Chapter 47: Pinch. Twist.

He was very close, his beautiful thin lips pressed fully against her earlobe. The breath he exhaled carried the chill of early winter, thread by thread, winding itself around Wen Yicong's whole being.

Her heart hammered like thunder. Her dense lashes fanned lightly in the dim light.

He said: welcome to his world, to become his exclusive collection...

His tone was gentle, his words suggestive.

Almost the most teasing, the most tender words between lovers.

But such a phrase, spoken by this man in a low, slightly hoarse voice, with an almost coaxing cadence, made Wen Yicong's heart give a single heavy tremor.

Was it an illusion?

She had a vague sense that Mo Shaoshang was in a poor mood at this moment.

Though his expression was calm without the slightest oddity, the arm hooked about her waist pressed with gentle force, and the lips laid against her ear had already begun to delicately grind her tender ear-shell, successfully drawing from her a wholly involuntary light trembling, wave after wave.

Wen Yicong's brow knit slightly. She gently bit her lip.

Deep in her body it felt as if someone had lit a fire, fierce flames rolling, burning through her nerves and marrow.

Hot. Sweating. Scalding.

And threaded through with an itch that drilled straight into the heart.

Her body's response was real and obvious. Wen Yicong's lips pressed tighter and tighter, her face so red it almost seemed about to bleed.

Kisses fine as a spider's web spread from her earlobe to her cheek, to her throat, airtight.

Wen Yicong was both itching and panicked, shrinking her neck in an attempt to dodge. When her voice came out it was soft and husky, like a sponge one could wring of water: "Mr. Mo, please don't..."

Wen Yicong was perfectly clear: she had no resistance whatsoever to this man.

He was handsome, lonely, gentle, obsessive—and also pathological, extreme, mad. These qualities were dangerously fatal, yet they formed in her a fierce attraction.

Otherwise, she would never in the end have agreed to secretly date Mo Shaoshang, to build with him this unspeakable relationship.

But at this minute, at this second, inside this most private of museums, Wen Yicong was truly a little afraid.

She did not know why, but somewhere in her subconscious she felt that Mo Shaoshang's "private collection" was absolutely not merely a lover's phrase.

He might really turn her into one of his "private holdings," locked away forever in this unknown repository...

That guess leapt into her mind, sending a chill straight up Wen Yicong's spine.

But what Wen Yicong had not expected was that just then, the dense kisses at her ear and throat stopped short.

The next second, the man's soft laughter reached her eardrum.

Low, deep, wrapped in a hoarseness tinged with desire—sensual to the point of death.

"..." Wen Yicong blinked, dazed.

What was he laughing at?

While her thoughts wandered, her chin was gathered in. The man's fingerbones wrapped her whole small jaw, hooked gently, turned her head, lifted it.

Wen Yicong did not know what he meant to do. Bewildered, she could only obediently raise her lids.

Mo Shaoshang's eyes behind his lenses drooped slightly. From above, he gazed straight down at the person in his arms.

Eastern girls, their frames born slender and small.

Especially this span of waist caught in the crook of his arm—so thin it could not fill a grip, like white porcelain wrapped in pale silk, pure and fine, charming and soft.

And in his palm, this small face, flushed through.

A pair of eyes misted with water, looking at him wetly, bewildered and at a loss.

Like a tiny fledgling, fallen from the sky by accident, blundering into a beast's territory, not knowing at all what it had provoked, not knowing at all what it was about to face.

Mo Shaoshang looked at this lovely small face, then slightly raised a finger, brushing aside the hair clinging to her cheek.

His blue-black eyes gazed at her deeper, more clearly.

The young girl's long lashes blinked twice, continuing to look back at him in confusion, carrying a shy, newborn bashfulness, and a barely perceptible thread of inquiry.

Beautiful, bewitching, and unusually obedient.

Such obedience, such softness, made one feel tenderness rise from the depths of the heart—wanting only to cherish her forever, to pamper her, to spend a whole life in her service.

Yet it was precisely such an obedient, gentle girl.

Such a creature who bewitched without knowing it, who could with the lightest ease make his blood seethe, who could melt his heart.

Who, again and again, ignored his warnings and touched his taboos.

Why did she dare such presumption?

Who gave her the nerve?

"..." Mo Shaoshang narrowed his eyes, very slightly. Then he bent forward, lowered his head, his thin lips parting.

