This was a thatched hut. The huts stood very close to one another, and this branch of the demon race had never possessed much of a sense of shame to begin with. Thus, when they built these huts, they had never cared about soundproofing at all. Perhaps some of the bat demons even found it rather interesting this way.
But between Gu Mang and Mo Xi, it was unbearably awkward.
Those two bat demons were extremely impatient. Before long, they went straight to the main event. It seemed that the two of them were doing it pressed directly against that wall, and Gu Mang and the others could even hear faint, suggestive sounds of water.
Gu Mang glanced at Mo Xi. In the darkness, he could not clearly see Mo Xi’s expression, but he could still sense the gloomy aura surrounding him.
Gu Mang cleared his throat twice, his translucent blue eyes gazing at the roof of the thatched hut. Suddenly, he said, “Want to listen to a song?”
Mo Xi: “…”
Without waiting for Mo Xi to answer, Gu Mang began humming. In the past, he had used the suona to play all sorts of melodies for weddings and funerals, and the songs he hummed were equally winding and elaborate, without the slightest hesitation. Thus, while the two bats next door were entangled in passionate intimacy, Gu Mang was singing a little tune in a tone that was practically maddening.
Originally, he had only wanted to drown out the torturous sounds of the demon beasts next door. But as he hummed, Gu Mang actually became absorbed in it, truly ceasing to care about the noises coming from the other side. He shifted into a more comfortable position, fell back into the pile of straw, rested one arm beneath his head, and swung his long legs while humming to himself.
After singing for a while, he paused and asked, almost teasingly, “Do you like it?”
“…” Mo Xi said in a low voice, “Are you trying to lure the neighbors over?”
“They won’t.” Gu Mang reclined against the pile of straw, one hand resting on his knee as he lightly tapped out the rhythm. “Just watch. They can’t do anything to me.”
After a while, the sounds from the other side of the wall stopped.
Immediately afterward came an angry pounding on the wall.
“Bang, bang, bang!”
Mo Xi looked at him reproachfully, his expression seeming to say: Let’s see how you’re going to end this.
Gu Mang remained completely unhurried. His deep, sexy voice ended on an elaborate flourish, and he leisurely stopped, sounding lazy and unconcerned.
“What seems to be the matter, gentlemen?”
From the other side came the furious voice of the male bat demon.
“What the hell are you doing? Aren’t you two doing it?!”
Mo Xi seemed to choke on the vulgarity of the word “doing it.”
Gu Mang, however, was a vulgar man himself. He smiled.
“We’re doing it right now.”
Mo Xi: “…”
“Then why are you singing?!”
“I just like doing this. When I’m enjoying myself, I like humming songs.”
The bat demon’s fury practically seemed capable of burning through the wall between them.
“You like humming Erquan Yingyue when you’re enjoying yourself?!”
“Yeah. When I reach the climax, I can even perform a fast-paced spoken verse.”
Mo Xi: “………………..”
Bat demon: “…………”
Gu Mang swung his long legs, plucking a strand of straw and playing with it between his fingers. With shamelessness that could make both gods and demons hate him, he said, “That’s just my particular quirk. And to be honest, the guy in my room is pretty incredible. He probably won’t be settling down anytime soon. Brother, if you don’t like it, why don’t you just move to another hut?”
Mo Xi said quietly, “If you keep this up, I’m afraid—”
“Shh.” Gu Mang raised a finger to his lips. “Watch. They’ll definitely leave.”
Sure enough, after a while, the bat demons next door began cursing as they got up. They probably really were afraid that Gu Mang would actually pull something like this, because no matter how strong their mood was, it would be completely ruined. The Fire Bat clan ultimately placed pleasure above everything else. They did not want to waste time arguing with this pervert who liked performing fast-paced verses during that. So they kicked the wall twice, cursed a couple more times, and really did leave to find another place.
Gu Mang heard one demon shout “Pervert!” and the other yell “You’re sick!” as they left. He could not help lying back in the straw and silently holding back his laughter.
Once they had gone far enough, he could no longer contain it. His shoulders trembled, the laughter rippling through him like waves.
“Hahahahaha—”
Mo Xi said, “You…”
“Hm?” Gu Mang turned his head. His blue eyes were bright and sparkling, misted with moisture from suppressing his laughter. Looking at Mo Xi beside him, he grinned. “Impressive, right? As long as your skin is thick enough, you can guarantee yourself some peace and quiet. But you can’t learn this trick, Lord Xihe. You’re too serious.”
