Chapter Text
“There he is! Get him!”
“Lu Gongzi drank his tonic and it ruined his face!”
The spear wielding guards from the Lu clan in navy blue uniform chased Ivan towards the mountains.
Ivan turned and smirked. “Too slow.” He pushed past a vendor in the market selling sugar coated skewers of hawthorn berries, almost knocking over the rack.
“You rascal!” The vendor hollered.
Ivan stuck out his tongue.
It’s not my fault that the rich useless son of the government official, Lu Yifan, bought my fake dick enlarging tonic. He must be allergic to mint. Ivan snickered as he remembered the young master Lu clan clawing at his red and puffy face. This ought keep him from wrecking havoc at the brothel for a week or two.
The after April sun left beads of perspiration on Ivan’s forehead as he dashed up the mountain.
More pursuers joined.
Ivan’s thick brows became knotted as he noticed a cultivator wearing navy headbands woven with golden threads twenty feet away.
Shit. I knew the Lu family was rich, but I didn't know they were rich enough to employ a cultivator.
He had no choice but to continue to climb. The budding trees weren't enough to conceal him.
The cultivator leaped onto his sword and became airborne.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Ivan possessed powers of cultivation of his own, unfortunately it would not save his life at this time. He could communicate with insects and command them, centipedes especially. He whistled and conjured the image of a hoard of wasps in his mind’s eye and prayed.
His wasps did come, but the cultivator capable of manipulating the wind swept them away by conjuring a tornado.
Fuck.
He picked up his pace.
Unbeknownst to Ivan, the forest path led straight towards the edge of the cliff.
He turned around for a brief moment as the crowd of fifteen guards caught up to him.
His left foot slipped, his heart leaped to his throat as he plunged into nothingness below.
“He’ll be dead anyways.” He heard the guards laugh cruelly.
Those rich assholes treats lives like worthless ants to be trampled on.
Wind sent his long midnight locks tied in a high ponytail flying.
Ivan squeezed his eyes shut.
Fuck, maybe this is the end.
His whole life flashed before his eyes.
He thought about the only two people who ever cared for him.
Ivan’s earliest memory involved a fire. Tongues of flickering flames illuminated his dirt-caked face. It was pretty, mesmerizing, and bright, he wanted to plunge into its warmth. He started it in a dark alley next to a funeral supply store. Paper coins meant to be burnt for the dead as currency in the afterlife littered the ground from the most recent funeral.
The sun set not long ago, his stomach growled. He reached into his pocket for the moldy steamed bun he fought the older kids for in the trash.
Not many frequented this way because of the store filled with coffins, joss paper, paper mache dolls and livestocks and the sense of dread. The wooden door of the shop creaked, revealing a willowy and elegant figure with exotic features.
She glided towards Ivan, who didn’t have a name at the time. He didn’t know how old he was either. In comparison to other kids he could be five or six.
The faint sweet scent of osmanthus flowers filled his nose.
Despite being next to the fire, his teeth clattered from the cold. He hugged himself and clasped the ripped sleeve of his torn black tunic. The first snow drifted down and melted on his dark lashes.
The young woman appeared to be no more than twenty. She wore a thin teal cloak.
Unlike everyone else, she sank to one knee to meet Ivan at eye level. She rummaged through her robes and unwrapped a golden piece of osmanthus cake from parchment.
Ivan’s hands trembled as he never tasted such a beautiful delicate pastry. He glanced up at her resplendent face. His lips parted thinking she must be a goddess and that he was dying from hypothermia.
She draped her teal cloak over his shoulder. “You must be cold, keep this.”
Fat tears poured out of Ivan’s dark eyes.
Ivan never cried when he was hurt or sad because nobody paid any heed to a homeless street urchin.
“It’s alright.” She flashed a sad smile and ruffled his hair. “I’m A-Li. What’s your name?”
“I don’t have one.” Ivan wiped his nose with his sleeve. His gaze transfixed on the bruise under her eye faintly concealed by powder and frowned. “A-Li jiejie, can you…give me one?”
Her smile reached her eyes. “If you insist.” She bit her lip. “You see, I’m not from this land. How about Ivan?”
“Ivan.” He echoed, sniffled, his heart warm and full. He nodded.
