Meng Yuan stayed still for a moment, attempting to hold onto his rationality. "What's your name?" he asked hoarsely.
The man on the ground looked up at him but didn't respond. He was young – younger than Meng Yuan anyway, though probably not by too many years. Now that Meng Yuan was looking, he could see that the man was dirty, both his clothing and his skin, as though he'd been performing some kind of manual labor before being brought here.
"I asked you your name, and yet you didn't respond," Meng Yuan said, circling around him. The man tried to follow with his gaze, whipping his head to the other side when Meng Yuan passed behind him, but he had stopped there, just out of sight, and the man clearly didn't dare attempt to move in order to turn around and face him. "Do you know who I am?"
When he still did not receive an answer, he said, "Since you don't seem to know, I am His Majesty the Emperor, and generally when I ask a question, it's expected for it be answered." He walked back around to the front of the man who was trembling on his knees before him. "Now tell me: What is your name?"
The man's lips quivered as if he might cry, and Meng Yuan lost all patience with him. In a flash of movement, he had him by the throat, leaning down in front of him, their faces centimeters apart. The man's head tilted back to look at him automatically, though he looked as if he regretted the action as soon as he'd done it. His skin was lighter than Meng Yuan's despite appearing as though he'd been out in the sun, and his eyes were darker, nearly black but not quite.
"If you know what's good for you, then you'll speak to me," the emperor said, his voice low and dangerous. "So far I have only asked you one simple question, and yet you cannot even deign to answer that. Fine, then. I'll ask you the question I truly want the answer to: Eight days ago, did you or did you not rape my sister?"
The man swallowed and Meng Yuan felt the action with the hand still pressed over his throat. But his lips remained closed.
Enraged, Meng Yuan's hand tightened on the man's throat, which elicited a gasp from him. "You –"
Abruptly, the man shook his head violently, his eyes closed.
"Is this supposed to be the answer to my question?" Meng Yuan asked. "Oh, so you didn't then?"
The man shook his head again, slightly less frantically this time, his eyes reopening, and when he looked up at the other man's face, so close to his own, his eyes were suddenly full of hope. Disgusted by this undeserved hopefulness, Meng Yuan moved in closer and asked, "Then why does my sister say it was you?"
The man swallowed again, the hopeful expression fading.
"Was she mistaken?" Meng Yuan asked, his voice deceptively calm, but it seemed this man could see through this deception because he didn't appear to be reassured in any way. "Who do you think I'll believe? Think I'll believe you over her just because you shook your head at me?"
This time, the man didn't bother shaking his head in response, as though he already knew it was pointless.
Abruptly, Meng Yuan thrust the man away from him and with his hands chained as they were, he hit the ground hard on his side, still without making more sound than a gasp upon impact. And yet this only served to incense his attacker even more. Meng Yuan kicked him in the stomach and ribs, and when it still did not elicit a sound from him, he did so over and over again until the man coughed up a mouthful of blood onto the floor beneath him. Still, the only sound he made was that of his retching.
Meng Yuan gripped him by the front of his shirt and dragged him to his feet. "You can't even open your mouth to offer some excuse, some explanation? Not only will you not confess to your crime, but you won't even attempt to defend yourself?"
Without warning, Meng Yuan backed him into the desk he had recently been working at, so close that the man could have tried to fight him, but he still didn't. Taking a step back, Meng Yuan drew back his fist and punched him near where he'd already kicked him. The man doubled over in pain silently, and Meng Yuan gripped him by the face, forcing him to look at him. His mouth was open slightly now as he continued to gasp for air after Meng Yuan's various attacks on him, but still, he remained silent.
"Don't you understand?" Meng Yuan said quietly. "You hurt my sister in a way I cannot forgive. I want you to feel what she did. I want your pain. I want to hear your pain. The more stubborn you are, the more I will hurt you. Do you understand?"
The man nodded quickly, as if terrified of not answering the question, but this only succeeded in further enraging his punisher.
"You..." Meng Yuan could not even finish his own sentence, and he lifted his hand to strike the man across his face. One blow didn't feel like enough, so he struck him a second time and raised his hand for a third, but his hand paused midair. Could anything he did to this man compare to what his sister had gone through? He remembered Que Hua's face immediately afterward – the fear, the humiliation – and something broke inside of him as he moved without ever actually making up his mind.
Roughly turning the other man around, Meng Yuan pushed him down face first onto the desk. If he had cared to notice, he would have seen that the impact had centered on the man's nose and blood began to trickle from it. But his focus was elsewhere as he grasped onto the man's lower garments, stripping him of them. The man's hands scrabbled against the desk, first underneath himself, still chained, until he managed to reach forward with them, only finding purchase at the edge of the other side. His fingers gripped tightly, but he was not strong enough to pull away from Meng Yuan, who was clearly the more powerful of the two.
Meng Yuan had never been intimate with a man before, but he knew how it was done, and the man lying face down on the desk did not even have time to understand what he was about to do before Meng Yuan had already forced his way inside him. The fingers holding onto the desk turned white as Meng Yuan gripped his waist and moved in and out of him, not only careless of the other man's discomfort, but hoping for it.
"Do you think this is how she felt?" he demanded, never once stopping his own movement. "This pain, this shame? Did you stop to think about that before you forced yourself on her?" In the midst of the other man's silence, he demanded, "Even now you won't answer me?!"
It had been some time since Meng Yuan had relieved himself in such a way, so it didn't take him long to arrive at that juncture, and it caught him off guard in the midst of his anger. He gasped, gripping the other man's skin as he climaxed unexpectedly. Ashamed and angered at himself for evidently enjoying what was meant only to punish the man in front of him, he leaned forward and gripped the man by the hair on the back of his head.
"You won't even cry out in pain?!" he demanded, pulling the man back and turning his head so he could see his face, and then he paused. The man's eyes were closed, his mouth open in nearly silent sobs, tears drenching his pale cheeks, mingling with the blood from his injured nose. He never once opened his eyes, attempting instead to turn his head away as if he were ashamed. Meng Yuan let him, releasing his hair. He stepped back from him, watching as the man's muscles trembled when he exited his body and his own fluid mixed with the blood dripping down towards the man's thighs.
Even as he stood there unmoving, wondering what the hell he had just done, the man did not try to stand. His body convulsed with sobs, and Meng Yuan felt a complicated sense of regret as he readjusted his own clothing. Not knowing what else to do, he retrieved the other man's clothes and dressed him again. He could have told the man to do it himself, but he wasn't sure he would have or could have heeded him. Blood began to slowly stain the back of his clothing when the fabric touched his skin, and every time Meng Yuan's hands touched him during this process, he would either flinch, or his muscles would tremble involuntarily.
Once the man was fully clothed again, Meng Yuan pulled him off the desk and set him on his feet, turning him around so they were facing each other. But as soon as Meng Yuan's hands left his body, the other man's legs turned weak and he collapsed forward against Meng Yuan's chest. Instinctually, he caught him, intending to merely right him again, but when he looked down, the man was unconscious, his eyes closed, his cheek pressed against Meng Yuan's chest, blood staining the fabric of the emperor's clothing as a result.
Shocked, the emperor stared down at him a moment before wrapping an arm around his torso under his arms and dragging him haphazardly toward the door to the hall. Using his other hand to yank open the door, he faced the guards who were waiting in the hall. He shoved the man's limp body toward the nearest one, who hurried to catch him.
"Take him to the prison," he said mercilessly, and then he slammed the door closed.
[Goldfish says: Some of the horribleness is over now 😭]