When the kiss finally ended, Feng Qingyun immediately pulled away. The heart demon, however, cupped the back of his head and kissed him again.
His aggressiveness was simply overwhelming. Feng Qingyun instinctively tried to retreat, but the moment the other’s tongue slipped into his mouth, he obediently stilled.
Unlike the straightforward original, this one had somehow bitten open his tongue again, deliberately using his blood as bait. The instant the taste of blood spread through his mouth, Feng Qingyun’s lashes trembled. He struggled to suppress his instincts, desperately hoping he wouldn’t disgrace himself by giving in so easily, but unfortunately…
Things never went as he wished.
For hundreds of years, he had never once eaten his fill. Now, after finally finding someone so generous with his blood, he’d long since become addicted to its taste. After an entire month of being nourished by Long Yin’s blood, his body had even developed the habit of feeding every single day.
And now, just when it should have been mealtime… The man deliberately let him smell the blood without actually letting him have it.
Hunger struck almost instantly, and Feng Qingyun’s stomach clenched painfully. He held out for less than a moment before he could bear it no longer. Leaning forward, he began gently licking at the other’s tongue in tiny, careful laps, making the heart demon smile in satisfaction.
But the cut on his tongue had nearly healed by now.
Unable to get the food he wanted, the corners of Feng Qingyun’s eyes gradually reddened with frustration, so he reached up and hooked his arms around the man’s neck. Kneeling on the bed, he leaned closer almost unconsciously, desperately trying to draw just a little more blood from the healing wound.
He paid no attention whatsoever to the fact that his robes had fallen completely open. But the heart demon looked immensely pleased. After leisurely enjoying the beauty thrown into his arms, he finally released Feng Qingyun. Drawing his demonic Qi, he sliced open his own left wrist, and rich, fragrant blood immediately welled from the wound.
But unlike the original Long Yin, however, he didn’t take the blood into his mouth to feed Feng Qingyun. Instead, he simply held his bleeding wrist out before him.
Feng Qingyun froze. In the darkness, he stared silently at that bleeding wrist for a long while. Then, unable to resist any longer, he lowered his head as his lips gently enclosed the other’s wrist.
From Long Yin’s angle, looking down from above, the elegant man, who normally carried himself with quiet dignity and unyielding pride, now seemed indescribably gentle, obedient even, like a well-behaved little cat.
The sight made one want nothing more than to gather him into their arms and spoil him endlessly.
Long Yin’s lips curved upward. He reached out and gently stroked the back of Feng Qingyun’s neck, but the touch made Feng Qingyun pause. He lifted his eyes and shot him an annoyed glare.
Unfortunately…
That glare landed absolutely nowhere.
The moment Feng Qingyun swallowed the last drop of blood, he was dragged straight into Long Yin’s embrace and kissed until his head spun.
Whimpering in protest, Feng Qingyun pushed helplessly against him. By the end, he was one slap away from actually hitting the man before the heart demon finally took pity on him and let him go.
This was where the greatest difference between the heart demon and the original became obvious. After shamelessly taking advantage of him, the heart demon didn’t leave. Instead, he simply lay down beside Feng Qingyun in the darkness, lazily wrapping an arm around his waist. Through the fabric, his fingers idly caressed Feng Qingyun’s slender waist as though he intended to enjoy every possible benefit.
Feng Qingyun was practically driven mad by all the touching as he repeatedly caught the offending hand by the wrist and threw it aside before finally managing to keep it there.
And yet, the heart demon wasn’t offended in the slightest. Chuckling, he instead reached for Feng Qingyun’s arm.Slowly pushing back the pale sleeve, he gently rubbed the place where the scar had completely disappeared, asking, “…What happened to this wound before?”
Originally, he’d assumed Feng Qingyun had simply been injured on the way to the Demon World. Given Feng Qingyun’s strength, anyone capable of hurting him was probably long dead by now, so Long Yin hadn’t thought much of it. But this time, Feng Qingyun paused.
