After landing, Lu Chengyu and Lu Qingmo went straight to a restaurant for dinner with the Wei family. When Lu Heyang returned home after attending a lecture at the Institute of Military Engineering, Lu Chengyu’s assistant was delivering his luggage and documents.
Generally speaking, Lu Chengyu rarely attended private gatherings. Whenever the chairman of the board made an appearance, it was always in connection with politics or diplomacy. So Lu Heyang could guess that the Wei family had a particular agenda for tonight.
Most likely, it had something to do with the West City project. Wei Lingzhou probably wanted to make another attempt to secure it.
And Lu Chengyu’s acceptance of the invitation might mean that the winner of the project had yet to be decided, leaving room for things to change.
A little after ten that night, Lu Heyang came downstairs to get some fruit after showering. He noticed a faint light coming from the second-floor living room. When he walked over, he saw Lu Qingmo curled up on the sofa, with only the floor lamp beside her turned on. A bottle of red wine sat on the small coffee table in front of her.
Hearing footsteps, Lu Qingmo turned around, holding her wineglass. She smiled faintly. “Aren’t you asleep yet?”
She hadn’t removed her makeup or changed out of her business clothes. It couldn’t have been comfortable, but Lu Qingmo seemed unable to wait even a moment. She needed to release her emotions immediately, and this was the only way she could do it.
“I was reading.” Lu Heyang sat down on another sofa. “Has Dad gone to Luan Mountain?”
“Probably. I’m not sure.” Lu Qingmo leaned back and took a sip of wine.
Lu Heyang sat quietly without speaking. After a while, Lu Qingmo lifted her head and gazed at the dim chandelier.
“They want me to start trying to conceive.”
“Career, marriage, reproductive capacity.” Lu Qingmo counted them off one by one. “Not a single one of them belongs to me.”
A faint pattering sound came from beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. Raindrops were hitting the glass. It had started to rain.
“I hate the rain most of all,” Lu Qingmo murmured, staring blankly into space.
She couldn’t remember exactly when it had happened. All she knew was that it was another night like this, after she’d learned she was going to get engaged to Wei Lingzhou. The rain had grown heavier and heavier as she drove faster and faster, with Han Jian sitting in the passenger seat.
Later, their car was forced to stop. More than a dozen blinding headlights pierced the curtain of rain, shining at them from every direction and trapping them in the middle.
Lu Qingmo’s hands trembled as she unfastened her seat belt.
“Don’t get out of the car,” she told Han Jian.
Han Jian reached out to wipe the tears from her face and said, “Okay.”
A bodyguard came over with an umbrella for Lu Qingmo and escorted her to stand before Lu Chengyu and Wei Lingzhou.
Only seconds later, a tremendous crash sounded behind her. Lu Qingmo turned around in a panic and watched as the car, crushed and twisted out of shape, toppled over the guardrail and slammed into the wild grass beside the suburban road.
Her mouth opened soundlessly. By the time her mind registered what had happened, her legs were already staggering forward.
The passenger seat was littered with broken glass. Blood ran down Han Jian’s forehead, and his leg was trapped by something. His faint, agonized moans were soon swallowed by the sound of the rain.
Blood trickled out through the car frame and mingled with the mud covering the ground. Lu Qingmo reached out but didn’t dare touch him. The raindrops fell against her body like countless tiny footprints trampling her. She couldn’t remember what, exactly, had gone through her mind during those thirty seconds. Perhaps she hadn’t thought about anything at all.
She turned around and stumbled back, falling to her knees in front of Lu Chengyu. At last, she managed to force a little sound out of her throat.
“Dad…”
“I was wrong. I was wrong…” She didn’t even know what she’d done wrong.
Lu Qingmo’s pleas turned into desperate sobs. “I was wrong! Please, save him! I’ll listen to you from now on. I promise I’ll do what you say. Please, save him…”
The rain was so heavy that she could barely keep her eyes open. All she could feel was that her father was impossibly tall, as immovable as a mountain.
In the end, Wei Lingzhou helped her to her feet. Soaked through and covered in mud, she was met with his considerate reassurance.
“All right. Go back to the car. I’ll have someone get him out.”
