Invite…
Luo Congye recalled the night when he had been “invited” back into the cave by Bai Heting from outside.
Since then, a whole month had passed before Bai Heting remembered him again.
By now he already knew that the reason Qiu Chen had brought him here was because of this.
Luo Congye bit down until one side of his back molars went numb.
He took off his upper garments piece by piece, then squatted down to slowly unlace his boots.
The young man’s back tense into a drawn bow. Bai Heting let down the bed curtains, hooked a finger into the collar of his linen nightrobe to tug it open a little, and tried to make his beginning-to-scatter vision refocus on the carved white crane overhead.
It was to no avail, so he simply closed his eyes.
He only wanted to quickly end this obstructive heat so he could have an audience with the king as soon as possible, but Luo Congye’s fraught, overly cautious manner actually made the atmosphere exceptionally bizarre.
A brief silence fell over the room. A moment later, Bai Heting’s low, hoarse voice traveled out from within the heavy velvet curtains, “There is no essential difference between this and delivering messages or killing enemies; it is just a most ordinary task.”
Just a most ordinary task.
Luo Congye repeated the words silently in his heart.
He took off his last piece of clothing before looking up toward the massive, exquisitely carved canopy bed in the center of the room.
It was dead quiet outside, and Bai Heting’s patience had finally run out completely.
“If you can’t do it, get the hell out and call Qiu Chen in. I’ll switch to someone else.” He cursed in a deep voice. Just as he was about to get up, the deep green velvet curtain was ripped open a step ahead of him.
As the bedding sank, Bai Heting’s body stiffened along with it.
Blurred yet familiar bodily memories and the Alpha’s unrestrained pheromones instantly closed in on him, leaving him completely cornered and besieged.
No one spoke within the curtains, but the sound of breathing gradually grew heavier.
Luo Congye looked down, locking eyes with him in silence.
He knelt over Bai Heting, reaching his hand under the hem of the sweat-drenched nightrobe, feeling his way up from the calf to the thigh, bit by bit.
The body beneath his hands also tensed up inch by inch.
Bai Heting’s perception of this kind of thing had always been quite different from that of ordinary people.
To him, desire and pleasure had nothing to do with reproduction; they were shameful, vulgar, and ugly. They were a weakness and an utter burden. What he was about to do was merely a last resort to throw off that burden after his suppressants had failed.
But the sensation at this moment was far too strange.
He looked away from the Alpha’s shackling gaze, his eyes drifting down over that young, enviably well-built body before finally settling on those two strong thighs.
Bai Heting snapped back to alertness.
“Are you religious?” His expression turned solemn as well.
Followers of the Xili religion were now spread across the entire country, making religious belief completely normal, but only extreme converts would use self-harm as a way to train their endurance.
Luo Congye had two neat rows of knife scars on his legs.
Luo Congye, however, had no desire to chat about this topic. He used his knees to pry the long legs apart after Bai Heting’s nightrobe up to his waist, then answered slowly, “No.”
Bai Heting’s attention was still fixed on those scars when he was suddenly yanked by the waist and dragged downward.
Luo Congye leaned down and embraced him.
Now, the scars were out of sight, leaving only those eyes that looked like thick ink.
“Scars are ugly,” Bai Heting said, his tone carrying an ill-timed gravity. “The tip of a blade should be pointed at the enemy, not at your own people, and definitely not at yourself.”
Luo Congye offered not a single word in response to this admonition from a superior.
That day in the hunting grounds, he had clearly seen Bai Heting swing a blade to stab his own neck, though luckily that damn Alpha had stopped him just in time.
Otherwise, he never would have left that man with an intact corpse.
And besides…
“Then…” Using his thumb to stroke the nape of Bai Heting’s neck, he asked softly, “How did you get this scar of yours?”
Bai Heting froze for a moment.
This silly kid was actually talking back to him.
“Which scar?” His handsome features relaxed as Bai Heting looked at him meaningfully, countering with a question of his own, “The one on my shoulder?”
Luo Congye was stunned. At first, his eyes were full of astonishment, but after a moment, it was entirely replaced by vexation.
He didn’t just remember; but he remembered everything.
Bai Heting, however, had no strength left to keep playing riddles with him.
The moment his mind slackened, the surging heat once again took dominance over his body. Reaching out his hand, he felt the sinful thing between the Alpha’s legs and urged hoarsely, “Stop wasting time…”
Luo Congye, however, pinned his hand down.
Amidst his gradually quickening breaths, he said to Bai Heting with rigid, absolute solemnity as if taking an oath: “I will never let you suffer that kind of injury again.”
The kid wasn’t very old, but his tone was certainly arrogant.
Bai Heting couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to it.
“General.” Luo Congye fell silent for a moment, summoning every ounce of his courage amidst Bai Heting’s ambiguous yet heavily suggestive words. “I want to stand by your side as a true close guard, not as…”
“Not as what?” Bai Heting lifted his eyelids.
Not as…
A tool… summoned at your beck and call, dismissed just as easily.
But Luo Congye merely gritted his teeth, leaving the question unanswered.
Bai Heting truly could not understand what this kid was agonizing over.
He knew clearly that he possessed Luo Congye’s loyalty, and this task didn’t seem to cause the young Alpha any loss whatsoever.
As for a close guard…
He didn’t need a close guard.
Moving his wrist, he slowly stroked it a few times and asked curiously, “Who could possibly be closer than you?”
Luo Congye pinned his hand down once more.
The general clearly did not understand that the “closeness” he desired was not of this physical form.
With him refusing to get down to business, Bai Heting was genuinely annoyed this time.
“I said, if you can’t do it, get the hell out. I—”
“I can do it well.” Luo Congye gripped the hand that Bai Heting was trying to pull back tightly.
“So…” Burying his face into the crook of Bai Heting’s neck, his voice muffled as he said, “Don’t switch to anyone else.”
