Chapter 4: A Lamb in the Tiger's Mouth

“Aunt, I’m back.” Today I got home early, but Aunt wasn’t in; she’d gone out again. That was fine. There was still a bit of bruising on my face, and if she saw it, that would be trouble.

I went back to my room, lay down on the bed, and started going through The Woman-Taming Manual, planning to study it in more detail. The techniques weren’t hard to understand; after a few read-throughs I had already memorized most of them. After that, a little practice would be enough.

Then I flipped to the section on medicinal formulas. One recipe called Drunken Desire caught my attention. Its effect was that if you took a little of it every day, it would gradually build a person’s sexual desire. What set it apart from the strong aphrodisiacs I knew was that those harsh drugs relied on a sudden, overpowering surge of potency to instantly destroy a person’s will. In that state, a woman would be basically no different from a sow in heat, with not a shred of self-control. I had absolutely no interest in women in that condition.

The effect of Drunken Desire was the exact opposite. Its potency was gentle and slow, building little by little. In normal use it would only stir desire slightly, never enough to make someone lose control. Even people with strong willpower could suppress it. But the truly terrifying part was that while resisting it, hidden desire would keep accumulating in the subconscious. Once it had built up long enough and then met some outside trigger, that desire would erupt. By then the mind might still be clear, but after holding back for so long the body could no longer be controlled.

Still, as the book said, the drug was only an aid. In the end, success depended on the user’s methods. In real life, what drug could possibly control a woman for her entire life? So only by using the drug together with superb sexual technique, forcing a woman to face the impact of desire while fully conscious, could you make her sink step by step into the abyss of lust.

There was an asterisk in front of Drunken Desire’s name in the book. Out of the entire volume, only this drug had been marked by the author. Clearly he held it in especially high regard.

The effect suited my tastes perfectly, too. In my mind, Aunt’s composed and dignified figure floated up, and a sly, wicked smile touched my lips. A woman like that had to be conquered slowly for it to be interesting. I wondered whether a poised, cultured, dignified mature beauty like Aunt could withstand the influence of Drunken Desire.

Yes. Ever since I had taken off Aunt’s stockings and used them to masturbate the last time, I had become more and more focused on this aunt, someone I hadn’t really been around much before. When I was younger, I didn’t have that kind of awareness; I only treated her like any ordinary elder. Aunt worked in education, and she was usually cold and strict in manner, which didn’t make her the type of woman I liked very much. When we occasionally visited relatives and ran into her, I would just greet her and then go off to do my own thing.

After I got into middle school, I spent my time either studying or going out to chase girls, and I saw Aunt even less often. My impression of her gradually faded.

But now we were living under the same roof. Seeing her every day, morning and night, made it impossible for me to ignore her any longer. I had started looking at this mature relative all over again.

Aunt looked somewhat like my mother. In both appearance and figure, she was among the finest mature women I had ever seen: elegant, dignified, and beautifully maintained. But Aunt’s unique teacherly aura made her seem cold and abstinent in daily life. The more she was like that, the stronger my urge to conquer her became. I wanted to pin her down, let my hands climb over those tall, soft, buoyant breasts, and run wild across her body, staining every inch of that fair skin with my turbid white seed until I dragged this cultured, dignified teacher-wife into the abyss of desire.

As someone about to enter his final year of school, my sex drive was already far stronger than most boys my age, and those immature girl bodies could no longer satisfy me. I had begun to set my sights on the more alluring mature women, and Aunt’s appearance gave me a clear target. Those sky-high jade-like breasts, that smooth oval face, those phoenix eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses, that slender waist you could almost encircle with one hand, and those long beautiful legs that were always wrapped in stockings - all of it kept stimulating my brain through my retina every moment of every day. Heh. Aunt probably thought that her usual dignified, abstinent manner and her somewhat conservative clothes were already more than enough to fulfill the moral obligations of a wife, a mother, and a teacher. She had no idea that it was precisely this image of hers that excited me and made me want to conquer her so badly. I wanted to see that proper wife struggling and moaning beneath me, wanted to drag this cultured mature woman into the abyss of desire with me until she could never climb out.