“……”
After another while, Gu Mang felt that enough time had passed. He stood up from the pile of straw and prepared to go outside.
Perhaps because he had been lying crookedly for too long, however, when he suddenly stood, the blood failed to circulate properly and he actually felt dizzy for a moment.
Although Mo Xi was angry with him, he still instinctively asked, “What’s wrong?”
“…Uh, I don’t know. I’m a little dizzy.” Gu Mang rubbed the corner of his forehead. “I’ll be fine after resting for a moment.”
As he spoke, he went to the doorway, lifted the bamboo curtain with the tip of his little finger, and looked outside.
There were hardly any bat demons left outside. Most of them had already found partners and entered the thatched houses scattered along both banks. The waterside pavilion made entirely of white bones was empty, floating beneath the moonlight with a thin layer of mist…
“That’s enough. We can sneak back.” Gu Mang beckoned Mo Xi over.
Mo Xi came as well. The two of them watched through the bamboo curtain as the last pair of bat demons nearby entered their hut. Then Gu Mang reached out to roll up the curtain.
But just then, a red radiance suddenly appeared on the curtain, revealing the totem of a bat.
Gu Mang’s hand was unexpectedly burned. He immediately pulled it back in surprise.
“What happened?!”
Mo Xi also raised his hand to test it, and his hand was burned by the red light of the curtain as well.
He said quietly, “There’s a barrier at the entrance…”
Barrier techniques were Gu Mang’s weak point, but Mo Xi was quite proficient in them. His slender, fair hand slowly traced the barrier’s spell markings inch by inch, sensing the flow of spiritual energy within it.
“A one-way barrier. Entering from outside won’t encounter any obstruction, but leaving from inside…”
Mo Xi made a questioning sound, as though he suspected that he had sensed it incorrectly. He repeatedly rubbed the end of the bat marking several times. Once he confirmed that he had not misunderstood, his expression became somewhat unpleasant.
He silently lowered his hand.
“……”
“What is it?”
Mo Xi did not answer. He went straight back to the pile of straw, sat down, and closed his eyes.
“Let’s wait until dawn before leaving.”
Gu Mang’s eyes suddenly widened.
“Why?”
“…Nothing.”
Taking advantage of the lingering red light from the bat barrier, Gu Mang could see a trace of awkwardness in Mo Xi’s expression.
He was just about to speak when another wave of dizziness swept over him. He had no choice but to remain where he was and wait for it to pass. Only then did he walk over to Mo Xi and sit beside him.
Gu Mang was very clever. Even if Mo Xi was unwilling to explain, he could still guess.
“Let me think… This barrier doesn’t stop people from entering, but it stops them from leaving. Then the purpose of setting it up should be to make sure that whoever enters the hut completes some kind of task. Every thatched hut should have an identical barrier. We can’t leave, but that pair of bat demons just now could come and go whenever they wanted.”
“……”
Gu Mang pondered this. His gaze swept around the completely empty hut, and gradually, he figured it out.
There was nothing else here. It only contained soft, thick straw. After entering the hut, the bat demons only had one thing to do.
Dual cultivation.
Then he looked at Mo Xi’s indescribably awkward expression.
What else could Gu Mang possibly fail to understand?
“I know. The barrier checks whether the people who enter have consummated their union. If they haven’t, it won’t let them leave, right?”
Mo Xi neither confirmed nor denied it. He merely said, “The moment dawn arrives, this barrier will disappear. We only need to endure this night.”
That meant the answer was indeed “yes.”
Gu Mang was speechless for a moment.
He thought to himself that this Fire Bat Queen was truly something else. In order to obtain the spiritual energy produced after the demons mated, she had actually been shameless enough to go this far.
He sighed.
“Forget it, forget it. What else can we do? We’ll just wait.”
But tomorrow’s sunrise was not going to arrive so easily.
After lying down, Gu Mang intended to sleep, but he kept tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep. He felt uncomfortable.
The dizziness he had experienced earlier was not diminishing. Instead, it was growing stronger.
Besides that, a ball of fire seemed to have ignited inside his abdomen. The sensation of scorching heat spread like ink bleeding across paper, gradually making even his breathing grow heavier.
At first, Gu Mang thought it was because he had maintained the disguise spell for too long and his body had been overly drained. So he silently recited the incantation and removed both his own disguise and Mo Xi’s.
But later, he realized it was useless.
