If You Want to Get Ahead, Get a Hat

Jin Guangyao gave his final orders of the night to a pair of servants, in front of the steps up to his allotted rooms. They bowed and he nodded stiffly, tense all the way from his jaw to his collarbone, and then watched until they had stepped back into the main building of Koi Tower. Only then did he turn and climb up to the private quarters he shared with his wife.

Staircases everywhere. Why did every building here have to have its own staircase?

Inside the door, he shook his shoulders, as if he could shake off the strains of the day. His father's casual words to others, in Jin Guangyao's hearing: deliberate insults that the so-generously legitimised son simply had to bear. The violence of Madam Jin, who had, that afternoon, grabbed his forearm and twisted it around so that his layers of sleeves had left a burn mark on the skin.

His new family might be disappointing, but at least he had one ally on his side, one friend who had stood by him for years.

Jin Guangyao unfastened the broad Qinghe-style belt that felt both confining and reassuring around his waist. He looped it over his arm and padded softly through the delicately-appointed living space.

Despite his stealth, Qin Su had apparently heard his entrance. She stood at the doorway of her room, her hair loose and cheeks pink from sleep.

"Zhangfu, you're back so late?" she asked. Her tone was somewhat plaintive. "Will you come to bed?"

"Hush, go back to sleep, qizi," he told her. "It's late, but I still have things to do. I'll sleep in my own bed tonight."

She frowned, but retreated docilely.

Jin Guangyao continued on his way through the apartment, leaving a sheaf of reports on his desk to deal with the next day. Why did it have to be this week that the fragile competence of his administrative staff picked to shatter? The only week this season that he and his two sworn brothers—a laughable fiction!—could all be in the same place, and Jin Guangyao had to spend half of it running around after servants who couldn't do their jobs.

His hand tightened around the jade paperweight at the memory of Nie Mingjue's face when he'd had to excuse himself from their discussions, once again, to mitigate a logistical disaster. What emotions had been in that flat stare: contempt, at seeing his former vice-general fall so low, or satisfaction that he'd got what he deserved? Anger that he, Sect Leader Nie, had to waste his time with such a myrmidon?

At any rate, it was better than the pity and solicitude pouring off his er-ge. If you feel that sorry for me, do something about it! he thought savagely. The First Jade of Lan would take his father's money to rebuild the Cloud Recesses, but heavens forbid he do anything as vulgar as kiss him.

The edges of the paperweight were cutting into Jin Guangyao's palm. He set it carefully down. He had his one true companion; he had to remember that.

In his bedroom, he made himself stop and take slow, calming breaths. He shucked off his round-collared robe, folded it, and then slid his softer inner robes one after another off his shoulders. It was time to relax, now, time to let his friend take care of him.

His friend understood his struggle. His friend had been his greatest help, these last years, just as he'd known to expect.

(If only he'd expected more of the troubles this day, this week, these last wretched years had brought to him! Some of them, it was true, were self-inflicted. Jin Guangyao had only himself to blame for not anticipating how much it would take out of him to shepherd the obtuse Su Minshan through cultivation society, or to buy Nie Huaisang's continuing love with pretty toys. They were protegés of two very different kinds, he reflected, before wrenching his attention back to the present.)

Jin Guangyao lifted his black gauze hat from his head and set it gently on top of an inlaid cabinet, precisely in the centre. The carnelian decoration winked at him as his arms briefly blocked the candlelight from its polished surface, and the fine hairs on his arms rose up. At this point in proceedings, his body always seemed to catch on to what he had planned. As he unwound the Nie braids that he still put in every morning, freeing his hair into gentle waves, he felt the first stirrings of arousal.

He reached out for the hat again, holding it between the very tips of his fingers, and put it back on his head, taking his time to arrange it perfectly. Silk brushed against his cock as it lifted itself slowly away from his body.

There was still one final barrier to breach before he could have what he needed. Squaring his shoulders, Jin Guangyao stepped through his enormous bronze mirror and into his treasure room.

"Xue Chengmei?" he called out. It was dark, but that didn't mean the 'guest disciple' wasn't skulking around. He traced a fire talisman in midair and flicked his fingers to light the lamps, yet again regretting that the nature of their experiments meant his most private chambers had to be shared with an unpredictable delinquent.

