Chapter Text
The banquet was in full swing at Glamour Hall.
There were dancers showing off their most sensual moves in front of the dull eyes of the intoxicated dignitaries who still had enough strength to again raise their liquor cups in a toast before sloshing the content everywhere with unsteady hands. Others who couldn’t hold their alcohol had passed out long before.
Alcohol was running free like a river that evening in celebration for the sect leader's birthday. As for all celebrations of the main branch of the Jin family, no thought had been spared to expenses; gold was useful as long as their name didn't leave a bad impression, so the coffers had been opened and emptied for those old geezers to consume as much liquor as the blood in their bodies, yet even that much hadn’t made a dent in the Jin fortune.
Jin Ling was more than glad to provide for all those useless relics that were left from the previous Jin administration, as long as they were happy and easily malleable. It was his grandfather's fault basically, who had loved to surround himself with courtiers ready to bow to his words almost as much as he had loved being surrounded by women with open legs. And it was his uncle's shortcoming too, as he didn't see fit to dismantle such a system -not when his plans had been focused elsewhere and he had still somehow profited from that scheme.
Despite the partying people livening up Glamour Hall though, Jin Ling himself wasn't there.
The guests of honour had retired earlier to his chambers, after raising his cup enough times not to be considered an unpleasant host, cheering for empty reasons and to disagreeable company, fooling them into believing the stretch of his lips to be a real smile every time his name had been called out loudly for the whole hall to notice.
It was extremely unappealing for him to drink that way, wasting good wine on distasteful people; he would have preferred to sip it slowly with an unparalleled beauty sitting next to him, a warm body clinging to his arm, or even better, slowly pouring the liquor drop by drop on the porcelain body of said beauty, to lick it afterwards when the burning taste of alcohol mixed perfectly with the sweet skin, sticky fingers gripping the wet and soft meat in an unrelenting grasp. The fake complaints of his companion, those tenderly mewled nos constantly bordering on moans would have certainly filled the air better than the cacophony of the drunkards in Glamour Hall.
And if Jin Ling lost, purely by accident, some of the golden trinkets decorating his hair as delicate fingers pressed his face more and more against heated skin… well, he wouldn't complain.
Unfortunately, the only source of complaint that night was the loneliness he found himself feeling during such an otherwise auspicious event.
Even though he had promised to drop his tasks in Cloud Recesses and join him to make the party slightly more bearable, Lan Sizhui was late. Not there yet to enter his room with the cold wind of the night to wake him up from his wine-induced stupor and start a fever in Jin Ling's veins.
Nor was there his smile, burning like the sun even at night, the only thing capable of calming down the constant storm brewing in Jin Ling's mind.
With a sigh, he blew off the lantern on his nightstand and laid down on his empty bed.
The silk under his fingers was cold and Jin Ling was definitely not in the mood to appreciate the opulence of his room when all he wanted was to run the tips of his fingers on a different fabric, taking Lan Sizhui's clothes off, opening him like a wrapped present to reveal the tender content of his body, ready to be devoured with passion. There was no greater bliss than becoming one with his lover and losing himself in the heat of his body.
It was instead the wine still thrumming in his veins that warmed Jin Ling up. The air in the room felt suffocating, sticking unpleasantly to his skin even though the cold season was already knocking at the door. There was no reason to slip under the covers then.
Another sigh and Jin Ling unfastened the high neckline of the vest he was wearing. He should have been used to the constraint by then, having been wearing the same type of dress everyday for the last ten years, yet that night it felt unbearable, his breath stuck under the tight collar, like the horizontal scar marking his neck was a tightening noose.
Once his neck was freed, breathing became easier, and the shoes followed soon after. They flew unceremoniously to the other side of the room, loudly hitting the wall and falling down in the proximity of his desk, giving the headache he was nursing one more reason to make him wince. Everything else required too much energy, and even though he had a powerful golden core, Jin Ling was in no mood to waste it on anything except making love to Lan Sizhui.
And Lan Sizhui wasn't there.
Rolling into a more comfortable position on the mattress, he closed his eyes, an arm laid on them to better reinforce the concept, and passed out.
Wrinkled clothes and hangover were going to be a problem for tomorrow's Jin Ling, one year older and not at all any wiser.
It wasn't the sudden cold air entering from the window that woke up Jin Ling, nor was it the weight of somebody laying atop of him. He was a tough cultivator, hardened by life and its many terrible experiences -those little nuisances were inconsequential to him.
But a constant nibbling at one's neck tended to wake up people, and especially those who were as protective of their necks as Jin Ling was.
His eyes opened in a flash, wide as saucers as they took in the room while his right hand flew to cover the scar.
The shoes were still where he had thrown them some hours prior, his books abandoned on the desk were still piled in towers of the same height, the gauze curtains swayed gently from the breeze seeping through the closed windows. Nothing seemed out of place, not even the white clad body laying as a cover on top of him.
Oh .
"Sizhui…" he murmured against a cascade of black hair, just to get a nose nuzzle his jaw in confirmation. Small wet kisses found their way between Jin Ling's fingers, on the thin line of his scar, as Lan Sizhui pushed his hand away.
His fingers itched to caress his lover's hair as more proof that he was actually there, not a figment of his wine-induced dreams - so Jin Ling did exactly that; the hair was soft and silky between his calloused fingers, and very real.
"You came."
A sound like a chuckle vibrating against his throat answered his not-question, and then, after a moment, "you know I wouldn't miss a date with you unless for important reasons. Especially not on your birthday."
There was a real smile blooming on Jin Ling's face that for an instant he forgot about hangovers and headaches as Lan Sizhui rose up from his position draped over the Jin sect leader.
With the feeble light that filtered in from the lanterns outside through the windows cracks, Jin Ling was able to recognise his beautiful silhouette, and the two shining pinpricks that were his eyes. Even without being able to see him perfectly though, Jin Ling was sure that the man between his arms was his lover, the well-known weight against his body and all the lines and curves that melded perfectly against him reassuring him of the truth.
"And I came."
Jin Ling could easily imagine the expression painted on his lover's face, that one that made his eyes turn in half moons as his cheeks got pushed up by the corners of the pinkest lips.
Soon after those same lips were on his own, kissing him in a tender way that said more than words could, how much he had been missed. Lan Sizhui's fingers caressed his jaw, angling him better to receive a deeper kiss, that lewd tongue making its way inside his mouth, making Jin Ling realise how thirsty he had been.
Good thing that Lan Sizhui was languid and warm between his arms, quenching the needs that Jin Ling didn't know he had, those needs he always did have.
Unable to help a moan escaping his mouth as Lan Sizhui's tongue reached deeper, thumbs pushing against his jaws like the hands cradling his neck weren't enough, Jin Ling broke the kiss.
The heat of their two bodies pressed together was becoming stifling, and for how soft his lover was in his hands, Jin Ling's hands travelling downward to the round mounds of his ass, another part of him - of both of them- was very hard.
On top of him, Lan Sizhui chuckled against Jin Ling's mouth, his breath cooling down the spit left behind on those lips.
"Do you want to come too?"
That playful lilt couldn't hide what a mischievous vixen Lan Sizhui actually was.