Wang Xuan's Offer

A few hours earlier — before collars, before crawls, before diamond plugs — Yan Chi had stopped following his mother at the shut hall door and left the mansion with a different hunger.

Thirty points. A legendary skill. A city full of possible accidents. He collected Qiuyu and Dongyu and headed for Wang Xuan's residence. If anyone in Jinling knew where perverted opportunity lived after dark, it was the fatty merchant heir who treated brothels like temples and temples like jokes.

The twins walked half a step behind him in the demonic fashion, matching strides, matching glances at every beauty who looked at their young master too long. Jinling's late afternoon was gold and dust and the smell of grilled eel from the canal stalls.

Yan Chi bought nothing. He was saving his appetite.

The twins wore matching outer robes over their usual thin underthings, hair pinned up for the street, eyes bright. Qiuyu asked if they were going to the Pavilion. Dongyu asked if they were going somewhere more interesting.

Yan Chi said they were going to see a fat friend about a fat opportunity, and both of them made faces, and he laughed, and for a stretch of the walk through the Yan district in the late afternoon he almost felt like an ordinary young master with ordinary plans. Then he touched Cuckold Partner in his mind and felt the four glowing names, and ordinary went away.

Dongyu noticed the change in his face. She always did. "Young master is thinking filthy thoughts," she said to Qiuyu, not quietly enough. Qiuyu sniffed.

"Young master is always thinking filthy thoughts." Yan Chi pinched both their sides and told them to behave at Wang Xuan's, which was like telling water to run uphill, and then the merchant compound's gates opened and the smell of money and sex rolled out to meet them.

Wang Xuan's house was lavish even by Yan standards — merchant gold stacked into courtyards, servant girls in provocative work outfits drifting through corridors with trays and giggles, guards who recognized Yan Chi and bowed them through without delay. Informed of the young master's location, Yan Chi entered a broad sitting room with the twins at his shoulders and stopped cold.

Wang Xuan sat on a large sofa with his pants down and his belly exposed, looking like a lecherous pale pig in merchant silk. Two stunning women attended him. One knelt on the floor with her mouth working wetly on his thick cock.

The other sat beside him teasing his nipples with painted nails and an amused smile. Both were beautiful. One looked younger; one had a fuller, riper allure. The resemblance between them was strong enough that Yan Chi's brain supplied the answer before manners could: Mother and daughter.

The sitting room was hung with red silk and warmed by a brazier of scented charcoal, and the air in it was thick enough to chew: musk and sweat and spilled wine and the sweetness of the oil the daughter had rubbed into her mother's shoulders. A low table beside the sofa held a platter of sliced pears and a jug of plum wine, both untouched, and a small gold bell that Wang Xuan evidently rang when he wanted more of something.

Wang Xuan noticed him and lit up like a festival lantern.

"Brother!" The word came out around a groan as the mother-slave took him deeper. Wang Xuan gestured expansively with one hand while the other rested on the mother's thigh.

"Hey, brother Yan Chi! Perfect timing. Look at my new slaves — bought them yesterday at a painful price, but worth every coin. Mother and daughter set. Exceptional. Want a turn when I'm done?"

Yan Chi's cock took interest on sheer reflex. The kneeling mother's bare ass faced him; from behind he could see her pussy and anus clearly, shiny with spit-drip and arousal, while she bobbed on Wang Xuan's shaft. The twins at Yan Chi's sides went stiff with identical anger — possessive, lust-wormed, unwilling to share their master's eyes.

He composed himself for their sake and for the thin scrap of dignity he still performed in public. The Pervert System did not ping for stranger mother-daughter oral service — nobody listed, nobody close — which only confirmed last night's insight again. Random beauty paid poorly. He filed the view under personal entertainment and turned down the offer with a smile that fooled nobody who looked at his groin.

Dongyu's nails were already in his sleeve. Qiuyu's qi had flared once, sharp and jealous, before she mastered it. The master ring on Yan Chi's finger pulsed with their twin outrage. He sent a calming pulse back through it — mine, you're mine, looking is not touching — and felt them settle a fraction.

