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It had probably started with that rogue cultivator that lost his bet in Gambler’s Den.
Xie Lian had never spent much time there, even less now after becoming the Heavenly Martial Emperor. Too much to do. Of course, Hua Cheng couldn’t avoid popping down there every now and again, lest the place fall into even deeper depravity than he allowed.
So that was where Xie Lian went to find him, one fateful evening, after he’d wrapped up the day’s work in Heaven.
Gambler’s Den was always filled to the rafters on days that the lord was in attendance. Xie Lian could already hear the hellish cacophony from outside as he approached the main entrance. The guards bowed him through ahead of the queue, and he stepped over the threshold, already glistening with some unfortunate’s blood.
The main hall was tall, and loud. Shouts and jeers vied for volume over the clatter of hundreds of dice across dozens of tabletops. Titters, and occasional bills of paper money flew down from the deeper-pocketed patrons that occupied the mezzanine floor overhead, halfway between where Xie Lian stood and the elaborately coffered ceiling.
At the very back of the hall was a raised dais, an island of empty space amidst the churning crowd. There, Xie Lian’s husband sat on his chair like a king on his throne, framed by a soaring arch of wood openwork and red silk curtains, now tied back with golden cord.
A trembling figure in dusty off-white robes had been forced on his knees before him. A cultivator.
“Hold his hands back!” Xie Lian heard, as he slowly but firmly pushed his way towards the dais. “Clear the way for Chengzhu to smash his core!”
“My lord, please, I beg you, spare me,” cried the cultivator. “Without my cultivation I have nothing!”
“Oh, now we’re all ‘please, spare me’,” crowed one of the guards. Now at the front of the crowd, Xie Lian could see the guard prodding at the cultivator’s bowed head with a baton. “Just now it was all ‘please exterminate my rival’s clan and gouge out his eyes’. What happened to that? Don’t worry, you can try bet again, using your body, after this.”
“You bet your cultivation of your own free will.” That was San Lang, his voice deep and honeyed, and the frisson of excitement that kicked up Xie Lian’s spine at the sound felt horribly inappropriate, given the situation. “If I let off anyone who begged as pitifully as you, who knows how many outlandish requests such as yours we’d get.”
The cultivator wailed. “Please, Chengzhu, I beg you! Take my body instead!”
“Oh?”
“I can work! Or…or I can serve in bed!”
Raucous laughter all around. Xie Lian felt his face heat up, though no one was looking at him at all.
“Bet that’s what he wanted all along!”
“No chance, you should have asked to be reborn with a prettier face!”
“As if he could hold a candle to the Heavenly Martial Emperor!”
“My cultivation requires the abstinence,” the cultivator stammered on in a rush. “If Chengzhu takes me to bed, it will be centuries before I can cultivate again. It’s as good as crushing my core. Please, my lord, please.”
San Lang hummed. “Unfortunately for you, that proposition holds no appeal to me whatsoever.” He made a gesture to the guard. “Do it in one of the backrooms. I’m in no mood for screaming tonight.”
“As Chengzhu wishes!”
“No, no, Chengzhu, please!”
Xie Lian saw San Lang spot him as the crowd parted to allow the cultivator to be dragged away. He came at once to the edge of the dais, and held a hand out to help Xie Lian up. The crowd around Xie Lian went abuzz with fresh gossip.
“Has Gege been waiting long?” asked San Lang, dusting Xie Lian’s shoulders off. “Someone should have made you comfortable. I’ll have a word with the door staff.”
Judging by San Lang’s tone, it wouldn’t be a very pleasant word. “No, no, I don’t want anyone to go to any trouble. I don’t mind blending in.”
“Gege could never blend in with the kind of trash who come here even if he tried.”
“San Lang!” Xie Lian clapped a hand on San Lang’s mouth, and darted a glance at the crowd behind them. “You can’t say that while you’re standing right here!”
He felt San Lang smile against his palm.
“I thought Gege always found my dealings here distasteful,” San Lang said, when Xie Lian pulled his hand away.
“Well…a bit. But someone has to put people like that cultivator in their place. And San Lang…San Lang does it well.”
“Oh?”
“I mean…” Xie Lian flushed. Why was San Lang looking at him like that? “San Lang is powerful. All of Ghost City looks up to you. That’s…” Do not say sexy, do not say sexy. “Impressive. Not distasteful. Not at all.”
