UCTOOT CH22

The strange sensation of Xie Wuchi’s lips and the grinding motion within his mouth, that tongue filled with desire… it was a scene of unparalleled absurdity.

A bell “DONG DONG DONG” went off in Shi Shu’s head several times, leaving him dizzy, confused, and with a brief moment of complete mental blankness.

“…Something is wrong.”

Shi Shu paced around in a daze, telling himself: “I must be dreaming.”

That’s right, this isn’t real, I must be dreaming.

If it weren’t a dream, how could a guy have just stuck his tongue in his mouth and stirred it around? This had to be a dream. Something like this would never happen in reality. Absolutely a dream.

That’s right!

Just as Shi Shu was convinced, Xie Wuchi’s fingertip brushed the corner of his lip, wiping away the moisture, and he smiled. “Thank you for the hospitality.”

“………………”

Hospitality, is it?!

Shi Shu’s self-deception shattered abruptly. His composure broken, he gritted his teeth and lunged to grab Xie Wuchi’s collar. “Xie Wuchi, you!!!!”

A mouthful of speechlessness was on the tip of his tongue. He wanted to demand, “Are you gay? Or a pervert? Who are you trying to trick? Didn’t you say just one kiss? Why did you kiss me so hard?” But the words were caught in his throat. It was too difficult to articulate, and he swallowed everything back.

“You!!!”

Shi Shu’s handsome face was a picture of complexity. He lacked the energy for full-blown anger. He turned and stood by the small window, looking at the bright moon in the night sky framed by the opening.

His mouth felt numb from being licked, the foreign sensation soft. He didn’t know whether to spit out the saliva or swallow it, so after a few seconds of complicated thought, Shi Shu swallowed it down. It definitely contained Xie Wuchi’s spit!

How exasperating; he had to ingest his spit.

No, something must be wrong!

A normal straight man suddenly embraced and kissed by another man would get angry and deem the other person a pervert, immediately fleeing in disgust. But there was a kind of madness about Xie Wuchi that made Shi Shu feel that nothing he did was entirely intentional.

Why did he suddenly kiss me? And kiss me in such a disgusting way? Isn’t that intentionally revolting? No normal person kisses like that, right? For the record, Shi Shu had seen people kiss. Did any of them kiss so sloppily?

A thought flashed in Shi Shu’s mind: “Are you still upset about Pei Wenqing? Are you trying to deliberately disgust me?”

He immediately felt that couldn’t be right.

Xie Wuchi heard his conclusion and laughed.

Shi Shu: “What are you laughing at?! Do you laugh a lot? Do you think you look handsome when you laugh!” Shi Shu flared up instantly. “I asked you! Speak!”

Shi Shu then bolted towards Xie Wuchi. The prison cell was cramped. Xie Wuchi hadn’t expected him to be so energetic. His loose-fitting scholar’s robe brushed against the cold wall, catching dust, and Shi Shu’s hard bump immediately struck his abdomen.

“Ah.” Xie Wuchi subtly frowned, reaching out to shield Shi Shu’s shoulder, and hissed from the impact.

Xie Wuchi was very tall, and he bent over with a slight curve in his back. His dark, menacing shadow fell over Shi Shu’s face. Shi Shu expected him to be in pain, but instead heard a low, subtle chuckle.

…A pervert, a pervert, he really is a pervert!

In his panic, Shi Shu seriously threatened him: “Xie Wuchi, when we get out, you need to get some medicine! To treat your disorder!”

Xie Wuchi: “But it doesn’t harm me.”

Shi Shu: “It harms me! A lot!!”

Shi Shu was still trying to organize his thoughts to make sense of the situation, gripping Xie Wuchi’s clothes. Xie Wuchi seemed to cooperate, placing one arm on his back.

However, just as Shi Shu’s eyes darted around and he emerged from his thoughts, turning his gaze—

A gray rat suddenly appeared before him. Its fur was oily black, its eyes dark, its whiskers long and thick, and its sharp teeth gleamed white. It was robust, probably half the size of a cat.

“Ah?!!!! Ah!!”

Shi Shu’s vision instantly darkened. His blood seemed to drain away, and he let out a scream that he would never normally make, stumbling backward: “Xie Wuchi, there’s a rat, a rat!!!”

