After several months away, the fighters in the backstage area had been replaced by a new batch of unfamiliar faces. Xu Ze went to take a look at the changing room at the far end. Cigarette butts littered the floor, bottles of alcohol lay scattered and toppled over, and all sorts of strange syringes and vials of reagents were strewn across the table.
The smells of cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, and various pheromones mingled together. Xu Ze frowned as a wave of nausea surged over him. He covered his nose and mouth with the back of his hand and turned toward the manager’s office.
He’d encountered these foul, mixed odors plenty of times before, but this was the first time they’d made him feel like vomiting. For a moment, Xu Ze couldn’t tell whether it was because he’d been away for too long and was no longer accustomed to the place, or whether something else was going on.
With a feeling he couldn’t quite identify, Xu Ze raised a hand and rested it against his lower abdomen. He’d even bought a pregnancy test, but it seemed that only now was he truly processing what Chi Jiahan had said. His expression began to grow a little bewildered.
He stood there in a daze for a second or two, then lowered his hand and walked to the manager’s office. He knocked several times.
“Come in.”
It was Tang Feiyi’s voice. Xu Ze pushed open the door and entered.
The chair behind the desk was empty. The manager wasn’t there. On the sofa nearby, Tang Feiyi was lounging lazily with an alpha in his arms. The alpha looked quite young.
“It’s getting harder and harder to get you to show your face.” Tang Feiyi took a puff of his cigar, then turned his head and blew the smoke into the face of the alpha beside him. He said, “See that? As long as you’re shameless enough and willing to spread your legs, even being a dog at the feet of the powerful is more comfortable than making a living on your own.”
The alpha looked Xu Ze up and down. “That only works if you have a face like his, though.”
Xu Ze showed no reaction whatsoever. There was no visible anger or humiliation at the insult. He simply asked calmly, “What do you want to discuss with me?”
“Your six-hundred-thousand-yuan penalty for breaking the contract.” Tang Feiyi ran his hand up and down the alpha’s waist absentmindedly. “It’s not that much, is it? Go back and wag your ass and whine a few times for your master. Maybe you’ll get the money in no time.”
Xu Ze remained silent.
Tang Feiyi shot him a sidelong glance. “Otherwise, you can do what you did before. Come here every week and fight until your contract expires. Xu Ze, I’ve already been very generous with you. If any of the other fighters refused to cooperate, do you think they’d get treatment as good as yours?”
“I’m done fighting.” Xu Ze answered without hesitation.
On his way backstage, he’d run into Xiaofeng. Xiaofeng had seemed surprised to see him and pulled him aside, asking anxiously, “No. 17, are you going to fight here again?”
“Things are getting more and more chaotic around here. Fighters keep dying in the ring, and everyone seems to have gone crazy.” Xiaofeng had long been familiar with how messed up the club was, but even so, his expression was full of fear as he spoke. “I don’t think there are any normal people left in this place.”
Xu Ze had replied, “Okay. Thank you for telling me.”
He’d never intended to return in the first place. The early admission exams would soon begin one after another. Getting into university had always been a goal he’d silently held on to. Otherwise, he could have abandoned his studies long ago and devoted himself entirely to boxing for money.
Ever since his first underground boxing match several years earlier, he’d been reminding himself that he had to escape this life someday, even when his face was bruised and swollen and his mind was too battered to think clearly.
Now that his opportunity was finally within reach, Xu Ze didn’t want anything to go wrong. He could cut back on sleep to work at the auto repair shop, but he would never step into the octagon again.
Xu Ze knew perfectly well that Tang Feiyi’s only purpose in forcing him to return this time was revenge. If more and more fighters really were dying in the ring, he might be next.
Even if he wasn’t, Xu Ze couldn’t guarantee what drugs or injections his opponent might take before a match. If someone died during a fight, with everyone watching, Xu Ze would become a murderer in the eyes of the law. He’d never be able to clear his name or escape the consequences.
Tang Feiyi curled his lips into a smile that never reached his eyes.
“Looks like you’ve really got someone backing you now. You can agree to pay six hundred thousand without even batting an eyelid.”
He brushed the cigar ash off his knee.
“Then we’ll follow the contract. Pay the penalty within a week.”
“Otherwise, I can’t guarantee that someone won’t go to your home or school to collect the debt.”
Xu Ze offered no response. He turned around, opened the door, and walked out.
“Just letting him go like that? That doesn’t sound like you.” The alpha glanced at the scar on Tang Feiyi’s right wrist.
Tang Feiyi sneered but said nothing.
Xu Ze walked quickly, wanting to leave this place as soon as possible. The backstage passage was narrow. Even though he was already walking sideways, he still accidentally bumped into one of the alphas walking shoulder to shoulder.