“I’m glad.” She dusted the snowflakes from Ivan’s hair and stood up to leave.
“A-Li jiejie, wait.” Ivan clung to the hem of her dress. “Will you come visit me again?” He didn’t want to be troublesome for her.
“Sure, Ivan, I’ll stop again next time with some steamed buns.” With that, her outline became a blur in the blizzard. Snow drifted down like feathers.
Ivan ran after her as fast as his little legs could carry him, promising that he would make whomever bruised her face pay.
He hid behind houses and closed shops and followed her until she reached a four storey building that never slept. Laughter and music drifted from within into the frigid winter air.
Ivan shivered.
She vanished inside as a gold clad young master, flushed from the alcohol stumbled through the door, his servant steadying him into a discrete horse drawn carriage.
After Ivan learned to read later, the plaque at the front said: Zui Xian Lou.
He didn’t know what a brothel was until later.
“Get out, you dirty brat.” The security guard, a burly man wearing short sleeves despite the winter, tried to shoo Ivan away.
Stubbornly he didn’t move, he peered inside. The center stage was lit by golden lanterns, with flower petals raining down. The veiled dancers in lavish pink dresses spun in circles in sync with the drum beat.
A cold hand clasped around his wrist, the familiar osmanthus scent washed over him. “Silly Ivan, you shouldn't have followed me. Come this way. ” A-Li led him outside to the back to the servants’ entrance.
“I shouldn’t be doing this either, but it’s cold tonight.” She nodded at the servant in grey robes scrambling towards the stable in the courtyard. “You can sleep in the stables.”
Ivan held back tears again.
His head rested on a pile of hay and he drifted to sleep with A-Li’s cloak wrapped around him. He was warmer than he had ever been in years.
Winter turned to spring, Ivan became acquainted with the servants of the establishment. After a bath and a haircut, he transformed into a charming little boy with dark hair and a snaggletooth. The stable master let him feed the horses, and shovel manure in exchange for a few copper coins and leftover steamed buns from the kitchen. He didn’t mind sleeping with the horses.
During the day, when A-Li wasn’t serving customers, she taught him how to read and write. She sang to him in a language he didn’t understand. She told him stories about her homeland.
After he became old enough to understand, A-Li showed him her white jade pendant of a fox and sadness filled her almond shaped eyes.
She was a princess of a small country of the north that was conquered by the current kingdom. Her homeland had prairies and snow covered mountain peaks, every child could ride horses and was the master of archery by the time they were ten. When her country had fallen, her family was executed and she was sold to the brothel as an act of "mercy".
The reason her homeland perished was because for generations they guarded the sanctuary for the Flying Foxes of the Snowy Mountain. Those powerful elusive spirits could take human forms. Consuming their flesh or dual cultivation with one of them granted insurmountable power any cultivators could only dream of.
Ivan clenched his fist until bit his lip until he tasted blood, angry at the cruelty of destiny.
A-Li shrugged from across the table, she shoved a piece of osmanthus cake into his mouth. "It's alright Ivan, life happens, we go on, one day at at time."
Five years later, Ivan hit a growth spurt, almost catching up to A-Li. Because of his hard work and charms, the security guards taught him martial arts. He practiced daily in the courtyard at the crack of dawn.
During his teenage years, he realized what a brothel was.
He peeked through the hole of a window at the guest and the courtesans inside. The guest was a burly man in his early forties. From his attire, he must be an official or a merchant. Thick golden rings decorated his beefy fingers. The courtesan, Yezi, had a plain face but a full bosom poured wine then settled next to her pipa. The man didn’t seem interested in the wine or the pipa. Ivan watched him peel back her robe, exposing her pink nipples and carry her to bed. He breathed heavily against her neck and reached under her skirt.
Ivan couldn’t watch anymore because he knew A-Li too was a courtesan.
With the blink of an eye, Ivan turned eighteen.
He met the second person who cared for him.
Madam Liu, the woman with grey hair and a giant mole next to her nose, who ran the brothel, sent Ivan to the apothecary across the town for Ivan to pick up medication for the courtesans.
On the way he heard the sound of kicking and the groaning of an old man on the dirt road.
One of the attackers was the wine merchant from the market. “Filthy thief, take this!” He stomped on the old man’s forehead without mercy.
