Inside the spacious study, a faint cedar scent flowed in the air. Sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows and fell upon Song Chenyan, reflecting his eyes into an amber hue.
He was currently video-chatting with his assistant-cum-manager about a new script. Before he even had time to hang up the call, a white shadow, wrapped in fury, drifted in from outside the door and slammed down right in front of him.
Song Chenyan raised his eyelids, a soft laugh spilling from between his lips: “I was wondering why that little wild cat outside the window was meowing all night long; so it turns out someone came early in the morning to throw themselves into my arms.”
“I’ll throw a huge watermelon at you!!” Yan Chu pressed his elbow against Song Chenyan’s chest, “Did you do it on purpose?”
“Hmm?”
Song Chenyan narrowed his eyes slightly. His dark eyes seemed to have cut out the summer night sky and placed it within them. His chest vibrated slightly, and the end of his tone lilted upward.
Falling into Yan Chu’s ears, it felt as though an electric current had swept through. Pretending as if nothing had happened, he let go of his hand, only to have his wrist grabbed by Song Chenyan.
Song Chenyan stood up, twisted Yan Chu’s hand behind his back, and lightly supported his waist.
The distance between the two of them, which was not far to begin with, shortened at extreme speed. Their breaths intertwined, and the smell of cedar rushed straight toward his face.
Yan Chu knitted his brows, the rims of his ears turning slightly red, and muttered: “Spraying perfume so early in the morning, what kind of sluttiness are you showing off?”
Song Chenyan’s pitch-black eyes stared at him, taking a long while before opening his mouth to speak: “What smell?”
“What kind of dumb act are you playing?” Yan Chu gave Song Chenyan a push, “Let go! Don’t switch the topic, hurry up and go on Weibo to clarify!”
Seeing him so anxious, Song Chenyan maliciously curled the corners of his mouth: “If you guess correctly what scent is on me, I will…”
“Does this even need guessing? Even lying on the bed next door, I can smell that old pine tree scent on you!”
Song Chenyan’s gaze suddenly hid a sharpness: “Are you really a Beta?”
The cedar smell that Yan Chu kept clamoring about was not perfume, but the scent of his pheromones.
Being a Beta, Yan Chu shouldn’t be able to perceive it, yet unexpectedly…
Yan Chu tilted his body to reveal his nape, provoking: “Do you want to take a bite and try?”
The next second, his nape was pinched by fingers with distinct joints; Yan Chu was almost scorched by the temperature of Song Chenyan’s fingertips.
“Fuck! Are you Alphas all so indiscriminate in your hunger?!” Yan Chu hurriedly backed away, glaring at Song Chenyan.
The man smiled faintly, his gaze carrying a touch of banter: “Are you scared?”
Yan Chu straightened his neck: “This master is a Beta, scared of your dick!”
“True, Betas have no way to perceive pheromones, nor can they be permanently marked…”
Yan Chu raised the corners of his mouth triumphantly. What he said was completely correct, which was why Betas, unaffected by pheromones, held an absolute advantage at work!
Like a proud cat, he held his confident, noble little head up high and put on a swaggering stride that disowned all relatives.
With laughter hidden in his eyes, Song Chenyan stepped forward slowly, bent over slightly, and leveled his line of sight with Yan Chu’s.
“So one can only…” The Alpha revealed his canine teeth, as the cedar-scented pheromones spread out like sea waves, “…mark you to death.”
For a moment, the look in Yan Chu’s eyes turned blank.
He seemed to see a pine tree standing tall amidst heavy snow, tens of thousands of zhang high, its canopy like an umbrella, towering between heaven and earth.
Yet it was merely a momentary trance.
Flustered into anger, Yan Chu said: “Song Chenyan, stop pulling me left and right to shift the topic! I’ve signed for the dating reality show Starry Impulse, so you cannot sign it, do you hear me?”
“Dating show?”
“That’s right! To draw a clear line with you, this young master specifically signed a dating show!” Yan Chu spoke through gritted teeth.
Song Chenyan looked at the bristled Yan Chu with a complicated expression: “Where exactly am I making you dissatisfied?”
“…Gender!” Feeling guilty, Yan Chu gave Song Chenyan a push, using a tone of contempt to say, “You are fated to surrender to some Omega, don’t affect my independent beauty. You cannot sign the dating show, did you hear me?”
Song Chenyan’s eye color darkened slightly, then he innocently asked back: “On what grounds?”
“On…” Yan Chu was at a loss for words for a moment.
He pulled out his phone, tapped away frantically, opened the “ChuJian” super-topic, and pointed at the fan count that had grown quite a bit: “The empire I worked so hard to conquer must absolutely not be destroyed by heretics!”