My desire, my target - it was all so obvious. If this had been when I first arrived, I would never have had the nerve. On one hand, Aunt’s demeanor really did intimidate me and keep me from thinking any dirty thoughts. On the other hand, her tall body looked much bigger than mine, and if I tried anything and she fought back with everything she had, I wasn’t sure I could really subdue her. I might end up trying to catch a chicken and losing the rice instead.

But now things were different. I had The Woman-Taming Manual in my hands, and with that outside help my chances of success had risen sharply. My nerve had gotten bigger too. Still, this kind of thing had to be planned carefully. Every step needed to be laid out in advance so I could hit the mark in one shot and succeed.

Right now Aunt had no idea she had already become my prey. Maybe in her eyes I was still the little brat she could handle with one hand. But that relationship would eventually be overturned.

Before my alarm even rang the next morning, I was already up. Yesterday afternoon, while Aunt was out, I practiced the entire set of techniques at home. Sure enough, going through the whole routine was much more effective. I even felt clear-headed and refreshed when I got up this morning.

Standing by the bed, I dressed myself with a sway and a wobble, while my mind was busy with other things: who could help me with those medicines? I had already looked around before, and the herbs used in those formulas weren’t anything especially rare, but even if I could buy them, I probably wouldn’t have the means to refine them. Maybe I should ask that senior girl for help? No, better to find out what she’s really like first.

Even if I managed to prepare the medicine, I would still need to plan carefully how to use it. Aunt drank a glass of milk every morning, so I could put it in there. This kind of drug was slow-acting, so I’d probably need to keep dosing it for two or three months. Of course, my uncle was also a problem; I couldn’t let him notice anything.

At the dining table, a beautiful mature woman sat upright in her chair, eating breakfast at a measured pace. Across from her sat a young man who still looked almost boyish, drinking milk. As he lifted the glass, his eyes dropped slightly, fixed on the beautiful woman eating breakfast, a spark of desire flashing in them. Of course, I hid my expression well. Aunt didn’t notice anything off. In the days ahead I would still need to keep pretending to be just a carefree, mischievous younger relative so I wouldn’t startle the snake and make Aunt let her guard down.

After breakfast I was just about to head out as usual when Aunt called me back.

“From today on, you won’t go out for the next few days. School is about to start, so you need to get ready.” Aunt set down her chopsticks and said calmly, a sharp glint flashing across the lenses of her gold-rimmed glasses.

“Get ready for what? Aunt, isn’t it just the normal start of school? There are only a few days left. You might as well let me go out and have some fun.” I resisted a little.

“Clack!” Aunt slapped her chopsticks hard onto the plate.

“Your mother sent you here to study, not to play!”

Then Aunt stood up, adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses with one hand, and braced both hands on the edge of the table. She leaned forward, and the pair of massive breasts on her chest seemed ready to burst out of her blouse.

At that moment Aunt looked just like a teacher in class. Through her gold-rimmed glasses, those slightly cold eyes fixed on me as if she meant to see straight through me. The stern pressure rolling off her left me a little short of breath.

“Starting today, you will do three full exam papers, just like in a real test. These are Yucai High’s past final exams from previous years. After you finish them, I’ll have the teachers at school grade them. Based on your results, I’ll focus on tutoring the areas where you’re weak,” Aunt said in an unquestionable tone.

“You can’t bring your phone into the exam, so I’ll keep yours with me during the day these few days and give it back to you at night.”

Hearing Aunt say that, I clenched my teeth. It looked like there would be no entertainment at all during the daytime these next few days. Still, I had a habit of deleting any sensitive browsing history and chat logs on my phone right away, so Aunt probably wouldn’t notice anything.

“Then, Aunt, can I go out to exercise for a while every morning?” I raised my hand like a student reporting to a teacher.

“Exercise?” Aunt said, puzzled. She lifted her wrist to check the time. It was just 7:00 in the morning, right after breakfast.

