Present—

The kingdom of Morkud was known for its endless forests full of magical creatures and the zapping tang of qi woven into the very air. He could feel it on the tip of his tongue, teasing him like fine wine. Qian Meng had only visited this side of the continent three or four times in his long life, mostly because Sena cultivators were well equipped for handling criminals in their jurisdiction. No one committed heinous deeds here and escaped justice.

Also, he held a visceral hatred for wet heat.

It made his long hair stick to the back of his neck, and while he rarely gathered it in a high ponytail, the heat forced him. Tying it off with a black ribbon yanked haphazardly from the bottom of his pack. Sweat dripped down his temples, and if he were alone, he might consider stripping his outer robe just to grasp some sort of relief. His fingers twitched, one hand going to his wrist to adjust the vambrace there—a tic he’s had since he got them.

Lei Gong noticed the movement when he stopped to hold back a wall of branches. “You don’t look comfortable.”

The dark cultivator scowled and stomped past. “I’m fine.”

“I’m not poking fun, it was only an observation,” the man replied, a smirk gracing his lips.

Qian Meng didn’t respond because of course he was uncomfortable! They’d been trekking through the wild just outside of Guijing for over two hours now; the trail leading them to the body over twenty Li away from the nearest ward portal. And because the God didn’t possess a sword and Yu Chang was sealed, they couldn’t just fly to their destination and he was beyond pissed about it. He slowed his rapid pace to walk beside the God.

“Why don’t you have a sword? How does one become a legendary martial God without one?”

Lei Gong looked up from the delicate scroll in his hands, crimson gaze wary. “It’s a long story.”

Qian Meng would not be deterred. He walked two steps in front of the man and turned to walk backward, splaying out his hands. “We’ve got plenty of time, so I’ll grant you permission to speak in your long-winded fashion just this once.”

A little of the snarky attitude he used against everyone but the God before him slipped into the words, making them sound catty. He didn’t care, though. The man’s past couldn’t be so secretive that he never discussed it. Humans all across Rasheia knew Lei Gong’s name, knew his stories. And the dark cultivator had heard whispers between barstools that the man’s missing sword went hand in hand with his courtesy name. A small part of him wished he would have paid more attention to gossip just this once.

“How benevolent of you,” Lei Gong smarted back.

Qian Meng huffed a dark laugh. “You’ve asked me plenty of questions—”

The man cut him off, voice unyielding. “That you mostly haven’t answered, yes.”

He pursed his lips, eyes narrowing. It seemed Qian Meng, at last, touched a nerve. Well, he supposed he already had back in the tavern when he insisted their business was concluded. Back then, hearing the man’s voice raise and watching his fist slam against the table had not scared him. If anything, the idea of going all out in a fight against one of the most powerful immortals in the world thrilled him. It was a sick thought, to wish for violence, and Qian Meng knew that. He did. Yet it didn’t change the strange, coiled feeling that’d been brewing in his stomach from the moment they met. His dantian wasn’t the only part of him ready for a fight.

So he pushed for one, knowing exactly how to do so.

“What? Has someone ordered you not to speak of it?”

Lei Gong paused in the center of the path; gaze heavy as he slowly rolled the scroll back up and stowed it away. All birds fled, no toads croaked—not even magic dared to brush against the cheek of the man before him. The silence stretched taut, raising the hair on the dark cultivator’s arms and flooding them with goose flesh. He licked his lips as the God took a single step closer, muscles rigid and composed. Qian Meng’s anticipation was a marvelous thing, fizzling through his veins like a drug.

“You’re chatty today, Meng’er. Is there a particular reason for that?”

He tried not to flinch or scowl in the face of the nickname. Every time the man said it, some deep, buried part of him turned and picked up its tired head. Peeking past the darkness in his chest as if curious and wanting. He went from feeling electric to wary in the span of a sentence, hand going to palm Yu Chang on reflex. Lei Gong dropped his eyes to it, no hint of aggression or fear crossing his features. It threw the dark cultivator off balance and forced him to take a moment to compose himself.

Of course, the God noticed.

“And why are you suddenly clamming up?”

Another step forward brought them almost chest to chest, and the man’s eyes dropped to Qian Meng’s neck where his atrocious scars crawled up and were visible above his high collar. The dark cultivator’s body locked up at the attention, the wariness he felt twisting into something worse. This was exactly why he preferred his curtain of hair free flowing. Earlier, he’d damned the consequences, thinking the man had already seen enough of his body by the edge of the hot spring so as not to be shocked.

