VL Chapter22

Although Shi Xiao hadn’t harbored any deliberate intention to make things difficult for him this time around, some things simply couldn’t be rushed. Thus, by the time Yan Jiang finally managed to extricate himself from the other party’s hands, a good half-hour had already passed.

Because he had soaked in the water for too long, Yan Jiang’s fingertips were somewhat pale and wrinkled. His knuckles were slightly curved, maintaining the posture of gripping something, stiff and numb, unable to relax for a long while. His lips were even more abnormally red, slightly parted as he breathed in silence, and upon closer inspection, a few tooth marks were still imprinted upon them.

Without any clothing or a towel to cover himself, he was carried by ghostly energy and tossed bare onto the bed. The moment his back touched the silk mattress, he scrambled in a fluster to pull the blanket over himself, wrapping himself tightly into a ball as he retreated into the deepest corner of the bed where it met the wall.

He looked precisely like an insecure infant; the quilt was his swaddling clothes, though alas, the hard, rigid corner of the wall could not replace a mother’s embrace.

Yan Jiang buried his head deep into the blanket, enduring wave after wave of despair surging into his heart.

The things that had happened to him over these past two months had long since exceeded his capacity to bear. The Ghost King forced him time and time again to tumble into the abyss of collapse, shattering and jumbling the concepts and habits he had built up over more than twenty years. Yan Jiang felt himself resembling a bird caught up in a massive net; the more he struggled, the tighter the net constricted, until finally he could only droop his wings and await the slow arrival of death.

He didn’t struggle simply because he didn’t dare and couldn’t, but that didn’t mean he could calmly accept this kind of treatment.

The mattress behind him sank slightly as Shi Xiao got onto the bed. The other party effortlessly scooped the human out of the corner, placing him right in front of him, still wrapped in the quilt. Yan Jiang instinctively flinched yet didn’t open his eyes.

“Why are you feeling aggrieved again,” Shi Xiao asked helplessly. “Didn’t Ah Fu feel good too?”

He leaned back, lazily half-reclining against the head of the bed, his palm pressing with pinpoint accuracy through the quilt against Yan Jiang’s inner thigh. The place that had just been released was sensitive to the extreme; even such a simple touch caused the muscles in his leg to twitch reflexively.

Yan Jiang wanted to retort, but as he opened his mouth, the only thing that escaped was a single hoarse syllable, “No…”

The rest of his words were completely blocked by Shi Xiao’s kiss.

Desire had already slowly cooled down after being satisfied. This kiss carried no amorous frivolity, unexpectedly revealing a hint of gentleness. His tongue and the roof of his throat, raw from overuse and burning with heat, were soothed at that moment by the Ghost King’s coolness. He extended his tongue to hook and tease every corner within the human’s oral cavity with his lips sealing around the other party’s tongue to gently suck and savor it in detail.

—Though Shi Xiao no longer needed soul energy to mend his wounds, he still loved taking a fraction or two from time to time, purely as a way to satisfy his craving.

What’s more, just now after Yan Jiang was forced to release inside the bathtub, the fluctuation of soul energy around his body underwent a brief ripple, and his scent miraculously became even richer and more fragrant. Compared to usual, it carried an added touch of sweet cloyingness brought on by desire; truly a uniquely delicious, unexpected harvest. Shi Xiao couldn’t clearly explain why, but he alone loved this scent, acting almost like a decadent ruler indulging in debauchery. Only after sucking and kissing his fill did he remember other matters.

He licked away the lingering silver thread of saliva connecting their lips, and when he raised his head again, his expression had already swiftly returned to one of calm and self-restraint. Patting the human’s heaving back with one hand, he casually released a wisp of ghostly energy, and before long, the Yan family genealogy appeared in his hand.

The Yan family’s lineage was withered and sparse, and this genealogy had been revised for the last time more than a decade ago, making it long worn and yellowed.

At that time, Yan Jiang was still a toddler, and as the only son of the Yan family’s final branch, he was neatly lined up at the very last page of this registry. Shi Xiao flipped directly to that page, gazed at it with great interest for several moments, and suddenly said, “When this venerable one returns to the Ghost Realm, the very first thing this venerable one will do is check your mortal lifespan. Let’s hope it’s a bit short, so Ah Fu can reunite with this venerable one in the netherworld all the sooners.”

“……” Yan Jiang’s breathing had yet to settle, and using that as an excuse, he ignored him.

