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Small and prickly like a rosebud, Hua Cheng feigned to get out of the dressing room to fight the group of monks and cultivators searching for him.
Xie Lian hugged him tightly and searched everywhere for a place to escape, but found nothing but the angry fists of the little Ghost King and his paralyzed heart.
Maybe it was because the clothes on the dresser reminded him of Shi Qingxuan, or maybe it was because Hua Cheng's baby face had awakened a different feeling in him, a deep and almost maternal affection, that when he decided to transform into a woman, he did it wrong.
He felt his whole body shrink and expand in places where he had always seen straight angles and well-trained muscles. A woman's body was always softer, curved and delicate, a fragrant air, as the poems said, a flower, a swan's feather. He felt strange, unbalanced, heavy. He had to make an effort to straighten his back and control the sudden fear that came over him at the prospect of a man (even if it was that magnificently-dressed cultivator who had taken a vow not to touch a woman's skin) seeing his naked body.
But when Heaven's Eye saw him, he stumbled backward, ashamed of his sin. He stammered out an apology, and the monks and cultivators stumbled out of the shop, wondering why they had even gone to that place when someone like Hua-Hua-Hua Chengzhu, that damned ghost, was surely hiding in a brothel or a sleazy saloon.
"We should leave here immediately," Xie Lian whispered, peeking through the curtain and breathing a sigh of relief. "We won't be safe until we are far away from here."
When he turned around, Hua Cheng was glued to the wall of the dressing room, petrified by the sight before him. There were very few things in the world that could surprise him, but apparently Xie Lian's transformation had done it.
He, or rather, she, looked down to see herself.
"..."
She was also surprised to find herself with a generous chest spilling over her arms, barely covered by the woman's robe she had taken from the shop window. She had miscalculated and thought that the little spiritual energy she had left wouldn't be enough to transform her whole body, so she had recited the whole transformation spell, hoping that maybe her face would become more feminine and that would be enough. But the spell had worked perfectly, and to her chagrin, she had not left a single part unchanged. Not. One.
"Oh, no. I'm sorry, so sorry," she cried, her voice very high-pitched, no doubt feminine, as she began to dress, and Hua Cheng put his small hands over his face so as not to see her. "Let's get out of here before something worse happens."
She took the boy in her arms and ran out of the clothing store without looking back.
She didn't have a chance to think about the ridiculous image of a woman running through the village carrying a child who could already walk without any problems; she had more important things to think about. Like where to go, or what to do to stop her breasts from bouncing so ridiculously, because besides the fact that it was absolutely obscene, they also hurt a lot.
Xie Lian bit her lips and pressed Hua Cheng against her, hoping that his small body would block this indecent movement that she couldn't avoid at all.
Was there a spell that could counteract the movement of two such fat breasts? Perhaps there was. But the two female officers of the Heavenly Court she could ask were not exactly available. Ha, ha, what a predicament! She turned to look at the child in her arms, searching his face to see if it was as frightening to him as it was to her, but Hua Cheng had clung to her neck and sunk his little face into her shoulder, refusing to look up.
It was hopeless.
The best thing to do was to run until he could find a place to hide and a solution to his new problem.
She did not stop for hours. And even when they lost sight of the pursuing cultivators, she kept on running. They crossed the desolate hills surrounding the village and walked until it was dark again and they found an inn and asked for food and a room.
All the way, Hua Cheng kept looking at Xie Lian, frowning and twisting his mouth. She, in haste and in pain, spent the whole way telling the boy beside her about the things she had seen in the West: how he had lived in a cave filled with crystals inside that glowed all night after being charged with sunlight, trying not to think about how heavy her chest felt, trying to find a balance between the new proportions of her body and the prickles that pierced the tender skin of her curves.
Inside the room, Hua Cheng was finally the first to speak.
"Gege—uhm, you can change now. You don't need to stay like this any longer. We've lost those who were chasing us."
Xie Lian smiled, aware that the cold sweat running down her back was not from exertion, but from the situation she was in.
She sat down on the bed and sighed. Shi Qingxuan's fan would be of great help to her at this moment.