But now. . . Lei Gong refused to look away from them, eyes narrowed to slits. Was the man angry on his behalf? Did he wonder just what caused scars like this, or was he well aware of the terrible injuries discipline whips left behind?

He had to admit he didn’t want the answers to those questions. The two of them were so very different it was almost laughable. He’d bet gold on the fact that Lei Gong didn’t have a single blemish marring his perfect skin, and that thought tore him up inside. Not because he wanted the man to have gone through similar pain, but because he wished he hadn’t experienced his own.

“Don’t look at them,” he murmured, tone guttural.

Lei Gong snapped his eyes up, locking them with his, and that was almost worse. “I’ll tell you how I got my courtesy name if you tell me where those scars came from.”

Qian Meng inhaled sharply. “No deal.”

The God smiled softly as if he expected that answer. “Then let’s continue. We’re less than a shi away.”

He stepped around the dark cultivator’s stiff body and walked on, waving him to follow. Qian Meng had no other choice but to do so, keeping pace but remaining behind the God for the rest of their journey, allowing silence to cloak him.

The higher the sun rose, the more he sweat. It dripped down the column of his spine, into his eyes, and coated his palms. More than a few times, he smacked a too large bug off his robes or away from his neck with a shudder. Yet, the man walking gracefully in front of him was as fresh as a rose. Golden robes simple, but immaculate and multi-layered despite the heat. Held closed using a wide belt made of embroidered white leather, his mallet hanging from it.

None of those details were what he stared at almost obsessively, though. It was the stark contrast of ivory on ebony that caught his eye each time the sun shone through the thick branches overhead. A length of ribbon twisted through Lei Gong’s locks all the way to the ends where the braid swayed with every move of his hips, brushing over the curve of his lower back each time.

Qian Meng tried to look away from it, he really did, but it was impossible. Every time he managed it, something would highlight the sight again. A soft leap over a log, a sunny clearing, or even the God glancing at him over a shoulder as if checking to ensure he was still there. And if Qian Meng was devout, he’d pray to the Celestial Beings for mental strength and clarity of mind. Because being with this man was doing things to him he’d never experienced before. This new hyper-focus felt like an infection worming its way into his mind, claws sharp and unforgiving.

“We’re coming up to the scene,” Lei Gong called, snapping him out of his stupor.

“About time,” he muttered, fingers flexing.

The murder site was rife with the stench of stale blood and opened up to a wide clearing. Qian Meng paused at the edge, stopping his boot from landing. If there was something to find here, it was in the details. Even trampling something underfoot could change them. He took in their surroundings, eyes narrowing on where the cypress trees had been blown back. Lei Gong went directly to the body in the center, feet gliding above the grass to keep the scene untouched—as if he’d read Qian Meng’s mind. He was about to tease him for it when Lei Gong stopped, eyes unreadable as he stared down at the pile of flesh.

It was not whole enough to be considered a body anymore; that was how terrible an end the immortal had been dealt. The dark cultivator tore his gaze from it to press two fingers to the nearest damaged tree branch, closing his eyes and centering his qi. His dantian pulsed, sending out a wave of magic to rub against its life force. He felt the spirit shiver under his fingers, leaves arching toward his face just to feel close to his spiritual power. Memories flared through his mind, brief and fleeting.

An echoing boom of magical force.

Pleading, so much pleading.

A flash of red? Blood? Robes?

A high-pitched whine and then. . .

Silence.

With a gasp, Qian Meng snapped back, his fingers numb. Lei Gong glanced up from where he crouched over the mutilated corpse, brows furrowed in question. The dark cultivator only waved him away, moving toward a series of deep scratches in the Earth at the opposite end of the clearing. There were five in the perfect shape of claws grown not by a beast, but an immortal with the sacred skill of shape-shifting. Few people on Rasheia were capable of such old magic, and it was deeply rooted in the practices of the Achak Temple. He doubted anyone without express permission to access their sacred library even knew it existed, let alone held the power and control it took to wield it.

But he knew.

Qian Meng crouched and ran a hand along the grooves, following the ridges where they swayed from side to side, as if off balance. The wielder of this sacred skill, while powerful enough to use it, was unpracticed. Sloppy. And sloppy cultivators made mistakes, and left things behind to be discovered.

