As the two held each other, the “third wheel” standing nearby looked worse and worse by the second.
Tao Jing practically leaped in rage, launching into a tirade. “You old Omega, stop putting on a show in front of Yu Siyuan! Siyuan, don’t let him trick you. You’re already married, yet he won’t even let you mark him—he’s a fraud! Can’t you see he has you wrapped completely around his little finger?”
His words were incredibly harsh and unrefined.
Sensing the youth in his arms shifting as if to fire back, Xiao Shuqing gave him a reassuring pat. Then, with a dark gleam in his eyes, he tightened his grip, pulling the boy firmly against his chest.
Deliberately resting his chin in the Alpha’s neck crook, he flashed Tao Jing a provocative smile. “We haven’t marked each other yet simply because I only recently had a previous mark surgically removed. Yuanyuan dotes on me; he
insisted we get married first and wait until my gland fully recovers before he marks me.”
Then, right before Tao Jing’s shell-shocked eyes, he took the Alpha’s hand and pressed a kiss to the knuckles.
“Actually, Yuanyuan was the one who accompanied me to get the mark washed. He told me he’s loved me for many years. You probably didn’t know, did you? He’s fancied me since high school and even chased me all the way to H
University. He only dared to confess his feelings after my ex-husband and I divorced.”
To deal with a self-righteous Omega like this, one had to spell it out for him:
First, the guy isn’t rejecting you because you were marked by someone else; he’s rejecting you because you’re you.
Second, he didn’t like you during those three years either. He had his own unattainable “white moonlight” in his heart all along. Furthermore, he was willing to wait even while his love was married for years. Who do you think you are?
Adjusting his glasses, the older man firmly held the Alpha, who kept trying to squirm in his embrace.
As a few stray locks of hair fell across his face, they perfectly concealed the smirk playing on his lips.
Tsk. Trying to play mind games with the master of the craft?
If I don’t play you like a fiddle, I lose.
In the end, Tao Jing slunk away, utterly humiliated.
Only then did Xiao Shuqing release his grip on the boy.
The young Alpha’s eyes and nose were completely flushed. He looked up, his eyelashes still glistening with a hint of moisture—likely because he had been squeezed a bit too tightly just now.
“Why did you say all that. It’s obviously not true!”
Xiao Shuqing didn’t quite understand the distress, but seeing the boy’s face, his voice softened instinctively. “What’s wrong, hm? Saying it that way makes him feel far more miserable. We couldn’t exactly tell him the raw truth, could we?
Otherwise, what would have been the point of me coming here? Trust me, spinning a wild tale is sometimes much more effective.”
“But you’ve never been married, and you’ve never been marked. Tao Jing knows a lot of people. If he spreads this around, everyone is going to say those things about you in the future.”
“Professor Xiao, how could you talk about yourself like that?”
In truth, Xiao Shuqing couldn’t entirely grasp the crux of the problem. But as Yu Siyuan spoke, his eyes grew redder, and Xiao Shuqing suddenly realized a crucial detail he had overlooked.
Those who have never experienced rumors, gossip, and defamation firsthand cannot truly comprehend its venom. Nor would they become this anxious and terrified over a casually fabricated lie.
Unless, he himself had once been deeply scarred by them.
“Did he use to spread rumors about you in the past?” Xiao Shuqing asked gently.
Yu Siyuan stiffened, a flash of panic darting through his eyes. He didn’t speak, but his jaw clenched involuntarily—his body’s natural defense mechanism kicking into high gear.
It was a textbook trauma response.
“I’m sorry, let’s not talk about this right now.” Xiao Shuqing pulled out his phone, smoothly changing the subject. “Did you miss the text message I sent you earlier? You left the house a bit later than I did this morning. Did you happen to close the windows?”
Once a person is triggered into a trauma response, their mind instinctively erects a defensive barrier. Any attempt to touch upon the subject will only cause their “protective mechanism” to deflect the words with sharp, defensive biting—especially toward someone they aren’t intimately familiar with.
Deflection was the best way to defuse it.
Sure enough, most of the tension in the boy’s eyes vanished, replaced by his familiar, dazed look. “Ah, I didn’t close them. Why? Did something happen?”
Xiao Shuqing quietly let out a breath of relief. Looking up at the sky, which was already beginning to turn a murky, dark yellow, he said, “It’s fine. The weather bureau issued a sandstorm warning, and I was just worried the apartment would get filled with dust. It’s past six; are you off the clock soon? Should I wait so we can head home together, or do you need to work overtime?”
The youth pursed his lips and checked the time. After a brief moment of thought, he clutched his phone and began typing frantically. “I can take my laptop home to finish up. I’ll let the team know.”
