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Xie Lian had always known something was wrong with him.
Having presented an omega just before he had ascended the first time, Xie Lian had suffered through his first heat: sweaty, painful, annoying, shameful. He had felt so empty, his stomach cramping and hole clenching around nothing, drenched and wet with slick.
Alpha, alpha please, he had whimpered and whined into his pillow, dirtying it together with the rest of his sheets with his juices: tears, sweat, slick, cum.
While he had no point of comparison of what was supposed to happen during heats, other than that alphas and omegas usually spent them together, he knew there was something deeply abnormal about his. Whenever he was coming, be it a ruined orgasm or a full but pathetic one, a slight swell appeared at the bottom of his cock, getting bigger and bigger until it became something like a knot when he came, rubbing his cock against the sheets or fisting himself.
It hurt. It scared him. He didn't know what to do.
After ascending, he made his way to the Heavenly Library and to the shelf that held all the literature about secondary genders. But no matter how much he searched, he didn't find anything about his ailment--until one day, that one frail scroll that off-handedly mentioned something about a rare genetic knotting disorder present in omegas with high cultivation level that was, oftentimes, rather painful.
Staring at the scroll, Xie Lian blinked, tears forming in his eyes. He had found his answer, but no cure to it. And even though he cultivated the pure path, he still had his heats. He still suffered.
Carefully putting the scroll back into the shelf, Xie Lian left the Library.
However, he soon realized that his current suffering was nothing compared to what he was to suffer not soon after.
Xie Lian hated the world. He hated everything in it, especially Yong'an.
He was so earth-shatteringly angry.
Wearing that ugly half-laughing, half-crying mask, he roamed the lands that had been Xianle before, calling for ghosts to follow him since no living would. There was nothing divine in him anymore, he was nothing but a wretched fallen god with a mutilated body and twisted mind.
But then, a ghost appeared. Clad in black and with a smiling mask on his face.
Wuming.
Xie Lian could smell him. Despite being dead, Wuming smelled like an alpha in his prime, heady, earthen, silvery. Whenever Xie Lian caught a whiff of him, his nostrils flared and his skin prickled. Heavy weight settled in his belly as they traveled together, a dreadful anticipating thrum coursing through his body.
It only took a couple of days until he was in full heat, stomach cramping painfully as he writhed on the cold floor of a small abandoned temple.
"Wuming," he gasped, summoning the ghost pitifully. "Wuming. Alpha!"
And then Wuming was there, stupid and caring like he always was, ready to serve and please Xie Lian despite having a beloved of his own.
Idiot. Two-timer. Xie Lian wanted to cry, but he was in too much pain to think straight. He merely pushed Wuming on the floor and tugged at his clothes, desperate to strip him naked. He couldn't see Wuming's face but he could hear his surprised gasps and pants, stilted mutters under his breath sounding a lot like "Dianxia, please, please."
Finally they were naked except for their masks, and Xie Lian couldn't hold back anymore. Growling, he wrenched Wuming's head upwards until their masks clanked against each other. Annoyed, he twisted both of their masks just enough for their mouths to be exposed and attacked those strangely red lips clumsily, half out of his mind with lust and pain.
Clink, clank.
Their masks kept bumping against each other as Xie Lian sucked on Wuming's tongue desperately, sometimes biting his lips, making a complete mess of their mouth. And Wuming answered in turn, the scent of his alpha pheromones growing stronger and stronger, heavy, musky, heady, sending all of Xie Lian's brain cells into overdrive.
His own cock was so hard as he grinded it against Wuming's body, rubbing it against the alpha's larger cock and making a mess all around.
Spit, drool, blood, precum.
The temple reeked of sex and heat, but Xie Lian couldn't have cared less.
"Dianxia," Wuming whined into his mouth, lips swollen and crimson red. "Let me, let me." There was such a note of deep desperation in his voice that if Xie Lian hadn't been feeling so overwhelmed by his body, he would have snorted.
Pathetic!
But strong hands gripped his waist and pulled him off of Wuming's body, lifting him up to stand on two wobbly feet. Xie Lian shrieked from the loss of contact, only to be hushed by Wuming, whose big cool hands slid lower until they grabbed his ass and pushed between his cheeks, playing with the soaked skin of his hole insistently, completely without shame.