His condition was becoming increasingly uncontrollable. That wicked fire made his entire body feel wrong, until even his fingertips began to tremble slightly…
At this point, even someone as slow to realize things as Gu Mang could not possibly fail to understand what was happening.
He abruptly sat up, breathing softly and rapidly. He pulled open his collar slightly and stared at the moonlight outside the bamboo curtain. After recalling things with a flickering gaze for a while, he said:
“No. There’s something wrong with the fragrance in that hot spring.”
Gu Mang’s Adam’s apple moved.
He understood now.
The reason these Fire Bats were mating in groups was not merely because of the Queen’s orders. It was because of the incense fragrance drifting out from the hot spring…
It carried an aphrodisiac poison!
He raised his hand and fiercely wiped his face, then patted his cheeks, trying to make himself more clearheaded.
“Mo Xi?”
Mo Xi had not been asleep. He was sitting against the straw, meditating. Hearing his voice, he slightly turned his face.
“Are you feeling uncomfortable anywhere?”
“No. What happened?”
…Why wasn’t Mo Xi reacting?
Could it be because he had only inhaled a little of the incense fragrance in the air, and it wasn’t concentrated enough?
Seeing that he had fallen silent, Mo Xi asked, “Are you feeling unwell somewhere?”
“I…” Gu Mang paused.
“…No.”
He lay back down on the straw, turning his back to Mo Xi. He began silently reciting the Heart-Clearing Formula, trying to suppress the increasingly intense agitation within him.
Gradually, he figured things out.
The incense fragrance released by the Fire Bat Queen into the hot spring was extremely potent. It could almost be considered a charm placed upon every demon within the entire waterside pavilion.
This incense was effective specifically on demons.
Mo Xi was human, so naturally he felt nothing.
But Gu Mang was different.
His body had been reforged in the Liao Kingdom, and it contained traces of the essence of a snow-wolf demon. Therefore, although the incense did not affect him as strongly as it would a pure demon, the effects were still terrifying.
After reciting the Heart-Clearing Formula seven times, the burning heat within him still did not ease.
Gu Mang could not help frowning. He curled his body up facing the earthen wall, his breathing gradually becoming more rapid…
This was truly unbelievable.
Humans were different from demon beasts.
Under ordinary circumstances, people could restrain their desires within themselves. Even when passion reached its height and they could not obtain relief, they would merely feel uncomfortable.
But beasts and demons were different.
When animals were in the midst of reproduction and could not find a mate, the torment of that desire was like ants gnawing at their bodies, leaving every bone and muscle weak and aching.
Gu Mang’s Adam’s apple rolled as he closed his eyes.
He did not want Mo Xi to know about his current condition.
But he could not control the effects of the incense as they spread throughout his body. The sensations connected to desire were magnified without limit.
He could even smell the familiar aura on Mo Xi’s body—that faint fragrance, and beneath it, the unmistakable scent of a male.
Gu Mang’s fingers, hanging among the straw, unconsciously clenched tightly. He bit his lip, suppressing his overly rapid breathing, but he could not calm the pounding of his heart.
At this moment, he hated the body that Liao had reforged for him more than anything.
It had forced him to bow his head before the poisonous miasma of the Mist Swallow, uncontrollably recalling those absurd yet blazing experiences from his past.
Gu Mang’s eyelashes hung before his eyes, trembling faintly and concealing the moist gleam within them…
I shouldn’t think about it.
Don’t think about it.
Yet those fragmented images flashed before his eyes, rebelling against his reason.
His love and desire yearned for Mo Xi’s presence to draw closer. He yearned for Mo Xi to hold him from behind as he once had. He yearned for them to possess each other as they once had.
These thoughts trapped him completely, like thick roots sinking into soft spring mud. The air was filled with the pungent scent of flowers after a violent rainstorm.
The soil was sticky and damp, while an enormous, sturdy cypress sank deep into the earth, drawing up the gurgling dark spring from below.
Don’t think about it.
Don’t.
Yet he remembered perfectly the scorching breath of Mo Xi when he kissed his cheek, how his affection had once become so sensual and heavy when their passion was at its deepest—
“Gu Mang.”
That hazy, dreamlike memory was suddenly shattered by a deep, magnetic voice filled with suspicion.
Gu Mang’s curled-up body, with his back facing Mo Xi, trembled almost uncontrollably.
Although he had tried so desperately to suppress it, Mo Xi had still apparently noticed something was wrong.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I…” The moment Gu Mang opened his mouth, his voice was so hoarse that even he was startled.
