Chapter Text
“They say that when the moon can’t be found in the sky, it is because HanGuang-Jun has come down into the mortal world. They say he is the god most dedicated to the people, and helps all those that pray to him, no offering too small so long as their intentions are pure.
“They also say that one night when he descended, he fell madly in love with a servant of the Jiang family who had been running errands for them that night.
“Of course, no mortal could refuse the beauty of a god, and the pairing resulted in a child.
“The servant fled, fearful of what the Mistress of the home would do when she had found out a god had favored him over her own children. No one knows where he could be found, not even the god himself.”
Wei Ying sat in the inn, a baby cradled in his arms as he listened to the whispered stories.
This was one of the nicer ones, maybe even the most accurate. There had been other retellings where people claimed he had been raped by the god, and fled out of fear of him .
In truth… he didn’t know why he left. Maybe he was scared of knowing what it meant to mother the son of a god. Maybe he was scared of Madame Yu finding out and locking him in a windowless tower, hidden from the view of the gods.
Maybe he just… didn’t think he deserved the favor the god had bestowed upon him.
Maybe he didn’t want his family to think that he was a power hungry whore that spread his legs for a god, the way he had heard some tell the story. Lan Zhan had killed him in that version and taken his son to be raised in the immortal realm, he recalled, pressing a kiss to Lan Yuan’s head.
Wei Yuan when people asked.
Lan Yuan in private, remembering the beautiful night of passion that had conceived him and the god whose name should have been his.
The moon would retreat soon, and he would be free to move unseen by the father of his child.
Lan Zhan in love with him … what a strange thought.
The gods indulged, they were free to, but those they indulged in never fared well.
He remembered the story of Mo XuanYu, driven mad by his father’s jealous wife, and his unfortunate mother.
Meng Yao, who had nearly destroyed the heavens in his wrath against the same father.
He remembered the twins, Wen Ning and Wen Qing, now heroes and full blooded gods, but only after a lifetime of oppression and imprisonment by their father and a bloody war that resulted in them cutting off his head and Wen Qing taking his place as the Sun God, while her brother ruled over War.
Nie HuaiSang, who was plucked away from his mother and lived a frivolous life among the gods, but was never fully accepted by them.
No… Wei Yuan would be happy his entire life.
The child began to stir, and Wei Ying smiled down at him as he opened his pretty golden eyes. The child smiled back, gurgling happily, and reaching out a chubby hand, and pressing it to Wei Ying’s lips.
He pressed several kisses to it, making his son laugh and try to grab, the feel of his little nails gliding over his lips still leaving Wei Ying in awe.
This was a baby, his flesh and blood, alive and in his arms. He had little toes and little nails, his little nose like his father’s, and his sharp eye shape like Wei Ying. He had grown all these things inside him, something he never thought he would have, and now he held this baby with his own voice and a smile, and movements all his own.
He would watch him grow, unlike so many of the mothers of children like him.
“Here,” someone said, setting down some tea and a bowl of rice in front of him.
He looked up from his son to see a luxuriously dressed man, holding a fan.
“I didn’t-“
“No,” the man sighed happily, dropping himself down in the chair in front of him. “You didn’t order that, or anything. You’ve been here all night holding that well behaved baby in your arms as if waiting out the rain. A mother on his own, it must be hard. It moved something in me, so I couldn’t stand but to help. Excuse me,” he said, calling a member of the wait staff. “Bring a menu for us, please.”
Wei Ying held Lan Yuan tighter against his chest, glaring at the man. He was odd, careless in a way that implied he couldn’t read the room, but precise in it in a way that Wei Ying could tell meant he was carefully avoiding acknowledging it.
“If you expect repayment-“
“ Ah, I don’t expect anything,” the man said, lazily fanning himself. “You just remind me a lot of my mother,” he told him with a too sweet smile.
Wei Ying felt his blood run cold at that. He stood so fast the chair behind him knocked to the ground and Wei Yuan began to cry.
“Ah! You made the baby cry! Sit down, Wei Ying, you can’t go anywhere while it’s raining out, and I won’t tell.”
He was right. At the moment, Wei Ying felt trapped, but between the father of his child, and a god who had been in his son’s position, he knew which choice was the lesser evil. He looked between the door, the god, and his son, rocking him as he did to soothe him.
“Here,” he said, hurrying over to right his chair, pretending to trip over his robes as he did.
The servant returned with a menu, and Nie HuaiSang set it in front of Wei Ying.
“Order what you’d like!” He said, smiling at him still.
“Why are you helping me?” He asked, not quite sure how he felt.
“My mother pleaded, did you know that?” He said, his fanning slowing and his smiling dropping. “She begged to keep me, and she should have been allowed; I’m terrible at my job. Look at me! Relaxing at an inn in the human realm, already having had several jars of wine. But the gods made the world, and so they own it and everything in it. Eat your rice! The baby needs food and you do, too!” He urged.
Wei Ying would have denied it, but he hadn’t been eating much, and he was scared he would soon stop producing enough milk for Wei Yuan, who was softly whimpering against him.
