Lately, Li Xi’s sleep had been poor.
Play the long game, catch the big fish. They had fully staged the household drama: sibling quarrels were faked, the line set, the bait in the water—now they only needed the big fish to take it.
Yet as time passed, Li Xi’s sleep grew shorter and shallower.
After finishing a feeding session in the nursery, he returned to the bedroom. Normally, this was when the young Alpha would play or interact with their child. But today, the study was empty, the nursery empty, even the room itself showed no sign of Ying Zhiyu.
Except for a large mound under the covers.
Li Xi approached and lifted the blanket.
The Alpha, buried inside, had been there for some time, and sweat glistened across his skin. He lifted his head, eyes hazy with a dreamy confusion.
“What’s wrong?”
The air was thick with Alpha pheromones. Li Xi felt the heat radiating off Ying Zhiyu’s flushed face and realized the young Alpha had entered his estrus cycle. Cradled in his arms was the pillow Li Xi usually slept with.
Sweat-soaked hair clung to his forehead and ears; tiny beads dotted the exposed Adam’s apple on his neck. As he spoke, the sweat slid down, disappearing into the collar of his unseen sleepwear.
Li Xi’s gaze followed a bead of sweat to Ying Zhiyu’s chest, his Adam’s apple rolling as he whispered hoarsely, “Why didn’t you tell me when your cycle—”
An Alpha’s estrus didn’t follow a fixed schedule like an Omega’s heat. With only two cycles a year, timing was unpredictable. He could only wait until it happened and then discern whether it was a fever or estrus.
Before Li Xi could finish, the Alpha yanked him into the heated cocoon of blankets.
Even during ordinary workouts, if Ying Zhiyu’s pheromones leaked, Li Xi could drag him straight from the gym to the bedroom. But during estrus, Ying Zhiyu refused suppressants, and Li Xi would never allow his Alpha to endure it alone.
As his mate, Ying Zhiyu understood Li Xi’s recent sleep troubles—restless tossing and turning, sudden night awakenings—and knew the reason behind them.
Whether for himself, their parents, family, partner, or child, he couldn’t afford a single mishap while drawing out the snake in hiding. Nothing could go wrong.
Even though Li Xi had begun to question his “past-life” claims, Ying Zhiyu meticulously reconstructed every detail from the previous kidnapping. He remembered the sedatives, the psychiatric drugs meant to slow his mind and keep him half-asleep, and how it led to initial misdiagnosis of tetanus-like symptoms that no one noticed—not even himself.
Though heavily drugged, he wasn’t entirely unconscious. For example, during the kidnapping, he never smelled the kidnappers’ pheromones. At the time, he assumed they were all Beta to prevent exposure of their identities. Now he realized he might have overcomplicated things—the kidnappers could have simply been extremist Betas from the start.
Following all other traces, Ying Zhiyu painstakingly reexamined every suspect, location, and incident from that past ordeal. None of this could be hidden from Li Xi—he needed his support.
With so many details, if Li Xi hadn’t been suspicious, he wouldn’t be Li Xi.
Ying Zhiyu invented plausible excuses to investigate key people and locations. Yet Li Xi’s intelligence meant he could detect the flimsy nature of these pretexts. He didn’t point it out but couldn’t help worrying.
Hence tonight’s scenario: using estrus as a pretext to seduce the Omega who had been “craving him” for years, all under the guise of a sleep-aid exercise.
At that very moment, in the Li family garden villa at LI Group headquarters, the head butler, Zhou Shen, had completed his day. He had checked the security systems, confirmed all staff duties, and coordinated the night patrol schedule with the duty captain before retiring to his room.
At 3 a.m., a night security guard in the north building called in sick, citing a “child with a high fever” as the reason to leave his post.
By the time Panda reported upstairs, it was 3 p.m. the next day.
Li Xi had fully cooperated with Ying Zhiyu’s plan: reaching out to Li Qin for cooperation, delegating trusted personnel management entirely to Ying Zhiyu.
He had only one condition: Ying Zhiyu’s absolute safety.
Prepared and experienced from his previous life, Ying Zhiyu was confident he could act as bait and come away unscathed.
But Li Xi didn’t want the Alpha personally risking himself. They had already laid a meticulous net around the Li villa; even a small slip by a minor lackey could unravel the entire plot, leading to the true mastermind.
Li Xi would rather invest extra time and manpower later to unmask the culprit than let his young Alpha face real danger.
Initially, Ying Zhiyu hesitated, worried the mastermind might escape, but Li Xi’s recent sleeplessness—more fragile than Ying Zhiyu’s occasional mental turbulence—made him change his mind.
Even if his own safety was guaranteed, feigning compliance while secretly undermining others still constituted a betrayal and a form of disrespect toward those who trusted him.