There was no answer. Quickly, before yet another duty could distract him from the relief of his friend, he checked that each part of the treasure room was empty and slapped a locking talisman on the other secret doorway. He would not be disturbed.

Not that he ever wanted Xue Chengmei's eyes on him, but his attention right now would be unbearable. He shuddered.

The reverse side of the mirror reflected just as well as its front. In the honey-coloured depths, he saw shelves of rare treasures, some of them forged by his own hands. Before them stood Jin Guangyao himself: not tall, perhaps, but standing straight, his chin firm and his head upright. And on top of his head, his hat.

The hat was on correctly, but he checked it anyway, reflexively adjusting the strings that tied under his chin.

"A man of virtue dresses properly. A-Yao, straighten your hat." His mother's voice echoed in his head. He didn't want to be thinking about his mother in these circumstances, but he'd come to accept that he couldn't control when memories of her would intrude on him.

This hat was the first thing he'd bought himself after he'd been accepted into the Jin Clan. The most expensive thing he'd ever bought for himself, at that point. It was a sign of his right to be here. Not taking his eyes away from his reflection's, Jin Guangyao stepped closer. In the same movement, he pushed down his trousers and cast them to one side, out of sight of the mirror. In the cooler air, his erection jolted and rose further.

He ran a cautious finger along the gold braid across his forehead. In the mirror, his cock swelled further, the head darkening. It was time.

Trailing the fingers of his left hand down his belly and through the dark hair beneath, he took himself in hand. For now he moved slowly, just pushing the foreskin up over the head and pulling it back again, feeling the increase in sensitivity with each stroke. He moved his other hand upwards, onto the gleaming carnelian that sat directly above his Jin vermilion mark—touching it just as he squeezed beneath the head of his cock, he let out an involuntary moan.

His hand began to move faster up and down the shaft. At the top of each stroke, he smoothed his fingers directly across the damp head, twitching each time his fingertip grazed the slit. He pressed his right palm against the rough texture of the hat, trying to ground himself, to give himself the strength to draw this out, but it wasn't going to work: he needed this now.

One-handed, unwilling to let go of himself, Jin Guangyao struggled to loosen the ties of his hat. He'd wrapped those strings around his cock on previous occasions, and he grew harder even thinking of that now. It made him clumsier. He gritted his teeth, finally got the fastener down far enough, and pulled the hat off by its tall crown.

He caught sight of his own face in the mirror as he did so, and even in this moment of urgency, it shocked him into stopping for a second. His reflection's eyes were wild, its cheeks hot with blood, and he saw a flash of teeth in its part-opened mouth. More arresting than that, though, was how much the shape of his face changed without it. He looked younger, softer, despite the excitement in his eyes—more delicate. Vulnerable.

Enough distraction.

He closed his eyes and touched the hat to his face, feeling the gentle prickle of the gauze against his skin and the stiffer scrape of the braid. He mouthed at it, kisses that would have been wet if they'd been pressed to the lips of another person; here, now, he had to be careful. Only the tip of his tongue brushed the rigid gauze, reveling in the texture and the faint, clinging taste of soot. His gasping breaths rattled against it. Without his conscious choice, his left hand picked up speed.

When he dragged a broad tongue against the polished stone, still cool despite the heat that poured off him, his cock fattened in his grip and his head felt light.

His hand shaking, Jin Guangyao drew the hat carefully down the front of his body. It left a tingling trail through the thin layer of sweat, sweeping past the narrow scar by his navel that was the only souvenir of his first time in the Jin Sect.

He forced himself to slow down, to stop, drawing in deep breaths one after the other until he could bear to stand still, just holding his heavy dick in one hand and his hat—his faithful friend—beside it. The tension in his thighs would not abate. He felt a single drop of precome well up to sit, sparkling in the candlelight, in the slit of his cock. This was the moment.

Switching so that he held his hat in his left hand, and himself in the right, Jin Guangyao guided his dick into the dark cavern of the hat.

There was a narrow leather band that ran all around the inner edge, and when it brushed against the edge of his drawn-back foreskin he let out a long, shuddering breath through his teeth. He wanted more, he wanted everything—he wanted to bite down on the raised crown and worry it like a dog, to crush it against him until the looping patterns of the braid were scarred into his softest skin, to thrust and slam himself against it until both he and the hat were ruined.

