Encountering a Snake C12

Chapter 12: Bad Snake

Only then did Shen Qingxuan learn that it was only in kissing that the always-cold Yi Mo showed any exception of feeling.

The kiss began with a slow press. Then the lips turned and rubbed, as if testing the touch. Only when the mouth had grown hot did Yi Mo seem to lose patience. The tip of his tongue reached the gate of the teeth. Shen Qingxuan did not hesitate. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth in obedience, and let him in to search. His arms rose of themselves and wound around Yi Mo’s neck, the very picture of trust given over.

That trust had not formed in a day and a night. It had gone from acquaintance to understanding, and only then had the wariness of a being of another kind come apart, until the trust was whole. He did not know when, in giving this demon his trust, he had also given something else away.

Perhaps it was when Yi Mo sat with him exchanging ink without tiring. Perhaps when Yi Mo said, whoever treats me well is good. Perhaps when Yi Mo promised him recovery like an ordinary man and did not reckon the asking too greedy… Shen Qingxuan himself did not know when this feeling had begun to move in him.

Only now that feeling had been bent and explained as something as simple and clear as “repaying a kindness.”

If he insisted it was repayment, then let it be repayment. A thought turned in Shen Qingxuan’s mind. He abandoned the passive stance, put out his tongue, and twined with Yi Mo directly, kissing hard.

Yi Mo lifted his lids and looked at him a moment. Shen Qingxuan’s expression was still tame; only a smile had been added. Yi Mo looked at the smile between his brows, paused, then lowered his lids again. The tangle of lips and teeth was no longer slow as warm water. It boiled all at once. The tongue swept heavily through the mouth. The breath they exchanged was secret and subtle, and crushed Shen Qingxuan’s green attack until his armor was gone. The tongue that had been so bold now curled and hid. Even so Yi Mo was not satisfied. After licking through the other’s mouth he rolled up that dodging, tender tongue and sucked, wringing out more fluid as if pressing it. When he let go it was like a cat teasing a mouse. The moment Shen Qingxuan retreated a little, he used the same trick again, wound the tongue once more, and the whole thing began over.

Shen Qingxuan felt he could not breathe. The clarity in his head was eaten away by haze. That nimble tongue was too rampant. It would not allow him to hide or fall back, drove him until there was no road left and still would not stop. When it let go it was only the tease of catching by first releasing. Hazy as he was, he liked this heat. Only at such times did Yi Mo let a little of his true temper show. So he held on tighter still and let desire spread from the tangled mouths.

Hot, wet breath exchanged in disorder. At last Shen Qingxuan could not hold the tide of that rubbing. A low sound escaped his nose.

Only then did Yi Mo stop. He put out a hand and rubbed a while over the lips that now shone with water and hung slightly open, then asked with no readable feeling, “Is it still comfortable?”

Shen Qingxuan came back from the haze, used the candle at the head of the bed to look at him a moment, then smiled again. “You wait on me like this—clothes undone, a beauty in my arms. How could it not be comfortable?”

Yi Mo rubbed his mouth again, with more force this time, tormenting the already swollen lips between his fingers before he said, “In this world, those who can control that mouth of yours number no more than two.”

Shen Qingxuan turned his head, gave a hum of laughter, and bit the finger at his lip. He stamped a tooth-mark on it as if to vent spite, then felt unwilling to let go and put out his tongue to lick the mark in consolation. The pink, wet tongue was like a snake itself, winding and sucking that pale finger, wanton past describing. Watching it, Yi Mo narrowed his eyes.

Only when Yi Mo’s finger shone with a wet sheen did Shen Qingxuan let go. He still wore that smiling look. “Is it still comfortable?”

The next instant Yi Mo put out his hand, pushed those wet fingers into his mouth, caught the tongue that did not know better and specialized in making trouble, and began another kind of stirring.

The feeling of his mouth being played with by fingers turned Shen Qingxuan’s face fully red. He knew that tonight he had been far too bold—without manners, without shame, leaving the classics and the rites, shocking the age. Yet there was also a stimulation of another kind, a madness wrung out to the last drop.

In any case there were only he and Yi Mo in the curtains, one man and one yaoguai. With Yi Mo’s methods, no one else would catch a scrap of sound. He simply threw aside doctrine and propriety. If he was mad, he was mad.

He had not been mad for only a day or two. After that bath in the spring he had already known he was mad.

With one hand Yi Mo played with his mouth. With the other, still neither hurried nor slow, he undid Shen Qingxuan’s trousers and pulled them down. Sensing the motion, Shen Qingxuan flushed deeper. Still he did not stop him. He even lifted his waist as much as he could, to make the work cleaner.

A palm rubbed over the standing thing. Yi Mo judged, “Not bad.”

Shen Qingxuan shut his mouth, bit hard on the two fingers inside it, and said thickly, “I don’t need you to judge.”

“A little young, though.” Yi Mo paid no mind to the small pain in his fingers. He curled a knuckle and flicked the shy tip, drawing a low moan from Shen Qingxuan as he said, “Grown like this and still untouched. A pity.”

If Shen Qingxuan’s knees could have moved then, he would have kicked him hard before the shame in his chest would ease. Unfortunately knees and calves together would not stir. He could not even close his legs to refuse the looking. He could only lie unmoving, every hidden part displayed to the last hair.

It was too much to bear. At last he could not help it. He wrenched a hand free, seized Yi Mo’s hem, and demanded, “Are you going to do it or not?”

