Xu Ze struggled to swallow the rice in his mouth.
“I wasn’t taking pictures of those advertisements.”
“I was joking.” Lu Heyang didn’t ask anything further, as though he’d really only been making a joke. “Eat a little more.”
After forcing himself to eat a few more bites, Xu Ze put down his chopsticks.
“I’m full.”
“Take a nap. Do you want to sleep in your room or here?”
Xu Ze didn’t know why Lu Heyang was leaving the choice up to him. He realized that he was still more accustomed to following Lu Heyang’s instructions.
“Is it that difficult to decide?” Lu Heyang asked when Xu Ze didn’t answer.
Xu Ze shook his head, took a sip of water, and avoided Lu Heyang’s gaze.
“Here.”
After washing his face in the bathroom, Xu Ze lay down on the bed. Lu Heyang picked up the remote and closed the curtains, immediately dimming the room. He climbed onto the bed and discovered that there was enough space between him and Xu Ze for approximately two more people to lie down.
“What are you doing?” Lu Heyang’s tone sounded a little helpless.
With a rustle, Xu Ze silently moved closer to him.
Under the blanket, Lu Heyang reached out and slipped his hand beneath Xu Ze’s T-shirt. His palm naturally came to rest against Xu Ze’s warm lower abdomen. He simply left it there without making any other movements.
Xu Ze held his breath, his body tense. After a few seconds, he moved closer to Lu Heyang.
Just as he was about to kiss him, Lu Heyang asked without reacting at all, “What time does this afternoon’s information session start?”
Xu Ze paused, then moved back to his own pillow and stopped looking at him.
“Two o’clock, or maybe two-thirty. I don’t remember.”
Lu Heyang withdrew his hand and straightened the hem of Xu Ze’s shirt.
“You wouldn’t forget something like that. What time is it, really?”
Having been found out, Xu Ze could only answer honestly.
“One-thirty.”
Lu Heyang gave a brief, breathy laugh and covered Xu Ze’s eyes with his hand.
“Go to sleep.”
It seemed that a thin layer of calluses had begun forming on his hand. Xu Ze had felt a slight tingling sensation when it rested against his lower abdomen just now. He took Lu Heyang’s hand away and touched the webbing between his thumb and index finger.
“Have you been practicing shooting?”
“Mm. I’ve been practicing quite a bit these past few days. There might still be some smell of gunpowder. Have a sniff.”
Xu Ze held Lu Heyang’s thumb in one hand and his index finger in the other. He gently spread Lu Heyang’s hand apart and brought his nose close to the space between the two fingers, sniffing.
All he could smell was a faint trace of pheromones.
“There’s none.”
“Then what should we do?” Lu Heyang asked.
The room was too dark. Even though they were very close, Xu Ze still couldn’t make out Lu Heyang’s expression, so he couldn’t tell whether he was seriously asking this strange question.
“Nothing needs to be done.”
Xu Ze had vaguely realized that Lu Heyang was probably joking again. He held Lu Heyang’s hand, placed it under the blanket, and clasped it.
He and Lu Heyang had slept on the same bed before, but they had never actually gone to sleep together on the same bed. Simply lying there like this felt a little unfamiliar to Xu Ze. He searched for another topic.
“Why did you come to listen to the information session?”
Both Lu Heyang and Gu Yunchi had already decided to apply to military academy. There was no reason for them to attend.
“I happened to have a day off, so I came back to take care of some paperwork.”
“Have you finished?”
“No. I came straight here after getting off the plane,” Lu Heyang said. “So I’ll have to leave again soon.”
Xu Ze gave an indistinct “Mm.”
Lu Heyang realized that Xu Ze was already falling asleep while holding his hand. He hadn’t even heard the second half of what Lu Heyang had said.
He must have been extremely tired. Lu Heyang knew that Xu Ze had worked at the auto repair shop until three in the morning, gotten up a little after seven to gather at the preparatory school’s entrance, and then attended the information session until noon.
The phone on the bedside table vibrated. Lu Heyang watched Xu Ze for a few seconds before slowly withdrawing his hand.
Xu Ze hadn’t been holding it very tightly. When he felt Lu Heyang’s hand gradually slipping away, he only gave it a very light squeeze. Perhaps he knew he couldn’t hold on, because the next second he gave up, withdrew his hand, and curled up slightly, burying half his face in the blanket.
