Mo Xi looked as if he’d touched something filthy, or like a cat burned by red-hot tongs; his dark eyes widened in shock. Filled with both shame and anger, he tried to close the book. Gu Mang, however, was laughing hysterically. With a mischievous grin, he wrapped his arms around Mo Xi, not only preventing him from closing the book but snatching the crumpled, old erotic illustrated book and forcing him to look at it.
The two of them romped around on the bed for quite a while. Amid the chaos, the book slammed shut, landing squarely on Mo Xi’s face.
The lewd images of naked bodies entwined were now pressed against his face. Mo Xi’s hair stood on end; it was as if he’d been splashed with a basin of filthy water. He sprang up suddenly, flinging Gu Mang aside.
Mo Xi sat up; his usually delicate and aloof face was now flushed crimson. He dared not look at Gu Mang and was even more reluctant to touch the album again. His chest heaved violently as he turned his face away.
He tugged at his disheveled collar, his Adam’s apple bobbing, then whispered, “Don’t ever play that kind of joke on me again.”
That was a warning.
Unfortunately, Gu Mang was too naive at the time—he was practically as thick as a pig’s brain—to realize that this was anything other than a “pout” from his shy junior disciple. He had also misjudged the man. Mo Xi was clearly a savage, bloodthirsty carnivorous beast that gnawed on bones and sucked blood, yet he had been blinded by that cold, proper facade, mistaking Mo Xi for an otherworldly crane—one untouched by earthly affairs, remaining aloof and unperturbed no matter how much he was teased.
Looking back, the fact that Mo Xi had taken such control over him was entirely his own fault—he’d been blind to the truth.
Blinded by his own foolishness and seduced by the intoxication, Gu Mang found Mo Xi’s cold, aloof, and prickly demeanor inexplicably amusing and entertaining. Not wanting to let the moment pass, he picked up the book Mo Xi had thrown aside and smiled with a slight buzz: “You really don’t want it?”
“……”
“If you don’t want it, I’ll read it myself.”
With that, he actually sprawled himself on Mo Xi’s bed and began flipping through the pages, letting out exclamations like “Wow” and “Oh” as he went.
Mo Xi’s face was flushed crimson all the way to his ears. He closed his eyes and tried to suppress his emotions for a moment, but he felt his uncontrollable heartbeat pounding like a drum in the silent tent.
So, a moment later, he suddenly sat up and said in a low voice, “I’m going to clean up the bowls and chopsticks.”
Gu Mang smiled, peeking out from behind the book with his dark eyes glistening with alcohol: “Trying to make a run for it?”
Mo Xi ignored him, gathered his things on his own, and went outside the tent to wash up.
Gu Mang didn’t know how long Mo Xi had stood outside in the breeze, or how long it had taken for his heart to calm down; he just found Mo Xi both amusing and endearing. How could such an innocent, unworldly beauty have emerged from among the young masters of distinguished families? At twenty years old, he still blushed all the way to his ears at the mere touch of a erotic illustrated book.
How silly.
He thought to himself, “This won’t do. He’s this old already; in a few years, he might even be getting married. If he can’t even face the basic principles of male-female union, such thin-skinnedness is a sickness—he needs proper treatment.”
Otherwise, what would he do on his wedding night? Was he supposed to push the bride away and say coldly, “Sorry, I can’t do this kind of lewd thing”?
Gu Mang must have been truly drunk; his thoughts wandered aimlessly, and the more he thought about it, the funnier it became. He began to feel that he was fulfilling his role as senior brother perfectly—he was practically worrying about his junior brother like a mother hen.
As he thought this, he flipped through the illustrated book rapidly.
The images that met his eyes were lewd and chaotic, utterly exaggerated and sensuous. As he looked on, his mind began to wander. He couldn’t be bothered to think about the spark he’d planted within Mo Xi, nor did he care how Mo Xi was pondering the meaning of life in the biting cold. He relaxed, the pear-blossom-white tea seeming to soften the muscles that were usually so taut.
He savored the “Coming-of-Age Ceremony” gift that Mo Xi had rejected, and the more he looked, the more he felt that Mo Xi was simply a snob.
With a book this exquisite, if it had been Lu Zhanxing, they would’ve been huddled together long ago, whispering about which positions were best and which girls were prettiest, both of them grinning with mischief.
That’s what a normal man would do.
Could it be that Junior Brother Mo has some kind of problem…?
