a post-cyberpunk xianxia epic
With his knees in the dirt, stray strands of rust-colored sunbleached hair falling into his face from where it escaped his braid, Lin leaned down to kiss his royal lover. He’d drug Yuhui across the ground with his whirlwind hello, scraped him through the mountain woods with his violent I missed you so, but now, […]
Chen dropped his traveling pack on the floor once he was able to stand full height, shimmying past the low ceiling in the entryway of the loft. “Ah, the wall’s gotten worse,” he said of the space where Laike’s cat slept, that small area scratched to smithereens by furious claws. “You should make her wear […]
4 MONTHS AGO. Lin opened his eyes; he took his first breath like he was waking from the dead, given life by an errant sunbeam tickling the glinting tracers inlaid upon his cheek. He felt as though he’d barely slept. He was in and out of consciousness the whole night through; he was in and […]
4 MONTHS AGO. Lin’ai’s speech may have slurred but his eyes were steady, trained on the royal poised above him. “What are we gonna do now? “I don’t know.” The prince shrugged a shoulder. “Are you going to remember this in the daylight or are you a forgetful drinker?” “I’ll remember,” Lin’ai said as he […]
4 MONTHS AGO. Lin’ai breathed Xun in, breathed all the flowers of a rich boy’s bathwater in the shape of a poorer boy’s ill-traveled cover story. When he leaned in, Lin was quick to capture, mineral spring wet, rainwater lip to lip in a gentle question: stay or go? He barely departed when he confided: […]
Alone again, Ren Li leaned back on his elbows, watching Jin pick through the Luanshi supplies laid out for his work. Were it not for the fondness coursing torrid through his very own veins, Li wouldn’t have believed he could ever be so impertinent—he was still, a silent invitation waiting either for the inlayer’s work […]
“You’re really beautiful like this. You look like you’re wearing the night with your hair like that.” The older boy’s head turned askew, as if the angle would alter the majesty he greedily took in. “I don’t normally get flustered, but you’re really something special, Laike. Sometimes I have these moments when I’m looking at […]
“Every shadow is a door; no matter where you are, I’ll come for you,” Laike teased, lascivious with his bolstered confidence. He was running his hands beneath that robe becoming more and more displaced with his agitations, modesty’s blush replaced by a hunter’s dirt streaked red, bruising in the afterglow. “I’ll come for you if […]
The night was a tarry spread of naught across Yuhui’s floor, a deep midnight draped like an echo of the infinite gaping eternal in its soft-spectrum spread with similar shades sliced in measure, varying degrees barely differentiable from each other by the sight of naked eye. The moon was out but the cloudcover was hungry, […]
Head tilting back, Yila was all scarlet grin, all carmine smile—she settled astride Quan’s lap, layers of red silk riding up her thighs, warm like the memory of the sun in the cold comfort of night. “I beg your every golden word,” she taunted, lithe arms draped over his shoulders, snaking about his neck. When […]