Chapter 43
After coming down from the rooftop, even though the rain had stopped, Xing Xu still looked disheveled. Ye Xiyao suggested that Xing Xu go to the hospital, but Xing Xu refused.
He had no interest in letting everyone know that he’d been struck by lightning.
The police had already gotten involved at the bar, but fortunately, it seemed that the maniac was merely influenced by illusions caused by demonic energy and wasn’t actually possessed by a demon. Therefore, the case could go through a regular investigation process without needing the scene to be sealed off, and Xing Xu didn’t have to go back.
Xing Xu took Ye Xiyao and left directly.
His place was nearby, only a few minutes’ walk away.
Ye Xiyao saw that Xing Xu was drenched and probably wanted to take a hot shower and change his clothes, so he followed him.
This was Ye Xiyao’s first time at Xing Xu’s home.
Xing Xu usually came to find him, so Ye Xiyao had even begun to doubt whether Xing Xu actually lived nearby. Now that he was here, he realized Xing Xu’s original place was quite far.
Before opening the door, Ye Xiyao had mentally prepared himself—after all, Xing Xu was the nephew of Xue Qiao, the head of QiaoShou Technologies, and a high-paid external contractor for the Alliance Security Bureau. Surely, Xing Xu must live in a pretty luxurious place.
But when the door opened, Ye Xiyao was utterly shocked. No amount of mental preparation could have braced him for what he saw.
He couldn’t even bring himself to step inside.
Xing Xu was still dripping wet, his head still throbbing faintly from being “struck by lightning.” He walked inside first, rummaging through an old, dusty cabinet and pulling out a pair of disposable slippers that he had somehow brought home at some point.
Returning to the door, he squatted in front of Ye Xiyao, carefully unpacking the slippers and placing them neatly at Ye Xiyao’s feet. He looked up at Ye Xiyao, motioning for him to lift his foot.
Ye Xiyao hesitated. “Do I… need to change?”
Xing Xu chuckled. “You probably should—don’t want to dirty your own shoes.”
“Alright.”
Ye Xiyao finally confirmed that it wasn’t his imagination—Xing Xu’s place really was a mess.
It wasn’t the typical kind of clutter or dirt; it looked like a localized disaster had hit Xing Xu’s home—a precise and targeted upheaval.
What Ye Xiyao saw was like the aftermath of a storm that hadn’t yet undergone recovery—an almost ruinous level of chaos.
Ye Xiyao remembered that Qiao Linchuan had once told him that the house’s furnishings were personally arranged by Mr. Xue, with all the soft furnishings being of the highest quality. Yet now, there was no sign of any luxury. The material of the sofa—whether it was leather or fabric—was indiscernible under a thick layer of dust and debris, which was, strictly speaking, the crumbled remains of the ceiling.
The floor was even worse, full of cracks and covered in debris from a fallen TV, floor lamps, paintings, and various other objects.
Ye Xiyao had many questions, but Xing Xu spoke first. “Do you want to take a bath? The bathroom survived, and the tub is intact, so it should be fine.”
Ye Xiyao couldn’t help but laugh at his nonchalant attitude. “You go first.”
Xing Xu raised his eyebrows slightly and walked over, lifting Ye Xiyao and carrying him to the bathroom. “I wasn’t planning on taking turns.”
Xing Xu was right—the bathroom had survived, showing no signs of damage. The bathtub was large, spacious enough for two.
But Ye Xiyao felt uncomfortable.
He wasn’t used to bathing with someone, nor did he like how, when both of them were in the tub, Xing Xu held him in his arms. This position forced Ye Xiyao to curl up, with his head resting against Xing Xu’s shoulder.
However, his discomfort soon gave way to distraction.
It wasn’t because Xing Xu did anything inappropriate—he seemed tired and simply rested with his eyes closed, the most he did being to idly play with Ye Xiyao’s fingers.