Hua Cheng stood very still and looked at her. Then, he tilted his handsome head slightly as if he had realized the situation.
"Gege... you can change back, right?"
"Yes, I think so. But first...first I have to do something else."
Xie Lian's luck was evident even at times like this. Of all the bodies she could have chosen, of all the ages of a woman, she had to choose this one. Because Xie Lian was not only a young woman, she was a young mother, and her body had taken on the form of a mother ready to nurture her newborn child. The generosity of her breasts had not been a vain decision; perhaps feeling a maternal protection from Hua Cheng, her body decided to change from manly pecs to milk-filled breasts, overflowing and aching, ready to fulfill their duty. Ruoye had helped her carry the weight for much of the walk, positioning itself just below the curve of her breasts, but the pain she felt would not go away until the milk could flow.
She brought a hand to the front of her robe and her heart skipped a beat when she discovered it was wet. It wasn't sweat that made it wet. Desperate for relief, she took off her boots and outer robe, as if hoping it would make her feel less trapped by her body's urges.
"What do you have to do?" asked Hua Cheng, frowning, worried about her.
And, ah, it was so true that the body had control of the soul, for how was it possible that just seeing Hua Cheng's precious little face could awaken within her an emotion so impossible to stop? It was like water between her fingers. Her heart seemed to grow inside her ribs, as if it wanted to jump out and directly embrace the child in front of her. And what was worse, this wild thumping made her breasts feel even more sensitive.
There was only one logical solution: Why did a mother produce milk? To feed her children.
She shook her head, trying to chase away these terrible thoughts. She wanted to tell Hua Cheng to leave the room, but she had also promised to always be with him and take care of him.
"Ge... Jiejie?" asked Hua Cheng with a pout as he approached her. "I don't know what to call you. I guess jiejie is fine as long as you look like this. But if you need my help, please let me do it, no matter what."
Xie Lian was amazed. Hua Cheng always knew what she needed. Even if he wasn't quite sure what it was, he was always attentive to her mood changes, her body's needs, and always offered her a caring hand, a piece of advice, or a word of encouragement.
And maybe because her woman's body wasn't hard trained to keep these feelings from hurting her, maybe because her young mother's body was susceptible to a child's pouting, but she was filled with such enormous gratitude that she was speechless for a moment. She was touched by the word "Jiejie," so she let out a soft laugh.
"Jiejie. I guess I am jiejie now, at least until I can be gege again," she said quietly, trying to keep his humor. "Hua Cheng. I'm afraid I won't be able to be gege again until I relieve myself."
"Do you need the toilet?" he asked, getting up to make room for her to go to the bathroom.
She laughed, "I can go to the bathroom. But I don't know…I don't know how to do it without help. And I'm afraid I'm terribly embarrassed to ask you for it."
Hua Cheng approached her, the light of absolute certainty shining in his eyes.
"I don't want to force you to do anything you don't want to do, your Highness. If you want me to leave, I will. But if I can help you, and what you don't want to do is ask me for help because you think I'm less strong with this body, I have to ask you not to think like that. No matter what size I am, your Highness, I will protect you. There is nothing you can ask me that will chase me away."
She knew those eyes well by now, and even though Hua Cheng's face was that of a ten-year-old boy, the confidence radiating from his black eyes was still that of the man she knew. It was a rare sight, but also a touching one. At that moment, his most impressive virtues were concentrated in Hua Cheng's small body: his composure, but also his generosity; his perseverance, but also his mischievousness. They were all concentrated in that jade-white face, so gorgeous that it hurt, like when you took snow in your hands and squeezed it hard, burning your skin with its coldness.
"Thank you, San Lang. You are the strongest, no matter what you look like, believe me."
Xie Lian held out her hand for Hua Cheng to put his hand in. The boy did so without complaint, and without regret, he settled down between her legs. Hua Cheng was cold as always and the fever that ran through her body met the icy flow of his aura and made her shiver, which also made her feel much better. There was no doubt that this was what he had to do to alleviate her malady.
Carefully and without taking her eyes off Hua Cheng, Xie Lian sat down at the head of the bed. There in the middle, she tapped the boy's lower back to make him sit on her outstretched legs. Hua Cheng obeyed, straddling her and placing his hands on her shoulders. He still looked puzzled.
