Part 3: The Unruly Treacherous Nephew Dares His Gentle Unhappy Uncle

... Liu LiZhong came into the big study, everybody had already gathered there. His uncle, like Linux Mountain, was towering over his desk surrounded by relations and subordinates. He worked the jaws of his mighty face, his eyes burning with dark fire. The tiger, that had been crouching in this powerful body for thirty years, at last was ready to break through.

"Why did you do it? You are so eager to become the Emperor's family enemy? Are you that dumb? What are you asking for?"

"What am I asking for?"

Liu LiZhong was looking at his uncle with a sinister smile.

"Bai Chi, I'll just say it out loud what I am asking for, and you will go and crash that motherfucker's head of yours against that damn antique bookcase. Such a fool you are to ask in front of everybody," he thought. "Just one little word from me. Funny, though."

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* Bai Chi - idiot

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"Where did you transport the gold? Can we stop the shipment?.. Look at me!"

The uncle stood up from the desk and was on his way to him.

"Fuck the gold!"

Liu LiZhong stared defiantly at the older man' face. That was going to be the last time for him to see those dark serious eyes, the familiar wrinkle on the forehead, the lips and their shadow below.

Liu LiZhong turned his face away. Liu ShanShun reached his hand to turn it back... but the hand stopped midway in the air and went down.

Liu ShanShun was looking at his nephew helplessly. The young man's bright handsome face was full of despise as usual. His lucent eyes were squinted, the colour of the iris barely seen, like the moonlight through slits in the shutters. He didn't say a word. He never said a word... It was all useless.

The nephew gave out a hopeless fleer.

"Where is the money?! Tell me now! My father will arrest you!" that cow Hu Zhei was shouting.

Everybody was eager to display resentment and disgust to please the family's head. His uncle was lifeless among the hostile turmoil, not knowing what to do. He never knew... It was all useless.

He suddenly threw his fist in the nearest resentful relative's shithole, pushed somebody's shoulder and bolted out of his ancestors' home into the rain and darkness.

"Seize him! Catch the traitor!," shouted Hu Zhei.

"Hu Zhei, Hu Zhei, I will choke you to death now," thought Liu ShanShun.

Liu MiLi was crying her heart out.

 

The gold... fuck it. The amount was enormous, his nephew having given a good brush to their assets. That wasn't of major concern for Liu ShanShun: if the creditors agree to extend the terms just by an insignificant bit, he'll sell the merchandise in the storage and cover the loss. Let it be more than one turnover, never mind. It's all bullshit.

High treason - that's no bullshit.

"Why couldn't you just strip me bare and keep the money for yourself? I don't get it. You could enjoy luxury in a beautiful country, build a palace or whatever, I don't know what you really want..."

"Now this cow Hu Zhei will bellow 'Catch the traitor!' and you will be a wanted criminal in forty three prefectures. If they find you, they'll chop off your legs and arms."

"How could I let this happen? Why didn't you say anything to me? Why don't you ever say anything to me? That very gold for the mountain grandsons - where the hell did they come from? - we could have transported it in separate tranches, nobody would have noticed... What have you done, Xiao Rou? What have you done?"

It was his fault... "What else to be expected from a child who grew up side by side with a monster like I am..."

 

Liu LiZhong didn't run for long, by measure of somebody doing twenty lis up and down the mountain every day.

The invisible in the dark rain whipped him hard, like those lashes his uncle never gave him. He didn't feel the cold. He didn't want to run. He wanted to remember...

He climbed a cliff with a crooked ugly tree on top and crawled under the angled trunk hovering over a tiny dry spot...

He was sitting there thinking about the hand which never touched his face. Which reached for his chin - and stooped halfway.

"My whole life, like I'm leprous. He's afraid to touch me. He's afraid to take me by the hand, hit me, pat me on the head, give me a bonk, pull my nose, shove with his shoulder... Why haven't you touched me once? What's wrong with you, Bai Chi? What's wrong with me?"

He pictured in mind how this strong palm goes down on his jaw at last, squeezes it, then burning with rage takes him by the throat, slips further under the shirt,.. locks on his shoulder for a second, traces its way down the chest and presses in like it is going to push the heart out, lies down on the abdomen, heats it,.. then the fingers brush the genitalia and inner thighs...

No wonder that autumn night in the rain Liu LiZhong didn't feel the cold.

They caught him in the morning.

 

Not only Liu ShanShun couldn't bear it to show some strictness towards the mischievous nephew - he couldn't even meet his eye because of shame.  

Five years ago a rift opened up between their past and present existence.

Liu LiZhong has always been bad news but parenting hardships on the other, past, side of that rift were always faced by his uncle with irremovable patience and faith that his Xiao Rou was a good boy and everything would come to normal sooner or later. If it was anybody's fault, he was the one to blame for spoiling the children.

However, that his fault was nothing compared to what happened after.

The evening was like every other evening, nothing spelled disaster. As usual, lamps in the rooms were radiating welcoming shine and little moths were hustling around - though the time was past the lamps. A line of light was striking over his niece's door.

"LiLi, my lotus flower," shouted the uncle, knocking softly with his knuckles on the wooden frame. "Time to sleep. Uncle sees everything!"

The light went out in a blink and it became completely quiet inside.