After a long silence, he answered vaguely, “…It’s from cutting off a new branch. It’s nothing.”
“It’s already healed.”
“…”
“Cutting off a new branch?” The smile on Long Yin’s face vanished instantly. “Why would you do that for no reason?”
Feng Qingyun simply turned his head away, refusing to answer, and alarm bells immediately rang in Long Yin’s head.Without hesitation, he caught Feng Qingyun’s chin and forcibly turned his face back toward him, saying, “If the Little Palace Master refuses to tell this Lord, I’m going to kiss you.”
Feng Qingyun’s heart trembled, yet he still stubbornly looked away without speaking. Apparently, after being kissed so many times, he’d grown unexpectedly fearless.
Long Yin narrowed his eyes. Then, changing tactics, he reached directly for Feng Qingyun’s already loosely fastened robes and pulled them farther apart, saying, “Since there’s no one else in this bedchamber, I’d say there’s no need for the Little Palace Master’s inner robe anymore.”
At that, Feng Qingyun’s eyes flew wide open, and he immediately grabbed Long Yin’s wrist, staring at him furiously in the darkness.
Unfortunately…
The man meant exactly what he said.
His fingers had already slipped beneath the loosened collar. Left with no other choice, Feng Qingyun hurriedly explained, “…Previously, one of Mu Hanyang’s friends suffered grievous injuries. He asked me to plead with Miss Mu of Xiaoyao Valley.”
“Miss Mu’s price for treating people was extremely high, and she happens to possess a single wood spiritual root.”
“I wasn’t willing to offer Master’s sword as payment, so I could only use one of my new buds instead.” He spoke lightly, as though sacrificing a newly grown branch were something completely insignificant.
But Long Yin froze, and the entire room fell silent. He was like a volcano moments before eruption. One hand still rested at Feng Qingyun’s waist, and no matter how tightly Feng Qingyun gripped his wrist, Long Yin didn’t move at all.
Feng Qingyun’s heart began pounding uneasily as he cautiously looked up at him. The next moment, Long Yin slowly closed his eyes, but when he opened them again, the dark violet colour had changed.
“…!”
Feng Qingyun stiffened. A chill ran down his spine, and his eyes widened in horror.
Another one!
A heart demon he’d never seen before! Although the man said nothing after opening his eyes, Feng Qingyun’s hair stood on end. Clutching his robes together, he turned and tried to flee, but the other was faster. Catching him by the sash, he yanked him back and pinned him beneath him.
“…Wait!”
The plea escaped him before he could stop it. Lying flat on the bed, Feng Qingyun desperately tried to awaken whatever little conscience Long Yin had left, but it was utterly futile.
The last remaining piece of clothing covering him was immediately torn away, and Feng Qingyun’s heart sank. His entire body trembled as he looked into the man’s eyes, but there was no trace of lust within them.
Only pure, instinctive fury…
…and violence.
And yet, Feng Qingyun couldn’t understand it.
Why was Long Yin so furious over something as simple as cutting off a new branch?
Furious enough that another heart demon had appeared. However, he only knew one thing.
He was probably done for tonight.
But reality proved a hundred times more mortifying than anything he’d imagined. His last piece of clothing was gone. Flustered, Feng Qingyun hurriedly tried to cover himself, but protecting one place inevitably exposed another.
The poor Little Palace Master had lived for centuries without ever experiencing such complete helplessness. But what he found even harder to accept was this:
After stripping away his clothes, the man did nothing intimate at all.
Instead, in the darkness, he carefully spread apart every inch of Feng Qingyun’s body, examining him slowly and patiently, searching every inch of skin for any other wounds he might have missed.
But it wasn’t deliberate humiliation. It was overwhelming tenderness, and aching heartache, buried beneath boundless rage.
