Pei Jiheng scooped Luo Huai into the car and closed the door.
He first gently laid him down in the back seat, and by the light filtering in from the streetlamp, checked him from head to toe. There were no wounds; the bloodstains on his sleeves had just splashed on from the gunshot. His clothes were intact, except that the inhibitor patch on the back of his neck was slightly askew, exposing a small patch of reddened skin beneath it.
Luo Huai’s breathing was still relatively steady, and his pulse was a bit faster than usual, but not dangerously so.
Confirming that the person was safe, Pei Jiheng finally relaxed a little at that moment.
He leaned against the backrest, closed his eyes for a moment, and his breathing suddenly grew a bit heavier as the breath he had been holding in finally found an outlet.
He lowered his gaze, looking at Luo Huai once more.
The Omega still had that peaceful sleeping expression, his eyelashes trembling slightly and his brows lightly furrowed.
Pei Jiheng stared at him for a few seconds, reached out to readjust the crooked inhibitor patch on the back of Luo Huai’s neck, and took off his own coat to cover him. Only then did he straighten up, rub the bridge of his nose, open the door, return to the driver’s seat, and start the car.
He looked at Luo Huai sleeping through the rearview mirror.
The car didn’t move right away.
The engine was running, and the headlights illuminated the empty parking lot exit ahead, light and shadow moving slowly across the wall.
Pei Jiheng didn’t know yet why Luo Huai had been drugged and brought here, but for now, what he could consider was that given this kid’s current state, he couldn’t be sent back to the Luo family or the South City villa.
That good-for-nothing Lin Yuhe would only cause trouble if he saw him. Father and Mother Luo would be even more troublesome; it would be hard to explain and would stir up a bunch of unnecessary inquiries.
The fingers gripping the steering wheel tightened for a moment, then he released the handbrake, turned the steering wheel, and the black Porsche slid out of the parking lot, merged into the main road, and headed toward the West District.
Returning to Pei Jiheng’s villa, just as the car parked in the garage, his phone vibrated.
A message from Iris: “Boss, it has been handled, and the people inside the lounge have also been calmed down. No one will know what happened in the private room.”
Pei Jiheng typed with one hand: “Thanks for the hard work, you can go back and take a leave.”
“Yes.”
Iris didn’t ask anything and replied briskly.
Just as Pei Jiheng put away his phone, he heard movement from the back seat.
He turned his head.
He saw Luo Huai move slightly, rubbing his head against the seat. His brows furrowed deeper, his lips parted, and he let out a muffled murmur.
“Hot.”
Pei Jiheng’s brows twitched slightly.
He pushed the door open, got out, pulled open the back door, and leaned in to touch Luo Huai’s forehead. It was very hot.
At the same time, the moment he got close, the Omega’s pheromones suddenly began to overflow uncontrollably, and the sweet scent of acacia blossoms filled the car cabin.
His pheromones were unbalanced; I am afraid there were other ingredients in the sleeping drug.
Pei Jiheng’s Adam’s apple bobbed.
He scooped Luo Huai out of the back seat, supporting his back with one arm and cupping the backs of his knees with the other, and carried him into the house.
When Luo Huai was placed on the bed in the bedroom, he slowly blinked awake for a moment.
His eyelids were very heavy. Struggling to open them a slit, what he saw was a blurry ceiling, and then the outline of a person: broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and a sharp jawline, yet very familiar.
“Pei Jiheng?” His voice was so hoarse it did not sound like his own.
Pei Jiheng didn’t answer him. He was standing by the bedside unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling his sleeves up to his forearms.
Luo Huai’s pheromones in the air were growing thicker by the minute.
The sweet scent of acacia blossoms wrapped around a hint of restless heat, ramming wildly through the room.
He could feel it himself and began to squirm uneasily, reaching out to tug at his collar, his face flushed with an abnormal flush.
“Don’t move.” Pei Jiheng pinned his hands down.
Luo Huai wouldn’t listen. It was as if he were being burned by something, and his whole body uncontrollably rubbed against Pei Jiheng, burying his face into the crook of his neck, the tip of his nose pressing against his gland, yet he couldn’t smell a thing.
Pei Jiheng’s self-control was strong enough that he didn’t need to wear an inhibitor patch, but given the special circumstances right now, he also stubbornly resisted letting his pheromones leak out.
