Chapter 69: The Devil’s Sacrifice (19)
Yu Jiao was gently helped to the bed by Helan Duo.
With his long, slender, and cool fingers, Helan Duo spread out the wide hem of her skirt and tucked the sweat-dampened strands of her hair behind her ear.
His movements were extremely gentle, as if he were performing a holy ritual.
Every fold, every loose strand of her long hair, was smoothed by Helan Duo to the most appropriate position.
After all this was done, Helan Duo sat, proper and elegant, in a chair by the bed, and, from a not-too-far, not-too-close distance, he admired the masterpiece of his own hands with an obsessed gaze:
The noble, dignified, and inviolable woman was now lying on the bed, her body limp and soft. Her delicate brow was tightly furrowed, yet her gaze was hazy. Her face was flushed, with a spring-like allure, a dizzying temptation.
The magnificent dress Helan Duo had carefully chosen was wrapped around her, like a gift, waiting to be unwrapped.
At this moment, she was his, and was about to be his…
“Mother.”
Helan Duo sat upright, his expression solemn.
“Please rest assured. I have always remembered my adoptive father’s teachings, to be a gentleman who does not take advantage of others.”
“…”
Yu Jiao sneered.
“So, when you need me…”
Helan Duo pressed his lips together and gave a shy smile. “Just give the word.”
Tsk.
So young, yet so old. He already had the makings of the future Helan Duo, that beast in human form.
He spoke of nobility, but his actions were the most despicable.
At this moment, the viscous light that was projected from his clear, pale green eyes was like a greedy, long tongue, licking over Yu Jiao’s body, inch by inch.
She really couldn’t bear this undisguised, covetous gaze. With the last of her strength, Yu Jiao rolled over and buried herself in the soft bedding. An ostrich-like posture.
The hot sweat soaked the bedsheet. Yu Jiao’s delicate brow was tightly furrowed, and she felt the hot tide, wave after wave, rushing towards her. Her slender fingers clutched the blanket.
For a moment, there was only her low panting in the room.
—This dream was too real.
Lust was like an ant, eroding her body and her brain from the outside in.
When her desire reached its breaking point.
A cold, snake-like, slender thing wrapped around her hot body.
Her ankles, arms, neck, and cheeks.
As it slowly brushed past, the slightly rough scales stirred a fine, sharp pleasure.
The coolness cleared her mind a little.
But it also brought more craving.
Yu Jiao propped herself up.
In an instant, the few slender things, like startled little fish, shot back.
The snow-white, crystal-clear ends disappeared into Helan Duo’s hair and under his clothes.
Helan Duo suddenly came back to his senses, his snow-jade-like face slightly red. He said shyly, “I’m sorry, Mother. I couldn’t help it.”
“…”
This stalemate was meaningless.
Yu Jiao let out a hot breath.
She propped herself up and lay on her side on the bed. As she moved, her snow-white hair was in a messy pile, setting off her beautiful, peony-like face, so beautiful it was hard to look at directly.
Yu Jiao narrowed her sultry red eyes and said in a hoarse voice:
“Come here.”
“…”
Hearing this, Helan Duo’s upright posture was a little stiff. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his green eyes were incredibly bright. “Mother… do you, do you need me?”
Like a dazed goose, hit by a huge surprise.
Yu Jiao let her strength go and lay flat on the bed, her gaze like a cold, crescent moon, hooking towards him.
Like a reward from a superior.
“You can only use this glib tongue and these despicable hands.”
“…As you command.”
“…New calendar… year 1731, Metal Sun Day… Mother, I… my schoolwork was excellent today… the teacher said I… miss you.”
“New calendar… year 173… one, Fire, Fire Sun Day… today… miss you.”
“…Water Sun Day… miss you.”
“…Miss… you…”
And so, he softly read the letters that spoke of his longing, and at the same time, he carefully kissed the side of the neck of the person he was thinking of.
“I miss you, I miss you…”
His unique voice was like a sweet, illusory bubble, filling the sensual room.
His watery green eyes were looking at Yu Jiao wetly.
He was working hard to please her, his jade-like face like snow in hot water, a hot, crimson flush rising on it.
“…Please love me.”
…
…
The room was filled with a ghostly fragrance.
Yu Jiao was also tormented by him. She buried her head in the hot, damp, soft bedding and said in a muffled voice, “I’ll allow you.”
Helan Duo gazed at the small section of her pale white nape, which was tinged with pink, and devoutly pressed his lips to it.
He gave a light, slow smile. “As you command.”
“…”
Just as he was about to formally unwrap this gift he had longed for for years… he suddenly realized that something was wrong. His movements paused, and he looked back warily. “Who?”
This reprimand was as if it had pierced the full, ghostly, beautiful bubble, and the atmosphere instantly changed.
The sound of something cutting through the air.