Gu Mang’s mind wandered with these random thoughts, yet his thoughts gradually grew hazy. Each of the meticulously detailed paintings was more stimulating and alluring than the last. As he looked on, the scenes within the book stoked the fiery passion burning in his heart, leaving him with a dry throat. His body, already dampened by alcohol, was easily ignited by desire, making his blood run hot.
In truth, it had been a long time since he’d last released his pent-up desires. When he went to brothels with his brothers, he could certainly have girls on either arm and chat and laugh with them, but he always fell short at the final hurdle.
Gu Mang couldn’t quite explain why this was the case himself. Perhaps it was because he felt that sex without love was never truly satisfying, or perhaps it was because he had lost his parents at a young age and had always longed deep down for that kind of stable, lifelong companionship.
Or perhaps none of these reasons were correct—they were all too hollow.
He simply felt that the women he’d embraced were all too delicate, like fragile porcelain. He certainly admired their beauty, but he couldn’t muster much desire for them.
Take these erotic paintings, for example. Though the women in them were exquisitely charming and posed alluringly, he found himself more drawn to the men making love to them—those hard, hot, and indestructibly robust physiques—
Thinking of this, Gu Mang felt that perhaps he, too, was ill.
As he turned the pages, he realized he’d flipped through this album before but had never examined each illustration closely. Upon reaching a certain page, Gu Mang froze for a moment, then felt a rush of blood surge to his head with a buzzing sensation in his dazed mind.
He didn’t even have time to process why the blood was rushing to his head—it was simply an instinctive reaction triggered by the image.
Only after that intense sensation subsided did he realize that this particular illustration was quite different from the others. Perhaps the artist, in pursuit of novelty, felt that a simple embrace between a man and a woman wasn’t exciting enough, so he ingeniously depicted an extremely daring scene.
In a spring/palace of yin and yang, women were naturally present. The woman in the painting had disheveled black hair; she lay on the couch with her graceful neck arched, while a man was making his way across her snow-white, trembling body. But that wasn’t the crux of the matter. What suddenly made Gu Mang’s blood race and his whole body burn with heat was the fact that behind this man—there was actually another man, embracing the one who was on top of the woman from behind, penetrating him from behind…
Gu Mang’s gaze swept over that spot, and his face—usually as thick as a city wall—suddenly flushed crimson.
He felt dizzy, as if an answer that had troubled him for so long had finally broken through the surface, unleashing a tsunami of turmoil in his heart that sent blood surging downward through his entire body.
Gu Mang instantly felt a throbbing, swelling erection.
“Damn it…” Gu Mang muttered under his breath.
He was too dazed, his drunkenness too deep, and he just stared blankly at the scene for a long time, not even noticing when Mo Xi had returned.
It wasn’t until Mo Xi walked up to his bedside that he heard the sound and turned his head—he saw a handsome face, porcelain-white from having been exposed to the night breeze for too long.
Mo Xi had long eyelashes and sensual, thin lips, slightly pursed. Those jet-black eyes looked down at him, seeming to hold some indescribable emotion.
Gu Mang: “……”
Mo Xi: “……”
Each lost in their own thoughts, they stood there in silence for a moment. It seemed as though this was the first time Gu Mang had noticed this particular emotion in Mo Xi’s eyes. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but he knew it made his chest feel hot and tingly.
“Senior Brother, I…” Mo Xi seemed to have mustered all his courage outside to say something to him, but after uttering only a few words, Gu Mang suddenly raised his hand and yanked him down.
Caught off guard by the sudden tug, Mo Xi’s tall, heavy frame toppled forward, landing squarely on top of Gu Mang. He immediately pushed himself up, his ears flushing red: “You—”
Gu Mang’s robe was slightly open; he licked his lips and chuckled, “What about me? What about you? If you can’t make yourself clear, then I’ll speak first. I just discovered some particularly appealing content in this album.”
He chuckled, “Good stuff like this is meant to be enjoyed with a good buddy.”
Mo Xi said, “Listen, I can’t look at this with you. Because I…”
“Because you what?”
“Because I…” Mo Xi’s expression grew increasingly awkward and tense. He turned his face away, avoiding Gu Mang’s gaze, but this very posture made it easy for Gu Mang to notice that the entire side of his neck, all the way up to his earlobe, had flushed red—and that faint blush was spreading upward. “I feel…”
Gu Mang blinked. On any other day, he would have understood exactly what Mo Xi meant, but he was drunk—his mind was foggy, though his hands and feet remained nimble.
