Previously, when Ying Zhiyu stayed late at the LI Group headquarters waiting for Li Xi, the Third Young Master realized something:
Even a staged “cold war” in public could change how those around the Alpha behaved, causing even the bodyguards to slack off.
Though Li Xi had secretly arranged protection, the Li family bodyguards didn’t know this.
That night, Ying Zhiyu sent them home with the child, and the bodyguards obediently followed the little one.
This realization left Li Xi feeling a lingering chill.
Li Xi realized that a momentary “indulgence” toward Ying Zhiyu wasn’t enough.
The gestures he’d offered lacked weight, which made the outside world think the Alpha could fall out of favor at any time.
“Set up a foundation?”
Ying Zhiyu looked surprised.
Li Xi nodded. “Yes. We’ll name it after you: the ‘Ying Zhiyu Life Sciences Genetic Exploration Foundation.’ How does that sound?”
Ying Zhiyu paused, then suggested with a grin, “…How about ‘Zhiyu’s Little Cubs Foundation’ instead?”
Li Xi: “…”
He was trying to talk business, and the Alpha kept joking around.
Ying Zhiyu set down the recipe he’d been holding and extended his hand. Li Xi naturally walked over, looping an arm around the Alpha’s head and pressing a kiss to him.
Ying Zhiyu rolled his eyes playfully. “I wanted you to help roll up my sleeves.”
Li Xi ignored the comment, ruffling the young Alpha’s hair further before finally lowering his gaze to help push the sleeve onto Ying Zhiyu’s forearm.
The Alpha, hair a chaotic mess from the ruffling: “…”
“Your fans are already not too happy with me. If I keep showing off like this, won’t they all be panicking at home?”
Ying Zhiyu pictured it and laughed first.
Li Xi finished adjusting the sleeve and smoothed out the back of Ying Zhiyu’s hair that he’d just mussed. Expressionless, he added: “I don’t have fans. I’m not a celebrity.”
Ying Zhiyu tilted his head slightly to give Li Xi better access to straighten his hair, continuing: “I mean those Omegas calling you ‘Xidian,’ your little fanboys and fangirls. Actually, your Alpha fans aren’t few either—they just don’t speak up, afraid of being called out by their peers.”
“And Alphas…” Ying Zhiyu paused for effect, raising an eyebrow in analysis: “They care a lot about face. No matter how much they scold or seem fierce on the outside, inside, they love the challenge of conquering a high-difficulty Omega.”
Li Xi raised an eyebrow. “You want the challenge too?”
After asking, he pressed his lips together, probably realizing that, to Ying Zhiyu, he might not even count as “high difficulty.”
Ying Zhiyu grinned mischievously: “Aren’t I the ‘high-difficulty’ one already conquered by Xidian?”
“Xidian risked extreme Alpha threats, traveled all the way to our library just to take me and register us,” he added.
Li Xi: “…”
No one even remembered who had initiated the registration. Yet Li Xi didn’t contradict Ying Zhiyu. In a way, the Alpha wasn’t wrong.
He traced Ying Zhiyu’s face again, mapping out his brows, nose, and lips.
“Those online fans wanting handsome men to ‘raise’—aren’t they also attracted to your looks? Aren’t they your fanboys and fangirls too?”
Li Xi wasn’t sure if it was from being so jealous in past lives, but now, whatever he said, Ying Zhiyu could hear a faint trace of playful jealousy in his tone.
Somehow, while rolling up sleeves in the kitchen and chatting, they ended up kissing again.
After the kiss, Ying Zhiyu finally straightened up. “Let’s stop flattering each other. The foundation can be set up without naming it after me.”
Fame scares people; pigs fear getting fat.
Having lived through past experiences, Ying Zhiyu only adhered to eight words this time around: The taller the tree, the more wind it attracts; the bigger the target, the more eyes on it.
If he could choose, he would rather stay an anonymous nobody—that was the easiest, happiest life.
The idea of naming the foundation after the Alpha was temporarily set aside, but the rollout of the new artificial pheromone drug could not be halted, and the lurking extremist forces still needed to be watched.
If Zhou Shen really belonged to some extremist Beta organization, the fact that he had been able to remain hidden within the Li family, surrounded by so many brilliant minds, for so many years showed just how cautious he was.
The mastermind behind the scenes hadn’t made a single move, yet Li Xi noticed that Ying Zhiyu seemed completely untroubled.
