The summons from the Lu Clan lay on the table like a dead scorpion, its sting still potent. It was a crude, arrogant document, penned by a man who still believed he was dealing with his fat, useless, drug-addled son. Lu Tao demanded my return, citing vague threats on the clan's borders—threats that were the direct, predictable fallout from my own calculated act of murder. The irony was delicious. The fire I had started was now threatening to burn down my old home, and the arsonist was being summoned to lead the fire brigade.
I called a meeting. The first official council of my new pantheon. We gathered in Zhao Lihua's private study, a room of dark wood, leather-bound scrolls, and the faint, intoxicating scent of her power. She sat behind a massive desk, the undisputed queen of this domain, her face a mask of cold displeasure. Mengue, her quiet strength a calming balm in the tense room, stood near a window overlooking the garden. Fengue, ever the diligent student, had a notebook and brush ready, her expression sharp and analytical. And Chixi stood by the door, a silent, granite statue whose loyalty was the single most volatile element in the room.
"I have been recalled to the Lu Clan," I announced without preamble, tossing the summons onto the desk. "My 'father' requires my presence to deal with a political crisis of my own making. I will be departing in two days."
The reactions were immediate and revealing. Mengue's hand went to her heart, her eyes wide with a soft, maternal worry. Fengue's brow furrowed, a flicker of something—disappointment? annoyance at the interruption of her studies?—crossing her face. Chixi remained impassive, but I could feel a subtle shift in her aura, the tension of a soldier whose commanding officers have just declared war on each other.
But it was Zhao Lihua who spoke first, her voice a low, dangerous rumble. "Unacceptable. Our work here has just begun. The prototypes for the new furnace are not yet complete. The consortium's charter has not been finalized. Your presence is required. The Lu Clan's petty squabbles are beneath your concern."
"Beneath my concern, perhaps," I countered smoothly, "but not beneath my notice. You of all people should understand, partner. One cannot build a new empire while leaving a crumbling, unstable province at one's back. The Lu Clan is a loose end. It must be… restructured. Brought into alignment with our new agenda."
"And you believe you can simply walk back in and achieve this?" she challenged, her voice dripping with skepticism.
"I am not the same man who left," I said, a cold smile touching my lips. "They are expecting their fat, useless son to come crawling home. They will be getting a kingmaker instead. But to do this, I need my queens to manage their own kingdoms in my absence."
I had just reframed my departure. It was not an abandonment; it was a strategic necessity, an expansion of our joint enterprise. I proceeded to lay out the blueprint, assigning them their new kingdoms. Mengue was given the fashion house 'Aria'. Fengue was entrusted with the entertainment guild 'Fantasia'. Chixi was offered the command of the security firm 'Aegis'. Each was to be an independent entity, a sovereign state in our new federal empire, all fueled by the industrial might of Lihua's Consortium. I gave them their missions, their budgets, their autonomy. It was a masterclass in delegation, designed to empower them and bind them inextricably to my return.
They accepted their new roles with a mixture of shock, determination, and a dawning, fierce pride. But as I finished, I saw Zhao Lihua watching me, her expression unreadable, her fingers steepled before her lips. She had been silent throughout my grand pronouncements.
"A brilliant strategy," she finally said, her voice dangerously soft. "You have given each of them a purpose, a passion. You give the mother your warmth and the gift of creation. You give the daughter your knowledge and the gift of a future. You even offer the guard dog a throne of her own." She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing into chips of obsidian. "Tell me, partner. What gift do you bring to me? Your goddess? Your singularity? So far, all you have brought me is a business plan and a night of crude, if effective, pleasure. You share your mind and your heart with them. With me, you only share my bed. It seems a rather… unbalanced partnership."
The accusation was as sharp and clean as a shard of glass. She wasn't jealous of a distant, unknown rival like Lu Ren. She was jealous of the women right here, in her own house. She was jealous of the genuine, non-transactional warmth she saw me giving them, a currency she was beginning to realize her vast wealth could not simply buy.
"Our relationship is built on ambition," I countered carefully. "It is a partnership of equals, forged in the fires of industry."
"Is it?" she purred, rising from her desk and walking around it to stand before me. "Or is it the only relationship where you are not in complete control? With them, you are the mentor, the savior, the master. You give, and they receive. With me, you claim equality, but I wonder what that truly means to a man like you. I wonder what truth lies beneath the brilliant strategist and the charming philosopher."
She stopped, her presence utterly commanding. "Tonight, I am not interested in our business plan. I am interested in our balance of power. You are leaving. You are returning to a place where I cannot see you, cannot control you. Before you go, you will give me a reassurance. A tribute. You will give me the one thing you have so freely given to them, and so carefully withheld from me: the truth."
Her private chambers were a cage of silk and shadows. She dismissed the servants, leaving the two of us alone in the vast, opulent room. The air crackled with a tension that was different from before. This was not a negotiation. It was an interrogation.
"You have a gift for words, Lu Bing," she began, circling me like a shark. "You have called me a queen, a goddess. You have professed a desire to kneel, to serve. I believe that desire is real. But I also believe it is a performance. A tool you use to get what you want. Tonight, I wish to see what lies behind the performance. I wish to see the raw material."
