Chapter 12#
Taking Responsibility for You#
Zhen Ye wasn’t asking that idly. After all, there was an old saying in his family: the odds of a rabbit kicking an eagle to death were low, but never zero.
In his case, that translated to an omega overpowering an alpha—it sounded absurd, but what if he happened to be that one-in-a-million exception?
Zhen Ye left Du Rui completely dumbfounded.
“Force… how would you force—aren’t you an omega…? Ohhhh, that kind—”
Du Rui caught on instantly, then, to demonstrate his innocence, pressed a fist to his lips and cleared his throat:
“That should not have happened. Rest assured, Young Master Zhen, when my master came out, his clothes were intact. It was only his chest that you’d bitten until it bled.”
Zhen Ye immediately relaxed. Good—at least he wouldn’t face criminal charges.
But then he tensed up again: “Does he have a family?”
Du Rui: “? No.”
“A regular partner?”
“No.”
“An omega he likes, or who likes him?”
Du Rui couldn’t help but laugh at the barrage of questions. “Why is Young Master Zhen suddenly so concerned about this?”
Zhen Ye said cautiously, “I’m afraid his omega will come charging out to kill me.”
Du Rui: “…”
“It won’t come to that, it won’t come to that.” Du Rui couldn’t suppress his smile. “We’ve already consulted a doctor. You have rabbit lineage, so you have an extra scent gland. The mark is only a temporary one—at most, it’ll return to normal within a week. It’s not that serious.”
Zhen Ye mused, “But you said he was going into a frenzy. He saved me, and I bit him back. He has every right to be angry.”
Du Rui paused, then suddenly understood. “I misspoke. My master isn’t that kind of frenzy.”
Zhen Ye didn’t understand. “Then what kind is it?”
Du Rui’s gaze was meaningful as he turned and pushed open the door handle to the corridor leading to the master bedroom, making a gesture of invitation:
“Young Master Zhen, that’s not a question I can answer easily. But if it’s convenient for you, you can ask him yourself.”
·
Zhen Ye stepped into the corridor. A cool breeze lifted the stray hairs on his forehead. He turned his gaze and realized this was an open-air observation walkway.
Before him stretched towering mountains. The rain had already stopped, and mist wreathed the mountaintops.
Occasionally, wind scattered the drifting clouds, revealing a round opening, and sunlight slanted down through that hole in the clouds—a brilliant beam of golden light. Breathtakingly beautiful.
Only when the wind hit him did Zhen Ye realize he was wearing nothing but pajamas and slippers.
He was just about to turn back from the cold when Aunt Xu came over with a jacket and draped it over his shoulders in one motion.
Warm now.
She also handed him a phone charger, smiling.
Zhen Ye looked down at it. It wasn’t his windbreaker. Though the style and cut were similar, the gleaming fossil-bird logo on the chest was one he recognized.
He Junhua loved wearing this brand—he had several pieces in his wardrobe. Apparently they were very expensive and very warm.
Zhen Ye had no idea whose this one was, but the size happened to fit him perfectly.
Aunt Xu said with a smile, “Mr. Rong really has sharp eyes. The size he gave fits you just right, Young Master Zhen.”
Zhen Ye was stunned. His hand drifted down casually.
The price tag was still on.
It was as if it had been bought new, specifically for him.
It took him a few seconds to process that this “Mr. Rong” was probably the one he’d accidentally marked.
One does not accept undeserved gifts—why would this person be nice to him for no reason?
With questions in his mind, Zhen Ye passed through the corridor and entered a small sitting room, but there wasn’t a single person inside. The heating was generous, and for ventilation, a corner of the floor-to-ceiling window was open. Thin white gauze curtains billowed gently with the mountain wind outside, sending the morning light slanting in to ripple and shimmer across the wall.
Perhaps because the weather was fine, Zhen Ye let his tense shoulders relax somewhat in the pleasant environment. His gaze drifted to one corner of the sitting room, where he found a door tightly shut—probably the master bedroom.
Aunt Xu had gone to fetch breakfast. Zhen Ye approached the door and knocked tentatively. “Hello?”
Inside the room, the heavy curtains were drawn so thoroughly that not a sliver of light penetrated, completely blocking out the outside world. The air was saturated with an impossibly concentrated pheromone cloud.
Suddenly, from the darkness deep within, a pair of crimson pupils opened without warning. A chilling, sinister aura seeped outward in every direction.
