Slave to Words

"Once, the world praised your silver tongue and said you stood out from the crowd." Zhao Huai sat honestly on Yang Xuancan's face, moving up and down as he smiled and taunted him. "But who besides me knows your lips and tongue have another use?"

Yang Xuancan was born into the Yang clan, a family of hereditary nobles.

Raised from childhood to be its heir, he studied the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting, as well as archery and horsemanship. His friends were all scions of great houses and distinguished clans. At just twenty-two, he had risen to the post of Taipu and become famous throughout the land. He had never imagined that one day his entire clan would fall, that he would incur the emperor's wrath and never recover, or that a woman he did not love would ride him and humiliate him.

Still less could he have imagined that, after enduring prolonged humiliation and torment, his chaste body would instinctively beg that woman for mercy.

At first, he called Zhao Huai a "treacherous slave," while Zhao Huai mocked him as a "prisoner in chains."

Later, blushing, he called Zhao Huai, "My darling, my love."

Zhao Huai still laughed at him. "Slave to my tongue."

Theme: With a strong wind at my back, I will soar into the clouds