Chapter 21#
Sticky and Clingy#
As they spoke, the Maybach had already descended from the elevated highway and entered the old street shrouded in the haze of cooking smoke.
Zhen Ye glanced outside—the barbecue restaurant that often disturbed his dreams was right before his eyes, and a little further ahead would be the entrance to his building.
When he got out of the car, Rong Yu had Du Rui hand him something. Zhen Ye looked—the bag contained a new phone. So while he had been hesitating and agonizing, Rong Yu had already bought one.
“I didn’t know which model you’d like, so I took the liberty of choosing the top spec. The receipt is in the bag; if you don’t like the color, you can exchange it, or return it and buy another one.”
Rong Yu was steady and thorough in everything he did. He initiated the advance, but also left Zhen Ye plenty of room to retreat.
Once, twice, three times. Zhen Ye couldn’t refuse him three times in one day, so he accepted it with gratitude.
Before leaving, Zhen Ye remembered something. With one hand on the car door, he extended his other hand, palm up, and raised an eyebrow. “Last time we didn’t get to shake hands because of the door between us. Want to this time?”
Rong Yu lifted his eyelids, his deep black pupils reflecting the omega’s tall, slender figure. The young man raised his hand to rest on the door frame, and with the slight stretch of his movement, the hem of his clothes at his waist lifted a little—a sliver of very fine, very pale waist stood out against the black coat, so fair and slender it was dazzling.
His gaze moved downward, landing on the hand the young man had extended. Rong Yu grasped it without hesitation—in fact, the force could no longer be called a grasp; it was more like a clutch. If Zhen Ye hadn’t known that alphas usually had strong hands, he might have wondered whether there was some hint of unwillingness to let go in it.
The dim light of the residential complex cast a soft glow over the young omega’s cheeks.
Zhen Ye curved his lips. “Very glad to meet you again, Mr. Rong.”
Again. Meet.
Rong Yu was briefly stunned, then half-lowered his eyes, the corners of his thin lips lifting upward. “And I’m very glad to meet you too.” Little rabbit.
In front of the building entrance, Lawyer Qu walked out from the pitch-black stairwell. After they’d left, she’d taken a moment to go upstairs and sit around—a harmless-looking female beta, she’d even helped herself to two of Xu Linlin’s cookies.
Now coming down, a gentle breeze picked up. She watched the thin, tall omega say goodbye to her boss. The man took two steps, then hurried back, and the sound of their conversation drifted over on the wind, “…Mr. Rong, your contact information…”
Lawyer Qu tsked. This omega was pretty clingy, alright.
And Director Rong—this ascetic, cold-faced demon—actually had a day when he coaxed and soothed someone.
But watching Director Rong look at him with tender eyes, murmuring softly to the omega, it didn’t seem like he’d found himself a little lover… it seemed more like… raising a child?
As Lawyer Qu watched the show, something suddenly crossed her mind.
She remembered that the contract for the arrangement—Rong Yu, because he hadn’t been physically stable at the time, seemed to have never read it carefully. He’d only asked her and Secretary Jin to review it.
Their task, naturally, was to screen for anything unfavorable to the boss. As for the more private clauses, they had no authority to question them, nor was it convenient to remind him.
Thinking of a certain page, a certain paragraph, in bold black type: “—Party B shall fulfill marital relations with Party A, guaranteeing at least one hour per week…”
Lawyer Qu watched Zhen Ye, whose neck was flushed red, lower his head and hurry into the stairwell, and her expression turned meaningful.
She wondered if they’d amended those clauses.
If they hadn’t…
Then there was bound to be a misunderstanding.
·
Zhen Ye went upstairs, back to his bedroom, and poured a glass of water, gulping it down before he felt the heat on his face subside a little.
He sat down to rest for a moment, then unsealed the new phone, planning to transfer the data and photos from his old phone over.
While he was setting up the programs, the door was suddenly knocked on.
Thump, thump.
Before he could answer, the other person twisted the handle and pushed the door straight open. “Zhen Ye, do you have a minute? I want to talk to you about ending the lease—”
Before the words even finished, a sudden great force slammed the door shut from inside the room.
“Hey, don’t close the door!” the guy from the next room yelped in pain. “Ow, it crushed my hand!”
Only then did Zhen Ye pause, slowly looking down to find that he was using all his strength to block the door, instinctively keeping the other person from coming in.
He took a slow step back and let the door open.
The guy shook his hand, asking furiously, “Are you crazy? Was that on purpose?”
