So full…
Outwardly, Yan Yihuan sat neatly at the desk, robes proper and hat in place, yet his back kept curling forward and he quietly put a hand on his lower abdomen.
He wasn’t sure if it was because he was too sensitive, but even the slightest movement made his scalp tingle. More than once, he’d had to bite hard on his lower lip to keep any sound from escaping.
Yan Yihuan found it increasingly hard to straighten his back, and in the end, simply slumped over the table, his right hand still resting on his abdomen. Through the crook of his arm, he stole a glance at Li Xuanming. The emperor’s brows were slightly furrowed, his expression serious as he silently read the memorial in his hands.
At first, Yan Yihuan had tried his best to resist the sensation, but as it came again and again, the discomfort gradually faded, leaving behind an itch that felt just out of reach, teasing and unbearable.
He couldn’t help but move slightly on his own. The soft chime of the bell made him freeze in embarrassment, and with an involuntary clench, a jolt of tingling sensation shot straight up from deep inside to the crown of his head.
“Nngh…”
A sweet, aching sound slipped out of him before he could catch it. His back arched slightly, then trembled as he slowly came back down. All the visible skin beneath his cuffs and collar had turned a deep, rosy red. His knuckles were white from clenching his fists.
Perhaps because of that fleeting relief, he found himself starting to move again, soft and quiet, as though coaxing something out. His gaze grew increasingly unfocused, pupils chasing shadows, lips slightly parted, lost in a haze of want.
Reason hadn’t entirely left him. Although tempted, he still didn’t reach to touch himself, but that only made the frustration worse. At last, Yan Yihuan couldn’t help but look toward Li Xuanming, who remained seated at the head of the room. He let out a few tentative whimpers, but not once did the emperor turn his head, his brush continuing to move steadily across the page.
“Hey…” After another moment of internal struggle, Yan Yihuan finally couldn’t hold back and called out, “Your Majesty?”
The hand holding the brush paused ever so slightly, so subtly it was barely noticeable, leaving a tiny dot of ink on the memorial. Then that same hand calmly set the brush onto the brush rack and slid the memorial up to the edge of the desk, only then did he turn to look at Yan Yihuan,
“What is it?”
As if you don’t know!
Yan Yihuan seethed silently, a flicker of grievance flashing in his eyes. He gave a subtle glance behind himself,
“I want to take it out…”
“Hm?” Li Xuanming rested his chin on one hand, his expression unchanged, “Then take it out yourself.”
Yan Yihuan’s fists clenched tightly. He was already left hanging like this, if he took it out now, wouldn’t everything come crashing down?[mfn](t/n: probably implies that if he took it out, Li Xuanming wouldn’t continue and just leave him unsatisfied like in the previous chapter)[/mfn] That unbearable sensation was something he had already experienced once earlier that noon.
If Yan Yihuan had looked closely at Li Xuanming at this moment, he would have noticed the faint flush at the corners of his slightly lifted eyes, and the clearly visible pink behind his ears. But right now, he was too caught in his own turmoil to notice anything else.
“I… I want…” His voice faltered. His tightly furrowed brows were already flushed red, and though his lips trembled a few times, no words came out. Everything he wanted to say was written in those dark eyes, lashes trembling, fixed on the emperor with a gaze full of shame and silent pleading.
Li Xuanming drew in a deep breath, as if he was trying his best to suppress something deep within. The corners of his mouth curled into a smile that made Yan Yihuan’s breath catch.
“Come here.”
Following the ringing of the bell, Yan Yihuan couldn’t help but let out a soft gasp before being pulled forward and pressed against the desk. Beside his ear came a low voice, quiet yet full of dangerous warmth,
“Want what?”
A sudden wave of emptiness swept over him. Yan Yihuan shut his eyes tight, wrestling inwardly with himself, then grit his teeth and spat out,
“You!”
The desk was smooth, but it was also a little hard, and a little cold. He had to stretch his toes just to barely brush the floor, his feet nearly dangling. The edge of the desk pressed against his lower abdomen, and a slight pain was brought on the moment of impact.
