Chapter Text
The worst part was, Luo Binghe was downright gleeful. His smile was unnerving in way Shen Qingqiu could not have anticipated from the description of his predecessor’s death. But, then again, there had been many changes to this scene readers would not have anticipated in the original work.
For example, before Luo Binghe had started his work, he’d found some way to deviate Shen Qingqiu’s qi in a way he did not believe possible. He felt no different than lowly, sex-hungry demons that riddled the pages of some stallion novels, eager to suck on the protagonists dick for even just a hint of the especially potent qi that would come from it. That would have been mortifying enough. But this deviation made every touch feel like it could give that to him, too. As his body yearned from Luo Binghe no matter how he chose to give it to him.
Maybe that wasn’t too far from the truth even before this. He had come to hold complicated feelings for and about Luo Binghe after watching the white lotus blossom. But he hadn’t expected it to be like this! He thought they were avoiding this inevitable conclusion, not leading Luo Binghe down the path of turning into a man singularly focused on him.
“Now Shizun can never run away from me,” Luo Binghe said with a softness that was incongruent with his words and his actions. His knife was still biting into Shen Qingqiu’s leg, sawing through bone.
Shen Qingqiu did not understand why Luo Binghe couldn’t simply use a cultivation technique and cleanly cut it that way. Or maybe he did understand, because that would be far less intimate. And like this, with his qi all messed up courtesy of Luo Binghe, even these horrible strokes of steel felt like a sexually charged stroke of his cock! To think that such a magic existed this whole time, and that it had been wasted.
Was that him talking, or the deviation?
Shen Qingqiu wasn’t so sure.
But ultimately, he decided it didn’t matter. This would be excruciating otherwise. Luo Binghe had blessed him with this.
Which was not to say that it didn’t hurt, because it did. But it hurt in a way that felt good. A pleasure he never would have understood before. The kind of plotline he would have decried as complete bullshit, that no man would like to be in pain. But then again, wasn’t that always the role of the demonesses? To appeal to that darker, kinkier side of men? The side that wanted to be bent over and disciplined?
Shen Qingqiu’s mouth watered thinking about it.
“Shizun likes it too?” Luo Binghe asked, obviously catching his change in expression. He should have been more schooled, or perhaps put on a show of more pain, but Shen Qingqiu thought that Luo Binghe would have seen through it anyway.
“I—” Shen Qingqiu started to reply, but the knife bit into him in a way that was at once too good and yet entirely too awful, and he cried out.
“It’s okay, Shizun, I will take care of you,” This, Luo Binghe said with a mockery of the solemn way he had once spoken as a youth, taking everything seriously. And then Luo Binghe’s expression falls back into the enjoyment he’d had before. He places one hand on Shen Qingqiu’s abdomen. To anyone else, this might have looked like a way to steady himself as he dug farther down into the flesh. But Shen Qingqiu could feel the way the touch fed him qi.
Luo Binghe didn’t intend to stabilize him, Shen Qingqiu realized and started to break out in a sweat, Luo Binghe was giving him just enough spiritual energy to keep him awake.
Shen Qingqiu drew in a breath and tried to concentrate inwards on himself. He was a master of meditation. Perhaps he could simply remove himself from this situation and the strange pleasure of the pain from the torture that Luo Binghe was inflicting upon him.
Try as he might, it was no use. His need for touch was too strong, and although the touch was unkind, his body and mind craved it. There was no escaping this. He cursed the situation mentally—how could he have allowed Luo Binghe to become so talented and so creative? All he had done was dug his own grave after all!
“Shizun,” Luo Binghe called, his voice almost like a song, “Shizun, stay with this one. This one wants to watch you enjoy it. You are, aren’t you?”
Even now, Shen Qingqiu could not bring himself to lie to Luo Binghe. “Shizun…does like it,” he admitted, with a defeated sigh, “Luo Binghe ensured that.”
“That’s right,” Luo Binghe responded, “yes, everything is as it should be.”
If he could not focus inwards, then Shen Qingqiu would meditate on the feeling. He immersed himself on it, on the place where the knife met his body. It twisted his guts in knots to think of it, a strange mixture of arousal and fear and then arousal from the fear. Shen Qingqiu was certain his cock was hard against his body. He was glad that his disciples were not here to see him, now.
Shen Qingqiu lost himself to the rhythm of it. The constant draw of the knife. The tender touch of Luo Binghe’s hand, feeding him qi. He was so focused on it that when Luo Binghe stopped, he almost wished he hadn’t.
Almost.
Shen Qingqiu looked down and coughed up blood. His legs had been completely severed. Luo Binghe had, at least, mercifully discarded the limbs. Shen Qingqiu wasn’t sure he was ready to see them.
“Shizun taught this one that to reach one’s goals, one must be willing to do anything,” Luo Binghe told him, smoothing his hand over the bleeding stumps of Shen Qingqiu’s legs. A burning energy radiated from them, cauterizing the wound. Shen Qingqiu couldn’t help but scream now, stewing in that same wicked pain and pleasure that aimed to short circuit his brain.
“Shizun sounds so pretty when he screams,” Luo Binghe said. His work at his legs done, he walked up near his head to pet back his hair and press a kiss to his forehead. Shen Qingqiu would have reached out to grasp his robes but Luo Binghe had taken his arms before he’d taken his legs, “Will Shizun scream more for this one? Should we continue?”