Then came a wet, sticky slithering sound, rustling softly. Countless slender black appendages crawled out from the shadows beneath the bed, and in an instant, they covered the entire floor.
If anyone walked into that room, they would surely be scared out of their wits.
The appendages on the floor had a bizarre texture, like living muscle tissue—resembling nothing so much as stripped-away muscle fibers, or perhaps some kind of bark.
What was even more hair-raising was that each appendage was covered in densely packed tactile projections.
These projections seemed to possess independent life. They adhered to the smooth floor, contracting and expanding in a steady rhythm, propelling the massive body forward with a sliding motion.
It slid silently to the door.
Two unusually long, thin tentacles snaked up from the base of the wall. To climb more nimbly, hooked claws popped out from the tips of every sticky projection, digging deep into the plaster.
Anchor. Pull. Rise.
At last, this terrifying giant-spider-like thing pressed most of its body flat against the door, listening to what was happening outside.
“Mr. Rong? Are you there?”
Hearing that voice, it seemed to startle. Leaves shot upright along its limbs in disarray, trembling with a soft rustling, like butterfly wings fluttering.
The rustling was chaotic at first, but quickly adjusted, eerily simulating a human voice.
“Hell—lo.”
Zhen Ye leaned closer, thinking the voice sounded very broken, as if it wasn’t familiar with its own tongue.
He didn’t think much of it. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Mr. Rong, I’m very sorry about this situation. How would you like to resolve it? Why don’t you come out, and we can discuss it?”
“No, no… …no.”
“Why not?”
“…I have ssssome… defects… not… convenient.”
The voice came in fits and starts. The longer you listened, the more it sounded like a stuttering tape.
Zhen Ye figured that his temporary mark must have affected the other man.
Pheromones were, at their core, sex hormones. Even if an omega’s pheromones weren’t as aggressive as an alpha’s, they would still stir an intense longing in the marked party.
So this Mr. Rong was probably using his rationality to wrestle against a rapidly surging hormone level.
Poor guy.
If it had been any ordinary alpha, they’d have already pounced on Zhen Ye demanding “compensation.”
But Mr. Rong seemed very restrained. He’d rather endure the suffering himself than offend Zhen Ye.
Zhen Ye felt he should offer some comfort. He suggested, “I should take responsibility for your condition. How about I hold you for a bit and give you some of my pheromones?”
“No, no, no no! …Absolutely not.” The appendages pressed against the door writhed and undulated, ruthlessly gulping down the faint trace of omega scent carried by the thin air seeping through the gap in the door.
The distorted voice refused violently.
Zhen Ye had never met an alpha so… so chaste.
It was rare to find one who actually followed alpha ethics.
He really did know how to pick the right person to bite.
But as Zhen Ye was lost in thought, he didn’t notice the daylight outside the window dimming. A vine, unable to restrain itself, was stretching and creeping slowly in through the window frame.
Something was hissing in low whispers at a frequency beyond human hearing: Not enough… not nearly enough… give me more…
More…
The vine was slender and supple. It raised its tip slowly in the air like a snake locking onto its prey, and aimed at the delicate nape of Zhen Ye’s neck.
It shot forward.
Its tip split open, revealing a dense, terrifying ring of tiny teeth.
“—Young Master Zhen, come have breakfast.”
It retracted with a shwoop.
Zhen Ye turned around and saw Aunt Xu wheeling in a breakfast cart. He gave a faint “okay.”
He lifted the lid of the plate: crystal shrimp dumplings, steamed ribs, phoenix custard buns, and a bowl of taro and snail congee—light, fresh, nutritious, and delicious.
Clearly, someone had given instructions that Zhen Ye had run a fever yesterday, and the meal had been carefully arranged to suit a patient’s palate.
Zhen Ye was hungry, so he sat down and picked up his chopsticks.
But throughout the meal, he felt a pair of eyes boring into his back.
Whenever he turned around, the feeling vanished. There was nothing in the room, except for a potted plant on a hexagonal side table that looked rather cold, twisted, and strange.
Zhen Ye glanced at it a couple of times. He had a vague sense that something was off about the plant, but he couldn’t quite articulate what. So he set it aside and kept eating.
“Does… it suit your… taste?”
That voice suddenly asked.
Naturally, Zhen Ye said yes, then steered back to the topic: “Mr. Rong, do you intend to hold this against me after all?”
“No.”
“But words are just words.” Zhen Ye grabbed a custard bun, took a bite, and looked around for paper and pen. Around a mouthful, he said indistinctly, “How about you write me a written statement?”
