The darkness inside Gu Yingjie's bedroom was absolute. Gu Yingjie had refused to light even a single candle, fearing that any flicker of light might betray their secret to the spies lurking in the walls and reveal the injury on his arm.
In that suffocating darkness, Zhu Mingyang began the painstaking process of tending to his master's wounds.
"Yingjie," Zhu Mingyang whispered, his voice low with professional concern, "I'm going to pull out the wood splinters from your arm. This will be very painful."
Gu Yingjie simply clenched his jaw and gave a tight nod, showing his absolute trust.
Zhu Mingyang began, meticulously working against the pain and the dark, removing the fragments one by one. When he was finally finished, he carefully cleaned and wrapped Gu Yingjie's wound with fresh linen, and then, with practiced intimacy, helped his master change into new clothes, erasing any evidence of the night's violence.
Zhu Mingyang stood up, the meticulous work of bandaging complete. "You rest," he said, already attempting to establish the professional distance required by their roles.
Gu Yingjie reached out, his good hand grabbing Zhu Mingyang's wrist. "Mingyang, sleep with me."
Zhu Mingyang let out a short, cynical scoff and turned back to face his master in the pitch black. "You are a man now," he challenged, his voice laced with faint, testing ridicule. "Why are you still afraid of being alone?"
In response, Gu Yingjie didn't argue. He rose slightly, wrapped his arms tightly around Zhu Mingyang's waist, and buried his face against his lower abdomen. "I will feel safer with you by my side," he confessed, the simple admission of fear finally breaking through the barrier of their duty.
Zhu Mingyang sighed, his hand moving to gently rub the back of Gu Yingjie's head. "I know," he murmured, his voice softening with reluctant acceptance. He pulled Gu Yingjie away just enough to lift him, easily carrying his master to the bed. He laid Gu Yingjie down and then, shedding his guard role for a moment, lied down beside him.
The familiar rhythm of Gu Yingjie's breath soon settled, and the younger man was sleeping soundlessly. But for Zhu Mingyang, rest was impossible. The memories of the past—the violence, the shared secrets—were a relentless tide. He gazed at the peaceful, vulnerable face of the man beside him, and the sight sent a familiar, aching heartache through his chest.
This person, his master, was someone he knew he could never claim as his own. He had accepted this truth long ago, realizing it fully in the winter Gu Yingjie turned eighteen.
It was the first snowfall of the year, a silent, white celebration that coincided with Gu Yingjie's eighteenth birthday.
Guards were strictly forbidden from touching alcohol on any occasion inside the residence; they had to remain vigilant, always prepared to protect their masters. But Gu Yingjie had indulged deeply in wine and was now thoroughly drunk. His breathing was heavy, and his steps were uneven as Zhu Mingyang guided him carefully back to the safety of his room.
Zhu Mingyang gently laid Gu Yingjie on the bed and, with quiet, practiced care, knelt to pull off his boots. As he stood to leave, he heard his name, slurred but clear.
He turned around. Gu Yingjie was already sitting up on the side of the bed, his dark eyes slightly unfocused from the wine.
"What's the matter?" Zhu Mingyang asked, his voice flat with professional reserve.
Gu Yingjie rose unsteadily from the bed. His face was flushed crimson, burning—whether from the wine or the terrifying honesty he was about to unleash, he couldn't be sure. He walked toward his guard.
"Mingyang…" Gu Yingjie began, the name a plea. "Are we still friends?"
"Yes," Zhu Mingyang replied instantly, his voice clipped and professional.
Gu Yingjie pressed closer, his eyes intense. "Do you ever think of me more than your friend?"
The single, sharp word cut the silence: "No."
"Liar," Gu Yingjie spat, lunging forward to grab a handful of Zhu Mingyang's front collar. "When you lie next to me at night, I can feel it! The way you hold me does not mean that we are friends. Many times, you have secretly kissed me good night."
Zhu Mingyang kept his eyes fixed on the wall behind his master's head, refusing to meet the accusation. "If you don't like it," he muttered, maintaining his desperate denial, "I will stop."
Gu Yingjie tugged on the collar, forcing the guard to sway. "Do I have to say the words?" he demanded, the alcohol emboldening his heart. "Or do you want to admit it?"
Zhu Mingyang finally met his master's gaze, his own eyes flat and unreadable. "You are drunk," he stated simply, attempting to pull Gu Yingjie's hand from his collar. "Go to sleep. We will talk again tomorrow."
But Gu Yingjie firmly grasped the fabric, refusing to let go. "You always do this," he accused, his voice thick with raw frustration. "Never express your feelings." His frantic eyes searched Zhu Mingyang's face, pleading for an honest answer.