Continue?! What more could he possibly want?
Suddenly, Shen Qingqiu remembered that Luo Binghe had also cut out his predecessor’s tongue. He did not want to give him ideas, but he wanted to keep that from happening. At least that way maybe he could talk his way back into being healed, somehow. At least that way, maybe he could avoid his death.
“Shizun will scream for Luo Binghe as much as he likes,” Shen Qingqiu replied as sweetly as he could, given the circumstances, but he could not avoid the wince as his he did.
Luo Binghe’s smile was like the sun parting through the clouds. This time, he kissed Shen Qingqiu on the lips.
Shen Qingqiu reciprocated against his better judgment, sucking down any qi that he could get from his lips, drinking from him whatever he would give. As he did, he failed to notice Luo Binghe reaching into one of the drawers of the table. He failed to notice as he wrapped a rope collar around his neck. He failed to notice until Luo Binghe pulled away and turned him on his side.
“What—” Shen Qingqiu gasped.
Luo Binghe showed him a metal object in his hand. At first glance, it looked like the kind of hook used to hold meat up from the ceiling. (That wasn’t how it went in the original!) But then, as his eyes swept over it, he realized that where the hook would be, a large metal ball covered the tip.
At first, Shen Qingqiu thought: “What a blessing! I will not be skewered!”
And then Shen Qingqiu realized the true use of it. At once his heart sank to his gut, pounding rapidly. His cock twitched.
Sure enough, Luo Binghe brought the large ball up to his ass. He was certain there was no way he could take it, and, besides, his body was already in so much pain. Luo Binghe didn’t seem like he was going to finger him. It became quickly clear he had no intention of doing so.
The ball was well lubricated and slid against his skin. Luo Binghe pressed it up against his entrance. “Breathe in deep, Shizun,” Luo Binghe instructed.
Shen Qingqiu had no choice. He did what Luo Binghe told him. He breathed in deep.
And Luo Binghe pushed.
One hand guided the ball, the other remained on Shen Qingqiu’s abdomen to hold him steady, pushing him back onto it.
Shen Qingqiu screamed, and every scream seemed to make Luo Binghe happier. He writhed against him, but with no limbs the movement was entirely futile. He cried and cried and stayed careful of his tongue, acutely aware of it, as he had been even since Luo Binghe had started cutting into his flesh.
Shen Qingqiu’s cock betrayed him. It spluttered up precum, obvious between them. Luo Binghe’s smile turned just a little dark for it, like he was thinking of even more things that he might to do him. Shen Qingqiu could only hope they were things he would want.
“L-luo Binghe—” Shen Qingqiu pleaded. The ball was too large. He could feel it as it started to tear its way through his hole. Tears pricked at his eyes.
“Shh, Shizun, take a deep breath,” Luo Binghe instructed.
Shen Qingqiu did.
Deep breath in, and Luo Binghe pushed.
Deep breath out, and Luo Binghe kissed his forehead, “There you go, Shizun, just like that. Be a good boy for Luo Binghe and take it.”
Shen Qingqiu whined against his lips. Any other time and the appellation would have been an indignity upon indignities, but now he simply accepts it. Just as he accepts the qi from his lips and his hand. Just as he feeds upon that energy that Luo Binghe had damned him into wanting so bad.
The truth was, even for all it was too big, that ball fed the same desires.
“Come on, Shizun, keep going.”
Shen Qingqiu breathed with Luo Binghe. Together, deep breaths, focusing on one another as if they were cultivating together. Soon, nothing else mattered besides the sound of their breath and the press of the metal ball into his body.
“There’s the crest, Shizun,” Luo Binghe told him gently, his hold on him becoming even tighter to keep him steady as he worked it into him.
Shen Qingqiu screamed and shook, but his body is forced to accept the too big intrusion. From there it would all be easier, Luo Binghe was promising him, but his words no longer mattered. Shen Qingqiu buried his face against Luo Binghe’s robes and sobbed openly as he came from the sensation, humiliated that such a thing would bring him to orgasm.
But Luo Binghe only praised him, “So good!” he exclaimed when he saw it, “Shizun, look, you came. Isn’t that good? Doesn’t it feel good?”
Shen Qingqiu could only nod against him.
Loosened by his orgasm, the rest of the ball slid in slowly but without further trouble until it was inside of him. It was, of course, no trouble at all to slide the curve of the hook into his gaping asshole, slender as it is.
“Shizun’s body will close upon it soon,” Luo Binghe told him, as if he did not already know.
Luo Binghe diligently tied a rope to top of the hook, which he connected to the rope collar he’d put on Shen Qingqiu earlier, when they were kissing. Shen Qingqiu quickly understood: any movement would jostle the already too-big intrusion inside of him. And although for now it had carved out a space, the rest of his insides had not been stretched to accommodate it.
“Does that feel good?” Luo Binghe asked, with that same sweet smile. He rubbed his hand through Shen Qingqiu’s hair, petting it back out of his face, “did Shizun like coming for Luo Binghe?”
Shen Qingqiu nodded, and then, without Luo Binghe still feeding him qi to keep him awake, promptly passed out.