The dark cultivator stood and removed Yu Chang with a whir of cold Starmetal. She did not pulse or bleed dark magic as she did the day Qian Meng had shown up to kill a God, but the blade caught the light of the sun as he lifted it overhead.

Then slammed it into the Earth.

It sank in six or seven inches, deeply embedded into the soil. Lei Gong stood up in alarm, looking between the saber and his companion with wide eyes. “What are you—”

His words were cut off by a wave of qi exploding beneath their feet, thrusting the two immortals into the air as they weighed nothing more than a pebble. The magic that blew past them was fluttering, ivory, and left the sick scent of trampled, rotting lotus flowers behind.

Unfortunately, this also meant the body soared, flesh wheeling end over end. Lei Gong had to glance away, stomach roiling. In the process he locked eyes with Qian Meng from across the expanse of sky, soul shivering at the pleased smirk dancing along the dark cultivator’s lips. He forced himself to keep his expression blank in the face of that ravenous grin, lips parting as they soared thirty feet toward the merciless sun. It blinded him, but he still flicked out his fingers, catching Qian Meng on a buoy of air before he did the same for himself.

He lowered them back into the ruined clearing after every swath of magic had fled. In its wake, a deep silence cloaked them, which made the thud of the body falling through the trees to the ground nearby impossible to ignore. Lei Gong flinched, sending up a prayer of apology to Lou Ban. Then he turned on his heel toward Qian Meng, crossing his arms over his chest.

“What the hell was that?”

The dark cultivator refused to look at him, hunching over his sword to yank it from the Earth with one powerful thrust of his legs. And if Lei Gong noticed the muscles in the man’s thighs ripple, that was no one’s business but his own. Qian Meng held it up triumphantly, the runes etched into the metal vivid despite the lack of magic to fuel them.

“I knew there was something we missed, and you found nothing useful on the body, anyway.”

Lei Gong blinked at him. That was true, but throwing it into the air and letting it drop back to the ground with a dull thud? That wasn’t how the God of Thunder and Justice usually went about things. It was disrespectful to the deceased. He told Qian Meng as much, and the dark cultivator pursed his lips, arching a brow as he re-sheathed his sword.

“Fine. I won’t do that again, but we’ll have to miss out on evidence next time. How about that?”

The God bristled. “Is information more important than courtesy?”

Qian Meng scowled, pointing toward where the body had fallen. “Of course it is! Because that disciple, whoever it was, is now dead at the hands of a murderer the Celestial Beings have, so far, failed to catch. I’m sure they’re willing to be tossed around if it meant no one else had to die that way. Oh, wait, it doesn’t matter because their spirit was shattered. They can’t feel anything anymore.”

The retort was brimming with sarcasm, to which Lei Gong ignored in favor of gliding in the direction Qian Meng pointed. He promised Lu Ban he would spirit the disciple’s body back up to the Heavens for a proper burial, and there was nothing left here to accomplish. There were no runes or formations etched into the dirt, no residual spells lingering through the air with the smell of sulfur tinting it. Whoever killed this poor soul had done so using magic without the help of spiritual tools.

Lei Gong pressed two fingers to the center of the disciple's forehead, or at least where it used to be, and murmured in incantation. Golden light flared once, brighter than the sun before the body shimmered and disappeared. With a sigh, he stood up and dusted off his hands, trying to push the sight of evisceration from his mind’s eye.

When he returned, Qian Meng was standing in the center of the clearing, head tilted up toward the sky with his eyes closed. His expression was relaxed rather than rigid, and he seemed to be consumed by deep thought. He hated how unruffled by their brief argument the dark cultivator seemed. It itched at Lei Gong’s mind for long enough that he had to ask.

“Tell me the information that blast of magical power provided, and perhaps I will better understand.”

Qian Meng sighed, letting his crossed arms fall to his sides as he turned back toward the town they’d come from. “I’ll tell you when I have a cold drink in my hand.”

⚔

Qian Meng walked ahead of the God for the entirety of their trip back to town, shoulders rigid no matter how many times he rolled them. That argument, however brief and inconsequential, proved the difference between them like night and day. Proved that every little hatred he held for the Celestial Beings up on their high thrones was just as ingrained into the man behind him as it was any of the others. And he hated that more than he hated their principles to begin with.

The dark cultivator wasn’t sure why.

In the past, he would have brushed it off. Would have scoffed and continued to go about the task his way while damning the consequences. But the look on Lei Gong’s face when he let his callous words about the body rip from his mouth like dripping poison made him feel wretched in a way he hadn’t in a great, long while.