"Do you remember your mother?" Xie Lian suddenly asked.
Hua Cheng breathed heavily, startled by the sudden question. He opened and closed his mouth. Then he shook his head slowly, almost in a sad manner. She raised her hand to stroke his head, to comfort him.
"I remember mine. All the time. She was so beautiful, but the most striking thing about her was her gentleness. At first I didn't appreciate this virtue. She preferred to face the world with kindness, with a well-spoken word, rather than with a blow".
Xie Lian remembered how, when he was much younger than Hua Cheng, his mother would sit him on her lap and have her maids come in with their hands full of sweets to taste and approve for royal banquets, and how she would elegantly nibble the flesh of a cherry and then give it to him to taste. The two of them would spend hours snacking on cookies and sweets, and Xie Lian's chest would fill with pride when he liked the same things she did. He remembered how he would get up at night and run to his mother's room to fall asleep next to her, even though he was no longer a baby, even though his teachers begged him not to. And why shouldn't he? She was his mother. He had never loved any other woman but her. She smelled of flowers and was always warm. It was the right thing to do.
And now... and now she was nothing but ashes and a memory that only she possessed. If she could just hug her once more, maybe all the bad luck that had haunted her would vanish.
"I guess now, for many more reasons, I realize how hard it was to be her, but also how right she was," she said quietly, and began to undo the knot in her inner robe.
Hua Cheng leaned back, his eyes widening as Xie Lian began to open her robe to reveal her milk-filled breasts.
As she did so, she couldn't help but feel her cheeks burning with embarrassment. There had always been a distance between her and Hua Cheng that neither of them had ever dared to cross. Even with all the kissing and energy exchange. The caresses they had exchanged that night in the Temple of a Thousand Lights had not been as intimate as what was happening right now. Besides, it was obvious that they were both very aware of what was happening now.
She could feel Hua Cheng's shallow breath hitting her nose and the two cold spots on her shoulders where his hands were. There was barely a palm's distance between their stomachs, and they both stared in awe at the breasts emerging from Xie Lian's robe.
They were white, just like the rest of her skin, but so large that they dwarfed the rest of her body. The only thing that interrupted that expanse of maternal whiteness was the silver chain on which hung the ring Hua Cheng had given her. Her breasts curved outward and hung over her belly like two ripe fruits, causing the branch of the tree they hung from to bend toward the ground. Perhaps most impressive were her nipples: large, hard, the color of cooked oatmeal, with a suggestive white droplet hanging from each. Milk, no doubt; wanting to come out, wanting little lips to latch onto that suggestive button of flesh, to come out in a torrent of sacred nourishment and feed.
"I need you to drink from them, San Lang. I guess it's easier for someone to do it than to push the milk out myself... can you do it? If you don’t want to, don’t worry".
Hua Cheng stood so still, staring at Xie Lian's breasts, that for a moment she thought he was petrified. She decided not to push him. It was enough for both of them to be in this situation without repeating what they knew had to happen.
“No, I can do it, jiejie. It's just that...”, but he didn’t finished his sentence, admiring her breasts with his mouth slightly open.
After a minute or two, and with the delicacy of a porcelain craftsman, Hua Cheng ran his small hands along her collarbones, down her chest, and before she could breathe a sigh of relief, he ran his fingers over both of her nipples.
"Ah, San Lang," she whimpered, startled by the tremor that gripped her entire body.
He didn't have to do much to make her body respond in kind: Hua Cheng's small fingers barely touched her, and milk gushed from her as if she were the source of a river, a spring that flowed and flowed generously. The boy put his hands under the fold of her breasts and lifted them slightly, as if he wanted to weigh them. He toyed with them for a moment, shifting their weight in his hands, squeezing them slightly to change their shape, just as Xie Lian had done with his cheek. Finally, he let go of her breasts and used his thumb and index finger to squeeze one of her nipples to draw out the milk.
Xie Lian put a hand over her mouth, fighting the sharp pain that shot through her sensitive flesh, while they both watched as a white trickle emerged from her nipple, which Hua Cheng caught in the palm of his hand.