Feng Qingyun froze. Then an indescribable wave of embarrassment washed over him as he wished he could curl up like folded petals. He didn’t even dare open his eyes, but only then did he suddenly realize just how thoroughly his own boundaries had already been eroded.
His robes had been opened. His entire body lay bare. The man inspected every inch of him from head to toe, and it seemed he wanted to know even whether there was a mole hidden in the hollow of his waist. And yet, the only thing Feng Qingyun felt was unbearable embarrassment.
Not the anger of someone being defiled.
So this was what happened when someone was confronted with absolute devotion. Even if the beginning had been wrong, even if the process had been wrong, he still couldn’t stop himself from falling.
That was the sort of hopeless blood rose he was.
His ears burned scarlet. Snatching up the blanket, Feng Qingyun buried his entire face beneath it. In that moment, he understood with perfect clarity.
He was completely finished.
Long Yin, however, simply dug him back out from under the blanket and forced him to look him in the eye. Then, staring at him without blinking, he demanded, “When you’re in bed with that Mu fellow…”
“…does he always hurt you like this?!”
The dark anger in his voice was on the verge of overflowing. But thinking about it carefully, it wasn’t an unreasonable assumption. If Mu Hanyang could ask his own Dao companion to sacrifice a new branch just to save a random friend, then there was little reason to believe he’d be especially gentle in bed.
Hearing that, Feng Qingyun froze. He had assumed Long Yin had merely been checking the injury left behind by the severed branch, and he’d never imagined the man had drawn such a conclusion. But when he finally understood, his entire face still turned crimson.
At last, Feng Qingyun realised why this man had spent so long examining the insides of his thighs earlier, and the overwhelming shame made him want to dig a hole and bury himself alive.
Yet Long Yin continued looking at him with complete seriousness, waiting quietly for an answer. After a long pause, with crimson ears and eyes darting away in embarrassment, Feng Qingyun mumbled, “…It’s not what you think.”
“Nothing like that ever happened.”
Long Yin still wasn’t reassured, asking, “He truly never hurt you in bed?”
There wasn’t the slightest trace of jealousy in his voice. Only concern, heartache, and a deep, inescapable sense of guilt.
…How could someone like this possibly exist?
An indescribable ache suddenly welled up in Feng Qingyun’s heart. After a long silence, he gently rested a hand on Long Yin’s wrist. At last, he spoke aloud the blood-soaked truth that no one had ever known.
“No. What I meant is…”
“…we never consummated our marriage.”
The moment those words fell, the entire bedchamber plunged into an unprecedented silence. Feng Qingyun slowly closed his eyes.
He couldn’t quite describe what he was feeling. There was bitterness, yes, and so was numbness. But while the bitterness existed because of Long Yin, for Mu Hanyang…
There was only numbness left.
So this was what it felt like.
After clinging painfully to something that had never truly belonged to him, finally letting go… It wasn’t nearly as painful as he’d imagined. In fact, Feng Qingyun felt relieved.
Long Yin, however, was consumed by fury.
Wasn’t that no different from living as a widow while one’s spouse was still alive?!
The person he treasured like the brightest pearl had been treated like that by someone else. Rage swept away the last of his reason, and his dragon eyes burst into view, no longer capable of being concealed.
Feng Qingyun had never imagined something like this could provoke such an extreme reaction. When he looked up and met those dragon eyes without warning, an indescribable shiver ran through his entire body, making him freeze in Long Yin’s embrace.
A… dragon…!?
Ordinarily, someone who had never seen a true dragon wouldn’t recognise dragon eyes, and they would probably mistake them for those of a common serpent. But…
Feng Qingyun had seen them before.
A memory buried in the deepest corner of his mind suddenly resurfaced as an unprecedented suspicion took root in his heart. It was so overwhelming that he forgot even his embarrassment, mumbling, “You…”
He managed only a single trembling syllable before the man interrupted him in a low voice, burning with unprecedented fury.
“…I should have stolen you away long ago.”