Zhen Ye countered, “Who told you you could open my door without announcing yourself?”
The guy said, unabashed, “Didn’t I knock?”
Zhen Ye said coldly, “When you go into your boss’s office, do you just walk in without waiting for an answer after knocking? No wonder you keep failing to get promoted.”
The guy was rendered speechless, his face turning pale and green before he cursed, “…Fuck.”
Zhen Ye held the door, not letting him peer into the bedroom, and said flatly, “What did you want to say about the lease?”
The guy finally remembered his actual business, rubbing his wrist in irritation. “My girlfriend told me to let you know we’re both moving out at the end of the month. This place is unlivable. There are mice in the house, you know?”
“Haven’t noticed any.” Zhen Ye spoke truthfully.
“Man, those mice make so much noise in the middle of the night—you seriously didn’t hear them?”
The guy looked baffled, pointing at the old hollow ceiling. “They’re always running around in the ceiling at four in the morning, creaking and scratching, scared us so bad we couldn’t sleep. You really never heard it once?”
Zhen Ye said briefly, “I wear earplugs to sleep.”
The barbecue place downstairs was noisy, and since he couldn’t solve that problem, Zhen Ye had bought earplugs.
So unless the noise was especially loud, he didn’t wake easily once he was asleep.
The guy still looked a bit skeptical, thinking Zhen Ye was making up an excuse to brush him off, but decided not to press further. He said:
“Anyway, the landlord’s coming next week. You should say the same thing we do—that the old house has mice. That way the landlord can’t make excuses to dock our deposits.”
Zhen Ye gave an “mm,” which counted as agreement. After the other person left, he immediately shut the door.
This time, even though he was awake, he locked it.
This was the bad thing about shared rentals—no privacy. When you ran into people with no sense of boundaries, they’d just push the door open without thinking, which was very disrespectful.
Maybe it didn’t matter to others, but to him, this cramped bedroom was his last private space. For someone else to barge in uninvited was like intruding on his psychological territory—it made him instantly tense, panicked, unable to breathe.
Zhen Ye lowered his eyes, flashes of memories surfacing of He Yusheng kicking open his bedroom door in the past.
His spine trembled.
But he quickly dug his nails hard into his palm, using the pain to drive those thoughts away, so he wouldn’t fall into the black hole of his emotions.
Otherwise, he’d be engulfed by the agony of memory, his whole body going stiff, unable to do even the most basic things like brushing his teeth or taking a shower.
Like a useless wreck.
Zhen Ye forced himself to move, immediately going to wash up, while distracting himself in the shower with the thought: Mr. Rong really was foolish, spending three million to buy a defective omega like me…
With a bad back, with mental illness, with an addiction, and a womb that had grown deformed compared to a normal omega’s.
And if—
If the person he actually had to fulfill the contract with really was Rong Yu, would he find him strange?
Just then, some words from the contract drifted through his mind.
Marital relations… every week… information sensor contact…
Right. According to the terms, they’d have to do that too.
When he’d signed the contract with the Chen family before, it had felt disgusting. Now that it was the good-looking Rong Yu instead, there was a little flutter of excitement and restless anticipation in his chest.
Zhen Ye bit his lip, rubbing his hair dry with a faded old towel. He went back to the bedroom, locked the door, sat down on the edge of the bed, his long, thin legs flushed pink from the hot water pressed together. His expression was calm, but he could clearly feel the spot near his inner thighs gradually growing damp.
When the feeling came, there was no stopping it.
Zhen Ye slipped into the ice-cold blankets and took out his little wooden stick.
But maybe he was too tired today—halfway through, the stick squeezed out and fell to the side, and he drifted into sleep without realizing it.
The single bed, only a meter wide, was very narrow, and the blanket was cramped too; even turning onto his side was difficult. He frowned uncomfortably, completely unaware that the blanket was slowly bulging up over him, eerily rising into a curve.
Silently, a green vine poked out from underneath, threw off the blanket, and pushed it aside. Zhen Ye, hit by the cold air in his sleep, instinctively bent his knees and curled up his body. His consciousness was hazy, vaguely feeling something winding around his waist—cold and slimy, gliding against his soft, warm belly.
The waistband of his sleep pants was hooked by the vine and pulled down to his knees. Fleshy leaves rustled as they swept across the skin of his legs, parched and thirstily searching everywhere. His sleeping body’s senses were dulled; he felt a slight itch, reached down to scratch it, and then, completely defenseless, let his knees fall apart.