Fang Fengqin’s first reaction upon waking up was pain.
His waist hurt, his head hurt, and the back of his neck hurt.
Saying the back of his neck wasn’t quite accurate; it should be his gland. And it wasn’t just pain—beneath the pain, there was a sense of fullness.
His body had also grown full, like a withered branch suddenly tasting sweet rain, with every single pore clamoring in unbearable desire.
Thirst was not terrifying; what was terrifying was having been moistened by water, making it difficult to endure the dryness once again.
A thick scent of white pine lingered at the tip of his nose, so heavy it carried a slight bitterness and clean spiciness.
Fang Fengqin had to admit a reality.
That was, the niche pheromone scent he had painstakingly chosen back then actually happened to clash with this fellow Shen Jiyun.
No wonder every time this person looked at him, his gaze carried a hint of strangeness. Fang Fengqin had previously mistaken it for provocation, but thinking about it now, Shen Jiyun probably really did find it bizarre.
He stayed on the bed for a long while before realizing he was being held in someone’s arms in an extremely close posture, with the exhaled hot breath blowing over his aching, somewhat numb gland.
What the fuck.
Fang Fengqin bristled all at once, abruptly bending his arm and throwing a heavy elbow backward. A muffled groan came from behind, and with his scalp tingling, Fang Fengqin scrambled and crawled his way out of bed.
Shen Jiyun had only been asleep for a few hours when he was woken up by a heavy blow to his abdomen.
His brows carried a gloomy expression like an approaching storm as he pressed down on Fang Fengqin’s waist with his hand and flipped over to pin him down.
“Bastard!” Before Shen Jiyun could utter a word, Fang Fengqin spoke first.
He struggled and cursed angrily, his voice still hoarse. Feeling the man’s scorching palm pressed against the back of his neck, his struggling movements suddenly halted, and he froze completely still like a frightened quail.
“You have a death wish?” Shen Jiyun asked him, his grip on his neck tightening somewhat.
Last night’s memories finally flooded back then, rushing into Fang Fengqin’s mind like a tidal wave. It took him a full minute of freezing up to accept reality.
To accept the fact that he had cried and shouted under Shen Jiyun, shamelessly begging someone to mark him.
Shen Jiyun watched as Fang Fengqin’s face rapidly flushed crimson, comparable to a ripe apple.
He sneered coldly, maliciously rubbing the person’s gland with his palm and saying to him, “Remembered? Do you need me to help you recall just how slutty you were?”
Provoked by these words, Fang Fengqin’s lips snapped shut.
After a long while, he lowered his voice and said, “Let go of me.”
Shen Jiyun also couldn’t be bothered to dance around with him anymore.
No matter how low his grade was, Fang Fengqin was ultimately still an alpha.
Alphas were inherently antagonistic toward one another. He could mark this person once or twice, but the longer it went on, the more Fang Fengqin’s body would develop a resistance to his pheromones.
This would lead to him never being able to break Fang Fengqin’s wings in this lifetime, never able to make this person lower his arrogant head and prostrate himself beneath him to beg for a mark.
Shen Jiyun found it uninteresting.
He possessed a possessiveness and desire for control far stronger than ordinary people, and he could not endure the feeling of the person beneath him slipping out of his control.
He got up to make way, looking at Fang Fengqin with deep, dark eyes.
For the first time, Fang Fengqin avoided his gaze.
Lowering his head, he tidied up his rumpled clothes and then made to flee as if running for his life.
“Young Master Fang.” Shen Jiyun suddenly called out from behind him.
Fang Fengqin paused.
“It is said that any omega bitten by you receives a sum of compensation money.” Shen Jiyun’s tone was neither heavy nor light as he leaned against the head of the bed, his gaze fixed straight on Fang Fengqin’s face.
“I’ve marked you, so logically and reasonably I should give you some compensation.”
Fang Fengqin’s expression abruptly turned ugly.
Damn it, didn’t he see him about to leave like his ass was on fire? How dare this dead man bring it up.
“You’d better let this matter rot in your stomach,” he threatened viciously from not far away. “Otherwise, I’ll finish you off.”
“What do you plan to do?” Shen Jiyun asked him gently. “Smother me to death with your gland?”
Fang Fengqin’s face turned alternately red and white.
Having taken an elbow first thing in the morning and having his sweet sleep disturbed, Shen Jiyun was extremely displeased.
Hearing a few words of humiliation now, he felt much more refreshed.
