Work Text:
That affair, Zhao Min remembered, happened in the third month after their wedding.
At the time, Zhang Wuji had yet to undergo the “Rite of the Holy Son,” and all the old foxes in the Ming Cult still wore masks of respectful propriety. Zhang Wuji was a heaven-shaking genius in martial arts, but in the bedchamber he was a blank sheet of paper — so blank it was maddening. During those first two months of marriage, Zhao Min often felt like flipping the table.
It was not that he did not cherish her. He genuinely understood nothing.
On their wedding night, Zhang Wuji sat rigidly upright beneath the wedding candles, studied Zhao Min’s face for a long while, and finally squeezed out, “You really are beautiful.” Then he had no idea where to put his hands and feet. In the end, it was Zhao Min who blew out the lamp.
In the days that followed, he was exceedingly careful every time, even asking her earnestly, “Did it hurt?” Torn between exasperation and amusement, Zhao Min resolved to properly instruct her clumsy husband.
Afternoon, she carried a small casket into the bedchamber. It was an old item she had dug out of her dowry — back in the Shaomin Prince’s mansion, the matrons had taught her the arts of the inner chamber and included a few little trinkets. She had carelessly stuffed them at the bottom of a chest. Now that she unearthed them, they seemed perfectly suited for use.
Inside the casket was a small handle carved from mutton-fat white jade and polished to a silky smoothness; a tiny porcelain pot of fragrant balm, snow-white ointment that gave off a faint jasmine scent; and a few other small objects whose names she herself could not recall. The workmanship was fairly fine, though compared with her later collection, these were merely the entry-level of the entry-level.
Zhang Wuji had just finished his training. When he entered and saw her smiling at him, patting the spot beside her on the edge of the bed, his heart gave an inexplicable lurch.
Zhao Min opened the casket, took out the contents, and arranged them on the brocade mattress. “We’ve been married for some time now. There are a few things I would like to show you.”
Zhang Wuji lowered his gaze, his eyes pausing on the white jade handle. He picked it up, turned it over in his hands, and said blankly, “What is this? A weapon?”
Zhao Min nearly choked with laughter. Dabbing at the corner of her eye, a glint of mischief in her gaze, she said, “That’s right — specially designed to deal with internal-energy masters. One strike and they go soft.”
The tips of Zhang Wuji’s ears flushed faintly red as he belatedly realised what the thing was for, his eyes darting about for somewhere to hide. Seeing him like this, the teasing impulse in Zhao Min’s heart swelled even more. She laid a hand on his lower back and said softly.
“Don’t be nervous. This is just a little pleasure between husband and wife.” Her eyes slid from his eyes to his lips, her voice lowering a fraction, “Trust me?”
Zhang Wuji nodded.
With a touch of girlish delight, Zhao Min gave him a push. Zhang Wuji lay back beneath her. Just as he was about to speak, Zhao Min pressed a finger to his lips in a silencing gesture. She opened the pot of balm, scooped out a small dab, and warmed it in her palm until it melted. Then she untied his sash and drew his underpants down to his knees.
Zhang Wuji gripped the bedding beneath him with both hands. He felt Zhao Min’s balm-slicked fingers probe between his thighs, the sensation cool and slippery, making his lower belly clench sharply. He bit his lower lip, resisting the urge to roll away and escape. A voice inside him cried — No, this is backwards — but another small voice whispered: In this matter, she knows far more than I do.
When that white jade handle pressed against his entrance, Zhang Wuji breathed a low:
“Minmin.”
Zhao Min stopped, looked up at him, and used her free hand to brush aside the stray locks on his forehead.
“Does it hurt?”
Zhang Wuji shook his head but could not speak. That place was slowly stretched open inch by inch. It did not feel unpleasant — especially when Zhao Min stroked down over his lower belly; then the sense of fullness dissolved into a numbing, tingling pleasure.
Zhao Min proceeded as if soothing a tiger’s fur. She would push in a fraction, then pause to observe his reaction. Seeing no resistance, she would advance another fraction, until the entire white jade handle was sheathed inside him. She bent down and kissed his temple, whispering into his ear.
“Aren’t you something beautiful.”
Zhang Wuji’s face turned bright red and he turned his head aside. He wanted to say this had absolutely nothing to do with being impressive, but the jade handle inside him was pressing against that tender flesh, gently grinding, and he involuntarily arched his hips. The moment he abruptly realised what he was doing, Zhang Wuji hurriedly tightened his stomach — but it was too late. Zhao Min propped her chin on his chest, her eyes curving into crescent moons, chuckling deep in her throat like a cat that had stolen a fish.
“Don’t laugh…” Zhang Wuji protested weakly.
Of course Zhao Min ignored him. She reached out and grasped the little end of the handle left outside, pulled it out half an inch, and slowly pushed it back in. A muffled groan escaped Zhang Wuji’s throat. His hands rose from the bedding and instinctively seized her arm — yet he did not know whether to push her away or pull her closer. Zhao Min’s heart flared at his hesitant, yielding look. She gave her wrist a slight turn, making the white jade handle trace a gentle circle inside him. Zhang Wuji cried out helplessly, the sound soft and wet, and hastily covered his mouth.
In the end, the white jade handle thrust in and out for less than the time it takes to brew half a cup of tea. It was not that Zhao Min’s heart softened and stopped — it was that Zhang Wuji could not hold on. His member was so painfully hard that when the jade handle ground over that tender spot once more, his seed spilled forth uncontrollably.
He collapsed onto the bed, chest heaving violently, his skin flushed from neck to chest. So mortified that he snatched a pillow and covered his face. Zhao Min lowered her eyelids, her lashes casting two fan-shaped shadows in the candlelight, and said teasingly.
“It felt good, didn’t it?”
From beneath the pillow, Zhang Wuji let out a pleading moan. Henceforth, he never once spoke of what had happened that night.
After the “Rite of the Holy Son,” Zhao Min became like a child with a new toy, bringing out the little red sandalwood casket every few days. Though there were only so many variations, each time she managed to turn Zhang Wuji into a melted puddle of spring water. Zhang Wuji half-resisted, half-yielded. Though he would absolutely never admit it aloud, he gradually began to look forward to it — whenever that tender spot was pressed, he would unconsciously chase that numbing bliss of his own accord, coiling around it, tighter and tighter, until his gates crumbled and everything burst apart.
Zhao Min naturally knew all these little secrets of his. She poured all her thoughts into opening up new frontiers in their bedchamber, but a clever woman cannot cook without rice. The red sandalwood casket held only a few things, over and over. She sent her young maid to search the town at the foot of the mountain, but the maid returned blushing, saying the shopkeepers thought she had lost her mind — and if word got out, it would not sound good. So they had to give up.
Who could have guessed that the joys of this couple’s inner chamber would split open the heavens above everyone on Bright Peak, turning the pair of them into true adepts of these arts?