After leaving Weimin Residential Area, Xia Fan sat in the car and used a wet tissue to wipe the wound on his skin that had been scratched open by Xu Jie. Afterward, he took out his phone and checked the GPS location of Zou Yuyang. Linyuan Villas was one of the well-known villa districts in City S, with market values rising year after year. Zou Yushen had bought a unit immediately after becoming a nouveau riche from land expropriation compensation.
How ridiculous. He took his eldest son and wife to live in a grand villa while being stingy to the point of absurdity toward Zou Yuqing and Xu Jie. A trace of disdain flashed in Xia Fan’s eyes. He closed his phone, started the engine, and drove toward Linyuan Villas.
The fact that Zou Yuyang was still at home meant he assumed everything had been resolved. When talking on the phone with Wei Mingyu last night, he had also acted all carefree without a shred of tension, completely unaware that a storm was approaching. And Wei Mingyu, spoiled rotten by the Wei family, actually wanted to marry such a man and even got pregnant before marriage.
Sighing quietly without changing expression, Xia Fan projected the tracker onto the dashboard and opened Wei Mingyu’s location. Although he knew the young master was currently locked up at home, for safety’s sake, he turned on both of their locations simultaneously and focused on driving. Never did he expect that in less than half an hour, a call would come in.
“Xia Fan, Wei Mingyu escaped. He should be heading to find Zou Yuyang. Bring them both over in a bit, but do not bring them to the old place. Bring them straight to my office.” As soon as Xia Fan turned on speakerphone, he heard Wei Mingjue’s gnashing tone, sending goosebumps all over his skin.
“Yes.” The moment he finished replying, the other end hung up the phone, and a few seconds later, another call came in.
“Xia Fan! I’m done for! Did the Grim Reaper call you to say his precious younger brother escaped?” Liang Shv’s miserable cries suddenly rang out, followed by his sobbing wails: “He told me to keep watch, but who would have thought this little monkey would copy TV shows by turning bedsheets into a rope and climbing down from the window? I only found out when I wanted to go in and give him an injection just now. It’s over, completely over. I thought a pregnant omega would be delicate!”
“He went to Linyuan Villas to find Zou Yuyang. I’m heading in that direction right now, don’t panic.” Xia Fan was truly terrible at comforting people, yet Liang Shv always loved coming to him to vent his grievances.
Then again, Liang Shv was just like him. To put it nicely, they were the left and right arms of the Wei family. To put it bluntly, they were both dogs of the Wei family, tool figures casually ordered around by Wei Mingjue. Thus, they shared a common misery. His own personality was taciturn and consistently cold, keeping whatever happened bottled up inside, but Liang Shv was different. He would vent it out, and his sounding board was always Xia Fan.
“If Wei Mingyu gets hurt, even if he just scrapes a patch of skin, I’ll probably be hacked into pieces, right? Xia Fan, let’s be brothers again in the next life, big brother is taking off first.” Liang Shv was still howling on the other end of the line.
He never would have imagined that a pregnant omega could pull off something so dangerous. No one expected it, including Wei Mingjue, which was why he had sent all his manpower to the company before leaving, keeping only the old butler and a few servants at home.
“Stop talking nonsense, I’m almost there. I’ll talk to you later, see you tonight.” Feeling somewhat helpless, Xia Fan glanced at the navigation and then at the tracking screen. He calculated that Wei Mingyu would arrive at Zou Yuyang’s place around the same time as him.
Hanging up the phone, Xia Fan parked his car outside Linyuan Villas, got out, and hid in a concealed spot to observe the upscale villa district, suddenly thinking of the dilapidated entrance of Weimin Residential Area. He thoroughly disliked Zou Yuqing, but alongside that dislike came a bit of sympathy, especially after interacting with Xu Jie. He realized how truly difficult it was for Zou Yuqing to grow up in such an environment.
Lost in these thoughts, he saw someone walk out of the villa district. This person shared five or six points of likeness with Zou Yuqing, but while Zou Yuqing looked resolute, this person had a neutral appearance, decked out in head-to-toe designer logos, truly looking like a nouveau riche. Standing at the entrance, he was clearly waiting for Wei Mingyu.
Before long, a taxi pulled up, and Wei Mingyu hopped out, instantly throwing himself into Zou Yuyang’s embrace. The two of them laughed radiantly.
Xia Fan found the scene quite bizarre. He had thought Zou Yuyang was pestering Wei Mingyu, but looking at it now, that didn’t seem to be the case at all. He couldn’t understand what Wei Mingyu saw in Zou Yuyang. In terms of money, his own family was obviously much wealthier than the Zou family. In terms of looks, while the guy was handsome, he lacked the ruggedness of an Alpha and was far too androgynous.
Now was not the time for critique. Xia Fan covertly followed behind the pair, and right before they turned toward the doorway, he grabbed Zou Yuyang by the collar.
“Who is this!” Zou Yuyang suddenly felt a wave of suffocation as his collar was jerked backward, as if his lifeline had been pinched. The moment he turned his head, he was greeted by an icy face, breaking out in a cold sweat of terror.
“Brother Xia Fan! Don’t treat Yuyang like this!” Wei Mingyu was also startled. Turning his head to see the familiar cold face, he began frantically wrestling with Xia Fan’s arm, trying to yank that hand off Zou Yuyang’s collar. Yet he couldn’t budge it. His strength was like that of a tiny chick before Xia Fan, utterly powerless.
Hearing Wei Mingyu’s address for Zou Yuyang, Xia Fan pressed his lips together slightly, then said emotionlessly, “President Wei wants me to bring you two to his office.”