“Yes, but you have to be back before 8:00, because the exam starts at 8:30.” Aunt wasn’t completely unreasonable. She wasn’t going to oppose a request like that.

“You should feel honored. The best teacher at Yucai High School is personally overseeing your studies. If you weren’t my nephew, I wouldn’t bother,” Aunt said with some pride, standing up straight and crossing her arms.

“Yes, yes, yes, thank you so much, Aunt. I’m going downstairs to exercise now.” After giving Aunt a perfunctory answer, I turned and left without looking back.

On the residential complex’s square, a group of elderly men and women were practicing tai chi to soft music. A few young people jogging past on the roadside came and went in a hurry. I trained the techniques from the book at the corner of the square, and in addition I did some strength training. If I wanted to control a mature woman like Aunt, technique alone still wasn’t enough; I needed to be strong enough too.

Because I chose a fairly secluded spot, no one disturbed me while I ran through the whole routine. Even if a passerby occasionally pointed at me and whispered, it didn’t matter.

After training, I went straight back. When I got inside, I saw that Aunt had already placed the exam papers on my desk. I took the initiative to power off my phone and hand it over, then got to work on the problems. Aunt, meanwhile, sat on the sofa with her legs crossed, watching TV. The flesh of her legs, wrapped in stockings, was pressed together until it bulged slightly. On the foot she had crossed over, she wore a pink patterned slipper. As she watched TV, she rhythmically bounced her lower leg up and down, making the slipper sway around on the ball of her foot, tapping against the rounded heel enclosed in black stockings. Every so often Aunt would turn her head and peek through the crack in the door at me working on the problems. If nothing seemed wrong, she’d turn back to the TV.

The day passed quickly like that. At night, after I finished showering and went back to my room, I felt uncomfortable all over, even more tired than after the hour I had spent training in the complex that morning. School hadn’t even started yet and I was already being worked this hard - what would happen once I actually got into study mode?

I took out my phone and turned it on. Ding-dong. That familiar sound rang out, and I felt incredibly at ease. I hadn’t expected I would ever sink to the point where playing with my phone felt like a luxury.

When I opened WeChat, I saw several avatars flashing. One of them was unfamiliar. When I clicked it open, I realized it was that senior girl’s account. We had exchanged WeChat IDs before I left that day, and I hadn’t expected her to message me so soon.

At 3:00 in the afternoon she had sent me a message, asking why I hadn’t come to the bookstore today and wondering if I had run off. At that time I was still furiously working through the mock exams, and my phone was with Aunt. How could I possibly have had time to reply?

“I’m taking exams these few days, so I don’t have time to go out and have fun.”

After explaining my situation, I opened the app and started scrolling through videos. Before I could even open the first one, the senior girl replied:

“Exams? Have classes started for you already?”

“Not at school. At home...”

I explained my situation to her in detail.

“So you’re still just a little brat, being disciplined by Aunt and not even allowed to leave the house casually.” She even added a sneering emoji.

“Fine. Then I won’t come over anymore. We’ll talk about the thing you’re busy with when I have time.”

“Hey, hey, don’t do that. When you’re free, come by the bookstore and help me out.”

The moment she heard me try to back out and not come, she got anxious right away and urgently told me I had to make time to go back over. She said she had something she needed me to do, but when I asked what it was, she went silent again.

“So mysterious,” I muttered. I didn’t reply to her anymore and kept scrolling through videos. As I kept scrolling, my eyelids grew heavier and heavier. School exams must have really worn me out today, so I simply turned my phone off and went to sleep.

For the next stretch of time, every day was the same: get up early, train, do practice papers, then rest at night. Every morning I chatted with the senior girl about random things, mostly her asking when I was coming over. In the meantime, she also asked how old I was, where I lived, and all sorts of other random personal details, the way someone grilling you in a family registry check or an arranged date would. It was so annoying that in the end I simply stopped replying.

Three days later, I finally finished the three sets of papers Aunt had assigned me, and the day after tomorrow school would start. After getting Aunt’s permission, I could finally go out tomorrow. Being stuck at home these past few days had almost driven me crazy.

