Bai Chunian unplugged the USB drive from the computer, deleted all the files that had been played, and checked the backup on the projector one last time. After confirming there were no traces left, he pushed the chairs and table back into place and walked out the door as if nothing had happened.
A hand reached out from beneath the wall by the door and grabbed Bai Chunian’s pant leg.
Lan Bo sat on the floor with his fish tail curled up, leaning against the wall, one hand clutching Bai Chunian’s ankle. “You’ve been in there so long—did you fall asleep?”
“I got so absorbed in work, I forgot. Why didn’t you call me?” Bai Chunian crouched down to pick Lan Bo up, brushed the dust off his bottom, and polished his scales with his sleeve. “How long have you been waiting?”
“I don’t know, maybe five or six hours. It’s fine to wait for you. I’ll come out once you wake up.”
“Hmm… Thanks for your hard work, sweetheart. It’s getting late. Let’s grab some food at the cafeteria and head home.”
“Scallops—two of them.”
“The cafeteria doesn’t have ones that big.”
“Let’s get them from the aquarium.”
“…I don’t have enough money. I spent it all on the ring…”
“Then maybe next time.”
“No, no, no—I’ll go to the seafood market right now and see if I can find something you like.”
After the two left, the IT department fell silent again. Duan Yang sent Bai Chunian a reassuring message, then locked the office door and prepared to head home.
Unexpectedly, while waiting for the elevator, he ran into Chairman Yan Yi.
The chairman rarely came up here. He appeared to have been waiting in the elevator lobby for quite some time; the document folder in his hand had already been pressed into a slight indentation by his fingertips.
Duan Yang had been helping Bai Chunian secretly investigate the breeding base over the past few days, so seeing the chairman made him feel even more guilty. He gave a perfunctory greeting and tried to slip away.
“Stop right there,” Yan Yi said calmly.
Duan Yang froze at the elevator entrance and stiffly backed away. “Chairman… the training base is closed today. I need to go home and call my brother, so… I won’t be staying late…”
“Send me a copy of what you’ve found,” Yan Yi said.
——
Bai Chunian first drove Lan Bo home, then went to the seafood market himself. He picked out the four largest scallops available, spending over four thousand yuan—now his wallet was emptier than ever.
At the dinner table, Lan Bo used his elongated, sharp claws to dig into the scallop meat. Bai Chunian’s mind drifted, his gaze fixated on Lan Bo’s lower abdomen.
“Randi,” Lan Bo tilted his head at him. “Are you staring at that spot because you want to have sex with me?”
Bai Chunian didn’t answer. Randi had to call his name several times before he snapped back to reality.
“Honey.” Bai Chunian had no appetite; a wave of nausea churned in his stomach. He suddenly stood up, walked around behind Randi, bent down, wrapped his arms around his neck, and said in a clingy voice, “Let’s go get Pearl back, okay?”
“ “The pearl was sent to the research institute headquarters early this morning. You can’t get in. Besides, it’s useless now. Holding onto false hope won’t help—it’s dead. I know that, of course. You’ll only be disappointed.”
It was unclear whether Lan Bo felt a stab of pain in his heart as he stated the facts in such a calm tone, but to Bai Chunian, every word felt like a knife being plunged deep into his own heart, then twisted to inflict agony.
But he didn’t let his extreme grief show. Bai Chunian licked his earlobe, nuzzled his cheek, and said jokingly, “Then let’s go to the breeding facility to visit our old friend. What do you think?”
He wrapped his arms around La Bo’s back obediently, so La Bo couldn’t see the menacing glint in his eyes.
“Randi.” La Bo set down the half-eaten shell, hooked his fingertip around Bai Chunian’s collar, and turned to look at him. “ “I’ve already seen the deep bond between you and your human friend. You said your lifespan is only a hundred years. For those hundred years, I want you to be happy, safe, and with the human you love. That’s a very short time for me too, and I cherish you. After a hundred years, I’ll naturally seek my revenge. It’s not a long time—I can wait. So I won’t go now, and you’re not allowed to go either.”
“It’s just a breeding facility, not the research headquarters. How could it be that dangerous…? Come to think of it, is my lifespan really that short to you? Won’t it be easy for you to find someone else you like later?” Bai Chunian let his lion ears droop dejectedly from beneath his hair. “Will you forget me? What will become of me then?”
“I’ll melt your bones and graft them onto a section of my ribcage. I’ll encase your heart in liquid steel and fuse it into the piece I’ve carved out of my own heart. I’ll take you back to the Caribbean and inlay your skull into the armrest of the throne’s right side.” ” La Bo narrated calmly, as if he were merely outlining a future travel plan—one that was meticulously organized.
“Hmm… honey.” Bai Chunian licked the gland on the back of La Bo’s neck. “But don’t worry, I won’t die too soon.”
La Bo sensed that Little Bai was acting a bit off today, but before he could say anything, he was suddenly startled by a sharp pain at his gland. Two fangs sank deep into his vulnerable gland, sucking vigorously on the pheromones and faint traces of blood filling it.
Although he’d managed to make Lan Bo submit as he’d wished, the fact that it happened right at the dining table was unexpected. Bai Chunian kept kneeling to kiss him, the adoration and worship in his eyes bordering on madness, like a fanatical cultist.