He gently bit Wen Yicong's pale pink lower lip.

With a touch of punishment.

His force was very light—he had used almost no more than two parts of strength. Even so, the little thing in his arms seemed to feel pain, whimpered very softly, her small face redder still, her body trembling.

So delicate.

Mo Shaoshang took in the reaction of Wen Yicong's body. The pupils of his blue-black eyes darkened sharply.

He had said countless times: how to make a man lose control was her gift.

Indeed.

For instance, now.

In the space of a few seconds, the blood in his body boiled, every dormant desire woke in rivalry. Excitement, agitation, loss of control—the hunger to invade and to conquer had reached its flashpoint. He wanted nothing more than to knead her into a ball.

Knead her rotten, crush her to pieces.

Then eat her into his belly, bite by bite.

Mo Shaoshang thought this quietly, his surface expression unchanged, still calm as water, looking at her.

But a woman's intuition kept Wen Yicong sharp.

The man's gaze made her skin prickle. From those blue-black eyes she read a dangerous air.

So, on survival's instinct, she tried to twist her wrist, faltering: "Mr. Mo, you—you doing this really makes me very nervous..."

Before the words were out, she was cut off.

"Baby, you may not be clear on this." Mo Shaoshang looked at her, his voice light and slow, his tone mild. "Actually, I don't really like you using honorifics with me."

Wen Yicong's gaze shifted slightly. She froze for half a second, then caught on.

True enough.

Before, he had only been her employer; her use of "sir," "you," that sort of honorific, had been perfectly normal. But now they were secretly in love, lovers—and for her to keep using honorifics with him was a little distant, a little off.

Thinking this, when Wen Yicong spoke again, her tone had grown noticeably more flustered: "Sorry. I was already used to it before, I haven't had time to change..."

"It doesn't matter. This night is still very long."

Mo Shaoshang's lips inclined toward her ear, and he said softly: "I have plenty of time, and plenty of methods, to help you break every bad habit."

Every... bad habit?

Besides using honorifics with him, was there something else?

Wen Yicong stared, uncomprehending. Her lips moved twice, wanting to ask. But before she could voice the question, suddenly the world before her eyes spun.

Wen Yicong was caught off guard, gave a small cry, and when she came back to herself she found her toes already off the ground—

She had been lifted bodily by the man, one hand hooked around her upper thigh.

"You... what are you doing?"

Wen Yicong was bewildered. Suspended in the air, afraid of falling, she almost instinctively threw both arms around his neck, blushing to her ears and softly scolding: "Put me down this instant."

"The staircase to the second floor is too high."

Mo Shaoshang's tone was even. As he spoke he had already taken long strides, carrying her forward in one arm. "It would tire you out."

"..."

Hearing this, Wen Yicong instinctively turned her head.

She saw that within the castle-like private repository, the staircase coiled upward like a dormant python, its body wound tight around the trunk of the building's interior.

By the dim light of the wall sconces one could faintly make out the elaborate carvings on the cast-iron balustrade—half-blown roses, snakes swallowing their own tails, and nameless beasts of every kind, watching in silence through the night.

A strange, eerie gloom.

After only a few glances Wen Yicong withdrew her gaze, looking back at the man close at hand.

"Are we going upstairs? Then put me down, I'll walk myself." She was a fully grown adult with all four limbs intact, not a three-year-old child—why would she need to be carried up the stairs?

"Be good." Mo Shaoshang leaned in close to her and said.

"..." Wen Yicong's body stiffened slightly.

Candlelight wavered. The flame leapt in the man's blue-black eyes, like two dim sparks.

For an instant Wen Yicong was even somewhat dazed, unable to tell whether she was being watched by a person, or by a beast.

She swallowed very lightly, and dared not move again.

Seeing this, Mo Shaoshang curved his lips in satisfaction and laid a light kiss on the tip of her pert little nose. Without another word he lifted her and stepped onto the staircase.

It was already early winter, but oddly this private repository was not cold. The air was filled with a faint, elegant fragrance, drawn from some unknown plant.

Wen Yicong dared not fidget. She could only watch her nose, watch her heart, and obediently lay her head on the man's shoulder, letting him carry her up the stairs.

One could see this repository truly had some years to it; the edges of the spiral staircase's stone treads had been worn smooth by time.

