"Senior—please, stop!" A sharp, pained cry tore through the stale air of the storeroom.
Shen Cui's voice was a ragged whisper, strangled with tears that welled in her wide, pleading eyes.
Jiang Ya ignored her completely. His hand clamped over her mouth, smothering her next sob as he crushed his lips against hers.
Shen Cui's fists beat weakly against his chest, her struggles growing more frantic as the rough fabric of her robes was pushed away, exposing her pale skin to the cold.
The rhythmic, wet sound of flesh pounding against flesh became the room's only soundtrack, punctuated by Shen Cui's broken whimpers and Jiang Ya's own guttural moans.
Shen Cu's body, that of a 14-year-old with the soft curves of budding womanhood—modest B-cup breasts and slender hips—was utterly dominated by Jiang Ya's 20-year-old frame.
He used her like a tool, his hips pistoning, driving deeper into her blood-slicked passage with each thrust.
The violation seemed to last an eternity.
After what felt like a small forever, his movements grew more frantic, his breathing a harsh rasp in her ear.
"I'm... I'm cumming!" he roared, his body locking rigid before he emptied his hot, sticky seed deep inside her.
The assault ended as abruptly as it began. He pulled away, leaving her violated and exposed on the cold floor.
Trembling on weak, unsteady legs, Shen Cui scrambled to cover herself.
Hot tears of shame and rage streamed down her face.
"Senior!" she shouted, her voice cracking.
"You... you have to take responsibility for this!" Her body shook with hiccupping sobs.
Jiang Ya merely adjusted his own clothes, a look of smug satisfaction on his face.
"Didn't I already say I would marry you?" he said dismissively.
"Now go home. I'll come to your house later."
Clutching her disheveled robes to her chest, Shen Cui stumbled toward the door.
She fumbled with the handle before wrenching it open and fleeing into the daylight, like a broken figure desperate to escape the scene of her ruin.
As the door swung shut, Jiang Ya did not immediately follow. Instead, he turned toward a shadowed corner of the adjacent room as a slow smile spread across his lips.
...
The adjacent room was thick with the scent of sweat and blood.
Fang Yuan sat in the shadows, a statue of perfect calm as Fang Zheng lay bound near his feet.
Through a crack in the wall, he dissected the frantic, graceless coupling of Jiang Ya and Shen Cui with the detached focus like a scholar observing insects.
And at some point, the tied-up Fang Zheng had slipped into unconsciousness, blood streaking from his mouth and eyes.
It was as if the sight had ruptured something inside him—spirit, pride, or whatever remained of his naïve heart.
A derisive sneer curled Fang Yuan's lip.
"What a joke," he murmured to the unhearing boy.
"And you said you loved her."
With the efficiency of a butcher handling meat, he untied his brother's limp form and dragged him out of the stifling room, into the jarring brightness of the afternoon sun.
The light was an intrusive glare on the Fang Zheng's blood-streaked face.
On cue, two hulking servants emerged from the nearby bushes, their movements hesitant, their eyes carefully averted but still bowed deeply towards Fang Yuan.
Their eyes, however, betrayed a sliver of the terror they dared not voice.
They had seen the girl, Shen Cui, flee just minutes prior—her robes disheveled, her face a mask of tear-streaked ruin.
They had seen Jiang Ya follow soon after, smoothing down his own clothes with an air of sated carelessness.
And now, here was Young Master Fang Zheng, battered and bleeding from his very eyes.
They swallowed thickly, the pieces clicking together in their minds to form a picture so vile their instincts screamed to reject it.
'How could someone orchestrate such a thing?' The unspoken question hung between them.
They knew, yet they could not articulate it. They understood, yet they refused to let the full horror of the scenario take root in their thoughts.
To use a girl's ambition, a person's lust, to so utterly destroy a brother's spirit… It was a depth of evil they did not dare to fathom.
They knew what happened.
But to speak about it outside was to invite death.
They understood clearly. But to think about it was to stare into an abyss.
Their eyes flickered to Fang Yuan's impassive face, then to the blood on Fang Zheng's.
The girl who had run—she was just a girl, perhaps the same age as their own daughters.
And the architect of her ruin, and their young master's, was none other than the indifferent young man who now stood before them, his soul as cold and polished as river stone.
...
Fang Yuan's gaze, cold and devoid of warmth, swept over the two servants.
Their faces were pale, sweat beading on their foreheads as they trembled under his scrutiny.
"Take him back," Fang Yuan commanded as he tossed Fang Zheng's unconscious body toward them.
The servants flinched, stumbling back in instinctive fear before scrambling to catch the limp form.
Without a word of protest, they stuffed their young master into an empty grain barrel, hoisted it with a shared grunt, and scurried away into the bushes.
Fang Yuan watched them go, his expression unchanging. He could read their thoughts as if they were etched on their faces—a mixture of terror and morbid speculation.
'Pitiful,' the thought surfaced in his mind, not with sympathy, but with detached contempt.
To the servants, it was a sordid tale: the young master Fang Yuan, a Gu Master, forced himself upon a barely-of-age servant girl.
To Shen Cui, it was a brutal rape, a nightmare of pain and humiliation inflicted by Jiang Ya.
To Jiang Ya, it was a long-awaited conquest, a moment of primal enjoyment granted by a powerful benefactor.
To Fang Zheng, it was the ultimate betrayal—his own brother cruelly mocking and defiling his first love.
But did any of them consider Fang Yuan's perspective?
Did they ever bother to ask why?
Did they think he took some twisted pleasure in it?
If any had the courage to ask, Fang Yuan would have offered a simple, unvarnished truth.
Rape?
Defiled?
You dress a primal urge in so many costumes.
Strip them away, and it's all just mating.
A biological transaction containing sex.
But... what is sex?
For some, it's base hunger.
For others, a performance.
But the end result is identical: a primal release. And that is it's conclusion.
People sanctify it with ceremony—calling it a 'wedding.'
Others commercialize it in brothels—naming it 'prostitution.'
Some attach preferences: rough, gentle, loving, hateful.
But the core mechanism remains unchanged.
What occurred today was simply that mechanism in motion. Nothing more, nothing less.
A hypothetical objector might cry, "But she was a child!"
A child?
By what measure?
Was she ignorant of procreation?
Is her body incapable of bearing children?
Did she not derive physical sensation from the act?
She actively engaged in seduction for this very purpose—to secure offspring with the Gu Yue name.
She traded her flesh for future advantage. The method was merely accelerated.
The outcome aligns perfectly with her own ambitions.
Countless brides endure consummation they do not desire for social or familial gain.
The society calls that 'duty.'
A woman may pledge her body to one man while her heart belongs to another. We call that 'compromise.'
A man does the same. And we cloak it all in the grand delusion of 'love.'
Everyone's mistaking the instrument of symphony.
Sex is a tool, a biological urge, a history of power and negotiation of genes.
Men calls it love, Women calls it duty, and other calls it violation.
The physical reality does not change.
It is, and always will be, just sex.
The world is a slaughterhouse. Sentiment is a shackle.
But Sex is not about pleasure. It is an experiment.
For some, It is cultivation and for others, it's just a... necessity.