He swallowed, barely managing to make his voice sound calm, colder and more distant, with less trembling.
“…It’s my own business. It has nothing to do with you.”
His words were icy.
Mo Xi was a proud man by nature, and sure enough, the words had stung him. He stopped asking.
Gu Mang faced the earthen wall of the thatched hut and quietly breathed a sigh of relief, biting his lower lip.
The desire stirred by the incense was like a tug-of-war.
The more he endured it, the stronger it became.
At this moment, Gu Mang’s senses could not withstand the slightest stimulation. Even merely hearing Mo Xi’s voice just now made his entire body go weak.
Deep within his heart, he could not help remembering how that voice had once been pressed close to the back of his neck and the base of his ear, calling his name tenderly.
How their sweat had nearly melted their limbs and bones together, before the two of them were kneaded and fused into a single body.
Gradually, Gu Mang’s vision seemed to dry and burn.
He felt terrible.
It was truly unbearable.
His heart pounded wildly, beating so fast…
At this moment, he would rather the Mirror of Time had never restored the memories he had lost.
If he were still completely ignorant of the taste of intimacy, would his current situation have been better?
He would not remember all those countless absurd things they had once done.
He would not remember what it had felt like to make love with Mo Xi.
Gu Mang closed his eyes.
He was truly on the verge of breaking down.
The blood of the snow-wolf demon within his body cooperated perfectly with the poison, burning away his human rationality inch by inch.
The person he loved.
The person he had once been intimate with.
His only lover.
The person he was destined to become strangers with for the rest of his life, the person he could desire but never obtain…
At this very moment, that person was right behind him, only a few steps away.
The back of Gu Mang’s hand, clenched tightly among the straw, began to spasm. Every vein bulged visibly.
He was afraid that in the next moment, the seductive miasma of the Mist Swallow would completely destroy him, causing him to make some impulsive decision that he would bitterly regret.
After hesitating for a moment, he suddenly opened his blue eyes.
As though he had finally made up his mind, with his back still facing Mo Xi, he tried to suppress the torment of his violently surging demonic blood himself—
A muffled groan was forcefully suppressed in his throat!
Gu Mang suddenly widened his clear blue eyes, as though they had just been washed by water, and silently breathed in low, uneven breaths.
After losing his consciousness, he had remained in a state where his mind had never fully awakened. It had been a very long time since he had done anything like this.
Moreover, he did not want Mo Xi to notice. He did not want Mo Xi to know how miserable his current state was, so his movements had to be extremely quiet.
But this was like a traveler dying of thirst taking a tiny sip of water.
After that initial relief, all the traveler received was even more intense dryness and thirst.
He could not be too obvious.
He could not make any strange sounds.
There was no doubt that this was merely drinking poison to quench his thirst.
Gradually, Gu Mang’s eyes became bloodshot from enduring the torment. He was suffering, and he felt wronged.
He was almost driven mad by the boiling blood of the demon wolf within his body…
Yet he could not even make a sound.
Even though his reason had been reduced to mere fragments, he still remembered that he should not become entangled with Mo Xi any further.
From the day he had chosen the path of betraying his country, he should have pushed Mo Xi away and drawn a chasm between them, one seething with hatred.
He should not approach him again…
Perhaps because his mind was too chaotic and the sensations in his body were too agonizing, Gu Mang failed to hear the movement behind him.
Just as he was caught between pleasure and pain, a large hand suddenly reached around him from behind.
Gu Mang was startled. His body immediately jerked violently upward.
“Mm!”
Then he heard Mo Xi’s voice.
“Don’t move.”
His entire body was caught off guard and pulled into that warm, familiar embrace.
The extreme shock and overwhelming stimulation made Gu Mang suddenly widen his eyes.
Blood rushed through his ears. Fireworks seemed to explode before his eyes. For a moment, everything spun around him, and he could not see anything clearly.
Yet instinctively, he still tried to break free.
He felt ashamed.
He felt that it was dangerous.
He felt that it was wrong—
When Mo Xi completely enveloped him in his arms, there was almost a sob caught in Gu Mang’s throat.
It was the relief of finally getting what he had longed for.
And also the unwillingness of finally falling into the trap.
Mo Xi’s low, measured voice sounded beside his ear, exactly the same as it had been in his memories.
Only now, it carried hesitation.
And anger.
“Is this what you meant when you said you were fine?”