Phantom Pain

According to the merman, this “training” was meant to teach Bai Ling to become familiar with the process.

Bai Ling’s expression was strange. He wanted to ask, what was there to be familiar with? He knew the steps inside and out, could list ten rules of caution without breaking a sweat, and had plenty of practical experience…

After all, there was no shortage of enemies to execute each week. He’d pick two that look okayish, use them, shoot them, and be done.

But Yu Chen’s one question left him speechless.

“Birds are accustomed to mating from behind, it’s a more natural and comfortable position. Have you ever been held like that?”

Bai Ling fell silent.

From behind… of course not. He would never allow any dangerous alpha behind him. If they tried, he’d knock their teeth out first.

As for having someone else’s arms wrapped around him, with their chests and backs pressed together slick with sweat, that was absolutely forbidden.

Those alphas were his mortal enemies, all of them had blood on their hands. He loathed any physical contact with them. The only reason he bothered at all was that in the chaos of the battlefield, when pseudo-heats struck and he couldn’t handle it alone, letting it build up too long would cause his body to break down and he’d reluctantly endure the back pain.

The merman spoke with the tone of someone explaining biology to a child: “I prefer to hold you from behind. Going with nature is always better.”

Bai Ling’s face blazed. He didn’t even know where to put his hands or feet.

This matter-of-fact tone, the attitude of discussing and arranging everything in advance, it was enough to make his face go numb…

Only an old man could talk about such things so seriously, without even a hint of embarrassment.

“…I’m fine with anything. There’s no need for such trouble.” Bai Ling barely managed to maintain an indifferent expression.

“Of course there is,” Yu Chen said, his handsome brow raised lightly as he laid out the reasoning. “This affects the quality of your work and mine afterward.”

“…If you ask me, you can just make do with whatever.”

Yu Chen pinched the sleek, warm skin of his waist, eliciting a sharp, stifled grunt in response.

“Be good. When you come with me in the future, we’ll need to align your heat with my rut period. If your cycle shifts a day earlier or later, that’s something I’ll need to anticipate.”

His words were entirely matter-of-fact, not a single suggestive syllable. Yet Bai Ling turned crimson from his cheeks down to his neck, and his palms and soles grew clammy with heat.

It was exactly like a parent caring for a child going through their first physiological period…

As much as he grumbled inwardly, Bai Ling silently assumed the position. He glanced back over his shoulder, the other man was still impeccably dressed, not a single crease marring the expensive, handmade shirt collar.

The parent instructed: “Keep your shoulders flat. Don’t move. Try not to look back at me.”

Bai Ling leaned against the door, his waist lifted slightly to better align with the merman’s height. He felt the strong chest muscles press against his spine, the merman’s powerful heartbeat—thump, thump—pulsing with a force that seemed capable of shattering through the earth.

That rhythm seemed to transmit through his bones straight to his cerebral cortex, leaving him half-conscious, half-dazed. Gradually, all he could hear was a faint, rustling whisper in his ears.

Then the sound swelled into a resonant hum, like echoes in some empty space, clashing, chaotic, and tumultuous.

Just beyond the thin wall, workers from nearby factories trudged into the hallway, their backs bent with exhaustion.

A few wore cheap portable interstellar radios, tuned to free nighttime broadcasts. At that moment, a crackling loudspeaker was playing a news interview program.

Bai Ling’s waist trembled. Static electricity prickled at the roots of his thighs. He moved to brush it away, but his hand was firmly grabbed and pulled back, the other hand covering his panting mouth. Fragments of the interview drifted to his ears—

“…Dr. Kinski, are you telling our viewers that an asteroid is entering Imperial space, heading toward the wild planets? And this asteroid has been named No. 1, is that correct? May I ask why it was named so…”

The host scrambled for an adjective. The expert smoothly picked up the thread: “So casually? Actually, this follows standard interstellar naming conventions. It’s the first asteroid to enter Imperial space this year, hence No. 1.”

“You mentioned earlier that Asteroid No. 1 is undergoing repeated, rhythmic friction with the wild planet’s atmosphere, ‘stratospheric chafing,’ I believe you called it.”

“Correct. Stratospheric chafing of the atmosphere. It’s as if the friction layer between the asteroid’s atmosphere and the planet’s acts like a layer of clothing.”

The host sounded relieved. “So it doesn’t seem particularly threatening?”

The doctor chuckled. “No, no. The atmospheric structure of the wild planets is different from the Imperial Capital’s. It’s more fragile. Such repeated friction will gradually accumulate energy, leading to increased surface temperatures. It will become very hot. And the residents will panic…”

The host seemed puzzled. “Why?”

“Because you never know when No. 1 will shed its obstacles and plunge deep into those herringbone-shaped valleys. It may go deep underground. Such impacts would be intense, carving out long channels, triggering lava eruptions that could continue for some time, causing internal temperatures to spike, possibly even forming umbrella-shaped nodules beneath the crust.”

