HOYSE CHAPTER 66

Chapter 66 — Control

Rong Jing was like a Klein bottle. Whether you looked from the inside or the outside, he seemed flawless.

No matter what others did, he was always steady and unmoved.

Then in one sudden instant, something rammed through his reason and shattered the rules he had guarded for years.

In the shards, something in his heart slipped past the barrier and rose, a fine unending rush.

Gu Xi’s eyes flew wide with shock. The unfamiliar warmth on his lips sent his heart, which had just fallen to the bottom, surging up into the clouds.

Up there on the tip of a cloud, the spinning sweetness made him dizzy.

His lashes lowered, fluttering in a mist, like a bewildered lamb straying into a dangerous field.

Rong Jing’s gaze was full of gentleness. A waterfall that had once thundered down became a soft circle of water wrapping around him. Gu Xi’s fingers trembled, held fast where they were.

This was a kiss.

A kiss laced with care and with comfort.

There was no point of balance. Their eyes were hazy, their clasped hands shifted and tightened, and an unspeakable pull drew them closer.

The air rippled with pheromones, heat rising where their bodies were held in place.

Mere warm contact was no longer enough.

Gu Xi had just begun to move, ready to turn this tentative press into something more when—

“No, no, no, pause!” Liu Yu snapped out of his daze and jumped to his feet.

The monitors had already been cut. He had been about to pull Rong Jing over and talk through the kiss to help him find it. Everyone had given up on this beat for the moment, and then Rong Jing, as if jolted by something, went in anyway.

You refused to kiss when the cameras were rolling, and now you kiss when they are not?

Besides, what kind of kiss was that. He wanted intensity, collision, the kind of ferocious heat that turns into crackling tension.

This was too gentle, like two schoolboys with first crushes, circling and daring and not daring to touch. The entire feeling was off.

At the director’s bark, they broke apart.

Because the cameras were down, no one saw that in the split second of parting the Alpha, as if he could not leash his reason, gave a quick squeeze at that slim, supple waist.

Through the thin costume, his palm’s rough heat skimmed the skin and lit a shiver.

Gu Xi shot Rong Jing a startled look, then dropped his gaze, hiding his astonishment.

Rong Jing just now…

No way.

Rong Jing’s brows were still knitted. On such a cool night, sweat had gathered at his hairline.

As if the fire inside burned too strong and let off steam.

Gu Xi murmured that he was going to the restroom. Rong Jing opened his mouth to explain, but found there was nothing he could say.

He stared at his hand in a daze. This hand had touched Gu Xi’s waist, and not only touched, it had wanted, of its own accord, to keep touching. What was he doing?

Once he realized the kissing partner had become Gu Xi, all the mental prep he had done turned thin as paper. He could not get his state right for several tries.

He knew very well this was not immersion. If anything, he had not slipped into the role at all.

In that tangle of effort and adjustment he noticed the shadow in Gu Xi’s expression, and in that instant he did not think.

He simply acted. The action came long before the thought.

The moment they touched, both of them knew this unexpected kiss had broken something.

What had been a natural friendship shifted in a way that anyone could see.

The change spread like venom through the blood, fast and chaotic.

Liu Yu hauled Rong Jing over and scolded him hard.

“Why did you refuse when I told you to kiss? What you did just now was taking advantage. Go apologize to Gu Xi properly. If he does not accept it, kneel until he does.”

The assistant director coughed and muttered, “Director, that kneeling punishment is usually something an Omega demands of their Alpha.”

There were Alphas who strutted in public and obeyed at home. It was not unheard of.

“Go on, who made that rule?” Liu Yu snapped. His heart ached for his treasure of a lead.

“No need. He does not know the cameras were off,” Gu Xi said as he came back from the restroom.

He looked very calm. His gaze never landed on Rong Jing once, as if the gunpowder-sparking heat from a moment ago had been nothing but a mirage.

Liu Yu felt guilty. He knew the two had been at odds, and yet he had put Gu Xi in this position.

Even so, Gu Xi’s professionalism never slipped. He had swallowed it all.

Liu Yu whacked Rong Jing’s head lightly with the script. “Act it right. Not that soft mess from before. I want you fierce, do you understand? You are furious, your pride is a blade. After the Seventh Prince insults you, you want to tear him apart. This kiss is punishment. It is a mad defiance from the low striking up.”