Taking advantage of the opportunity to adjust their strategy, Ying Zhiyu decided to eliminate all suspects in one decisive move. He disclosed part of the deployment plan to Panda.
Since it was unclear which guards had been compromised, the Li family’s headquarters security staff could not be alerted. Using the excuse of understaffing, Ying Zhiyu gave Panda full control over the operation—without even informing Panda’s Alpha father, Pan Muqiao.
If Panda was innocent, the plan would naturally reveal the true culprit. And if the mastermind did not match their predictions, Ying Zhiyu and Li Xi had already planted surveillance around Zhou Shen and Panda, tracking every move. Unless both were genuinely uninvolved, some trace of outside contact or internal collusion would surface.
In other words, the answer Ying Zhiyu sought was already within reach.
Panda reported the day’s findings directly in front of Ying Zhiyu and Li Xi.
“Last night, a night-duty guard at LI headquarters requested leave. After investigation, that Alpha guard is deemed not suspicious.”
Indeed, the guard’s child had developed a sudden high fever and required hospitalization, and the guard remained at the hospital after delivering the child, never leaving.
Even with his Alpha estrus ongoing, Ying Zhiyu had gotten up in his sleepwear to hear the report. Since he had been summoned from the bedroom, he knew this would not be a simple “nothing to report” statement, and waited for further details.
Panda continued, “However, the night-duty captain—a male Beta, 33 years old—was observed after reporting for duty that morning. Instead of returning to his dormitory, he left LI headquarters to have breakfast. During that time, he interacted with a breakfast shop employee, who later went to the basement location we had previously visited under Ying Shao’s guidance.”
Panda paused, then concluded, “It’s highly likely he was conducting a preliminary reconnaissance of the potential kidnapping site.”
Reconnaissance meant scouting the location in advance—signaling imminent action.
Li Xi’s body tensed. He abruptly turned toward Ying Zhiyu. “They actually went there.”
Ying Zhiyu reassured him with a glance. “I’ll explain in a moment.”
Still in the study, Panda asked about the next step. “Using communication tools within LI’s premises is too risky. That captain doesn’t have the rank to orchestrate the entire kidnapping. Even if he could, he wouldn’t bypass our security defenses. There must be someone behind him, and this person either resides in LI headquarters or within one of the central garden villas.”
Panda didn’t know who Ying Zhiyu and Li Xi were suspecting, but based on his observation of the headquarters’ security system, he spoke plainly, “All personnel currently residing in the garden villa are suspicious. Should we conduct a full sweep?”
The leave-taking guard was cleared, but the captain on leave had already begun preparations to execute the kidnapping plan early the next morning.
The reason was most likely an attempt to later pin the suspicion on the guard who had taken leave. Or perhaps, after successfully executing the kidnapping, the plan was to temporarily divert investigators’ attention, creating a window to disrupt the investigation later.
Normally, a security captain wouldn’t leave the LI headquarters compound—their dormitory and cafeteria were both inside the main building. The fact that this captain could respond so promptly indicated that his “superior” was almost certainly residing within LI headquarters as well—and had the opportunity to interact with personnel who knew Ying Shao’s schedule.
After cross-referencing all the current clues, Panda had effectively narrowed the suspect down to the Li family’s garden villa at headquarters. With the scope reduced this far, Panda could speak so confidently because his own innocence was already established. Once any unusual activity was detected, everything else would naturally follow. The final outcome, barring unexpected complications, would arrive soon.
By this point in the investigation, Ying Zhiyu felt strangely calm. Before the results were even in, he had replayed every detail of his previous-life kidnapping countless times in his mind. Zhou Shen fit all the criteria perfectly. So when the evidence this time also pointed to him, Ying Zhiyu wasn’t surprised—nor did he feel anything particularly intense.
Li Xi watched him closely, monitoring his reactions. But the young Alpha’s face remained unreadable, as if listening to a matter entirely unrelated to himself.
Seeing the other two in the study waiting for him, Ying Zhiyu stood, stretched lazily, and said, “Proceed as you see fit. You’re more professional in this area than I am.”
As Panda left to carry out the orders, Ying Zhiyu was about to explain the kidnapping location when someone suddenly yanked at his robe.
Ying Zhiyu: ?
Li Xi frowned, lowering his gaze and scolding, “What are you exposing your screen for? Who could have seen that?”
The previous night’s exertions during estrus had left the Alpha too lazy to dress properly, and Ying Zhiyu had merely draped a robe over himself when entering the study. The stretch had caused the robe’s ties to slip slightly…
Ying Zhiyu looked down at his Omega, tying his robe carefully, and thought wryly: well, compared to why he could anticipate the kidnapping site in advance, it seemed Li Xi was far more concerned about him “exposing skin” in front of a personal guard!