"I want to read tonight."
His voice was as cold as ever, brooking no argument.
"Don't bother me."
Yukino stumbled from his shove, nearly falling. She stared in disbelief at the man's back, watching him leisurely turn a page, as if the offering she had just thrown at him had never happened.
Her mind was in chaos.
Her instinctive belief that "if she just offered her body, he would be satisfied" began to violently waver.
This man... what does he actually want?! Is my body really worthless in his eyes?
Just as Yukino was sinking into massive confusion and panic, Seiji Fujiwara's voice finally rang out again.
This time, it was no longer indifference, but a playful command, as if he had found a new toy.
He didn't turn around. He just used the English original in his hand to point backward at the empty floor at his feet.
"Since you're so eager to serve..."
His voice was unhurried, every word a steel spike forged in ice, driving deep into Yukino's soul.
"...then kneel right here."
"And read this book to me."
"In your most proper London accent. Word by word."
"Don't stop until I tell you to. Not a single word wrong."
A roar went off in her head.
The instant she heard the command, Yukino's mind went blank.
She was supposed to... kneel... and read... an English novel to him?
Read Ulysses?
In that moment, she finally understood completely.
This man, this devil... what he wanted was never her body at all!
The union of bodies was, to him, only the lowest form of pleasure.
What he truly wanted was for her to set down all the knowledge, talent, and dignity she took pride in, and like a true, basest Slave, unconditionally obey any absurd, humiliating command he gave!
What he wanted was her absolute, spiritual submission!
He wanted that godlike power to dispose of every part of her at will!
Her last belief, that "I am still the principal party in this transaction," was ground to dust in that instant!
She had never been the principal party of any transaction.
From start to finish, she had only ever been a pitiful toy, played with at someone else's whim.
The collapse of her self-understanding sent Yukino Yukinoshita's body into violent trembling.
Her face was paler than the lace trim of the maid uniform she wore. In those ice-blue eyes were horror, humiliation, and a despair as deep as an abyss.
Read aloud?
On her knees?
Use the perfect London accent she was most proud of to read aloud a masterpiece that intimidated even literature PhDs, all to please a man who saw her as a plaything?
This was crueler, more vicious than a simple violation of her body!
It was the most thorough trampling of her "intellect" and her "talent"!
She wanted to resist. She wanted to scream. She wanted to slam that book into the man's face.
But she couldn't.
In her mind rose her sister Haruno's despairing sobs; rose that "lawyer's letter" capable of dragging the family into the abyss; rose the heavy fate she carried as the "second daughter."
She had no choice.
A long while passed.
Yukino slowly closed her eyes, and two streams of tears finally slid down, beyond her control.
When she opened her eyes again, every emotion had been drained from those beautiful pupils, leaving only a dead numbness.
She walked silently to Seiji Fujiwara, lifted the shameful hem of her maid uniform, and slowly, humiliatingly, knelt down.
The cold, hard marble sent its bone-deep chill through the thin stockings, as if the cold reached all the way to her soul.
Seiji didn't even look at her. He simply held out the heavy Ulysses in front of her.
Yukino reached out with violently trembling hands and accepted the book that weighed like a thousand pounds.
She turned to the first page. The familiar print now seared her eyes like a red-hot brand. She drew a deep breath, then began the most humiliating "recitation" of her life, in a near-perfect London accent that, suppressed to its limit, came out hollow and mechanical.
"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed..."
The cool, pleasant voice echoed slowly through the lavish study.
Seiji, meanwhile, leaned comfortably on the sofa, closed his eyes, and wore a satisfied smile, as if he were savoring the most exquisite movement of music.
He was in no hurry to do anything to Yukino's body.
Because he knew that what he was carrying out now was a deeper invasion and conditioning of the soul.
He would make this intellectual voice the background music for her body's defilement.
He would saturate every page of these elegant words with the air of obscenity and humiliation.
He would turn the "talent" she was proudest of into the most shameful brand burned upon her!
Yukino read on mechanically. She tried to focus her mind on the page, to shut out everything else.
But she failed.
Because that devil had begun to "play" with her.
He didn't go for the final possession. That would be too dull. He chose a more tormenting method to destroy the pitiful "spiritual sanctuary" she had retreated into.
His fingers slid along the edge of her pure white stockings, slowly probing into that warm forbidden zone, wandering at will.
A faint tremor crept into Yukino's reading.
But she couldn't stop.