“Sorry,” Xu Ze said quietly, preparing to continue on his way.
“Number 17?” The other man looked like a boxer too, and he had been drinking. He raised a hand to stop Xu Ze. “You’re Number 17, right?”
Xu Ze looked at him without speaking.
“I heard you hooked up with a new sponsor. So why are you crawling back here with your tail between your legs now?” Reeking of alcohol, the man leaned closer to Xu Ze. “I’ve wanted to fight you for a long time. I want to see whether you’re really as good as everyone says. How about we set up a match?”
“I don’t have time.” Xu Ze went around him, unwilling to get entangled with him. The bodyguards Lu Heyang had assigned should be nearby. This place was full of Tang Feiyi’s people, and Xu Ze didn’t want them to get dragged into trouble for stepping in to help him.
Annoyed by Xu Ze’s attitude, the other man said, “If you don’t have time, then let’s do it now!” He swung his fist at Xu Ze’s face.
Xu Ze quickly turned his head to dodge, but his back slammed into the wall. In that instant, his first thought was to cover his lower abdomen with one hand. Then he bent his right arm and delivered a clean, vicious elbow strike straight to the alpha’s face. The alpha grunted and crashed into a crate full of empty liquor bottles beside the passage.
The other boxers froze for a second before throwing down the bottles in their hands and charging forward. Xu Ze stood his ground without retreating, removed his wristband, and stared at them expressionlessly. There was a sharp, ruthless edge to him that belonged to Number 17.
The pheromones of an S-rank alpha spread aggressively without any restraint, pressing down on the several drunken alphas until they found it difficult to breathe. At the same time, the lights throughout the backstage area suddenly went out. Everything fell silent for a second before a commotion of curses and screams erupted around them.
Guessing that the bodyguards were providing cover for him, Xu Ze took advantage of the disturbance and darkness and ran outside without hesitation.
After returning home, Xu Ze simply cooked himself a bowl of noodles. Once he had eaten, he went to take a shower. When he came out of the bathroom, he dried his hair while taking a pregnancy test out of his backpack and carefully reading the instructions.
His phone rang. It was Chi Jiahan.
“How did the meeting in the west of the city go? Nothing happened, right?”
“No.”
“So does that mean you’re going back to fighting in matches again?!”
“I’m not fighting anymore.”
“What conditions did you agree to with Tang Feiyi?”
“I have to pay some compensation for breaking the contract,” Xu Ze said. “It’s fine.”
“What else can you do besides lie to me?” Chi Jiahan said coldly.
Xu Ze didn’t know what to say. He had received the call before he had even figured out how to keep this from Chi Jiahan, leaving him unable to come up with an explanation on the spot. He had never been good at lying in the first place.
“How much is it, exactly?” Chi Jiahan asked.
“Six hundred thousand.”
Chi Jiahan knew Xu Ze well. Whenever Xu Ze had even a little money on hand, he would immediately transfer it to the nursing home’s account, keeping only one or two hundred yuan for his own living expenses. Having to come up with six hundred thousand out of nowhere meant starting from zero. It simply wasn’t realistic.
“How long is the deadline?”
Xu Ze answered, “Half a month.”
“I’ll find a way to help you,” Chi Jiahan said. “Don’t worry about this anymore. Just focus on repairing your cars.”
“Okay.”
Although Xu Ze’s quick agreement struck him as suspiciously easy, Chi Jiahan didn’t have time to think too much about it right now. He added, “Come with me to the hospital tomorrow at noon for an examination.”
Hearing this, Xu Ze instinctively placed a hand over his lower abdomen. After a pause, he replied, “I bought a pregnancy test.”
“…” Chi Jiahan was momentarily speechless. “Those things aren’t accurate. I looked it up. Pregnancy tests for alphas, in particular, can easily give incorrect results.”
After thinking briefly, Xu Ze offered a solution. “I’ll test several times.”
It wasn’t that he was unwilling to go to the hospital for an examination. It was just that if the bodyguards accompanied him, Lu Heyang would definitely find out afterward.
“You’re insane!” Chi Jiahan finally lost his temper and cursed at him. “If you really are pregnant, you need to get rid of it immediately. How long are you planning to drag this out? Did Lu Heyang put a spell on you or something?”
“It has nothing to do with him,” Xu Ze said.
“What do you mean, it has nothing to do with him? Can someone get pregnant all by themselves? I think you really are pregnant. Pregnancy makes you stupid for three years!”
“Please don’t get angry.” Xu Ze didn’t know how to calm Chi Jiahan down. “Can I test myself first?”
“I don’t care what you do!” Chi Jiahan was so angry that he hung up.
