He opened his eyes and saw a moth resting on the ceiling. He was not very fond of moths; they were creatures that only flew toward the light and could not think. In the past, he could always see them crashing into the window and dying, smearing into a patch of pure white.
A slightly sweet, bloody taste welled up from his throat, resembling the slowly rotting wings of a moth stuck to the glass.
He took a deep breath. This time, he might really die. He thought to himself that the woman, who seemed to be the new master’s younger sister, was truly furious.
He had long since lost any concept of space and time. Being ordered to feed things to the star beasts seemed to have happened on a Sunday, the day when there were the most guests. After he was brought out by the kind master, he had no idea how much time had passed.
The master, or rather Mr. Chu, was the savior whose name the old man sleeping next to him used to murmur, the one who had told him to wait for his return.
He closed his eyes, counting his own heartbeat, taking deep breaths, and refusing to look at that moth struggling to attach itself to the incandescent bulb.
The rusted iron door was pushed open, emitting a hoarse, dull groan. The sound of boot soles stepping across the floor grew closer and closer. He did not move.
Perhaps it was a different person, but it was certainly the same question. Who on earth are you? What do you want to do? Where are you trying to escape to? What is your relationship with Ying Yu? What matters did Ying Yu direct you to do?
He did not know. Or rather, he could not remember.
The beginning of his memory was the searing pain of a branding iron on his neck, countless shivering people crammed into a cage, and the boss pulling his hair and saying, “He is actually a high-grade Alpha. We struck it rich; just his pheromones alone are worth quite a bit of money.”
He tried hard to recall some things that could make him happy, fresh air, the starry sky seen through the glass, the bread occasionally shared out, and that piece of candy Mr. Chu had handed to him.
How truly pitiful. He heard the voice inside his heart.
“For the second time. How truly pitiful.” A gentle yet somewhat helpless voice sounded right above his head. “You must not provoke Xiaoqi again in the future.”
He took a deep breath, opened his eyes abruptly, but could not see anything clearly. Blood had previously smeared his vision, leaving nothing in his sight except a restless, unsettling red.
A cool yet comfortable sensation landed on his eyes, and he slowly managed to make out the handsome and gentle features of the man before him. The man was leaning in so close that he could even catch that sharp scent of frost and snow.
He lowered his eyes, avoiding Chu Yanyan’s gaze, and struggled hard, wanting to sit up, but was stopped by Chu Yanyan.
“Since you still have injuries on your body, just lie down. We will have the doctor check on you later.”
Chu Yanyan casually tossed the blood-stained handkerchief to the side, leaned on his cane as he slowly stood up, and coughed twice. The original design of this place was completely airtight, and during this period not even a single insect had flown in, so staying here was genuinely quite unpleasant.
He sat down on a chair brought over by his subordinates and gazed at the battered Alpha below.
“She gets angry and curses even me. Fortunately, Ah Qing did not run into any trouble, otherwise I truly would not have been able to hold her back. I heard about your situation from her, and I think it is her fault.”
“After all, you do not remember anything. For her to suddenly treat you like this, you must have been terrified as well. Right, Monday.”
Upon hearing this name, the man’s eyelashes trembled. His chapped lips moved slightly, yet he still said nothing, nor did he make any sound at all.
Chu Yanyan bent down and gripped his deformed right hand. “Rest well for now, and stop thinking about those random things. Once your injuries are mostly healed, I will have someone send you away from this place.”
Something hard was stuffed into his hand. Monday shuddered violently, lifting his head abruptly to collide head-on with Chu Yanyan’s gaze.
Chu Yanyan’s pupils emitted a clear, limpid blue under the light, resembling another layer of the sky reflected on the surface of the ocean. He smiled softly, yet Monday found no emotion whatsoever in those eyes, no anger, no solace, not even a trace of indifference.
Monday’s heart sank abruptly. He opened his mouth, discovering that even if he could speak, he could find no reason to explain himself.
Within his shallow understanding, no master would let go of an escaped slave, nor would any master like an escaped slave.
What was he thinking at the time? How could he have been so ungrateful?
“Since you have already forgotten everything, our grievances between Ying Yu and myself should not involve innocent people.”
“Rest assured.”
Amidst the woody pheromone scent of the man, which resembled the morning breeze, Monday tried his best to curl his twisted fingers, clutching the piece of candy Chu Yanyan had shoved into his hand, and drifted off to sleep unawares.
At the very final moment when his consciousness dissipated, he saw that moth fling itself toward the bulb, shattering into pieces.
“Are you sure you want to do this? Kill Ying Yu?” He woke up, the scene from his dream surfacing in his mind, a man sitting before him, his voice cold yet tinged with a hint of mockery. He could not clearly make out the man’s face, remembering only the eyes he saw when locking gazes with him.
Those piercing blue pupils made Monday involuntarily associate them with unrelated things: eagles, peppermint, lit cigars.
They were not Mr. Chu’s eyes.
Throughout these past few days, Monday had not seen Chu Yanyan again. He obediently stayed on the hospital bed every day looking out the window, his expression listless, sitting for half a day at a time. He had no communication whatsoever with the doctors and servants who came by, doing whatever he was told, docile to an extreme.
Yet no one knew what he was thinking.
The door was pushed open from the outside. Monday glanced at the few people who entered, then turned his head back to look at the scenery outside the window.
“Sign it. Once you finish signing, tell me where you want to go, and I will send you there.” Chen Ke tossed a file onto the quilt. “You should still know how to read, right?”
