Chapter 52: Bitter Swallow · 10

This decision carried a faint whiff of depravity.

Lin Shanyan had always been the model student, free of vices for over twenty years—staying up late was a rarity, countable on one hand.

But in a moment of utter folly, he chose to date a Snake Descendant. It was like striking a bargain with a tiger.

Before and after he made his relationship official with Meng Duimo, he brought it up repeatedly, a quiet unease gnawing at him.

Yet neither could hold back their urges. The day after his discharge, they began holding hands. On the third day, they tried watching TV at home, but barely half an hour in, they were wrapped around each other, necks entwined in fervent kisses like awkward high schoolers discovering passion for the first time.

Lust and hunger mingled like this, Lin Shanyan told himself.

He had never imagined that kissing could feel so intoxicating.

It was as if their nerves had fused together, blending the unknown with the familiar—unpredictable in the next touch or lick, yet drowning in the bliss of the moment before.

His life had once been a straight line: morning jogs in the park, the Procuratorate, home. Now it was just two points: the Procuratorate and home.

Meng Duimo had lost his mind too. One day during lunch break, he showed up with a milk tea. A few casual words led to them kissing in the stairwell before they knew it.

Anyone could walk by at any moment; getting caught by a colleague would be a disaster. So they slipped into the fire escape, lost in the dim light, lips and tongues entwining, forgetting whatever they’d been talking about.

This wasn’t right.

Lin Shanyan’s first twenty years had been devoted to his studies. He’d even harbored clear ideas about his future partner.

Someone who’d read Montesquieu, who could chat about coffee roasting or film cameras. They’d spend lazy weekend afternoons watching indie films together.

But now he’d become utterly vulgar.

And Meng Duimo embodied vulgarity itself.

Broad chest, long legs, a low, velvety voice laced with sweet nothings that left him dizzy and disoriented.

Two weeks into dating, and they knew nothing about each other’s reading habits or philosophical leanings.

All that pretentious intellectual posturing from years of buried in books was cast aside, leaving only the ragged breaths between kisses.

Lin Shanyan churned out his papers at breakneck speed, along with those polished reports on the unit’s “new civilized winds.”

As he typed lofty phrases about societal virtues, he couldn’t help wondering: Was this how everyone acted when they fell in love, or was it because they were on each other’s menu that things had spiraled so wildly out of control?

They were both deliberately holding off on going all the way, tacitly trying to prove their seriousness about the relationship. But these past two weeks had been littered with near-misses, turning it into a futile charade.

He hammered out a few lines on fresh social trends, then paused, eyes downcast, before getting up to buy some iced water.

Maybe it was just the summer heat making him restless.

Meng Duimo made a habit of picking him up and dropping him off.

Ride-hailing apps were convenient enough these days—no real need for it. They just craved those extra moments of intertwined fingers at red lights, stealing kisses in the gaps.

Sometimes, mid-kiss, Lin Shanyan’s mind would fog over with a hazy thought.

Wait—what exactly do I like about him?

If his feelings boiled down purely to physical desire, it felt too shallow, too cheap.

But Meng Duimo was perfect for him in every way.

That pine scent, those firm abs, the perfectly timed flirtations, the perfumes and flowers he picked out in endless variety.

Lost in a daze, he misjudged his bite and broke the skin at the corner of Meng Duimo’s lip.

They both froze. Meng Duimo murmured softly, “No need to tense up.”

Lin Shanyan instinctively licked at the spot.

He went rigid, his expression guilty, like a child caught misbehaving.

The light turned green, but Meng Duimo eyed the clogged traffic ahead, knowing they’d be stuck for another cycle.

“Shanyan, what’s on your mind?”

Lin Shanyan couldn’t find the words.

Even after they drove home, cooked, and ate, he stayed silent.

The TV droned on with mindless entertainment news. The young man ate agonizingly slowly; after a dozen minutes, his bowl looked untouched.

Meng Duimo switched off the television and gently ruffled his hair with one broad palm.

“Something bothering you? Tell me, okay?”

It was as if Lin Shanyan had snapped partly out of a drunken stupor, his gaze toward Meng Duimo laced with unease.

“Earlier… I accidentally licked your blood.”

“Mmm. And?”

The young man said, flustered, “…It didn’t taste like normal blood at all.”

It was fishy yet sweet, dense and indescribable.

Like positive and negative poles slamming together, igniting a primal thrill deep in his bloodline—like a jolt of electricity surging through him.

Meng Duimo fell silent for a moment, then chuckled. “No wonder.”

He’d long been prepared to embrace these things and didn’t take such a harmless slip as an offense.

“You don’t need to feel guilty.”

“I’m delicious, after all. Consider it a compliment.” He gazed at him steadily and calmly. “Snake Descendants have incredible regenerative abilities. The scrapes and falls from my regular training are far worse than this.”

“If you want to taste more, I wouldn’t mind. The unit organizes blood drives every year, and I’m always fine—my body handles it well.”

Lin Shanyan covered his face with his hand and couldn’t help but laugh.

“Who wants to be a vampire?”

“Seriously, treating your blood packs like drinks? That’s just insane.”

They tacitly agreed that it could lead to an even deeper addiction.

On one hand, they joked that it wasn’t right, suggesting they should be gentler instead.

On the other, they indulged in more slip-ups—piercing the side of a lip, even the tip of a tongue.

Their kisses carried a hint of desperate sucking, and amid the sting of pain, their instincts doubled in intensity, tempting each other to wreak even more havoc.

The next day at work, Lin Shanyan suffered a hypoglycemic episode from anemia.

Rubbing his brow, he ordered himself a blood-flavored glutinous rice milk tea and fired off a message to Meng Duimo: We can’t keep doing this.