Still, even though I was desperate to get out and look around, I didn’t forget to go to the park and train for a while in the morning. On a bench in a corner of the park, I was doing push-ups.

“1, 2, 3...”

I counted as I went.

“57, 58, 59... 60!” Huff.

I pushed myself up with difficulty and gasped for breath. My lean, efficient build looked like a leopard’s, full of wild, predatory beauty. I reached out and squeezed my pectorals and shoulders. They were firm and full to the touch - solid muscle. It looked like the past few days of training had paid off quite a bit.

I had always eaten better than most people since I was little, and I never lacked supplements or anything else, so my body was already a bit sturdier than the average person’s. After these workouts, it looked even more solid and lean, like a young calf.

After resting a little, I left the park, but I didn’t go straight to the bookstore. Instead, I went back to that esports internet cafe and played a few rounds of games, then went to a proper massage-and-therapy clinic for a bone-setting massage. The was a little surprised that a rough-looking young man had come in alone, but who ever really turns down money?

“Well, look at you. Turns out you’re just a little kid after all,” the technician said in surprise when she walked in and saw me.

Seeing someone come in, I automatically took off my shirt and lay face down on the bed. When the technician saw that I wasn’t speaking, she thought I was shy, gave a soft laugh, put her things down, straddled my waist, and started massaging me with oil.

Normally, a female technician’s strength isn’t really enough for an average adult man, but I was still young, so the pressure was just right.

“Ahh... ahh...” As the technician kneaded from my tailbone up to the back of my neck, my body made a creaking sound as my bones shifted. I let out a comfortable groan.

“You’re still so young, and you’re already running around places like this. Don’t tell me you don’t want to study hard?” the technician said from behind me.

“Sister, whether it’s big or small, wouldn’t you know if you just touched it?” I said with a carefree look on my face, obviously already an old hand at this.

“Oh, I’d certainly like to see for myself, but this is a proper establishment. We can’t do anything improper here.”

Though the technician sister said that, the thighs on either side of my waist slowly tightened. Her fully stocked stockings-clad thighs and calves pressed perfectly against me, and as she massaged, her delicate skin rubbed slowly against my body through the smooth stockings. Even the fingernails on her toes, painted red, scraped against my thighs through the stockings, making me feel wonderfully good.

Although it was a proper massage parlor, the technicians in there were all cunning as foxes, always finding ways to flirt just up to the line so customers would remember them and book them again next time. But I had come this time purely to relax with a massage, so I wasn’t thinking about any of the flashy extras.

After walking out of the massage shop, I loosened up my joints. It seemed like a place like this was going to be a regular stop from now on. But if I had someone at home who could massage me anytime and anywhere, that would be even better. Aunt’s image surfaced in my mind again, and it looked like this would have to be done step by step.

When I got to the bookstore door, I found a sign hanging outside that said Closed. Just as I was feeling disappointed and about to leave, I reflexively tugged at the door and discovered that it was unlocked.

“Did they forget to lock it?” I wondered.

“Anyone there?” I pushed the door open, poked my head in, and called out, but no one answered.

I slowly pushed the door open and went inside, then closed it behind me. I looked at the counter; the seat was empty. There wasn’t a single person in the shop. I lifted my foot carefully and moved deeper inside.

“Miss Bai?... Senior?... Demon queen?...” I called softly as I walked, but no one answered.

The bookstore wasn’t very large. If someone had been here, I should have noticed long ago. It looked like she really wasn’t here today.

Ding... ding... ding...

Just as I was about to leave, a soft melody drifted into my ear. I followed the sound and saw a faint glimmer on the floor in an inconspicuous corner. The sound was coming from a crack there. When I moved closer to look, I realized there was a pitch-black door there, blending seamlessly into the surroundings. No wonder I hadn’t noticed it before.

For some reason, instead of knocking, I gently pushed at the door and opened a crack just wide enough for me to see inside.