Aside from the trouble with the kiss, Rong Jing’s acting never looked like a newcomer. He was like a rough diamond hammered again and again, blazing once it hit the light. That only made Liu Yu raise his expectations.

They reset the scene. The lighting crew lifted the reflectors into place.

Before he went back, Liu Yu clapped Rong Jing on the shoulder. “I want this kiss in one take. No NG.”

He truly did not want Gu Xi to suffer more. Even if you were not an Omega, you could imagine how hard it was to be kissed by an Alpha you disliked, and Gu Xi was already pushing through an allergy.

The makeup artists moved in to touch them up. Costume hands straightened their robes.

Everyone was a little flushed. The earlier moment had not been wild, but it was enough to make hearts pound.

In that gap, Rong Jing finally broke the silence. “Just now, that was your…”

They had always been able to speak with their eyes. Gu Xi knew what he was asking and answered directly. “Yes. First kiss.”

He had gone to the restroom to steady himself. He had kept that first kiss for so long and had given it to the one he wanted to give it to. It was… too good to describe.

Then he added softly, “And it wasn’t wasted inside the scene.”

Rong Jing’s heart tightened.
What did that mean?

He couldn’t let his thoughts spiral.

Rong Jing’s mood was strung high with nowhere to vent. Gu Xi’s eyes held a faint smile, a fox pleased with his mischief.

He was merrily stealing what was left of Rong Jing’s reason.

Maybe it was that pressure building in his chest. When the board snapped down, Rong Jing moved faster than before. He caught Gu Xi without warning and forced his head back.

Heaven’s thunder struck earth’s fire. Something in the air ignited.

Their lips were hot, but their eyes were locked in a hard clash.

The A-camera for close-ups hummed like usual. Liu Yu pushed the lens forward, tighter and tighter.

Shao Hua’s wrists were pinned above him. Fu Qianming broke every struggle.

Fight back, press down.

Fight back, press down.

Again and again. The air grew taut, the struggle fierce.

It was a war between two men of equal aura, each vying for ground.

One raged that someone so low dared touch him. The other hated the one who floated above, trampling lives and dignity as if they were nothing.

Shao Hua’s long sleeves flew. His frantic struggles only grew wilder.

He bit down hard, refusing to let Fu Qianming go any further. He even sank his teeth into the other man.

Pain flared. A thin line of red slid from Fu Qianming’s lip. The prey in his arms finally found an opening and tore free.

The Seventh Prince who had been so brazen now had no trace of composure or swagger.

In the moonlight, only messy hair, dazed eyes, and lips flushed as if kissed damp.

Shao Hua seethed. He would kill that damned eunuch if he could.

“Fu Qianming, do you want to die?!”

Fu Qianming wiped the blood from his mouth with his thumb and, with a hint of sinful heat, ran his tongue over his lip.

Then, under Shao Hua’s stunned stare, he sank to his knees. Shao Hua could not understand it. The man who had just manhandled him, yielding so easily.

No, not yielding. Provoking.

“Your servant has admired Your Highness for a long time,” Fu Qianming said. “Overcome by feeling, I stepped out of line. I accept any punishment.”

Admired. Fu Qianming admired many things, but never the prince who had never seen him as a person.

He did it on purpose, because he knew Shao Hua had few he could use. Shao Hua needed him, so Shao Hua would have to endure him.

Shao Hua knew it was an act. Yet just as the man expected, he had no answer for it.

Fu Qianming lifted his head slowly. There was no humility in his eyes.

Shao Hua pressed his lips together, rage roiling under the humiliation.

Their gazes locked.

Sparks flew.

With that look, the terms of their future love and hate were set.

A breeze passed the courtyard.

White flowers spun up from the misty blue grove, whirling into the sky. In the moonlight they drifted, beautiful as a dream.

“Cut.”

Liu Yu watched the monitor, conferred with the assistant director, broke down their emotional beats, and in the end they agreed the scene was excellent.

It was a turning point in this master-servant bond. What had been coercion and reluctant dependence shifted into mutual testing, emotions seesawing in that borderland between enemy and ally.

“Very good. Thank you, both.”

Gu Xi opened his hand to help the kneeling Rong Jing up.

Rong Jing looked at that hand. It was as smooth as jade, a work of art.

Something between them was changing. He felt he could not go near Gu Xi right now.

Maybe his Alpha pheromones were getting harder to leash. Twice marked now, he had begun to grow a possessiveness he should not feel.

