NOVEL NEXT Chapter 8: Losing Control
IF SOMEONE HAD GONE BACK in time and told Mo Xi three I'll let days ago, "Xihe-jun, you in on a secret: Three days from now, you're going to bed a whore," Xihe-jun would have, without a doubt, broken all their teeth and shattered their face.
But now he didn't seem to have any other choice.
In the end, he rapped his knuckles on the line that said Conversation. As he chose, his expression was dark, features filled with repressed shadow.
Mo Xi had made his choice.
Gu Mang held his hand out to him.
"What do you want?"
"Give me money."
"You!" Mo Xi was enraged, his eyes red, so much so that he couldn't even articulate his anger. "I-!"
Gu Mang didn't make a sound; he only spread his fingers and waited. He was speaking very little now, not talking unless he had to.
But the General Gu in Xihe-jun's memories spoke often. When he was facing the soldiers on the drill grounds beneath the blazing sun, he always strode about, proud and powerful, pacing back and forth and shouting at them as his skin glistened with sweat like crystal droplets on a panther's fur. He always grinned brilliantly, his black eyes bright and shining, a little canine peeking out.
Mo Xi gave Gu Mang the most valuable unit of currency in Chonghua: a golden cowrie.
Chonghung didn't thank him. He stood and walked to a shelf, took down a little jar, and carefully put the cowrie shell inside. Then he placed the jar back on the shelf.
Mo Xi watched with cold eyes, his heart filled with complicated emotions: wrath, hatred, resentment, blame-all of it. Looking at Gu Mang's silhouette, he asked in a frigid voice, "How much money have you saved in that jar of yours?"
How many people did you let curse at you, degrade you, trample over you...? How... How many people did you sleep with?
Gu Mang said nothing. He put the jar back and returned to sit in front of Mo Xi. Under the hazy light, Gu Mang's face was difficult to see clearly. Mo Xi couldn't detect any minute expressions on that face-nothing he hadn't already caught.
Gu Mang was too calm, so calm it was unnatural. Had two years of disgrace already ground away the last of his pride?
But Mo Xi hadn't yet made him pay, hadn't even heard him admit his wrongs... How could Gu Mang have cast his body aside so easily, leaving Mo Xi nothing but an empty shell?
"You gave me a gold cowrie."
"...I don't need change."
"I can't afford change," Gu Mang said honestly. With that, he opened the bamboo scroll and again gave it to Mo Xi. "So you can choose some more. You can pick anything from here."
Mo Xi stared at him, speechless. He watched Gu Mang's face, but saw not the slightest hint of humiliated pain. There was only the tranquility with which he asked Mo Xi to choose more services, as if doing so was nothing out of the ordinary.
Mo Xi turned his head, his jaw clenched so tight it was on the verge of cracking. How strange. Shouldn't he have expected this? First, it had been bedding prostitutes; later, it had been treason. as Gu Mang crossed Mo Xi's lines with impunity again and again. Gu Mang had already told him Don't take sleeping together too seriously a long time ago. Now he was selling his body in order to stay alive. He had just gone from sleeping with others to being slept with-what was there to be surprised about?
"I don't want to choose." Mo Xi grew more and more irritated. the furor in his chest about to break free. He couldn't endure a second longer-he suddenly got up, his expression bitter as frost. "I'm leaving."
It seemed Gu Mang had never experienced a situation like this. A degree of helplessness finally arose in his eyes; he wanted to say something, but he didn't know what to say.
Mo Xi had already turned away when Gu Mang pulled on his sleeve to stop him.
Mo Xi was at his absolute limit. His anger flickered dangerously, ready to burst into flames at any moment. "What the hell do you want?"
Again, Gu Mang couldn't answer. He turned back to the shelf, picking up the money jar once more. He took out the golden cowrie and quietly returned it to Mo Xi's hands. "Then I'll give this back to you."
Mo Xi stared at him.
"Goodbye."
There were a few heartbeats of dead silence.
With a sudden crash, Mo Xi grabbed that bamboo scroll. Teeth grinding together, he shoved it before Gu Mang's eyes. "How did it feel to spend these past two years here, doing such depraved and unspeakable things? Were you ever satisfied? You can stand the kind of life where someone slaps you and tosses you some money for your troubles?!"
