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A banquet was held in the north of the Capital.
The carpets were decorated with hibiscus flowers, and the grounds were set out with tortoiseshells of the most polished degree. Guests of the highest clans sat together, admiring the famous flora brought from lands beyond the seas. At the very centre was a green-glazed vase of jade— the target goal for a mundane game for the nobles to play.
Holding a plum blossom-shaped wooden arrow, you squinted in focus, and aimed it to fall right into the pot that was a good distance away.
“Ack.”
You quickly frowned as your last arrow struck the lid of the vase and fell flat on the ground beside it. Out of the eight arrows given, only three had successfully fallen into the vase— the first, the second, and the third. You were still praised by those around you, however, as it proved to be much more difficult than it seemed, with the mouth of the vase having a width as small as the arrowhead itself.
It was late spring, and the bees and butterflies fluttered among the blooming kaleidoscope of petals of every shape of the rainbow, carrying the essence of nature’s verdant gifts.
After the game was over and done with on your part, you decided to go inside and rest inside the hall.
As one of your ladies-in-waiting slid the the door closed behind you, you poured yourself some tea, closing your eyes as a few rays of sunlight pierced through the paper films and were cast upon your serene face, intersecting inch by inch with the trembling shadow of the crabapple blossoms before the doors.
Having drunk quite a little earlier, your eyes were languid and weary, more closed than open as fatigue tugged on them.
It was at this moment that Gojo Satoru, heir of a rivalling clan, entered the hall uninvited. The chirping of insects ceased, silent and still, as if without any weight to cling to in the flesh. The dynamic sounds outside seemed to stagnate and flow slower, undisturbed even by the birds pecking at rice on the window, like a formless, wandering ghost, whose coming and goings were unknown to the world.
“Ah, there you are! I’ve been wondering where you might have gone, Lady Zen’in.”
Gojo waited patiently as you downed your cup of tea with a painfully slow pace. Even as you finished and carefully set the cup down to pour yourself another serving, you could feel him anticipate an answer, or at the very least, a greeting from you. Even as you so rudely delayed your response, he continued to wait for you as though he was waiting for a lotus flower to slowly bloom, and in the brief yet endless wait, he decided to relieve a past entanglement.
“Is this how you intend to greet the man you were meant to be betrothed to? I never took you for the sentimental type, my lady.”
You finally turned to face Gojo with a faint frown, your brows pinched as you opened your mouth to spear him with a retort…until you felt something wrong.
“Y-you…”
Slowly, the first beads of sweat began forming on your forehead, and your cold hands against the equally cold porcelain cup began to warm. You blinked furiously, the warm spring breeze outside drawing in the musk of orchids that seemed to trap the sweltering heat within.
Gojo closed the distance between the two of you, and you flinched before he could even touch you. Noticing your reaction, he placed his hands behind his back with a smile that seemed more devious than not.
“I would never hurt you, Lady Zen’in. You know that. I trust you’d never give me any reason to.”
“Such nonsense coming from you…I expected no less from the pompous Gojo heir.”
“And to think we might have been engaged by now…” Gojo humoured the idea with a low chuckle. “If that were the case, do you think our wedding might have been in the coming autumn? I heard the ninth month is said to be an auspicious time for marriage this year. What do you make of that? It isn’t too late to convince our elders to undo the annulment on our engagement.”
A stalk of juniper incense buried in his intoxicating scent, calming and soothing— a fragrance you had not smelled in a long time. Your jaw locked as Gojo took a seat next to you on the cushioned floor, his presence strangely overwhelming than you remembered it to be. It had been years since you had visited his clan’s grand estate, which used to be a simple, secluded retreat for you during the days the two of you were meant to be married.
The juniper seeds, untouched by cold wine, had gradually transformed into a bittersweet, cool scent, and you shook your head in both disagreement to Gojo’s words, and as an attempt to dispel the fragrance.
“The dignified Young Master, still chasing after a woman who wants nothing to do with him…” you hummed sweetly despite the venom in your words. “Are you perhaps blind to your own disgrace, my lord?”
Gojo raised a bemused brow, and it was at that moment when your wrist shook violently despite your call for control, and your teeth gritted together as your throat and tongue felt constricted and heavy, the breath in your lungs shallow.