Instead, he was careful. Jin Guangyao was a careful man, but nowhere else in his life was his care so well rewarded.

Smoothed by the precome that was now beading up continuously, his cock head slid across the lacquered-silk lining of the hat. He pressed up into it, as hard as he could bear, and felt his hips twitch. Harder, briefly; his eyes rolled back in his head at the pain. Finally, he let himself move his hand again, stroking up and down a shaft that never got stiffer than when he was doing this.

He gave himself over to it, tightening his grip and squeezing harder at the tip, rubbing the head against the lining in patterns that got steadily less coordinated. Gold light scattered from the decorations, their designs blurring in motion. The great carnelian seemed to glow—he pulled out for a moment so he could rub the underside of his swollen glans against it, whimpering at the pull of the sensitive, tacky skin against the glossy surface. Then he shoved his cock back inside the hat again, jaw clenched, stomach tensing, pulling into himself for the last, rapid strokes until his orgasm burst out of him, a shockwave that started in his balls and overtook his entire body, head to toes.

With the last of his come still spurting out of him, his knees buckled and he half-collapsed, half-slid down the bronze mirror to the floor, where he stayed, head drooping and lungs heaving, for an unmeasurable length of time.

It was chilly in the secret room, by the time Jin Guangyao could sit up. The hairs on his arms were standing up. There was an irregular spatter of come on the mirror and his right hand, which had smeared onto his chest and thighs, and his beautiful hat had rolled away to one side. Once he'd wiped himself off with the trousers he'd discarded earlier, he gently picked it up with a clean section of the silk.

He always meant to move it out of the way at the last moment, but it seemed this was one of the few areas where his control was lacking. Nonetheless, the hat had mostly escaped: only a little semen had hit it, and all on the inside, where it could be sponged away with a deft hand. By now, Jin Guangyao was practised at this kind of maintenance. When he'd finished, no one would have imagined the use his hat had been put to.

He pressed his lips drily to the carnelian gem one final time, and then polished even that touch away. With rather less particularity, he took care of the rest of the mess he'd made, rinsed his face and body, and pulled on trousers and an undershirt from one of the many cabinets in this room. Of course, the bulk of his wardrobe was stored in his bedchamber, but Jin Guangyao found it useful to keep all manner of supplies here. In an emergency, he would be able to shelter here for weeks.

He'd take his wife with him, of course—although the thought of being locked at close quarters with her entreating eyes and injured expressions made his skin crawl. Xue Chengmei would most likely worm his way in, too. Of course, that depended on what kind of emergency it was, and whether he had created it.

The thought reminded him that he should unseal the other entrance to the secret room. Before he'd done more than turn his head towards it, crashing and banging noises erupted from that end of the chamber. As if summoned, Jin Guangyao's most promising demonic cultivator had arrived.

Burning up the talisman with a flick of his fingers, Jin Guangyao slid the door open before the ash had even fallen to the floor. In the hallway outside stood the gangling youth, wearing—thank goodness—not his sparks-amid-snow disciple's uniform but nondescript black robes, wet and muddy at the hems. Something dark reddish-brown had dried on one temple and cheekbone, and a slaughterhouse stink rolled off the canvas sacks at his feet.

Jin Guangyao did not step out of his way. He narrowed his eyes and waited for at least a word of the respect that was his due.

"Do you even wear that thing to bed?" Xue Chengmei crowed, his eyes alight with glee. "I knew it. Let me in, Lianfang zun, I'm dripping all over the floor here!"

With a sigh, Jin Guangyao spun on his heel. "Mop up after yourself, Chengmei. I don't want every serving maid and junior following your footsteps directly to our door, understand?"

"Good ni-ight, Lianfang zun!" he sang to his retreating back, followed by the sound of sackcloth being hauled into the room.

Jin Guangyao entered his bedroom less tense than when he had left it, though not as relaxed as he had hoped. He set his beloved friend down in its position atop the ornately decorated cabinet, where he could see it with his head on the pillow, and lay down to sleep.

It was the last thing he saw as his eyes slid shut. In six hours, he would have to get up and deal with everything this day had assaulted him with, all over again, but at least his companion would be with him.