I stood my ground in the center of the room. "I have shown you my mind. I have shown you my body. What other truth is there to show?"
A slow, cruel, and beautiful smile spread across her face. "You showed me your skill. Tonight, you will show me your soul."
She gestured to the obsidian bed. "Strip. And get on the bed. On your knees."
My heart began to pound with a familiar, toxic mixture of dread and excitement. This was different. This was not the passionate fury of the forge. This was a cold, clinical, psychological deconstruction. I obeyed, stripping off my robes and kneeling on the blood-red silk sheets, my body exposed and vulnerable under her piercing gaze.
The night that followed was a masterclass in cruelty. She did not use ropes or ice. Her tools were far more insidious: intimacy, tenderness, and contempt, all mixed into a maddening, disorienting cocktail.
She began by worshipping me. She knelt before me, taking my cock in her hands, her touch as reverent as a priestess tending to an idol. She took me into her mouth with a skill that was both breathtaking and terrifying, driving me to the very edge of release, her eyes locked on mine, watching my control fray. She was using my own pleasure as a weapon against me, forcing a physical response while her words picked apart my mind.
"Is this what they give you?" she whispered against my skin, her voice a venomous caress. "This simple, animal pleasure? Does the widow's gentle touch make you feel this good? Does the girl's hesitant curiosity excite you this much?"
She pulled back, leaving me aching and desperate. "No," she purred. "They cannot. Because they do not understand what you truly are. They see the kingmaker. The brilliant strategist. But I see the truth. I see the worm at the core of the apple."
She rose and retrieved a small, ornate box from her dresser. Inside was a collar of black leather, studded with what looked like polished obsidian. It was a simple, elegant, and utterly demeaning object. "This is a dog collar, Lu Bing. Do you know why a master collars her dog?"
"To show ownership," I gritted out, my body screaming for release.
"No," she corrected, her voice soft as silk. "It is to have a place to attach the leash. To lead the animal where she wishes it to go." She fastened the collar around my neck. It was cool against my heated skin. "Tonight, I am not interested in your mind. I am not interested in your heart. I am only interested in leading the animal."
What followed was a slow, meticulous, and utterly devastating assault on my pride. She made me crawl. She attached a silken leash to the collar and led me around the room, forcing me to drink wine from a bowl on the floor. She spoke to me as one would speak to a disobedient but cherished pet, her voice a maddening blend of condescending affection and cold command.
"You offer them kingdoms," she murmured, scratching me behind the ears as I knelt at her feet. "But what is a kingdom to a dog? All you truly want is a warm place to sleep and the occasional scrap from your mistress's table, isn't that right?"
And through it all, she continued to pleasure me with a detached, clinical skill. Her hands, her mouth, they brought my body to soaring heights of ecstasy while her words and actions were grinding my soul into dust. It was a perfect, diabolical torture, designed to shatter the barrier between my controlled, strategic desires and my raw, unwilling need.
It was in this state, collared, on my hands and knees, my mind a warzone of humiliation and unbearable arousal, that the final piece of her plan fell into place. There was a soft, hesitant knock on the door.
"Enter," Lihua commanded, her voice calm and imperious.
The door opened, and Mengue stood there, carrying a tray of late-night tea and snacks. Her eyes, full of a gentle, worried concern for the late hour of our "meeting," fell upon the scene. She saw me. Naked, collared, on all fours at the feet of the matriarch. She saw the leash in Lihua's hand. She saw the raw, desperate arousal on my face.
Her gasp was a tiny, broken sound. The tray slipped from her numb fingers, crashing to the floor in a shower of porcelain and spilled tea.
Time seemed to stop. Mengue stared, her face a mask of pure, uncomprehending horror. She was seeing the hidden, ugly truth of the man she had come to adore. The powerful master, the gentle caregiver, the brilliant revolutionary… was a dog on a leash.
This was Lihua's checkmate. She hadn't just broken me for her own satisfaction. She had staged it. She had summoned my most devoted follower to be a witness to my ultimate debasement. She was not just claiming my body; she was destroying my legend.
"It seems the help is clumsy tonight," Lihua said, her voice dripping with condescending amusement. She looked down at me. "Your comfort-giver seems distressed. Perhaps you should reassure her. Show her what a good, obedient pet you are."
My carefully constructed world, my entire persona, was collapsing in on itself. And in the ashes, a single, undeniable truth remained. I was so fucking hard I thought I was going to pass out. The shame, the exposure, the absolute, soul-crushing humiliation of being seen like this by her, by the one person I had shown nothing but kindness… it was the most potent aphrodisiac I had ever known.
A sound was torn from my throat, a ragged, desperate sound that was half a sob and half a plea. "Please…"
Lihua smiled, a slow, triumphant, and utterly merciless smile. "Yes," she whispered. "There it is. The truth."
She kicked the bowl of wine towards me. "Lick it up, dog. Clean up the mess."
And as Mengue watched, her hand pressed to her mouth, her eyes wide with a horrified, dawning understanding, I lowered my head to the floor. I had been completely, utterly, and beautifully defeated.