“Do entertain me with what ‘disgraces’ I’ve done. Does the list I imagine you have include this?”
Now, the situation had become completely reversed.
It was as if you were your own soul, battling your own body.
As Gojo appeared to disable his irritable barrier of Infinity to wrap an arm around your trembling shoulders, you wanted nothing more than to shove him away, yet your bones were as weak as mud, and the gesture felt more like a young girl shyly coaxing her lover.
Gojo was anything but your lover.
Just before this, you had been forced to drink the penalty wine for losing the arrow-throwing game, and then had proceeded to down two cups of tea. Whichever one was the culprit in poisoning you, you could not tell. You did know, however, that you had been tricked. Gojo had very likely drugged you to vent his anger out on something as trivial as a supposed ‘mutually broken engagement’.
The man was truly despicable, truly the bane of your existence as you fixed him with your coldest glare, your breaths quickening as he leered down at you with a sickening smile and his hands toying with your obi. The numbing effect of the golden valley wine had begun seeping into your bones, and Gojo scoffed lightly at your lack of control as you dropped the teacup and it clattered to the fall, spilling its leftover contents on the woven straws of the floor.
“Ah, look at you, my lady. You’ve made a mess of things. Don’t tell me you’re any less unfit for the role of my wife, now.”
“What kind of wretched drug did you give me, you…” Swallowing thickly, you felt all strength leave you as your head fell forward against his chest, your skin flushed as you failed to will yourself to withdraw from his touch.
“Now, now. It’s never proper to accuse others of such things. There’s no shame in admitting you’ve strained yourself from drinking a little too much out of your abilities.”
“H-how dare you…”
Your crab-shell blue floral skirt was bunched up to your thighs, embroidered with the loveliest of golden flowers and birds with intertwined branches and leaves. You were too weak to resist as Gojo slipped a hand between your trembling legs. Fuelled by the drug’s effects, he only needed to stroke his slender fingers against your dripping entrance before your cunt welcomed him whole, two of his fingers breaching your core with little to no resistance and filling your tender walls as the burning desire in you only grew.
“S-stop, unhand me now, you bastard!” you hissed. You knew that even without the drug, there was no doubt the most powerful sorcerer of all would have still been able to take you as he saw fit, but the loss of any and all power stripped you far more bare beyond simply being nude before Gojo’s eyes. “This is improper!”
“If that’s so, then why are you so receptive?” Curling his fingers deep within your cunt, you could hear the grin in Gojo’s voice as you whimpered and involuntarily bucked your hips against his hand, and the movements of his fingers heightened in speed and force. “Are you saying you find pleasure in this ‘impropriety’? Tsk, tsk. What a brazen way to disprove the rumours your clan has spread about you.”
You curled your fist in the fabric of Gojo’s robes as you fought against another pitiful moan. The way in which he was stretching you out with nothing more than his hand was humiliating, and so were the sinful sounds that came with every quick movement he delivered onto your drooling cunt.
“You— hngh, you are tarnishing my virtue, you heathen! S-stop this at, ah at once!”
It was popular belief among the Capital that the otherworldly beauty you had been blessed with was due to being the flesh-and-blood body of the reincarnation of a deity. Many who were blessed to cast their eyes on your full face imagined you as the Bodhisattva of the Coffin, the Guanyin Bodhisattva who dispelled lust and all things inherently immoral. Deeply rooted in worldly desires, you were born into one of the three great sorcerer clans, and your ethereal appearance was used to appease sinners in high society to tremble and repent.
Such was the reason your engagement to Gojo Satoru had been annulled in the end— to preserve your purity and maintain your revered status.
Just as the incense in the room burned out, its ashes turned cold, Gojo leaned closer to you, to cast his eyes not just on your beautiful face, but on the rest of your form, too, as he disrobed you with ease despite the many layers of silk you wore.
“On the contrary, my lady, I’m finding it harder to stop myself when you beg just like that.”
You shut your eyes tightly at his words. His fingers were still toying with your cunt, still reaching for your sweetest spot and defiling it with his touch as your thighs trembled and your nipples shamefully hardened from the exposure to the room.
