Chu He’s body finally began to recover. When the weather was warm, he was finally permitted, with Zhou Hui’s company, to walk in the small community’s garden.
This permission was not easily won. Zhou Hui had initially opposed it—he was the type of person whose inner will was extremely difficult to change, even if his verbal refusal was delivered in a light and dismissive tone. Chu He had brought it up with him many times, trying everything from a firm attitude to gentle pleading, and in the end, he even had to get a little angry before Zhou Hui reluctantly removed the prohibition spell on the front door.
But every time they went downstairs, he would accompany Chu He. They would walk hand in hand in the garden below, sometimes sitting by the fountain to watch the large, red koi carp swim about.
This residential complex was worthy of its once-shockingly high price. The garden was vast, beautiful, and secluded, with clear streams murmuring hidden among the groves of trees. Large clumps of seasonal flowers bloomed beside the lawns. By the poolside under the palm trees, a circle of white tables and chairs was arranged. Zhou Hui would sometimes bring fresh juice and snacks from home, and they would casually while away an afternoon together.
In the evening, adults would occasionally bring their children out for a walk. The children would run over, asking for snacks in their milky voices. Chu He would smile, pick up a piece of cake or candy, and place it in the children’s outstretched palms.
He was truly a person who liked children. He seemed to have a natural affinity for those warm, small, soft creatures.
However, Zhou Hui would just sit to the side, sometimes reading, sometimes using a tablet to research something, oblivious to the people around him. Occasionally, a small dog or cat would run to his feet, and he would just gently nudge it away with the tip of his shoe, his gaze never wavering.
He didn’t like them.
He didn’t like those small, soft, helpless creatures crying for food.
When did it start? Sometimes, watching him, Chu He would wonder.
In Chu He’s memory, Zhou Hui had once liked Maha. At least, when Maha was still very small and boisterous, Zhou Hui would often hold the child all night, coaxing him to sleep. Sometimes he would place the little bird chick version of Maha on his shoulder or head, climb to the top of the mountain, and hum lullabies to the starry sky.
The warmth of those moments gave the illusion of eternity, but in reality, it was just a fleeting reflection of the moon in water, soon shattered into a thousand pieces in the long river of time.
After Maha turned seven or eight, he began to have frequent nightmares of his mother’s tragic death.
The scenes in his dreams were so clear and real that he would always wake up crying in the middle of the night. At first, the panicked child would come to his parents for comfort, but as the nightmares became more frequent, Zhou Hui’s emotions grew more and more anxious with his vague suspicions. His attitude became erratic. One night, his accumulated anxiety and depression finally erupted. When Maha came crying and knocking on the door, he callously refused him, leaving the child to cry outside until his voice broke.
Perhaps it was from that moment on that his gaze, when looking at Maha, held a trace of hatred and fear that even he himself could not detect.
He did not hide it well. Or rather, a child’s sensitive and tender heart had already sensed his father’s aversion.
Maha became more and more silent, perverse, and moody. The frequency of his nightmares sometimes blurred his distinction between reality and dreams. One morning, when Phoenix was dressing him, he suddenly looked at his mother and asked, “Aren’t you already dead?”—his eyes were questioning, his tone calm, as if the long torment of his dreams had made him accept the “fact” of his mother’s death from the bottom of his heart.
Phoenix spent a lot of time with him, even staying by his side all day, but the chaotic situation fluctuated between good and bad. When things were good, Maha was only averse to his father and extremely dependent on his mother. But when things were bad, Maha would refuse to even see his mother, because he couldn’t tell if his mother was a living person or a ghost.
Zhou Hui’s efforts and patience reached their limit under such perilous and chaotic circumstances.
Their second son, Jia Louluo, arrived at such an inopportune time.
In retrospect, the Zhou Hui of that time was not as mature, smooth, and worldly as he was now. The him of today would probably have been able to handle the crumbling family relationship with more ease, but back then, he had truly reached the limit of his abilities.