He watched anyway. The mother's ass was round and pale and shiny with spit that had run down from her busy mouth. Her pussy lips were plump and parted. Her anus was a tight dark pink pucker that flexed when she bobbed deeper on Wang Xuan's cock.

Her thighs trembled with the effort of holding the pose, and a wet gleam ran from her knee to her ankle where spit and slick had dripped down. Each time she took him to the root her nose bumped against his belly and the whole rolling mass of him shook, and the sofa creaked under it. The daughter's painted nails left thin red tracks across his nipple, and he groaned each time as if she were pouring cold water on a burn.

The daughter caught him looking and smiled around her painted nails on Wang Xuan's nipple, a professional smile that said look all you want, young master, looking is free, touching costs. Yan Chi looked. His cock hardened. His slots stayed silent. Confirmation, again: closeness was the currency. These women were dust that happened to be beautiful.

"No, thank you. I have my own maids."

While saying it he kept staring at the mother-slave's open rear. Wang Xuan glanced down at his own spit-shining cock, laughed, and gestured at Qiuyu and Dongyu with greasy generosity.

"Of course! Why would my brother need other slaves when he has these two beautiful twins?"

The twins' cheeks flushed. Qiuyu's mouth tightened with the effort of not smiling, and Dongyu studied the ceiling as though the painted cranes on it had said something extraordinary.

Laughter filled the room. Yan Chi and the twins took the opposite sofa. Dongyu's hand found Yan Chi's thigh in a quiet claim. Qiuyu glared at Wang Xuan until the fatty, still being sucked, had the grace to look mildly apologetic.

Yan Chi sat and tried to look like a man who was not cataloguing a stranger's asshole for personal entertainment. He failed. Wang Xuan narrated the purchase with merchant pride: southern auction, painful price, mother first and daughter thrown in as a set because the auctioneer knew his tastes.

The mother was thirty-something, full-bodied, skilled. The daughter was early twenties, sharper-faced, hungrier. Both were adults. Both were wet. Both were nobody to the System. Yan Chi filed them under Wang Xuan's problem and Yan Chi's free show and asked about plans.

Yan Chi let the scene breathe one more filthy moment, then asked, "So — plans today? Or are you staying home playing with those slaves until you melt?"

Wang Xuan patted the mother's ass and grinned. "You think I bought them just for fun? I acquired them because of the Merchant Association celebration tonight. I attend with my father. He's leader of the association. He wants to introduce me to important people before I start at the academy."

Yan Chi frowned. "Why do you need slaves to attend a party?"

"Theme," Wang Xuan said, as if explaining weather. "Everyone attends with their own slaves. Games, activities. I can't wait for nightfall. The guest list is exclusive — top-class only. Endless beauties. Hell, even your father might be attending."

He scratched his belly with the hand that was not on the mother's thigh, leaving pale tracks in the sweat, and shifted his weight so that the daughter's nails slid to his other nipple. The brazier popped. Somewhere deeper in the house a woman laughed and a door banged.

The last sentence hooked Yan Chi under the ribs.

Father, slave theme, Merchant Association. The words stacked in his head like spirit stones in a gambling pot. He had thirty points and a skill that paid for other men's hands on listed women. His father at a party full of owned beauties was interesting.

His father at a party full of owned beauties with Yan Chi in the room as a waiter was a formation waiting to complete. He leaned forward. His eyes were too bright. Wang Xuan, even while being sucked, noticed.

Father at a slave-themed merchant party. Wealthy men with peculiar tastes. Rooms full of owned beauties. His Cuckold Partner skill sat up in his soul like a dog hearing a whistle. He knew opportunity had a shape, and the shape was tonight.