Feng Qingyun hadn’t yet grasped what those words truly meant when the next instant, an overwhelmingly fierce, almost violent kiss descended upon him.
“Mmh…!”
His inner robe had long since been torn to pieces and tossed aside, and there was nowhere left to run. Held tightly in Long Yin’s arms, his bare skin was pressed firmly against the other’s body.
Long Yin himself wore nothing but a thin inner robe during these nightly visits. Now, separated only by that single layer of fabric, the man’s body heat scorched directly against Feng Qingyun’s exposed skin, burning away the last of his rationality.
But this new heart demon or whatever he was kissed entirely differently from the others. Feng Qingyun felt as though the man wanted nothing more than to crush him apart and fuse him into his own body. The embrace was so tight he couldn’t utter a single coherent word, and he could only clutch at Long Yin’s shoulders, letting out quiet, broken whimpers.
Over the past month, he’d practically been pampered into luxury. Although he still cultivated diligently every day, drinking so much blood had visibly improved his complexion. The little softness that had finally returned to his waist and hips now became the provider’s reward entirely.
Long Yin kneaded him almost like soft dough beneath his hands. Feng Qingyun had never experienced such intimate bullying, and his eyes reddened almost immediately. But the dragon’s body temperature was noticeably hotter than both the original and the previous heart demons. The scorching heat made Feng Qingyun tremble helplessly, with nowhere to escape.
When the kiss finally ended, Feng Qingyun immediately yanked the blanket over himself. His own storage ring still contained plenty of clothes, but unfortunately, that ring was currently sitting on Long Yin’s finger.
He stared pitifully at his own storage ring. Finally, unable to resist, he cautiously asked, despite the man’s lingering anger, to exchange their rings back. But as expected, he was flatly refused.
The refusal even seemed to irritate Long Yin further. Now, not only was he unwilling to return the ring, he wouldn’t even give Feng Qingyun a single piece of clothing. Instead, he reached beneath the blanket, dragged him back out without a word, and silently picked up the cold jade restraint lying at the foot of the bed.
Feng Qingyun’s heart skipped violently, and yet…
Perhaps Long Yin had spoiled him too well these past few weeks. Faced with danger, he’d lost some of the vigilance he should have possessed. By the time he realised he ought to pull his foot back, it was already too late.
The sapphire-blue cold jade shackle snapped neatly around his ankle. The other end should have been fastened to one of the bedposts. Yet after standing there silently for a long while, Long Yin simply couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Instead, he drew his demonic Qi and severed the other end of the chain. The restraint instantly lost its original purpose, and rather than a shackle, it now hung around Feng Qingyun’s ankle like an exquisitely crafted anklet.
Nothing more than a useless ornament.
But the most fatal part was that apart from that delicate anklet, he wasn’t wearing anything else. The sight was suddenly so breathtakingly sensual that it made one’s face burn.
Feng Qingyun lowered his eyes toward his ankle. Only after coming back to himself did he suddenly blush scarlet and hurriedly look away. Meanwhile, the very culprit responsible for all of this behaved as though nothing unusual had happened. Wrapping an arm around Feng Qingyun’s waist, Long Yin drew him back into his embrace, then lowered his head and buried his face against the hollow of his neck.
In the darkness, Feng Qingyun hardly dared breathe. He was terrified the man might suddenly lose control again and simply take him on the spot. So he could only lie there, completely bare, in Long Yin’s arms.
After an unknown length of time, the man’s body temperature finally began returning to normal, and Feng Qingyun cautiously lowered his head to look. Just then, Long Yin lifted his face from his neck. The crimson hue in his eyes had vanished, and they were black again.
The heart demon had receded, and the original Long Yin had returned.
But if the heart demon was gone… then Long Yin’s emotions had finally calmed. By all rights, Feng Qingyun should have felt relieved, and yet…
The moment he looked into those black dragon eyes, his heartbeat thundered louder than ever before.