What caught Ye Xiyao’s attention was something strange.
Suddenly, he turned in the water with a big splash, startling Xing Xu awake. Xing Xu opened his eyes and looked at him. “What’s wrong?”
Xing Xu didn’t seem to notice anything unusual.
Ye Xiyao, looking serious, grabbed Xing Xu’s left hand and showed it to him. “This thing, this…”
Xing Xu replied, “The Demon Slayer Array.”
Ye Xiyao said, “Right, the Demon Slayer Array. What’s going on? It was fine just a moment ago, but now it’s moving again.”
On the rooftop, the backlash from the Demon Slayer Array had subsided, but now it had started spreading again without any warning. Ye Xiyao remembered Xing Xu saying that the demonic energy backlash could be fatal, and he began to panic.
Xing Xu lazily propped up his chin and smiled, “Are you sure you want to talk about boring things at a time like this?”
The two of them were both naked, with an already heated atmosphere thick with intimacy.
Ye Xiyao wasn’t distracted by him, though. “There’s a lot you haven’t told me.”
Xing Xu sat up and leaned in for a kiss, but Ye Xiyao dodged. Xing Xu had no choice but to give in and sighed, “Alright, ask away.”
Ye Xiyao sank his body into the water, leaving only his head above, to avoid Xing Xu’s gaze on his body. Then, he asked, “Why is your living room in that state? Did you get into a fight?”
Xing Xu shrugged, “More or less.”
Ye Xiyao disliked Xing Xu’s laid-back attitude, so he twisted his arm slightly. “Be serious.”
Xing Xu feigned pain, “Ow!”
“I didn’t use any strength,” Ye Xiyao said, but he still let go.
Taking advantage of the moment, Xing Xu swam to his side, wrapping his arm around Ye Xiyao’s waist under the water, kissed his ear, and then said, “Remember the night before I went to the Alliance Government, when I came to see you?”
It had only been a couple of days, so Ye Xiyao naturally remembered and nodded.
Xing Xu continued, “That rain was strange. I suspect there’s a demon behind it, up to something.”
Ye Xiyao recalled, “Yes, I could feel demonic energy in the rain, but it wasn’t aggressive—it didn’t harm anyone.”
Xing Xu smiled, “Exactly, it didn’t harm others, only tried to kill me. Tonight it was the same one, just like that night.”
He spoke about it as if he were an outsider, casually narrating his own experiences, “That night, after I left you, it followed me all the way home. Even at home, I couldn’t get peace. Can you imagine? My TV literally jumped up and attacked me. If I weren’t an exorcist, I would’ve thought the place was haunted. Truly bizarre.”
Ye Xiyao was startled and immediately sat up, “For a demon to be able to spread its demonic energy through rain like that, it must be incredibly powerful. Why is it trying to kill you?”
“There are plenty of reasons,” Xing Xu began to list them. “First, I’m the inheritor of the Demon Slayer Array. All demons would love to see me dead. Second—”
Ye Xiyao waited for him to continue, but Xing Xu paused for a long time. Ye Xiyao thought Xing Xu was choosing his words, but in the next moment, he felt Xing Xu’s hand touch the soft, intimate part of his body.
A shiver shot up Ye Xiyao’s spine, and he cried out, “Xing Xu!”
Xing Xu responded, “Hmm, yes, baby?”
Ye Xiyao was at a loss for words, slapping him lightly, “What are your hands doing?”
Xing Xu, looking innocent, pouted and said, “I’m just touching, not doing anything.”
“You…” Ye Xiyao was caught between frustration and amusement. He grabbed both of Xing Xu’s hands and held them in front of him to stop them from wandering. “Let’s finish the serious talk first.”
Xing Xu grinned, “And after we’re done talking, we can do it?”
Ye Xiyao had always felt that Xing Xu could never be serious—his mouth always running wild, thinking only of physical affection whenever they were together. But then, he realized Xing Xu might be deliberately trying to change the subject.
