“No… I’m not looking.” Mu Xueshi kept his eyes tightly shut, face burning with embarrassment and nerves.
Seeing him react this way, the Third Prince’s cold expression eased. He watched Mu Xueshi closely, studying every small movement.
Mu Xueshi cautiously opened his eyes a crack. The look on the Third Prince’s face made him imagine a demon waiting to pounce.
To his embarrassment, the more intensely he was watched, the harder it became to control his body’s involuntary response.
He shut his eyes again and breathed faster as the Third Prince moved closer.
“Open your eyes, or the candle wax will fall on you,” the Third Prince warned.
Mu Xueshi’s eyes flew open. Seeing the melted wax gathering above him made his heart race.
The Third Prince reached down in a deliberately provocative way while Mu Xueshi watched.
Mu Xueshi flushed and became increasingly restless under the teasing.
“What do you want me to do?” the Third Prince asked.
Mu Xueshi could not bring himself to answer. What might once have felt intimate now felt humiliating.
Even so, the deliberate provocation made it difficult for him to remain composed.
Finally, Mu Xueshi hid under the blanket and snapped, “Why are you acting like this?!”
The Third Prince pulled the blanket away and picked up the candle again.
“No!” Mu Xueshi pointed at it in alarm, his face turning pale.
“Come here,” the Third Prince ordered.
Mu Xueshi shrank backward instead.
The Third Prince pulled him close and restrained him so that struggling accomplished nothing.
The candle tilted toward Mu Xueshi’s chest.
“Didn’t you say you wouldn’t drip it if I opened my eyes?”
The Third Prince sneered. “I said I would if you kept them closed. I never promised I wouldn’t if you opened them.”
Mu Xueshi silently begged for rescue and, as the wax threatened to fall, shouted the Third Prince’s name.
The Third Prince paused, but did not lower the candle.
Mu Xueshi held his breath, body rigid.
A large drop of wax finally fell onto his chest.
Mu Xueshi had prepared to scream, but the sudden heat shocked him into silence.
A moment later he burst into tears, crying that it burned.
The candle had been specially prepared so that it would cause intense heat without seriously burning the skin. Much of Mu Xueshi’s panic came from fear, though the sensation was still painful.
After the first shock faded, the pain eased into lingering numbness. Mu Xueshi saw a small reddened mark where the wax had cooled.
Even knowing it had not seriously injured him, he remained frightened of the flame and the memory of the initial pain.
“Don’t do it again. I won’t argue. I… I wanted you to touch me,” Mu Xueshi admitted through embarrassment.
“Touch where?” the Third Prince deliberately asked.
Mu Xueshi glanced at the candle and answered vaguely, “Lower…”
“That could mean many places.”
Mu Xueshi grew angry and embarrassed at the deliberate teasing.
“Where you touched before.”
“And where was that?”
Mu Xueshi finally forced himself to answer plainly.
After saying it, he broke into a cold sweat from embarrassment.
The Third Prince replied that the answer had come too late and that Mu Xueshi would have to endure another kind of punishment instead.
He moved the candle slowly downward, stopping before it reached Mu Xueshi’s abdomen.
Mu Xueshi’s breathing broke into distressed sounds as pain, fear, and involuntary physical response tangled together.
The Third Prince watched him with conflicting impulses, at once wanting to stop and comfort him and wanting to continue punishing him.
“Stop… I can’t take it… Xi… please…” Mu Xueshi begged tearfully.
“Will you leave again?” the Third Prince demanded.
Mu Xueshi froze, not immediately understanding what he meant.
Seeing the hesitation, the Third Prince moved the candle closer to one of Mu Xueshi’s legs.
Mu Xueshi cried out and tried to pull his legs together.
The Third Prince restrained him more firmly so he could not close them.
“Will you leave again?” he repeated, continuing the threat in a controlled way.
“I won’t… I won’t…” Mu Xueshi answered instinctively, shaking his head as sweat soaked his hair.
In the Third Prince’s eyes, Mu Xueshi’s distressed appearance only intensified the possessiveness already consuming him.
The Third Prince waited until more wax had gathered, then tipped it onto a particularly sensitive area, shocking Mu Xueshi with the sudden heat.
Mu Xueshi cried out and fainted from the combined fear and overload.
The Third Prince set the candle aside and stared at him. Love, possessiveness, resentment, and relief had become almost impossible for him to separate.