“You can’t do this…” You clutched at Gojo’s sleeve in a poor attempt to misdirect him, to which he laughed and nestled you into his arms, burying your face further in his sandalwood collar. In defiance, you sunk your teeth into the flesh of his pristine neck, the sharpness tearing through skin and drawing pinpricks of blood. For a moment, you felt as though you held the smallest of victories until Gojo aimed a cruel thrust deep into your cunt, and he bent down to mark your neck in the same way you had.
“Can’t I?” He sneered against your skin.
“Ngh…”
In that moment, Guanyin became a lecher, and the lecher became Guanyin; cause and effect were both reversed as the Gojo heir corrupted you with lust.
Enveloped in a flurry of sinful indiscretion, you, unable to open your eyes and face the glowing hue of cornflower blues in Gojo’s eyes, could only continue to rest your head against his chest as your robes slid down the curve of your shoulders, your pearl hairpins unceremoniously clattering to the floor as he plucked them out one by one.
“You’ve not a soul to blame but yours. I do wonder— if I strip you of your innocence, will heaven still smile upon you?” Gojo cupped your cheek and kissed you, making you squirm as you gracelessly screamed against his lips, trying to wrench your jaw out of his vice hold as he only quickened the pace of his other hand, his fingers drilling into your humiliatingly receptive cunt.
“A-ah! Hnghh…”
“My lady,” he chuckled against your bared teeth, “I’m afraid you’re being too loud. You wouldn’t want us to be discovered like this, would you? Your clan would be ridiculed and lose face. This is the last banquet of spring— a good omen. Don’t bring more troubles unto yourself.”
“You vile creature,” you spat. “S-stop this madness!”
“I certainly could, but why would I want to? After all…” Gojo smiled down at you, the curl of his fingers against your most tender spot so cruelly euphoric that your thighs spasmed, and when his thumb pressed down onto your sensitive clit to rub it, you threw your head back with a barely muffled cry. “I hear Guanyin will bless me with her innocence.”
“Ah, y-you must stop! You’ve deluded yourself into— ah, i-into thinking heaven won’t punish you for s-such a…transgression!”
“Shh.” Thumbing your lower lip, Gojo was driving you mad with cardinal sin, every thrust and curl of his fingers alongside the pressure on your clit burning you with more white fire as you felt all agency leave you. “My lady, you should be careful not to let anyone hear those melodic cries of yours. All the elders are here today. Do you want to tell every sorcerer present that you’ve fallen from your pedestal? As long as you tell no one, the world may continue to admire you as a virtuous Guanyin.”
“You bastard.” Upon hearing him say such twisted words, you clamped your teeth down on Gojo’s thumb, who could only scoff at how uselessly defiant you were being. Even as you attempted to break through his skin and snap the joint of his bone, your chattering jaw and weakened strength from both the drug and his ministrations had rendered you a snake without fangs. “Do you think I am a— ngh, a mere doll to make a mockery out of? Y-you’ll certainly go to hell for this…”
“I don’t mind, truly, as long as you will be there with me.”
Your glare sharpened as you shivered in his hold. “How dare you! Sooner or later, heaven will have you chopped up and fed to the dogs!”
“Ah, what a stubborn show of power,” Gojo chuckled, petting your cheek. “My lady’s words are truly a blade to the heart.”
Your breath hitched, your vision blurring as he withdrew his fingers from you. You whined softly at the loss of pleasure, and flinched as he began undoing his robes to free his hardened length. You refused to look at Gojo for more than a second longer as you twisted your head away, face continuing to burn with rage and unwanted ecstasy.
“Is my lady shy?” He taunted with a grin. “Don’t be so tense; this is what would have been awaiting you on our wedding night.”
His hold around you was vice and unrelenting as you were laid down on your back, your head rested on cushions as Gojo leered his hypnotic eyes on your bare form. You bit your lip and shrunk under his gaze. If he wanted to, he could simply crush you and shatter your bones. Even one hand was more than enough to subdue both your wrists, and in your state of dazed haziness, you posed no more resistance than a flightless bird.
Uncomfortable with having Gojo’s eyes dissect you, you turned away, your chest heaving. To have the strongest sorcerer deflower you would be beastly. There was nothing but lust in those eyes of his; he was begging to shred you and tear you apart.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said with a light scoff, as though you were ridiculous for thinking so. “I’m only claiming what heaven has set for me in my path. It seems Guanyin has blessed me through your form, so how could I ever refuse? You’d be a fool to continue resisting me.”
