Chapter 26: Doing This Behind My Back (Quick Look!!)

Chapter 26: Doing This Behind My Back (Hurry, Look!!)

When it comes to this kind of thing, people have the most honest instincts.

After just a few rounds of tangled grappling and struggle, Shu Hanqing's tongue couldn't stay put in his own mouth anymore.

The other's heat, along with his aggressive breathing, came crashing in like a force of nature, getting stuck in his throat, dissolving into broken, wet, muffled groans.

The cramped space heated up fast, and a fine, uncontrollable layer of sweat broke out on both of them.

Shu Hanqing's upper half had long since been stripped bare, and now the last line of defense down below had inevitably fallen too.

His pants were carelessly tossed at the foot of the bed.

Shu Hanqing thought, no fucking way...

Mu Ye actually had the guts to do this.

The gun was sitting in the most inappropriate place possible.

Mu Ye braced himself firmly above Shu Hanqing, those dark, deep eyes burning like an unquenchable ghostly fire, his gaze sharp as a knife, locked onto Shu Hanqing's dazed face.

"...Can I kiss you, Hanqing?"

Shu Hanqing thought through the haze, what kind of bullshit "asking for permission" was this? If he said no right now, would Mu Ye actually stop?

The answer was, of course, no.

The bullet was practically already out of the chamber.

Mu Ye truly had no experience.

Not in either of his two lifetimes combined. But that didn't stop him. As a top-tier superpowered individual and a leader used to fighting on the edge of life and death, he had a terrifying capacity for learning.

He was very observant.

The man's palm gripped Shu Hanqing's lean waist, locking him tight in his arms, squeezing out every last gap between them, holding him so close they were pressed together.

Shu Hanqing's head was truly a complete mess.

His vision was jostled, splintering into countless fragments.

＊

Lately, Shu Hanqing's body had gotten a little too used to Rong Hua's rhythm, and now with a sudden change of partner, he instinctively felt a twinge of dissatisfaction with the slightly clumsy pace.

＊

"Hanqing... Hanqing..."

A gentle, tender voice kept calling his name by his ear.

The familiar voice exploded against his eardrums, jolting Shu Hanqing's whole body. It was like he only just realized, belatedly, that the one churning inside him right now was actually Mu Ye.

This was Mu Ye.

The sheer shock of the identity mismatch surged through his entire body, racing up his spine, making even the taut muscles in his thighs tremble uncontrollably.

Mu Ye lowered his head, his sweat-damp, handsome face pressed against Shu Hanqing's ear, his voice dripping with an indescribable mix of sexiness and danger: "...Hanqing, who were you just thinking about? Right now, you can only think of me."

Shu Hanqing couldn't even form a complete sentence.

How the hell did things turn into this mess!

This was Mu Ye.

The same Mu Ye who wouldn't even let him touch a finger, who was as pure as a monk—was now doing the filthiest thing in the world with him.

Shu Hanqing lay in Mu Ye's scorching embrace, the whole patch of purple-black, fierce Thunder Mark on his back faintly visible, coiling across his spine. From a distance, it looked like a black crow with broken wings in a storm, bearing a body full of festering wounds, falling helplessly into the hunter's one and only embrace.

Mu Ye was sharp. Every time he caught the slightest hint of yielding or trembling in the body in his arms, he responded right away.

Shu Hanqing couldn't handle this gentleness.

It gave him this illusion that they were actually in love.

He couldn't help but tilt his head back awkwardly, trying to dodge the overly passionate kiss, but the second he pulled back that barely noticeable inch, Mu Ye eagerly chased after him like a shadow.

Their eyes slammed into each other at close range. In Mu Ye's eyes, all that was reflected was Shu Hanqing's wrecked state—the red rims of his eyes, his face flushed with lust.

His gaze was scorching, as if in this crumbling end of the world, from now on, his eyes could only ever hold Shu Hanqing.

That kind of look was way too bewitching.

Especially in a world this precarious, for someone like Shu Hanqing who'd already died once, it was like the deadliest poison.

And so, the last shred of rationality, stretched to its limit, finally snapped in a violent burst of white light.

Their foreheads pressed tightly together.

Most of Shu Hanqing's body was pressed hard into the sheets, sweat trailing from his temples into his hair, sticky and messy. He could no longer take the endless torment of slow, grinding torture, a wet redness seeping into the corners of his eyes, and he begged in a raspy voice: "Hurry up... hurry up, please..."