“Stop picking on a frail old man!” Ivan towered over the attackers. With his broad chest and sun kissed skin, most of the locals attacking the dirty old man backed off.
The merchant glared at Ivan, spat on the ground, and waved a large hand for the rest of the hoard to retreat.
The old man with a long salt and pepper beard threw his head back and laughed. “I can defend myself you know, when I am drunk enough. He flicked at the top of the brown gourd where he stored his wine, tilted his head up to take a drink, only a few drops remained.” He sighed. "Unfortunately I am out of wine."
Ivan tossed a few copper coins at him. “Here, buy yourself a meal and please be careful.” He attempted to snatch the gourd, but the old man moved much faster. “Too much alcohol is not good for you.”
The old man with rosy cheeks and tattered grey robes chuckled. “I like you, young lad.”
Before Ivan could react, the old man grabbed his wrist, jumped, and they became airborne.
This was the first time Ivan interacted with a cultivator.
The homeless old man leaped from rooftop to rooftop then they settled inside an abandoned courtyard that once belonged to a corrupt official sent to the capital for punishment.
There were shingles missing from the unkept roof, and grass growing wild.
“Call me Lao Yue.” The old man let go of his wrist at last.
Ivan tugged at the strip of blue fabric holding his ponytail, as a cascade of long dark locks fell past his shoulders because the wind made it messy. “What do you want with me?”
“You are a cultivator, boy.”
Ivan’s eyes widened.
“Let me see.” Lao Yue studied his face, a little too closely for his comfort. “Facinating.” He stroked his beard. “Most people’s cultivation derives from their connection to one of the elements: earth, wind, fire or air, but yours is very peculiar.”
Ivan sighed, still struggling to grasp the idea that he, an orphan, an abandoned, unwanted child could potentially become an esteemed cultivator. He caught a glimpse of a dead cicada on the ground.
“Now tell the ants to take the cicada away.” Lao Yue squeezed his shoulder.
“What?” Ivan squeezed his eyes shut and visualized in his mind’s eye a line of ants carrying the body away.
When he opened his eyes, he gasped as he manifested the ants into reality.
“See?” Lao Yue patted him on the back a little too hard.
“That must be a coincidence.” Ivan shook his head.
“Now tell that moth to land on my gourd.” Lao Yue pointed an arthritic finger in the direction of the beam of the dilapidated residence.
Ivan bit his lip and obeyed.
The grey moth fluttered onto the giant gourd.
“This power is pretty useless if you ask me.” Ivan sighed.
“No such thing. I can teach you if you are willing to learn.” Lao Yue let out a hearty chuckle. “In exchange, bring me food and some wine.”
Ivan bowed. "Alright."
Since that day, in rare moments when Ivan didn’t have work, he snuck away from the brothel into the same abandoned courtyard to study with the eccentric cultivator with wind at his fingertips and powerful martial arts skills only when he was drunk.
Fiver years later, Ivan turned twenty three.
He was undeniably good looking, some of the courtesans blushed when he walked by or broke into a smile.
A-Li lost significant weight that year. Her almond shaped eyes became more prominent. Red rashes popped up on the palm of her hands.
Worried, Ivan paid the best doctor in the city to evaluate her and saved up to buy ingredients to make her soup for nourishment.
Madam Liu, who ran the brothel, was a shrewd business woman. When a courtesan stopped generating revenue, she was discarded onto the streets.
Ivan saved up enough to be able to afford a small room that nobody else wanted because it was next to the funeral supply store.
Soon, A-Li became almost blind. Ivan worked during the day at the stables and at night he came back to cook her dinner.
He knew it was a matter of time before she lost her vision completely, one summer night he left the door open and summoned fireflies.
“Look A-Li jie, aren’t they beautiful?”
She smiled. “They remind me of the stars from my homeland.”
Ivan squeezed her hand. Tears rolled down his cheeks. She would wipe them away, but she could no longer see.
A few days later, she began hallucinating, sometimes she sang, sometimes she spoke in her mother tongue.
One night after Ivan returned, she was surprisingly lucid.
She combed her wavy black hair and braided it, she painted her lips and powdered her face. She wore her best dress.