“Oh, I get it—it’s because you’re so virtuous, right? But love between men and women is as natural as the sky and earth; even the Yellow Emperor practiced dual cultivation with Xuan Nu.” Gu Mang interrupted him with a grin. “Why are you blushing?”
“That’s not what I meant. I have something else to tell you—”
“What is it? I’ve been waiting for you for ages, and you still haven’t said a word. Come on, let’s look at the book first!”
So, without a care in the world, she pestered him relentlessly, half-heartedly brushing off Mo Xi’s words while persistently showing him the erotic illustrated book.
As she shoved the book into his hands, she said, “You have something to tell me, and I have pictures to show you. You watch the pictures with me first, then I’ll listen to what you have to say. It’s a fair trade.”
In the end, Mo Xi simply couldn’t resist his persistence and had no choice but to lie down with him and look at that tattered book.
Even though he came from a noble family, his camp bed as a low-ranking soldier was by no means spacious. With two grown men crammed onto it, it was inevitably a bit cramped. Mo Xi lay behind Gu Mang, lying on his side as they looked at the erotic illustrations together—or, to be precise, he was being forced to look at them.
Gu Mang would turn around from time to time to “check” on Mo Xi, snapping sternly, “You’ve closed your eyes again! Open them!”
Mo Xi: “……”
“It doesn’t count if you close them. Your older brother is teaching you how to seduce a girl—you’d better pay attention.”
“……” He’d seen people get rowdy when drunk before, but he’d never seen anyone force their younger brother to watch porn with them while drunk.
Gu Mang didn’t plan to show him the most explicit page right away; he simply flipped through the pages slowly, one by one, occasionally glancing back to “spot-check” whether Mo Xi had looked away.
It was very quiet inside the tent. Gu Mang knew that page was getting closer and closer, yet—whether it was the mischievous urge to tease the “Ice and Snow Beauty” playing tricks on him or some other reason—his heartbeat was growing faster and faster.
Perhaps sensing that something was off with Gu Mang, Mo Xi’s breathing gradually grew deeper; his hot, rising and falling breaths brushed against Gu Mang’s ear and temple, while his hard, warm, muscular chest pressed against Gu Mang’s back, as if building up a storm neither of them could control.
So hot.
So intense.
The scroll was being unwound, and Gu Mang knew exactly which page depicted the union between two men. He had originally been eager to turn to that page and admire it together with Mo Xi, but as the atmosphere between them grew increasingly eerie—as if an invisible current of heat were surging between their pressed-together bodies—his originally audacious playfulness suddenly began to waver.
Gu Mang’s fearless, defiant nature finally, belatedly, gave way to timidity at that moment.
“…Maybe we should stop here.”
“Aren’t you trying to show me something special?”
They spoke almost simultaneously. Gu Mang turned his head, his nose nearly brushing against Mo Xi’s face.
For a moment, the air inside the tent seemed to thicken, too hot to move, too dense to disperse. Gu Mang was suddenly overcome by a sense of danger—as if he were spinning a cocoon around himself or playing with fire—and he moved his lips as if to speak, but no sound came out.
Mo Xi’s voice was slightly hoarse from having suppressed a certain emotion for too long.
He looked at him closely and asked in a low voice, “There is something, isn’t there?”
“What could be so special, ha ha, ha ha ha.” The next page was the one—Gu Mang’s throat tightened, and he instinctively reached to close the album.
But Mo Xi—who moments ago had dismissed the album as if it were mud—suddenly sensed a subtle shift in the atmosphere. He reached out with his long, slender, powerful hand and snatched it away.
His long fingers turned the page.
Gu Mang closed his eyes, feeling as if disaster were imminent.
“……”
Nothing happened. No one said a word.
After a moment of silence, unable to bear the feeling of sitting there waiting for the worst, Gu Mang tentatively opened his eyes a slit. He saw Mo Xi staring at the image of a man having sex with another man with an inscrutable, complex expression.
His gaze shifted between light and dark.
There was something terribly off about this young man’s aura. Seeing him like this, even in his drunken state, Gu Mang couldn’t help but shudder. Forcing a smile, he tried to get up: “Um, congratulations on turning twenty, little brother. It’s getting late; I’m going to head back first. I—”
Before he could finish, he was pushed back down.
He was still lying on his side, with Mo Xi leaning against him from behind. But just moments ago, Mo Xi had consciously kept some distance—only Gu Mang’s back was pressed against his chest, with no other parts touching.