After Jia Louluo was born, Zhou Hui’s feelings for this child who resembled him were not so much love as a more complex emotion. On one hand, his natural sense of responsibility as a father was still there. On the other hand, he feared that Jia Louluo would become another Maha, and that one day in the future, he would once again portend a tragic end for his family.
Driven by this complex emotion, the fatherly love he showed Jia Louluo was very restrained. Although he fulfilled his duties as a father, it was really only a duty.
Sometimes he would even be afraid of Maha getting close to Jia Louluo. When he saw the two children together, he would feel that fate, like a devil, was hiding behind them, laughing wildly and unrestrainedly at him, step by step, towards the predetermined end.
Children are not fools. They may not understand their father’s complex emotions, but they can instinctively feel who is the most reliable. The more rigid and distant the father was, the more guilt would spur the mother to give more compensation and love, and the closer the children would become to Phoenix. Eventually, this formed a vicious cycle, like a vortex that could not be stopped. Even after Maha grew up and went to the Thirty-Three Heavens for quiet cultivation, the relationship between Zhou Hui and his second son, Jia Louluo, never fully recovered.
Perhaps it was from that time that Zhou Hui began to dislike children, and later, this dislike extended to all small, soft creatures that sought his protection.
Chu He had once tried to change this strange family dynamic, but Zhou Hui was unable to. He also tried to visit Maha, who was in quiet cultivation before the Buddha in the Thirty-Three Heavens, by himself, and tried to get closer to Jia Louluo, but the results were not very satisfactory. The strange and stiff atmosphere when father and son were together made both of them very awkward.
Phoenix once asked Zhou Hui if, without Maha’s ethereal “prophecy,” none of today’s events would have happened.
Zhou Hui thought for a long time and shook his head.
“Perhaps, from the bottom of my bones, I just don’t have the talent to be a father… Hell demons from the Sea of Blood are lowly creatures that only know how to kill and devour. They rarely go into heat or produce offspring. Even if they do have offspring, they have no nurturing instinct, because a child, from birth, is a competitor and plunderer of survival resources. Some demons even produce offspring when resources are scarce, just to use them as a food reserve…”
“So sometimes when I see Maha, I feel a sense of urgency and crisis from my instincts—I know that not only can I not touch him, but I must also raise him. But one day he will become my competitor, and in the near future, he will even become an existence that completely replaces me…”
When he said this, Zhou Hui gave a rare, bitter smile, his voice heavy. “—’Being replaced’ is a very scary thing. Perhaps I’m just projecting this fear onto my overly powerful offspring.”
·
The best thing about Phoenix was that he rarely persuaded others to accept his views or forced them to convert to a so-called “correct” direction. If Zhou Hui truly couldn’t do something, even if he himself thought it was necessary, he would not ask Zhou Hui to do it again and again.
He respected Zhou Hui’s racial instincts as a demon and understood his complex feelings towards his offspring.
The thousand years of quiet cultivation on Mount Sumeru finally freed Maha from the torment of confusing dreams and reality. During this period, Jia Louluo also slowly grew into an adult. After Maha came down from the Thirty-Three Heavens and returned to the human realm, the family lived in Tibet. On the vast snowy plateau, they formed a strange, balanced relationship.
It was like the peak of a snow-covered glacier. Although everyone knew that a single loud shout could cause tons of accumulated snow to collapse in an instant, at least before that scream erupted, everything was still temporarily maintained in a fragile balance.
If it weren’t for that specific trigger, the avalanche would not have happened.
And all destined fate soon began to turn.
At the golden peak of the snowy mountain, the Peacock swallowed the Buddha.
—The thirty-thousand-year Buddhist calamity tied to Phoenix had once again come to pass.
The Buddha broke out from the Peacock’s spine and brought down the most intense heavenly retribution in history. Billions of giant lightning bolts turned the glacier into a flat plain, cutting off the flow of the Yarlung Tsangpo River. The surging floodwaters submerged the vast plains for ten thousand li.
The Peacock struggled in pain amidst the sky full of electrical light, its mournful cries shaking the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths. Its feathers and flesh rained down like a storm on the collapsing earth. Phoenix wanted to rush up into the sky to save him but was held down firmly by Zhou Hui, who would not allow him to take a single step into the field of lightning.