Li Xi couldn’t help but ask, “Enemy in the dark, I in the light—you’re not worried?”
He had asked the same question the first time the Alpha had been attacked in the underground parking lot.
But…
Even if Ying Zhiyu had truly never experienced a past life, even if all this was just overthinking, the fact remained that an attack had already occurred. That someone was targeting the Alpha out of hatred was undeniable, and now there was suspicion that an insider had infiltrated their circle.
Uncertainty was the most tormenting.
Yet Ying Zhiyu could remain so calm, even more proactive in work and life.
During this period, he brought Little Love Letter to pay respects at Li Xi’s late mother Gan Ruyan during Qingming, and he stuck to weekly meals at his own parents’ home—sometimes even bringing Li Xi and the baby along when he was free.
And despite being close to finishing his PhD, a time when he should have been swamped, Ying Zhiyu had taken to exploring new recipes after school. That weekend, he even planned to invite Li Xi’s father Li Songqian, and Li Qin, Li Lu, and Li Yue, over for a barbecue gathering at their home.
Li Xi asked the Alpha, “What exactly are you thinking?”
Ying Zhiyu, tinkering with a newly bought barbecue grill in the university town yard, didn’t even look up. “If worrying did any good, I’d worry for a minute.”
The truth was, worry only delighted the enemies lurking in the shadows.
He added, “Besides, even though extremist groups act in misguided ways, their existence has a reason.”
Li Xi raised a brow, and the Alpha continued, eyes glinting with excitement: “They’ve given me plenty of inspiration, really helped with my research.”
Extremist groups often emerge as products of societal contradictions. Their problem is that they approach issues with emotion, anger, and hatred. Their thinking is steeped in resentment, naturally leading them to extreme solutions.
But extremes often provoke reversals. Emotional reactions usually complicate issues rather than solving them.
Ying Zhiyu’s research on AO differentiation wasn’t grandiose enough to claim it could resolve societal conflicts. Yet these very conflicts offered multiple perspectives and inspirations for his work.
The essence of AO differentiation research was the pursuit of superior genetic inheritance: sharp minds, strong bodies, long lifespans.
The “flaws” identified by extremist Beta groups in Alphas and Omegas did exist. The susceptibility and heat cycles, in modern society, were often dismissed as animalistic instincts.
This wasn’t just how extremists thought; many Alphas and Omegas themselves were tired of having their reasoning overridden by primal impulses.
Still, the principle remained: existence has reason.
Glands and pheromones ensured the propagation of the former ABO society. They once provided benefits to Alphas and Omegas, yet they also posed challenges in today’s highly civilized world.
That was precisely why pheromone drugs had emerged.
The Li family became the wealthiest in the country, often ranked among the top three global families, because LI Group produced exactly what modern society required.
In other words, LI arose naturally alongside the development of ABO society.
Whether it was the “inhibitors” developed a century ago, the “calmants” that thrust Li Xi into the spotlight in recent years, or the current artificial pheromones, these products were all products of their times.
If not LI, another pheromone company would have emerged; if not Li Xi, someone else would have brought these new drugs to market.
Ying Zhiyu’s situation was the same.
Whether in his past life or this one, he believed that AO differentiation research would not stop.
If he died, someone would carry on the work.
If he lived, he would dedicate himself to contributing, even if only a small amount, to society and the next generation.
As for extremists’ overreactions to these products and research—it often gave researchers unexpected inspiration.
How to benefit everyone, considering the differing needs of each group, whether majority or minority, male or female, that was the ultimate goal of their research.
Ying Zhiyu prepared barbecue tools and ingredients for the afternoon gathering of Li family members. Smoke curled upward, and through the haze, he squinted and looked up: “Everything that happens is for my benefit.”
“The first time we registered our marriage, there was that attack, and Li Xi modified the pre-marriage trust terms afterward.”
“The underground parking attack indirectly helped us identify the real mastermind.”
“And after eleven years of entanglement in the last life, we now get a fresh start in this one.”
Since these were gifts from fate, he thought, why worry?
In that moment, Li Xi looked at the young Alpha before him.
Ying Zhiyu had said he didn’t fantasize about being a hero.
Yet Li Xi saw a true hero.
Author’s note: The line Ying Zhiyu ends with—“凡事發生，皆有利於我”—was something spotted casually online in the past; the original source couldn’t be traced, so here it’s marked as a citation.