Zhu Mingyang sighed, the sound heavy with the weight of years of repressed emotion. He knew the truth was lethal, so he offered a cruel half-truth designed to draw a clear, agonizing line.
"I never thought of you as a friend," he confessed, letting the silence twist the words into the shape of rejection.
Zhu Mingyang gave no further denial. Instead, he grabbed Gu Yingjie's head, pulling him forward with rough, urgent force, and smashed his lips against his master's. The kiss was not tender; it was a furious, heavy contradiction of his previous lie. Their tongues tangled within each other's mouths, the force of the kiss powerful, driven by Zhu Mingyang's heavy, audible breaths.
Breaking the kiss, Zhu Mingyang effortlessly picked up Gu Yingjie and carried him to the bed. He immediately began working on the fastenings of his master's clothes. As Gu Yingjie's belt was loosened, Zhu Mingyang stretched out his hand, finding and beginning to stroke his master's aroused member.
Gu Yingjie was beyond conscious thought, caught in the undertow of passion and pain. He could only tighten the sheets beneath his desperate hands and kiss Zhu Mingyang back while moaning softly. After several intense strokes, Gu Yingjie gasped, releasing into Zhu Mingyang's skilled, waiting hand.
Zhu Mingyang did not stop there. He used Gu Yingjie's body fluid as a natural lubricant and moved to prepare his master fully. With deliberate care, he positioned himself and inserted a single finger into Gu Yingjie's receptive heat, beginning a slow, measured thrust.
Simultaneously, he lifted his head from Gu Yingjie's lips and lowered his mouth to his master's chest, beginning to lick and suck at Gu Yingjie's nipples. As the pleasure intensified, Zhu Mingyang increased the speed of his oral stimulation, matching the growing intensity with the speed of his internal thrust. A moment later, he added a second finger, slowly, carefully stretching his master further.
Zhu Mingyang pulled back, his eyes dark with undeniable desire. He loosened his own belt, the rasp of the leather loud in the small room and knelt between Gu Yingjie's thighs.
The sight of his guard making the final preparations sent a jolt of panic through Gu Yingjie. "Mingyang...what are you doing?" he gasped, the reality of the moment finally hitting him.
Zhu Mingyang leaned down, his voice rough and low, fulfilling the desperate demand for honesty that Gu Yingjie had made earlier.
"You want to know what I think of you?" he asked, not as a guard, but as a man. "Every time I kiss you good night, this is what I think of you."
"Mingyang...no..." Gu Yingjie gasped, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and dawning regret. He struggled violently, desperately trying to push the guard away, but Zhu Mingyang's powerful body was unyielding. He knew, with a terrifying certainty, that when Zhu Mingyang was consumed by such raw emotion, it was impossible for anyone to stop his power. He felt utterly helpless, convinced that he had provoked this intensity, pushing his guard into a momentary state of insanity. He strained with all his small body possessed, repeating the plea: "Mingyang…no…"
But his resistance was futile.
With a deep, guttural sound, Zhu Mingyang ignored the words. He bent Gu Yingjie's legs forward, positioning him with irreversible, gentle force. Then, deliberately, terrifyingly, he began to slowly insert his member into his master's body, making the final, defining claim.
Gu Yingjie fought with every ounce of strength he possessed, struggling to break free as Zhu Mingyang's member slowly penetrated, inch by agonizing inch. A fierce, burning pain consumed him. He pushed against his guard's chest with a futile hand, his verbal resistance broken down into a single, pained grunt: "Mingyang…ah…"
Zhu Mingyang's eyes were dark, lit with desire, and there was no indication that he would back down now. He maintained his slow, inexorable push. In the small, dark room, the world dissolved until the only sounds were the slow, rhythmic thrusting and the constant, pounding beat of his own heart.
Zhu Mingyang bent over his master, reclaiming the space between them, and began to kiss Gu Yingjie, making his full, brutal, and devoted claim.
Gu Yingjie bit down hard on Zhu Mingyang's lower lip, tasting the sudden metallic tang of blood in his mouth. Yet the pain did not deter the guard; instead, it fueled him, and Zhu Mingyang thrust faster. Gu Yingjie finally released the lip, his protests giving way to gasps. "Ah….ah…ah…Mingyang…ah…you…monster…ah….I'm going…kill...you…ah…ah…"
He heard Zhu Mingyang's heavy, ragged breathing right beside his left ear, mixed with his own loud, betraying moans. To silence the sound and conceal their secret, he bit down forcefully onto Zhu Mingyang's left shoulder, the raw pain allowing him to switch his cries to muffled sounds: "Mm…mm…mm...mm…"
In the brief, desperate moment of silence that followed the bite, Zhu Mingyang leaned in close to his master's ear and whispered the truth that his duty could never erase.
"Yingjie, I have always loved you, and I will always be yours."