Lu Heyang got out of bed, picked up his phone, and walked out of the bedroom. He then went to the living room sofa to retrieve his backpack before finally leaving the suite.
In the evening, after getting off the plane, Lu Qingmo attended a municipal government meeting. Afterwards, the Wei family sent a car to pick her up for a family dinner.
“An omega should always put family first. Set your career aside for now. It’s time to have a child.”
“We also mentioned this to the Chairman last time. It’s better to start preparing for pregnancy while you’re still young. The quality of the offspring will be better too.”
“You and Lingzhou obviously won’t have only one child, so that’s why you need to have your first child as early as possible. Once you’ve recovered, you can have younger brothers and sisters for the first child. It’s all for the sake of your health.”
Throughout the meal, Wei Lingzhou’s parents kept instilling these ideas into Lu Qingmo through their words. As usual, Lu Qingmo did not reveal any emotions. She only smiled mechanically from time to time to avoid appearing impolite.
After the meal, the two elders left first, leaving Lu Qingmo and Wei Lingzhou alone in the house. Wei Lingzhou had drunk some alcohol and was leaning lazily against his chair. He stared at Lu Qingmo with a half-smile.
“Don’t you usually leave as soon as the meal is over? Why are you willing to stay today?”
“Why did you hire people to beat him up?” Lu Qingmo asked in a calm, indifferent tone.
“Who?” Wei Lingzhou pretended to think for a moment before suddenly laughing. “Oh, that guy surnamed Han.”
“So you stayed behind just to ask about this?” He lit a cigarette. “I heard he was harassing you, so I gave him a little warning.”
Lu Qingmo looked at him. “When did he ever harass me?”
“How could you even forget something like that? The last time you went to give a speech at the Foreign Affairs Institute, didn’t that guy surnamed Han come over and pester you after it ended? I figured there was no way Mrs. Wei would take the initiative to strike up a conversation with a beta in public, so of course I had to find someone to teach him a lesson.”
She had not forgotten. That was because, apart from their accidental encounter at a hotel, it was only the second time they had spoken in several years. Lu Qingmo remembered it very clearly. She and Han Jian had stood facing each other, more than a meter apart, and exchanged fewer than ten sentences.
“He didn’t harass me. We were having a normal conversation,” Lu Qingmo said. “I hope you won’t interfere in this kind of matter again.”
If she wanted to, Lu Qingmo could slap countless photographs of Wei Lingzhou fooling around with other omegas right across his face. But she would never do that, because she did not love Wei Lingzhou and therefore did not care about his private life.
Alphas, however, were different. Even without feelings for their partners, they still wanted to force the other person to submit and obey, turning them into possessions that belonged exclusively to them.
“How could I possibly do that?” Wei Lingzhou straightened up and leaned slightly toward Lu Qingmo. “People like him have to be beaten. He nearly lost a leg last time, yet he still dares to bother you. The fact that I didn’t beat him into a cripple this time means I was being merciful. He won’t be so lucky next time.”
Lu Qingmo frowned slightly and turned her head away to avoid the smell of smoke and alcohol. Then she stood up.
Wei Lingzhou held the cigarette between his teeth and watched her with a faint smile.
The lights in the dining room were bright. Lu Qingmo raised her hand and delivered a clean, decisive slap across Wei Lingzhou’s face.
The sharp smack rang out loudly. Wei Lingzhou’s head was knocked to one side, and the cigarette in his mouth flew into his wineglass, where it fizzled out.
Ringing filled his head, and one side of his face quickly swelled and reddened. It took him quite a while to turn back in disbelief, glaring at Lu Qingmo with bloodshot eyes.
Lu Qingmo met his gaze calmly and slapped him across the face a second time with the back of her hand.
After being caught off guard and slapped twice in succession, Wei Lingzhou actually no longer dared to act rashly.
The omega standing before him was not only Mrs. Wei but also the eldest daughter of the chairman of the board.
Back then, when he had taken matters into his own hands and hired someone to run a car into Han Jian, he had not actually discussed it with Lu Chengyu. Lu Chengyu had only tacitly approved the matter because he wanted Lu Qingmo to give in. That did not mean Lu Chengyu would still show him any consideration now.