A black-clad person, covered from head to toe, appeared out of nowhere. His figure was sharp and fierce. With a wave of his large hand, he scattered a handful of grey-white powder, which was fluttering and all-pervasive. Helan Duo, who was in front of her, was caught off guard, and his movements froze.
The black-clad person took the opportunity to scoop up Yu Jiao’s soft, limp body. The familiar, beautiful black insect wings on his back unfolded, and he held her and flew away.
In the blink of an eye, he was gone, leaving Helan Duo standing there, his expression cold and fierce as he looked at the falling scale powder.
…
“Chow Chow?”
Yu Jiao’s face was flushed, and she asked in a hoarse voice, “Why are you here?”
The black-clad person suddenly paused. “Yu Jiao? Why are you here?”
Yu Jiao’s head was spinning. She leaned against his chest, panting. “I accidentally touched the neural contact point on the dream device.”
She took a moment, then asked, “You still haven’t answered me. How did you get in here too?”
Chow Chow: “…I was investigating the Divine Moon Moth when I found Helan Duo wearing a dream device—wait.”
His voice rose. “Didn’t I tell you to wait for me outside? Why are you risking your life again!”
Yu Jiao pressed her lips together and smiled, blinking at him, her red eyes still hazy. “So, when the dream is over, you’ll come and get me from Nie Hongshen’s office, right?”
“…”
Chow Chow looked away and snorted. “You really are…”
Though he was scolding her, he was still holding her carefully, and he hid in an empty room.
After confirming that it was safe, Chow Chow placed Yu Jiao on a sofa and, kneeling on one knee, checked on her. “You were drugged? Fuck… that beast in human form, Helan Duo, has been shameless since he was a kid.”
Chow Chow cursed in a low voice.
Yu Jiao rubbed her hot cheek against the back of his hand, like a clingy little animal.
Her movements suddenly paused, and her nose twitched. “…You’re injured?”
Chow Chow immediately lowered his hand, hiding it.
Only then did Yu Jiao notice that his attire was also very strange. His entire body was wrapped in black clothes, and he was wearing a silver iron mask. Even his eyes could not be clearly seen. His hair was wrapped in a hood, and he was wearing thick black gloves.
As if he couldn’t be seen.
Chow Chow turned his head to avoid Yu Jiao’s scrutinizing gaze and said, rather unnaturally, “It’s a small wound. It’s nothing.”
Then he stiffly changed the subject. “Let me get rid of the drug for you first.”
Chow Chow brushed her hair aside, and his eyes were suddenly stung by the vibrant love bites.
The face under the mask darkened. “If I hadn’t come, you would have just gone along with him, wouldn’t you?”
Yu Jiao shrugged. “It’s all fake anyway…”
Chow Chow: “That’s Helan Duo’s real consciousness!”
“No,” Yu Jiao’s face was serious. She corrected him, “I’ve tested it. This Helan Duo is really just an NPC in the dream.”
Chow Chow slowly frowned. “But I did get in through the dream device he was wearing… He’s definitely in this dream too. Forget it, let’s not worry about it for now.”
Chow Chow pressed his hands on her ear and temple and said:
“Alright, the drug is gone.”
“Alright? So fast?”
Yu Jiao was surprised, and she felt the strange sensation in her body fading.
“That’s right,” Chow Chow crossed his arms and said with a fake smile, “because it’s a virtual world. Everything is fake.”
His words sounded sarcastic.
“Don’t be angry,” Yu Jiao sighed, and then, her gaze shifting, she asked, “Speaking of which, does this dream have a fixed plot?”
Chow Chow snorted. “Logically, it’s based on real historical events.”
Yu Jiao: “Then can it be changed?”
“It can, but after the change, there will be a butterfly effect, which will have an irreversible impact on the subsequent plot development. What? How do you want to change it?”
Chow Chow raised an eyebrow and asked.
“Hmm.”
Yu Jiao tapped her lips and looked up with a smile. “—’The opening dance of the noble Lady Hongyue’s birthday ball was actually with an unknown nobody’. What do you think of that development?”
Her white hair was loose, her red eyes were bright, and her beautiful face had a mischievous smile, as if it also held a blatant favoritism and doting.
Chow Chow paused, and the beating in his chest was almost deafening. He heard his own hoarse voice ask:
“…With me?”
Banquet Hall
The lavishly dressed guests were whispering, discussing the unknown whereabouts of the host of the banquet.
On the high platform, Yu Fenghe was caressing the armrest and asked, “Where is your mother?”
Beside him, Helan Duo, who was in a formal suit, paused and shook his head. “I don’t know either.”
As his words fell, the lights suddenly dimmed, and a soft beam of light came down, guiding everyone’s gaze—
A woman in a cicada-like, scale-patterned dress, with pearls and jewels, was holding the arm of a tall, masked man as they entered.