"...He held the bowl aloft and intoned: Introibo ad altare Dei."
Her voice grew unsteady, like an over-tightened string.
The man's hand grew bolder, lifting her short skirt to admire, with the gaze one fixes on a work of art, the sacred landscape wrapped in black lace.
A flush of shame spread across Yukino's cheeks, and her breathing quickened.
Still she could not stop.
"...Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely: Come up, Kinch. Come up, you fearful jesuit."
A trace of suppressed panting had entered her voice now, staining that pristine London accent with an indescribable lewdness.
Mentally, she had to stay focused, reciting the obscure text without the slightest error.
Physically, she had to endure ever more outrageous humiliation and toying from the man.
This extreme dual torment, of mind and body, was like two giant hands tearing and crushing her soul over and over.
Her spirit, under this hellish torture, grew further numbed, further broken.
...
...
Meanwhile, in Tokyo, inside the ancient mansion of the Shinomiya Family.
Kaguya Shinomiya was reading the latest report on the Fujiwara conglomerate.
The report described in detail the "second crisis" Yukinoshita Real Estate had run into, and Seiji Fujiwara's baffling stance of "doing nothing."
"I can't understand it..." Kaguya's beautiful eyes were full of confusion.
Since Yukino Yukinoshita was already Seiji Fujiwara's Possession, the Yukinoshita family ought to be his new vassal. With his current position, resolving this trouble would take a single word.
So why was he setting up this "boring" trial?
It didn't fit any commercial logic.
Standing beside her, her personal attendant Ai Hayasaka considered for a moment, then offered her analysis in a cold, quiet tone:
"Lady Kaguya, perhaps..."
"This Seiji Fujiwara doesn't care at all whether the Yukinoshita family lives or dies."
"To him, saving or destroying a family is just... a game prop he's using to break that Miss Yukinoshita."
"What he truly enjoys, perhaps, is only the process of cornering proud prey step by step, and then watching her surrender utterly in her despair."
The words cracked through Kaguya's mind like thunder.
Business, family, survival or ruin... in her eyes these were matters of immense weight, yet in that man's eyes they were merely... cheap "game props" for toying with people's hearts?
In that moment, for the first time, Kaguya Shinomiya felt strong revulsion and fear toward a man.
...
...
The "recital" inside the study went on deep into the night.
When Yukino Yukinoshita finally finished that long, obscure first chapter, her voice had gone hoarse, and her mind was on the brink of collapse. Her body, under the unceasing teasing, had been tormented to a state of extreme sensitivity and feverish heat, as though it no longer belonged to her.
"Stop."
Seiji finally gave the order.
Yukino felt as if she had been pardoned. The heavy book slipped from her hands and thudded onto the carpet. Her whole body, as though its bones had been pulled out, slumped powerlessly down, prostrate on the floor and gasping. Those beautiful blue eyes were hollow and lost.
Seiji rose and looked down at her from above, the way one inspects a perfect work of art just completed.
Tonight, he had reaped a great deal.
Spiritually, he had successfully raised Yukino's level of submission to a new tier. She had begun her transformation from "merchandise" to "Slave."
In practical terms, this also laid the groundwork for the more interesting Shame Roleplay and Intellectual Cultivation games to come.
He was satisfied.
Listening to Yukino's stifled gasping, he felt as if he were appreciating a unique movement woven from humiliation, collapse, and desire.
Just then, the encrypted phone on his desk lit up silently.
A top-priority industry news alert from overseas.
Seiji picked up the phone and glanced at it.
The headline carried the arrogance and gunpowder-stink typical of the Western world.
[ASML, joined by Nikon, Canon, and other lithography giants, has issued a joint statement. Citing "potential technical security risks," they will impose a comprehensive, indefinite equipment and technology embargo on the Fujiwara conglomerate!]
"Choking my throat?"
Seiji looked at the news, the smile at the corner of his mouth turning colder.
A swarm of insects about to be crushed beneath the wheels of the era, deluding themselves that with the rusted scrap iron in their hands they could halt his advance like a mantis blocking a chariot?
How... reckless with their own lives.
He tossed the phone back onto the desk, and his gaze fell once more on the trembling, hauntingly beautiful body on the floor.
It seemed it was time for the system to deliver his next great gift.
And the "key" to unlocking that ultimate reward lay right before him.
In his eyes, an even more burning, predatory desire began to glow.
[Read 80+ chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]