“Here, I’ll hold him. You look tired. Look over the menu, and get something else.” He walked over to Wei Ying, taking the infant from his arms with very little fight from Wei Ying, who still had no idea what was going on, and in his confusion, made it easy for Nie HuaiSang to pick him up. “ Wow ,” he said, looking down at him. “He looks exactly like his father. What a lucky child. Even among the gods, HanGuang-Jun is a peerless beauty, and for a mortal, you’re incredibly good looking, too, but because of that, it’s going to be hard for you to hide him without help.”
“Why are you offering to help?” He asked, staring at him warily as he cooed at and comforted a-Yuan. Nie HuaiSang looked at him and motioned for him to start eating.
He took his first bite, and soon cleaned out the bowl, not having realized how hungry he had been.
“My mother was very attached to me. A lot like you are to your son. I’ve been watching you this whole night, you have a very beautiful bond, and I’m sure you’d be an excellent parent. If they took your son, you’d end up like her, and if they find you, they will. HanGuang-Jun is a righteous god, but he’s a stickler for the rules, and his uncle would urge him to take his heir.”
“‘Like her?’” He repeated, and Nie HuaiSang waved him off.
“She killed herself shortly after.”
“You claim you want to help because I remind you of her, yet you seem to not care at all about her death,” he countered, feeling his heart rate spike, and wondering how easy it would be to take a-Yuan back and run.
“If you are going to be frivolous… you must be about all things, like death. I treated my mother’s death like my own, and death does not care or discriminate, and yet… I want to help you because I did not want to die and become this. I hold this baby and I see myself.”
The waiter came and Nie HuaiSang looked to Wei Ying expectantly. He ordered a few different items, while Nie HuaiSang only ordered more wine.
“So,” Nie HuaiSang began, looking around, then leaning in conspiratorially. “What’s the real story?”
“Shouldn’t you know?” Wei Ying asked, drinking his now cool tea to avoid recounting that night.
“All I know is that my brother told me that HanGuang-Jun’s brother told him that he was going to bring someone into the Cloud Recesses after that night. We all assumed it was another case of the stolen baby. I don’t know how that night went, how you seduced him-“
“ Seduced him?” Wei Ying asked, choking on his tea.
“Didn’t you know? HanGuang-Jun was always thought to be above carnal desires. For him to have slept with you… what did you do?”
“ Nothing , I-“
***************
Wei Ying had snuck out the window of his room and had headed to the market to get an elixir for the young mistress of the house.
Lady Jiang had treated him like a brother since the moment he was first brought in, and with nothing but kindness since. She had soothed his cuts and bruises, cared for him when he was sick, and still forced a smile now that her health had been declining. The family had done everything they could to find a cure, but nothing seemed to work.
It wasn’t until one day when he had been in the sketchier parts of YunMeng at night that a man had offered him a solution. He had waved Wei Ying towards him, whispering about powerful magics and a cure to all ailments, and Wei Ying had forced himself to believe it because if he didn’t believe in something, his young mistress wouldn’t live much longer.
The only catch was the cost of such a thing.
When he presented the idea to Madame Yu and her husband, the latter had looked at him with pity and doubt, while Madame Yu had turned her nose up at him.
She had called him a naïve fool, and had dismissed him completely saying that they had enough problems with a sickly daughter to be losing so much money in a scam.
After working extra for some of the people around YunMeng, selling a few of his possessions, and asking the Jiangs for a little more money a month, he was able to get the money together.
And yet-
The man was nowhere to be found when he had visited the night market. He looked high and low, but it was as if he never existed. The money was inconsequential to him, he didn’t need it, and he couldn’t buy any better medicine for his young mistress than her family had, so he decided he should still put it to good use.
He went around, handing a few coins to children in tattered clothes, women on the streets with too many children to care for, and old beggars who were thrown out because of age or injury. He stopped to talk to each one afterwards, listening to them as they told them how they had come to this point, teaching the kids some of the games he had played when he lived on the streets and buying them toys, and soothing a mother’s crying baby when she looked like she might join them. Once the night had progressed nearly past half its duration, and the market began to wind down, along with the people, he stopped by the temple to donate the rest.
He donated it with a prayer to help his sister, knowing her family had been praying endlessly, but figuring it couldn’t hurt.
Just as he had turned to leave, someone had reached out to grab him and spun him around.
Before him was the most beautiful man he had ever seen, and Wei Ying couldn’t help but to quietly stare and take him all in.
“Why do you pray?” The man asked in a deep voice that made his thinking stutter.
“I-my young mistress is sickly. We fear she may not last much longer,” he stuttered out, and flinched when the man’s other hand reached out and grabbed his free arm.
“Are you in love with her?” His grip turned hard and he leaned in closer to his face, and Wei Ying was both suddenly very hot and very confused.
“N-no! She’s like my own sister!” He protested, making no move to pull away, but keeping his arms tense.
The man gave him an assessing look, then spoke again. “Why did you help all those people out there?”