The host sounded almost curious, excited. “So the entire wild planet is rising and falling in heat and panic?”

“In principle, yes,” the doctor confirmed, then added precisely, “But this is still speculation. Until No. 1 actually enters the atmosphere, we can’t predict exactly what will happen. Perhaps it will cause a sudden massive eruption from a dormant volcano buried under glacial ice. For now, however, it remains at the stage of gradually intensifying friction.”

The host: “Wow, that’s… unsettling to even think about.”

The doctor smiled. “Indeed. The people on the wild planet will endlessly imagine the feeling of getting struck. They’ll agonize day and night until their cerebral cortex goes numb.”

As the workers moved farther away, their voices faded. The hand lifted from his mouth. Bai Ling realized he couldn’t catch his breath; he was swaying and his back was drenched with sweat, smelling damp and sour.

Nothing had actually happened, yet the aftereffect was more terrifying than a planetary impact.

If the arm around his ribs hadn’t been holding him up, his legs would have given out long ago.

Yu Chen leaned down and kissed his damp temple, murmuring praise: “You did very well.”

Bai Ling felt a spark shoot up from where those lips had touched, racing fiercely through his limbs, leaving his entire body exquisitely sensitive, awash in a tingling numbness like the aftermath of a cramp.

Yu Chen said, “I’ll go to the bathroom.”

Bai Ling was too ashamed to meet his eyes.

Even though his differentiation hadn’t finished and he couldn’t clearly smell pheromones, the thick, musky scent of a male animal hung heavy in the air, enough to stir one’s blood.

The murky mingling of proteins and pheromones.

Bai Ling’s hand trembled uncontrollably as he touched his lower back. The skin there was marked with faint impressions: the indentations of the older man’s trouser zipper.

Like marking him.

With a soft click, the small bathroom light flickered on.

This cramped room had long fallen into disrepair. The bathroom door didn’t close properly. Confined to a two-meter space, the toilet was positioned near the front and you could see right through the narrow crack in the door.

A shiver ran through him. He heard the sound of liquid splashing against ceramic.

A steady, continuous stream, unhurried and forceful, like a javelin being launched.

The three-finger-wide crack cast a vertical stripe of light. A furtive glance revealed cascading golden hair, like trailing vines, swaying slightly with the motion of his arm. Broad shoulders, strong enough to hang from. Powerful thighs…

His gaze burned and he hastily looked up, meeting the restrained, dignified face that had just turned toward him, one eyebrow faintly raised, they locked eyes for a brief moment in the gap.

Peeping? You’ll get spanked.

Bai Ling’s legs trembled. For the first time, he truly felt phantom heat. Not phantom pain, but heat. As if that missing leg was cramping, its phantom toes scorching enough to burn holes in the floor.

He heard Yu Chen lower the seat, flush, and leisurely wash his hands at the sink.

For a moment, the murky air mingled with the cheap fragrance of soap bubbles.

But Bai Ling had no attention to spare for scents. His disordered mind still echoed with that sound, lasting half a minute.

Just then, from the next room, angry shouts erupted: “Get off me, bitch! You motherfucking bird, don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to. Spill it, where did that money go?…”

Yu Chen walked over, drying his hands. His casual glance caught the little bird lost in a daze.

“What are you thinking about?”

The bird said, dazed: “I want to be your little chick…”

---

Bai Ling had no memory of how he left that basement.

They say the best cure for a severe illness is a counter-poison, fighting magic with magic. Now, whenever he thought of that place, all he saw were images that needed censoring.

Even though 99% of it was his own extrapolated imagination.

But these interwoven fantasies, combined with speculations about what might happen in the future, had left him in a state of excited, expectant confusion.

That old man really had lived a long life. He was a master of psychological manipulation and atmosphere.

Bai Ling understood it as a form of suggestion, both physical and psychological. Yu Chen was showing him, in no concrete terms, that he had absolute aggression and control, yet would still not intrude without permission.

A superior male showing self-control that surpasses their ego—

This was the ultimate technique to win a female’s favor, to capture their gaze.

Seated in the aircraft on their way back, Bai Ling’s mind gradually calmed down.

The dark cockpit windows showed no view of the night, only reflecting the interior. He glanced at the reflection and saw Yu Chen leaning back in his seat, his deep-set eyes closed, as if asleep.

A late-night gust of wind shook the aircraft, its wings jolting slightly. Yu Chen’s head lolled to one side and Bai Ling quickly lowered the armrest between them and guided the alpha to lean against him, settling him comfortably on his lap.

But even when the aircraft landed, Yu Chen did not wake up.

Bai Ling knew he was always alert and a light sleeper. A brief doze like this shouldn’t have had him sleeping so deeply, so deeply it seemed like…

Coma.

---

Jjwxc comments!

1: Such a timely coma makes me feel like the old man fainted after he did it……

2: I was very serious about understanding the impact of an asteroid on a planet and then my brain short-circuited……