Even a man worth a fortune could not compete with a single finger of someone who held real power. Bringing down the Wei family would be an exceedingly easy matter for Lu Chengyu. If Lu Qingmo, who had always cooperated, were truly provoked into anger and something went wrong with this political marriage, the Wei family would undoubtedly be the first to suffer.
“You can try me,” Lu Qingmo said calmly.
She took a tissue and wiped her hand, then picked up her bag and walked out of the dining room.
Even after the evening lecture ended, Xu Ze was still regretting what had happened. He regretted falling asleep so quickly at noon, to the point that he had not even realized Lu Heyang had left.
Normally, no matter how tired he was, he would still need some time to settle down before falling asleep.
I’m leaving first. The room will be checked out tomorrow, so you can sleep here tonight. If He Wei asks you to hang out with him, ignore him and get some proper rest.
Xu Ze kept reading the message Lu Heyang had sent him over and over again, regretting it even more. If he had not fallen asleep, he could have heard Lu Heyang tell him all of this in person.
As expected, He Wei had slept enough during the day and was full of energy at night. He invited Xu Ze to go to a bar with him.
Xu Ze kept Lu Heyang’s instructions firmly in mind, refused the invitation, and returned to the suite.
After taking a shower and finishing a practice exam, Xu Ze washed up and went to bed.
The bed was very large, but Xu Ze lay only on the right side—the spot where Lu Heyang had slept at noon.
Xu Ze brought his nose close to the pillow and sniffed it carefully, like an animal. At last, he caught a very, very faint trace of Lu Heyang’s pheromones.
His phone chimed once, and Xu Ze immediately picked it up.
It was a message from an unfamiliar number.
But even an unfamiliar number could belong to Lu Heyang, because Lu Heyang seemed to have numerous domestic and overseas phone numbers. Whenever a new one appeared, Xu Ze would save it in his contacts.
He had started labeling them from Number 1, and by now the list had accumulated more than a dozen entries, even though many of those numbers might never be used again.
If Xu Ze had not known about Lu Heyang’s family background, he would have thought Lu Heyang sold SIM cards for a living.
He opened the message and found several pictures attached.
The moment he opened the first picture and realized what it was, Xu Ze abruptly sat up and held his breath.
They were portions of case files and documents relating to a certain case from ten years ago.
Xu Ze had never doubted the circumstances surrounding Xu Ming’s death. His mother, Qiao Yuan, had once believed other people’s lies because of it, been cheated out of all her savings and compensation money, and eventually slit her wrists and died by suicide. His grandmother had also suffered a severe shock because of what happened.
Even so, Xu Ze had never felt resentment or a sense of injustice, because he knew his father had died in the line of duty.
Therefore, even after learning from the case files that Xu Ming had died while investigating a drug trafficking case, Xu Ze had continued to hold the same belief.
That was, until he saw a somewhat familiar face in a screenshot from a surveillance recording.
Xu Ze quickly recalled who the man was.
He was an alpha who had a very close relationship with Tang Feiyi, named Shao Ping. He had also once been a trusted subordinate of Tang Feiyi’s father.
Yet the documents clearly identified Shao Ping as the ringleader of the drug trafficking case, stating that he had shot and killed three police officers while fleeing.
But Xu Ze remembered Shao Ping as the owner of an underground casino. The man had appeared at the club many times and had come and gone together with Tang Feiyi. Otherwise, Xu Ze would not have remembered him at all.
On the last page, among the list of criminals who had been shot dead on the spot or arrested, tried, and sentenced, there was no name of Shao Ping. This meant that he had indeed escaped back then and was still working for Tang Feiyi now, living comfortably and well.
More importantly, the documents made no mention of anyone accidentally falling down a mountain. There were only the three police officers who had been shot dead.
After looking through all the images again and organizing the information in his head, Xu Ze began to wonder who had sent them. He called the number back, but it seemed to be a virtual number, so the call wouldn’t go through.
It couldn’t have been Lu Heyang. Xu Ze didn’t think Lu Heyang would have the time or inclination to investigate something like this. Even if he did, he wouldn’t send it to Xu Ze so cryptically without providing any further explanation.
The second person who came to mind was Tang Feiyi, but Xu Ze couldn’t understand his motive for doing this.