Until the very last of the billion lightning bolts, the most powerful one that concentrated the wrath of all gods and Buddhas, was about to strike. The Peacock was finally left with only a final wisp of its true soul. Its scarred illusion appeared from between heaven and earth. It stretched its bleeding head to Phoenix and rubbed against its mother’s hand one last time. “Goodbye… Mother.”
Phoenix let out a heart-wrenching, tragic scream, forcefully breaking free from the eighty-one demonic seals. With a shriek, he transformed into his true form and rushed into the sky, taking the final blow with his body!
—That single blow shattered Phoenix’s body and burned him to ashes.
The charred Phoenix bones were swept away by the collapsing earth. With the floods and snowmelt, they were deeply buried under the ten-thousand-zhang glaciers of the Himalayas, never to see the light of day again.
—That was the starting point of all turmoil and separation.
·
“What are you thinking about?”
Zhou Hui looked up from his tablet and saw Chu He staring blankly at a child in the distance, being led by his parents, laughing and shouting with a schoolbag on his back. He was motionless.
“Nothing…” Chu He sighed almost inaudibly and turned a page in the book in his hand.
Zhou Hui pressed down on his hand, his thumb gently rubbing the back of it. After a long moment, he suddenly said, “Deputy Chief Yu’s little girl is two years old this year. She’s particularly gentle and quiet, never causes trouble…”
“Is the essential trait for a child you can tolerate being quiet and not causing trouble?” Chu He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Forget it. I’ve already lost half my life. We can talk about it later.”
He closed the book, having lost all interest, and walked to the edge of the pool. He squatted down to look at the sparkling blue water under the setting sun, and the clean, round white pebbles paving the steps.
A small dog ran up to him, wagging its head. Chu He looked around and saw no one walking a dog. Where did this come from? he wondered. He casually smoothed the dog’s long, golden-brown fur. It nudged Chu He’s fingers with its warm, wet nose, making him smile unconsciously.
Zhou Hui looked back at them from his chair, his gaze fixed on Chu He’s face, mesmerized and dazed.
“Let’s go back,” Chu He said, standing up from the edge of the pool.
However, he was too anemic. After squatting for a long time, he stood up too quickly and immediately felt dizzy. He subconsciously took half a step back and stepped on a smooth pebble on the steps.
The next second, he slipped backward and fell into the pool.
Splash—!
Chu He’s eyes flew open, and he sat up from the sofa!
Zhou Hui, caught off guard, sat stiffly on the edge of the sofa, holding his hand without a word.
Chu He, breathing heavily, looked around. He saw that he was sitting on the large sofa in his own home. The living room lights were off, the front door was tightly shut, and outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sky was already dark.
The setting sun, the little dog, the pool… it was like an absurd dream that vanished completely the moment he opened his eyes.
“…An illusion,” Chu He murmured in disbelief, looking at Zhou Hui. “Was that just an illusion? You created it for me?”
Zhou Hui’s face was cold and hard. He said nothing.
Chu He pulled his hand free, rolled off the sofa, and made a dash for the front door. But Zhou Hui spun around and grabbed him. Ignoring his resistance, he dragged him back and slammed him onto the sofa. “Are you insane? There’s a demonic seal on the door. If you want to burn off a hand, then go, go on!”
Zhou Hui’s voice was stern and harsh, but the hand holding him was like an iron clamp, not relaxing in the slightest. Chu He finally understood in that instant. All the “walks” he had taken during this time were illusions created by Zhou Hui. He had never, not even for a single step, left the house!
This absurd fact sent a chill through his heart, crawling up his limbs and into his very marrow. Even his voice was a little unsteady. “What on earth are you trying to do… Zhou Hui? Are you planning to keep me locked up like this forever?”
Zhou Hui didn’t answer. Chu He wrenched his hand free, but was immediately grabbed by the shoulders and pinned firmly against the back of the sofa!
“Let go, Zhou Hui! What are you trying to do? You’re insane!”