Outside the window a wind had risen, the clouds blown apart, and moonlight leaked through. Cold radiance fell from the unguessable dome, turbid and thin, passing through layer upon layer of spiral shadow, falling on Mo Shaoshang's cold, sculptured profile—already thinned to a veil of cool mist.

The air was utterly still.

Only the man's steady, powerful footsteps echoed through the repository, rippling outward in circle after circle of muffled reverberation.

Before long the two reached the second-floor area.

Mo Shaoshang's arms cradled the waist of the girl in his embrace, setting her down with gentle movements. Once he was sure she was steady he did not linger. He took her hand and continued leftward along the corridor, passing through a door into a wholly separate room.

The candlelight from the first floor could not reach up here. The surroundings were pitch black.

Wen Yicong kept breathing deep. She could clearly hear her own rapid, disordered heartbeat.

At that moment she felt the man release her hand. The next second she heard the sound of some switch being pressed.

In the blink of an eye, the light came on.

It was a floor lamp, in keeping with the style of the wall sconces below—a brass frame, an opal-white glass shade, the light a faint warm orange, lending a few touches of softness to this cold, hard, quiet space.

The objects in her field of view were lit up. Wen Yicong looked around, and at last took in the whole shape of the space.

The room occupied about forty square meters. All four walls were fitted bookshelves, filled with books of every kind—ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, sorted into different categories.

In the center of the room stood a desk, on it a table lamp, a pen holder, and a spray of dried flowers in a vase.

The arrangement was warm, untouched by dust.

As if the master of the room had only stepped out for a moment.

Wen Yicong was astonished. She turned her head this way and that, and said blankly: "This is?"

"My grandfather's Study Room." Mo Shaoshang stood before the bookshelf, drew out a book at random, flipped through it, then returned it to its place, his tone indifferent. "He liked to stay here in his later years. He paid no mind to the other collections—only kept to his own books."

Just then Wen Yicong's gaze shifted slightly, and she noticed something. She blinked.

Beside the pen holder on the desk stood a photo frame.

Black-and-white. In the photograph was a middle-aged man in a long gown, his features handsome, his face three-dimensional, his eyes and brow bearing a passing resemblance to Mo Shaoshang.

A guess rose in her mind.

The next moment Wen Yicong walked a few steps toward the desk, pointed at the frame, and asked tentatively: "This is... your grandfather?"

"Mm."

Mo Shaoshang came over, stopped before the frame, and stood in silent regard of the long-gowned man in the photograph, his expression as calm as a deep sea.

After a moment his gaze returned to Wen Yicong, and he said lightly: "Let's go. What I want to show you is not here."

At this Wen Yicong could not help a little surprise: "Then why did you bring me into this Study Room on purpose?"

"Every time I come, I say hello to my grandfather." Mo Shaoshang said, pausing a breath, then continuing: "The first time I bring you here, I ought to let him meet you."

The meaning was...

A sort of disguised meeting of the parents?

Mo Shaoshang's words startled Wen Yicong. A strange feeling welled into her chest, warm, scalding, burning so her heart tightened.

She was a little at a loss. After standing dryly in place for a few seconds, she at last cleared her throat, gave a small nod toward the black-and-white photograph, and respectfully, obediently greeted: "Hello, Grandpa Mo."

Mo Shaoshang's lips curved, very slightly. Then he turned off the light, took her hand again, and walked toward the deeper reaches of the space.

Past the Study Room lay a long, narrow corridor.

Mo Shaoshang switched on the corridor's wall sconces. The halo was dim, faintly lighting the walls on either side—a row of tightly shut doors in neat array, each panel bearing its corresponding number: 001, 002, 003...

"What's in these rooms?" Wen Yicong asked.

"Collections." Mo Shaoshang said. "Behind every door is a collection room. 001 is porcelain, 002 is calligraphy and painting, 003 is antique books. The further back you go, the more miscellaneous."

Wen Yicong's gaze swept the corridor. She felt only that it wound and turned, the end still bending, as if there were no end in sight at all. She could not help asking again: "Your private museum... how many collection rooms in total?"

"Two hundred and seventeen."

"..." Wen Yicong at first thought she had misheard. Her eyes went wide. "Two hundred and seventeen?"

"Mm." Mo Shaoshang said. "Five floors above ground, two floors below."

Wen Yicong was truly shaken.

Two hundred and seventeen collection rooms. At this scale, had Mo Shaoshang not told her it was only their family's private collection, she would certainly have taken it for the national museum of some small country.