The thought that his father might bring his mother as a slave was so absurd that Yan Chi's mind rejected it before it finished forming. Patriarchs brought purchased beauties, war captives, bought mother-daughter sets like Wang Xuan's. They did not bring their Heavenly-realm wives on chains. Yan Chi filed the absurdity away and leaned forward on the sofa with his eyes bright. "Brother. Is there any way for me to attend?"

Wang Xuan's face fell into worried folds. "Brother, this party is special. Strict rules. I don't have authority to invite anyone. Only the Merchant Association extends invitations. Even my father had a hard time getting one issued for me, and he's the association leader."

Hopelessness flickered. Yan Chi pushed past it. "Is there really no way? I would be happy even just to observe."

Wang Xuan hesitated, shook his head, then sighed like a man offering a bad bargain to a friend he liked too much. "If you're that interested, there is one way. It may not be suitable for you."

Yan Chi's eyes lit. "I'm ready for anything. Just tell me how to infiltrate."

"You can disguise yourself as a waiter," Wang Xuan said. "You won't fully participate as a guest. You'll get a glimpse. And if you're lucky — very lucky — you might interact with a few beauties through the games and through the peculiar preferences high-class attendees bring with them. Waiters get close. Waiters get asked to assist. Waiters sometimes get used as props when rich men feel creative."

Yan Chi heard every caution and translated them into invitations.

Waiters got close, waiters assisted, waiters became props. In system language that meant eyes on listed women if father brought anyone, eyes on countless beauties either way, and a night of proximity that random brothel gold could not buy. Better than missing the night entirely. Better than sitting on thirty points while Jinling's densest concentration of perversion happened without him.

He glanced at Qiuyu and Dongyu — jealous, beautiful, already imagining him surrounded by other women's bodies — and then back at Wang Xuan, who was still being cleaned by a mother-slave's dutiful tongue. The mother's eyes flicked up toward Yan Chi once over the shaft in her mouth, professional and curious. The daughter smiled like she had seen young masters infiltrate parties before.

He had spun a wheel for a legendary skill and gotten a trap that paid when other men touched his women. A slave-themed merchant party was a forest of traps. Even if Yan Mei was not there — and of course she was not there, the idea was absurd — the night would still be dense with runoff. He would be there to see it. That was enough. That had to be enough.

Thirty points could become three hundred. Three hundred could become three thousand. The legendary skill that had mocked him with empties and a cuckold name might finally earn its adjective. He looked at Wang Xuan's round face, at the mother-slave's working mouth, at the twins' jealous eyes, and felt the evening lock into place like a formation completing. "I'll do it," he said. "Make me a waiter."

Dongyu's nails dug into his thigh. Qiuyu whispered, "Young master," in a tone that meant both please don't and please tell us everything after. He squeezed both their hands once without looking away from Wang Xuan.

Wang Xuan laughed around a groan as the daughter twisted his nipple. "Then stay for dinner, leave the twins if you must, and I'll have someone fit you a mask and serving whites. Father's convoy leaves at the second night drum. You enter with the staff, not the guests. Keep your head down until the games make head-down impossible. And if anyone asks your name, you are nobody from the kitchen line. Nobody lives longer than young masters at theme nights."

The daughter's nails whitened where they pressed. Wang Xuan's belly quivered like a bowl of jelly, and the cushions beneath him had darkened in a damp patch the size of a dinner tray.

Yan Chi agreed again, firmer. Dinner was brief and greasy and interrupted by the mother-slave crawling under the table once more because Wang Xuan could not help himself. Yan Chi ate anyway. Fuel for a long night. Points, he told himself, required stamina.

The roast duck came in on a silver platter with its skin burnished the colour of old amber, and a servant girl carved it at the table with a long thin knife, laying the slices in a fan across the plate. The sauce smelled of star anise and orange peel. Qiuyu pushed her portion around with a chopstick. Dongyu ate hers in small neat bites and kept her eyes on Yan Chi over the rim of her cup.

The mother-slave's head bobbed under the table while Wang Xuan tried to eat roast duck and failed at both eating and pretending he was not being sucked. The daughter poured wine for Yan Chi with a smile that suggested she knew exactly what young masters looked like when they were plotting something stupid.