He flicked his fingers, then clenched them with a scowl as he stepped onto the cobble paths of Guijing. People streamed around him like he was a rock in the center of a river, giving him a wide berth. The street was busy too, packed, so there was no way his presence went unnoticed. Qian Meng barely paid the curious onlookers any attention, though. Instead, he prowled down the street in search of the closet inn that served potent enough alcohol to get him well and truly drunk. Because if his heart was going to feel so much without his permission, then drowning it away was his last option.

He felt Lei Gong trailing after him as the God always did, close enough he could taste the man’s qi signature on the back of his tongue. It was irritatingly familiar. The man himself was an echo of lost memory, and the longer they remained side by side, the more deeply Qian Meng believed the two of them shared something he had forgotten. Had he known this person when he was younger? Is that why he couldn’t recall ever seeing Lei Gong’s face while knowing exactly what the man’s laughter sounded like—knew which of his free-flowing smiles was genuine and which were faked?

Qian Meng didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to care, for he knew the consequences of becoming emotionally attached to anyone, let alone a God so out of his league it was absurd.

He hid trembling fingers beneath his sleeves as he climbed the stairs to an inn reeking of cheap alcohol that was sure to feel like burning fire in his throat. It was exactly what he needed. The man greeting patrons at the door paled at the sight of him, saying nothing when Qian Meng stalked past him to sit in the darkest corner of the large, boisterous room. Lei Gong followed more slowly, dipping his chin to the man in charge and whispering a quiet request for refreshments that the man scrambled to fulfill.

The people clustered around them murmured and bent their heads together, eyes trailing the illustrious man across the room. Noted his gliding steps, his ethereal grace. Qian Meng wanted to snap at all of them to stop looking at him. To mind their own damn business and go back to worrying about things like cattle and crops while they defeated demons and murderers on their behalf. His chest was a storm, his dantian a growing wave ready to devour anyone whole who dared linger before him.

Silence reigned as the God lowered himself to the cushion across from him, gaze searching. The dark cultivator could feel his entire body vibrating with a residual tension that’d been brewing since Lei Gong arrived in that orchard. He didn’t know what to do with it, and his body’s first reaction was to raise hell. To descend on whatever terrible soul he had lined up next on his list of kills, crossing them out with magical ink the moment their final breath left their vessel. His fingers, still trembling, itched to pull out that little black notebook. But he refrained, hoping to keep his secrets hidden for just a little longer.

The drinks arrived in a whirlwind of servers. One set down what he would assume to be the restaurant's most impressive set of jade cups and three jugs of alcohol. Lei Gong threw them a gold ingot thick enough to pay for the entire building before sending them on their way. Then the man slid a cup and jug across the table toward Qian Meng, raising his brows. The dark cultivator nodded his thanks before popping off the stopper and drinking directly from the bottle, cringing at the taste. Good lord, it was awful, but it was strong, and that was enough.

He gasped, wiping off his mouth and feeling the warm tingle of booze hitting his empty stomach. “Okay, now I can speak.”

“Are you sure?” Lei Gong asked quietly, doing that thing where he noticed Qian Meng’s suffering but didn’t directly address it, only trying his best to comfort him.

It made the dark cultivator feel exposed and corrupt because he knew, without a doubt, that he didn’t deserve any of it. Not understanding or kindness or compassion. Every terrible thing that’d been said about him was true, in some sense, and he would live with that until the day he died. No one else should be forced to carry that burden. He took another swig.

“Yes. After going over the space and probing into the qi of the living spirits, there still wasn’t a lot to go on. All I saw and heard were echoes of what happened with no clear details.”

Lei Gong poured himself a cup of liquor, face pensive. “Then how did you know to agitate the residual magic with your sword?”

Qian Meng set the jug back onto the table, eyes tracing the various scratches worn into it. “On the far side of the clearing, there were claw marks. Someone with less knowledge concerning the Achak Temple would dismiss them as something left by a demonic beast or a large animal. But there were no traces of demonic energy in the air, and the grooves were in the pattern of a five-fingered being, not an animal.”

Lei Gong closed his eyes, tipping back his drink. “Shape-shifting.”

The dark cultivator nodded. “Yes.”

“The list of people who could have done this gets shorter the more we investigate.”