You didn’t respond, not vocally, at least. As Gojo held you down by your wrists and your hip, your weak legs spread apart for him, he began entering you— taking what was left of your heavenly blessings.
“Mmhh…”
You pressed your lips together tightly, your thoughts in a trance as your breathing grew rapid and heavy, and he spared you not much time for comfort. Groaning, he pushed forward with his hips as he towered over your smaller form, and speared his cock into your core.
You screamed through gritted teeth, as loud as your vocal chords would permit before breaking, and as strained as you tried to hold back. Gojo didn’t seem bothered in the least, despite not knowing whether those were screams of agony or of depraved pleasure under the drug’s influence. All he seemed to care about was stuffing you as full of his cock as he could before breaking you, and then stuffing you some more to see whether you would break.
Your entrance was tightening around him as best it could, but to no avail, he outdid its friction and kept pushing forward, helped in no small part by your own excessive arousal. It didn’t take too much time for Gojo to find your sweetest spot in the depths of your cunt, which had your fragmented breaths turn into intermittent sobs as you tried to flail and kick at him, but you could no longer scream properly anymore; not because you lacked the voice to, but because you couldn’t scream and breathe at the same time.
“S-stop! Stop this, y-you’ve truly gone mad!”
“Only mad with reverence for you, that I know of.”
There really was no going easy on you. Disregarding your intense reaction, Gojo continued to press forward against your cervix, hitting up against your deepest spots and defiling every inch of your fluttering walls that coiled around his aching length. He wasted no time in shedding all your virtue, spitting in the face of heaven as he stripped the young lady blessed by Guanyin of your divine virtue.
“Y-you…ah!”
The fullness of it all combined with your heightened senses from the drug had caused you to reach an early climax, your core tightening around him to a most pleasurable degree as Gojo let out a breathless laugh, more generous amounts of your arousal enveloping his cock in spite of the presumed agony involved.
He knew it then that he had never felt such euphoria before. With your precious cunt gripping down on him so hard, Gojo could admit that heaven had truly chosen you with untouchable beauty for a reason. With every thrust, every cruel pounding of his thick length into your pygmy cunt, your walls would contract as you would cry, but you would always be able to take him in any manner he desired.
“You should spare both yourself and I the lies. I could always make this feel better for you if you would just let me.”
“Never,” you bit back.
“I see that’s how it is. No matter, it’s not long before your heart will submit, as well. Heaven won’t frown upon you for indulging yourself in the pleasures they have created for us.”
“Keep fooling yourself, my lord.”
Your stubbornness was for the legends. Was there anyone Gojo could do to put a dent on your unwillingness? Perhaps not. If he had guessed correctly, even you believed yourself to be Guanyin’s earthly blessing, and it would shatter you to know that your purpose of instilling virtue into the corrupt Jujutsu society had failed under his hands.
Having buried himself fully inside of you, the only thing that was left for Gojo to do was to ravage you completely. He tightened his grip on your wrists and hip before delivering thrusts of a most unforgiving pace, forcing more broken moans and cries from you.
“Ah! Ah, n-no— hngh!”
You were tight, your very muscle contracting as you could barely endure the intrusion that had only just begun. At first, breaking you had looked like an exercise in futility, but as with previous surprises, you did not disappoint in being able to stretch and accommodate your tender cunt to Gojo’s length.
You resumed screaming with every shove, every movement of his hips against yours. Your eyes rolled back, and you were shivering from the force of your earlier climax along with another approaching one as Gojo breathed out a pleasured moan, enjoying your tightness that enveloped him.
“You’re doing wonderful, my lady.”
You shook your head in disagreement. To him, you might have felt better than the purest blessings of the high heavens. It was impossible for anything to come even close to matching your wetness, your warmth, and the tightness of your precious cunt. Battering it with his cock was the best choice he had ever made.
To you, however, you were the furthest from heaven. Sharp pains surged through your limbs and veins as the misery threatened to drown you in an ocean of hatred and passion. You could only fix a tearful glare at Gojo as the two of you recounted his licentious sins.