As her thoughts turned, the man continued forward with her.

After an unknown length of time they finally reached the end of the corridor.

Wen Yicong raised her eyes. A metal door came into view.

This door was wholly unlike the wooden ones before, and out of keeping with the repository's European classical style—modern to the point of abruptness.

Mo Shaoshang bent down, approaching the recognition device beside the metal door.

The next instant a mechanized female voice sounded, respectful and cold: "Iris recognition confirmed."

The words fell; the metal door slid open to either side. Inside was an elevator.

Wen Yicong glanced at Mo Shaoshang, puzzled: "Where are we going now?"

"Underground." Mo Shaoshang raised a finger, touched the down button, his tone flat. "Most of my collections are concentrated in the underground repository."

Wen Yicong pressed her lips together.

She was just an ordinary girl of modest means. Honestly, tonight's experience had somewhat exceeded her frame of reference.

Until now her definition of "rich people" had still been private jets circling the globe, an '82 Lafite as the everyday drink.

Only tonight had she learned that the true uppermost tier could possess wealth enough to rival a small nation.

No wonder at that Auction Mo Shaoshang could, on the strength of a single sentence from her, Light the Sky Lantern, scatter a billion without a blink, and buy a diamond necklace.

Set beside his ocean of collections, that eighty-million necklace was a mere drop in the sea, not worth mentioning.

Thinking this in her heart, Wen Yicong said nothing more, letting the man beside her lead her by the hand into the elevator.

The elevator descended.

A few seconds later, a soft "ding."

The doors opened.

In an instant, a very particular scent entered Wen Yicong's nostrils. She caught an unusual fragrance.

The smell was hard to describe—calling it perfume didn't seem right; calling it a natural floral scent, even less so. It was elegant and lingering, as if history itself had been made tangible and allowed to settle, like the rare-book stacks of a library.

The corridor was lit with soft light. On either side were glass doors, behind each of which display shelves and cases could be faintly seen.

Mo Shaoshang led Wen Yicong by the hand, walking on, until at last he stopped before the last glass door.

He turned on the light.

Light poured down, and within the room it was bright as day.

It was an exhibition hall, vast in area, its exact dimensions hard to gauge. The light was soft but precise, illuminating the paintings on the walls and the objects in the glass cases.

Wen Yicong was nearly entranced.

Blue-and-white porcelain, ivory carvings, kesi silk screens... her gaze passed over each piece in turn, and she felt only that every one of these treasures was exquisitely unreal—things she had seen only in documentaries.

But Mo Shaoshang's footsteps still moved on.

He crossed the exhibition hall, walked to the innermost wall, raised his hand, and lightly tapped twice at a spot on the wall.

Fingerprint unlock. Another hidden door opened.

Unlike the outer exhibition hall, the world inside the hidden door was only about twenty square meters, and the light was a touch dimmer. Wen Yicong stood at the threshold, peering in, and only after a good while made out the things on the wall.

When the last wall sconce lit up, Wen Yicong at last saw the room clearly.

In a few seconds she felt all the blood in her body rush, whoosh, toward her brain, like a tsunami, overwhelming, crashing into her until she was dizzy, her eyes swam, her knees buckled, and she could barely stand.

Her whole body froze where she stood.

Not any famous painting she had expected, not any heritage treasure, not any antique curiosity.

There were only seven or eight paintings on the wall, the frames exquisite, the light kissing each canvas with tenderness.

Every one of these paintings was of the same person.

It was her.

There was her profile by the window, reading; there was the fall of hair at her ear when she lowered her head to smile; there was her standing in the pool, water streaming over her body, arms crossed over her chest, her face scarlet.

Every one was Wen Yicong.

Every Wen Yicong was wholly naked, unclothed, like a newborn babe...

Wen Yicong's breath caught.

Those selves in the paintings lay or sat at ease, their postures languid, their skin glowing soft in the light. Some angles and scenes were faithful reconstructions of things that had truly happened; others were not.

Those pairs of ambiguous, misty eyes, those expressions half agony and half bliss, seductive and wanton, bewitching—even she herself found them utterly strange.

Wen Yicong was certain she had never, before anyone, let slip such a look, such a gesture, such an expression.

Clearly... this was the her of Mo Shaoshang's imagining.

In an instant Wen Yicong's face flared, from cheek to the roots of her ears, even her neck stained crimson.