“Mmm,” replied San Lang with a look, a look that Xie Lian’s stomach lurch. Xie Lian avoided his gaze, not wanting a repeat of his very weird reaction to seeing his husband lording his power over the pathetic cultivator.
But San Lang only went on to ask, “Does Gege want to eat dinner?”
They had a quiet meal in Paradise Manor. Xie Lian told San Lang about the interesting sword Pei Ming had found buried at the bottom of a lake. San Lang asked polite questions about it. Neither of them brought up Gambler’s Den.
That didn’t stop Xie Lian from thinking about, later, when he was on his back, watching San Lang kiss a slow, teasing line down his neck, his chest, his belly, deliberately avoiding Xie Lian’s achingly stiff cock to keep kissing, lower. When Xie Lian tried to touch himself, he got an amused “No,” and had his hands held down. Xie Lian squeezed his eyes shut, begged, “Please, San Lang, please,”; jeering, raucous laughter echoed in his ears, and at the first touch of San Lang’s lips to his cock he came so hard he nearly bucked San Lang off the bed.
He avoided going to Gambler’s Den for a while after that. That was fine. That wasn’t suspicious at all. What he couldn’t avoid were San Lang's stories about the place.
“…another cultivator in today,” San Lang started over the dinner table. “Bet her legendary weapon in exchange for the death of an invading lord.”
“Did she win?” asked Xie Lian without looking up from his soup, in what he thought was an admirably nonchalant tone of voice.
“No.”
“Oh.” Xie Lian cleared his throat. “So did you…did you take her sword?”
It was at that point that he made the mistake of looking up, and caught San Lang’s sharp grin from across the table.
“What else does Gege think I did?” he asked, sweet as syrup.
Heat flooded Xie Lian’s face. He was screwed.
“Nothing. Nothing. Why would you have done anything else?” He lunged for the teapot before Hua Cheng could say anything else on the matter. “More tea?”
Xie Lian knew better than to think he’d gotten away with it, but he still had the faint hope that San Lang wouldn’t bring it up.
That hope died an abrupt death one night in Qiandeng Temple. The worst thing was, San Lang was so sneaky about it that Xie Lian had absolutely no sense of his impending doom until San Lang suddenly got up in the middle of their passionate make-out session, and came back with a cup and two dice.
“Care to play, Gege?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed by Xie Lian’s side.
Xie Lian pushed himself up on his elbows. His eyes darted from San Lang’s smirk to the items in his hand. “Play what?” he asked warily.
“The same game we played when Gege visited Gambler’s Den the first time. Highest roll wins.”
“…wins what?”
“Hm.” The look in San Lang’s eye turned absolutely diabolical. “Let’s see. How about, if Gege loses, he has to ride me.”
And Xie Lian was suddenly extremely grateful that San Lang was no longer on top of him, because if he was, he definitely wouldn’t have let the humiliating reaction Xie Lian’s cock had to that proposition go.
“…and if San Lang loses?”
San Lang smiled. “Nothing.”
Later, when Xie Lian was flushed and sweating on top of San Lang’s cock, thighs trembling with his frantic bouncing, he’d look down at San Lang lying flat on his back, arms tucked behind his head, looking like the cat that got the cream, and remind himself never to underestimate San Lang again.
“Is it the gambling?” San Lang asked, afterwards, after he’d finally come and let Xie Lian collapse on top of him, after he’d rolled Xie Lian onto his back and wrought an excruciating orgasm out of him with nothing more than a brush of his hand against his cock- “Is it the losing?”
Xie Lian turned his face into the pillow and groaned. “San Lang…”
“Gege.” San Lang hooked a leg over Xie Lian’s hip, and propped his head up on his elbow. “If you don’t tell me, I can’t make it happen for you.”
“It’s embarrassing…”
“Mm. But Gege likes that, doesn’t he?”
Xie Lian was silent. Stayed silent, even through the tickle of San Lang’s hair on his back, and the line of kisses San Lang peppered between his shoulder-blades, down his back, over his-
“It was that cultivator,” he blurted into the pillow. “The one that bet his core, that day I visited…when I was watching him…talk…to you, I…I kind of wanted to…be him. Not to have my core smashed,” he added hastily. “It was the idea of…you saying no. People laughing. I don’t know.” His shoulders hunched up. “Actually, just forget it, San Lang. I don’t even know what I’m saying.”