So Ye Xiyao had a clever idea and calmly said, “Explain it all clearly, and I’ll help you.”
Xing Xu raised an eyebrow, “Help me?”
Ye Xiyao gave a little hum, leaving some mystery.
Xing Xu chuckled, “Alright, it seems like I’m at your mercy now.”
Feeling like he had control of the situation, Ye Xiyao said, “Us succubi have powerful methods.”
Xing Xu teased, “Our baby has the most powerful methods.”
Ye Xiyao’s ears flushed red as he urged, “Hurry up and explain.”
Xing Xu, seeing no way out, returned to the topic he had been avoiding. “Did I ever tell you? Once the backlash from the Demon Slayer Array reaches a certain point, the array core will self-destruct, and my body will become a complete vessel for demonic energy. I’ll turn into…”
Ye Xiyao bit his lip and said nothing, but he knew what that meant.
Xing Xu would become a half-human, half-demon.
“For a long time, demons have avoided me. Some powerful ones have tried to challenge me, but most of them failed,” Xing Xu said, his tone devoid of any special emotion, as if stating a fact.
A fact that had been ingrained in him since childhood. “But if one day I can’t withstand the backlash, I’ll go from being an exorcist to becoming half-demon. Maybe that’s what the demons want to see.”
Xing Xu had reason to believe that the powerful demon behind the rain wanted to push him to the brink.
However, Ye Xiyao picked up on a crucial detail. He said, “You’re saying it wants to force you into becoming half-demon? But you have me now. I won’t let the backlash take over you.”
Xing Xu suddenly let out a long sigh, “I can’t continue.”
Ye Xiyao: “?”
Xing Xu: “I’m using all my strength right now just to hold back from kissing you.”
Ye Xiyao didn’t bother with banter, he simply turned around, leaned on Xing Xu, and gave him a straightforward kiss. “Can you talk now?”
Xing Xu wasn’t about to let him off that easily. He cupped Ye Xiyao’s face and returned the kiss deeply, their tongues leaving a trail of silver, which Xing Xu savored as if tasting honey. Only then did he say, “Now I can.”
“Humans don’t know what happens after the backlash of the Demon Slayer Array,” Xing Xu suddenly said.
Ye Xiyao immediately understood what that meant.
But he didn’t voice his thoughts—because they sounded a bit cruel.
Xing Xu, on the other hand, didn’t care and continued in his casual tone, “All this time, everyone has only known that I inherited the Demon Slayer Array. They both envy me for having the most powerful weapon from birth and pity my fate—because to the uninformed, once the backlash reaches a certain point, I’ll die.”
This was a secret passed down through generations.
Exorcists knew about the Demon Slayer Array, but they only believed that the final outcome of the backlash was death. Just like Xing Xu’s mother, Xue Min, and their ancestors before them.
They all chose suicide to protect this secret with their lives.
“I don’t understand,” Ye Xiyao whispered. “Why choose to die? Why not wait a little longer? What if the backlash doesn’t result in death…”
“And if it doesn’t, how will humans see us?” Xing Xu smiled and asked, “I’ve spent my life killing demons. If one day I become a half-human, half-demon monster, then who am I? How would humans view me?”
“You’re a hero,” Ye Xiyao offered his answer. “You’ve protected humanity. They’ll accept you.”
Xing Xu, however, laughed loudly.
He didn’t explain but instead asked Ye Xiyao, “Then why do you keep your own secrets?”
Suddenly, Ye Xiyao understood Xing Xu’s concerns.
When Xing Xu was still fully human, he was already so powerful. If he gained the strength of a demon, how could humans believe he was harmless?
“I’m not saying humans definitely wouldn’t accept me, but I bet they wouldn’t want me as their exorcist ally anymore. Who knows? Maybe they’d secretly plan something I’m unaware of, placing spies around me—just like they did when they sent me to get close to you.” Xing Xu joked, “In the end, it seems the two of us should have been working together all along.”