…Was it you?
The dragon God, the one who died because of me inside that illusion…
Feng Qingyun’s ears flushed bright red. The question trembled on the verge of escaping his lips, yet somehow, whenever he faced Long Yin, the real Long Yin, he became mute. Unable to say a single word.
So he remained silent, naked, resting against the embrace of the man who had once been his greatest rival. At some point, everything had become this absurd. So what exactly were they to each other now?
He didn’t know.
No one spoke about that question, and so it remained unanswered. After a long silence, Feng Qingyun finally looked up.
“…Long Yin.” He called the man’s name softly. Receiving no response, he continued anyway. “I want to go out tomorrow.”
Silence stretched through the room for a long while before the man finally answered.
“…All right.”
It was the very first sentence Long Yin himself had spoken to Feng Qingyun since Feng Qingyun had entered the Demon Palace. For one fleeting moment, Feng Qingyun had the strange feeling that no matter what he asked for, the other man would grant it. So he couldn’t help asking: “…Can you give my storage ring back?”
As it turned out, Long Yin truly couldn’t bear to refuse him outright, but he also had no intention of returning the ring. So he simply remained silent, using that silence to express his unwillingness.
He even seemed faintly guilty for failing to grant Feng Qingyun’s request. Lowering his head, he buried his face against Feng Qingyun’s neck rather than meet his eyes, but the gesture caught Feng Qingyun completely off guard.
When he recovered, an unexpected smile rose from the bottom of his heart.
…………………..
The next day, the doors of the bedchamber really did open.
Having no better option, Feng Qingyun took one of Long Yin’s outer robes from the storage ring and put it on. Wearing someone else’s clothes without an inner robe underneath felt strange at first, but after a while, he got used to it.
The robe problem was solved. The shoes, however, weren’t.
Even though Long Yin’s shoes were brand new, they were far too large, and Feng Qingyun could barely take a few steps in them. After hesitating for quite some time, he simply went barefoot and pushed open the doors.
What he hadn’t expected was that the Demon Palace, which had been completely deserted a month ago, was now occupied by several demonic attendants.
Feng Qingyun jumped in surprise and instinctively straightened his robe.
The female demonic cultivator at the front looked as though she wasn’t quite accustomed to her job yet. She stared at him for a moment before hurriedly lowering her head.
“Your Highness,” she said, “my name is Yue Jinshu. His Majesty caught…” she hurriedly corrected herself, “…recruited us to serve you.”
Feng Qingyun: “…”
One could tell at a glance that Long Yin had caught these demonic cultivators from somewhere. Unable to help himself, Feng Qingyun looked beyond the palace. There was no sign of Long Yin, but he knew…
…the man was watching him.
“Thank you, Miss Yue,” Feng Qingyun said, withdrawing his gaze. “But I don’t require attendants. You may all continue your cultivation. If I need anything, I’ll come to you.”
Seeing how gentle and reasonable he was, so unlike Long Yin, the attendants collectively breathed a sigh of relief.
Life changed in subtle ways. And yet… it also seemed unchanged.
Feng Qingyun could finally leave the bedchamber. But for reasons known only to Long Yin, every time he saw Feng Qingyun walking barefoot with the cold jade chain still around his ankle, he would immediately feel distressed.
Yet instead of giving him shoes…
…he ordered the entire Demon Palace to be carpeted in soft, snow-white rabbit fur so Feng Qingyun could continue walking barefoot.
Feng Qingyun and the attendants all fell silent. Naturally, none of the attendants dared comment openly. Privately, however, they unanimously believed that Feng Qingyun was the new empress the Demon Emperor had snatched away from Mu Hanyang.
Which… wasn’t exactly inaccurate.
In the past, no matter what happened after nightfall, Feng Qingyun had at least still been wearing an inner robe. But now, even that was gone. With no other choice, he wore Long Yin’s outer robe while cultivating atop the bed.