The light in the room was a bit dazzling, so my eyes, which had adjusted to the darkness of the bookstore, had to narrow for a moment. Once I got used to the light and started looking around the room, what I saw made my eyes widen on the spot:

This was a bedroom that looked fairly spacious. In the far corner stood a large dark-red wooden bed, and the headboard and footboard were carved with somewhat old-fashioned floral and bird patterns. The bedding was neatly arranged at the head of the bed: a pink-and-white sheet, a light blue quilt, and a pillow covered with a white patterned pillowcase. Along the wall side of the bed stood a row of dolls of different sizes. But unlike the usual cute and cozy dolls, these were mostly ugly-cute in a weird way, and there were even two skeleton dolls.

Near the outer side of the head of the bed there was also a dark-red wooden desk, piled high with neatly stacked books, showing just how studious the room’s owner was.

The most surprising thing of all was a life-size skeleton standing beside the desk. Normally, hardly anyone would put something like that in their room. But this skeleton had been dressed in clothes covered in graffiti, and it was even wearing a pair of black sunglasses, making the whole thing less creepy and a little more ridiculous.

I had gone into plenty of girls’ private rooms before, but this was the first time I’d ever seen a room decorated like this. Even so, that still wasn’t enough to shock me. What really made my eyes go wide was the beautiful figure standing directly opposite the door I had opened, so striking that I felt like a nosebleed might burst out any second. Or rather, “phantom” might be a better word.

A striking figure with a very youthful air stood with her back to the doorway, looking at herself in the mirror. She wasn’t wearing a coat, and great stretches of snow-white skin were bared to the air. Her build was perfectly balanced, her shoulders and hips aligned, her waist narrow enough to give her back the shape of an hourglass standing upright.

She wasn’t completely naked. From behind, I could see she still had on a bra and panties, but they were cut from openwork lace, with a few straps and ribbons linking the bra to the panties, cinching tightly around her lush body. On her legs she wore white thigh-high stockings, edged with lace patterns, and at the tops of her thighs, two garters on each side connected the stockings to the lace panties.

I might still have been young, but I was already an old hand at this. One look was enough to tell that what she had on was no ordinary underwear at all, but real lingerie built to tempt. Nobody needed to tell me who could possibly be in this room right now besides the senior sister. Even a fool could figure it out.

"Damn." I wiped the cold sweat off my forehead, my voice trembling a little. I couldn’t tell whether it was from excitement or something else. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that I had caught the senior sneaking around in her room trying on lingerie. I had once helped her put medicine on her thigh, but back then the lower half of her body had still been hidden beneath her skirt. I never expected the view under that skirt to be like this.

I never would’ve guessed she had a fetish like this. Her tastes were pretty heavy. I knew peeking at a woman like this was wrong, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the figure changing clothes.

The senior stood motionless with her back to me, as if she were studying herself in the mirror too, admiring the way she looked in that lingerie. Whether it was the boy outside the door stealing a look, or the girl lost in admiring her own body, time seemed to have stopped for both of them.

I don’t know how long it was before the senior’s back finally moved. She reached out, picked up the phone beside her, swiped a few times across the screen, opened it, and typed a few words.

"Ding-dong!" My phone rang outside the door, the alert for a new message on WeChat. The figure in front of the mirror stiffened at once, and I nearly stopped breathing. I never expected her to text me at a time like this, and it happened so suddenly I hadn’t even put my phone on silent.

The senior slowly turned around, her face cold as frost, her phone clenched tightly in her hand.

"Tap! Tap! Tap!" Her white-stockinged feet stepped heavily across the floor, each step sounding like it landed right on my chest. With every step she took, my heart jumped violently in response. At last she reached the doorway, paused, and pushed the door open with her jade-white hand.

"Creak!"

The door opened, revealing me standing there helplessly, clutching at my clothes, and by then I had already given up any thought of running.

"Thud! Thud! Thud!"

The senior walked toward me, and I kept backing away until my heel caught on a book behind me and I fell to the floor. I struggled to get back up, but before I could, a white-stockinged leg stepped onto my chest.

"You saw everything?" the senior said coldly.

"I... I... I..." I was completely speechless. My whole body had locked up, as if I had lost control of it.