“I think I know,” said San Lang above him, as if Xie Lian had something intelligent instead of his nonsensical rambling. “I think I have an idea of something we could try.”
Xie Lian lifted one eye out of his pillow. San Lang smiled at him, and his heart sped up. He was hopeless. “An idea?”
“Mm. It’ll work if we hide Gege’s face. Then we can have Gege come in and lose a bet and-”
“How do you know I’ll lose?”
“…”
“…okay, fine. Keep going.”
“We’ll have Gege lose a bet, and…”
Avoiding Gambler’s Den had been a stupid idea. The unfamiliarity just made him all the more nervous when he went back. Well, that, and the thought of what he and San Lang were about to do.
The acting started outside. None of the guards were going to let his new, magically-nondescript face cut the line. He waited patiently behind a pair of boar-headed ghosts who were speculating loudly about whether they’d get to see anyone’s legs get cut off that night, and tried to get into character, and ingrain his watchword: Xian Le.
Once inside, the thick press of the crowd was actually emboldening. No one looked at him twice, no one pointed a finger at him and cried, ‘that’s the Heavenly Martial Emperor, out playing perverted games with Hua Chengzhu!’
…not yet, anyway.
The table set up in front of Hua Cheng’s dais was grander and attracted a larger crowd than the others. The curtains around his chair were pulled back again, and the whole gambling den was granted an unobstructed view of their lord at ease in his chair, chin in hand, feet propped up on a footstool, choosing challengers as he pleased.
It didn’t take long for him to choose Xie Lian.
The crowd shifted around him, and the current carried him to the edge of the table.
“What are you and what do you want from Chengzhu?” the croupier barked at him.
Xie Lian took and breath, and pulled himself straight. With the enchantment San Lang had cast on him, everyone would see plain, forgettable face, entirely unrecognisable as his true self.
Except to San Lang. San Lang’s eyes would always see through his own magic.
“I am Prince Chai Rong of Zhou!” he declared. “I am here to request the downfall of my enemy!”
“Well, what’s their name?”
“Er…” Drat. He and San Lang hadn’t dwelled too long on those details. He risked a glance up the table towards San Lang, in the vain hope of some telepathic assistance, only to find San Lang looking spectacularly amused.
Well, who needed his help!
“His name is Liu…Chong! Of…Beihan!”
“You don’t sound too sure about it,” said the croupier sceptically. “There’s no take-backs if you win or lose, you know. You sure you want Liu Chong of Beihan dead?”
“Yes. Yes I do.”
“And if you lose?”
“My…” He faltered, for an entirely different reason this time. “I bet my body.”
That got the crowd excited.
“Here’s another one hoping to get in Chengzhu’s bed!” a woman right behind him cackled.
“Don’t set your heart on it, princeling, our Chengzhu is taken!”
“Chengzhu’s more likely to set him to scrubbing floors!”
Xie Lian did not like that. No. The thrill that was sparking through him was fear, not…
“I accept his terms,” came San Lang’s cool voice from the dais. “Let’s play.”
The croupier handed Xie Lian the cup with the two dice in it. “Highest roll wins, best of three. You first.”
This was it. No turning back.
Xie Lian took the cup, and began to shake it.
“Kiss it for good luck, princeling, you’ll need it,” crooned the woman behind him who had spoken earlier, sparking a round of tittering.
Face burning, Xie Lian threw the dice.
The titters exploded into outright laughs at the result: a four and a one.
“Are you even trying, princeling?”
“And he challenged Hua Chengzhu so confidently! Poor little princeling’s going to have to find out what work is soon!”
“Silence,” ordered Xie Lian with as much imperiousness as he could, only to receive a chorus of mocking ‘ooo’s. “Make us!” someone shouted.
The cup was snatched from Xie Lian and handed with great reverence to San Lang, who threw with barely a shake.
Two sixes.
Shouts and cheers rose in the air. Xie Lian felt the crowd press tighter against him - word had spread, and more people were coming to watch Hua Chengzhu teach the arrogant prince a lesson.
Beneath his robes, Xie Lian’s cock twitched. If anyone saw, he would…no, no. He needed to stop, it was too early, way too early to be this excited. Xie Lian despaired at himself. How had he ever thought he could hide this from San Lang?