This time, however, Mo Xi practically pressed him into his embrace. Instantly, Gu Mang felt something extremely hard and large pressing against him from below, even thrusting forward slightly.
“Mm…” Gu Mang let out a muffled groan—the intoxication, the unfamiliar stimulation, the terrifying taboo, and the pent-up desire all made him incredibly sensitive.
A wet, hot, and intense voice brushed against the back of his ear; the hoarse, deep desire in it nearly made his alcohol-softened body tremble all over. Both he and that voice felt utterly unfamiliar to him.
Mo Xi’s heavy, deep breaths brushed against his ear: “Senior Brother, is that what you mean?”
The sensation of being pressed against from behind was so spine-chilling it made his spine go weak. Gu Mang hurriedly shouted, “What the hell are you doing?! You’re drunk too, aren’t you?! Let me go!”
“It was you, Senior Brother, who forced me to watch.”
“No… I…”
Gu Mang had barely uttered a few words when his earlobe was enveloped by a wet, warm mouth. Immediately afterward, a rough tongue slipped into his ear, sucking and licking at it. Gu Mang’s knees went weak at once; the unprecedented sensation made him involuntarily let out a low moan: “Ah…”
That sound seemed to give the young man behind him—who had just turned eighteen—immense courage. The young man suddenly pulled him close, his strong arms wrapping around Gu Mang’s waist and holding him tightly against his chest. He was trying to restrain himself, yet it felt as though he’d held back for far too long; his desire now surged uncontrollably, sucking on his earlobe with ever-deeper, ever-hotter intensity.
“So you’re willing too, Senior Brother, aren’t you?”
“No… Mo Xi… that’s not what I meant… I…”
But whatever he said at that moment, his voice was unnaturally soft—no matter how one listened to it, it sounded like he was both resisting and inviting. Mo Xi clearly misunderstood. From behind, Mo Xi wrapped one arm around him while the other hand stroked him up and down; when his fingers brushed against Gu Mang’s own rising desire, he suddenly paused.
The atmosphere grew incredibly thick for a moment.
Even someone as thick-skinned as Gu Mang couldn’t help but feel mortified and furious, while Mo Xi, looking down at Gu Mang’s reaction, suddenly had a gleam in his eyes.
As if he’d received some kind of confirmation, he forcefully turned Gu Mang’s chin toward him, stared into those eyes for a moment in the candlelight, and then suddenly pressed his lips against them. Like a man parched with thirst, he sucked on Gu Mang’s lips almost savagely, prying open his mouth and swirling his tongue inside. The kiss was so intense that wet smacking sounds came from between their lips and teeth, along with the sounds of Gu Mang’s gasping and struggling.
That sound made Mo Xi feel as if he’d taken an aphrodisiac. He grabbed Gu Mang’s body as it tried to wriggle away, pulling him close so he was pressed tightly against his chest. While pinching the side of Gu Mang’s face and kissing him fiercely, he instinctively ground against Gu Mang through their clothes.
Mo Xi’s voice was already hoarse with passion. He kissed Gu Mang’s lips until they were wet and red; they parted, glistening with moisture, and he let out a low, ragged breath, his eyes darkening intensely.
“Senior Brother said he’d accompany me tonight for my coming-of-age ceremony, so I suppose he’ll do just that.”
Gu Mang wished he could strangle his own sharp tongue. In utter despair, he exclaimed, “That’s not what I meant, for fuck’s sake!”
“Too late. ” Mo Xi stood up, flipped him over, and pressed down heavily on top of him. His robe lay open and disheveled, revealing a chest as smooth as jade yet firm. “I gave you a chance to leave. You were the one who turned it down.”
“……”
He tossed the erotic painting aside, gripped Gu Mang’s chin, and lifted his face.
Those dark eyes, with their long, slender outer corners, gazed at him hazily, their focus unfocused: “Mo Xi, you… you’re just… being ridiculous…”
Mo Xi’s throat tightened. He reached down to tear open Gu Mang’s sash and whispered, “Yes, Senior Brother, you’re the most experienced when it comes to being ridiculous.”
The lust in his eyes was terrifyingly dark as he took in, inch by inch, the sight of Gu Mang beneath him—his skin flushed, consumed by burning desire.
Finally, he leaned down. In a deep, husky voice, he uttered four words: “Senior Brother, teach me?”