Yi Mo, though his lapel was clutched, did not shake off the hand. He only changed to the fingers dripping with saliva, waved them before Shen Qingxuan’s eyes, then seized his life-root in one grip and stroked it twice, fast. Only then did he say, seriously, to Shen Qingxuan, whose waist had gone soft, “I said your lustful heart was heavy, and you still would not admit it. This urgent—you want it that much?”

Understanding he had been toyed with again, Shen Qingxuan had not even the strength to be angry. He glared a moment, then turned his head away in helplessness and thought that this snake was truly bad to the bone. Under heaven you could not find a worse person—no: a worse snake. Old demon snake!

Below the belly it was pleasure, though. Even if he cursed the old demon snake a thousand times, ten thousand times, this bright pleasure, in this moment, only that old demon snake could give him. Spineless, he turned his face back, pulled Yi Mo’s head down, wound his arms around his neck again, and made small sounds.

Yi Mo’s hand was extremely skilled, yet it gave him only half a sweetness. Soon it moved down, rounded to the rear, and the tip of a forefinger slowly teased the tight, tender entrance.

Feeling that place being played with, Shen Qingxuan jerked his head up as if startled. He no longer thought of holding him. He braced on his elbows, lifted his upper body, and looked between his own legs with the eyes one uses on a monster, at the wrist half seen, still moving.

“……” He looked a good while. His gaze traveled to Yi Mo’s face. His mouth dry, he said, “…Truly that place?”

Yi Mo did not answer. His dark eyes looked at him without moving.

“……” Shen Qingxuan bit his lip. His face went now pale, now red. He murmured, “I thought of it. I did not expect it to be true.”

He waited a while longer, then lay down again. Only his arm was thrown across his face, covering half of it so that no air passed, and he said in a small voice, “That place—I fear you cannot come in. Find something…” He could not finish. He said nothing more. This time he was truly, thoroughly, burned to death with shame.

Yi Mo showed nothing. After a glance around he fixed on the oil lamp on the table. He crooked a finger. The burning lamp drifted slowly over and stopped beside the bed curtains. Yi Mo lifted the curtain, took some of the warm lamp oil on his fingers, spread Shen Qingxuan’s legs farther, smeared the tip on, and slowly rubbed and pressed the fine folds of the entrance.

Shen Qingxuan changed his posture, grabbed the brocade quilt beside him, and covered his face with it. This time even the chin was covered. The whole head was buried in the quilt and could not be found.

A thread of laughter passed through Yi Mo’s eyes. He still kept his head down and pressed one knuckle into the entrance that had eased a little. Under his hand Shen Qingxuan went visibly stiff, body drawn tight, as if he did not know what to do, frozen there like a fool.

Yi Mo raised a brow, slapped him once on the buttock, drew his hand out, dipped more hot oil, and pressed in again. This time he did not pause, drawing out and pressing in over and over. Through the whole of it Shen Qingxuan made not a sound. He only softened his body and let himself be handled. Not until three fingers were in did he give a small struggle, as if uncomfortable.

Yi Mo added no more fingers. He bent down, and while his hand still moved he pulled away the quilt over Shen Qingxuan’s face, then pulled away the arm thrown across it, and said, “This is your offering of the body? You look more like a tortoise.”

Shen Qingxuan hummed through his nose and still would not lift his head. Instead he caught Yi Mo’s shoulder and buried his face there. His body had adapted to the disorderly fingers. In the going in and out it was not all discomfort, and the cold scent of grass and trees on Yi Mo was familiar. After a moment buried at his neck, Shen Qingxuan slowly lifted his waist to meet the rhythm of the hand.

Knowing he felt well, Yi Mo was still in no hurry. He kept moving his wrist for the time of one incense stick, until Shen Qingxuan could not stop humming, and the part that had once drawn back in fright stood trembling again, the tip spilling a little clear fluid.

The growing heat inside his body was extremely strange to Shen Qingxuan, and yet he wanted it in a way he could not name. When the hand stopped even a moment he felt empty. At last he could not bear it. He lifted his face and said in a low voice, “Come in.”

“Can’t hold on?” Yi Mo drew his hand out.

Shen Qingxuan hesitated an instant, then nodded honestly. “Mm.”

Yi Mo turned. His robes were disordered but still fully on; he showed no sign of undressing to grind skin to skin. He only undid his trousers, locked Shen Qingxuan’s waist, spread his legs to their greatest extent, tugged his own trousers down a little, and, guiding the swollen thing, thrust in.

Shen Qingxuan gave a muffled sound, as if under punishment. His whole body locked again. The pain whitened his mind. He dared not even move to breathe.

He did not know how long it was before it eased bit by bit and he could slacken again. Pale-faced, he looked at Yi Mo above him and said, helpless, “Go easy. This fierce—before long I will stop breathing.”

Yi Mo did not answer. He put a hand to the place they were joined, looked at it by the candle, and said, “Very good. Not even a drop of red.”

Shen Qingxuan was blank first. Then his pale face went red again. He cursed, “You wretched snake!”

Yi Mo lifted his waist and came down hard. The thrust sent Shen Qingxuan flopping like a fish on a bank. He had no more mind for cursing. After some dozens of strokes he adapted again, soon found the state once more, wound his arms around this wretched snake’s neck, lifted his waist, and made small, broken sounds.