“Because they needed help,” he answered, wondering what could have been so complicated about his actions. “They needed help, and I didn't need the money.” He became a little defensive when the man gave him a strange look, expecting the same speech Madame Yu had given him about how they shouldn’t be pitied and how they were like vermin, and spoke up again. “They’re all good people, and they deserve to be helpe-“
The man suddenly pulled him into a searing kiss that blacked out Wei Ying’s entire brain for long enough to allow the man to press him against a wall, out of reach from the fire’s light with the man in front of him shielding him.
He gasped in shock, allowing the man to kiss him deeper, and Wei Ying wrapped his arms around him and pulled him in, indulging in a pleasure he had yet to experience up until that point.
He shivered when he felt hands trail down his back and towards his ass, grabbing him and hoisting him upwards. Wei Ying let out a short shout, scrambling to wrap his legs around the man, that ended in a moan as he mouthed at his neck. His lips soon trailed downwards, mouthing at his Adam's apple and his collarbone.
It was then that Wei Ying became aware of something hard poking at him, and looked down to meet the god’s dark, heated eyes. He was put down on shaky legs, held in place by a hand on his hip as the man’s other hand gently held his face.
“Will you give yourself to me?” He had asked him, and Wei Ying blinked a few times, trying to get a grip on himself.
When he didn’t answer, the man’s eyes became angry and he leaned in to bite Wei Ying’s newly exposed shoulder, making him cry out.
He must have said yes because the next thing he knew, he was stripped of his trousers, his robes pulled open and leaving him on display as the man hoisted him back up against the wall, rutting into him, murmuring praises he still remembered, and kissing him tenderly and contrary to the filthy way he took him afterwards, shoving himself in completely. Wei Ying’s shouts echoed in the empty temple, along with the squelching and slapping of the man fucking into him like an animal—desperate and unrestrained.
Wei Ying had felt something trickle down his leg, and realized it was coming from him.
He flushed a deep red as the man praised how wet he was, and he held onto him to better hide his face out of sight. He felt dizzy with the pleasure and the motion, and let out a moan that made the man groan and double his efforts when he adjusted his angle and hit his prostate dead on.
Wei Ying began to move, then, chasing that pleasure and the grunts and groans of the man beside his ear. He released more slick as he felt his hot, panting breath against him, on his neck, on his chest as he took a nipple into his mouth and sucked it sore, then kissed to soothe, moving onto the next one.
Wei Ying didn’t know what to call the feeling that overcame him when the man looked up at him, still thrusting his hips, mouth open as he panted, and eyes lust filled and on him, but it urged him to kiss the man again.
As the pleasure began to grow, he began to move faster, screaming louder, not much caring that it bounced off the walls so long as he was able to reach his climax.
The man came first, a heat spreading inside Wei Ying that had him coming immediately.
He’d had sex.
He’d had sex with a total stranger and had let him cum inside him and the thought was so arousing that he came on it alone, he thought as the man slid out, his own hard length dripping with his release.
Wei Ying slid down the wall, panting. His legs were unable to hold him any longer, and the other had taken a step back to take him in.
He sat on the ground with his bent knees open, exposing where the man’s cum dribbled out of his red, abused hole. It seemed that something snapped in the other, because soon, as tired as he was, he was pulled completely onto the floor and back onto his dick, this time as he lay on his back.
Wei Ying held his hands out above him to keep himself from being jerked into the wall, crying and moaning as the man fucked sharply into him. “ Please, ” he begged as the man continued to move inside him. “Please, no more, I’m a virgin! I can’t take this! It’s too much, you’re too much!” He weakly resisted, pressing at his chest with one hand while tilting his head back for him to suck at his neck and shifting his hips back down whenever the other pulled back.
He felt the man smile into his neck, praising him and tugging at his earlobe.
**************
“And then he was just… gone afterwards. I didn’t know he was a god until Lady Jiang got better, as if by some miracle, and I remembered the beautiful, strange man with the pretty eyes I thought reflected the fire, and how he asked about my actions with odd interest. Then I thought, ‘By the gods , I gave my virginity to HanGuang-Jun in exchange for my young mistress’s health,” he moaned into his hands, reliving the mortification he had experienced back then.
The only difference was that back then he had sworn not to tell anyone, even as Madame Yu had bragged that this had proven some favor from the gods upon her daughter, and how she wouldn’t be surprised if she was taken to be one of their brides. Yet currently, he was telling Nie HuaiSang, who was looking at him as if he were watching a scandalous play.
“You had sex with him in his own temple?!” He shouted, making Lan Yuan begin to fuss and the approaching waiter turn bright red and look like he wanted to leave and come back later.
Nie HuaiSang waved at him to leave the food and go before turning a mischievous smile back at him. “Even worse, you had sex with him in his own temple without even knowing who he was. You spread your legs for a complete stranger,” the man teased with the ease only someone who had known him his whole life would have.
“Give me my son back,” he demanded, now indignant and embarrassed.
“No, no, I’ll hold him while you eat. Then, since the sun is rising, we can discuss what to do about your situation and get you settled near one of my temples.”