Chapter 51:
I Wanted Him to Submit
“GE, DON’T TALK nonsense.” He Yu pressed a finger to his lips before immediately curving it and dropping his hand. He smiled faintly with his eyes lowered. “It was just a few glasses of liquor. What drugs are you talking about? Besides, no one forced you to drink. You drank it all of your own volition. Why are you blaming me for your intoxication?”
Xie Qingcheng grew even more furious. “You’re unbelievable… He Yu, this is absurd, how could you…”
He Yu smiled quietly, maintaining that same gentle mien as before. However, the facade only persisted for a few seconds before collapsing, as Xie Qingcheng’s last sentence tipped his temper past a critical threshold. He didn’t want to pretend anymore. His face changed as he struck back before anyone could react, grabbing Xie Qingcheng’s hair and ruthlessly shoving him to the floor.
Bang!
The back of Xie Qingcheng’s head crashed down on the edge of the marble table. Xie Qingcheng, whose body was weak from the effect of the liquor, let out a low gasp of pain as blood immediately gushed out of the wound.
“Aaah!” Some of the timider girls couldn’t help but shriek out of fear that a serious fight was going to break out, like birds startling at the twang of a bow.
He Yu rose to his feet and looked down indifferently at Xie Qingcheng.
The injury was only superficial—it looked scary, but it wouldn’t kill him—but the metallic scent of blood stoked He Yu’s madness. His expression was glacial, but a twisted fire seemed to burn within his dark eyes.
“Listen, Xie Qingcheng. You’d better stop lecturing me.” Grabbing a fistful of Xie Qingcheng’s hair, He Yu yanked his head up, forcing him to look at him. Then, he slid his hand down to run his thumb ever so slowly over Xie Qingcheng’s lips as he whispered, “You don’t have the right to teach me a lesson, nor do you have the status or authority.”
The man’s lips were cold as ice, while the youth’s thumb was hot enough to burn. But it wasn’t hot enough to thaw that ice; no pleasant words could be dragged from Xie Qingcheng’s lips.
He Yu and Xie Qingcheng stared at each other.
He Yu’s temper suddenly flared, like a spark bursting into flames. He straightened up and kicked Xie Qingcheng squarely in the chest, hard enough to make the tea table skid across the floor along with him. Wine glasses shattered all over the floor with a great crash.
The girls scattered in fright, then huddled together in the corner like a flock of startled birds as they watched these two guests who had suddenly come to furious blows.
He Yu gazed at the man lying on the floor, his eyes filling with the bitter hatred he had finally unleashed. “What I really can’t stand is when you lecture me with a mouth full of lies. Your legs are too weak to even stand up right now, so you should learn to kneel and prostrate yourself—and shut your mouth. That’s how you should behave.”
He lowered his almond eyes and elegantly straightened out his shirt with no expression on his face, then sat back down onto the leather sofa.
Xie Qingcheng was half-leaning against the tea table, coughing softly. He hadn’t often been hit before. When he was younger, he was usually the one dishing out the beatings, and when he got older and settled down, he no longer needed to resort to violence to solve his problems. This was the first time someone had smashed his head down and kicked him to the ground. Not only that, but his opponent was just a kid, still in school.
Xie Qingcheng didn’t even register the pain—when he pressed his hand to the wound at the side of his head and came away with a palm full of blood, he only felt an overwhelming rage flood through him, making the scene in front of him swim before his eyes. But what was even more terrifying was the restless arousal coursing through his body, growing fiercer by the second.
He had never experienced a feeling like this before. He barely ever reacted to desire; that was just the kind of person he’d always been. But he had drunk too much of that drugged liquor, and its cumulative effect was igniting practically all of the compounds in his body with a chemically induced fire. He forced his eyes shut, trying to suppress that terrifying tremble within him, but it was no use. Even his breathing had become abnormally heavy, and his clothes were a hot layer around him. It was like his entire body was about to be swept away by lust powerful enough to burn him up alive.
“He Yu… Fuck you…”
“You still have the energy to cuss me out? Did this shady nightclub water down the liquor or what?”
He Yu carelessly shoved the girl beside him, who was trembling from head to toe.
“You. Go help our guest up.”
Even though the girl was terrified out of her mind, she had no choice but to approach Xie Qingcheng, her small face deathly pale, and lean down to help him up.
As Xie Qingcheng got a whiff of that soft, cloying sweetness, the effect of Plum Fragrance 59 seemed to intensify. Panting, he fiercely pushed the girl away.
“Get away… I told you to get away from me!”
Frightened to the point of breaking down, the girl scrambled backward with a quiet sob, as if she wanted to hide in a corner of the room.
But He Yu intercepted her.
With his eyes fixed on Xie Qingcheng, He Yu pulled the girl toward him and gestured for her to kneel beside him. He carelessly stroked her hair with one hand as she curled up by his feet, as if he was petting a cat or a dog.
“Xie Qingcheng,” He Yu said. “You’ve been married before. How are you still so awful at showing favor to the fairer sex?”
Xie Qingcheng raised his thoroughly bloodshot eyes. The young man gazing down his nose at him from high above was alarmingly unfamiliar.
All these years, even though He Yu had been an evil dragon hidden in a rocky cave complete with horns, fangs, and a vicious tail, he could always see the subtle emotions on the faces of humans. He knew that he had to sheathe his piercing talons before he touched the cheek of a human with his sharp claws, that he mustn’t incite people’s terror.
But he didn’t want to disguise himself any longer.
He took in all of Xie Qingcheng’s resentment, but his heart was perfectly calm. He’d always been such a cruel and unfeeling person, hadn’t he?
He Yu gently but insistently poured a glass of red wine for the petrified girl beside him, forcing her to choke down its contents even as she held back tears, all the while stroking a faultlessly considerate hand over her back. “Don’t worry, everything’s fine.”