Every single thing was related to you, and not a single detail could be denied. You remembered him watching you nearly start to pleasure yourself through your window as dying sunlight shone with a dazzling gold, with clusters of golden kerria flowers, all before you noticed the weight of his gaze and promptly drew the curtains closed.
There was another time years ago, as Gojo remembered, during a festival of clear skies and bright sunshine when all things were in full bloom, and even the mind needed to be cleansed and made clear. The spring mountains were in sight as the season came to a fruitful end, and as he caught the slightest glimpse of you bathing by the springs, his six senses could no longer distinguish between spring, summer, autumn, and winter; only a pale haze of heaven was etched before his eyes, and a shallow, flickering need to possess the rival clan’s blessed Guanyin that grew inch by inch.
In every instant heaven had tested his restraint, it seemed to complete its cycle from birth to death once more.
With sharp, lust-driven thrusts, Gojo pounded himself into you, your cunt exhibiting little of the resistance it did during the first insertion with his fingers. You opened your mouth again, as if to scream, to protest, or perhaps even hurl unpleasantries at him, but only gasps came out, the force of his pace forcing all air out of your lungs instantaneously.
“We are both blessed by heaven— did you know that?” Gojo continued to bury himself inside you, quickly losing what little intent he had to be the least bit gentle with you as his motions grew more powerful to match that realisation. “I, as the strongest, and you, as the most virtuous. There is no other soul in this land who can hope to stand by our side.”
“And yet you— hngh, you misuse your blessings to tarnish me…”
You had regained control over your voice, but you weren’t producing any more screams. As your body no longer tried to deny him any entry, your feral screams had turned into softer, strained moans. With your core being abused to such an extent, it was quite difficult for Gojo to tell, but the gush of your sweetness and trembling of your form indicated to him that you were having yet another successive climax from the head of his cock stimulating your deepest parts, and your body could not react any other way to his touch than to submit.
Gojo noticed that. As you stared up at him through teary, half-lidded eyes, you were like a sparrow whose wing was wounded by a slingshot, and a stray arrow, following your hasty descent, pinned you down to further display the contrast between your meritorious deeds as you, the golden chain Bodhisattva incarnate, had your purity stolen.
No longer a symbol of virtue, but rather now a simple lustful human lady, lost and adrift in the sea of desire and suffering. Your eyes, crafted from amber and beeswax, dim and bewildered, met his azureall ones, and raindrops of impact poured down upon your frail body as Gojo bent down to mark your neck red with his teeth, his kisses trailing down your neck and collarbones.
Was this pilgrimage? Was this a murder of your virtue committed against your will? Was this hatred? Was this love?
Was it the blessing of Guanyin Bodhisattva to save all sentient beings, or the sins committed by body, speech, and the mind in the gilded cages of hell?
It seemed that Guanyin had transformed into a beautiful lady to guide sentient beings away from their desires, and then depart the world as a golden skeleton. When Gojo was a child, he attended a Dharma talk at the local temple under orders from his clan. That night, he had stayed at the temple, where he snuck out under the cover of mischievous darkness and witnessed the head monk intimately engaging in sexual intercourse with an indistinct woman who he worshipped as Guanyin.
She bestowed upon the monk tender words, breaking his purity, and he, as if possessed by a ghost, seemed to reach heaven through their coupling. In their throes of passion, a younger Gojo had watched as their joints were intertwined and inseparable, each inch of the golden bone containing countless worldly lives, countless mortal bodies, and countless karmic connections, all of them the colour of deep gold.
Shocked, Gojo had averted his eyes and returned to his quarters, unable to look any longer. All he remembered last seeing was a jade hairpin falling from the false Guanyin’s dark, misty hair, shattering into pieces amidst the vast, boundless gold.
“M-my lord…” you called out, your voice strangely clear and no longer as though a layer of mist was pressing down a layer of smoke on your throat. The voice of you, his Guanyin, and his own merged into one song— perfect and flawless, as harmonious as ever as though heaven had already sealed your union.
“Are you beginning to see the blessing in these gods-gifted pleasure?” Gojo groaned out, continuing to thrust into you as he spoke, forcing his unforgiving length into you over and over again with no sign of reprieve. “If you truly are Guanyin, then I must be your faithful disciple. It’s only right I bring you to the brink of ecstasy.”