Once inside the car, Lu Qingmo strained to look outside, but the windows were drenched with rain, blurring everything beyond the glass. She reached out and wiped at it, rubbing futilely for a long time before finally realizing that the rain on the other side of the window couldn’t be wiped away from within.
The torrential rain from that night had continued for years without ever stopping, endlessly soaking her body and face.
Sometimes, Lu Qingmo thought she shouldn’t have clung so stubbornly to the past. After all, she’d struggled and tried her best. She’d simply lost the courage to keep fighting afterward. But why, then, had the regret never once stopped?
Lu Heyang knew what had happened. Every moment of that scene had been captured by a special camera installed in the bodyguard’s car. At what had seemed like a completely coincidental moment, he’d seen the recording.
So it hadn’t actually been a coincidence. Someone had deliberately shown him the video as a warning.
Don’t seek freedom. Don’t resist. Be obedient. Accept your fate.
File away your sharp edges until you become a smooth, rounded chess piece.
Then, little by little, they would all grow accustomed to their place in this social hierarchy, assimilate into it, and eventually become the next people moving the pieces.
“I did nothing wrong.”
Lu Qingmo closed her eyes. Like someone who had suffered an injustice and stubbornly insisted on overturning the verdict against her, she repeated herself.
“I did nothing wrong.”
Lu Heyang lowered his eyes and stood up. He took the wineglass from Lu Qingmo’s hand and placed it on the coffee table.
“Go get some rest.”
He helped Lu Qingmo back to her bedroom, then went downstairs and knocked on the housekeeper’s door, asking her to help Lu Qingmo remove her makeup and change into her pajamas.
He had originally planned to eat some fruit and read for another half hour. But after sitting at his desk for a while, Lu Heyang finally closed his book, picked up his phone, and sent Xu Ze a message.
Busy?
Xu Ze replied almost immediately.
No.
Lu Heyang called him. The moment the call connected, he heard the sound of a pen dropping onto the floor on Xu Ze’s end.
“Reading?” Lu Heyang asked.
“Working on practice papers,” Xu Ze answered. “I happen to have nothing to do at the moment.”
Lu Heyang waited a few seconds without saying anything. After hesitating, Xu Ze asked, “Are you in a bad mood?”
Lu Heyang smiled faintly. “Why do you ask?”
“…” Xu Ze said, “Just a feeling.”
“Can you sense anything else?” Lu Heyang leaned back against his chair.
“No.” Xu Ze answered honestly. There was a hint of uncertainty in his voice, as though he didn’t know whether he should ask the question at all. “Why are you in a bad mood?”
Lu Heyang countered, “If it’s nothing happy, why do you want to know?”
“I want to…” Xu Ze seemed to be struggling to find the right words. In the end, he said, “Help you carry a little of the burden.”
He was already carrying so much himself that he could barely straighten his back or lift his shoulders, yet he still wanted to help Lu Heyang shoulder even a tiny part of his burden.
The fingertips of Lu Heyang’s hand resting on his knee twitched. He raised his hand and pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose. After a brief pause, he finally said, “I’m not in a bad mood. I just wanted to call you.”
Xu Ze wanted to ask, Really? Not Do you really want to call me? but Are you really not in a bad mood?
In the end, however, he only murmured, “Mm,” indicating that he believed him.
“When you’re in a bad mood, you can call me too,” Xu Ze said slowly, his voice sounding earnest yet cautious.
“Okay.” Lu Heyang looked at his desk. “I won’t disturb you any longer. Get back to your practice papers.”
“You’re not disturbing me.” Xu Ze said quietly before Lu Heyang could hang up.
After Lin Yumin finished showering and came out, he noticed that the phone on his bed was lit up. He picked it up and saw messages from the housekeeper. The first had arrived a minute ago: Sir, the chairman is here.
The second had arrived three seconds earlier: He’s almost at your room.
Lin Yumin tossed the phone back onto the bed, then opened the drawer of his bedside table and took out a small bottle of pills. He unscrewed the cap, tipped out a blue tablet, and put it into his mouth.
Before he could reach for his glass of water, the bedroom door swung open.
Lu Chengyu leisurely looked him up and down. Then he approached and held out his palm beneath Lin Yumin’s chin.
“Spit it out.”