"Yeah, like you're fooling anybody," thought the uncle. "I'll be back after quarter of an hour."

There was a second light line over the door of Liu LiZhong's room.

"Who else isn't sleeping yet?" Liu ShanShun asked with humorous menace. He pulled a book out of the boy's hands.

Liu LiZhong was lying on his back on top of the blanket in nothing but his white inner shirt. Not bothering to answer, he bit on his lip and gave the uncle a silent kick, then another.

It turned out he didn't have any underwear either so the kicking legs displayed an unforgettable sight. Liu ShanShun froze on the spot getting a few more hits as a result. That was not a problem because all the same at that moment he lost his ability to move, think and feel anything apart from wild blood pulsation inside.

Liu ShanShun's eyes caught a glimpse of a young inner thigh and tender skin along the lower edge of the buttocks. To say nothing of the cock and testicles. The skin and the buttocks entrance was, by the sight of it, like white pearly soft silk. Every time the leg went down, the flesh in that place wrinkled in a soul-stirring helpless fold. The uncle didn't dare to remember how blood rushed to his groin.

That night in the lamp's yellow light, under the shirt hem, it was like he saw him for the first time. Sixteen years of age is not six, that's a fact. What he saw aroused a totally new reaction.

Having come to senses (outside the room already), he was full of fear and self-disgust. He was sure that the nephew understood his glance and was aware why he had retired so fast.

So from that night on, every time he was going to reach his hand for Liu LiZhong, it brought back that helpless silky fold in the golden shadow of his white shirt.

He understood that his nephew knew the reason. He knew and he hated his perverted uncle. He had every right to hate. He would have hated him even more if he'd known what kind of dreams his uncle saw.

You can stop touching the nephew, you can even avoid looking at him, you can blow out a lamp, but you can never blow out dreams. That kind of dreams where Liu LiZhong comes to him naked or in his white inner shirt, and talks to him, and comforts him, and lets him fondle him wherever he wants. The dreams from which Liu ShanShun woke up in a cold sweat, with his blood as hot as mountain lava. The dreams, he believed, his nephew could see in his eyes.

From that time he became even softer and more considerate towards Liu LiZhong, his shame never letting him go, while the nephew, as if he was reading the older man's mind, became more and more impertinent and hostile. However, as for commercial affairs, he always was more than dependable...

More than once, Liu ShanShun tried to send his nephew off to study or on a journey - anything rather than staying at his uncle's side, but Liu LiZhong stubbornly stuck up at home, half of his time spending in the uncle's room with accounts and contracts.  

It was only after some time that Liu ShanShun realized that Liu LiZhong was afraid to leave his dear sister alone with such pervert.

 

(Green TeaBag:) - Master Liu, they have captured him.

Liu ShanShun didn't say a word grabbing his own hair. The loyal servant understood his rage and grief. "Master Liu," he wanted to say. "Command me and I'll go and strangle that treacherous snake which you've nursed in your honest muscular bosom with my own bare hands."

(Liu ShanShun:) - Where is he?

(Green TeaBag:) - Locked in the pantry downstairs.

When Liu ShanShun got to the pantry, he realized he hadn't taken the key from the servant. He clearly was out of his mind. He didn't want to see anyone: nor the idiot servant, nor that cow Hu Zhei, nobody...

Instead of fetching the keys he went around the house, came to the barred window and stood there in the rain looking at Liu LiZhong until the young man noticed him.

How he was sitting on the floor leaning his back against sacks with rice, staring nowhere. His gorgeous eyes were narrowed like always, the disheveled hair was tied up slovenly at the back of his head.

At last, the nephew turned his head to him and the next moment he was on his feet. He was wet all over: the hair, the body, the clothes. There was a bleeding bruise in a corner of his mouth. Liu ShanShun felt his heart was aching.

(Liu LiZhong:) - What are you going to do to me? Send to prison? Or will you just beat the shit out of me until I'm dead before the whole thing goes public?

He was standing just a couple of steps away, his eyes burning feverishly.

(Liu ShanShun:) - Don't talk nonsense. We'll take care of it somehow. It wouldn't be easy, that cow Hu has already sent a report to the prefecture and her dad.

(Liu LiZhong:) - She hates me.

(Fuck the Hu cow! What does she have to do with that?!)

(Liu ShanShun, lifelessly, looking aside:) - Just explain to me, why did you do it? Just this one time, explain something to me.

(Liu LiZhong, eyes burning, fixed on the other one:) - Why were you afraid to touch my face?

Suddenly, Liu ShanShun's eyes were full of terror. An insignificant irrelevant topic stirred a reaction out of proportion. His gaze was begging for mercy.

(Liu LiZhong:) - This may be the last fucking time I see you. So comply with my last wish, tell me why did you jerk back your hand?

(Liu ShanShun, mumbles:) - What are you saying? Why the last time, why do you need to make up such...

(Liu LiZhong, his eyes wide open, despair in his voice) - Asking me to explain... So do me a favor, show an example. For once, be honest. Why did you take back that fucking hand? Look at me! Tell me.

"I shouldn't have come," realized Liu ShanShun.

He was looking at the boy sideways, trying to hide his eyes, but they kept locking on that young disdainful, demanding face. Liu ShanShun clenched his teeth and forced words out:

"That's because... Your skin there..."

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