The cup was thrust back in his hand. In a daze, he gave it a shake, and threw.
Two fives.
“Ah, princeling, it’s too late to put up a fight now!”
“Nothing to say to us now, princeling? Let’s see if you’ll still have the balls to give us orders once Hua Chengzhu sets you to scrubbing floors on your knees!”
Xie Lian didn’t dare look at San Lang as the cup was passed to him. The rattling of the dice rang clear above the bated breath of the crowd - then the clatter as they were thrown.
Two sixes.
The crowd went wild.
Xie Lian immediately found himself seized by ghosts on either side. Jeering, crowing, glee on all sides, as he was dragged through the thick press of people towards the dais. Was all of Gambler’s Den watching? Xie Lian turned his head, but couldn’t make out a thing beyond the cluster of mocking faces directly behind him.
Then he was pulled up onto the dais, and there was only the two guards on either side of him.
And San Lang, ahead, looming tall.
Even taller once the guards forced Xie Lian on his knees beside the footstool. Not that Xie Lian had to look for long - the guards pushed his head down into a bow, and his gaze fixed on the carpet.
“Where do you want him, Chengzhu?” asked the guard on his right.
“Cook says they’re needing a scullery boy,” added the one his left helpfully.
The low rumble of San Lang’s voice sent shivers down Xie Lian’s back. “What do you think, Your Highness?”
One of the guards’ hands fisted in Xie Lian’s hair and wrenched his head back.
His heart was pounding rabbit-fast. The sight of San Lang, cool and amused and utterly in control above him didn’t help at all. Their eyes locked across a steep slope of power, and at the bottom of it, on his knees with his arms restrained and hundreds of eyes raking his body, Xie Lian burned. Burned to put his head back down, avert his eyes, submit himself to San Lang’s mercy.
Hua Chengzhu’s mercy.
“Well?” Hua Cheng’s lips curled. “Will a few years scrubbing pots teach you not to make reckless bets?”
Xie Lian swallowed. “You would waste me. I am a prince born to the sword. I belong on a battlefield.”
“You belong where I put you,” Hua Cheng corrected him. “A battlefield? His Highness certainly has a high opinion of himself. I believe you might have more to learn elsewhere.”
“The household manager at Paradise Manor says they need another person to do the chamber-pots,” piped up one of the guards. “You know. Poo.”
Xie Lian saw San Lang’s eye dart to the side above his head, and wondered if he was about to break character to tell the poo guy to get the hell out of their sex-fantasy-roleplay-scene.
Instead, his hand came down to toy with a lock of Xie Lian’s hair. Without asking, as if Xie Lian were a dog, or a doll. Owned. Xie Lian inhaled sharply.
“What do you say, Your Highness? Shall we send you to the chamber-pots?” The crowd laughed, and Xie Lian couldn’t suppress his shudder. “No? If you can wield a sword, you can certainly wield a scrubbing brush.”
“Please, no,” whispered Xie Lian.
“You’ll have to speak up, Your Highness.”
“P-please. Anything but that.”
Hua Cheng’s fingers let go of the lock of Xie Lian’s hair, and ran lightly down the side of his jaw. “If you’re lowering yourself to begging, Your Highness, you should do it properly.”
The guards on either side of him snickered. Xie Lian’s face burned, and he had no way of hiding it from Hua Cheng, who only went on smiling gently down at him, and running his thumb along his jaw in a way that was almost soothing. It was that - the tenderness of his gaze, his touch, alongside the unbending cruelty in his words that made Xie Lian bow his head to the floor.
“Please, Chengzhu,” he plead into the carpet. “I beg you. Please.”
With his head against the floor, and Hua Cheng no longer filling his senses, Xie Lian was acutely aware of the crowd watching behind him, the murmur of their conversation, the tinkle of their laughs.
“Hua Chengzhu always gets them on their knees.”
“Bet princeling’s never had to lower his head to anyone before.”
“Let’s see if he can show his face in his kingdom again after this!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Xie Lian saw Hua Cheng’s boot come to rest on the floor beside his head. His heart raced.
“How pitiful,” Hua Cheng’s voice came from above. “Too proud to clean chamber-pots, is that it? But look, you’re already learning. Only the threat of it, and you’ve brought yourself so low. This is good for you, Your Highness.”