Xu Ze held his phone in silence for a few seconds before sending Chi Jiahan another text message: Don’t be angry anymore.
Of course, he received no reply. Xu Ze exited the conversation and scrolled down. His fingertip hovered over the screen for a moment. In the end, he still tapped on a particular contact and typed out a message.
I’ve made up my mind.
The other person replied quickly.
Fine. Tomorrow evening, we’ll start with a blood draw and matching test. I’ll send you the address then.
Xu Ze replied: Okay.
The reason he had said the deadline was fifteen days was that he had never intended to borrow six hundred thousand from Chi Jiahan.
Some time ago, an alpha he had met at the club suddenly contacted Xu Ze and asked whether he was short of money and whether he would consider selling his pheromones. Only then did Xu Ze learn that such an industry existed. The pheromones and blood of S-rank alphas and omegas were equivalent to rare resources. Upper-class families placed great importance on pheromone rankings. When their offspring were born without reaching S-rank, they would seek out S-rank individuals with matching blood types and use blood transfusions and pheromone injections to induce secondary differentiation.
To put it simply, he would serve as a blood bag, supplying blood and pheromones over an extended period.
Xu Ze hadn’t known about this kind of business before. If he had, he would have done it last year when he urgently needed money for surgery, instead of signing a contract with Tang Feiyi and ending up in his current predicament. Xu Ze had originally intended to keep this as a last resort. If his grandmother ever needed another expensive operation, at least he would have a way to raise the money within a short period.
Xu Ze understood Chi Jiahan’s situation. His father had always neglected him, and the thing he did most often was freeze Chi Jiahan’s bank cards. His stepmother kept a close eye on all of Chi Jiahan’s accounts, refusing to allow even a single cent of the Chi family’s money to fall into his hands.
Under these circumstances, Xu Ze had no way of borrowing that much money from Chi Jiahan all at once.
He turned off his phone. He couldn’t tell whether he felt relieved or weighed down. It seemed he didn’t feel much of anything at all. He was already used to this. Xu Ze took a pregnancy test and got up to go to the bathroom.
After standing in front of the sink for five minutes, Xu Ze threw the pregnancy test, which showed two lines, into the wastebasket.
He decided to get another one and test again.
However, when Xu Ze returned to his room and had just taken a new pregnancy test out of the package, someone knocked on the door. Xu Ze froze for a moment, then instinctively stuffed the test into his backpack and zipped it up.
Xu Ze was in a very difficult position. He had only just barely gotten past Chi Jiahan, and now Lu Heyang was knocking on his door without any warning. Even as he opened the door, he was still trying to come up with suitable excuses, but his mind felt as though it had been stuffed with a wad of paper. He simply couldn’t think straight.
“Have you eaten dinner?”
Xu Ze nodded. “I had noodles.”
After entering the room, Lu Heyang sat down at the desk as usual. The backpack was sitting right on top of it, and its zipper didn’t seem to be completely closed. Xu Ze’s heart was racing, and his gaze kept drifting.
This time, Lu Heyang didn’t ask Xu Ze to sit on his lap. He simply looked up and asked, “Is there nothing you want to tell me?”
He looked somewhat tired. His expression was different from usual, revealing a cold seriousness. Xu Ze stood to one side with his hands hanging at his sides, not looking at him. He organized his thoughts before finally telling the truth.
“I went to the west of the city.”
“I know,” Lu Heyang said.
“Tang Feiyi wanted to discuss the contract termination with me. I have to pay some money.”
“How much?”
“…Sixty thousand.”
Lu Heyang simply asked him, “Do I look like someone who’s easy to fool?”
Xu Ze seemed to droop from head to toe, even his hair. He replied, “No, you don’t.”
“…” Lu Heyang gave him the kind of helpless smile one wore when there was simply nothing one could do about someone. “How much do you actually have to pay?”
“Six hundred thousand.”
Lu Heyang nodded. “Can you handle it yourself?”
Selling his pheromones wouldn’t be enough. By then, he’d have to borrow a small portion from Chi Jiahan to make up the difference, then ask the manager at the auto repair shop for an advance on his wages…
Standing in front of Lu Heyang, Xu Ze had once again failed to learn his lesson. “I should be able to.”
“Can you resolve this without harming your health or paying too high a price?” Lu Heyang asked again.
Xu Ze thought that Lu Heyang must have learned interrogation techniques at military school. He was leading him through the questions step by step, only to hit the nail on the head with the final one.
His silence was answer enough. Lu Heyang said nothing either, simply watching him quietly.