The lava had finally broken free of its confines, those crazed emotions erupting from him all at once.
motion's pupils lashed scarlet as he partide this werefilled with tears. "To think you'd offer yourself like this-are you still the same Gu Mang? Look at yourself now-I can't believe I used to be friends with someone like you, fought people for you, even treated you as my...my..."
He couldn't continue. He looked like he had been poisoned by wrath, so angry his lips were quivering. The lamps lit by spiritual energy flickered with the surge of his emotions-they blazed bright and then dim, silhouetting the two as they stood staring at each other.
Mo Xi grabbed Gu Mang by the lapels. Gu Mang had nowhere to hide; all he could do was let his clothes fall into further disarray. They were almost nose-to-nose, their eyes practically touching.
Mo Xi's chest heaved violently. He stared at Gu Mang for a beat in this way, before his gaze fell across Gu Mang's bare shoulder.
It was covered in black and blue welts...
Mo Xi's head rang as if a fuse had blown out. The scarlet rage in his eyes was joined by an emotion he couldn't clearly describe. That emotion made him lash out and seize Gu Mang by the jaw, shoving him against the shelf. His other hand slammed into the wall next to Gu Mang's face, and he pinned him beneath his bulk.
The lamps that had struggled so valiantly finally lost against the spiritual energy exploding from Mo Xi and abruptly went out.
In the darkness, Mo Xi stared at Gu Mang's face from inches away. Those rough, callused fingers dug pitilessly into Gu Mang's cheeks and lips. Even his voice was filled with hate, though it remained low and hoarse. So furious was Mo Xi that he didn't notice the strange color of Gu Mang's irises, nor the flicker of Gu Mang's shock. "To live, to earn a little money, you would do anything, right?"
Mo Xi's tight hold seemed to bring Gu Mang more discomfort than he could bear. His cheeks gradually flushed as he finally reacted and started to struggle in Mo Xi's grip.
But Mo Xi had lost his last hold on rationality. He couldn't see Gu Mang's pain. They were surrounded by so much darkness, a darkness like death. The rooms on either side overflowed with the moaning of women and the panting of men, constantly reminding Mo Xi of where they were, what Gu Mang did here-what the two of them could be doing.
Mo Xi was a little startled by the impulse that flashed through his mind, his scalp prickling.
The woman next door seemed to reach her climax; her gasps came quicker and sharper, the thumping of flesh so clear in the darkness that it could have been right by his ear. Gu Mang's stifled struggles beneath Mo Xi didn't let up in the slightest. They looked to him like shameless attempts at seduction.
Mo Xi's eyes slowly darkened, molten iron bubbling in their depths. terrifyingly scalding-from rage, or from something else.
"Let...go..."
Mo Xi didn't let go. He simply scoffed, a sound devoid of sat- isfaction, filled with extreme disappointment and hateful jealousy.
When he spoke, it was with bitter hostility-and perhaps some entirely different emotion-his voice searing with sparks, so rough even he found it ridiculous. He bent down to hiss through gritted teeth, right into Gu Mang's ear, "What do you want me to choose? You want me to take you to bed, to fuck you?"
He was answered by silence.
"Haven't I fucked you enough?!"
He'd spoken too impulsively the sound of the words shocked even his own ears.
velo Xi almost never said anything like this; he was the sort of per son who frowned as soon as Yue Chenqing told bawdy stories. But here, now, he had been driven to the brink, and the words bursting thoughtlessly from his mouth... They were savage, menacing, cruel.
They had lain dormant.
They sounded like despair.
Mo Xi cursed under his breath, punching the shelf without warn- ing. Gu Mang's little coin jar swayed and fell to the floor, where it loudly shattered.
Mo Xi turned toward the sound, his uncomprehending gaze sweeping over the mess. After a moment, he realized something and let go of Gu Mang. He straightened up and turned to look at the floor.
Moonlight spilled through the window. As it turned out, in that little coin jar, there was nothing at all...
Gu Mang hadn't received even one slight, small white cowrie. The jar was empty.