“We’re not going! Let go right now!” Wei Mingyu continued to shout, exerting useless force. His sharp voice sounded exceptionally piercing in the quiet villa district.
Xia Fan frowned and lowered his voice in a threat. “Then I’ll take him away alone. Young Master, you know very well what will happen if he goes alone.”
That quieted Wei Mingyu down. He understood his older brother well. If Zou Yuyang was taken away alone, his brother would definitely not let Zou Yuyang off easily. But if he went along, perhaps he could still plead for mercy. Thinking this, Wei Mingyu gritted his teeth and asked, “Is my brother still very angry?”
Xia Fan glanced at Wei Mingyu and the petrified Zou Yuyang, saying nothing as he pulled Zou Yuyang into the car. “You’d better start thinking about how you’re going to explain this.”
Along the way, both Wei Mingyu and Zou Yuyang looked anxious and uneasy. Xia Fan glanced into the rearview mirror and saw Zou Yuyang’s face turned white with fright, finding it somewhat amusing. They were both Alphas, so how could the gap between them be so massive? He thought for a moment, then quickly messaged Liang Shv: The person has been caught, you can rest easy.
Liang Shv replied: I love you, you are my god!
Xia Fan didn’t reply further. Driving in silence all the way, he arrived downstairs at Shuangming Pharmaceuticals and led the two culprits to the general manager’s office. Wei Mingjue was currently facing away from the door, but from the moment they entered, one could see his right hand toying with an expensive fountain pen, finally slamming it heavily against the armrest of his chair with a loud snap. Both Wei Mingyu and Zou Yuyang flinched, swallowing hard.
“President Wei, the people are here. I’ll take my leave.” As soon as Xia Fan finished speaking, Wei Mingjue waved his hand, and Xia Fan walked out, closing the door softly behind him.
Wei Mingjue slowly turned around. He kept his head lowered, his face buried in shadow so his expression couldn’t be clearly seen, but those eyes gleamed with a gloomy shadow, as if pondering how to skin them alive.
“Brother.”
“Zou Yuyang?” Wei Mingjue didn’t let Wei Mingyu speak first, instead lifting his gaze toward Zou Yuyang. That Alpha had already been frightened speechless, utterly pathetic and not even a fraction of Zou Yuqing. He thought to himself that if it had truly been this Zou Yuyang dragged there that day, he certainly wouldn’t have treated him the way he treated Zou Yuqing. He would have just killed him outright.
“I, I didn’t.” Zou Yuyang felt as though he had arrived in the netherworld. Even though sunlight streamed warmly through the floor-to-ceiling windows into the office, he still felt a bone-chilling cold, yet terror was his greatest enemy right now. He had thought Zou Yuqing had handled everything, especially since nearly two days had passed, but unexpected to him, he was standing right here anyway.
“You didn’t?” Wei Mingjue sneered. “Then who are you? Zou Yuqing?”
Zou Yuyang fell silent, his eyes filled with terror, and it was only because Wei Mingyu was holding onto him from the side that he didn’t faint from fright.
Wei Mingjue looked down even more on this Alpha who still needed his younger brother to shield him, his eyes narrowing slightly. This person had played them all for fools once, but because of this mishap, he had gotten to know Zou Yuqing, who wasn’t half bad.
“Brother, don’t scare him.” Wei Mingyu was terrified too. Although Wei Mingjue doted on him, he never compromised or accommodated when it came to matters of principle. He knew the trouble he had stirred up crossed the bottom line, but he loved Zou Yuyang and wanted to fight for it.
“An Alpha who only knows how to hide behind your back, and you like him this much?” Wei Mingjue held back his anger and continued. “Xiaoyu, before I kill him, go wash away the mark. The child cannot be kept either.”
As soon as these words fell, Wei Mingyu’s eyes instantly reddened. “Brother! Don’t be like this. I won’t wash the mark! I want to bear this child. I want to marry Yuyang! Yuyang and I are truly in love!”
“Truly in love?” Wei Mingjue felt he was reaching his limit. “How long have you even known each other? The person who marked you the moment you met and got a newly-grown omega pregnant, how much could he possibly care about you? Huh? Tell me so I can hear it.”
“It wasn’t just meeting! Yuyang and I met a long time ago, and he only did that to save me. Brother! If you’re going to kill Yuyang, then I won’t live either!” With that, Wei Mingyu burst into tears, his tears falling uncontrollably as his pheromones began to destabilize, the sweet scent of grapes suddenly diffusing into the air.
Wei Mingjue widened his eyes. It wasn’t as if he had never seen an omega release pheromones due to emotional loss of control, but seeing his own younger brother like this was a first. Meanwhile, Zou Yuuyang, who had been standing silently by and merely trembling slightly, suddenly moved to embrace his younger brother, sending a wave of bitter orange pheromones into the air that steadied Wei Mingjue, yet thoroughly disgusted him.
“Mingyu, don’t get excited, take deep breaths.” Abandoning any thought of that gaze meant to kill him, Zou Yuuyang focused entirely on soothing his omega.
Under the current circumstances, further interrogation was impossible. Wei Mingjue quickly dialed Liang Shv’s number again, then frowned as he looked at Zou Yuuyang sitting on the floor and Wei Mingyu in Zou Yuuyang’s arms.
He knew Wei Mingyu’s stubborn temper. The brothers were exactly alike in this regard, determined to get whatever person or thing they set their sights on. But he simply couldn’t understand why it had to be this Alpha who acted like a beta.
Thinking back now, Zou Yuqing truly was an exceptional find he had stumbled upon by accident.