The tone carried a hint of wounded grievance that he'd never normally show, pushed to the absolute limit of endurance.

Mu Ye stroked the skin at the back of his sweat-soaked neck, like a comfort, but also like a final declaration before total loss of control: "Alright, I'll listen to you."

In the chaotic shoving and scrambling, Shu Hanqing's fingers, which had been clawing blindly at the sheets, suddenly clenched, accidentally brushing against something cold and hard.

It was the string of red sandalwood prayer beads Mu Ye always wore on his wrist.

Shu Hanqing was soaked in sweat, even his fingertips damp and trembling. Those round wooden beads pressed against his wrist bone, bringing a surreal mix of guilt and clarity.

He reached up higher, his fingertips brushing Mu Ye's forearm, where veins bulged like steel cables wrapped around the bone. In that instant, the way this string of beads was used in the book flashed through his mind like a carousel.

Panic tore through Shu Hanqing's chest like a wild beast on a rampage.

"Mu Ye... take off the beads... take them off!"

Mu Ye let out a low laugh, one that no longer held its usual compassion, but was instead full of rasp and sexiness: "Alright, I've taken them off."

"Clatter—"

The whole string of red sandalwood prayer beads, symbolizing monk-like restraint, clattered to the ground, cracking against the concrete floor.

That sound, in the quiet, cramped room, was like a switch that completely snapped moral reason.

Mu Ye's gaze turned savage in an instant. He suddenly bore down, hands digging into Shu Hanqing's shoulders, and commanded in a low voice: "Hanqing, hold me tight."

At this point, Shu Hanqing couldn't even think anymore.

The utter darkness became the perfect cover, making every demand and surrender bolder than ever.

With vision stripped away entirely, the other senses swelled and sharpened dramatically under the nourishment of darkness.

Shu Hanqing felt as if he had been forcibly shoved into a blazing furnace, tossed and turned like a lump of dead dough, baked relentlessly, without a hint of mercy.

Mu Ye was clearly an absolute beast of a learner in every field.

At first, he hadn't quite gotten the hang of the heat, but after just one or two tries, the man had completely found the weak spot, baking that originally cold, hard dough until it was flaky outside, soft inside, utterly falling apart and oozing with juices.

By the time the storm finally passed, Shu Hanqing lay sprawled on the bed like a limp rag.

He was so sore he couldn't even stand to move a finger.

In the dim light from the bedside lamp, Mu Ye nonchalantly pulled on a pair of pants, then picked up a warm, damp towel and began wiping away the mess on Shu Hanqing's body inch by inch.

When he finished, Mu Ye still seemed loath to stop. His palm lay still against Shu Hanqing's firm, still faintly twitching abdomen, and he wrapped his arms around that slender, worn-out waist from behind, lowering his head to press lingering, tender kisses along every inch of the fierce Thunder Mark on his spine.

Shu Hanqing instinctively tried to shrink away.

It was only four hours later that the system notification, long-buried in the depths of his mind, finally surfaced again, as if fed up with Shu Hanqing's stupidity: "...If..."

Shu Hanqing hissed in a low, guilty voice: "Don't talk yet."

The system was abruptly cut off by his sharp rebuke.

As Shu Hanqing sat up, the movement pulled at the indescribable soreness down below, and he couldn't help letting out a muffled groan.

Beside him, Mu Ye turned his head sharply, asking in a voice so tender it could melt: "Hanqing, are you in pain right now?"

Shu Hanqing didn't want to give him even a single word.

His mind was a dizzying, jumbled mess.

He wearily raised a hand to his forehead and stared blankly into space for a full few minutes before something suddenly clicked in his brain like a bolt from the blue. He jolted and shot upright on the bed.

The sudden movement sent a searing, numbing pain shooting through his lower back and legs, making him hiss through his teeth.

But Shu Hanqing didn't care. He leaned over, grabbed his shredded clothes from the floor under the bed, and frantically pulled them on.

At least it covered some of him.

Gritting his teeth, he abandoned the effort halfway up.

With trembling fingers, he fished a flattened cigarette out of a torn pocket and clamped it between his lips frantically.

The moment the dry filter touched his lips, a sharp sting jolted through him, and he belatedly realized his lips had been bitten raw at some point along the way.

AAAAH!

Shu Hanqing screamed in silent, raging fury.

What the hell was this even supposed to be? What had he even gone there to do today?

He had only wanted to humiliate Mu Ye, disgust him, and cut all ties with him for good—

But now... what the hell had he even done with Mu Ye?