The deeper his attachment became, the more violently he resented the fear of losing Mu Xueshi again.
And Mu Xueshi still did not understand what the Third Prince was truly angry about.
The Third Prince laid him flat and used medicated cloth to remove the cooled wax carefully.
Whenever he touched a reddened spot, Mu Xueshi trembled faintly even while unconscious. After cleaning him, the Third Prince remained beside him rather than leaving.
He turned Mu Xueshi over and looked at the whip mark he had caused earlier, regret tightening his chest. If Mu Xueshi had told him the truth from the beginning, he thought, perhaps none of this would have happened.
The Third Prince touched the injury gently enough to wake Mu Xueshi.
Any tenderness on the prince’s face vanished the instant Mu Xueshi opened his eyes. Mu Xueshi was too exhausted to speak and still looked afraid.
The Third Prince recognized that fear immediately.
Part of him wanted Mu Xueshi to laugh around him freely again; another part wanted Mu Xueshi frightened enough never to deceive or leave him again.
What am I supposed to do with you?
Mu Xueshi felt utterly drained, yet his body still reacted involuntarily to the prince’s closeness.
The Third Prince noticed and resumed intimate contact despite Mu Xueshi’s weakness.
Mu Xueshi’s overstimulated body reacted almost immediately.
Ashamed and frightened by the response, Mu Xueshi tried to compose himself.
The Third Prince did not stop.
Mu Xueshi’s body reacted again despite his effort to suppress it.
The Third Prince mocked that involuntary response with a crude teasing name.
Mu Xueshi flushed and tried to evade the prince’s hands, unwilling to let his lack of control be used against him.
The Third Prince deliberately pressed another sensitive point, and Mu Xueshi went weak before he could resist.
His taunting remark made clear that Mu Xueshi would not be permitted to refuse whenever the prince wanted him.
Pain flashed through Mu Xueshi’s eyes. To Mu Xueshi, those words seemed to confirm his worst fear: that only the body he occupied still held value for the Third Prince.
The Third Prince then forced the encounter to continue, physically overpowering Mu Xueshi without giving him meaningful control.
Mu Xueshi’s emotions soon became confused by pain, attachment, and involuntary sensation. Even while believing he was being used, he remained emotionally drawn to the Third Prince.
The Third Prince changed Mu Xueshi’s position in a way Mu Xueshi found humiliating.
He then forced Mu Xueshi to look at what was happening instead of hiding his face, worsening his shame.
The Third Prince continued touching him in ways meant to provoke an involuntary reaction.
Mu Xueshi could not suppress a sound.
Seeing the reaction, the Third Prince intensified the teasing.
“It tickles…” Mu Xueshi murmured without meaning to.
The Third Prince continued the unwanted intimacy despite Mu Xueshi’s attempts to evade him.
He changed their position again and held Mu Xueshi facing him, continuing the encounter with the same possessive intensity.
Mu Xueshi’s body reacted despite his embarrassment, and the Third Prince deliberately withheld relief to keep him under control.
“Xi…” Mu Xueshi breathed, looking at him pleadingly.
The Third Prince ordered Mu Xueshi to handle his own physical response while he watched.
Mu Xueshi refused at first and tried to seek relief without complying.
“No…” he protested in frustration.
The Third Prince’s gaze remained unyielding.
He repeated the order.
At the same time, he intensified the physical pressure on Mu Xueshi.
Overwhelmed and unable to obtain relief otherwise, Mu Xueshi finally gave in.
His initial movements were hesitant and ashamed, but as the encounter continued he stopped caring about appearances.
The Third Prince was pushed close to losing control by Mu Xueshi’s reaction, and the encounter became rougher until Mu Xueshi was overwhelmed.
“Xi…” Mu Xueshi cried out brokenly.
The Third Prince reached his own release soon afterward.
Mu Xueshi lay there afterward, breathing hard and unsure how to look at him.
The Third Prince withdrew and, unlike before, did not stay to hold or care for Mu Xueshi. He dressed and walked toward the door without another glance.
The warmth and violence from moments earlier vanished as though they had never existed, leaving only his cold back.
Mu Xueshi suddenly remembered that someone else was now living in the Third Prince’s chambers. The prince had once said that only Mu Xueshi would ever sleep beside him, but Chen Youzai had heard those words while occupying someone else’s life.