Lu Xiang ultimately did not continue.
The sparks of love and desire arose from affection, eagerness, and lingering attachment. The man was so exhilarated and unrestrained, his lips, tongue, and teeth all as savage as a wild beast’s, greedily devouring the vibrant red lips and tongue of the man in his arms.
The frenzy was so intense that their absurd saliva stained the heaving contours of their mouths a flushed, drunken crimson.
In that moment, Lu Xiang felt himself sinking into a vast, intoxicating mire—despicable, like a dog lost to madness.
But harsh reality soon slapped him across the face.
His beloved, his beautiful lover—after that man left the conference hall, he became like a lifeless wooden puppet, drained of all strength and will. The brilliant light in his black eyes faded to dull emptiness, while his refined, gentle features were etched with threads of pale anguish and rejection.
Even the lips and limbs still tangled intimately with Lu Xiang lost their warmth in an instant.
It all felt like Lu Xiang’s pathetic solo performance, born of his own delusions.
His long, powerful hands clenched tighter, veins bulging starkly. Those deep green tendons twisted like cruel barbed vines burrowing into flesh, threatening to tear free from his skin at any second.
Lu Xiang found himself utterly ridiculous.
He even felt cheap, worthless.
He had been cheated on, abandoned; his heart shattered by those vicious words; through years of stifled agony, he had warned himself a thousand times to exact revenge—to lock that man in a cage, chain him in the basement, and toy with him like a plaything.
Yet the instant he laid eyes on Jiang Rang, no explanations needed—just a slight beckon, legs parting—and Lu Xiang turned into a dog in heat, tongue lolling, drool dripping.
Stiffly, the man halted. He released their locked lips and tongue, slowly pulling away from that face flushed with humiliation, beautiful as a flower in spring.
As they parted, faint silver threads stretched between their lips—profoundly erotic.
The hotter Lu Xiang’s heart burned, the more piercing the silent defiance mirrored in those deep black eyes. Jiang Rang’s pale, vacant rejection hit like a basin of winter ice water, determined to chill him to the bone.
With a sudden sneer, the man seized the youth’s sharp chin in a vise-like grip with his long, strong fingers. The force pinched the soft pink flesh of Jiang Rang’s cheek into bulging, pallid curves.
The youth’s expression was heartbreaking and dazed, like a rose stem severed under moonlight, sap oozing from the wound.
Lu Xiang’s thumb caressed the smooth jawbone as he slowly lowered his head. Strands of his hair fell in crooked curls, like dark weeds infested with snakes.
In a cold, twisted hiss, the man said, “Jiang Rang, have you and that bitch Ji Mingyu been having fun these past few years?”
Each word ground out tighter between clenched teeth, his brows furrowed with barely contained loathing.
No doubt about it—he hated him. Hated Jiang Rang’s cold-blooded cruelty, hated his fickle heart.
But his hatred was impure, streaked through with mottled black sludge and delicate roses—his pathetic love.
Neither love nor hate was pure, and so Lu Xiang suffered endlessly.
His eyes bloodshot, he was the one gripping and hurting the youth, yet he played the victim. Every word, every syllable, every motion felt like carving into his own shattered soul.
Jiang Rang sensed none of the man’s torment. He simply held his wooden expression, unmoving, like an emotionless puppet.
Lu Xiang had never hated anyone so viscerally. He could barely maintain his facade of calm. He wanted Jiang Rang to crumble in agony just like him, to drown in the same mire.
So he bit the tip of his tongue and let out a neurotic laugh.
His icy eyes gleamed like a serpent’s, his kiss-swollen lips red and venomous, as if a forked tongue might flick out.
In a bizarre tone, Lu Xiang said, “Jiang Rang, do you even know who he is?”
“Remember your first love—the one who nearly jumped off the building right in front of you?”
Jiang Rang’s face twisted sharply for a split second. At those words, his pupils lost focus, his body going numb as a faint chill crept up from his spine. It felt like a long-dead ghost was crouched at the nape of his neck, breathing slowly.