“I know what I’m doing.” Zhou Hui’s tone, however, was very calm. “Without my permission, you cannot take a single step out of this door.”
“Do you want to lock me up for a lifetime?!”
“I can do that,” Zhou Hui said.
Chu He looked at his face. The lights were off in the living room. The streetlights from the community outside shone through the treetops and the glass, illuminating half of his deeply chiseled profile. The corners of his lips were as straight as if carved by a knife, without any curve.
He was serious.
Chu He stared at him, breathing heavily. After a long moment, his voice, stiff from forced suppression, came out. “Why… Is this necessary?”
Zhou Hui looked at him deeply. After a long moment, a strange, cold smile appeared on his face. “I told you I didn’t want to hear the reason you stopped me from killing Trailokyavijaya Wisdom King. I would find out for myself…”
“—And I did.”
Chu He’s gaze shifted slightly, but then his chin was gripped by Zhou Hui’s thumb, forcing him to look up and meet his gaze.
“Remember during the State Security turmoil, when you single-handedly took on the entire Fifth Division in the hospital, and everyone had one soul and two spirits stolen by you, turning them into vegetative states? These people were later escorted back to the special division’s underground prison. Not a single one died…”
“—I found it strange. In such an intense combat situation, ensuring that no one suffers a fatal injury is harder than avoiding injury yourself. Why did you go to such great lengths to achieve that?”
“So I had Situ the Hou investigate. Although it was delayed a bit because he was seriously injured, last week, he finally uncovered an even more astonishing fact…”
Zhou Hui paused, looking directly into Chu He’s pupils.
“Situ told me that during your battle, several members of the Fifth Division were critically injured and on the verge of death, but you immediately used first-aid techniques to save them—which is to say, you deliberately showed mercy and saved everyone’s life.”
Chu He stared at him and said flatly, “I am soft-hearted and merciful to my enemies. It’s not the first day you’ve known that.”
“It is indeed the first day I’ve known,” Zhou Hui laughed.
“I reviewed your past battle records. A long time ago, when you subdued demons, you were fearless, killing when you had to, never acting abnormally. But gradually, starting from a few hundred years ago, you suddenly became exceptionally soft-hearted. You never sent anyone to hell again, and several times you were even suspected of deliberately holding back.”
“Your behavior is too unreasonable. Connecting it to your act of stopping me from killing Trailokyavijaya Wisdom King this time, I couldn’t help but come up with a seemingly absurd, yet very realistic guess—”
Zhou Hui paused, leaned close to Chu He’s ear, his voice as light as a demon’s. “You were not granted the title of Wisdom King by comprehending Buddhist principles, but by your combat merits. Which means, if your combat merits increase further, you will be granted a higher title next—and the necessary condition for that promotion is to pass a heavenly tribulation.”
“On your cultivation record now, the column for combat merits is already full.”
“Now, you cannot take another life, otherwise your cultivation will instantly reach its peak, and the lightning tribulation will immediately descend. Without even your true form, you will be struck to death amidst the endless lightning…”
Chu He struggled violently. Zhou Hui immediately flipped over and straddled his narrow waist, his strong hands covering his mouth, easily pinning him down.
The posture was full of suppression and humiliation. Chu He’s eyes grew moist from the difficulty of breathing. Zhou Hui stared at him, his nerves, washed over by anger, spreading an indescribable excitement. “So you went to find Fan Luo, because the Demon Lord in his prime can dispel a lightning tribulation.”
He leaned down, his hot breath almost brushing against the red corners of Chu He’s eyes. He said, word by word, “But I’m just curious, why didn’t you come to me?”
“—You knew perfectly well that even if I were to be ground to dust, I would definitely protect you from any harm. Why didn’t you, come, to, me?!”
The last ray of light from outside the floor-to-ceiling window disappeared below the horizon. Darkness rolled in like a river, drowning the last shred of reason.
With a burst of strength from nowhere, Chu He suddenly threw Zhou Hui off, got up, and dashed for the front door!
NSFW
However, Zhou Hui reached out and grabbed him, dragged him over the coffee table, and threw him to the floor, tearing his shirt to shreds with a rip!