The latest sermon earlier that week had preached about the demon Mara and how it would follow Buddha and his disciples, disrupting their practice. Mara had three beautiful daughters, namely, Lust, Greed, and Pleasure. Desiring to use their powers to confuse Shakyamuni Buddha’s cultivation, the three daughters decided to bind the root of their sinful being to the holy men.
“Y-you fool yourself, my lord,” you gasped out, “I would sooner call you the demon Mara than accept you as a— ah, a worshipper of mine— ohh!”
A particularly forceful thrust from Gojo had you throwing your head back as you were reduced to nothing but a tool of holy pleasure for him, and how good did you feel for him— the man would have no objections to being forced inside you for all of eternity, perpetually impaling your delectable core until his cock would feel as much an indispensable part of you as your heart was.
“I wonder what the gods would say if they saw their Guanyin incarnate being defiled like this. Or perhaps, they would revel in it. Perhaps they would love to see their strongest creation yet bring their most virtuous one down to her knees.”
Gojo’s movements had grown faster, almost frantic, forgoing the feeling of the fine texture and moisture of your velvet walls for the quick, rough gratification of tightness. The pace of it all was driving you mad.
“Perhaps they would even give us a child born to be a son of heaven,” he mused. “WIth the unification of our rival clans and two heaven-blessed parents, I believe our son would be the greatest blessing yet.”
You shook your head, breathless, as Gojo continued to devour you, euphoria seeping through your bones and marrow as unbridled pleasure drowned you whole.
“Don’t!” you screamed, “stop! You will defile me no further, ngh, y-you must stop!”
Cruelly, he did as you said. He stopped his thrusts and exited you completely. Yet as he did, a sullen emptiness claimed you, and the void felt like a punishment from hell itself. You whimpered in protest before you could stop yourself, and you felt as though you were missing something, as though you were aching to be made whole.
“Does my lady need something?” Gojo taunted with a charming smile. “You need to use your words. It may be difficult, but I believe in you.”
Drawing in a sharp breath, you blinked your tears away. You had fallen so far from grace already that the distance between your divinity and earthly desires was no longer as wide as the bridge from heaven to earth, but rather as short as the walk it would take from your position on the floor to the door.
As a devout believer, you could only tell yourself that this was the will of the gods. If they had chosen to punish you in place of the sins of your clan, then you would bear the burden with a heavy heart.
“Please,” you whispered. “Please, my lord…I have never needed you more than I’ve needed anything else. Come, claim your Guanyin’s womb and bless me with your seed…”
Finding you sufficiently honest, Gojo returned to fucking you, now with even more force. Climax after climax had started taking a toll on your sanity and autonomy, with your wrists slack in his hold. Only he moved your body with the force of his poundings, a blessed outlet for his depraved desires.
At last, Gojo felt an orgasm arriving, making his thrusts even cruder and less forgiving than before. No care for your wellbeing remained in him, with his focus being his self-gratification exclusively. Tightening his grip on you, the first spurts of his seed came bursting out with incredible pressure, colliding with your womb as if you were standing under the tallest waterfall.
“You must be heaven itself,” Gojo groaned out, his thrusts never faltering as he came, but rather, intensified. Hot seed flooded the deepest depths of your core, your cunt convulsing around him as you let out another cry from the force of yet another climax.
After what felt like an eternity, his final outburst had arrived, and his heights of bliss were over. Your mixed arousal tainted the floor below with sin, continuing to pour out of your cunt as you fought to catch your breath, body spent beyond measure and thoughts further than you could reach. A haze of lust continued to pervade Gojo’s body, creating the purest and most pristine nest within his embrace where he held you.
Panting, he pressed his nose to the crook of your neck to inhale your scent. A wisp of golden lotus fragrance wafted out, which blended with the bitter scent of his juniper to create an enchanting mix of your aroma. With your hatred and his love, it seemed as though fate had truly meant to unite the two of you together.
It was at this moment the two of you were as pure and innocent as heaven and earth at the dawn of time, a vast and tranquil darkness, a chaotic expanse where the two of you were as indistinguishable as the sun and the sky.