All the suspicions about Ji Mingyu that had flickered through his mind over these years came rushing back in that instant.
Like a fog finally parting completely.
No wonder a man from a scholarly family would proactively approach a stranger like him. No wonder Ji Mingyu’s painting style and the setup of the painting studio always felt so familiar. No wonder the first time he entered the Ji Family home, the butler had casually mentioned Ji Mingyu’s past and the man had grown so tense and flustered. No wonder the man always knew every detail of his life…
The answer had been staring him in the face all along—those blue eyes that shifted from murky to clear, identical to those of his first love.
Jiang Rang had suspected it for ages, but he had stubbornly refused to believe.
He kept coming up with excuses to convince himself: their completely different backgrounds, faces, personalities.
But Lu Xiang seemed to read his mind. The man parted his lips in a grim smile, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the young man like he was a white bird on the verge of being lured into a trap.
He said, “Ji Mingyu’s had plastic surgery. You knew that, right? Every month, he vanishes on a set date and comes back looking even more stunning. The guy’s obsessed—a total plastic surgery nutcase—”
“Jiang Rang, have you forgotten? Those sickening photos he sent you.”
“Why do you think he’s cozying up to you?” Lu Xiang watched the young man’s face drain of color, turning ashen with terror. His voice slowed to a deliberate drawl, brimming with smug certainty.
“He’s out for revenge. Revenge for how you betrayed him back then. Or do you actually believe he’s fallen for you?”
It was undeniable—in that moment, Jiang Rang’s mind reeled in chaos. He couldn’t suppress a spike of raw panic that slipped beyond his grasp.
Ji Mingyu’s true identity did terrify him, but the timing made all the difference.
If the Jiang Rang from when they’d first met had learned the truth, he might have been scared shitless. But now, after years of secret trysts and shacking up with Ji Mingyu for three or four years, the revelation wasn’t the disaster it could have been.
He knew exactly how to weaponize love.
Love was like a kite dancing on the wind—Jiang Rang held the string firmly in his grip, with Ji Mingyu fluttering helplessly at his command.
What truly frightened him now wasn’t Ji Mingyu’s exposed secret. It was that Lu Xiang had pierced his disguise, unearthing those sloppy cover-ups of his past blunders.
In other words, Lu Xiang no longer bought his act. The man had likely dug up every dirty detail before even showing up.
Jiang Rang lowered his gaze, his pale eyelids veiling the bottomless malice and cunning swirling in his eyes.
He hadn’t seen this coming—or rather, he’d been so blinded by Lu Xiang’s old image of utter stupidity that he’d missed the bigger picture.
Lu Xiang’s affection had lulled him into forgetting the sheer power wielded by the Lu Family Crown Prince.
For an ordinary guy like Jiang Rang, if Lu Xiang wanted dirt, he could unearth records going back to the cradle.
With things at this pass, Jiang Rang had only one play: bet on Lu Xiang’s lingering resentment, bet his luck wouldn’t fizzle out to nothing.
After a long, heavy silence, the young man summoned tears to redden his eyes. As if buckling under the weight, he rasped, “Lu Xiang… what about you?”
Lu Xiang froze for a split second, his vicious scowl easing briefly. After another long pause, he muttered, “What?”
Jiang Rang forced a wretched smile. “You say he’s here for revenge—but do you even know what really happened back then? Yeah, I screwed him over. Whatever he wants to do to me, I won’t fight it… But you?”
His face blanched to the shade of moldy plaster, trembling as he whispered, “Aren’t you here to get revenge on me too?”
Lu Xiang’s fingers clenched vise-tight, veins throbbing along his neck like burrowing worms ready to erupt.
Eyes icy and merciless, he let out a hoarse sneer. “Jiang Rang, don’t I deserve revenge?”
“You cheated, you’re flighty and greedy, heartless and fake, with no shame or limits…”
The words died on his tongue.
He saw tears spilling uncontrollably from Jiang Rang’s eyes.
Jiang Rang wept in utter silence, his body quaking on the brink of collapse—like a gray bird teetering on a cliff’s edge, about to plummet onto the jagged rocks below and have its chest ripped open.