After a while, Xu Ze couldn’t help reaching out toward Lu Heyang. Ever since entering the room, Lu Heyang hadn’t touched him once. Usually, he would at least put an arm around him, hold his hand, or kiss him. Today, he hadn’t done any of those things, and Xu Ze was very unaccustomed to it.
But Lu Heyang avoided Xu Ze’s hand and told him, “Don’t move for now.”
“…” Xu Ze silently withdrew his hand. After hesitating for two seconds, he said, “Don’t be angry.”
Because this was how he had always lived—making his own choices, finding his own solutions, and bearing the consequences himself—Xu Ze still couldn’t quite understand why Chi Jiahan or Lu Heyang would get angry over these things, even though Chi Jiahan had scolded him countless times already.
So, seeing that Lu Heyang didn’t react, Xu Ze added, “You can scold me.”
Lu Heyang’s voice was so pleasant. Even if he scolded someone, it probably wouldn’t sound too harsh.
“Why would I scold you?” Lu Heyang seemed somewhat helpless. He held out a hand toward Xu Ze. “Come here.”
Xu Ze sat on Lu Heyang’s lap. Lu Heyang put one arm around his waist and casually rested the other hand on his lower abdomen. Xu Ze’s entire body tensed up. He suddenly remembered that there was still something he hadn’t confessed to Lu Heyang.
“The terms of the contract you signed with him were all illegal. They have no legal validity, so you don’t need to pay any termination fee.”
Xu Ze had considered that too. But the important issue wasn’t the contract itself. The entire club had always operated outside the law. What mattered was that Tang Feiyi would use the contract as an excuse to exert pressure and force others to follow his rules.
“If I don’t pay, he’ll send people after me to collect the debt,” Xu Ze said.
“Even if you pay him six hundred thousand, he won’t leave you alone. It’ll just be a waste of money.” Lu Heyang said, “The preparatory school has always placed great importance on student safety while on campus. If a bunch of unsavory people show up to cause trouble, the school will contact the police directly. You don’t need to worry about your home either. I’ll arrange for more people to keep watch.”
“Dealing with Tang Feiyi is very simple, but we can’t just deal with him alone. There are many businesses behind him, and a lot of people are involved. There are some things we can’t handle ourselves, so we’ll need others to take action. That will take some time. All you have to do is keep your distance from him and stop having any contact with him. Can you do that?”
These words made Xu Ze vaguely realize that the situation was rather complicated. While he was thinking it over, Lu Heyang interrupted him.
“Don’t think about anything else. Just tell me whether you can do that.”
“I can.” Xu Ze still wasn’t entirely confident. Having someone else solve his problems instead of handling them himself always left him feeling uneasy.
Lu Heyang pressed a hand against the side of Xu Ze’s neck and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Don’t worry. Leave it to me.”
Xu Ze slowly looked at him, as though he were thinking about something. Then he asked, “Do you want to do it?”
He had never asked such a question before. Lu Heyang looked at him. “What’s wrong?”
“If we do it…” Xu Ze asked in a low voice, “Could you be a little gentler?”
If he didn’t say it now, then once they actually got into bed, Lu Heyang might not necessarily listen to his request to be gentle.
“Does something hurt?”
“No.” Xu Ze answered immediately.
Lu Heyang watched him for a few seconds before finally saying, “We’re not doing it. I’m hungry. Can you make me a bowl of noodles?”
“Okay.” Xu Ze stood up. “Get some rest first.”
After Xu Ze left the room, Lu Heyang reached out and pulled the backpack on the desk toward him. He knew Xu Ze had gone to a pharmacy in the west of the city. If it had been ordinary medication, Xu Ze would definitely have gone to the preparatory school’s infirmary to get it, since it was cheaper there. So he decided not to ask Xu Ze about it. Having to tell so many lies in one night might leave Xu Ze feeling so guilty that he couldn’t sleep.
Xu Ze really was an honest person. He honestly hid this and that from him, and honestly went about telling lies. A person like him could get married to you and sleep in the same bed with you, yet still keep ten thousand things hidden in his heart and then go off and deal with every single one of them by himself. There was simply no changing him.
The only option was to search through the backpack. Going through someone else’s belongings was wrong—but wrong or not, Lu Heyang unzipped it without the slightest hesitation.
Xu Ze was staring blankly at the water in the pot, waiting for it to boil, when Lu Heyang suddenly walked into the kitchen and turned off the gas stove.
Xu Ze looked at him in confusion. Lu Heyang pointed beneath the stove. “Turn off the gas valve. Come out with me for a bit.”
“What’s wrong?” Xu Ze obediently turned off the valve and asked.
“Nothing,” Lu Heyang said. “I just suspect I’m about to become a father.”
Lu Heyang, there’s a surprise with two lines in the trash can. You know?