The Glory After Rebirth

Yuwen Jin was dragged out of the bedchamber. The others, very sensibly, also took their leave, carrying Ling Maomao and Ji Xiaocong away for good measure.

Soon the imperial bedchamber quieted down. Ling Zhang threw a glance at the color of the sky outside the window and thought, ‘Surely Yuwen Tong wouldn’t really want to do something at this hour?’

The two of them were the only ones in the imperial bedchamber now. Yuwen Feng and the others had considerately closed the front gates when they left. Nobody would come here to disturb them at this point in time. Yuwen Tong would be a complete fool if he didn’t take advantage of this opportunity to do what he wanted.

He rose to his feet, walked up to Ling Zhang, stooped down and cleanly scooped him up.

When Yuwen Tong leaned over, the smell of him quickly enveloped Ling Zhang, flooding into his nostrils, briefly rendering him dizzy. Before he could figure out why Yuwen Tong suddenly leaned over him, he was picked up.

Without uttering a word, Ling Zhang wrapped his arms around Yuwen Tong’s neck.

“The next step is to consummate our marriage,” said Yuwen Tong after planting a large kiss on him. They had finished the wedding ceremony and drunk “cross-cupped wine” from each other’s wine cups, which meant that Ling Zhang was now his marriage partner.

“Wait. There are so many officials and foreign guests out there. Is it really okay to just leave them there?” asked Ling Zhang, hastening to grab Yuwen Tong’s shoulder, looking nervously at him.

“Yuwen Feng will make arrangements for these after-wedding matters to be handled,” replied Yuwen Tong, carrying him towards the bed. After they walked through the valance, it floated down automatically.

Ling Zhang sensed Yuwen Tong’s determination. Recalling the wedding plan, he realized that they indeed didn’t have to be out there at this moment. The officials and other guests needed to transfer to another location, and the banquet was scheduled for nightfall. In a word, it was all abustle and astir outside, but he and Yuwen Tong didn’t have to concern themselves with any of it.

This also meant that he really had no excuse to…ahem…to refuse.

Ling Zhang’s eyes seemed to be avoiding something but also seemed to be smiling. Yuwen Tong noticed this, came to a halt and gazed down at him. He didn’t kiss Ling Zhang, merely staring at him. As though finding Ling Zhang’s eyes exceptionally enthralling, he just watched, stationary.

Ling Zhang silently looked back at him, his eyes gazing into the depths of Yuwen Tong’s where fire was dancing. Fascinated by it unawares, he involuntarily raised his hand to stroke it.

But his hand was intercepted before it could touch Yuwen Tong’s eyes, and with that Ling Zhang found that Yuwen Tong had carried him to the bed and was putting him down.

After grasping his hand, Yuwen Tong bent from the waist, kissed him hard, took a deep breath and then said, “There’s no hurry. We’ve still got something else to do.”

Ling Zhang looked at him bewilderedly. What else did they have to do?

Yuwen Tong slightly raised his upper body, widening the gap between them, then reached out his hands and unbuttoned Ling Zhang’s coat. He didn’t remove it, just letting it lie beneath Ling Zhang. Then his hands moved towards Ling Zhang’s belt.

The cummerbund was undone and laid flat on the two sides instead of being removed from beneath Ling Zhang.

Yuwen Tong was doing it very slowly with the air of someone unwrapping their present with great care. There was manifest desire in his eyes that he couldn’t disguise, but his movements were meticulous and totally unhurried, though the craving in his eyes was intensifying as Ling Zhang’s robes were taken off one after another.

The two of them had had sexual contact several times, so Ling Zhang shouldn’t be feeling shy, but somehow at this time he was quite bashful and flustered… The red valance in the imperial bedchamber was hanging there soundlessly. One of the windows of the outer hall was ajar, and a breeze was blowing in through the crack, gently fluttering the valance, the red ripples of which seemed to be tickling Ling Zhang’s heart repeatedly, turning him on.

There were also scarlet wedding candles in the bedchamber, which were made of a kind of special spice provided by the Fangcun Kingdom as part of the tribute and could last two days and two nights. Ling Zhang was unable to see any of the candle flames from his position, but he was feeling the heat from them, which seemed to be baking him, as though the candles were burning in his heart.

What he wanted the most to avert his gaze from was Yuwen Tong’s eyes. The expression and desire in that pair of eyes was projected squarely onto him, as though the owner of them could lose control of himself at any moment. Ling Zhang, in an almost subconscious way, gripped his robes which had been unbuttoned but not taken away and were still beneath his body.

However, this movement of his immediately arrested Yuwen Tong’s attention. His eyes which originally had had some self-restraint in them seemed to get out of control in that instant, staring feverishly at Ling Zhang’s hands grasping his robes.

His fair-skinned wrists, long fingers and slender frost-colored arms were revealing graceful skin texture from the effort of gripping his robes. His knuckles were so white they were dazzling Yuwen Tong, showing the sharpest possible contrast with the bright red robes and bedding, which was a fatal attraction.

Ling Zhang was unaware of any of it. He just sensed something faintly subdued, tense and out of the ordinary in the mood as he looked at Yuwen Tong’s eyes which were staring at his arm. He automatically tightened his grip on his robes, creasing them, as though a blossom had just been conjured up beneath each of his hands.