The serene chanting of Buddhist music flowed around the two of you from outside the hall, drifting like mist around your waists. Gojo sighed in pleasure, and though you wanted to, you were unable to utter any harsh words, only letting out soft, bewildered sobs. The skillful manipulation of desire had pried open the key points of passion as you reached the peaks of pleasure at an almost terrifying height.
His cock remained in you, heated like a furnace of flesh, intertwined and almost melting like the perfect release a Zen monk would experience at sunrise.
“Aha…” Gojo chuckled softly. “When people die, I hear they cross the Bridge of Helplessness to drink Meng Po’s soup. If that is truly the case, then I must have only drunk half a bowl, thus forgetting only those resentful, bitter, and hateful feelings from my past life. I can find liberation among all things in this world as it is my unchanging destiny, but why is it, whenever I see you, my lady, do I still fall in love with you again and again without hesitation?”
Everything was in a cycle, and everyone was moving forward. Death was born from life, and the living were all born from the dead. You were born from the dead you, and the dead you had been born from the living you. Such was the cycle of reincarnation, Gojo thought aimlessly. He cupped your cheek and met your gaze, tears still streaming down your face as you closed your eyes halfway— warm and bright, like two crescent moons.
Gojo laughed softly to himself, his eyes crinkling with the ripples of a fish’s tail. He thought of many things as he kissed away your tears of sorrow. His lips were salty and bitter, reflecting the endless sorrow and hardship of the world. He pressed a kiss to your lips in offering to you, the supposed Guanyin incarnate, to let you taste the divine bitterness of human tears.
Did it taste the same as blood?
You jolted at the bitter taste, clicking your tongue and hissing at Gojo as all you desired was to be left alone for now.
“What filthy drug did you feed me earlier?” you demanded, your eyes brimming with cold, resentful hatred. “Just who do you think you are, Lord Gojo? The gods will be sure to strip you off your blessings.”
“I would like to see them try.” A smile tugged on his lips. “What do your tears taste like?”
You muttered a few curses under your breath, unwilling to delight him with an answer. As the affair was coming to an end, you attempted to call for one of your servants to come in and redress you. Your arousal and his had mixed together deep in your core, and it pooled down your thighs, leaving you sticky and uncomfortable with added sweat from the event. However, Gojo stopped you just short of it with a hand over your mouth and another binding your wrists together once more.
“Where has your discretion gone, my lady? Aren’t you afraid of us being discovered like this together, even by your own servants?”
You smiled dismissively and hollowly, eyes still full of disdainful flare for Gojo as you wretched your wrists out of his hold, your full strength returning after the drug’s effects had worn off from fulfilment.
“What’s there to be afraid of, my lord? Are you perhaps worried that your reputation as a mere weapon and tool for your clan will be affected once they think you are not above the temptations of lust?”
After all, you knew a lady like you would never live for very long. In a few decades, you would be entering the next cycle of reincarnation. Everyone in this life was merely a stepping stone, and after failing your fate as a virtuous Guanyin, nothing mattered much to you anymore. You had lost your purpose.
“Ha! Not at all,” Gojo snorted. “It’s just that you’re quite a delicate thing and should rest now. I will send for your servants to take care of you.”
“How kind you’ve suddenly become. Are you perhaps planning to have someone catch you in this indecent act so you can entrap me in a marriage with you?”
“Am I truly that kind of man in your eyes?” He chuckled. “My lady’s prejudice against me is perhaps a bit of an overreaction. Unless— that is what you’re hoping for.”
“You flatter yourself too much, you brute.”
Gojo merely found more amusement in your retorts as he tidied himself up, once again appearing impeccably dressed and elegant. You wrapped yourself in your tattered robes and rolled your eyes at him. As he finished strapping his footwear together to leave the hall, he turned back to look at your radiant eyes once more.
Golden light shone through the golden kerria flowers, casting a brilliant golden glow on your beautiful face. A golden hue, a golden bodhisattva— your eyes were also so bright and dazzling, the whites in the corners a honey-gold under the light. Gojo dug deep into his heart, excavating fossils of leftover love, and after much searching, unearthed a golden, radiant skeleton.
He saw his golden self reflected in you, his Guanyin’s eyes.