Seeing that I still wasn’t answering, the heel of the foot planted on my chest lifted, and the pointed toe slowly traced a circle across my chest. Through the stockings, her pink toenails scraped against me, then lifted a little, the back of her toes hooking under my chin and forcing my head up until I was looking straight into her eyes. I could even catch the faint fragrance drifting from beneath my chin.

"Enjoying the view?" The senior folded her arms under her breasts and looked down at me like a queen. The pair of jade-white breasts pressing against her chest were smaller than my aunt’s, but for her age they were still remarkable.

Faced with her interrogation, I naturally had nothing to say. When I still didn’t react, the slender foot on my chest eased off, and she slowly moved it away.

"Come in."

Without turning back, the senior walked into the room and left me standing there alone, adrift in the wind.

I don’t know how long it took before the pounding in my chest finally eased. I slowly braced myself and stood up, only then realizing my back was already soaked through with cold sweat. I straightened my wrinkled clothes, brushed the dust off them, and then followed her into the room.

The moment I stepped inside, I saw the senior sitting by the desk with her legs crossed. Her pale, stockinged legs were stacked one over the other, drawing a graceful curve through the air. The slightly full thighs were cinched tight by the stockings, pressing in a little at the flesh. The whole leg looked slender and long, yet still full of soft curves, like a finely cured ham that was both crisp and tender. Her little feet were evenly shaped and delicate, her toes curled beneath pale pink nail polish, betraying that the lady of the house was not nearly as calm as she pretended to be. From toes to instep to ankle, the stockings made her feet look smooth and pale. At the ankle, the fabric was tugged up by the rounded heel, stretching slightly, and the flesh-pink tone beneath the white stockings showed through so clearly. The senior’s dainty little feet were so warm and smooth, so perfectly shaped, that I almost wanted to cup them in my hands and work them over like prized stone beads, rubbing and teasing them through the stockings to feel every inch of that skin.

By then the senior had put on a short skirt and blouse, though you could still catch flashes of spring through the white blouse. I swallowed and shuffled slowly up to her, completely at a loss for what to do.

"Weren’t you supposed to be taking exams at home? Why did you come over today?"

I told the senior everything, stressing that the moment I had free time, I rushed straight over to see whether there was anything I could help her with.

"Oh? So I’m pretty important to you, then?" The senior gave a teasing smile.

"Of course, of course. You’ve been wanting me to come by these past few days, so I figured you must need something from me. That’s why, the second I had free time, I came right over." I smiled ingratiatingly.

"Looks like you’ve already made your resolution."

The senior picked up a small pair of scissors from the desk and snipped the air twice, then eyed the lower half of my body with obvious bad intentions. There seemed to be a hint of anticipation in her gaze?

"Do you know what I study? Or, rather, do you know what I want to do right now?"

The senior stuck out a tiny pink tongue and licked her upper lip as she spoke.

"S-senior, aren’t you from the same school as me? Wouldn’t you just be studying the usual curriculum?... What does that have to do with what you want to do now?"

Seeing the senior’s somewhat malicious gaze, I had a bad feeling, and even my voice started to shake. Only then did I look around and realize the bookstore door had a sign hanging on it saying closed for the day, and the room I was in was the innermost room in the bookstore. In other words, no outsiders would be coming in no matter what. Worse still, this room was the senior’s private bedroom, and right now only the two of us were here. I immediately felt like a little white rabbit that had thrown itself into the trap, with nowhere to run. But then I thought back to the way the senior had looked while wearing that lingerie at the start, that long, delicate figure... uh, if the senior wanted to do something to me, honestly, I might not be able to refuse. I comforted myself in my heart, acting as if I were the one taking the bigger loss.

"The things I study in school are only the side work. I’m also teaching myself some traditional Chinese and Western medicine, so as your senior I’m actually very interested in the human body. But what’s in books is always separated by a sheet of paper. I want to get a little more intimate with some things, so..."

As my eyes widened wider and wider, the senior slowly opened her red lips.

"J-junior, c-could you... l-let me... take a look at... your... down there?"

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