Luo Huai let out a dissatisfied hum, raised his hand to tug at Pei Jiheng’s clothes. With no pheromones to smell, he had no choice but to find another way to cool himself down.
But Pei Jiheng immediately gripped his wrist, pressing that restless hand back onto the bed.
“Luo Huai!” His voice dropped lower, sounding a warning.
Hearing his name called, Luo Huai looked up at him with grievance. Right now, a layer of mist veiled the bottoms of his eyes, his eye rims were red, and his gaze was unfocused, as if he were looking at him and yet not looking at him at all.
“I’m uncomfortable.” His voice, like him, was soft to the point of being unrecognizable, the end of his sentence trembling.
Pei Jiheng closed his eyes.
His self-control was being nibbled away bit by bit by Luo Huai’s messy, overflowing pheromones. The scent of cold fir had already begun to seep out uncontrollably, entangling with the sweetness of the acacia blossoms and filling the room.
Pei Jiheng finally gritted his teeth, scooped the person up from the bed, and carried him into the bathroom.
Without another word, he placed Luo Huai into the bathtub and turned on the faucet. The cold water gushed out, hitting the bottom of the tub and splashing fine droplets of water.
Luo Huai was startled by the cold water, shrinking his entire body back, but he didn’t fully wake up; he merely moved instinctively toward Pei Jiheng’s direction.
Pei Jiheng knelt on one knee by the edge of the tub, reaching out to test the water temperature, adjusting it to a degree that wouldn’t give Luo Huai a chill while still helping him cool down. The water slowly rose, submerging Luo Huai’s waist and soaking his clothes.
Wanting to let him know his situation as best as possible, Pei Jiheng cupped the Omega’s cheeks, only to find that Luo Huai suddenly began to cry.
The silent kind of crying, he struggled to lower his head, using the back of his hand to wipe away his tears one by one, biting his lower lip tightly until it turned white. The tears gushed out unstoppably, streaming down his cheeks and mixing into the water of the bathtub.
He wasn’t awake, or rather, he didn’t know he was awake.
Pei Jiheng looked at those hands that wouldn’t stop wiping away tears, and something in his chest was viciously tugged.
Aren’t you usually best at putting on a pitiful act? Yet when you really cry, you’re afraid people will find out.
Pei Jiheng sighed.
Seeing that the legs of his suit trousers were soaked through by the water, he didn’t care at all, simply stepping right into the bathtub. The water overflowed, spilling past the edges of the tub and flooding the floor.
He scooped Luo Huai out of the water, drawing him entirely into his embrace so that Luo Huai’s head rested in the crook of his shoulder. He wrapped one arm around his waist and gently patted his back with the other hand.
Then, he began to release his pheromones.
The scent of cold fir poured out from the gland at the back of his neck, gentle, lingering, enveloping, like a bonfire suddenly rising in a deep winter forest, carrying warmth amidst its chill, wrapping the sweetness of the acacia blossoms inside it bit by bit to soothe those restless, out-of-control, wild waves of heat.
Luo Huai’s body slowly softened in his arms.
The hand that had clutched Pei Jiheng’s collar during their struggle loosened, resting on his shoulder with its fingers hanging limply.
Pei Jiheng’s hand patted Luo Huai’s back rhythmically, his cold fir pheromones steadily and continuously releasing, completely enveloping Luo Huai within them.
After who knows how long, the water in the bathtub gradually cooled, and the unusual heat on Luo Huai’s body finally subsided bit by bit.
The sweet scent of the acacia blossoms was no longer so intense, slowly pulling back into a gentle, soundly sleeping presence.
Pei Jiheng lowered his head to look at the person in his arms.
Undried teardrops still hung on Luo Huai’s eyelashes, his nose was red, and the mark he had bitten onto his lips had not yet faded. His breathing had grown steady, his chest rising and falling regularly, and his whole body curled up in Pei Jiheng’s arms with a remarkably obedient appearance.
Pei Jiheng maintained this posture for a long time until Luo Huai stopped moving altogether. Only then did he lift him out of the water, strip away the wet clothes, wrap him in a bath towel, and carry him back to the bed.
Luo Huai curled up under the covers and fell into a deep sleep.