The rats in the prison were exceptionally aggressive. Instead of being afraid of people, this one was scurrying around, trying to attack him. Shi Shu’s legs turned to jelly, and he nearly collapsed, scrambling to get away.

Shi Shu: “Xie Wuchi, quickly chase it away! Rats disgust me, they’re so disgusting, Ugh—”

“Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!” The rat circled Shi Shu. Shi Shu wanted to stomp on it but was afraid of the disgusting feeling of it sticking to his shoe, so he just ran circles around Xie Wuchi.

Shi Shu: “Xie Wuchi, save me, save me! I’m going to die! I’m going to die! Aaaahhhh…”

Xie Wuchi shielded him behind his back with one arm, showing little patience, and kicked the rat away. The rat let out a “Squeak~” then made a second charge, only to be kicked out again by Xie Wuchi.

It finally felt the pain, spun in place, and fled out through the cell door.

Shi Shu stopped, sweating profusely, hands resting on his knees. “What the f—! Why! Why are the rats in this jail so huge!”

Shi Shu hated rats for no specific reason other than disgust. When he was a child, he was mischievous but kind. Late one night, he caught a small rat, thinking it was a bird or a kitten. The next morning, when he woke up, he saw clearly in the daylight that a rat was perched on his pillow, with tiny eyes and a small nose, squeaking sharply. Shi Shu would never forget that horrifying sight, and ever since, seeing a rat gave him a physical chill down his spine, making him want to fly into the sky.

Xie Wuchi: “Don’t be afraid. It’s gone.”

Shi Shu: “It was so fat! It was so fat, almost like a cat.”

Xie Wuchi reached out and realized Shi Shu’s hands and feet were cold. “Have you heard the rumors about the Ming Feng Si? Prisoners only eat watery gruel. How could the livestock’s food be any better? So, the fat rats aren’t eating grains or bran, but—”

Shi Shu wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. Xie Wuchi said, “Human flesh.”

Shi Shu: “What?”

Xie Wuchi: “You are fair-skinned, and your skin is closer to the color of a corpse. That rat only attacked you just now because it was hungry for a taste.”

Shi Shu was horrified. “? Is that true?”

Xie Wuchi: “A rumor. Perhaps true, perhaps false.”

Shi Shu: “The bodies in the Ming Feng Si are eaten by rats?!”

Xie Wuchi glanced at him and said, “When there are many, the bodies are piled up in the yard. Relatives who come to claim them take them away in carts. But there are also officials whose families are far away. By the time they travel thousands of miles to get here, the bodies are already rotten and are tossed into the cellar. Which rats in the cellar aren’t plump and strong from eating this? It’s even become an allusion in the Eastern Capital.”

Shi Shu slowly regained his breath. “What is it?”

Xie Wuchi: “The allusion isn’t spread by the local people of the Eastern Capital, but by the border guards who came to the capital for their official duties. They accidentally passed the Ming Feng Si, found bodies piled like mountains, and rats as fat as cats. They went back and mocked some of the powerful officials in the Eastern Capital, saying they were fat from eating human flesh, just like the rats of the Ming Feng Si.”

“…”

Shi Shu’s face was pale. He immediately tugged his pants down further to cover his fair, delicate ankles.

Then he remembered to ask, “Is this place really that terrifying?”

Xie Wuchi: “The legends shouldn’t be fully believed; they’re just bedtime stories to scare children. But the other parts can be believed.”

Xie Wuchi sat back down. “This small area of the Ming Feng Si is indeed a graveyard for pure and loyal bones. It’s a mire where people’s bones are broken, their faces torn, their dignity burned away, and their blood is drained, leaving them utterly trampled.”

Shi Shu’s distress over the kissing incident had faded in his urgency. A tingling sensation crawled up his scalp. The previous event still mattered, but there seemed to be something far more important now.

Shi Shu: “Is it still like this?”

Xie Wuchi: “It’s better now. The Gengwu Incident ten years ago was when the rats were at their fattest.”

Shi Shu’s heart thumped rapidly in his chest. He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, urging Xie Wuchi to continue.