“Ivan, my time is near.” She held his hand. “I am so glad that we met.” She fastened the jade pendant of the white fox around his waist. “Remember this, no matter how filthy the world is, remember to let go of your hatred. Remember the beauty of the stars behind the dark clouds. I will always watch over you.” She ruffled his hair one last time like on the cold snowy night when they first met.
She never woke up the next morning.
With half of his savings, he could only afford a plain wooden coffin of the lowest grade. The stable master at the brothel lent him an old horse drawn carriage out of pity.
He left the city gates and wandered for miles until he stopped on top of a hill with an enormous gingko tree. He clawed at the earth until his hands bled and he was out of tears.
He buried her there and on top of her simple grave, he left a piece of the osmanthus cake.
The next day he laid on top of the abandoned rooftop next to Lao Yue, drunk out of his mind.
“We are going to make money, Lao Yue.” He took a swig from the gourd.
“Oh?” Lao Yue took the gourd.
“I’m going to make sure you don’t grow old on the streets. I’m going to feed the orphans hic -”
With his powers over the insects, Ivan became a beekeeper. Honey was a sought after commodity because of the arduous process of harvestation.
He and Lao Yue made enough money to be able to afford a tiny house with a courtyard outside of the city walls. Inside the courtyard, an enormous lemon tree flourished.
They made drinks with honey, lemon and mint that became sensational in restaurants across the city.
That’s when Ivan had the brilliant and stupid idea of marketing it to the rich good-for-nothing young men who frequented the brothel as a dick-enlarging tonic.
As Ivan plunged from the cliff, he couldn’t help but think of Lao Yue and A-Li.
Suddenly his mid back ached from impact against a tree trunk. The pine needles pierced through the sticky fabric of his clothes drenched in sweat.
Maybe I won’t die today after all.
Ivan clasped to the root of the pine tree growing over the side of the cliff. Thank you tree. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed the chasm between the rocky edge.
With two swings, his foot caught on the ledge.
There is where I’ll find a secret manual of cultivation and emerge a new man. That’s how all of the stories go.
He stood up inside the cave with a simple bed on one side, a desk and a rack filled with volumes of books.
He lit the candle inside the lantern and took the first volume off the shelf.
He gulped as he opened the dusty cover in anticipation.
It was filled with porn.
Whoever drew these was no ordinary artist.
What the fuck?
He had seen his share of naked women in passing while working at a brothel for most of his life, but those women in the books were beautiful beyond those of the mortal realm.
The first page depicted one about to undress to take a bath in the hot springs. Her robes were off her shoulders and one nipple almost visible. Ivan’s heart pounded. I’m not drunk enough for this. He smirked as he noticed the jars of osmanthus wine lining the other side of the cave.
With his pocket knife, he severed the string sealing the jar.
He laid on the bed and flipped through the pages.
Two men approached the beautiful woman in the hot spring with pretty pink nipples.
They began to touch her sensually.
Ivan picked up the jar and emptied half of the content. He often wondered why he never fantasized about taking a beautiful woman to bed.
He flipped to the next page. She had one of the man’s cock in her mouth while the other’s face was buried in her pretty pussy.
It was peculiar that all of the pages were framed by the same sequence of hand movements. He copied them as he read along. First with two fingers pointed, then flexing one, then three fingers became pointed…
When the first man reached climax, Ivan’s cock twitched.
The second man had his dick buried deep in the woman’s pussy.
After they were done fucking her, she laid in a naked mess by the hot spring, with cum flowing out of her hole.
Then Ivan’s heart leaped to his throat as he saw the men in the books beginning to touch each other.
The taller, more muscular one kissed the other one with pale silvery hair on the neck, who threw his beautiful elven head back with pleasure. His nipples became tented from arousal.
The woman’s hand stroked her clitoris as she watched.
The silver haired one kneeled and took the length of the other man’s cock inside his mouth.
Ivan gulped.
He glanced down at his own cock, now hot, hard with precum staining his pants.
He spat in his hand and stroked his length as he flipped the page.
The taller dark haired man bent the other one over a rock, displaying his pink twitching hole. Next he prepared him with his fingers.
Ivan stroked faster, wetting his lips and continued to flip the pages as he watched them fuck in different positions.
Suddenly with a sharp exhale, Ivan reached climax.
Warm stickiness flooded out of his cock as he came to the realization.
I like men.