Chapter 17: Crumbs of the Feast (殘茶剩飯)

The bedroom was as large as the living room-it was, in fact, exactly the same size and shape down to the gently curved window wall and softly ticking fan. Couches, tables, and decorations had been replaced with futons rolled, tied, and stacked along one of the bare walls. Countess Gao had Daiwen and the four shifters line up against the other, completely naked.

She chuckled at Daiwen's grimace, tucking a strand of shorn hair behind their ear.

"If you don't want to be here...then leave."

"No, I do."

"Then put on a nice face for me."

Daiwen swallowed their grimace and forced themself to smile. The countess only laughed harder. Daiwen flushed from their chest to the tips of their ears. Countess Gao trailed a long-nailed finger along their collarbone.

"That is definitely a better look for you. Kneel."

Daiwen grumbled wordlessly but sank down to their knees. The countess knotted her fingers in their hair and tilted their head back until their crown bumped the wall. Daiwen glared up at her with anger, shame, and pure, unabashed challenge. The countess's bedroom was clearly not a space for politeness.

Countess Gao's smile twisted to a lip-biting smirk. She stepped her cunt into Daiwen's face. The shifters gathered around, stroking each others's cocks and cunt.

"Suck my clit."

Daiwen snorted and grabbed her hips. The bead of her clit was already red and erect. Daiwen checked the slit with their tongue. The countess shivered, her skin breaking into goosebumps. But she needed to be wetter.

Daiwen rubbed two fingers over her lips as their tongue traced tortuous circles around her clit. They rubbed her slick all the way to her anus. The puckered hole twitched over their fingers. The countess whimpered at the edge of orgasm.

Daiwen chuckled and continued to edge her. They pushed a finger through her lips, the tip grazing her ridges. Just the tip. Their tongue rawed her twitching clit, but they didn't suck her.

The countess began to whine through her nose like a bitch. Her hips bounced needily at Daiwen's tongue for more pressure.

Daiwen pulled their finger out. They grabbed the countess by the soft, cupped flesh of her ass and held her off them.

"I want to hear you beg."

"Never, you stupid peasant!" she hissed breathlessly.

"Ok," they shrugged.

They dropped their hands to their knees and sat back on their heels with the pleasant smile Countess Gao had asked for. The countess huffed and stamped their foot.

"Fine."

She ordered the snake-headed shifter to come eat her ass, still standing with her cunt in Daiwen's face. She braced her hands on their shoulders. The snake spread her cheeks with a hiss and applied their forked tongue directly to her asshole. That must've felt great coming from a sex-certified shifter, but Countess Gao couldn't stop glaring down at Daiwen.

Daiwen decided to help her make up her mind.

-/-

Explicit encounter on AO3

-/-

As Daiwen pulled their clothes and backpack over the sticky, drained body, Countess Gao ordered the bird shifter to explain why their earlier question had been answered with a mocking laugh.

Once a room was reserved, no one could enter without the reservee or the director themself. Therefor, no, Countess Gao hadn't seen anyone leave her green room nor could anyone have done so. Which left Daiwen back at square one.

They left the treehouse on foot to give themself time to think. They were alone on the winding Junglepath except for the fireflies winking between the vines and trees. The morning darkness had lightened to a misty gray by the time the green roof of the Yueliang Stairs peeked over the treeline.

The park's central tower was gigantic, looming over twenty stories above the themed grounds. Five separate railroads wrapped around the tower at different floors, each carting off trains of empty cars to different attractions. The guests must've been sleeping peacefully or less peacefully occupied, but all blissfully unaware of the murder that had happened right over their noses.

Daiwen stopped on a living bridge made of braided roots and branches. This last stretch of Junglepath reached through a curtain of magically engineered falling rain all the way to the giant red doors of the tower.

Daiwen clenched their fists and raised their head. They had to do it. They had to see their lover's body. They crossed under the curtain of rain. The red doors opened to the heart of Shengtaiguan Park.

-/-

Daiwen knocked on the sliding door of the director's office.

"It's Daiwen. Can I come in?"

There was a muffled thunk from inside. A curse. The door slid open to the new Director Cai beside their new desk, leaning on one palm. A few papers floated and settled onto the piles burying the desk like a rabbit house in a snowdrift.

"Did you, ah, find the killer? Or are you still the prime suspect?"

"Your brother doesn't think I did it."

"Ok, first of all, ouch. Second of all, what do you want?"

"I'm very sorry about this, but I need to see his body."

The new director cringed.

"What? What is it?"

"He's, uh, right where we left him."

"You just left him there?"

"I'm sorry, okay? It's just everything happened so fucking fast-I just…" they sighed, deflating like a human-shaped balloon. "I'll go with you."

Daiwen crossed the long, fire-walled office to place a hand on their slumped shoulder.

"Maybe it's better if you didn't."

Director Cai couldn't raise their eyes off the ground, but they placed their hand over Daiwen's. They removed Daiwen's hand from their shoulder.

"No," they said softly but for the first time with total certainty. "I have to see him-it for myself."

Daiwen and the director walked side by side up flight after flight of stairs to the rooftop gardens. They were both drenched in sweat when they'd reached the top. Director Cai doubled over for a breather, hands braced on their knees.

"Next time...we take...the lift."

Once their breaths steadied, the two walked down the green-walled alley to the room. The leaves rustled at a soft, natural breeze. It was exactly the same hour of the morning at which Daiwen had woken. Their skin prickled at the sudden feeling that they would walk in on themself committing the murder.

But there was no one in the open-air room except for the former director, his body curled in a red-plastered ring on its side. The new director froze beside Daiwen, the blood draining from their face. Daiwen left the director to step into the ring.

Daiwen sat cross-legged. They reached out to the edge of a limp, gossamer fin and closed their eyes. Their aura flared purple.

They couldn't summon the former director's spirit, not with the new director watching. Instead, they let their aua expand in a flickering purple wave. As it washed through the body, Daiwen's consciousness followed into the decaying tissues and cells.

The cells were slowing but surely shrinking in on themselves, breaking the body apart with a rootlike network of microtears. Daiwen followed the worst of the rifts and fissures to the underside of the director's scaled torso. It had been torn open all the way through the bone with a single, killing stroke. The hole had filled with-

Daiwen yanked their hand off the fin, pulling their fist to their chest. Their aura immediately winked out at the shock. Their shoulders shook, vision blurring.

The new director snapped out of their frozen denial. They leaped over the body into the ring with Daiwen. They held Daiwen to their chest, just as their brother had. Daiwen swallowed hard, too numb to feel the tears on their cheeks.

"They took his heart."

They couldn't see it or feel it, but somehow they knew that the director's hands curled to fists on the other side of their punching doll.