Chapter 70 - Demonic energy?

Chapter 70: Chapter 70 - Demonic energy?

The car had barely left the cemetery when Jua felt it again.

A faint current of demonic energy brushed against his senses, close enough that he could no longer mistake where it came from. He turned toward Mao Mao, who was adjusting the blanket over his legs.

Jua caught his sleeve.

The man looked up immediately.

"Why do you have demonic energy, Mao Mao?"

His hand tightened in the black fabric as he tried to examine the current more closely. It was there, moving beneath the warmth of the body beside him, far more controlled than he would have expected.

"What is this?"

For a second, Mao Mao looked genuinely surprised.

Then he smiled.

His hand settled over Jua’s, gently easing the fingers clenched around his sleeve. He didn’t attempt to pull free. Instead, he lifted Jua’s hand and pressed a light kiss against his knuckles.

"I saw you use it, Brother. So I learned."

Jua stared at him.

"You learned?"

"For you."

The simple answer left him with nothing to say.

He searched his memory. There had been one occasion when Mao Mao might have seen enough to recognise what he was doing. One. Jua had never explained how to draw in demonic energy, much less how to hold it without letting it damage a living body.

Watching him shouldn’t have been enough.

Even in his own world, people had ruined themselves trying to learn with proper instruction. There were methods to follow, mistakes that could tear through a person’s meridians before they understood what they had done wrong.

And this child—

Jua stopped himself.

The man holding his hand was nearly thirty.

He had spent years doing things Jua knew nothing about, and apparently one of those things had been teaching himself necromancy.

"How?" Jua asked.

Mao Mao rubbed his thumb over the back of his hand.

"It took a while."

That was hardly an answer.

Jua looked at their joined hands, remembering the ghost retreating through the tree. Its fear made considerably more sense now, as did the strange emptiness of the cemetery.

"You’re the one who took the ghosts."

Mao Mao tilted his head.

"I gave them a way to rest. That’s all."

His expression was almost innocent.

Jua knew that look. It had worked much better when the person wearing it was small enough to climb into his lap.

He didn’t release Mao Mao’s sleeve.

"What did you do with the energy?"

The man’s smile softened.

"I used it to maintain your body."

Jua’s fingers went still.

For a moment, the quiet movement of the car seemed unusually loud. He could hear the tyres against the road, the faint hum of air through the vents.

Mao Mao continued watching him.

"The doctors took care of everything they could," he said. "I helped with the rest."

Jua looked down at himself.

The face in the mirror had seemed too young. His body was weak, but it had survived almost twenty years without his soul properly inhabiting it. He had seen the care that went into his treatment and assumed that explained most of it.

He should have known there was more.

The traces of demonic energy within him were so depleted and so thoroughly absorbed into his own body that he hadn’t questioned them. He had thought them remnants of his previous cultivation.

They weren’t.

Mao Mao had been feeding him energy.

For years.

Jua lifted his eyes slowly.

"How much have you given me?"

"As much as you needed."

There was no hesitation in the answer.

That frightened him more than a number would have.

He thought of the little ghost barely managing to hold its shape. How often had Mao Mao visited that cemetery? How many other places had he gone when it no longer held enough?

And what had drawing so much of it done to him?

Jua studied the man’s face, trying to see past the familiar gentleness. He needed to examine him properly. There were questions he should have asked before allowing himself to be distracted by an empty grave.

"Mao Mao, you can’t just take that much into yourself without—"

"Are you feeling drained?"

The interruption was quiet.

Jua frowned.

Mao Mao leaned closer, his attention moving over Jua’s face.

"Is that why you wanted to go there?"

Jua became aware of how little distance remained between them. His shoulder was already against the seat, leaving nowhere to move without trying to push himself upright.

"I wanted to recover some strength."

"I can give you what you need."

His voice had lowered.

Jua’s grip loosened in surprise.

"What do you—"

Mao Mao kissed him.

For a second, Jua was too shocked to react.

The hand around his shifted, holding it against Mao Mao’s chest. Jua felt the pressure of his mouth and jerked back, but another hand caught the back of his head before he could put any distance between them.

His heart lurched.

He pushed against the man’s shoulder.

There was scarcely any strength in his arm.

Mao Mao held him there and kissed him harder.

A sharp taste touched Jua’s tongue.

Blood.

He tried to turn his face aside, anger cutting through the confusion, but demonic energy was already flowing into him with it.

His depleted body responded immediately.

The current spread through his mouth and throat, sinking into channels that had felt painfully empty since he woke. Heat followed it into his chest, startling in its intensity. His fingers tightened against Mao Mao’s shirt as his breathing caught.

The energy was dense. Far denser than he expected.

It carried a bitter edge beneath the sweetness of blood, and Jua recognised how much of it had been refined before being offered to him. His body drew it in greedily despite his attempt to resist the man holding him.

That made him furious.

He hadn’t agreed to this.

He pressed his palm harder against Mao Mao’s shoulder, trying to make the refusal clear.

The current surged again, sending warmth down his arms and into his weakened legs. Sensation prickled through his fingertips. His face grew hot, and the blanket suddenly felt too heavy across his knees.

Only then did Mao Mao loosen his hold enough for Jua to pull back.

Jua drew a rough breath, his hand still braced between them.

Blood lingered on his tongue. Beneath his palm, Mao Mao’s heartbeat was fast.

Jua stared at him, stunned by the kiss and the energy still spreading through his body.

Jua shifted back until his shoulder pressed against the door.

Mao Mao noticed. His gaze dropped to the hand braced against his chest, then returned to Jua’s face. For a moment, he looked almost hurt.

That expression made Jua angry.

He had no business looking wounded when Jua was the one sitting there with blood on his tongue.

"You..."

His voice caught. He swallowed, trying to make sense of the man beside him while demonic energy continued spreading through his body.

"Do you know how risky it is to harbour demonic energy without training? Why would you do something like that?"

Mao Mao reached for his face.

Jua caught his wrist, though there was little force behind it. The man paused beneath his grip, then cupped his cheek anyway, his touch maddeningly gentle.

"Answer me."

"I wanted you back."

He leaned forward until their foreheads touched. Jua stiffened, acutely aware of the door behind him and the warmth of Mao Mao’s hand beneath his jaw.

A kiss brushed his nose.

It was such an oddly tender gesture after being held in place that Jua didn’t know what to do with it.

"You could have destroyed yourself," he said. "You had no one to teach you, no way of knowing whether—"

A brief kiss interrupted him.

Jua turned his mouth away.

"Let me finish."

Mao Mao went still.

For several seconds, he simply watched him. Then his thumb moved across Jua’s cheek, stopping near the corner of his mouth.

"I would risk anything if it meant bringing you back."

There was no embarrassment in the admission. He sounded certain, as though this was something he had settled long ago.

Jua stared at him, his fingers still wrapped around his wrist.

"I brought you back, Jua Ge."

Red began brightening the grey-green of his eyes.

Jua felt the energy shift before he fully saw the colour. It pressed against his senses, familiar in its nature and deeply unfamiliar coming from this man.

Mao Mao smiled.

"You’re mine now."

The words settled heavily between them.

Jua had been trying to understand how Mao Mao had learned to cultivate, how much damage he might have done to himself. He had mistaken the kisses for something impulsive, overwhelmed by years of waiting.

There was nothing uncertain about that smile.

Jua tightened his grip on the wrist beside his face.

He needed Mao Mao to hear him properly this time.

"Keeping me alive doesn’t mean you own me."

"well... then I will learn a method to own your soul. You are mine Jua ge. Mine and mine alone. I will never let you leave me like that again. Never."