Chapter Text
A series of pops echoed from Shen Yuan’s back like bubble wrap underfoot. Each stretch was met with a few more clicks and finally, a groan of satisfaction. He was exhausted, but all of the work was worth it in the end! He stood back and proudly admired his entire collection of figurines and comics displayed on their shelves. Each wall was dominated by towering bookcases, leaving only a scant space for his bed.
This room was much smaller than his old bedroom, but the benefits outweighed anything else. His risque figurines had been living in the back of his closet at home, as boxes within boxes within boxes, and labeled as off-limits for any of the cleaning staff. Although they were the minority of his collection, they deserved to be displayed just as much as anything else! They were limited editions! Shen Yuan wasn’t gay, but even he could appreciate the muscular protagonists of his favorite series in slouching, underdressed poses. The artistic skill it took for someone to sculpt the model in the first place deserved commendation, and the figures even came with interchangeable dicks! They were novel, even if they didn’t necessarily appeal to Shen Yuan’s libido! And they looked at home next to the topless waifus that bowed in back-breaking poses, too!
Shen Yuan kicked all of the boxes and bubble wrap into a corner, determined to deal with the mess in the morning with everything else he still needed to unpack. With midnight long past, he needed a shower and sleep before he could even think of much else.
While he was a night owl by nature, it was a long enough day that he could stand to turn in before dawn this time. After all, this was Shen Yuan’s first night living outside of his family home. It was exciting!
As the third son of a wealthy family, he had never wanted for anything in life. His needs had all been neatly met with little effort on his part, and there were no expectations for that to change. Yet despite his comfortable lifestyle, he craved the sensation of independence.
Shen Yuan wanted to live alone.
Living with his parents in his family home was fine, but he still felt the need to tiptoe around the kitchen for his 3am snack, or to keep his voice down when cussing at the latest webnovel chapter he was reading after his parents went to bed. Both of his elder brothers had moved out ages ago, and his little sister moved to an overseas university last summer. Shen Yuan liked to pretend that he wasn’t competing with any of his siblings, but he couldn’t help but feel as if he was left in the dust of adulthood.
So he moved out, too.
His new apartment was smaller and a little dingier than he expected, but it was cheap. Best of all, it came pre-furnished! The landlord was so excited for Shen Yuan to move in that he even cut him a deal on rent!
While cost wasn’t technically an issue, low rent meant that Shen Yuan could use his monthly allowance to pay the bills and he’d still have money left over for more figurines and merch! He wouldn’t even need to get a job to keep his NEET lifestyle!
It didn’t matter to him that the unit was 5-354, or that, according to the neighbor down the hall, the last tenant apparently ran out with nothing but his laptop and the clothes on his back. It didn’t matter that the other neighbors on the floor seemed wary of the apartment itself, like it was going to swallow them whole if they stared at the front door for too long.
Shen Yuan’s (unnecessarily pretty) next door neighbor, Liu Something, even seemed bothered as Shen Yuan was directing the moving crew into his new apartment, box by box. Liu Buffman said something about being surprised that the apartment had been unoccupied since he heard movement through the walls every night.
With a shrug, Shen Yuan assumed that it was rats or something. Liu Strongarm had frowned and mentioned distinct footsteps and a man’s voice.
With a lifetime of experience posing as A Legitimate Member of High Society and A Functional Human Being, Shen Yuan bullshitted in his best know-it-all tone that it was probably just another neighbor’s noises echoing through the pipes and ductwork. After all, the building was old enough to have some shoddy work somewhere beneath the thick layers of paint.
Liu HotBod seemed to buy the excuse, but he had given Shen Yuan his phone number just in case anyone or anything troubled Shen Yuan.
In a webnovel or a shitty book, those would have been omens for a Bad Time. But for as much as Shen Yuan consumed fiction more than water, it was likely some boring explanation. And if it wasn’t? Well, it might be cool to experience some crazy shit or transmigrate. It would certainly liven up Shen Yuan’s days.
Yet as Shen Yuan dug through boxes to gather his toiletries, towel, and clean boxers, he couldn’t help but worry.
What if the landlord didn’t change the locks after the last tenant left? Tenants could have made copies of their keys and periodically tried breaking in. That would explain the weird noises other people heard through the walls, right?
Another thought occurred to Shen Yuan, too. What if someone was still living inside his new apartment? He’d read true stories of home invaders that hid in the attic for years before they were caught, and only emerged at night or when no one was home.
The idea was crazy. There was no indication all day that anyone else was there after the movers left! He couldn’t even hear his other neighbors, which surprised him considering that Liu Tanktop had implied that the walls were thin.
Yet something uneasy simmered in Shen Yuan’s chest.
”What’s the harm in checking, hm?” Shen Yuan asked out loud, surprising himself with his own voice in the quiet space. It was his new apartment! It would be a good chance to explore the small space a little and maybe get a head start on the move-in checklist he had to fill out for the landlord anyways!
Abandoning his search for toiletries, Shen Yuan cased his new apartment. The living room was almost as small as the bedroom, and it was the most furnished yet. It had a crappy, bright blue, flatpack two-seater couch and a lightweight wooden coffee table. The open floor plan merged the living room into the kitchen. Inside sat a small table with two mismatched chairs, and a rickety desk that Shen Yuan had moved out of the bedroom.
The bedroom itself hadn’t been much before Shen Yuan arrived with his bookshelves. It had a bedframe with small cubbies in the headboard, but Shen Yuan had paid the movers extra money to get rid of the old mattress since he brought his own. A tiny closet that looked like a joke compared to his closet at home was tucked into the corner, and the bifold door had slats that rattled when he opened it on the bent track.