Mu Ye tried to get up.

He sat half-naked among the rumpled sheets, that powerful body like a pine draped in winter snow—with a cold, tall, and unyielding silhouette.

Yet on that body he always claimed to be saintly, his collarbone and neck were now marked with several dark stains Shu Hanqing had bitten into him out of sheer spite.

Fresh from their tryst, Mu Ye's normally composed and aloof brow had, for the first time, melted into something indescribably intense and dangerously seductive.

Seeing his movement, Mu Ye threw off the blanket and moved to get out of bed to help him. Shu Hanqing froze, a flicker of conflicted hesitation passing through his eyes before he coldly ordered him to stay put.

Even now, the blush still lingering on Shu Hanqing's face hadn't fully receded.

And Mu Ye actually obeyed, stopping mid-motion. He simply gazed at Shu Hanqing with a docile, tamed look in his eyes, like a man who, having lost everything, quietly awaited his judgment.

In the depths of his mind, the system said: "...It seems his aim really is unerring."

Shu Hanqing's fingers trembled violently. He could only force an awkward, stiff smile and reply: "...He... he really went all out this time."

The system: "But you could have refused. From the moment he pressed you down, to when he asked if he could kiss you—you never said no, did you?"

Those words struck squarely at the sore spot Shu Hanqing had been deliberately avoiding.

When he'd first uttered those filthy words, he'd only been testing the waters with malicious curiosity, wanting to see just how disgustingly far Mu Ye, that fake saint, would go to keep him.

But he never expected that the moment the spark of chaos ignited, everything spiraled completely out of control. He'd actually ended up sleeping with Mu Ye in that bed, all in a daze.

His emotions had gone from initial shock and astonishment that Mu Ye actually reacted to his body, tumbling through every twist and turn, until finally settling into a bewildered blankness after being claimed.

"...How the hell was I supposed to refuse at that point?" Shu Hanqing snapped in shame and fury, gritting his teeth at the machine in his head. "You're not even human, what the hell would you know? No man could hold back in that situation!"

The system: "..."

Even Mu Ye hadn't been able to control himself.

Damn it.

He'd actually gone and done everything with Mu Ye—the things they should have done, and the things they shouldn't have—all of it, to the absolute limit.

Shu Hanqing raised a hand in agony, the regret and absurdity threatening to drown him.

How had he let a moment of lust and a few tears and a single look from Mu Ye make him forget everything?

The system's electronic voice suddenly turned razor-sharp: "Have you never actually thought about leaving this place? Leaving Saint Su?"

Shu Hanqing denied it: "...How is that possible!"

But his mind was too chaotic right now, and he had no spare energy to pay attention to the warning the system kept repeating in the depths of his consciousness—Shu Hanqing, do you want to walk the same path as your last life again?

Shu Hanqing bit down on the cigarette and fumbled through his pockets, only to realize in frustration that his lighter had fallen somewhere during the frantic back-and-forth earlier.

He turned to the man behind him: "...Lend me a light."

The moment the words left his mouth, Mu Ye blinked at him innocently, and Shu Hanqing suddenly realized—Mu Ye had just gone through an exhausting weakened period, and couldn't summon a flame with a flick of his fingers right now.

He couldn't use his Superpower yet.

"Forget it..." Shu Hanqing was about to take the cigarette out, feeling deflated, when Mu Ye reached over and pulled a lighter from the bedside drawer.

Shu Hanqing stared at the object in his hand, bewildered, his brow furrowing: "How do you have something like this?"

In his memory, Captain Mu had lived like an ascetic monk in both lifetimes, with no vices whatsoever—no smoking, no drinking.

Mu Ye lowered his eyelashes slightly, his hoarse, flat voice dripping with a lazy, sexy drawl: "Recently at the base, I've also learned to smoke."

As he spoke, Mu Ye reached out.

"Click."

A flicker of blue flame danced wildly between their breaths, and Mu Ye lit the cigarette between Shu Hanqing's lips himself.

The harsh, spicy tobacco hit him hard, and Shu Hanqing squinted slightly, then blew a puff of smoke toward Mu Ye—a straight-up taunt.

Half of Mu Ye's face disappeared into the swirling gray smoke. He frowned but said nothing.

Shu Hanqing turned around, his brain still a total fog from being pushed past its limit. Before he could sort through his thoughts in the middle of all the mess, a weight pressed against him from behind.