"It's too much milk," Hua Cheng said without any inflection in his voice. It was obvious that he too was making a tremendous effort to resist what he was feeling.
She nodded. "I know... and I can't change, ah, I can't go back to my original body until I get rid of it."
Hua Cheng brought his palm to his nose to sniff, then he stuck out the tip of his red tongue and slurped the milk.
The boy closed his eyes and clenched his hands, the taste of the white liquid hitting him as hard as Xie Lian's chastity meatballs hit the cultivators. But instead of making him twist his mouth in utter disgust, Hua Cheng lifted his face as if it should only be enjoyed like that, in the position people took when they thanked their gods for the miracle they had been granted; the gesture farmers made when, after a long drought, fresh and invigorating rain finally fell from the skies; your face turned towards the sky, to fully receive the blessings it was showering upon you.
Xie Lian marveled at the sight above her. In all her years, she had never seen a more precious form of devotion than this: a child on her lap, silently grateful to taste a drop of her milk.
By the time Hua Cheng had the composure to open his eyes and fix his gaze on hers, Xie Lian was beginning to feel undeniably desperate. She felt pain all over her chest, expecting Hua Cheng to drink directly from the source, and an unnatural heat boiling in her stomach. Her mind kept repeating the same word: Drink. Drink from me, drink more, drink until you are full, drink, drink, drink.
So she raised her hands and took Hua Cheng by his little head and placed him on her breasts, silently urging him to suckle from her, unable to form the words she really wanted to say.
"Jiejie... I don't know how to do this," the boy said, his voice sounding very small, like a child suddenly overwhelmed by his task. "What if I hurt you?"
She shook her head. "You could never hurt me. Not even if you wanted to."
With sparkling eyes, Hua Cheng sat down, and Xie Lian opened her legs to let him sit between them. As if it was a dance the two of them had learned many years ago, performed by pure muscle memory, Xie Lian bent her left arm to let Hua Cheng rest his head on it, and Hua Cheng took her left breast in his hands again, lifting it to raise it to his mouth.
Xie Lian imagined that she was a willow tree bending down to caress the boy below her with the tips of its branches. She imagined that she was a river, changing the course of its journey to the sea to touch, if only for a moment, the feet of the little Ghost King. She imagined that she was the rain, white instead of crimson, wetting the pink petals of those flower lips that now closed around her nipple.
Hua Cheng's lips were cold, but on her swollen chest they felt as soft as snowflakes on grass. And yet this first contact was so breathtaking that Xie Lian felt tears well up in her eyes, not from embarrassment or fear, but from a gratitude so absolute that it made her tremble, hug the boy tightly, press his icy face to her chest, over the racing drumming of her heart, to make him drink.
With her eyes closed, Hua Cheng ran his tongue over her nipple, to first taste the dried milk that had soaked into her skin. Then, closing his teeth slightly, he grasped that hardened skin and began to suck, slowly at first, very carefully, but as his mouth began to fill with milk, Hua Cheng accelerated his sucking, finding a rhythm between breathing through his nose, sucking, and swallowing.
“Ah, yes. You’re doing so good, baby”, she said, closing her eyes.
Xie Lian did not know what to think.
Even if someone had explained it to her in the most explicit way, she would not have been able to understand what it really felt like to breastfeed. And she didn't know if it was because she was a heavenly official, but with every drink Hua Cheng took from her body, she felt as if the very spiritual energy of her soul was flowing out into Hua Cheng's icy mouth. However, at no time did she feel empty or weak. If anything, she felt so absolutely real, as if she had never really been herself, if not until that moment when Hua Cheng lay on top of her to nurse on her milk, while she languidly stroked his hair, combing it back to reveal his beautiful white forehead and marveling at how long his eyelashes were, how cute his button nose was, how handsome his boy was.
To her astonishment, Hua Cheng's body began to warm up.
She put the backs of her fingers on his forehead and felt that he was starting to sweat, even though it was impossible. A ghost does not sweat, nor does it get tired or hot because a ghost is dead, but Hua Cheng, filled with the divine milk from Xie Lian's breasts, began to have the reactions of a living child's body, even if only temporarily, warming up in his surrogate mother's embrace.