“Please, Chengzhu, I can’t, I can’t.”
“Still so proud.” Round of laughter. “Hm. Come to think of it, I have just the thing for pride. And I’ll grant Your Highness your wish - no chamber-pots." Aside, to the guards, he said, “Take this away.”
Something curled in Xie Lian’s gut as he heard Hua Cheng’s footstool lifted and whisked away.
“Your Highness.” Hua Cheng’s voice, devastatingly gentle. “Come here. No, don’t get up. Just like that.”
Xie Lian moved forward on his hands and knees, until his head nearly bumped into Hua Cheng’s knee. A cold hand cupped his chin tenderly, and tipped his face up.
Xie Lian met Hua Cheng’s eye, heart pounding.
“Anything to say?” Hua Cheng asked softly.
The watchword rolled across his tongue: Xian Le. As soon as he said it, San Lang would whisk him away from here, wrap him up in Paradise Manor and shower him with fruit and hot tea.
Xie Lian bit his lip. “Have mercy,” he whispered.
Hua Cheng smiled. His hand carded carefully through Xie Lian’s hair.
Then it curled into a fist. Slowly, but firmly, the hand led him back down onto his hands and knees, and then directly in front of Hua Chengzhu - where the footstool had been.
“Back straight now, Your Highness,” said Hua Cheng.
Xie Lian obeyed, mind foggy, and then felt the heel of one boot on the small of his back. The other settled beside it, crossed at the ankle.
Xie Lian squeezed his eyes shut. It didn’t shut out the delighted hoots just a few feet away from him, the gleeful cackling and the shouts of ‘Don’t go easy on him, Chengzhu!”
It didn’t distract him from the fact that his cock was stiffening beneath his robes.
“Carry on,” Xie Lian heard over his head. The sounds of normal activity in Gambler’s Den resumed, slowly.
Not completely. He was positioned sideways to the crowd, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw people stopping by the dais to stare at him, people pointing, the sharp teeth of their grins. He hung his head, and closed his eyes again.
Until the thump of Hua Cheng’s boot on his ass made him jump.
“Head up,” he ordered. “And higher here,” with a tap on his ass.
Xie Lian fell onto his elbows to push his bottom higher in the air, face flaming. He couldn’t bring himself to lift his head.
“If Your Highness would rather,” came Hua Cheng’s voice pleasantly, “we can make you more comfortable by removing your clothes, and see if you’re better at obeying orders then.”
Xie Lian’s head came up so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. He caught the eye of one of the croupiers, grinning at him, and shame curled in his gut. Shame, and arousal, dripping steadily, threatening to wet the front of his robes.
“Good,” murmured Hua Cheng, dragging his boot heel along his back, a movement Xie Lian supposed was meant to be soothing. “Make sure you stay very still now.”
Xie Lian’s fists curled as he tried to still his trembling.
Later on in the evening, when most of the novelty around Xie Lian had worn off, and there was no-one looking too closely, one of Hua Cheng’s boots slid off Xie Lian’s back. On its way back up, it brushed Xie Lian’s thigh, and nudged the bulge between his legs, making Xie Lian gasp. Hua Cheng chuckled, apparently satisfied with what he’d found there, and settled his boot on top of Xie Lian again.
How the night ended was a bit of a blur - at some point, while Xie Lian’s world was narrowed to the weight of Hua Cheng’s feet on his back, and the strain of keeping his back exactly as Hua Cheng wanted it, he remembered the fall of thick curtains, hiding him and Hua Cheng from view, and he remembered being bundled into San Lang’s arms, then the roll of dice, and suddenly they were back in their bed at Paradise Manor, and San Lang was kissing him into the bed.
“Gege, you were so good, you were perfect. Are you alright? Was it alright?”
“I’m fine, it was fine, perfect, I…San Lang, I…” Xie Lian gave up on speech, resorted to grabbing San Lang’s shoulders and thrusting their hips together. It felt like he’d been hard for hours. “San Lang, please, please, I can’t wait…”
“Anything. Anything for you.” San Lang kissed him, and his hand worked in between them, parting Xie Lian’s robes to find his painfully hard cock.