Beside Yan Yihuan’s cheek lay a memorial filled with dense writing. Amidst the slow rocking of his body, he caught a glimpse of three words: Request for Audience.
Isn’t this something important?
As he gradually calmed down, Yan Yihuan seemed to regain a shred of clarity. He reached out, trying to push the memorial a little farther away.
“Still distracted?”
The words came just before a sudden jolt, strong and overwhelming. His fingers tightened involuntarily and ended up pulling the memorial toward him instead. A few drops fell from his lashes onto the page, blurring the characters into smudges of ink.
It wasn’t until the orange glow of sunset filtered through the half-open window, casting its light into the imperial study, that the last traces of sound in the imperial study gradually faded into silence.
“Doesn’t it feel especially satisfying since you begged for it yourself?”
Still trembling faintly, Yan Yihuan pressed his lips together and refused to respond to such a shameless question. If it weren’t for being teased so far past his limit, he never would’ve begged in the first place!
As strength slowly returned to his limbs, his gaze fell upon the now-crumpled memorial, and only then did he notice it seemed to be a greeting memorial from King Wei.
Ridiculous! This is ridiculous!
He had been trying to push the memorial aside, afraid of damaging it, yet the emperor chose that exact moment to do that on purpose. In this palace, rules were everywhere, and so were crimes. If he ruined an imperial memorial, who could say what charge that might bring?
Yan Yihuan pressed down hard on the memorial, trying to smooth it out. But even if he managed to flatten it, the words ‘Request for Audience’ had already been so smudged by his tears that they were barely legible.
Yan Yihuan decided to take the initiative, picked up the memorial and turned around, “This cannot be blamed on me.”
The flush on his cheeks hadn’t even faded, and he was already trying to shift the blame. Li Xuanming shot a sidelong glance at the paper in his hands, then took it and, to Yan Yihuan’s wide-eyed disbelief, tore it in half and tossed it aside.
“Blame me.”
“You— That’s—”
Yan Yihuan wanted to accuse him of treason on the spot. But then he remembered, others might be guilty of treason, but he was the emperor. What counted as treason for anyone else became perfectly righteous coming from him. Who could possibly punish him for a crime?
And all those secret plans he’d been making: ‘to do this to him first, then that’, vanished like smoke the moment he remembered the man was the emperor. There was no possibility left.
To Yan Yihuan, that was a regret he could never truly speak aloud.
A spring rain had fallen just the day before, and it was colder outside than it had been in days. A breeze drifted lazily through the open window, and the chill made Yan Yihuan shiver.
Some people were still dressed impeccably, while others were already a complete mess.
But precisely because of that mess, he went to bathe without even eating. What surprised him, though, was that the bath really was just a bath, and nothing else happened.
Still, by the time Yan Yihuan finally ate his dinner, his eyelids were already too heavy to hold open. He didn’t even care that the bed he lay on was the emperor’s own dragon bed. The moment his head touched the pillow, he shut his eyes and fell deeply asleep.
For a rare occasion, Li Xuanming didn’t stay up reviewing memorials. He got into bed early and pulled the already sleeping Yan Yihuan into his arms.
He’d thought that the many complications of the day would haunt his thoughts like always. But for some reason, listening to Yan Yihuan’s steady breathing, Li Xuanming felt an unfamiliar calm settle over him and soon drifted into peaceful sleep.
A quarter into the Yin hour[mfn]3:15 a.m. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_timekeeping)[/mfn], the sky was still dark.
Yan Yihuan was sleeping soundly, fully immersed in his dreams, when Li Jiang’s voice suddenly drifted in from somewhere far away, accompanied by a light patting on his body.
“Historian Yan, Historian Yan?”
“You’re to attend court with His Majesty today, it’s time to get up.”
What?!
Yan Yihuan was instantly wide awake. Attend court?!
Author’s Note:
Li Xuanming: You wanted to do what to me?
Little Yihuan: N-nothing… I– just this and then that…