Mu Ye's body leaned in again. The man slowly extended his arms, wrapping them around that battered, slender waist, burying his handsome face in the crook of Shu Hanqing's neck, nuzzling the hickey-covered skin with a needy, lingering affection.

"It's almost dark... Hanqing, are you still going back? Stay tonight, okay?"

A pathetic plea, so thick and clingy it made you want to run.

Shu Hanqing's whole body jolted like he'd been zapped. He turned his head away, flustered, trying to put some space between them.

"I... about what just happened, Captain, we're both just red-blooded guys..."

"Are you regretting it, Hanqing?"

Mu Ye suddenly interrupted him.

The arms around his waist suddenly tightened, almost punishingly, squeezing so hard Shu Hanqing's breath caught. The man pressed his face tightly against his skin, his voice shaking with the kind of satisfaction you get from a hit after being starved.

"I was really happy just now. Truly, Hanqing, even if I dropped dead right now, I'd have zero regrets in this life."

The cigarette between Shu Hanqing's fingers trembled in the air, and a line of gray ash fell from his fingers.

"I know I've done so much shit in the past, made you miserable and broke your heart. This is all on me, my own damn fault, but I truly love you..."

Mu Ye's tone was desperate: "I don't expect you to forgive me right now, but can you just stop dodging me like I'm the plague? I don't want promises, and I don't need you to do anything for me. Just let me watch you from a distance, that's all I'm asking."

From a distance.

Shu Hanqing thought this phony saint Mu Ye was really something. In just a few hours, going from that firm "okay" to this groveling confession, every move so calculated he could barely tell if the guy was being genuinely crazy or just putting on a carefully staged act.

Fine, call it paying off a wish from his past life. Back then, he'd wanted to sleep with Mu Ye at least once.

Now that he'd done it, it was... just meh.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!—"

The calm shattered in an instant.

That already-flimsy door suddenly got pounded on hard from outside.

Then, from the corridor, came Rong Hua's familiar yell—young, savage, and twisted beyond recognition by pure rage.

"Mu Ye, open the door!"

Shu Hanqing froze, his fingers going slack, and the cigarette he'd barely touched dropped to the concrete floor.

Why is Rong Hua here?

Shu Hanqing turned, grabbing Mu Ye's arm hard, and hissed through his teeth: "...Don't open it."

Rong Hua was a straight-up madman at his core.

He was young, had high-level superpowers, and did whatever the hell he wanted, no rhyme or reason.

If that little shit barged in right now and saw this mess that even an idiot could figure out, who knew if he'd tear the whole base apart tonight.

Mu Ye reached back and grabbed Shu Hanqing's hand firmly, his big palm warm and steady: "Alright, I won't."

Shu Hanqing didn't even have time to silently curse—why the hell did he feel like he was being caught red-handed, some shameful, absurd illusion, when he had nothing to do with either of them?—before the madman outside gave them any chance to hide or stall.

Rong Hua never played by the rules.

Shu Hanqing heard a furious shout from outside, and countless twisted, emerald-green mutant vines, hissing like snakes, burst through the gaps in the window bars and the narrow cracks around the bed, their hooked barbs scraping harshly against the walls.

The next second.

"Boom—!"

The locked door got ripped clean off and smashed into the corner.

Rong Hua's young, tall frame, heaving violently with rage, stood before them, radiating murderous intent, his face ashen.

The boy's gaze was so dark and venomous it seemed to drip with poison. The moment he stepped into the room, his eyes swept viciously over Shu Hanqing and Mu Ye.

Clothes lay scattered messily on the floor, still uncollected, and even torn shreds of fabric hung obscenely from the foot of the bed.

On the bed, Mu Ye's bare upper body bore several faintly blood-tinged marks bitten by Shu Hanqing, impossible to hide.

And worse, at this very moment, Shu Hanqing was still half-sitting, half-leaning in Mu Ye's broad embrace, their postures intimate and sticky.

The air still lingered with that unmistakable scent of what had happened.

Any living person could tell what unspeakable things had occurred in this room over the past few hours.

Rong Hua's usually arrogant eyes turned bloodshot in an instant, filled with near-destructive madness and grievance. He stared hard at Shu Hanqing on the bed, his hands trembling uncontrollably at his sides from sheer fury, and a blood-choked accusation escaped his throat.

"...Sang Mai just told me outside that he saw you leave with Mu Ye. I didn't believe it at first. So the two of you... really behind my back... doing this kind of thing behind my back!"

Shu Hanqing: "..."