Xie Lian gasped. San Lang swallowed the sound, and Xie Lian’s arms wound around his neck as they kissed, as he thrust into San Lang’s hand. He was too far gone to be embarrassed by the sounds he was making, including the whine that came out of him when San Lang’s hand pulled away. It returned along with the hard length of San Lang’s cock flush against his.
Xie Lian couldn’t take it - the heat of San Lang’s mouth, San Lang’s weight on top of him, San Lang’s cock grinding against him-
He came, eyes rolling, fingers clenched tight around San Lang’s arms, and then fell limp on the bed, completely drained.
A chuckle above him. Xie Lian didn’t even have enough energy left to feel indignant. He just lay there in a sweat-drenched, hair-mussed mess as San Lang dropped a line of kisses down his neck and across his collarbone.
“Perfect,” he murmured into Xie Lian’s skin. “Gege, you were perfect. You were so beautiful.”
“San Lang, stop.” Xie Lian laughed as San Lang kissed under his jaw, the same place he’d stroked in Gambler’s Den. “I get it. You…you enjoyed it, then?”
“Didn’t Gege feel how much this one liked it?” San Lang dipped his fingers into the puddle of seed cooling on Xie Lian’s belly, making him blush. “How about Gege? Tell me. Was there anything you didn’t like? Anything you needed more of?”
Xie Lian bit his lip. “San Lang, you…”
San Lang kissed his chest, and laid his cheek down on top of it. His eye caught Xie Lian’s. “What is it?”
“You don’t…you don’t think I’m strange? For wanting to…do things like that?”
“I think Gege is very strange,” said San Lang seriously. “Only a very strange person could manage to ascend three times. Only a very strange person could become Heavenly Martial Emperor of the Upper Court. Only a very strange person would have married a ghost king.”
“San Lang…”
“Gege. I love you. You can tell me anything.”
Xie Lian took a breath. “I liked it,” he said in a rush. “I loved it. I love you. I want to do it again. Can we do it again? Please?”
San Lang laughed. “Gege’s still not tired of begging today?”
If Xie Lian wasn’t so worn out, he would have gotten hard again. “I loved it. San Lang was perfect. I can’t believe you did that for me. I don’t deserve you.”
“Other way round, Gege,” whispered San Lang. He lifted his head, came up Xie Lian’s body, and kissed him long and slow. “Tell me what else you want. Anything you wanted me to do differently?””
Xie Lian lifted his hand, and tucked a lock of San Lang’s hair behind his ear. His hand dropped to cup San Lang’s cheek, his heart swelling with so much love it took him a moment to find his tongue.
“It’s not…I don’t need you to do anything differently, but maybe…maybe just…more.”
“More?”
“As in, you could be meaner. To me.”
“Meaner? How?”
San Lang looked so earnest, Xie Lian began to feel bad. San Lang had already done this much for him. Xie Lian should just be grateful for that. Even if San Lang said he enjoyed it, wasn’t Xie Lian just burdening him by asking for-
“Gege,” nudged San Lang, cutting clean across Xie Lian’s train of thought. “Tell me.”
This was why Xie Lian was like this. San Lang spoiled him far too much. “If I say it, you have to promise me you’ll tell me if you don’t want to do it. Promise?”
“I promise.”
They didn’t try it straight away. There were a few more nights of Xie Lian simply put to use as Hua Chengzhu’s new footstool on the dais, concentrating with all his might to hold his back straight and stay quiet while San Lang conducted his business over his head.
News of Hua Chengzhu’s new footstool drew in good business for Gambler’s Den. Xie Lian had no shortage of curious onlookers each time he served at Hua Cheng’s feet, nudging each other and laughing openly at his predicament. Not that he could let himself get distracted by them for very long - any time he dropped his head a fraction, or let his back sag, he’d get a tap of Hua Cheng’s boot heel on his bottom, or a brush of Hua Cheng’s boot against his cock, making him gasp and shiver, all while Hua Cheng carried on his conversations above him without a pause. That was good. Because when Hua Cheng did pause in his conversation, it would be to ask, his voice deceptively kind, “Is His Highness too warm? That can certainly be remedied.”
And Xie Lian would shake his head frantically and beg until Hua Cheng decided he was sorry enough.
Until the night Hua Cheng decided he wasn’t sorry enough.
Xie Lian felt his stomach swoop as Hua Cheng’s boots were lifted off his back.
Then came the command: “Stand up, Your Highness.”