Its blood was its tears; its tears, the fragments of its shattered soul.
Jiang Rang bit his lip until blood trickled down his chin. Hoarse and straining to hold steady, he locked eyes with the man for the first time, declaring each word deliberately: “Everything you said… I own it.”
His teeth chattered as he shook out, “Yeah, I’m shameless. But what choice did I have?”
“My parents never loved me. They ignored me, beat me. I came home hungry every day—no food, no bed. Do you know where I slept?”
“I slept on that old wooden bench in the living room. Every winter, I felt like I might die right there.”
Jiang Rang’s lips trembled as he spoke, word by word: “So after my parents died, I chopped it to pieces and threw it in the trash.”
“Lu Xiang, let me ask you—if you’d been born into a family like that, with no way to make a living, what would you have done?”
“To be honest with you, I’ve never truly hurt anyone. I just wanted to live a little better, just wanted to survive. Was I wrong to do that?”
Lu Xiang said nothing. His eyelashes quivered, and he stared fixedly at the young man whose face was flushed with agitation. After a long moment, his nails dug deep into his palm.
The young man coughed several times in his agitation. He struggled to ease the pent-up frustration in his chest, gritting his teeth to stifle his sobs as he continued: “So no matter what you think of me, I accept it. But Lu Xiang, you shouldn’t reject our feelings along with everything else.”
Jiang Rang gazed at the man with reddened eyes and said softly: “That year we were together, I knew exactly how hard it was for you. You kept saying we could tough it out, but I understood better than anyone what a proud, free-spirited man you used to be.”
“Lu Xiang, doesn’t loving someone mean wanting them to have a better life? I couldn’t stand watching you grovel to others for my sake. I know I’m not a good person. I have my own selfish motives—I love you, and all I wanted was for you to see my pure, untainted side.”
“But after that year, I saw the gap between us all too clearly. Your father kept pressuring you, step by step, and I lived in constant fear that you’d leave me, that you’d grow to despise me. In the end, it was better for me to sever things myself.”
Perhaps because he had finally heard the young man bare his soul, Lu Xiang’s eyes slowly reddened. His lips trembled, and the look he gave Jiang Rang was one of utter shock. For a long while, he couldn’t utter a single word.
Jiang Rang drew a deep breath and rasped: “Lu Xiang, you always say I don’t love you. But you should know that all these years, I’ve never been with Ji Mingyu. If I truly didn’t love you, I would have gone to him after the divorce—but I didn’t. So don’t you know the real reason I’ve stayed away from him?”
“Lu Xiang.” The young man’s voice was as light as a drifting feather, his eyes dim as the deepest eternal night. “You know everything. You just don’t love me enough.”
“In any case, believe what I’ve said today or don’t—it doesn’t matter. You’ve already ‘bought’ me back from Ji Mingyu. We’re just a transaction now. You don’t need to respect me, or care about how I feel… None of it matters anymore—”
At those final words, Jiang Rang closed his eyes wearily, his voice trailing off into a sigh.
But before the young man’s heart could fully shatter, a pair of scorching hands—trembling uncontrollably—suddenly seized his own.
Jiang Rang stared in stunned silence.
He saw Lu Xiang’s bloodshot eyes, the man’s facial muscles twisting in a mix of warped relief and mania.
Gone was the man’s earlier poise and chilling menace. Now he resembled nothing so much as a destitute wretch who had been showered with unimaginable riches. Lu Xiang struggled to compose himself, but the raw, physical thrill coursing through him was impossible to conceal.
His lips quivering, Lu Xiang’s voice turned frantic and neurotic: “Jiang Jiang, Jiang Jiang—I love you. I just… I just needed an explanation. You never told me anything. All these years, you never once came to find me. I thought you really didn’t want me anymore.”
![How Should an Ordinary Person Role-Play? [Quick Transmigration]](https://i3.wp.com/dobynovels.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/qck.jpg?resize=151,215 "How Should an Ordinary Person Role-Play? [Quick Transmigration]")