Xie Lian smiled, impossibly happy.
"You really look like my son. So cute. If I had the chance, I would have liked to have a son as cute as you, San Lang," she murmured, more to herself than for Hua Cheng to hear.
In another life, perhaps. In another life, less cruel than this one, Xie Lian would have waited every day for her arrival. She would have counted the days, looked in the mirror and watched with pleasure as her body changed, the unmistakable sign that her baby was growing inside her. There was nothing more profound than the relationship between mother and child; he was part of her, she was the world to him. And after the birth, Xie Lian would have forgotten the pain of childbirth at once, enraptured by the diaphanous beauty of the creature she held in her hands: a baby as white as snow, his hair as dark as ink, his lips as red as maple leaves. She understood what poor Lan Chang had felt when she reunited with the ghost of her unborn baby. It was the nature of a mother to love her children no matter what, just as it was the nature of the river to flow into the salty waters of the sea.
She felt sad when she thought of Hua Cheng's real mother, who had not had the opportunity to meet and raise this child who was so incredible in every way. Perhaps that was something she could give him in return for all he had done for her: the proud embrace of a mother who truly loved him above all else.
Hua Cheng drank from her breast until nothing came out.
Sinking into the haze of this act, they did not need words to continue the nursing. Hua Cheng separated from her only to change position and Xie Lian received him in the same way; his arm under his head, her hand back in his long hair to continue lulling him while he drank.
There was no sound outside. Night had fallen upon the world hours ago. Silver moonlight streamed in through the half-open window, and the only light that illuminated the lovely picture they made came from the small candle on the small table where the food they had ordered still lay, untouched, cooling. Rice, buns and green tea. And even though they were in front of a palatial banquet, neither Xie Lian nor Hua Cheng would have chosen any other food than the one that existed between the union of their bodies.
Hua Cheng was an expert now. He immediately sought out Xie Lian's nipple and clamped it between his teeth to start drinking. However, driven by something more than his thirst, he removed one of his hands from the heavy curve of her breast and began to caress the soft skin of her neck, lightly touching the bandages around her throat.
He ran his warm fingers down the length of her chest, sinking between her cleavage to reach her stomach. Xie Lian gasped. Hua Cheng didn't stop when he found the waistband of her pants, but slid his fingers inside to gently rub the skin around her navel and lower, where her belly became something else.
In the Temple of a Thousand Lights, Hua Cheng had tried to do the same, but Xie Lian had held his hand, fought him, stop him from while he was possessed by the call of Mount Tonglu. But now, wrapped in the silence of the night, in the stupor of their bliss, she found no reason to stop him from touching her.
In fact, if she was honest, she had spent the whole day fighting the agony that radiated from between her legs. It was a very different desire than the one she had felt in her male body. Her sex, tight and wet, wrapped inside her, had also been begging for relief. And if it had been up to her, Xie Lian would have let this fire burn itself out, but Hua Cheng had felt it too. And if he could help with his mouth and stomach... why couldn't he help with his fingers?
"Ah, San Lang. I'm, ah, please, you feel so, I feel like I'm spilling," she stammered, unable to finish a sentence and making no sense.
Hua Cheng's fingers sank into her as if she were made of butter about to melt. She was so wet, so sensitive and so open that his small hand seemed to slip all the way into her folds, colliding deliciously with the part of her that made her jump and sigh.
Hua Cheng guessed where that spot was and squeezed it between two fingers, rubbing it tenderly up and down.
In the meantime, he never stopped breastfeeding.
There were too many sensations invading Xie Lian's body. The more Hua Cheng sucked, the less her chest ached, her energy was renewed with every swallow, and with every dirty caress between her legs, her head felt more and more empty.
Everything began to evaporate: the intrigues of the Heavenly Court, the whereabouts of Mu Qing and Ling Wen, the mysterious paternity of Lang Chan's fetus. Nothing was left inside. His whole life, all his worries and pains were replaced by a swirl of colors, a pleasure so totalizing that if he had been asked his name at that moment, he would not have been able to give a correct answer.