He put on his usual smiling face again, gentle yet aloof.
“Young Master Fang, I have no intention of making an enemy of you.”
Fang Fengqin only wanted to destroy this person.
And he called this not making an enemy of him? He didn’t even need to look to know how wretched his gland looked.
He recalled last night, when this person had bitten and chewed on his gland like a dog, refusing to continue until he forced him to say it felt good at the critical moment.
Headache. Fang Fengqin smiled insincerely. “I don’t have extra energy to mess around with you either. Let’s just drop this matter here.”
“Starting today, we’ll mind our own business, and past grievances are wiped clean.”
Shen Jiyun was of the exact same mind. “As you wish, I will keep your secret for you.”
Fang Fengqin’s mind buzzed fiercely.
He lifted his eyelids and stared expressionlessly at Shen Jiyun. “Secret?”
Shen Jiyun curled his lips in a low chuckle. “Yes, your secret.”
The hand hanging at his side gradually clenched into a fist, and Fang Fengqin began to contemplate the probability of knocking Shen Jiyun into amnesia with a single punch.
If he really found out about him being an omega.
A trace of agitation flashed through Fang Fengqin’s eyes as he tightened his jaw and said word by word, “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“No one will know that you are an alpha whose grade is so low you can’t even release pheromones.” Shen Jiyun gave him a reassuring smile. “Young Master Fang, spray a little less perfume next time. I find the smell uncomfortable.”
The heart hanging in Fang Fengqin’s chest suddenly dropped back down.
Immediately followed by embarrassment.
He stood in place for a long time, his expression changing several times before he squeezed two words out through the crack of his lips.
“Th-thank you.”
With that, he walked out with a complicated expression.
As soon as the bedroom door opened, a petite figure lunged forward.
Shen Yue had only been eavesdropping for two minutes before getting caught. She stumbled a few steps to steady herself and awkwardly rubbed the hem of her skirt.
“Sister-in-law.” She looked up and called out to Fang Fengqin with naive cuteness.
The corner of Fang Fengqin’s eye twitched. Too late to defend himself, he merely cast a hurried glance at her and briskly walked outward.
“Hey! Sister-in-law! Where are you going?” Catching sight of the bite marks at the back of his neck, Shen Yue furrowed her brow and hurried after him to hand him an inhibitor patch.
Fang Fengqin took it, mumbled a word of thanks, and left without looking back under Shen Yue’s eager gaze.
Watching his slender figure quickly walk out of sight, Shen Yue turned around and walked toward Shen Jiyun’s room.
Shen Jiyun was closing his eyes to catch up on sleep. Sensitively perceiving her gaze, he opened his eyes and met Shen Yue’s condemning stare.
He raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“You.” Shen Yue trailed off, words failing her.
She had just caught a hurried glimpse earlier, but the bite marks on the back of Fang Fengqin’s neck were frighteningly numerous; his gland was red and swollen, with distinct hickey and finger marks.
It didn’t look like a normal marking at all; rather, it looked like an abuse session.
She stammered for a long time before finally getting the words out. “Brother, did sister-in-law get mad at you?”
Sister-in-law?
Hearing this form of address, Shen Jiyun’s eyelids twitched.
“He is not your sister-in-law.” He pinched the bridge of his nose as if suffering from a headache. “I said, he is an alpha.”
“You mean the person you bit several times and who is covered from head to toe in your pheromone scent is an alpha?” Shen Yue felt her brother was trying to bluff her.
“Yes,” Shen Jiyun affirmed.
“Then why didn’t I smell his own pheromones?” Shen Yue felt a bit doubtful, and her gaze toward Shen Jiyun changed again.
No wonder her brother hadn’t had an omega for so long; turns out he liked alphas.
Shen Jiyun fell silent for a moment. He knew there was something weird about Fang Fengqin; even though the person had been bitten like that by him last night, to the point of being forced into crying softly toward the end, he still hadn’t released even a shred of pheromones.
Nothing good ever came from getting tangled up with this person. Thinking this, he closed his eyes and said expressionlessly, “Close the door on your way out.”
Fine. Shen Yue pressed her lips together and swallowed the rest of her words back down.
With a soft creak, the bedroom door gently closed, and quiet returned to the room.
With his eyes closed, half-asleep and half-awake, Shen Jiyun gently licked the tip of his tooth, as if he were still biting down on that soft, tender flesh.
The texture was bizarre, yet addictively mesmerizing.