Meng Duimo was tough as nails and could take it; he couldn’t. These past few days, his face had gone pale as a ghost.

The reply came quickly: Okay. A moment later: Sorry. Shouldn’t have done that.

Lin Shanyan stared down at his WeChat, typing back: No need to apologize.

You and I… we’re accomplices.

They resolved to pursue a simple, civilized love life.

After work, they’d catch a movie or hit up a street food stall. Weekends meant no holing up at home—they’d try pottery together or take a late-night stroll down rain-slicked streets after a downpour, chatting idly about this and that before parting amicably.

Their goodnight kisses stayed light as a dragonfly skimming water, never lingering too long.

Lin Shanyan was relieved to discover that despite Meng Duimo’s generous chest and curvaceous hips, the man had a brain in his head. Their conversations felt good—rewarding, even.

Meng Duimo wasn’t clueless or painfully dull.

They’d only dipped into the vulgar side for a spell.

And so another month slipped by.

It was as if the bomb squad’s alarm had finally fallen silent, no more piercing wails. They held back from revealing their true snake-and-bird forms to each other, focusing instead on deep mental connection. They’d tackle big cleaning sessions together, their days unfolding in bland, cozy warmth.

The movie they both loved soon released its sequel.

They went that weekend. The theater was packed, the air thick with the buttery scent of popcorn everywhere.

The plot was thrilling, but they were both distracted, their hands occasionally linking, fingertips brushing the other’s palm by accident.

Twenty minutes in, Lin Shanyan glanced down and messaged Meng Duimo.

I want to fuck. Let’s go.

Meng Duimo stood, grabbed his jacket, and yanked him toward the exit at a brisk pace.

Like a spring compressed to its limit and suddenly released, they didn’t leave the house for two days and two nights. Their backs were crisscrossed with bloodied scratches—sometimes from nails, sometimes from slick, sloppy kisses.

He vaguely suspected the neighbors had overheard, but he didn’t care anymore.

They entwined, they bit, they ravaged each other, plummeting together.

Blood on shoulders, wounds on lips, sweat everywhere.

And even that wasn’t enough.

As they drifted into exhausted sleep, they shifted one after another into snake and bird.

Then tangled once more.

Thank goodness the doors and windows were locked tight.

Lin Shanyan’s awareness hadn’t fully returned at first. When the Laughing Falcon realized its throat was pinned by a snake’s tail, it nearly shrieked and bolted into flight several times.

The snake yanked it down hard, coiling tyrannically around its wings before sinking fangs in.

Their conscious minds bobbed and sank in waves.

Good lovers probably didn’t go around biting each other at random.

Meng Duimo thought to himself that those razor-sharp teeth must hurt like hell going in.

But he couldn’t hold back.

He even injected venom along with it, until the other’s gaze slowly lost focus.

The Laughing Falcon was a snake-eater; the Lin Snake was a bird-eater.

As scales scraped over feathers, they’d sometimes ruffle the sleek plumage, leaving it even more disheveled.

Let it be like this.

They were accomplices in their mutual wreckage.

Fortunately, the window for such feverish romance was short.

Before long, the Xingqing City smuggling case saw a major break. A slew of related personnel had to head out of province for investigations, coordinating procedures with the lead team there.

Meng Duimo shipped out to another province soon after, then got assigned by OAC alongside Interpol to Myanmar.

Lin Shanyan stayed put locally. At first, they kept in touch via WeChat, but then he learned Meng Duimo was on a classified op—messages went out into the void with no reply.

Nearly two months passed without a reunion.

High summer didn’t linger.

It felt like he’d just been tethered by lust and infatuation on a long leash, only for the link to snap, leaving nothing behind.

Work, morning runs, home—a rigid three-point loop resumed.

Lin Shanyan obsessively refreshed international news feeds, occasionally checking reports from Yunnan too.

Nothing.

On rainy days, leaves blanketed the ground as colleagues chatted about weekend autumn outings with the kids.

Is he still alive? he wondered, standing by the window.

When Meng Duimo finally returned, his arm was broken, his face gashed open and everted.

At their reunion, Lin Shanyan said nothing. He changed Meng Duimo’s dressings and stuck by him through rehab.

Snakes regenerated impressively, after all.

What would take ordinary folk months of recovery, Meng Duimo’s arm was nearly good as new in two weeks.

On a rainy night, they tumbled together in silence, purging every scrap of deathly fear.

Lin Shanyan hurt so much that he held Meng Duimo tightly in his arms, unable to bear scratching him anymore.

He thought to himself that things shouldn’t have come to this.

Why did his job have to confront death head-on, and why did love have to as well?

Yet the very next day was his medical check-up.

Pale-faced, the young man made his way to the medical center and removed his jacket as instructed.

Lowering his long lashes, he gazed at the bite marks on the back of his hand, his arms, his shoulders, and even his back.

Meng Duimo didn’t look much better off, but in that moment, Lin Shanyan suddenly thought, Enough.

He wanted a normal body, a normal life, a normal career, a normal lover.

Let’s break up.

This is the end.

Even if normalcy itself was impossible after getting involved with OAC.

The doctor asked no questions. Once he confirmed Lin Shanyan’s vitals were stable, he moved on routinely to the next patient.

Lin Shanyan drove home alone, mulling over breakup lines the entire way.

They had to be firm, resolute. Or light and casual.

Let’s just part ways amicably.

He turned the key in the lock, and as the door swung open, the rich aroma of chicken soup wafted out.

Meng Duimo was wearing an apron, soup ladle still in hand, with pots simmering on both burners.

“You’re back. Everything okay?”

Lin Shanyan stared at him blankly for a moment.

“Mm.” He smiled. “Everything’s fine.”