The bathroom was only large enough for a basic tub, but at least it had a sitting toilet instead of a squatting one!
The walls of the whole apartment were painted off-white, and the floors were some off-brand sticky vinyl underfoot. Both the living room and the bedroom had windows that let the city lights filter in through the dusty, double-paned glass.
Shen Yuan had asked the landlord why the windows were barred off like the storefronts in the seedy parts of the city, and the landlord replied that they were to deter thieves. That sounded legit.
With the move-in checklist complete, Shen Yuan finally sighed a breath of relief. He had opened up every door and cabinet in the small apartment, and there was no sign that anyone had broken in, much less lived there.
Feeling more confident, he tried to find his toiletries again only to realize that they weren’t where he packed them. He searched and searched, but eventually found them in the bathroom.
Huh.
Maybe while he was looking around he absent-mindedly brought them in?
That must have been the case! Wow, thanks Past Shen Yuan for being so proactive!
He only belatedly realized that he didn’t have a shower curtain, but that was fine. He could take a nice bath instead! It wasn’t as fast, but it was just as good!
Too bad it took a long time for the water to heat up and to stop smelling like a musty river, though. He busied himself with trimming his nails that got chipped while he was unpacking his figurines, and tried to pull up some music on his phone to fill in the silence. Unfortunately, his cell data signal was too weak to make it through an entire song, much less a podcast, so he whistled as he bathed instead.
Soon enough, he was clean and prepared to finally crash for the night!
There was only one thing left to do! He had to figure out where to put his mirror!
It was a heavy full length mirror he had mounted in his old closet back home. He liked to think that he wasn’t a vain man, but he needed to keep up appearances whenever he emerged from his cave like a bear in spring. Pajamas and messy hair were fine indoors, but he had to roleplay as A Functional Adult sometimes.
With nowhere safe to put it when he was moving around earlier, Shen Yuan had laid it out on the bed to deal with later.
Damn you, Past Shen Yuan! Now it was Present Shen Yuan’s problem! But he still didn’t know where to put it. Shen Yuan didn’t know how to mount a mirror on his own, and even if he did, it was too late at night to make that much of a racket. Besides, the walls were already lined with shelves.
Resolving to deal with it in the daylight hours, he tucked the mirror against the wall and the foot of his bed. His late grandmother would have thrown a hysterical fit at such heinous disregard for his own safety.
”Never face a mirror to your bed! Evil spirits will drag you in!” she had said while throwing blankets over the hotel mirror on a family vacation abroad. Back in the safety of their own hotel room, Shen Yuan and his brothers had fun throwing blankets over each other in mockery.
It was the modern day! No one believed in such superstitions anymore!
Besides, it was more likely that people would just spook themselves with their own reflections when they were falling asleep or something. Any modern man who believed in such unscientific nonsense deserved to be slapped by common sense!
…
Shen Yuan threw a large sheet of bubble wrap over the mirror, just in case.
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After falling into a deep sleep, he was roused by a slick chill between his thighs. He absently groped the bed for his blankets, distantly wondering when he had kicked them off. His boxers were wrapped around one leg, half removed and tangled in the sheets, and his shirt was rucked up to his neck.
The scent of a musty river and decaying vegetation hit Shen Yuan’s nose.
”Mmhmph?” He mumbled incoherently,
The echo of something wet, something licking, hit his brain long after the sensation of soft pressure on his cunt.
Shen Yuan gasped and moaned. He tried to clench his knees together, but it felt like his thighs were being pinned open and spread like a feast.
Alarm had him kicking his legs, but a hard suck against his clit melted his resolve and he bucked into the pressure instead. He reached between his thighs, sleepily trying to figure out why he felt so good, but his hand only met cool air and his own sopping pussy. Nothing was there, yet the sensation of something thick and moist sliding between his labia and collecting his slick lit his groin aflame.
”Haaah??” He whimpered in sleepy confusion.
'Shhh, relax…'
This was a dream, it had to be! Shen Yuan didn’t know anyone with a raspy, deep voice like that!
Soft lips and sharp teeth dragged against his twitching thighs. Fingers circled his pussy and pressed into his greedy hole, two at once as if they had been stretching him playfully for a while.
Shen Yuan’s mouth fell open in another moan and he rolled his hips in a clumsy rhythm. The fingers pumped inside of him and a third squeezed in moments later.
He heard a satisfied groan, and then a cold tongue dove between his thighs once more and ate him out with fervor. His swollen clit was mercilessly sucked and nipped, ratcheting his desire higher and higher. It only left his abused nub to delve into his hole and cold digits switched places to squeeze and roll his clit between calloused fingertips.
Shen Yuan sleepily rode that tongue, hands squeezing his own small tits and pinching his nipples for lack of something to hold on to. He didn’t understand the context of this dream, but he chased it nonetheless with strangled moans and breathy whimpers of pleasure.
He bucked harder. A single, large hand held his hips down, pinning him easily to the bed as that clever mouth tormented his clit and two fingers curled inside of his pussy like they were beckoning thread after thread of arousal from an unraveling tapestry.
Shen Yuan orgasmed with a throaty cry. His thighs seized. They shook and clenched together, leaving no room between them. His pussy fluttered, hot walls clenching and shuddering around cold fingers like a vice. He tugged his nipples harshly, caught up in the moment, and the pain made him arch into the sensation with wanton fervor.
Trembling, Shen Yuan melted into the bed, brain fuzzy and body tingling with warmth, especially right below his belly button.
After an orgasm like that, it was easy for Shen Yuan to smile at his pleasant dream and let himself be swept away by sleep once more.