Xiao Shuqing looked down at him quietly, his voice low. “Sure. No rush.”
They drove home together.
Outside, the sky grew increasingly yellow, and the London planetrees lining the streets bent sharply southward under the ferocious wind. Pedestrians hurried along, and even inside the car, a faint, earthy scent began to permeate the air.
By the time they reached the apartment, it was nearly seven o’clock. The sky had turned pitch black, and the streetlights piercing through the dust created a distinct Tyndall effect.
Xiao Shuqing switched on the air purifier. While filling Saisa’s bowl, he scrolled through a food delivery app. “I didn’t order delivery in advance. The weather is terrible today, so it might not arrive until eight or nine. What do you feel like eating?”
Having changed into his lounge clothes, Yu Siyuan padded over in his slippers and curled himself into a small squatting ball beside him.
Xiao Shuqing naturally handed over the phone. “Take a look and see what catches your eye.”
Right then, a loud rumble echoed from the little creature’s stomach.
The boy froze, then sheepishly tugged at his shirt. “Um, I’m a little hungry.”
Xiao Shuqing suddenly realized something: aside from Saisa’s treats, there was practically no food in the house. Yu Siyuan was starving, and there wasn’t even a snack to tide him over.
Particularly as the kid claimed to be “hungry” while silently swallowing his saliva as he watched the large dog eat.
For some reason, a wave of guilt washed over Xiao Shuqing.
“I think we still have some frozen dumplings left. Would you like some?”
The young Alpha nodded eagerly. “Yes! I’ll eat them, Professor Xiao.”
He then followed closely behind, trailing him like a shadow into the kitchen.
Xiao Shuqing usually kept his frozen dumplings in the very bottom drawer of the freezer. To his dismay, when he opened it, it was completely bare—not even an empty wrapper remained.
Only then did he recall that he had finished the last bag of dumplings the previous month and had completely forgotten to restock. He usually ate at the school cafeteria on workdays and ordered delivery when he was off. Occasionally, his mother would come over to cook a proper meal to improve his diet, so he rarely had a need for frozen staples.
“It looks like we’re out,” he turned around awkwardly.
“Eh? There’s none left?” The boy craned his neck to peer into the freezer.
Xiao Shuqing stepped aside slightly and pulled open the remaining drawers. “No frozen meals left. There’s only Saisa’s frozen meat.”
Yu Siyuan pulled out a bag of large, peeled shrimp. “Are these all for the dog? The shrimp are so big. Professor Xiao, can we not eat them?”
The next moment, the kid was already using his phone to search online:
Can humans eat frozen meat meant for dogs?
Is there a difference between pet-grade and human-grade frozen meat?
Can humans eat Brand XX frozen shrimp?
After fiddling with his phone for a good while, he finally reached a conclusion. “Professor Xiao, the ones you bought humans can actually eat them! Is there anything else?”
With that, he buried his head back into the freezer to forage.
“Hmm, beef, chicken breast. What’s this? Freeze-dried treats—ah, this one is strictly for pets, we can’t eat it. Oh? There’s salmon too, from the same brand. Let me check.”
In the end, Xiao Shuqing watched as the kid unearthed a bag of diced beef, a bag of frozen shrimp, a large fillet of salmon, along with a small piece of onion and two yellow lemons retrieved from the back corner of the fridge. His eyes curved into bright, sparkling crescents as he looked at him. “Professor Xiao, let’s have stir-fried beef with onions and pan-seared salmon tonight!”
Following that, he watched as the young Alpha efficiently sliced the onion while simultaneously using the microwave to defrost all the meat.
In less than fifteen minutes, he had seasoned the salmon and shrimp and popped them into the air fryer, while tossing the diced beef and onions into a hot pan on the stove. Two steaming, fragrant dishes were served in record time.
The savory aroma of the salmon blended with the rich, seared fragrance of the beef and onions, filling the entire apartment. Even Saisa, who was currently eating his canned food, couldn’t help but peek repeatedly toward the kitchen.
“We don’t have any rice or noodles, but I saw some instant ramen, so I boiled the noodles to use as our carb base. I’m not sure if you like this kind of food. Next time, when we have more ingredients, I’ll cook some truly delicious dishes for you.”
Yu Siyuan set everything on the table, wiped his hands, and sat down.
Even though it was just a makeshift meal for the two of them to get by, the Alpha had gone out of his way to plate it beautifully. The delicate pink salmon and plump shrimp were neatly arranged next to the fragrant diced beef. The boiled ramen noodles rested right in the center, drizzled with a savory black pepper sauce, finished with two fresh lemon wedges on the side.
Taking a bite, Xiao Shuqing found it fully rivaled the flavor of a proper restaurant meal.
“Is it to your liking?” The Alpha across from him watched him anxiously.