But every night, after feeding him, Long Yin would naturally add one more step to the routine. Without saying a word, he would remove the robe from Feng Qingyun’s body, like peeling the shell from a boiled egg and revealing the smooth, snowy-white flesh beneath.
He did it with such effortless familiarity that it seemed second nature. And every single time, he waited until Feng Qingyun’s mind had gone hazy from feeding before doing it. So by the time Feng Qingyun came back to himself, he was already lying completely naked in Long Yin’s arms, wearing nothing but the ankle chain that served no purpose beyond decoration.
He knew he ought to scold him, or at least make some gesture of refusal, yet once night fell, the unlit bedchamber seemed to become another world altogether.
Even its rules changed. Even common sense was quietly rewritten.
It’s only being naked.
It’s not that big of a deal.
That absurd, erotic suggestion echoed through every corner of the darkness, while everything resembled a dream so decadent it bordered on the surreal. Every detail was undeniably wrong, yet while feeding him, Long Yin, the very instigator of all this, remained just as solemn and serious as ever, never once crossing the final boundary.
And the most absurd thing of all was that Feng Qingyun adapted. He adapted to the nightly intimacy disguised as feeding, he adapted to lying naked beneath the blankets, and he adapted to every unreasonable thing.
Day and night became two entirely different worlds. And when daylight returned, they tacitly resumed their silence. Neither of them ever mentioned what had happened the previous night, and no one ever discussed whether the one who had climbed into Feng Qingyun’s bed had been Long Yin himself…
…or one of his heart demons.
Or perhaps the one beside him had changed midway through the night; who knew. Those secrets remained submerged beneath the darkness like hidden currents, known to no one.
His boundaries were slowly eroded in the night, only to be carefully gathered back together in the daylight, as though nothing had happened. But Feng Qingyun alone knew there was no going back anymore.
So when Mu Hanyang finally arrived at the Demon Palace in frantic haste, carrying his dying friend on his back, accompanied by the man’s concubine, the sight that greeted him left him utterly frozen.
Upon the elevated dais sat an opulent throne draped in dark violet robes embroidered with shimmering golden dragons, radiating unmatched majesty. The beautiful man, as radiant as a blooming hibiscus, wore no crown. His long hair cascaded freely as he sat upon the throne that should have belonged to the Demon Emperor himself.
A sky-blue chain still circled his right ankle, yet he appeared so accustomed to it that he simply rested his bare feet casually atop the snowy rabbit-fur carpet.
Before him was a lavish spread of tempting fruit, but he seemed to have grown tired of them, absentmindedly sorting through them before finally selecting one. Just as he was about to bring it to his lips, one of the attendants beside him said something.
He paused, then laughed.
“Three?” Feng Qingyun said with a smile. “You’re underestimating him.”
“More than three?” The attendant blinked in disbelief. “Just how many heart demons does His Majesty have?”
At the phrase His Majesty, Feng Qingyun laughed again. After a pause, he quietly raised a hand, holding up seven fingers.
“…Seven!?” Yue Jinshu stared at him in astonishment before her gossip-loving instincts took over. “Then… when you’re in bed, do you really take all seven of them?”
Feng Qingyun: “……”
The customs of the Demon World were truly… bold.
Feng Qingyun nearly choked to death on a mouthful of lychee.
“Oh, wait,” Yue Jinshu corrected herself while counting on her fingers. “Including His Majesty himself, that makes eight.” Her eyes sparkled with irrepressible curiosity. “So out of all eight of them… which one do you like the most, Your Highness?”
“I, of course, like…” The tips of Feng Qingyun’s ears turned pink. He had only gotten halfway through the sentence when he suddenly sensed something. Still holding the lychee between his fingers, he abruptly stopped speaking and turned toward the palace entrance.
Mu Hanyang stood there.
He stared at Feng Qingyun without blinking, shock and disbelief written all over his face.
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