Xie Qing pulled back his hand, sat up straight, placed the laptop on his thighs, and tapped the screen.
Chen Yunfeng pulled out his phone to check the time.
Five-thirteen.
That was fine, he hadn’t slept for too long, just a little over an hour.
“Then I’ll first…”
The glow from the laptop screen fell across Xie Qing’s face.
His brow ridges were prominent, his nose bridge high and straight, and the jawline along his profile was exceptionally sharp.
Chen Yunfeng changed his tune mid-sentence. “Do you want to come up and sit for a bit?”
“Huh?” Xie Qing glanced at him, raised an index finger to his lips, and signaled him to stay quiet for a moment.
“Is this the report you and your team spent an entire morning putting together for me?” Xie Qing zoomed in on the screen with two fingers. “Did you guys cross-check these figures? Don’t you think there’s an extra zero?”
“If we followed your proposal, would I be heading in for a government investigation in a few days?”
Xie Qing’s tone didn’t fluctuate much, but it was enough to send a chill down anyone’s spine.
Chen Yunfeng couldn’t help but shiver.
Immediately afterward, Xie Qing reached out to turn the central knob, raising the air conditioning temperature.
He continued flipping through other documents, falling silent for a short moment.
Then he spoke again.
“Alright, that is it for today. Aside from this report, the previous preliminary plans and proposals need to be re-verified wherever I marked them.” Xie Qing pressed his temples, sighed, and said, “Meeting adjourned.”
It wasn’t until he took off his headphones, leaned back, and fished out the small bottle from the armrest compartment to spray a few times at the back of his neck that Chen Yunfeng spoke up again.
“Sorry, the temperature in your car was just way too easy to sleep in.”
“I could tell. You were out in less than five seconds.” Xie Qing packed up his laptop. “Come on up.”
Chen Yunfeng instinctively reached for his seatbelt, only to find it had already been unbuckled.
His hand grabbed at empty air, his mind momentarily stalled by Xie Qing’s words. “But you’ve already finished your meeting.”
Chen Yunfeng shifted his stiff body, feeling a dull ache in his tailbone from sitting for so long.
He changed his tune. “Fine, let’s go up and sit for a bit.”
He figured Xie Qing’s backside probably hurt from sitting too long as well, though the guy was too proud to admit it.
Consideration for others was one of Chen Yunfeng’s least known virtues.
With a soft click, the smart lock unlocked automatically.
Chen Yunfeng let Xie Qing enter first.
“No need to change your shoes. I don’t have any spare pairs.”
Chen Yunfeng led him into the living room and turned around to grab a disposable paper cup.
The apartment consisted of a single room, a living room, and a bathroom, lacking even a kitchen. You could take in the entire layout at a single glance.
“What do you want to drink?” Chen Yunfeng asked, poking his head into the refrigerator. “Coke, Sprite, orange juice, or water?”
Xie Qing closed his eyes as he leaned against the sofa. “Water is fine.”
“Here, drink up.”
Chen Yunfeng handed over the paper cup and stood nearby, watching him.
Xie Qing let out a helpless sigh. “Do you have to stare at me drink? Are you trying to make me finish up and get out fast?”
“Ah, no. It’s just that I need to prepare for my livestream, so it really isn’t convenient to keep you here.” Chen Yunfeng averted his gaze and sat down on the other end of the sofa.
“Xie Wang.”
“Ah, whatever, never mind.”
“Hmm? Speak.” Xie Qing took a sip of water and prompted him.
“Xie Wang said you average two Omegas a day.” Chen Yunfeng glanced down at Xie Qing’s lower abdomen and continued, “You really should exercise some restraint. Turn back before it’s too late.”
It was the first time Xie Qing felt that ice-cold water could sting so much.
“You’re awfully young, yet your head is full of garbage.”
“Can’t you smell pheromones?” Xie Qing shifted closer to him on the sofa. “We’ve run into each other quite a few times these past couple of days. Have you ever smelled any other pheromones on me?”
Chen Yunfeng sniffed the air and scooted a bit further away. “Didn’t you spray blocker? I saw it just a minute ago.”
Xie Qing let out a soft laugh. “Blockers are meant to prevent my pheromones from leaking outward, not act as a purifier. They can’t erase pheromones you’re already carrying. Did you even pay attention in biology class?”
“Forget it, you probably didn’t listen closely anyway. After all, you don’t even need to use it.” Xie Qing sat back and pointed at the cup. “Can you get me a cup of tea? I need to wake up.”
Chen Yunfeng retorted, “Look at you acting all high and mighty, Young Master. We don’t have tea here.”