“—Zhou Hui!”
“I told you, don’t really push me to that point…” Zhou Hui’s fingers dug deep into the messy hair at the back of Chu He’s head. He leaned close to his ear and whispered, “Otherwise, I’ll make it so you can’t even cry.”
He stripped off the last bit of covering from the person beneath him with ease, pressing that incomparably beautiful face against the cold floor. He watched as the pale, snow-like skin was covered by the scattering hair. Such a wretched state sent his brutal desire for abuse from every nerve ending, like lightning, into his brain.
The air in Zhou Hui’s entire lungs was scorching hot. The sky-high anger and jealousy made him abnormally excited. He didn’t even take off his own clothes, just unzipped his pants, and his hot, hard organ sprang out eagerly.
Chu He was pressed face down, his struggles turning into pained gasps. “Gentle… be gentle!”
Fortunately, he couldn’t see the state of that sexual organ at that moment, otherwise he might have risked his life to struggle and escape. But at this moment, all resistance would only have a more tragic counter-effect. The moment that faint plea left his lips, the fire in Zhou Hui’s heart exploded with a boom.
He didn’t even do any preparation, just pushed against the small, tender entrance and viciously forced the head in!
Chu He let out a pained, choked cry. “…Ah!”
He hadn’t experienced this for a long time. The passage was abnormally tight and dry. The moment of friction gave Zhou Hui an explosive pleasure. Zhou Hui reflexively thrust himself all the way in. The force was so great it even made a sharp, squeezing sound. The electric shock-like stimulation almost drove him mad with excitement.
“Did your useless pretty-boy first love do you like this? Hmm?” he asked Chu He over and over, watching those beautiful eyes, which had gone vacant from the intense pain, suddenly close in extreme humiliation. The twisted pleasure in his heart instantly overwhelmed everything else. “I’m talking to you, did you hear me?”
Chu He’s long eyelashes formed an almost fan-shaped shadow, trembling continuously under the fierce thrusts and the string of humiliating words. He gritted his teeth, saliva he couldn’t swallow trickling from the corner of his mouth to the floor, only to be wiped away by Zhou Hui’s thumb.
“Tsk tsk, so much water, and it’s so wet down there too…”
During the thrusts, the hole spasmed, tightly clenching the huge penis, but the fluid still quickly flowed down his thighs, making clear squelching sounds with the thrusts. The sound made Zhou Hui extremely excited. Every impact accurately hit the most vital spot, grinding fiercely before pulling out completely, then ramming back in like a pile driver.
“So tight. You can’t bear for me to leave, can you?” Zhou Hui nibbled on his earlobe, panting heavily. “Why are you so thirsty? Hmm? Want more, don’t you?”
Chu He’s fingers gripped the carpet tightly, letting out a weak, unbearable moan. The next second, the fierce weapon inside him suddenly grew even larger, squeezing him so hard he let out a scream. “Zhou… Zhou Hui! Don’t do this!”
“Don’t do what?” Zhou Hui asked with a demonic smile, maintaining this inserted position, his entire body visibly transforming into a beast. “—You don’t want this?”
The beast’s sharp claws pinned Chu He’s hands. The sexual organ thrust in without mercy, and the miserably tight, soft flesh was immediately fucked into spasms!
Chu He let out a trembling, crying “Ah!”, but then the sound of water squelching came from where they were joined. There was so much fluid it was a slick mess, flowing down his thighs to the floor, even wetting the beast’s glossy black fur.
“—I told you you liked it,” the muscular beast’s body pressed down completely on Chu He’s naked form. Like treating a female animal, he thrust violently, looking down at his beautiful face, which was a mixture of pain, humiliation, and lust, and said coldly, “You just like it this way. Only this way will you be obedient. Only this way can you…”
His long, thick, shiny sexual organ pulled out, deliberately rubbing for a moment, so that Chu He’s body, repeatedly roasted by lust, trembled and twisted. The opening of the hole opened and closed, as if begging to be treated more roughly.
