Chapter 23. Breakthrough Part 2

Yin Yan dreamed of that dimly lit room and the locked door again.

The electric light never seemed to turn on, leaving only the faint glow of a candle. That little flame wasn’t enough to illuminate even the tabletop, yet in the darkness, it was his only comfort. He stared at the tiny flicker, and as time passed, drowsiness crept up his eyelids, but he didn’t dare to sleep. More unbearable than exhaustion was waking up to find the candle burned out, reduced to a puddle of cold, hardened wax. Then, he could only touch it, feeling its lingering warmth with his fingers.

Every time this happened, hunger gnawed at him, hollowing him out from the inside. The surrounding darkness pressed down on him, crushing him into something as small as a stomach.

This was the dream he had most often as a child.

Once again, he woke up in hunger, though his stomach was still full.

Lying on his stomach, he barely moved before the mattress springs let out a series of creaks.

The room was unlit.

His heart sank. Until he saw the light.

The warm glow of a candle filled the room, carrying a scent he didn’t particularly like, yet found somewhat comforting.

Lu Zhengming was sitting on the other bed, staring at the flickering white candle, lost in thought. The soft light bathed his face, making his expression seem gentler than usual. The air conditioning was set high; both of them were bare-skinned. Lu Zhengming looked at him with that familiar yearning in his eyes, the kind that made him want to move closer.

He sat down on Yin Yan’s bed, stroked his face, and asked, “Feeling better?”

Yin Yan didn’t respond to his warmth. Instead, he held Lu Zhengming’s hand and inspected the wound.

“…Sorry.”

He lowered his head, apologizing earnestly. His voice was so subdued, almost dejected, that even Lu Zhengming found it too solemn.

“It’s fine, it’s just a scratch,” Lu Zhengming reassured him.

But Yin Yan’s expression remained dark. Every time he let himself go, the aftermath always came back to bite him, making it hard to move on.

“It’s not like I’ll be wearing short sleeves in this weather anyway, really—”

Before Lu Zhengming could finish, a sudden touch brushed against his lower body.

“…Did you take care of it?”

“…Take care of what?”

The moment the words left his mouth, Lu Zhengming realized. The place Yin Yan held stirred with a restless heat, swelling to fill his palm in no time.

Desire, which had only just receded, surged back. Lu Zhengming found it a little pathetic. No matter how much he’d seen, no matter how much experience he had, this body of his had been completely tamed by Yin Yan. Just the slightest tease from him was enough to strip away all defenses.

His throat tightened. He swallowed dryly and covered Yin Yan’s hand with his own.

“I don’t want to do it alone. Stay with me, okay?”

Yin Yan didn’t refuse. He never had. It was Lu Zhengming who always held back.

Just as Lu Zhengming couldn’t understand his masochistic tendencies, Yin Yan couldn’t understand why Lu Zhengming insisted on making them the same. Why he wouldn’t allow him to be anything but happy. If he were a woman, he could at least fake an orgasm and brush it off, but a man’s body left everything out in the open. No matter how well he acted from the waist up, the lower half would always betray the truth.

And Lu Zhengming used that against him, forcing him in a way that was just as unreasonable as some straight men.

Maybe that last time had given Lu Zhengming confidence—his eyes were filled with the desire for more. Yin Yan sighed inwardly, realizing he was about to be tested on his acting skills again. Deciding to reclaim a bit of control, he shifted his gaze toward the candle.

“…Did you buy that for lighting?”

Of course, Lu Zhengming’s intentions weren’t that simple. But right now, he’d rather use it for just that.

On a night like this, they should melt into each other.

He had endless patience, convinced that he could give Yin Yan the most pleasurable experience of his life, one that would surpass even the ecstasy of before. So, he ignored the hint in Yin Yan’s words, skillfully kissing him down and teasing him with just one hand until his body was fully aroused.

Yin Yan always put up some resistance at first. But in the end, wasn’t he just as lost in pleasure as he was?

Lu Zhengming couldn’t imagine how a tree growing from a crack in the rocks twisted and contorted at every inch of its trunk. He could only see its lush canopy, no different from any other tree. He didn’t understand that its entire existence had been a struggle against the rock, and that once freed from the weight of pain, the lightness of freedom might be the very thing to crush it.

His caresses and kisses grew more intense, so overwhelming that Yin Yan began to suffocate. His skin trembled from pleasure, but deep inside, his body convulsed. It felt like an invisible hand had seized his stomach, pulling him toward a void that didn’t exist.

“Do you like it? Isn’t this good?”

The scent of candle wax grew thick and cloying. A wave of nausea rose in Yin Yan’s throat, threatening to make him retch. But Lu Zhengming’s face was so utterly content, so blissfully immersed, that a strange sense of pity, one he had never felt before, began to stir within him.

But he really was going to throw up.

His eyes locked onto the candle on the nightstand. The top layer of wax had completely melted, glowing quietly under the flickering flame.

He took a deep breath. Just as Lu Zhengming had his mouth wrapped around his cock, sucking him in deep, he grabbed the candle and poured the hot wax over himself.

The pain burned exactly as expected, yet he barely reacted. He only watched the wax pool in the hollow beneath his ribs, layering over his stomach through his skin until the weight of it finally settled him.

Not until the wax cooled against his body, hardening into a brittle shell, did he finally let out a soft, sigh-like moan.

Lu Zhengming flinched, frozen in place. He didn’t even think to snatch the candle away until the wax had already solidified. “Are you insane?!”