Yuwen Tong stopped restraining himself and grabbed Ling Zhang’s bold hand which was tantalizing his every nerve, holding it and the fistful of robes within it tightly.

“Why are you…”

Before Ling Zhang could finish his sentence, Yuwen Tong held his hand to his eyes in response, considering it, his hot breath spraying over his hand. His almost tangible gaze made Ling Zhang’s palm sweat really quick, rendering him unable to speak.

It was quite a while before he recovered his voice. “What are you doing? Is there something wrong with my hand?”

When he was uttering the last few words, his voice became a trifle husky, low and deep, confused and apparently somewhat injured. On hearing it, Yuwen Tong gave a start.

His gaze shifted from Ling Zhang’s hand to his mouth, and with that he reached out his other hand to rub Ling Zhang’s lips heavily with his thumb and croaked, “It’s beautiful.”

Beneath his intent gaze, Ling Zhang swallowed hard involuntarily. The longing in Yuwen Tong’s eyes deepened further as the apple of Ling Zhang’s throat bobbed.

He moved his hand from Ling Zhang’s lips down to his throat and held his neck with moderate force not enough to hurt Ling Zhang.

Ling Zhang reflexively raised his head. The next moment Yuwen Tong’s hand kept moving downwards all the way to Ling Zhang’s waist. Yuwen Tong suddenly lapsed into silence and resumed unbuttoning Ling Zhang’s clothes one after another, still not taking them away. He kept undoing those robes until Ling Zhang was naked…

Yuwen Tong took Ling Zhang’s hand, put it onto Ling Zhang’s waist and started rubbing his fingers against his waist slowly and heavily, leaving layers of pinkish marks on Ling Zhang’s white-skinned waist, which overlapped each other and were reddening gradually, but unlike the bright red of the robes and bedding, the red of the marks struck Yuwen Tong as suffocating.

There had been a couple of occasions when the two of them had acted wildly in bed, but on this day, Yuwen Tong was holding his hand and fondling him with their overlapping palms, as though intending to caress every inch of his skin. Ling Zhang felt the hair on his scalp prickle both when their fingers interlocked and when they slid across or were pressed against his skin…

…

…

After quite a long time, Ling Zhang looked at Yuwen Tong with unfocused, watery eyes, his whole body pinkish from a carry-over of excitement, some kind of aftersensation lingering in his breath and his eyes. Yuwen Tong fixed him with an unblinking stare.

It was a long moment before Ling Zhang came to himself. After recalling what Yuwen Tong had tempted him into doing just now, what kind of delirious words he’d said, what unimaginable exclamation he’d let out, he looked at Yuwen Tong who was still fully dressed, and suddenly felt hurt. He stretched his weak and faintly tremulous hand towards Yuwen Tong’s robes and held it. “Why didn’t you take off your clothes?”

Yuwen Tong conveniently scooped him up from the bed to let him sit in his embrace straddling his thighs. When their bodies were pressed tightly against each other, Yuwen Tong gave a muffled gasp and replied through gritted teeth, “Now you’re to take them off for me.”

Ling Zhang looked at him with his watery eyes. After a while, instead of disrobing Yuwen Tong, he shifted his position slightly.

Yuwen Tong’s whole body stiffened and he abruptly gasped, clenching his teeth, the look in his eyes instantly changing, his face twisting from the effort of restraining himself. He reflexively gripped Ling Zhang’s waist with the intention to stop him but couldn’t help letting him continue…

…

…

The red candles were still burning, giving off a faint aroma pervading the imperial bedchamber and wisps of smoke slowly twining around each other. For a long time, groans of the two people in bed could be heard in the bedchamber. The red valance was still rippling gently and continuously, as though it were feeling its owners’ pleasure and insatiable hunger for more.

…

It was another long time before the sky gradually became dark, and thousands of lanterns were lit in the imperial palace, forming a sea of bright light.

The streets outside the imperial palace had been tumultuous for a full day. Acrobatic platforms could be seen everywhere, and the whole street was adorned with colorful lanterns ablaze with multicoloured light. When night fell, fireworks studded the sky, bringing the uproar of this day to the climax.

Ling Zhang stretched out an arm from beneath the quilt which was covered with minor bruises, unhappily pushing Yuwen Tong who was trying to pull him out of the heap of quilt.

“Be a peach and get up. You may continue to sleep after we get back, okay?”

Patiently coaxing him, Yuwen Tong gave a smile of contentment. Eventually, he bodily scooped Ling Zhang up from the bed along with the quilt.

Ling Zhang, who was so drained he didn’t even have enough strength to hold up a finger, was totally unwilling to leave the bed. When Yuwen Tong picked him up, he buried his face in Yuwen Tong’s neck and bit him hard.

Yuwen Tong gasped lightly and said, “Don’t be mad. We’ll be late for the banquet if we don’t hurry. If I go there without you, you’ll definitely be angry with me after you wake up.”

Right now Ling Zhang was too tired to think clearly. When he came back to his senses and found that Yuwen Tong had gone to attend the banquet without him, he would no doubt go ballistic.

Wouldn’t that be synonymous with telling everybody what they had done and that he was unable to get out of bed because of it?