“Yes, I can.”
He was surprisingly easy to deal with.
Zhen Ye walked to the door and slipped the paper and pen through the narrow gap, emboldened by his success: “Then please make the validity period generous. Write that from today until two years from now, you won’t pursue any legal responsibility for my marking you.”
“Why… two years?”
Zhen Ye didn’t see any harm in telling him—after all, news of his marriage would spread soon enough. “I signed a prenuptial agreement. I can’t get divorced until two years are up. If you come looking for me before then, I might not get the final payment after the divorce.”
“How… much money?”
Zhen Ye frowned slightly, his lashes drooping. “One million.”
“Only… one million?” The other’s emotions surged, his voice growing even more fragmented and sinister, even producing overlapping echoes in the space. “One million can buy… buy two years of your time?”
“Of course it’s not that cheap.” There was no emotion on Zhen Ye’s face. He gnawed at the custard bun, slid his back down the wall, and sat on the floor by the door. “Three million in total.”
“I can give you more—more—more—more—”
He said “more” many, many times.
Zhen Ye suddenly smiled. He didn’t find the way he spoke annoying at all. Instead, he listened patiently, then replied, “You must be joking with me.”
“I’m… serious.” Through the gap in the door, its main body vaguely caught sight of the omega’s figure.
The young man sat leaning against the base of the wall. The warm indoor light fell over him, making his profile appear pale as snow, almost translucent.
This child needed far more than a single breakfast. He needed many meals. Much careful attention.
“Mister, hold on, hold on,” Zhen Ye quickly pointed out. “You’re only being nice to me because the oxytocin in my pheromones has taken over your system—it makes you keep showing me goodwill and expressing liking. I understand this very well.”
He said, “I’m not going to take advantage of you while you’re in this state.”
The other replied, “You already did last night.”
“…”
Zhen Ye tried to explain himself: “…Last night was last night. Today is today.”
“I don’t mind if you take a little more.”
This sentence came out unusually smoothly, with a tenderness in its tone that was hard to detect.
Zhen Ye: “…Ah.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re so magnanimous,” Zhen Ye smiled slowly. “I’m a little jealous of your future omega.”
The other fell silent.
That silence made Zhen Ye realize that what he’d just said had crossed a line.
He turned his head away, brushing it off with a slightly embarrassed laugh. “I was joking.”
Rustle. A piece of paper was pushed out from under the door.
Zhen Ye picked it up and saw a name already signed on it—crooked and unsteady, like someone who couldn’t grip a pen well, having written it with great difficulty.
He squinted to make out the characters. “Rong, Yu.”
“So your name is ‘Island.’”
Zhen Ye curved his lips and couldn’t help adding, “My name is Zhen Ye. You can call me by my name, or Xiao Zhen—either works.”
Little rabbit, little rabbit.
Just like before.
The same introduction. The same Zhen Ye.
In his memory, that crisp childhood voice was still echoing in his ears:
—Uncle, I’m lost. Can you help me find my mommy?
At this moment, Zhen Ye said to him through the door:
“Mr. Rong, thank you for saving me. How about we shake hands?”
In different times and spaces, the two voices gradually overlapped.
Once again, they exchanged names—still not at the right time, the right place, or in a decent state.
The appendages pressed against the door slowly curled back toward the shadows under the bed. As the leaves rustled and trembled, they simulated the voice he’d had as a human:
“Next time.”
In this state, I’d only scare you.
“Okay.” Zhen Ye stood up, preparing to say goodbye. Glancing down at the well-made jacket on his body, he remembered. “Oh, right. This jacket you gave me is too expensive—I can’t accept it.”
As he spoke, Zhen Ye took the jacket off and draped it over the back of a nearby chair.
“Put it on.”
Zhen Ye’s movements paused.
Mr. Rong, from inside the door, returned the earlier statement to him with every appearance of reasonableness:
“You said it yourself—your pheromones ‘forcibly control’ me, and I can’t help but be good to you.”
Zhen Ye: “…?”
He wasn’t stuttering anymore.
That voice continued, its logic airtight yet almost shameless:
“So from now on, every uncontrollable act of kindness, affection, material gifts, and money I give you—you, as the omega who marked me, must accept it all. That’s the responsibility you owe me.”
Zhen Ye stood there, dumbfounded. “…Ah?”
“Otherwise,” Rong Yu said, with a touch of deliberate arrogance, “that written statement of yours? I won’t honor it.”