Two hours deep into the brain-fog of obeying San Lang’s every order wasn’t deep enough to prevent him from freezing, there on the dais on all fours. The next moment, play on the nearest tables stopped as Hua Chengzhu’s naughty footstool was pulled to his feet by nearby attendants, red-faced, and stripped to the thin, almost translucent layer of his inner robes.
“Take that off him too, Chengzhu!” someone crowed, to much laughter.
Hua Cheng made a considering noise from his chair. “What do you think, Your Highness? I daresay it would be a lesson you would not forget soon.”
“Chengzhu, please, no. I beg you.”
“Look at you forgetting your lessons already. Doesn’t Your Highness remember how to beg?”
Xie Lian dropped to his knees. “Please, please, please,” he repeated frantically, lowering himself on all fours and dropping his head. On a sudden stroke of desperation-fueled inspiration, he scrambled forward, and brought his lips to Hua Cheng’s boots. “Please,” he murmured against the leather. “Please, I’ll be good.”
“You’ll be a good what?” Hua Cheng asked softly.
Xie Lian whimpered. “I’ll be a good footstool.”
“Go on, then.”
Absurdly grateful to be back on familiar ground, Xie Lian began to turn to the side, only to get a, “Stop.”
“Stay facing me,” said Hua Cheng. “As you were. Head down. Arch your back. Good. Now, you’ll remember to stay still, won’t you?”
Xie Lian’s cheeks burned as the familiar weight of Hua Cheng’s legs settled on the small of his back. Positioned like this, the entire Gambler’s Den had a perfect view of his bottom lifted up towards them, covered by nothing but a single layer of sheer fabric. Someone was laughing behind him. Xie Lian couldn’t see who. He pressed his nose to the carpet, squeezed his eyes shut, and did his best to keep his trembling thighs as close together as he could without teetering, lest anyone saw between his legs and realised just how naughty Hua Chengzhu’s footstool was.
That was only for San Lang to know, and manage, later, in the privacy of their bedroom. San Lang’s hands gripped the buttocks that had been so prominently displayed in Gambler’s Den, and guided them up and down his cock.
“Come on, Gege, I made you stay still for so long,” coaxed San Lang breathlessly, as Xie Lian wobbled, flushed and panting above him. “You can move as much as you like, now, you’ve earned it. You were so good.”
“San Lang,” Xie Lian panted, strung-out with need. “San Lang, I can’t, I can’t, please-”
“Shh. I’ve got you.” San Lang sat up, ran his hands through Xie Lian’s hair, and tipped his face down for a kiss. Xie Lian melted into it, moaning. “Lie down, Gege. San Lang will take care of everything.”
And he did, ploughing Xie Lian hard and fast until he was sobbing, stopping only to pull Xie Lian’s hand to his own cock so that he could jack it frantically for the few seconds it took him to spurt all over his own belly.
It was probably disturbing how often Xie Lian thought about their new game, even when he was supposed to be doing something else entirely. He’d be holding court in Heaven, receiving each god of the pantheon one by one, watching them respectfully offer their greetings and wondering what their faces would look like if they knew their Heavenly Martial Emperor served as a footstool at a ghost king’s feet. Would they cackle, like the crowd in Gambler’s Den?
The crowd got a bigger treat one night, when Hua Cheng’s boot had to move and straighten Xie Lian’s back for a third time.
“His Highness is distracted tonight indeed,” remarked Hua Cheng as if commenting on a change in the weather. “Perhaps it is finally time for that next lesson.”
Xie Lian, who at this point had already paid for his earlier lapses with the surrender of his outer robe, let out a distressed noise, and spun around to shower Hua Cheng’s boots with kisses in supplication. Hua Cheng allowed it, and Xie Lian went on kissing gratefully, stupid enough to think he’d been let off the hook, until he heard, “Don’t be afraid, Your Highness. This will be good for you.”
Xie Lian whimpered against the leather, “No, no, Chengzhu please, no…”
“Hush. If you stand up on your own, Your Highness, and politely ask the guards to help you out of your robe, the lesson won’t last long. Go on. Be good.”
Xie Lian’s eyes teared up. His head moved even lower, as low as he could go, not kissing but full-out licking now, laving at the soles of Hua Cheng’s boots, making the most pitiful noises he could around outstretched his tongue, begging. His face went hot as he heard the patrons at the nearest table stopping their play to watch, and laugh.