He held Gu Yingjie tightly in his arms, sealing the confession with a final, overwhelming push.
The long night of passion finally settled into quiet intimacy. Inside the dark room, the soft, rhythmic sound of the two men panting and the muffled sound of flesh hitting flesh could be heard until the deepest hour of the night.
For the next two days, Gu Yingjie refused to leave his room. He instructed his servant to tell everyone in the residence that he was gravely sick and pointedly refused to call upon Zhu Mingyang for assistance.
Then, on the third night, as he lay alone in the vast emptiness of his bed, the frantic emotions subsided. He thought about it carefully, finally concluding that it was his own fault for pushing Zhu Mingyang too far, for demanding the painful truth. How long, he wondered, had Zhu Mingyang been forced to hold back such intense emotion? Irony was cruel: for the past two nights, it was difficult for him to fall asleep because he was so accustomed to Zhu Mingyang's hug.
He closed his eyes, fighting the loneliness, when a chilling sensation washed over him—the feeling of being watched. He snapped his eyes open, and a shadow quickly passed behind the sheer curtain of the bed, a dark ripple confirming that the danger outside their room had not waited for their domestic quarrels to end.
"Mingyang…" Gu Yingjie called out, slowly sitting up in the empty bed. "I know it is you. I can smell your scent." He acknowledged their broken isolation. "I told you I'm going to [be alone]."
Zhu Mingyang then slowly approached the bed. With sudden, decisive force, he pushed Gu Yingjie back onto the mattress and dropped down on top of him, seizing his lips in a desperate kiss.
Breaking the kiss, Zhu Mingyang's voice was low, strained with two days of emotional torment and the immediate fear of the shadow he had just cast. "Yingjie, I can't stop these feelings." He delivered the final, non-negotiable ultimatum. "Kill me or fall in love with me. Choose one."
The sight of Zhu Mingyang's desperation was broken by the unexpected sensation of warmth on Gu Yingjie's cheek. It was a tear. Zhu Mingyang's warm tears hit his face. This was the first time Gu Yingjie had ever seen him cry; when Zhu Mingyang had been severely punished, he had remained stoic, yet his raw, uncontrollable feelings for his master now made him shed tears.
In that moment, Gu Yingjie fully comprehended their tragic bond. They were two bastard sons, unloved by the world and the Gu family. They had no one else to depend on other than each other.
Gu Yingjie gently patted the back of Zhu Mingyang's head. He chose his final words not just to affirm love, but to define their absolute, necessary reality.
"You belong to me," Gu Yingjie declared, his voice firm with possession, "both your body and soul."
He leaned up and sealed the vow with the ultimate, chilling instruction: "Never forget your role."
Zhu Mingyang lowered his head, sealing the vow with a deep kiss. He moved quickly, stripping off Gu Yingjie's remaining clothes and pants. With his master bare, Zhu Mingyang began a slow, deliberate trail of kisses, moving from Gu Yingjie's neck to his breast, then to his belly button. He continued his descent, until his mouth found Gu Yingjie's member.
He slowly licked the surface, then took his master fully into his mouth. Circling his tongue and beginning to suck, Zhu Mingyang committed fully to his role as both lover and absolute servant.
"Mingyang…" Gu Yingjie moaned, his hands instinctively reaching for and gently rubbing Zhu Mingyang's head, completely consumed by the pleasure of his final, perfect claim.
Still maintaining his oral devotion, Zhu Mingyang simultaneously moved his hand. He slowly inserted his fingers into Gu Yingjie's back door, slowly thrusting to stretch the tight opening. After a while, he introduced a second finger and then a third. As the speed of his fingers increased, so did the speed of his sucking. He felt Gu Yingjie's hand press onto the back of his head before his master let go and moaned loudly, reaching climax.
Zhu Mingyang continued his ministrations slowly until Gu Yingjie's member softened, then he spat the collected body fluids back onto the entrance for lubrication. Finally, he positioned himself and slowly inserted his member inside, uniting them completely in the final, powerful act.
"Mingyang…please be gentle," Gu Yingjie moaned, the sound mixing pain with a rising plea. "I'm not used to it yet." He continued to moan as Zhu Mingyang slowly, carefully thrust inside.
After a while, Zhu Mingyang flipped Gu Yingjie over, positioning him on his hands and knees. He inserted his member from behind, his hands tightly clasped around Gu Yingjie's waist for leverage and control, and then began to thrust faster and faster. The sounds he heard from Gu Yingjie were no longer pleas, but the unrestrained sounds of pleasure.
In that moment of consuming, total intimacy, Zhu Mingyang knew the truth that transcended all pain and duty: that from the moment Gu Yingjie had chosen him to his very last breath, he belonged entirely to his master.