into a girl! I, a strapping man of six chi, have encountered a heaven-shaking pervert of a scoundrel! He’d even go for a bean sprout like me—just how sick does someone have to be?! Unbelievable! Unbelievable!

The man clamped him tight, pinching him lightly and slowly, his voice a low rumble of displeasure. “Who taught you to go around seducing people as soon as you see them?”

Gu Xiaodeng snapped back to his senses and gave a hearty “Ah-DAH!” launching a fearsome headbutt. “Dead pervert! I’m at irreconcilable odds with you!”

There was a dizzying, earth-shattering “THUNK.” Gu Xiaodeng even heard the unyielding sound of his own hard skull impacting with something harder.

The libertine grunted. His grip slackened. Gu Xiaodeng scrambled off like a rabbit, wildly clawing at the black satin blindfold tied over his eyes. When he couldn’t pull it off, he cursed wildly, “Dead pervert tying a dead knot! Just what you’d expect from a dead pervert!”

Terrified the scoundrel would grab him again, he fumbled with the blindfold and ran in a panic. After darting a few steps without crashing into a door or wall, he instead crashed into someone’s chest. The other person stepped back half a pace before immediately seizing him and pinning him to the wall. His breathing was very heavy, as if he was forcibly suppressing himself from speaking.

Gu Xiaodeng’s instincts told him that the person pinning him was not the same brazen libertine from before. Regardless of being pressed against the wall, he reached back to grab the hand clamping his nape, calling out rapidly, “Kind sir, I didn’t mean to run into you! There’s a pervert here! Good sir, you must be the type who draws his sword to help upon seeing injustice, right? Please let me go! I came with many friends! I just stumbled in here by mistake!”

He felt the hand clamping his nape—not rough, nor large. It should be the hand of another youth. Before he could finish shouting, the unfamiliar youth behind him captured his hand and pressed it to the wall. Then Gu Xiaodeng felt the youth behind him bite down on his nape, as if they shared an irreconcilable blood feud. Scalding breaths puffed against the hairline at his nape, densely, making Gu Xiaodeng’s scalp tingle.

Gu Xiaodeng trembled like a sieve, letting out a yelp. In his heart, he wailed that his life was over. The almanac for today must be terribly cursed. To encounter dead perverts—and not just one, but a pair!

The youth fiercely bit his nape and still wasn’t satisfied. He spun Gu Xiaodeng around, pressed him against the wall, and bit the side of his neck—aggressive, furious, brimming with violent energy. Yet he held him tightly as if begging for food—an air of being so angry he could do nothing about it, so angry he wanted to cry.

Having bitten him, this youth released him as if he were some venomous creature, half-embraced and half-dragged him toward the door. Just before reaching it, he used something to cut the black satin blindfold from his eyes, shoved him forcefully out the door, and then slammed the door of the private room shut with a bang.

As the black satin slipped to the ground, Gu Xiaodeng’s legs gave way and he leaned against the door. Just as he blinked his eyes clear, he heard a tremendous crashing sound from inside the room—it sounded like that pair of dead perverts were fighting and brawling inside.

Where would Gu Xiaodeng find the courage to demand justice? His mind was flashing with one giant line of text: “PERVERTS LOOSE! THIS PLACE IS DANGEROUS!” With shaky legs, he fled in a fluster.

He wasn’t familiar with the layout of this place. He ran around blindly like a headless fly, nearly barging into someone else’s private bath, causing a huge embarrassment. He finally managed to catch a waiter to ask for the stairs, and then immediately sprinted off in that general direction. When he saw the stairs leading down, it felt as dear as seeing Gu Jinyu himself.

He dashed off, racing down the stairs, leaping three steps at a time like a rabbit. After hopping off the last step, he saw a familiar person walking in through the main entrance of the building. He immediately broke into a run, stumbled, and threw himself to the ground. That person hastily came over and helped him up.

“Xiaodeng, I was just looking for you. Where did you just go? The others are about to leave, but you were nowhere to be found.”

Gu Xiaodeng grabbed his hand and scrambled up. When he looked up and saw the concerned, frowning face of the newcomer, he let out a loud cry and threw himself into his arms. “Brother Dongchen!”

Ge Dongchen swayed back with the momentum, then helped him up. Gu Xiaodeng, still trembling, pressed himself close. Only then did Ge Dongchen “reluctantly” embrace him, comforting him with reassurances and pats. “What’s wrong? Don’t be afraid. It’s getting dark. I’ll take you back to the Academy.”

Gu Xiaodeng, still trembling uncontrollably, nodded his head repeatedly, gripping Ge Dongchen’s arm tightly, not daring to let go.

When the two of them boarded the carriage, Gu Xiaodeng was still so frightened he didn’t dare release his grip, huddling close and holding on tight.

Ge Dongchen held him and asked what happened. Stammering, Gu Xiaodeng recounted the encounter with the two dead perverts. Afraid Ge Dongchen wouldn’t believe him, he even tilted his head to show him the two bite marks on his neck and nape. “Look! That pervert gnawed on me! I’m not a duck neck! Or pig head meat!”

Ge Dongchen lowered his head, his eyes focusing. He reached out two fingers and gently pressed them against Gu Xiaodeng’s burning, flushed neck, as if criticizing reproachfully. “Mm, bitten too hard. The teeth marks on your nape are very deep.”

Gu Xiaodeng was so angry his eyes brimmed with tears. “The world is going to the dogs! The dogs, I say! How can there be such morally bankrupt, dead perverts!”

Ge Dongchen’s slightly cold fingers lightly traced to his nape. “Two bite marks. Did both perverts bite you?”

“No, it was the same one. The other one…” Gu Xiaodeng couldn’t get the words out. Huffing with anger, he released his grip on Ge Dongchen’s hand and started pounding the carriage walls instead. Bang, bang, bang.

“What did the other one do to you?” Ge Dongchen asked softly. “Don’t be afraid. Whatever bad thing happened, or whatever hurdle you met, just speak it out. Don’t hold it in. Keeping it pent up too long isn’t good for you.”

Gu Xiaodeng pursed his lips. His cheeks gradually puffed up until his whole face was red. He pulled Ge Dongchen’s hand, tugged him down a little, leaned close to his ear, and whispered furiously, “That dead pervert hit me!”

Ge Dongchen was speechless.

He asked patiently, “How did he hit you?”

Gu Xiaodeng was livid. He turned his head and spat furiously—ptui, ptui, ptui—like an alpaca. Spitting while raging, “I want to go back and find Gu Jinyu!”

Ge Dongchen tilted his head at him. “Why find Jinyu?”

Gu Xiaodeng angrily scrubbed at his lips. He was truly incensed, words coming out without much thought. “I have to thank him! If it weren’t for him, my first kiss would have been lost to some inexplicable dead pervert!”

Ge Dongchen fell silent completely.

At this moment, Gu Jinyu, confined within the Confinement Tower for his fourteenth day, sneezed.

He opened his eyes, gazing at the pitch blackness all around him, which was not much different from closing them. Slowly, he closed his eyes again.