He nodded. “Yes, it’s very delicious.”
As he kept eating, he couldn’t help but chuckle softly.
The boy across from him looked utterly bewildered. “What’s wrong?”
With a smile playing on his lips, he shook his head. “Nothing. Just suddenly occurred to me that stealing food from the dog’s rations is a little amusing. I also didn’t expect that Saisa’s food could be made to taste this good by you.”
Yu Siyuan pursed his lips shyly. “Well, meat is meat. I just prepared it the way I usually do.”
“It’s exceptionally good.”
Receiving the praise, the boy’s beautiful eyes curved happily. “Then tomorrow, I’ll cook for you again. I know how to make a ton of dishes,” he said, his face brimming with pride.
The dinner passed delightfully. Xiao Shuqing loaded the dishes into the dishwasher and quickly tidied up the kitchen.
Yu Siyuan had already taken a shower and was currently feeding the extra boiled meat to Saisa.
Seeing him walk out of the kitchen, the youth asked, “Professor Xiao, what would you like to eat tomorrow? I’ll make it.”
Xiao Shuqing was genuinely surprised. “I can actually take my pick? I’m not a picky eater. Just standard home-cooked meals are fine—no need to go to any trouble.”
In response, the youth rattled off a breathless list of dishes. “Then I’ll do a simple stir-fried cured pork with green bamboo shoots, and for the main protein, maybe a steamed sea bass. For the soup, we can have a beef meatball soup. That way we’ll have meat and veggies for a perfectly balanced meal. Oh, and I’ll scramble some eggs with tomatoes—it goes great with white rice! Or do you have any elaborate dishes you’ve been craving? Beer duck, sweet and sour pork ribs, sweet and sour pork. I even know how to make Squirrel-Shaped Mandarin Fish. Or do you prefer Sichuan or Hunan flavors? Chili-stir-fried pork, all kinds of maocai—I can make them all. Seafood works too!”
Fresh out of the shower, the young Alpha’s face was flushed a healthy pink. His pajamas hung loosely on him, exposing his porcelain-white collarbones.
The eyes he turned toward Xiao Shuqing were sparkling.
The older man couldn’t resist stepping closer and running a hand gently through his hair. “How do you know how to cook so many things?”
“In the past, after my father passed away, my omega father got sick too. One New Year’s Eve, everyone else was posting pictures of their reunion dinners on social media, but our family was just eating frozen dumplings. I remember thinking no matter what, we still needed to celebrate the New Year properly. So, I started teaching myself how to cook. Back then, I believed that if I pulled myself together, Dad’s mood would improve, and maybe his illness would get better too.”
“And so, you went and learned all these elaborate dishes?”
“Mm-hmm!” The kid beamed, a beautiful little dimple blooming on his cheek.
Infected by his cheer, Xiao Shuqing’s own lips curved into a smile. “Well, your dad really did get better in the end. You played a huge part in that.”
“Exactly. That’s why it pays to stay positive. Right?”
“Oh? How do you mean?”
“Because of the Law of Attraction. If you keep visualizing your desires and actively working toward them with a positive mindset, they’ll manifest. It’s like Murphy’s Law. Some things look like mystical metaphysics on the surface, but in reality, there’s a certain psychological element at play.”
The boy looked at him with utmost seriousness.
The Law of Attraction—if a person continuously fixes their heart upon a certain desire, the forces of the entire universe will conspire to help them achieve it.
Murphy’s Law—the more you dread a specific outcome, the more certain it is to happen.
“Some things look like metaphysics, but they are actually driven by psychological priming.”
This was a cosmic law that Xiao Shuqing himself had once firmly believed in.
But then.
He glanced over at the large dog contentedly chewing on its meat.
Later on, he had learned about Martin Seligman, discovering that there was also a concept known as “learned helplessness”: when a person desires something so desperately, yet fails to achieve it countless times, they eventually stop believing they are capable of ever doing it right.
The universe, ultimately, remained entirely unpredictable.
“Professor Xiao?”
The young Alpha, presumably noticing that he had drifted off, called out to him softly.
Xiao Shuqing snapped out of his thoughts. “Sorry. I’m listening.”
The Alpha pursed his lips, his beautiful eyes scanning Xiao Shuqing’s face with a touch of caution. “Um, Professor Xiao. Are you perhaps a little lacking in positivity? I mean, this afternoon outside my office, when you spun those lies to Tao Jing, I got this sudden feeling that you just don’t care about the world at all. It certainly makes you look detached and carefree, but it feels like you don’t really care about yourself either.”
As he spoke, his eyes and the corners of his brow drooped with an aching vulnerability. “Could you please not be like that? Before, you clearly weren’t like this.”