It was already very late. Xu Ze saved the photos, turned off his phone, lay down, and pulled the covers over himself.
He had originally thought he could keep his emotions under control, but after lying with his eyes closed for more than an hour, he still couldn’t fall asleep.
What were the chances that the contents of the documents were fabricated? Very slim. The documents bore the seal of the Capital General Bureau, contained detailed case records, and concerned an incident that had taken place in the same city on the very day his father had died ten years ago. There were too many coincidences. The only discrepancy was that Xu Ming hadn’t been an anti-drug police officer, but an ordinary criminal investigator. However, it couldn’t be ruled out that he had been assigned to provide support for the operation.
If everything was true, it would mean that the wanted criminal who had killed a police officer was still making money and living freely, while the family of the police officer who had died in the line of duty had continued to fall apart over the past ten years.
It also meant that Xu Ze had crossed paths with the man who had killed his father many times at the club, without having the slightest idea.
Xu Ze still remembered the last time he had seen his father. That day, Xu Ming and Qiao Yuan had taken him to school. Xu Ze hadn’t cried or made a fuss. At the school gate, the teacher on duty had patted his head and told him to walk inside by himself. Xu Ze had his schoolbag on his back. After walking a few steps, he turned around and saw Xu Ming and Qiao Yuan standing by the roadside beneath the plane trees bathed in the morning sunlight, waving at him through the crowd.
Those two faces had grown blurry in his memory, but the sunlight that morning and the green plane tree leaves remained as vivid as if it had happened yesterday.
No one had warned the young boy he had been then that he was about to lose everything.
The following day, the presentation ended in the late afternoon. Xu Ze went to the auto repair shop without eating dinner. At ten that night, he crawled out from beneath a car, washed his hands, and secretly ate his already-cold meal in the tool room. He was afraid the bodyguard would see him, because the man would definitely insist on ordering him a fresh meal.
As he ate, Xu Ze called the unfamiliar number from the previous night. This was his eleventh attempt. The virtual number had already expired and been deactivated, and the automated message kept informing him that the number he had dialed was not in service.
With his mouth full of food, Xu Ze stared blankly at the floor. He rarely felt such an urgent desire to investigate something, and at the same time, he was overwhelmed by confusion. He didn’t know what he should do or how he should resolve the matter. The text message had come out of nowhere, so strangely and so bluntly, pointing every accusation directly at a particular person. It was practically an overt invitation for him to investigate further.
But regardless of who had sent the information or what their purpose was, Xu Ze couldn’t stop himself from wanting to verify it. The question that had tormented Qiao Yuan many years ago—how exactly had Xu Ming died?—had suddenly fallen upon him without any warning. There was no way he could simply ignore it.
His phone rang, abruptly pulling him out of his thoughts. Another unfamiliar number appeared on the screen. For some reason, Xu Ze hesitated for a moment before finally answering a few seconds later.
It wasn’t the voice of a stranger. It was Lu Heyang.
“Are you at the auto repair shop?”
“Mm.”
“What’s wrong?”
Xu Ze didn’t know how Lu Heyang could be so perceptive that he had sensed something was wrong from a single “Mm.” He paused before replying, “Nothing.”
“Okay, then I’ll hang up first.”
Xu Ze nodded to himself and gave another “Mm.” His thoughts were far too chaotic at the moment. He didn’t dare say too much, afraid he might inadvertently reveal something.
After walking out of the training room, Lu Heyang returned the phone to Gu Yunchi. Gu Yunchi wiped away his sweat with a towel. Seeing Lu Heyang’s somewhat cold expression, he asked, “What is it?”
Nothing. It was just that even over the phone, he could sense Xu Ze’s absentmindedness and caution, as though the boy was afraid something bad would happen if he said even one word too many. Xu Ze hadn’t even found it strange that the call had lasted less than fifteen seconds, much less asked, “Is something wrong?” This wasn’t like Xu Ze at all.
“Nothing.” Lu Heyang lowered his eyes and looked ahead, then said out of nowhere, “He’s too difficult to teach.”
He insisted on hiding everything and dealing with it all by himself. Unless someone grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and pinned his tail down, he would never take the initiative to explain anything. He really was incredibly difficult to teach.
Lu He Yang: This generation of wives is so hard to handle.