Song Chenyan lowered his eyes and unhurriedly recited a certain fanfiction post in the super-topic: “ShiJian was still at the film set, kissing Yan Chu ferociously. Only by marking him over and over again, letting his Beta lover be wrapped in his own pheromones, could he feel a sliver of peace of mind…”
“!!” Yan Chu was so embarrassed his scalp went numb, and he clapped his hand over Song Chenyan’s mouth: “Are you sick?!”
Song Chenyan leaned his body in close. Yan Chu felt uncomfortable and let go of his hand to escape, only to be hooked around the waist by the man’s single arm and dragged into a fiery embrace.
“It’s written with much reference value.” Song Chenyan lowered his eyes, a trace of seriousness coagulating within them, “Do you want to test its feasibility?”
Yan Chu struggled, and as soon as he raised his eyes, he crashed straight into the man’s bottomless gaze.
Eyes meeting eyes, ambiguity grew wildly.
Yan Chu hurriedly averted his gaze, raising his voice by a degree like a cat with its fur blown up: “Song Chenyan! You are the grand President of Yaoxing Media, a top-tier Alpha, yet you’re hyping a CP with a Beta to leech off popularity, do you have no shame?”
“What does your CP with ShiJian have to do with me, Song Chenyan?”
“…” Yan Chu actually felt that what he said made a bit of sense.
Not many people in the circle knew that Song Chenyan was ShiJian, let alone netizens.
“Anyway, whoever blocks my path to riches shall die!”
Yan Chu gave Song Chenyan an elbow strike without mercy, took the chance to escape to the doorway, held onto the doorframe, and arrogantly flipped a middle finger: “Old pine tree stump! You wait for this young master, I’ll clean you up sooner or later!”
Yan Chu came and went in a hurry, throwing the room full of cedar scent into disarray.
“I say…”
At this time, a voice came from the open computer on the writing desk.
With a smile hanging on the corner of his lips and his finger sliding across his phone screen, Song Chenyan uttered an offhanded “Mm.”
Yan Yuan opened his mouth with a complex expression: “Can I get reimbursed for buying eye drops?”
“In the future at my wedding, I’ll arrange for you to sit in the first row.”
“…”
Slutty indeed, Song Chenyan was truly slutty.
Yan Yuan cut his losses in time and continued talking about work: “So what are your thoughts? My meaning is that it would be best if you could cooperate a bit with the publicity, after all…”
The ChuJian CP fans were really too powerful at fighting!
Relying merely on an audio clip, big bosses from various fields took action one after another. Now “ShiJian” was already a person with a fixed 2D anime image.
The scariest part was that the character image and personality set up by fans were both extremely similar to ShiJian himself.
Song Chenyan looked at his phone and said unhurriedly: “I won’t cooperate.”
“…”
Song Chenyan had no time to mind his manager’s speechlessly blank face. He hadn’t noticed before that the super-topic was actually so interesting; he could browse it more in the future.
He saved a Chibi picture—drawn was a rabbit with four limbs gripping the ground, ears pinned back, and fur standing on end in a rage—and set it as the WeChat chat background image with Yan Chu.
Yan Yuan was still thinking of how to persuade him when Song Chenyan, seeing something interesting, had his brows and eyes dyed with a smile and said: “You guys finalize talking Yan Chu into it first, the official character stills will be better than any publicity effect.”
That was indeed true.
Yan Chu’s visuals were publicly recognized in the circle as top-tier, exquisite without losing out to Omegas, yet carrying a trace more heroic spirit than weak, willow-like Omegas.
What was rare and precious was that he had both looks and acting skills; though he hadn’t been in the industry long, he was already able to carry the box office.
“However…”
“Short on money?”
Yan Yuan’s expression gradually became numb: “No.”
Song Chenyan was still flipping through the super-topic.
He leaned against the back of his chair, resting his finger against his temple, as the light from the computer screen sculpted his features to be even more three-dimensional.
Though it seemed like a lazy and casual posture, everything on his body that should be straight wasn’t bent, and where it should curve, the arc was just right, naturally emanating a sense of noble prestige.
He loosened his collar a bit and said to Yan Yuan: “Don’t take down those two hot searches, just control the negative comments slightly.”
At this moment, Yan Yuan received a push notification. After glancing at it, he showed a gloating smile: “Indeed we can’t take them down.”
“Agreeing so decisively this time?”
Yan Yuan didn’t mind making the spectacle bigger: “I remember Film King Xiao Mingxu is Yan Chu’s idol, right?”
Song Chenyan finally moved his attention away from his phone, sweeping a sharp glance over at Yan Yuan.
“Just now, Starry Impulse officially announced that Xiao Mingxu is the No. 1 Alpha guest.”
Hearing this, Song Chenyan’s expression abruptly went cold.