Ye Xiyao couldn’t bring himself to laugh. “I understand now. The demon wants to force you into a conflict with humans. It wants you to become a demon and see human society fall.”
“That’s just my guess,” Xing Xu said. “But there is one odd point… It seems like it’s deliberately stopping me from reporting your situation to the Alliance Government.”
Ye Xiyao was startled, “What?”
Xing Xu explained that he hadn’t been able to reach the Alliance Government. “It’s as if it doesn’t want you to have any contact with the Alliance.”
Or in other words, the demon didn’t want the Alliance to know that Ye Xiyao was harmless.
Now Ye Xiyao was completely confused, “What does this demon want?”
“To create chaos, I guess,” Xing Xu concluded. “On one hand, it makes humans fear the existence of a powerful creature like you, whose allegiance is unclear. On the other hand, it turns me into someone humans fear, so that no matter what I say in your defense, the Alliance will only think I’ve betrayed humanity and joined the demons.”
“How could it do that?” Ye Xiyao said anxiously.
“But don’t worry too much.” Xing Xu dabbed a bit of foam on Ye Xiyao’s head, playing with it. “I’ve already reported the situation to the Security Bureau. Barring any surprises, their exorcist target should shift from you to that demon, at least for the time being.”
Despite Luo Yiji’s hopes that Xing Xu could persuade Ye Xiyao to help “purify” humans of their demonic energy, the appearance of a new demon, clearly more threatening than Ye Xiyao, meant that the immediate priority was to prepare for an exorcism against it.
Xing Xu believed that with the mutual understanding between him and Luo Yiji, they would know which situation took precedence.
“And what about the demonic backlash in you?” Ye Xiyao asked again, grabbing Xing Xu’s arm, his pupils trembling slightly.
In just the few minutes they had been talking, the backlash had worsened.
“Yeah, my backlash is so serious—it looks like I’m going to die.” Xing Xu splashed water playfully, spraying Ye Xiyao’s face. He wrapped himself around Ye Xiyao’s leg and said, “I guess I’ll have to ask the only person in this world who can help me to resolve the crisis.”
Ye Xiyao’s wet hair hung down as he lowered his head.
He never minded being intimate with Xing Xu. In fact, his body had already obediently leaned into him. This was beneficial for both him and Xing Xu, so there was no reason not to do it.
But suddenly, Ye Xiyao grabbed Xing Xu’s hand and said seriously, “Can we do it a different way?”
Xing Xu listened to his request, casually lifting one of Ye Xiyao’s legs onto his waist, finding a comfortable position, and looked at him, ready for action: “What do you want to change?”
Ye Xiyao pulled his leg back and sat, watching him. “I only need your energy, and you just need to pass your demonic energy to me. So, I came up with a more efficient idea.”
Compared to Xing Xu’s hand, Ye Xiyao’s was small, just enough to grasp him. He awkwardly stroked it once. Xing Xu’s whole body tensed as he watched Ye Xiyao lower his head, eyes fixed on his tip.
“You want to do it that way?”
Xing Xu lifted his chin, staring at Ye Xiyao’s soft, rounded lips, his mouth dry as he repeatedly asked, “Are you sure?”
Ye Xiyao earnestly replied, “Mm-hmm.”
Xing Xu covered his face, unsure of what to think, but his exposed ears were already flushed a deep red.
Ye Xiyao was puzzled. “What’s wrong?”
To Ye Xiyao, the previous method of absorbing demonic energy was too exhausting. Xing Xu was so energetic that they couldn’t get off the bed for a day and a night. But saliva alone was inefficient.
His compromise was to directly swallow Xing Xu’s essence, which would spare him pain and Xing Xu fatigue.
Yet, Xing Xu’s reaction was strange. After a long silence, he stood up from the bathtub, sat on the edge, leaned down, and looked at Ye Xiyao, asking repeatedly, “Really?”