Lin Yumin said nothing. He pressed his tongue against the tablet, trying to swallow it. Lu Chengyu simply grabbed his jaw and forced his mouth open. With two fingers from his other hand, he reached inside Lin Yumin’s mouth and removed the pill. As he withdrew his hand, his fingertips swirled provocatively inside Lin Yumin’s mouth.
His jaw hurt from being squeezed. Lin Yumin watched as Lu Chengyu crushed the tablet between his fingers, catching the faint scent of alcohol on him.
They didn’t meet often, and Lu Chengyu rarely came to see him sober. The chairman spent his waking hours occupied with official business. Only after drinking would he briefly withdraw from the world of power and prestige to spend a few hours at Luan Mountain.
Even those few hours were almost unbearable for Lin Yumin.
“What good does taking this do?” Lu Chengyu asked nonchalantly, patting Lin Yumin’s cheek with the back of his hand.
Lin Yumin turned his face away. “If it’s useless, why won’t you let me take it?”
The mark-blocking pills were an extraordinarily expensive, specialized medication used by alphas and omegas who had already completed a marking. Alphas were always adept at using their pheromones to make the omegas they had marked submit or lose control, gaining both psychological and physical pleasure from it.
“Because it’s a prohibited drug.” Lu Chengyu slowly undid his cufflinks as he spoke.
“You’re the one who wanted it banned.”
A few years earlier, Lu Chengyu had decided to classify mark-blocking pills as prohibited drugs throughout the Alliance, ending their production and sale. Lin Yumin had never believed that Lu Chengyu had banned them so recklessly simply because Lin Yumin himself was taking them. He had always believed Lu Chengyu’s real motive was to protect the interests of the upper-class alpha elite.
“And yet you still managed to buy some.” Lu Chengyu sat down on the edge of the bed, his long legs resting casually on the carpet. As he loosened his tie, he glanced up at Lin Yumin. “You’ve had Jiang Wen helping Heyang with his affairs.”
It wasn’t a question but a statement. He already knew exactly what was going on.
Lin Yumin said, “You already know that, don’t you?”
“Then do you know Tang Feiyi has set his sights on him?” Lu Chengyu casually tossed his tie toward the foot of the bed. “Jiang Wen has an old grudge against Tang Feiyi. You should know that, too.”
“Jiang Wen knows what he’s doing.” The alpha’s pheromones gradually grew stronger in the air, and Lin Yumin struggled to keep his breathing steady. “Heyang is already an adult. He can handle things himself.”
“That’s right. He’s an adult now. A grown man.” Lu Chengyu stared up at Lin Yumin, his calm voice carrying an indescribable hint of frivolity. “When I was eighteen, I’d already gotten my future sister-in-law pregnant.”
The remark caught Lin Yumin completely off guard. For a moment, he couldn’t even process what he’d heard. By the time his mind had registered every word, he had already been yanked by the wrist and pinned onto the bed.
Lu Chengyu held the side of Lin Yumin’s face and forced it to turn away, then sank his teeth into the vulnerable gland at the back of the omega’s neck, exposed before his eyes.
“I heard the list of universities offering early admission to S-class students has been published,” Chi Jiahan asked over lunch. “Which ones are you planning to apply to?”
“Universities in the capital, or ones nearby.”
“But there are so many. You have to narrow it down to a few.”
“I’m still looking,” Xu Ze said.
He was looking at tuition fees, financial assistance, and scholarships. Unlike other students, his priorities weren’t limited to the majors or universities themselves.
“Are you getting enough sleep these days?” Chi Jiahan knew the question was unnecessary, because Xu Ze quite obviously looked exhausted.
“It’s okay,” Xu Ze replied.
Chi Jiahan had no intention of bringing up lending him money again. There was no point; Xu Ze would refuse anyway.
At the moment, the only change was that Ye Yunhua’s monthly medical expenses had increased. It wasn’t yet an utterly desperate situation for Xu Ze. The truly desperate situation had occurred more than six months earlier, when Ye Yunhua underwent surgery. That was when Xu Ze had negotiated an emergency loan from Tang Feiyi in exchange for agreeing to box at the club.
“Has Tang Feiyi come looking for you lately—”
Before he could finish the sentence, Chi Jiahan saw Xu Ze suddenly frown. Xu Ze immediately covered his mouth and turned his head to one side, making a muffled sound in his throat as though he were about to retch.