Under the cloth the table shook faintly with every movement of her head, and the wine in the cups shivered into rings that crossed and re-crossed. Wang Xuan reached for a pear slice, missed, and fumbled it into his lap, and the daughter retrieved it with two fingers and fed it to him.

Qiuyu refused a second cup. Dongyu accepted one and drank it watching Yan Chi's face. "You're going to see something," she said quietly. "I can feel it. Bring it home to us after. Don't leave it in the hall." He squeezed her knee under the table and did not promise.

Yan Chi sat forward on the sofa, accepted wine from a provocatively dressed servant girl, and watched Wang Xuan finish in the mother-slave's mouth with the shameless focus of a man studying for an exam that mattered more than any academy test.

When Wang Xuan finally shoved his cock back into his pants and clapped sticky hands, the plan moved from talk to motion. A steward was summoned. Measurements taken. A plain waiter mask produced — dark cloth, anonymous, the kind that made a young master into furniture.

Serving whites were found in a staff chest: clean, modest, insultingly unlike the demonic fashion Yan Chi usually wore. Qiuyu helped him dress with stiff fingers and angry eyes. Dongyu whispered that he had better not enjoy other women too much without bringing the enjoyment home. Yan Chi kissed both their foreheads, tasted twin loyalty and twin lust, and promised nothing clean.

Qiuyu's eyes were wet. Dongyu's mouth was set. "If a woman touches you," Dongyu said, "you tell us which hole. Fair is fair." Qiuyu hit her sister's arm and then nodded anyway. Yan Chi laughed, masked already, waiter-ugly, and put them in the carriage himself. Watching them go hurt in a small clean way that had nothing to do with points. Then he went back inside and let Wang Xuan's steward finish turning him into furniture.

Amid Wang Xuan's household chaos, he practiced holding a tray, bowing, keeping his gaze low. The fatty circled him once, snorted, and declared him "ugly enough to be ignored if you don't speak."

"High praise," Yan Chi said.

"Highest," Wang Xuan answered. "Ignored waiters see everything. Remember that when the games start. And brother—" He sobered for a rare half-second. "If you see something you shouldn't — my father, your father, anyone — swallow it. Theme nights create stories that kill clans when mouths run."

Yan Chi nodded. Swallowing secrets was already his cultivation method.

Yan Chi practiced until his bow looked like furniture and his gaze looked like floor. Wang Xuan circled him one more time, adjusted the mask, and declared him ready. The fatty's mother-daughter slaves watched from the sofa with professional interest, as if grading a young master's disguise. The mother nodded once. The daughter smiled. Yan Chi felt like a man walking into a formation with his eyes open and his points hungry.

Wang Xuan clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to spill imaginary wine. "Second night drum. Staff entrance on the east side. Token in your sleeve. If anyone asks who sent you, you say Steward Han of the Wang kitchens. If Steward Han asks, you say I drunk-ordered it and you'll take the beating. Go make me proud. Or at least make me gossip." He left through the guest gate with his mother-daughter slaves veiled and collared, already performing for the convoy.

From the doorway Yan Chi watched the lanterns bob toward the guest gate, carried by boys in wine-red tunics who walked backwards to light the way for the veiled and collared figures behind them. The mother's ankle chain flashed once and went into the dark.

He thought of Cao Ning's lake bank and his mother's garden breeze and the twins' jealous eyes and Wang Xuan's mother-daughter set and a hall full of owned beauties, and he felt the second night drum climbing. He was furniture with a pulse, and the pulse was hungry.

Yan Chi waited in a side room with other hired waiters — lean boys, older men, a couple of outer disciples earning silver — and said nothing, and was nobody, and felt his cock press the modest whites every time he thought of games.

The room smelled of starch and boiled tea. An older man with a drooping moustache polished the same silver tray over and over with the hem of his sleeve, as if the shine were a prayer.