Xie Wuchi: “Those scholars were defiant and insubordinate. From the Minister of the Six Ministries down to the students of the Imperial Academy, they collectively forced their way to the gate of the Imperial City to petition, requesting His Majesty to listen to their advice. Some of their remarks were overly provocative, incurring the crime of great disrespect, which greatly angered the Emperor and the Empress Dowager. They felt it was a deliberate provocation and faction-forming, so an edict was issued to round them up and execute them in the Ming Feng Si.”

“Originally, the scholars kneeling outside the palace gate that night only needed to leave after hearing the edict, but they were determined not to go, insisting the Emperor accept their advice, which ultimately brought about disaster. Over a thousand people died, all handled by this very Ming Feng Si.”

A chill crept up Shi Shu’s back as he looked into the void before him. He could almost see the countless Imperial Academy students kneeling outside the vermillion gate, and a nerve in his face twitched painfully.

Xie Wuchi: “Pei Wenqing’s father, the then Minister of Revenue, died in that turmoil.”

Shi Shu: “Did he also feed the rats?”

Xie Wuchi: “Him? His body was exposed on the street for three days before his children were allowed to retrieve the corpse.”

Xie Wuchi folded his sleeves bit by bit. “This place is not suitable for a long stay. The yin energy is too heavy and can shorten one’s lifespan.”

Shi Shu was truly exhausted. He nodded vaguely. “I really want to leave. I want to sleep.”

The prison was eerie and ghost-ridden, especially late at night when he was completely alone. Occasionally, he heard the slithering of wild things, which was terrifying. Shi Shu’s body ached, and he didn’t know how to sleep. Xie Wuchi sat back on the pile of straw. “Come here, lean on me. Conserve your energy.”

Shi Shu: “I think I’ll pass on that.”

A moment later, however, his mouth felt soft and warm again, as if hot breaths were mingling. A stream of air brushed past his nose, his ear was cupped by Xie Wuchi’s calloused thumb and forefinger, and his palm rubbed it raw. Meanwhile, the sucking sound of lips and tongue connecting, continuous and damply hot, made him dizzy.

“…”

“Ah!”

The thought alone made Shi Shu’s ears burn red.

He wished he could die. But he’d take Xie Wuchi with him first.

Shi Shu endured it for a while.

At some point in the deep night, Shi Shu finally leaned back against Xie Wuchi. It was a long night. When Shi Shu got up in the middle of the night, he saw Xie Wuchi leaning against the wall without moving and had the strange feeling that the man might be dead.

The floor was hard and cold. He hadn’t slept well and woke up early from hunger. Shi Shu rubbed his eyes. His neck felt quite comfortable, and he realized it was resting on something. He quickly propped himself up and saw that it was Xie Wuchi’s leg.

Shi Shu: “Huh?!”

Xie Wuchi sat upright, opened his eyes, having just finished his morning meditation. “You’re awake?”

Shi Shu shot up with a “whoosh,” and the first thing he did was pull down his pants.

Shi Shu: “I’m fine. I wasn’t pressing on you, was I? Is your leg numb?”

Xie Wuchi: “Not really. You’re very light, and you sleep soundly. Even if my leg went numb, I could put my arm around it and set it down, and you wouldn’t wake up.” Xie Wuchi stood up and dusted himself off.

The morning light was faint, and dust hung in the air of the cell. Xie Wuchi looked up at the sunlight coming through the small window. “We might be able to leave today. The Heir Apparent has limited patience, and Feng Lu’s ‘show of force’ should be enough by now.”

They spent the entire morning waiting for that moment.

When a person has nothing to do, they start pondering things. Shi Shu suddenly remembered something and raised his brown eyes. “Xie Wuchi, you still haven’t told me that secret from yesterday.”

Xie Wuchi: “My age? Do you want a more stimulating one?”

“………………”

Shi Shu didn’t know why, but his mouth felt inexplicably dry, perhaps from being kissed.

Shi Shu: “What’s more stimulating?”

Xie Wuchi: “You slept leaning on my leg last night, so I’ll tell you a secret related to that.”

Xie Wuchi said, “I have a tattoo on the inner side of my thigh.”

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