Qian Meng sat back, taking the alcohol with him as he sprawled against the wall, head bumping into the wood paneling. Warmth slowly crawled through his limbs, making his vision hazy on the edges. And he was relieved to feel his raging mind quiet to a mere whisper.

“Yes, that’s true. But we’re at an advantage here. Spiritual magic leaves traces of the user behind no matter how many precautions one takes. That was how I knew to unearth it from the soil,” he explained, rolling his wrist.

Lei Gong took another drink, gasping as his eyes pinched shut with disgust. Qian Meng had to press his lips together to hold back the laughter that bubbled up at the sight.

“And what did it tell you?”

“That whoever did it is a novice. Old, but new to magic. I could tell they clearly understood the concepts but didn’t have the experience to match. However, I suspect the more they kill with this power, the easier it will become. And the easier it becomes. . .”

“The more powerful the cultivator,” Lei Gong finished for him, slamming his cup down onto the table.

Qian Meng nodded. “Precisely. But, lucky for you, you have another spiritual magic user here that can track whoever did this.”

Lei Gong eyed him, pouring another cup despite the flush overtaking his face and the sway to his shoulders. Clearly, the God couldn’t hold his liquor. Qian Meng had half a mind to take it away from him and order food to settle the man’s stomach, but then immediately reminded himself he didn’t give a damn about taking care of him.

“And what’s the catch?” Lei Gong asked, words slower than usual, but not yet slurring.

The dark cultivator leaned forward, dropping his empty jug to the table and snatching a new one to give himself some time to think. His original plan had been to convince the God to unseal Yu Chang so they could forgo the ward portals and endless hours spent walking, and, in exchange, he would track the culprit. However, it felt a little wrong to proposition him with such ideas right now. He had a feeling the man was an agreeable drunk.

“There’s no catch,” he replied.

Lei Gong laughed, loud and lilting and a little sloppy. It drew the attention of the tables around them, the humans gravitating toward him as if he were water in the middle of a desert. Qian Meng almost did the same before snapping himself back again, his head slamming into the wall with a resounding thud. It didn’t hurt in the least, but the God stopped laughing. Then he was on the dark cultivator’s side of the table before he could even blink, probing at the back of his head. It brought them way too close together.

“Are you alright? Why’d you do that?” Lei Gong asked, lips tugging down at the corners.

Qian Meng’s entire body was thrumming with warmth from the alcohol which made him slow and languid, but his mind was bleating with panic. He tried to push the man away, one hand coming up to press into the front of Lei Gong’s robes, but it only rested there, flat palmed, as if that were his plan all along. Stupid, he berated himself even when Lei Gong leaned into the touch—especially because he did.

“I’m an immortal, do you really think a bop to the head could hurt me?” Qian Meng whispered back, lips quirked up.

Because if he couldn’t defend himself with action, sarcasm was the next best thing. Lei Gong hummed, nodding as if that were so obvious he should have thought of it himself. And while he moved out of Qian Meng’s immediate personal space, letting the dark cultivator’s hand slip away, he didn’t go far. Sitting right beside him, their bodies pressed together from shoulder to ankle. The only saving grace was that no part of them that touched involved skin-on-skin contact.

“You’re right,” the God murmured, slouching against Qian Meng and letting his head rest on his shoulder. “But you’re not getting out of it.”

Now Lei Gong was slurring, one word bleeding into the next, and said so softly Qian Meng strained to hear them. It was almost funny how easily the man fell into a drunken stupor. Perhaps being a Celestial Being meant he rarely indulged in pleasures of the flesh, which, at least to Qian Meng, included getting wasted. He took another long pull.

“Getting out of what?”

Lei Gong poked his side. “I know there’s something you want in exchange,” the man murmured, gazing up at him from beneath heavy-lidded, crimson eyes. “You don’t do things out of the goodness of your heart.”

Qian Meng couldn't hide his startled flinch, but it didn’t matter, because drunk Lei Gong did not notice. Flopping forward to steal the dark cultivator’s booze bottle. The dark cultivator held it up overhead and tilted his face away so the man couldn’t glimpse his expression. He had no clue what was showing there but knew it was raw. While many people had said such things to him, it had never hurt quite so much.

“That’s enough drinking for you,” he told him, moving to stand. “How about we go sleep it off, yeah?”

It was a surprise when the room wobbled a bit, betraying how much he’d drank. Qian Meng ignored the sensation and hauled the God to his feet, tossing the man’s arm over his shoulders. Lei Gong let it happen, turning his flushed face into the crook of the dark cultivator’s neck. And Qian Meng was pretty sure he almost saw stars when the man’s breath cascaded across his skin.