Maybe Wuming was insane, too, though Xie Lian blearily, his whole body shuddering.
But he was hit with another explosive sensation when Wuming crawled even closer on his knees, panting like a rabid dog with his red lips open and pink tongue darting out to taste Xie Lian's cock.
Xie Lian screamed, grabbing the alpha's black ponytail tightly and pulling.
Wuming moaned filthily, loudly, like he was going to come from being manhandled like that. Then he took Xie Lian's cock in his mouth, sucking on it like there was no tomorrow, without any skill or poise. Xie Lian couldn't have cared less. It felt sublime. Finally buried in that hot, wet heat, he squirmed and moaned, his hips starting to thrust and pump forcefully until he was all but fucking Wuming's mouth while the alpha was playing with his twitching hole.
He kept pulling Wuming's hair until he accidentally tugged off his mask, suddenly faced with the sight of the most beautiful, shining face he had never seen.
And those tears streaming down Wuming's cheeks... Exquisite.
Xie Lian just had to push his cock deeper and deeper, past the ghost's throat until his pelvis met Wuming's face, until Wuming couldn't do anything but swallow around his hard cock, until Wuming had to cry more.
He felt a finger push inside his hole, wiggle deeper, promptly sending him over the edge.
He tore his own mask from his face so that he could meet Wuming's wet gaze as he came, his own cheeks soaked with tears, too. And the swell he knew oh too well, it got bigger and bigger inside Wuming's mouth until Xie Lian felt an instictive need to pull away slightly, just to be able to knot that delicious mouth properly.
Wuming's eyes widened in surprise as he realized what was happening. His lips were already stretched wide around Xie Lian's cock but as Xie Lian started to nudge his knot inside, they were forced to stretch even wider. However, instead of struggling Wuming pulled him tightly against his kneeling body, embracing him just as Xie Lian pushed the whole of his knot into that waiting mouth, yelling, crying and coming so hard he thought he might faint.
Wuming's muffled moans and grunts rang in the air as he rubbed his own alpha cock with a fully swollen knot against Xie Lian's legs, rutting against them until he tumbled into a ruined orgasm, his own knot finding no solace at all.
Not once did Xie Lian stop gazing at the ghost kneeling before him. So strong, so subservient. Looking delectable, choking of Xie Lian’s cock like that. Both of their faces were streaked with tears and the only thing Xie Lian could think about was how pretty, pretty, pretty Wuming was.
And that how much that knot hurt him, a thing that was there yet wasn't supposed to be.
But maybe this time, everything was made more bearable with Wuming by his side.
"Gege," Hua Cheng noted with a smile. "Why don't we take a stroll in the city?"
Xie Lian nodded, desperate to get some fresh air after all that had had happened before: him chasing the Fetus Spirit dressed up like a pregnant woman, jumping into the lake, being kissed by Hua Cheng...
Oh. He better not think about that at all.
"That sounds wonderful, San Lang," he said instead and smiled.
As they walked in the bustling streets of Ghost City, Xie Lian and Hua Cheng talked about this and that. It was nice, this easy friendship that they had. Although something in Xie Lian screamed at the thought, telling him to quit the act of self-betrayal. That it wasn't friendship what he wanted.
But Hua Cheng had a beloved, just like Wuming had had a beloved. There was nothing he could do.
Lost in his thoughts, he failed to notice that Hua Cheng had pulled him to a stall selling all types of medicine.
"Look gege," the Ghost King whispered, pulling a small pouch of pills from the shelves and sending a scathing look at the pig-formed seller who looked at them curiously.
"What is it?" Xie Lian asked, smiling.
Hua Cheng's eye bore into his soul. "Omega Anti-Knot Pills. Apparently for omegas suffering from painful ailments."
The smile fell off from Xie Lian's face. His eyes burned and chest ached as dots connected in his head.
"You," he breathed, a small, tiny, pathetic whisper. His mating glands itched.
Hua Cheng smiled and spoke. ”Gege has suffered so much.”
Then he took his hand and pulled him into a soft embrace.