“Is your stomach bothering you?” Chi Jiahan stopped eating.
Xu Ze took a few breaths and shook his head.
“Then why do you feel like throwing up? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” Xu Ze lowered his hand. “It’s been happening when I eat these past few days.”
“You should go to the school infirmary afterward. It must be a gastrointestinal problem.” Something suddenly occurred to Chi Jiahan, and he casually added, “It’s not as if you’re pregnant.”
He’d only meant it as a joke. Unexpectedly, Xu Ze went still for several seconds before answering quietly, “How could an alpha get pregnant?”
Chi Jiahan found Xu Ze’s reaction a little strange, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. He took another bite of food and said casually, “Not necessarily. Didn’t you study biology? The chances are extremely, extremely low, but some alphas have reproductive cavities that haven’t fully degenerated, so pregnancy is possible. They just can’t accommodate a fetus as it grows, so it has to be detected and terminated early.”
Xu Ze remained silent for ten seconds.
Chi Jiahan put down his chopsticks and stared at him. “Is it possible in your case?”
Xu Ze still didn’t answer. That was all the confirmation Chi Jiahan needed.
His feelings were too complicated to put into words. Lu Heyang had barely shown up at school this semester; the number of times could be counted on one hand. Xu Ze was practically a fool who’d been deceived, body and soul, by some scumbag alpha who appeared and disappeared like a mythical dragon. For all he knew, Xu Ze might even be going to bed with Lu Heyang after returning home from the auto repair shop at two in the morning.
The disparity between them was enormous, the chances of a future together minuscule. Xu Ze knew it. Lu Heyang knew it. Chi Jiahan knew it, too.
What Chi Jiahan couldn’t understand was why Lu Heyang had drawn Xu Ze so close to him in the first place. Other than treating him as a temporary fling, Chi Jiahan couldn’t think of any other explanation—even though Lu Heyang wasn’t the kind of person who casually played with other people’s feelings.
But whether he was seriously treating Xu Ze as a fling or casually playing with him, the outcome for Xu Ze wouldn’t be all that different.
“Come to the hospital with me after school,” Chi Jiahan said coldly.
“Not today.” Xu Ze’s face showed no particular emotion. He wasn’t panicked or uneasy. He simply said, “I have to go to the west side of the city tonight.”
The manager had called him directly the previous night and brought up the penalty for breaching his contract. Surprisingly, Xu Ze had felt a sense of relief. This matter had to be resolved sooner or later. Avoiding it and pretending it didn’t exist wouldn’t help.
After school that evening, Xu Ze rode his bicycle to the subway station, then transferred to a bus. When he arrived in the west side of the city, he stopped at a roadside pharmacy before entering the club.
The shop was small and old. The employee sat behind the counter, wearing a dingy white coat more out of obligation than anything else, playing on his phone. He didn’t even look up when someone entered.
“Hello, excuse me, do you have…” Xu Ze hesitated for a moment before continuing, “Do you have pregnancy test kits?”
The employee kept staring at his phone. As if he’d seen this countless times before, he reached into a corner of the shelf behind him, pulled out a box, and tossed it onto the counter.
“Thirty.”
Xu Ze picked it up and saw the words printed on the packaging: Pregnancy Test Kit for Omegas Only.
He knew nothing about this subject. It was the first time he’d learned that pregnancy tests were made for different sexes. Xu Ze pushed the box back slightly and asked, “Do you have one for alphas?”
The employee finally looked up at him. Then he put down his phone, stood up, and rummaged around an even more obscure corner of the shelves. He retrieved an alpha pregnancy test and placed it on the counter.
“Forty-five.”
“Thank you.” Xu Ze took out his phone and paid.
The employee pulled out a black plastic bag and put the pregnancy test inside. Then he opened a drawer, pinched a small card between his fingers, and slipped it into the bag as well before tying the handles together.
The card flashed briefly before Xu Ze’s eyes, but its heading was unmistakable. Printed in glaring dark red were six large characters: Painless Abortion Surgery.
Without saying a word, Xu Ze took the bag, stuffed it into his backpack, and left the pharmacy, heading toward the club.
Lu Heyang: ??? When did I ever make Xu Ze get off work at the auto repair shop at two in the morning and go to bed with me?