“Don’t be swayed, Chengzhu!”
“That princeling was so full of airs when he walked in here, but look at him now.”
“Ah, poor thing, he’s so scared. Maybe let him off this time Chengzhu!”
“Hm,” considered Hua Cheng, amused. “Shall I show some mercy to Your Highness tonight? You are being very sweet.”
Xie Lian nodded as frantically as he could while he licked. When Hua Cheng kindly lifted the tip of his boot so that Xie Lian could properly clean the underside, he uttered a garbled “Thank you,” into the sole.
Hua Cheng chuckled. “You’re giving me an idea, with that tongue of yours. Come up here.”
Up. Xie Lian pushed himself up on his knees, dazed, his chin wet with his own drool. Hua Cheng cupped his face in his hands, and smiled.
“All right,” he said. His thumb ran over Xie Lian’s bottom lip. “If Your Highness wants to keep his robe, I’ll allow it. But,” cutting across Xie Lian’s profuse thanks, “we’ll have to think of another lesson for you. We can’t have you thinking you can get away with the way you’ve been behaving, can we?”
Xie Lian gazed up at Hua Cheng helplessly. The look on Hua Cheng’s face was calm, almost soothing, even as his hand moved to loosen the sash of his robes.
“Come, Your Highness,” he purred, pulling Xie Lian’s head closer, properly into his lap. “Arms behind your back. Show me what else your pretty mouth can do. Open.”
Like a dog being pulled along on a lead, Xie Lian obeyed. Hua Cheng fed his soft cock into his mouth, and let out a content sigh when Xie Lian’s lips closed around it.
“Just like that. Your Highness will keep it nice and warm for me, won’t you?”
Xie Lian could only mumble “Yes, Chengzhu” around his mouthful, while his audience roared with glee.
San Lang was particularly attentive that night in bed. After laying Xie Lian down on his back, and sucking Xie Lian to a mind-shattering orgasm, Xie Lian slowly blinked back into consciousness to find himself flipped onto his front, and San Lang massaging his back.
“San Lang,” he mumbled.
Kiss between his shoulder-blades. “Gege.”
“You didn’t come.”
“That doesn’t matter. How are you feeling, Gege? Your knees?”
“Fine. What about you?”
“What about me? All I did was sit in my chair. Gege did all the work. Did you enjoy it?”
“I would have told you if I didn’t.” Xie Lian stared at the embroidery on the pillow, and tried to find the words. “Thank you, San Lang.”
“Gege never has to thank San Lang.”
“I do.” Xie Lian twisted around to face him, interrupting San Lang’s back massage. This was more important. “San Lang, I…I know my fantasies are strange, and I would have been happy for them to stay fantasies, but you…” He trailed off lamely. “Just…thank you.”
San Lang smiled. “You know I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t enjoy it too.”
“You didn’t even use a footstool before we started doing this,” said Xie Lian sceptically.
“Gege is always introducing San Lang to new pleasures.”
“San Lang?”
“Hm?”
“I want you to come.”
San Lang laughed. He pressed another feather-light kiss to Xie Lian’s side. “Later. There’s water by the bed. Let’s sit you up and rinse your mouth.”
Oh. Xie Lian’s cheeks heated at the reminder of what he’d spent the past hour doing.
The colour must still have been in his face after he’d sat up. San Lang cupped his cheek, eye crinkling with fondness, and leaned in to press a kiss to his forehead before handing him a cup.
Xie Lian raised his hand to cover San Lang’s eye while he gargled, and spat into a waiting basin. He removed his hand once he was done - and there was San Lang’s face, exactly as Hua Chengzhu’s was in his cruellest moments in Gambler’s Den. Whether he was ordering Xie Lian to his knees, or swallowing Xie Lian’s come, San Lang could never hide the eight hundred years worth of devotion in his eye when he looked at Xie Lian. The devotion that had him catering to Xie Lian’s every whim, even when Xie Lian asked for things like this.
“I love you,” said Xie Lian, wishing he could think of something better to say, something that began to encompass the scope of his feelings for San Lang.
“I worship you,” answered San Lang, and it should have rung false, coming from the man whose boots he had licked only an hour ago, but Xie Lian only had to look at San Lang’s face to know every word of it was true.