The dazzling light covered their intertwined figures with a layer of shining golden gauze, and they looked extremely well-matched.
“…”
Yu Fenghe covered his mouth with a silk cloth and coughed twice.
Helan Duo lowered his cold, dark, and gloomy eyes.
In the crowd, a gaze as deep as an unfathomable abyss was fixed on ‘Jiao Hongyue’.
Under the various gazes, the two of them were like lingering butterflies, dancing gracefully in the center of the vast banquet hall.
Their wings flapped, and the waves rose and fell.
…
The dance ended.
For a long moment, no one dared to make a sound.
It was a slender, bony figure that broke the strange atmosphere and stepped forward:
“Sir, may I have a word with you?”
Yu Fenghe’s gaze was dark as he looked over, as if he were scrutinizing and assessing him. He nonchalantly looked Chow Chow up and down.
Chow Chow paused and nodded. “Of course.”
Before he left, Yu Fenghe took Yu Jiao’s hand, and his raven-feather-like long eyelashes cast a small shadow.
He called out, sorrowfully, lingeringly, and reluctantly:
“Hongyue…”
“?”
Yu Jiao couldn’t figure out if his reaction was jealousy or something else.
Why does he look like he’s entrusting his child to someone?
It’s strange, very strange.
She really couldn’t figure it out, so she didn’t think about it anymore—anyway, it’s all fake.
There, the very strange Yu Fenghe let out a soft sigh, let go of her hand, and, without a word, led Chow Chow away.
“…”
After the “main consort” had left with the “third party,” Madam Jiao and Jiao Baishuang quickly surrounded her and gossiped:
“Sis! Who is that man? Is he an actor you hired? He’s got a great body! But why is his face covered? Is he ugly?”
“A lady should not gossip about others,” Madam Jiao seriously warned Jiao Baishuang, then turned her head and whispered to Yu Jiao, “Hongyue, tell me quietly. Is this the white moonlight you’ve been in love with for a long time?”
Yu Jiao: “…”
Huh?
Jiao Hongyue, who is everyone’s white moonlight, has a white moonlight of her own?
“He—?”
Just as she was about to fish for information, suddenly, a servant, wrapped from head to toe in a robe, appeared beside Yu Jiao. “Madam, Lord Fenghe invites you to the inner room to discuss matters.”
Hearing his muffled voice, a glint flashed in Yu Jiao’s eyes, and she softly agreed.
After saying goodbye to Madam Jiao, she followed the servant to the deserted inner room.
“…”
Leaving the magnificent, noisy, and bustling banquet hall, the curtain of the Yu residence was drawn back, revealing its gloomy interior.
The corridor was dim and lonely.
Their shadows were stretched long, like twisting, strange, ghostly figures.
Amidst the intersecting footsteps, Yu Jiao silently let a sharp dagger slip from her sleeve.
“Who are you?”
Yu Jiao pressed the blade against the servant’s neck with icy determination.
The servant was not afraid at all. His figure paused, and he let out a slow, soft laugh:
“Can’t you guess? Yu Jiao.”
Yu Jiao’s pupils constricted.
—He knew she was Yu Jiao and not Jiao Hongyue?!
The next moment, his figure flashed like a ghost. He seized Yu Jiao’s wrist, took the dagger, and then, with a slow but irresistible force, he pushed her into a half-closed door.
Click.
The door closed.
In the strange room, Yu Jiao looked around warily. Suddenly, she was taken aback, and her expression gradually became complicated and strange—
This room was not the dangerous place she had imagined, but was very strange.
There, in the dim, ambiguous light, Helan Duo, who had been so elegant in the banquet hall just now, was now bound with ropes and hung high.
His face was flushed with an unnatural color, and he looked as if he had been drugged, a pitiful sight, at the mercy of others.
Yu Jiao: “…”
What can I say? The wheel of fortune turns?
Just then, a very familiar, gentle, and smiling voice sounded.
“How about it?”
Yu Jiao suddenly looked up.
There, the suspicious servant was now sitting leisurely on a beam.
He slowly took off his thick robes and mask, revealing a smiling, elegant, and handsome face, as pure as jade, as graceful as bamboo, with a clear and refined bone structure.
It was—
Yu Jiao’s gaze repeatedly shifted between the two similar faces, comparing.
Her heart was filled with suspicion and uncertainty.
…One big, one small. One real, one fake.
The big one leaped down.
He walked over with his hands behind his back, his steps elegant.
In his flowing high ponytail, a strand of his long hair had congealed into a silver-grey scale-spine, and it was moving as if it were alive. It lifted the eighteen-year-old Helan Duo’s handsome, red-lipped face.
The twenty-nine-year-old Helan Duo smiled. “How about it? Do you want to get your revenge?”