Yin Yan frowned slightly. “You still don’t know what I like?”

He hadn’t expected Yin Yan to resist like this. So harshly, so recklessly. Annoyance flickered through him, but beneath it, a dull frustration gnawed at his chest.

“Do I make you feel that awful?”

Yin Yan looked at him and sighed before his confidence completely crumbled. “We can both take what we need from this.”

Lu Zhengming still felt a lingering sense of disappointment, but he could see that Yin Yan was making an effort to avoid conflict. Compared to before, he was no longer as sharp-edged. He had stopped using provocation to push him into indulging his pain. He had been hinting at it since they were in the store, his eyes lingering on the candles. That kind of obvious desire, and yet he had failed to fulfill it…

A pang of guilt hit him. He lowered his head and traced a finger over the cooled wax. “Does it hurt?”

Yin Yan shook his head.

“Then…” Lu Zhengming picked up the candle, watching as the fire melted another thin layer of wax. “Should we try?”

Yin Yan didn’t object.

Lu Zhengming guided him to turn over, his limbs bracing against the bed. He had done his research. He knew to start with the areas most resistant to pain. Holding the cup high, he let the wax drip from a distance so it wouldn’t scald. He even tested it on the back of his own hand before letting it fall onto Yin Yan’s skin.

At first, the droplets were gentle, as light as a kiss. Then, from a lower height, they became hotter, like sharper bites. The warmth seeped in, turning into a burn, then into tendrils of pain, like a slow-moving current of fire and electricity.

Yin Yan exhaled and closed his eyes. His body awakened, ready for more.

Lu Zhengming dragged the candle slowly along his back, tracing lines of milky-white wax from the dip of his spine, stretching down to the curve of his waist, then lower, to the crest of his hips.

He wasn’t sure how to describe Yin Yan’s ass. It was firm yet round, not soft, but not as rigid as someone who spent all their time at the gym. Most of all, it was always tense, so tight it almost seemed shy, like it wasn’t used to being touched.

Lu Zhengming didn’t have any particular fixation, but he had to admit, this kind of restrained rawness hit his aesthetic sense just right.

His gaze was stuck on those two firm mounds, on the tight seam between them, on that entrance he had only ever teased. A spot that seemed to pulse with unspoken temptation, pulling at him, taunting him.

It was instinct. Pure, raw instinct.

“Fuck, Yin Yan… You’re too fucking sexy.”

Lu Zhengming murmured his praise as he let the milky, semen-like wax drip freely. His cock throbbed as he climbed out of bed, lighting more candles. Black, red, gold-flecked wax melted down onto Yin Yan’s back, turning his skin into a dripping abstract painting. For a second, Pollock and de Kooning flashed through his mind, but he shoved the thought away. He pressed himself between Yin Yan’s ass, grinding against him, rubbing the sweat off his skin. He was so close to pushing in, just a little more, and he could have everything.

With the last of his restraint, he flipped Yin Yan onto his back.

A new canvas.

Yin Yan was already drenched. By the time the wax coated his front, his cock was standing hard and dripping, a complete fucking mess. Lu Zhengming let the wax drip onto the slick tip, and Yin Yan’s whole body shuddered, like he was about to cum.

Lu Zhengming had had enough.

He stretched him open as fast as he could, then slammed in.

“Fuck!” He moaned out loud, his hand shaking as he held the candle. Hot wax dripped onto his fingers, down his forearm, flowing over the bite marks Yin Yan had left on him. The sting only made the pleasure more intense. He felt like he finally understood Yin Yan’s pleasure. Pain was just another kind of ecstasy, wasn’t it? It was like drinking absinthe. The heat and burn came first, but if you endured it, bliss would follow.

Yin Yan bit down hard, trying to suppress his moans. But Lu Zhengming knew he was drowning in pleasure. His reactions were exactly the same as last time. He just needed to give him the right push, and he’d take him somewhere he’d never been before.

Lu Zhengming fucked him while letting wax drizzle onto his skin. His mind was completely wrecked by pleasure, filled with nothing but blasphemous, depraved thoughts…

What was the origin of art again? Aristotle, Spencer, Kant, Engels. Five major theories, multi-determinism…

Bullshit. All of it was fucking bullshit.

The origin of art was lust. Pleasure. Goddamn ecstasy. Orgasm!

Yin Yan’s reaction was more intense than ever, and Lu Zhengming knew that he’d done it! Yin Yan was fucking wrecked, drowning in the sensation, calling his name over and over, even begging for more.

“Zhengming… Zhengming… faster…”

And yet, the surprise didn’t end there.

At the peak of his climax, Yin Yan wrapped his legs tightly around Lu Zhengming’s waist, clinging to his neck and back, kissing him feverishly. It was everything Lu Zhengming had ever dreamed of, a kiss full of raw desire and passion.

Holding him close, he pounded into him relentlessly, swelling to his limit inside that scorching heat, shuddering violently as he came, so hard it felt like he might die from it.

They remained tangled together, lost in their frenzy, neither willing to let the other go even as the aftershocks faded. Their kisses went on and on, so deep and desperate they nearly forgot to breathe.

Half-conscious, Yin Yan felt it again, that sensation of his soul splitting in two. Half of him floated outside his body, standing at the bedside, coldly observing his own wrecked, sweat-slicked form, entangled with Lu Zhengming in filthy indulgence. He turned to glance into the void. But before he could make sense of it, he was pulled back in, forced into another kiss.

Between their parted lips, he heard Lu Zhengming whisper,

“I love you.”