"Hua Cheng, ah, wait, San Lang, ah, ah, ah, I can't take it anymore," she moaned, as the swirl of colors threatened to explode inside her, from the belly out.
But Hua Cheng didn't stop: he parted slightly from her breast, but only to grasp her nipple with his teeth and stretch it outward, while accelerating the lewd movement of his hand.
The jolt of pleasure made her lose track of everything. She didn't even notice how she arched her back and closed her legs around Hua Cheng's hot little hand. Like a bolt of lightning through the trunk of a willow tree, burning every part, every branch, every leaf—Xie Lian lost control of her body. At that moment, she was just a woman. At that moment, she was nothing but a mother, feeding her child all the honey her body could give her.
It was a feeling deeper than the ecstasy of ascension. The euphoria crackling inside and outside of her made her feel for a terribly long second that she could trade all her years of life, all the promises of her cultivation, all her merits, to feel this again; the double ecstasy of giving and receiving, the fervor of having Hua Cheng so incredibly close, of knowing that a part of her now lived inside him.
When she came to, Hua Cheng was still on top of her. He had placed his face on her collarbone and was writing something on the cold skin of her chest with his hand wet with the nectars of her sex. It was hard for her to understand what he was writing, his handwriting was so pathetic, but after a minute of the same movement she realized that it was the ideograms for "heaven".
He had tears in his eyes and blinked a few times, unsure if they were still on the bed at the inn.
She swallowed. At other times, the strength of the feelings Hua Cheng provoked would have made her run away from him. But now, for some reason, the thought of jumping out of bed seemed like the worst punishment.
"Hua Cheng… are you all right?"
The boy stood up to face her. Despite what had just happened, Hue Chang seemed neither angry nor disappointed, as she momentarily feared he would look. He smiled at her sincerely and nodded his head
The boy rose to face her. Despite what had just happened, Hue Chang seemed neither angry nor disappointed, as she had momentarily feared he would look. He smiled at her sincerely and nodded his head.
"What about you, jiejie? Are you ready to change?"
Yes, Xie Lian was completely empty, but she had never felt so full of life. In contrast, Hua Cheng seemed to radiate a different energy than she had known. He noticed this himself as he stood up completely and sat down on the bed with a frown on his face.
"What is it?" she asked without covering her chest, reaching out to caress his cheeks. She also ran the pad of her thumb over his lips, which were still wet with her milk.
Hua Cheng lowered his face to look at his own body. "I think... I think my heart is starting to beat again."
And he put his hand to his chest, and Xie Lian did the same, placing her own hand on the boy's.
It was true: despite the reality of the facts (that Hua Cheng, was a ghost; the King of Ghosts, Crimson Rain Sought Flower) beneath his two hands, a small heart was beating with energy. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum ba-dum. The unmistakable rhythm of a living body.
"This is so weird," Hua Cheng acknowledged. "I didn't remember what it felt like. It tickles me."
Xie Lian recited the transformation spell, and when the boy turned to look at him, he was already his old self: shoulders wider, legs longer, a body full of muscles thanks to years of cultivation. Hua Cheng looked down and instead of two voluptuous breasts, he found the torso of a man.
"I'm afraid your heartbeat won't last much longer either," he said, a little sad, a little amused, a little embarrassed, still with that set of complex feelings swirling around inside him. "Must be a side effect of the energy from the, uh, milk."
Hua Cheng pouted slyly, like a spoiled child who has been told it's time for bed.
"Your Highness, shall we test this body to see if there are any more?"
Xie Lian couldn't help but blush. He tied his robe and before Hua Cheng could jump off the bed, he grabbed him in his arms and began to tickle him, under his arms and all over his stomach.
"San Lang, you are so..." he said laughing as he saw Hua Cheng laughing heartily, struggling against him, kicking and screaming to let him go immediately, that he was not a child to be played with like that.
The two of them jumped and rolled and played until they collapsed in exhaustion on the crumpled blankets that smelled of the creamy sweetness of the love that only exists between a mother and a son, a ghost and a heavenly official, between Xie Lian and Hua Cheng, lulled by that blossoming pleasure, like that of a flower growing by the side of a river.