Ye Xiyao frowned. “If you don’t like it, forget it.”
“I like it.” Xing Xu, afraid he’d change his mind, immediately pulled him up from the water. “I like it, really like it. But…”
Ye Xiyao said, “Why are you acting so shy?”
It was so unlike the usual Xing Xu.
Xing Xu didn’t respond, rubbing his thumb across Ye Xiyao’s lips. Suddenly, he pushed it into his mouth, slipping past his teeth, slowly extending it to the tongue, and then further down toward the throat.
“Mm… mm!” Ye Xiyao grimaced, grabbing Xing Xu’s wrist as a wave of nausea welled up. His eyes reddened, and he cried, “Let go…”
But Xing Xu didn’t stop. He mischievously added two more fingers, his deep voice resonating in the bathroom, mingling with the sticky, moist echoes, “You can’t even take three fingers, and you want to take something else?”
As he spoke, his longest finger dug deeper into Ye Xiyao’s throat, causing his small tongue to ache. Ye Xiyao struggled to breathe, tears pooling at the corners of his eyes. “I… hate this… stop…”
“See? Your mouth is small, your tongue is soft, and your throat is narrow and delicate.” Xing Xu, barely restraining his impulses, analyzed piece by piece, “If you try to take anything else, your lips will tear, your palate will blister, your tongue will ache. You might want to vomit, but your throat will be full of me. Even if you cried for help, I wouldn’t hear you, and you’d only be able to sob while swallowing it all…”
Finally, Xing Xu withdrew his fingers, and Ye Xiyao, gasping for air, clung to Xing Xu’s leg. He felt awful, his reddened nose making him look pitiful as he gazed up at Xing Xu.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Xing Xu, without hiding his arousal, touched Ye Xiyao’s ear, saying, “I’m afraid I won’t be able to hold back.”
Remembering the torment from the fingers, Ye Xiyao realized how much worse it would be with something else. He glanced down at Xing Xu, and everything went black—there was no way the two compared.
Xing Xu wasn’t exaggerating; it might be life-threatening to take that.
“Then…” Ye Xiyao bit his lip and sank back into the water. “If we do it the usual way, you have to promise me one thing.”
Xing Xu’s gaze lingered on Ye Xiyao’s lips, his mind wandering. “Mm, I’ll agree to anything.”
“Don’t be too rough,” Ye Xiyao said in a businesslike tone. To him, their intimate activities were about transferring demonic energy, so it was something that needed negotiation.
Xing Xu suddenly fell silent. Ye Xiyao thought he disagreed.
A moment later, Xing Xu turned off the overhead light in the bathroom, leaving only a soft, warm glow. At some point, he had slipped back into the water, pulling Ye Xiyao into his arms, leaving only their upper bodies exposed.
“I’ve discovered something interesting,” Xing Xu said, drawing circles with his finger over the demonic mark below Ye Xiyao’s navel. “Every time this spot swells up, it’s right over your mark.”
Ye Xiyao: “…”
Xing Xu: “Are you worried about me being too rough because I might touch it?”
Ye Xiyao remained silent.
Xing Xu smirked, “Ah, another secret.”
“It’s not,” Ye Xiyao tried to escape.
Xing Xu easily pulled him back. “All the other demonic marks have disappeared, leaving only this one. So, what’s inside? I asked you last time, and you didn’t answer. Still not going to say?”
Ye Xiyao bit his lip, refusing to speak, but when Xing Xu pressed firmly on the mark, a moan escaped from Ye Xiyao’s lips, and he cried, “I don’t know. It just feels strange every time it’s touched. Xing Xu, I’m a little scared… I really don’t know what it is.”
Xing Xu, having gotten the answer he wanted, his gaze darkened. He whispered gently, “Baby, don’t be afraid. Let me check it for you, okay?”