“Come on, come on,” he muttered, urging him forward.

Lei Gong’s feet dragged beneath him as they trudged across the room and knocked into tables. No one yelled at them for the disturbance, not daring to tempt a drunk cultivator into a bar-room brawl. Which was good, because Qian Meng might’ve taken them up on it with how his day was going. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs to request a room, and Lei Gong snuggled closer, slipping his arm from around Qian Meng’s neck to his waist, gripping it tight. And at that moment, he felt so much wild embarrassment he wished for the depths of the demonic realm to open up under his feet and swallow him whole.

“Third floor, fifth door on the left,” a gruff man supplied, nodding the stairs. “That man’s gold was more than enough to cover a room.”

Qian Meng nodded, keeping his eyes averted as he stumbled forward, trying and failing to peel the God from his body. Lei Gong was getting bolder by the minute, face pressed as close to Qian Meng’s neck as possible, his lips brushing it with every soft inhale of breath. The dark cultivator wanted to scream at him, throw him off, but his body wasn’t responding. It was eerily similar to their first meeting.

"You smell so good," Lei Gong whispered.

The dark cultivator's vision swam, tilting from side to side by the time they got to the landing. He felt his heart beating in his throat and blood rushing to parts of him that had been dormant for centuries. Qian Meng might go mad from the feeling, for the hotness pooling low in his gut was terrible in its urgency.

Only a few more steps, he told himself, and then we’ll be behind a door where there was a bed to toss the drunkard onto. Qian Meng sighed, pushing legs that wanted to collapse beneath him to move. It took forever, or maybe it only took seconds, he couldn’t be sure, but then they were tumbling into the room. An incense burner was already lit, filling the space with the soft scent of cedarwood.

There was only one bed, but Qian Meng didn’t care as he careened toward it, throwing his body forward. And, as suspected, Lei Gong wasn’t ready for the sudden movement, losing balance and his grip as he flopped atop the mattress. The both of them were gasping harsh, panting breaths as they stared at one another.

He didn’t know what he looked like. Maybe he was tipsy and haggard, maybe he looked as annoyed as he felt beneath all this desire, or maybe he looked shocked at what he saw spread out on a silver platter before him.

Lei Gong was lying across the silk sheets, hands fisted in them and wild hair undone from his once perfect braid. It pooled around his head like a halo of spilled ink. The dark cultivator's fingers twitched, aching to know if it was as soft as it appeared.

"Come here," Lei Gong murmured, tilting his head.

The single oil lamp beside the bed sent flickering, gilded light across the God's face, highlighting his swollen mouth. From kissing his neck? Qian Meng almost fainted at the thought. The gem between his lush brows was no longer veiled, and it seemed to pulse rapidly as if matching its master’s heartbeat. Qian Meng clenched his fists by his sides, taking a wavering step back. If he didn’t know better, he’d say that look was a challenge. A dare. An invitation.

Perhaps all three.

“Sleep,” he commanded, hating that his voice came out gruff as if Lei Gong had succeeded in crawling beneath his skin to boil his blood.

The God smiled, serpentine and wicked. “Only if you sleep with me.”

“No, thank you.”

Lei Gong sat up on his forearm, dark hair swishing across his chest and a pout on his lips. “Why not?”

Alarm bells rang through Qian Meng's skull. He knew if the man were to stand and... Well, do anything insistent from backing him into the wall to tugging him to the bed, his liquor-muddled brain would surely lose in this battle of wills. He only held so much control, and Lei Gong was testing it in a way that it had never been before. The words that came out next were tinged in panic and way more honest than sober Qian Meng would have ever been.

“Because you are too much,” he replied. “Too interesting, too pretty.”

“Oh?” Lei Gong replied, eyes sparkling. “Isn’t that a reason to come to bed?”

Qian Meng’s vision went white at such a sultry tone. He thought he’d been prepared for all manner of battles, and would win every single one, even against Gods. But this? It made his knees go weak and his mind fray on the edges. He couldn’t take one more moment of it, so he fell back into a familiar defense mechanism, fleeing toward the open window. If he could just get some fresh air, alone, then he could center himself and re-evaluate.

“Wait!” The God called, but too late.

Qian Meng was already leaping through the curtained window to disappear, a cold night of sleeping on clay tiles in his future.