"..." What was before her eyes was too wanton and too terrifying. She raised a hand to cover her mouth, shocked into silence.

"Pretty?" At that moment, a soft voice came at her ear.

Mo Shaoshang had, at some unknown moment, come up behind her, and taken her hand. That broad palm was long and strong, its temperature distinctly cool, yet like a branding iron it burned her into a tremor.

Wen Yicong's thoughts were muddled, her whole body gone soft. She could only let him take her hand and lead her to the largest of the paintings.

It was a full-length portrait.

The girl in the painting lay on her side, her long hair loose, her cheeks flushed, her two eyes veiled in a hazy mist, gazing absently at some point outside the canvas.

"This is the way I most often dream of you." Mo Shaoshang's voice sounded at her ear, low as if to himself. "So beautiful. Beautiful enough to stop the heart."

Wen Yicong moved her lips, wanting to say something.

The next second her waist was suddenly gathered in. The man, from behind, wrapped his arm around her slender waist and pulled her to him in one motion.

Wen Yicong stumbled half a step and was pressed against a scorching chest.

Mo Shaoshang pressed himself to her back, his arm circling her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder. Then he turned his head, and his thin lips fell on her burning ear-shell.

A light touch, the tip of his tongue tracing—half kiss, half lick.

Like a test.

And like a lure.

Wen Yicong's breathing was utterly disordered.

Everything in her sight was wanton beyond compare, savagely assaulting her senses. And the most fatal thing of all was the man at her back.

His lips moved slowly along the curve of her ear, kissing her lobe, kissing the soft flesh behind it, traveling downward, landing on her neck. That stretch of skin burned fiercely; his kisses were cool, soothing nothing, and instead lit the smoldering flame within her completely.

Her body burned. Every nerve began to catch fire.

In the deep of the forest a downpour fell, without warning, crushing, gnawing at every inch of moss. Then suddenly the sky split open, and from the cracks in the stone a thin stream welled out, moistening the whole parched earth.

So hot.

So hot.

She felt she was about to burn up.

Wen Yicong's head swam. She could not help but lightly bite her lower lip.

A long finger, clean and slender, beautiful and untouched by dust. At some unknown moment it had slipped beneath the hem of her clothes.

It did not hurry upward, only lay against the skin at her waist, inch by inch, stroking. Wherever his touch passed her skin caught fire. Her whole body trembled, and she did not know whether she was afraid or waiting.

At last, the back clasp gave way.

The fragile, helpless fruit was seized, the force gentle and full of tenderness.

Then came a sharp twist.

Cruel, pathological, laden with the heavy flavor of chastisement.

No longer able to hold back, Wen Yicong knit her brow, a very soft whimper spilling from her throat, her fair little face flushed deep red.

Mo Shaoshang kissed those reddened lips, pried open her pearly teeth, tangled with her helpless little tongue, and swallowed every vague, broken sound the girl made.

His fingers went on, redoubling, tormenting her without mercy.

The motion was wanton and unbridled, yet his kiss was, perversely, gentle beyond words—half to please, half to provoke, and perhaps, too, patiently waiting for her to adjust.

By degrees Wen Yicong's awareness grew hazy. Her whole body went soft in the man's arms, dissolving into a pool of water, able to feel only his lips, his fingers, the cool, damp heat of his breath.

"Ti piace, piccolina? (Does it feel good, Baby?)"

The man's voice rose between Wen Yicong's lips and teeth, low, thick with the hoarseness of desire.

Wen Yicong's mind was wholly adrift. She felt only shy, only strung to the pitch of nervousness, but her body's response was, as ever, brutally honest. She nodded, dazed and half-conscious.

"Mm..."

His kiss fell again, beguiling: "Ti piace quando ti bacio e siamo vicini? (Do you like being tangled up with me?)"

She, in his lips and tongue, half in a dream, as if hypnotized, answered:

"I do..."

"Ti piace quando ti bacio? (Do you like it when I kiss you?)"

"I do..."

"Ti piaccio, tesoro (Do you like me, Baby)"

"I do..."

Mo Shaoshang's motion paused for half a second.

Then he went on kissing her, deep and lingering, lips and tongue working together, drawing her deeper.

"Then why are you so disobedient," he said again, his thin lips grazing the corner of her mouth, his tone calm and unhurried as he went on, "hiding from me, going to meet other wild men?"

-----------------------

Author's note: random 100-coin red packet