“Then this smell.” Xie Qing trailed off halfway through, suddenly looking at him with a hesitant expression. “You seem to have a hint of tea scent on you.”
Chen Yunfeng pressed his lips together into a smile. “Your insults are getting increasingly sophisticated.”
Xie Qing was torn between laughing and crying. “You might actually be going through secondary mutation. Your pheromones are starting to leak.”
“Huh?” Chen Yunfeng initially thought he was talking nonsense, but seeing the genuine seriousness on Xie Qing’s face, he gave a careful sniff himself.
“I don’t think so.”
Xie Qing wasn’t entirely certain either; that faint tea aroma seemed to have truly dissipated by now.
“I’m taking you to get checked out.” Xie Qing stood up as he spoke. “And we’ll grab some food on the way.”
Caught under his shadow, Chen Yunfeng tilted his head back and muttered, “Why are you suddenly caring so much about me?”
Xie Qing didn’t hear him. He had already reached the entryway, standing there and urging, “I’m afraid you’ll suddenly undergo secondary mutation, and two Alpha pheromones will suppress each other. If you lose control, you might just beat me to death in your own apartment. Hurry up.”
He had witnessed firsthand just how formidable Chen Yunfeng’s fighting skills were.
If the guy went berserk, there was a very real possibility he’d beat someone half to death.
“Well now.”
Looking around fifty years old and wearing a white lab coat, the doctor stroked his nonexistent beard.
He let out an exclamation carrying a rather high-pitched note of bewilderment.
“You two wait here for a moment. Let me call my students over to take a look.” Smiling, the doctor reached for his phone to make a call.
“Xiao Zhu, call Xiao Li and Xiaoxia up here. I want to show you all a case study.”
Sitting to the side and waiting for the results, Chen Yunfeng thought to himself, I haven’t even agreed to this yet.
Before long, the roughly twenty-square-meter consultation room was crammed with six people. Aside from Xie Qing sitting quietly off to the side, everyone else had crowded around Chen Yunfeng’s test report.
“This case falls under double recessiveness. Look right here.” The doctor pointed to a spot on the chart that Chen Yunfeng couldn’t make heads or tails of. “Usually, it only manifests after adulthood.”
He pushed up his glasses and smiled at Chen Yunfeng. “You must have been in contact with someone whose pheromone compatibility is extremely high recently, which acted as an early catalyst.”
“Though looking at your date of birth, next February, it’s about the right time anyway. Not excessively early.”
Chen Yunfeng wasn’t concerned with any of that. He weakly inquired, “Can you tell what secondary gender I’m mutating into?”
The doctor picked up another scan sheet, pointing to a rather ornate and flowery cluster of markings on it.
“Look at this. The genetic sequence shows a tendency toward the O-type.” He flipped over the blood test results as well. “Based on hormone levels, there is a very high probability you are an Omega.”
Looking back and forth in utter disbelief between the blood test results and the doctor, Chen Yunfeng asked with a trembling voice, “Is there any margin of error?”
Before the doctor could reply, Xie Qing’s voice suddenly cut in from behind.
“Eighty percent.”
“An eighty percent error rate?” Chen Yunfeng turned his head back with a look of utter despair.
“No, an eighty percent chance you’re an Omega.”
The moment Chen Yunfeng asked about the mutation results, Xie Qing had stood up and walked over.
He knew how to read the specific data points the doctor had pointed out.
Chen Yunfeng’s case followed the textbook pattern precisely. For a late-blooming case like this, it was completely undetectable right up until the eve of mutation.
“No way, I need a minute to process this.”
Still seated, Chen Yunfeng tilted his head back slightly, resting his little hair bun right against the thigh of the person standing behind him.
“I don’t look like an Omega, do I?” He tilted his head up to meet Xie Qing’s gaze.
“Gender is just a gender, it has nothing to do with external appearance,” Xie Qing stated. “There is no superiority or inferiority between Alphas and Omegas.”
“I know that, I’m just taking it a bit by surprise.”
Nearby, the doctor was still lecturing his students on the relevant medical principles.
With the background noise making things slightly chaotic, Xie Qing leaned down a bit closer to make sure he caught what Chen Yunfeng was saying.
The guy had a terrible habit of mumbling to himself.
“Didn’t you say you hate Omega pheromones?” Chen Yunfeng blinked up at him. “You said last time that smelling them made you want to vomit.”
“So, when you have two Omegas a day, are you spraying blocker while you do that? No marking? Just a fleeting romance?”
Xie Qing thought to himself, Honestly, it was better when I couldn’t hear him clearly.