When Ye Qia gave the order, Xia Zhi and Mister Li rushed over to him like little puppies, except Xia Zhi was a husky and Mister Li was a golden retriever. There wasn’t much difference in behavior, but intrinsically they were seas apart.
In the end, Ye Qia instructed them here and there early in the morning, making them spring clean, cook, and tidy up the wardrobe. When afternoon finally came around, they took a nap. After waking up, Xia Zhi saw that Ye Qia had his shirt unb.u.t.toned and his sleeves rolled up to the elbows, revealing his st.u.r.dy pecs, and holding a whip in his hand.
There was only a tiny change but the aura is completely different, sighed Xia Zhi.
Ye Qia was 1.86 meters tall. He had a great physique, which was truly developed through training. Xia Zhi had joked before about how Ye Qia was a cow with four stomachs, and had the appet.i.te of a rice bucket. After returning from a single training session with Ye Qia, Xia Zhi had directly ate twice his usual amount. Although he threw up in the middle of the night, it left him with an unforgettable experience.
At this moment, Xia Zhi had begun to drool at the sight of those two pecs. He looked over at Mister Li. Alright, his eyes were lighting up like a lightbulb, except that what he was staring at was not the pecs, but the whip.
The whip was black and made of leather. It essentially consisted of a bundle of leather straps that had both ends tied in a knot, and reached about a meter long. The handle had a border of golden lines, which may or may not have been made of real gold. A fancy Y was carved into the tip of the handle. Rather than a whip, it would be better to describe it as a bundle of straps bound together.
Ye Qia didn’t speak, but beckoned with a slender finger. Xia Zhi went over apprehensively, and was pushed into a room. Mister Li actively followed behind. Even till noon, Xia Zhi still hadn’t stepped foot inside this room. When he took a look inside, he saw an empty room, with numerous wooden planks affixed to the walls for whatever reason. The entire floor was lined with a very peculiar rubber covered with tiny b.u.mps. It was made of a single unbroken piece instead of separate segments, and was actually closely adhered to the walls of the room. It must have been custom made.
Xia Zhi tested his foot against the floor. It was very hard, but despite the b.u.mps being very round and smooth, and not sharp at all, feeling it against his skin was simply torture.
“Kneel down.”
Mister Li knelt down with ecstasy. Xia Zhi looked towards Ye Qia in terror, but all he received was a cautioning glare.
Xia Zhi no longer understood the kind of existence that was an M. If it was a stranger who was doing this to him, his only thought would be “f*ck him” and not so much “such bliss”. Besides, Ye Qia had a very scary appearance at the moment, or at least this was what Xia Zhi was thinking. Elsewise, Xia Zhi would not have chosen Ye Qia to be his housemate back then — if they fought, Ye Qia wouldn’t be the one with the lower hand.
Xia Zhi deeply inhaled and knelt down in feeling aggrieved, and when he came into contact with the floor he felt a thousand arrows pierce straight through his heart. While slowly crawling forward, all he wanted to do was rape and murder the person who invented this mat. As he crawled along, he suddenly felt his knees sink. Right at that moment, Ye Qia said, “Stop, place your head on the ground.”
It’s… soft beneath his knees?
Xia Zhi sneaked a glance at Mister Li, who had a pained expression while exposing a strange smile. He nudged the ground with his knees again, and sure enough, the place he was kneeling on was soft. Xia Zhie observed the place where Mister Li was kneeling, and from the depth of the depression, he could tell that it was hard enough to murder someone, just like the floor from before. It was the same for the place where Ye Qia was standing. Only the place beneath his knees was different.
“Master… Master, please punish me!” Mister Li seemed to be overly eager, and even his voice was trembling.
Before Xia Zhi could cry tears of joy from his knees being saved, the reverberation from the crisp crack of the whip caused Xia Zhi to shudder. He hadn’t felt it from the videos, but after hearing it with his own ears he realized just how loud the whips were, almost loud enough to make his ears ring. His head was pressed against the floor. Xia Zhi wanted to peek at what had happened, but just as he moved he felt a heavy object press down on the back of his head. Based on the contact area and the degree of softness, it could be concluded that it was Ye Qia’s foot.
Everyone had taken off their shoes when they entered the room, and Ye Qia didn’t have foot odor or athlete’s foot. Additionally, he stepped only once before retreating, so the fury inside Xia Zhi approximately subsided by one-tenth. The remaining nine-tenths still found no avenue of release.
This was why M’s were all incomprehensible creatures. What was there to be excited about over getting a whipping?
The next second, Xia Zhi suddenly realised that he would also have to get whipped.
F*ck me!
He frantically jumped up, and happened to see the knot of the leather whip land on the back of Mister Li. It left behind a long, red mark the size of a palm, which instantly swelled. At some point in time, Mister Li had removed his clothes, revealing skin that was as pure as ice and jade. The scars from the whips contrasted with the skin, and displayed an even greater beauty.
Just as he was about to speak, Xia Zhi saw Ye Qia press his finger against his lips and make a motion to shush. Xia Zhi quickly covered his mouth, and pointed to the whip and then pointed back towards himself.
Ye Qia didn’t react, and instead only signaled him to lie down on his stomach. Xia Zhi became scared. He turned around and tried to crawl away, but he felt a sudden sting across the tip of his nose, with the whip brushing past his face. He jumped in fright, his body stiffening, and unable to budge from his spot. When he looked back at Ye Qia, who was holding the whip, a strong feeling of terror began to manifest inside him.
In an instant, he seemed to have returned to when he was little. The towering silhouette of father, the echoing of slaps as they landed, his mother’s shrieks, and that feeling of despair while huddled inside the wardrobe with no way to escaping. In his moment of disarray, he couldn’t tell who the towering silhouette in front of him was, or whether he was living inside a nightmare.
“Who told you to move!”
Ye Qia’s chastis.e.m.e.nt violently jerked Xia Zhi back to reality. Before Xia Zhi could react, his head was already pushed back onto the floor. Xia Zhi huddled there uneasily, not daring to move a muscle. His body unconsciously shuddered along with the cracks of the whip.
An unknown period of time later, after the whipping sounds had stopped, Ye Qia’s voice resounded. “Li, go out.”
Soft sounds echoed in the room. After the noise of the door being shut, Xia Zhi was pulled up, and he saw a troubled face. He stared with wide eyes, unable to speak a word, and both arms protectively braced against his chest, until two large, warm hands firmly rubbed his cheeks.
The warmth spread over him, and Xia Zhi’s taut body began to slowly relax. He lurched into Ye Qia’s bosom and sat paralyzed on the ground. Ye Qia caressed his head, and comfortingly stroked along his back in silence. They sat like that until approximately ten minutes later, when Ye Qia said, “Let’s go out.”
“You’re not whipping me?” When the words came out, Xia Zhi felt that they were as awkward as it could be.
“No need.” Ye Qia patted his head. “You moved before, so you won’t get whipped. Look a bit more miserable, as if you’re unhappy.”
s.h.i.t, what sort of logic was that?
Before he could process it in his head, he was pulled up by Ye Qia. When Xia Zhi stepped onto the hard ground, he suddenly responded and leaned over towards Ye Qia’s ears, saying, “The place where I knelt was soft.”
Ye Qia did not look the least bit surprised. “I know.”
Xia Zhi was slightly taken back. He quickly understood and began to burst into laughter. He shut up when Ye Qia glared at him, and put on a bitter face before exiting the room. Just as expected, Mister Li had a triumphant look on his face. He knelt in front of Ye Qia, and when his chin was lifted, the excitement in his eyes could barely be held back.