In public they had been at odds for days. Now when Gu Xi finally took the initiative, whether it was real reconciliation or a polite gesture, a senior had extended his hand first.

By rights, Rong Jing should have taken it. He did not. He pushed himself up, nodded out of etiquette, and left quickly, as if beasts were snapping at his heels.

Gu Xi touched his lips, dazed. The second kiss was fiercer, but compared with the first one, where control had slipped, the second leaned more toward work.

Even so, right at the end, Rong Jing’s breath had faltered for an instant. That hiccup let Gu Xi glimpse a hint of the truth.

All the small pieces from before had accumulated, drop by drop wearing stone. They had left a mark on Rong Jing.

At last there came a day when Rong Jing’s attitude toward him was different from his attitude toward anyone else. That difference was addictive.

Some crew who were resetting the set had also noticed the two seemed born at cross-purposes.

Even the veneer of peace was held together with effort.

“Teacher Gu, maybe he is in a bad mood today,” a cleaner said a good word for Rong Jing.

Gu Xi lifted a brow, amused. “What makes you say that all of a sudden?”

Rong Jing had never revealed his background. He was a newcomer, yet he could make a hardened crew member speak up for him. That meant something about how he treated people.

The crew member said Rong Jing was kind and straightforward, respectful with staff, always lending a hand.

Gu Xi looked for a long moment in the direction Rong Jing had gone. “I know. I will not nitpick a junior.”

The days that followed were packed with shooting.

The hotter the scenes were on camera, the colder they were off camera. The contrast was stark.

Rong Jing and Gu Xi spoke less. They met each other’s eyes even less.

Before, neither had flinched from eye contact. Now Rong Jing avoided it without thinking.

Even in private, if Gu Xi said something, Rong Jing answered brief and sidelong.

He knew he was holding a line, holding back the parts of himself on the verge of losing control.

He was afraid that one day he really would drag Gu Xi into a corner and do something beastly.

Sometimes all it would take was a spark to set the tinder inside him ablaze.

Between them the distance stretched and snapped, a spun strand pulled tight. They tugged at it, but it would not break.

While the two of them were suspended in that strange in-between, the crew welcomed an investor.

Ever since the director had won the award, investments had fallen like snow. Aside from Xietian Entertainment remaining the main investor, there were several new names, including one so heavy that his reputation alone could startle people.

In the Hu market, most heirs had given him a title: Crown Prince. That said it all.

The producer knew the man’s background and went out in person to greet him.

He arrived earlier than expected. The producer bowed and scraped. “We have long heard Young Master Wu is in Shangjing, but have had no chance to admire your presence. To meet you at last is truly an honor.”

The producer was a smooth operator who knew exactly what to say to whom.

Wu Feiyu snorted, tired of the flattery. He heard enough of it every day to be sick of it.

He flicked a cold glance at the tall man in the passenger seat. “Out. Did I invite you?”

The passenger was a strapping Alpha. At his words, the man flinched and climbed out, shaking. Who knew what he had been through.

The producer misunderstood and thought, so that is his taste.

Surrounded by assistants, Wu Fuyu walked onto the lot. Seeing the producer fawn, some of the rank and file gathered as well.

He was escorted to the set, though he looked bored by everything.

Rong Jing was in the water for this scene. As Consort De took a lake outing with the harem, someone pushed her from behind. Fu Qianming dove in after her. That was almost enough to make that clear-headed woman lose her head, her sense for him tipping into desire.

When they came ashore their clothes were soaked, the robe clinging to Rong Jing’s firm lines, suggestive without trying.

Gu Xi noticed how many eyes were stuck to Rong Jing and frowned by a hair. He signaled to Mo Dian, who understood at once, dug out a blanket, and headed toward Rong Jing. Their cabbage, he thought, was in danger of being stolen from the field.

Another man being ushered along saw it and moved faster. He shrugged off his own trench and threw it over Rong Jing’s shoulders without a word.

Then, like a gust of wind, he kicked the knee of the man beside him. Smack. The man dropped to a forced kneel in front of Rong Jing.

Rong Jing frowned. At his feet, a familiar face.

A classmate who had once led the bullying of the original host, Lü Jin. He had even shown up at the “Absolute Idol” auditions recently.

Wu Fuyu planted his boot on Lü Jin’s back, without a flicker of guilt.

He gave a lazy smile and pointed at the man beneath his foot. “Long time no see. A meeting gift.”

---

PREVIOUS           TOC           NEXT