Zhou Hui could almost hear the satisfied sigh from the twisted, crazy soul within him. It was a pleasure more thrilling than orgasm.
“So you want to be fucked this badly, hmm? How did you get so itchy?…”
As if torturing him, he inserted the fierce weapon back into the wet, hot hole, inch by inch. The feeling of being eagerly swallowed and sucked made the beast’s pupils turn blood-red. His sharp claws even left four scratch marks on Chu He’s elegant, lean back.
Normally, it should have been very painful, but at this moment, it was like a whip full of electricity, lashing fiercely at nerves trembling with pleasure.
Chu He’s gaze was vacant and lost. His mind was a blank. He didn’t even notice when the beast roared and pinned his wrists. The next second, the savage weapon inside him suddenly entered an even deeper place, so deep it was almost terrifying. Chu He struggled unconsciously, and then the beast bit down on his fragile nape.
It was the way beasts copulated. Zhou Hui was doing it on purpose. He deliberately treated him this way, this beautiful person who was always high in the clouds, full of compassion, now could only be pressed beneath him like a female animal, helplessly accepting being fucked, ravaged until he was like a puddle of spring mud.
This is mine, Zhou Hui thought.
Even every broken moan, every trembling breath, is mine.
The beast’s sexual organ finally extended its barbs, hooking into the deepest, most tender part of his body, and began to ejaculate torrentially. The scalding semen shot completely inside, not a single drop leaking out during the entire long process. Even after he pulled out, it would remain inside this beautiful body for a long time.
It was the most thorough humiliation and possession.
Chu He’s consciousness collapsed from the heat, his mind unclear, his fingers spasming as they gripped the floor. The beast lay on top of him, occupying this trembling, soft, naked body like a master. As he ejaculated, he still thrust in small increments, until the long ejaculation was finally over. Only then, with a look of supreme dominance, did he lick away the lewd saliva that Chu He couldn’t swallow from the corner of his lips, and then licked his way down to his small belly, which was slightly bulging from being filled with semen.
Chu He reflexively flinched, but the overstimulated back hole twitched, causing him to once again let out an unconscious, broken gasp.
“You need me so much…” Zhou Hui said in a low voice, looking up to kiss his sweat-soaked hair and his snow-white cheeks, which were as if washed with water.
The violence in his eyes gradually faded, and a hint of condescending, restrained tenderness slowly emerged.
“You love me so much…”
·
Chu He slept for a day and a night this time, completely unconscious, his memory a total blank. He didn’t even know how many times he had been fed the medicinal juice in his sleep.
And Zhou Hui seemed to have returned to a state of calm, as if the all-consuming anger and jealousy from that day had vanished without a trace—or rather, had been once again deeply suppressed beneath a seemingly indifferent exterior.
He even had the leisure to hold Chu He, who was completely unaware, and sit on the balcony for a while, watching the sunlight reflect on the ends of his long eyelashes like thousands of fine gold specks. He slowly studied the man’s eyes, brows, and features, as if trying to find some flaw. But no matter how he looked, he would remember their first meeting in the Thirty-Three Heavens that year. It was as if the years in between had slipped away in an instant, leaving no trace of time on that face.
Zhou Hui lowered his head and looked at his still strong and powerful hands.
—Perhaps the only one who will gradually weaken and fade with the passage of time is me.
By the third day, Chu He awoke from his sleep. Zhou Hui’s attitude was normal, as if nothing had happened. He casually cooked, watered the flowers, chatted with him, and rested his head on his lap to watch TV, not mentioning the removal of the demonic seals and illusions at all.
His behavior really was as if he planned to keep Chu He locked up for a lifetime until he died.
—However, this was destined to be impossible.
On the afternoon of the third day, Yu Jingzhong called Zhou Hui and told him directly over the phone, “I need you to come over immediately. Stop playing your boring imprisonment game. Bring Phoenix No. 4 with you.”
Zhou Hui rolled over on the sofa, his cheek still resting on Chu He’s lap. “What’s wrong?”
“Over here,” Yu Jingzhong paused, then said, “we have an unprecedented situation.”