Though his words were plainly a curse wishing someone an early death, coming from his lips, they sounded almost like a heartfelt blessing, delivered with genuine sincerity and gentleness.

Having said that, without needing Yan Jiang to reply, he secretly memorized the birth characters recorded in the genealogy, and then casually flipped the registry forward to the very first page on his own accord.

The three large characters “Yan Huaizhi” appeared right before the eyes of the human and the ghost. Yan Jiang had only just steadied his breathing when he saw them, his expression turning somewhat unnatural again.

Yan Huaizhi was his direct ancestor from countless generations back. He had previously had no clear concept of this ancestor yet had always revered his achievements and his powerful ability to create the Yan family’s past glory. However, ever since learning of his entanglement with the Ghost King, this reverence slowly began to grow complicated; the reason Shi Xiao became the Ghost King, the reason he sought him out, and even everything he had done to him during this time, none of it could be separated from the “cause” planted by Yan Huaizhi a thousand years ago.

If someone were to say the Ghost King was a homosexual by nature, Yan Jiang would never believe it. He was much more inclined to believe that all the things the Ghost King was currently doing to him were actually in retaliation for that distorted infatuation of his ancestor nearly a millennium ago.

He gazed in a daze as the Ghost King studied his genealogy page by page.

After five or six pages like this, the other party suddenly stopped, pointing to the full name of a certain ancestor on it and asking, “With the wealth and prestige Yan Huaizhi had amassed, it would be no trouble for the Yan family’s descendants to secure a place at court. Even when the dynasty passed into the hands of a different surname six generations later, the Yan family’s standing remained unshaken. Why is it that by this generation, they suddenly became commoners?”

Those holding official ranks or titles all had side notes on genealogy. Starting from this particular name, the surrounding area was a sudden, glaring blank, making it exceptionally conspicuous. And it was precisely from here that the once-flourishing Yan family began to wither, with descendants growing scarcer page by page, every name beginning with the character “Yan” speaking of decay between the lines.

Yan Jiang snapped back to his senses.

He had originally always assumed that the Ghost King already had the matters of the Yan family at his fingertips, never expecting that the other party would be completely unaware of such a major event. Weighing his words for a moment, he replied, “This ancestor incurred the reigning emperor’s grave displeasure and was sentenced to beheading. The other members of the Yan family were implicated as well, stripped of their official posts and noble titles, and driven back to the southwest. For eight generations, none of them were permitted to set foot in the capital.”

“So, the Yan family weakened generation by generation, until it reached your generation, where you became poor and pathetic to this degree?”

“…Yes.” Though harsh to the ear, it was the truth after all, and Yan Jiang hesitated as he nodded. “By my grandfather’s and father’s generations, we were already unlettered commoners, but the ancestors’ dying wishes must not be forgotten, so…”

So, he single-mindedly applied himself to passing the imperial examinations, not just for himself, but also to comfort the spirits of his numerous predecessors in heaven. But Yan Jiang did not continue as he could vaguely sense the Ghost King’s sneering disdain for such notions.

Shi Xiao gave him a meaningful look and then continued to press:

“That being the case, why hasn’t this Yan Nan, who dragged down the entire clan, been stripped of his surname, and instead been written into genealogy?”

“My late father never told me, I’m not clear either.”

The Ghost King asked no more after that, slowly flipping through genealogy on his own accord, and the bedroom plunged into a heavy silence.

Yan Jiang was already exhausted to the extreme. This unusually harmonious exchange of dialogue allowed him to momentarily forget a bit of that agonizing distress. In this quiet silence, sleepiness descended upon him with astonishing speed. Soon unable to keep his heavy eyelids open, he unconsciously leaned against the Ghost King’s chest and fell into a deep sleep.

Shi Xiao did not push him away.

He repeatedly flipped back to certain pages of genealogy in his hands, and the more he looked, the stranger it felt.

Logically speaking, for the deceased, as long as their souls entered the Ghost Realm, the Ghost King had the ability to discern their life’s destiny directly from their birth characters. Yet no matter which member of the Yan family from recent generations Shi Xiao examined, what he could discern from them was always a sign that the family line would be cut short. Yan Jiang’s father was especially so, with the reading being, “His only son will die young, and he will waste away in grief until his own death.”

Could it be that he had been away from the Ghost Realm for too long, causing a deviation in his ghostly energy?

He gazed at Yan Jiang’s sleeping face for a long moment before slowly frowning.

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