It was unclear where this Alpha had suddenly gotten the stamina from today; even Lan Bo couldn’t keep up with his frequency and eventually collapsed onto the bed, falling asleep.
Bai Chunian lay on his side beside him, his arm draped over the merman’s slender waist. The bandages on Lan Bo had loosened, so Bai Chunian removed them from his body. He’d intended to toss them straight into the fish tank, but suddenly paused, quietly pressing his face against the bandages and inhaling their scent deeply.
“I feel like a pervert,” Bai Chunian muttered with a laugh, setting the bandage aside. He wrapped his arms around La Bo from behind, inhaling the faint scent of his nape as he drifted off to sleep.
But La Bo rolled over, his arm gently resting on Bai Chunian’s shoulder.
Bai Chunian gazed closely at Lan Bo’s serene, peaceful sleeping face, and a wave of drowsiness washed over him. He fashioned a thin chain from the collar around his neck on the spot, placed it in Lan Bo’s hand, then curled up and buried his head against Lan Bo’s chest, falling asleep. A faint, sweet scent drifted from his nostrils into his lungs, and it felt as though his entire being had been soothed.
Compared to lovemaking and kissing, hugs and caresses comforted him far more—to the point where he felt he might develop a case of skin hunger.
Lan Bo’s hand rested on his head and gave it a gentle rub. His hands were so soft; when he touched him, it felt like petals falling on his head.
“Aren’t you asleep yet?” Bai Chunian asked.
“Mm, just keeping you company,” La Bo said sleepily.
When La Bo woke up the next morning, the left side of the bed was empty. Bai Chunian had probably gone to work, leaving a breakfast for him on the dining table.
Lan Bo picked up a piece of toast and crawled back to the bedroom. The secret room next to the bedroom—the armory—was locked.
In the past, Bai Chunian had never been guarded around him. The armory was only locked when both of them were away, and Lan Bo had never been interested in what was inside; he never went in.
However, Xiao Bai’s unusual behavior made Lan Bo feel uneasy. He crawled along the ceiling to the sliding track on the secret room’s wall, slipped his fishtail through the crack, located the independent circuit breaker, and released a strong current to short-circuit it.
The combination lock lit up green, and the secret room’s wall slowly slid open.
The armory looked much the same as always. Scattered blueprints lay on the desk, along with two photo frames. One showed Xiao Bai alongside Yan Yi and Lu Shangjin when he was awarded the Special Operations Unit’s “Free Bird” Medal; the other was a recent addition—a selfie of the two of them together.
The blueprints looked unremarkable; the ones revealing the building’s layout had been put away. La Bo couldn’t make sense of the complex lines, so he walked over to look at something else.
There was also a small tear-off calendar on the table—the kind where you tear off a page each day. La Bo flipped through it casually and accidentally noticed a page marked with a red X.
The mark was deep, bleeding through to the pages below. The scratch looked vicious, as if drawn with profound hatred.
The page marked with the cross was June 24th—more than twenty days from now.
There were no notes on the calendar, so La Bo had no idea what special plans he had for that day.
“……”
La Bo put everything back in its place, locked the door to the secret room, and went to the living room to watch TV.
That evening, Bai Chunian returned from IOA, went straight from the hallway into the bathroom, and didn’t come out for twenty minutes. He’d used the strongly scented body wash they’d bought earlier—the same one Bai Chunian had previously complained was too fragrant.
After his shower, Bai Chunian opened the bathroom door wearing only a pair of boxers, a towel draped over his head.
La Bo was wrapped around the doorknob. As Bai Chunian opened the door, La Bo drifted slowly toward him and devoured the towel draped over his head as if it were a noodle.
“……” Bai Chunian took a step back, his head hitting the doorframe. He sucked in a sharp breath from the pain. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Listening to you shower helps me digest my food. So, you like to count the barbs on your fingers while you’re alone in the bathroom? Just how many are there, anyway?”
“Hey, wait, stop it, damn it.” Bai Chunian felt his ears burn. He yanked La Bo off the doorknob, hoisted him onto his shoulder, tossed him onto the couch, and pinned him down.
The TV in the living room had been left on and began airing the evening news as scheduled.
“Hello, viewers. This is *First Report*. Around 4:00 p.m. today, a serious laboratory accident occurred at a breeding facility affiliated with Research Institute 109 in Hongli City. A researcher was trapped inside an incinerator due to an operational error. Although colleagues rushed to the scene and rescued him, he was pronounced dead after resuscitation efforts failed…”
“Tsk, tsk. How tragic,” Bai Chunian said expressionlessly, lifting his head to look at the TV.
Lan Bo recognized the facility from the internal layout of the breeding base: “That’s the breeding base we used to work at.”
“Did you do something?” Lan Bo asked.
“Hm?” Bai Chunian remained kneeling, leaning over Lan Bo. The white, fluffy lion ears protruding from his hair twitched. “I don’t know. What kind of bad thing could I have done?”
“……” Lan Bo stared at him blankly, feeling as if he’d been shot in the heart; the news report was instantly forgotten.