There was no overjoyed reaction such as the one Chen Ke had imagined. The bruised and battered slave froze for a moment, slowly using his left hand to open the document, and immediately grew dazed right where he sat.
Chen Ke waited for a long time without seeing any movement from him, and frowned impatiently. “Oh. Your right hand cannot write, so pressing a thumbprint is fine either way. After all, the law does not state that documents granting a slave citizenship require the slave’s signature.”
Monday stared at those lines of text. He recognized all the words, but the impact of them combined together was simply too great.
Upon seeing the sharp, clear, and forcefully stroked signature of the three characters Chu Yanyan, he clenched his teeth tightly, pulled out the pen resting on the document, laboriously bit the cap off with his teeth to unscrew it, and crookedly signed Monday on the other side.
Since Mr. Chu said his name was Monday, then his name was Monday.
“Done.” Chen Ke snapped his fingers, retrieving the file before Monday could even react. “Then let us set off. Give me an address.”
Monday looked as though he still had not reacted, sitting motionless on the bed while even his fingers maintained their original posture.
After a moment, he pointed toward the outside of the door, anxiously and hurriedly gesturing toward Chen Ke.
Why did Mr. Chu not come? Where did Mr. Chu go?
“What is he trying to say?” Chen Ke turned around, asking the doctor standing behind him.
The doctor shook his head. “Who knows how he even learned his sign language. In any case, it is neither the Federation nor the Empire standard sign language, so we cannot understand it either. He must be trying to ask about something, right?”
Chen Ke pressed the half-earpiece hanging over his ear and clicked his tongue. “What a hassle. If we do not send him away before President Chu returns, we are going to be accused of handling things poorly. Should we ask Miss what to do?”
Monday bit his lower lip, retrieved that somewhat melted piece of candy from beneath his pillow, and pointed to himself, as well as the file in Chen Ke’s hand.
“Are you asking about President Chu?” Chen Ke lowered his head, looking at the signature on top of the document, and shrugged. “President Chu is not that idle. If he had not changed his schedule because of you, he should still be in the first district right now, and now he can only be twice as busy. Alright, I am very busy as well. Where on earth do you want to go?”
Monday keenly captured the disdain and complaint within the other person’s tone.
Clutching that piece of candy, he suddenly calmed down. The scenery outside the window was actually not that nice, or rather, could not even be called scenery at all, because there was no sunlight, only unchanging snow accumulation and gloomy clouds pressing down upon dead branches.
“President Chu, this is the handwriting analysis result. Although he wrote it using his left hand, it is indeed the handwriting of a single person.” Chen Ke returned to Chu Yanyan’s headquarters office located in the third district, waiting outside the door for a while until the guest departed before handing over the report along with the file.
Chu Yanyan nodded, taking off his earpiece. Monday’s signature written with his left hand was sluggish and slanted, not words written with his dominant hand.
Over the previous few days, aside from investigating on his own, he had also commissioned Yunheng to track down the corresponding person using Monday’s fingerprints and DNA.
An Alpha named Monday.
Such a truly special name.
As the largest intelligence organization in the Empire, with the fingerprints and various information provided by Chu Yanyan, the data Yunheng found was even more detailed, listing out trivial details such as which planet and which hospital in the Empire Monday was born in, and even including experimental reports with Monday’s handwritten signature from his university days.
Following the proper sequence, it was a rather unremarkable life, reading almost as something quite boring.
As for the time when this Monday crossed paths with Ying Yu, it seemed to be during his university years. Chu Yanyan’s gaze lingered on Monday’s educational background, noting that Ying Yu had once sponsored this university located on the Empire’s Blue Star, and Monday, whose parents had passed away due to an accident, was precisely one of the students who received that sponsorship.
After finishing university, Monday’s resume became completely blank.
There were no friends, no family members. After that, Monday’s intersection with the world seemed to consist solely of Ying Yu.
“When he left, did he display any special expressions?” Chu Yanyan turned on the virtual screen. Dozens of surveillance feeds were piled together, showing this hooded Alpha with a hunched back appearing to varying degrees in the footage.
As dusk fell, the Alpha stood blankly in the middle of the street, using his left hand to carry a bag given by Chen Ke while unnaturally gripping his right hand. Crowds streamed past him on either side, and his face wore an expression akin to a sleepwalker.
Quite a few people cast disdainful glances at him because of the brand on his neck that was not fully covered, and some even pinched their noses and hurried away, not forgetting to mock him with a snide remark.
Buildings of all sizes seemed immersed in the wind and snow, and a thin layer of snow gradually piled up on the man’s shoulders. Whether it was Chu Yanyan’s imagination or not, the Alpha appeared to be trembling.
“No. Just as you said, he seemed to try to stall waiting for you to return, and he would not say where he wanted to go either. I just followed the plan and brought him to the port in the third district, making an excuse to urge him off the vehicle. There are plenty of our people around, so other families will not take notice for the time being,” Chen Ke said softly.
Chu Yanyan spun the ring on the ring finger of his left hand. “For so long, he just stood there, never proactively speaking to anyone, nor proactively going anywhere. However, go investigate the backgrounds of these few people who struck up a conversation with him.”
“Understood.” Chen Ke pressed his lips together. He knew Chu Yanyan was deeply suspicious. Even after following him for so many years, Chu Yanyan might not necessarily share all his plans with himself or others. Yet whenever it came to this former lover of Ying Yu, he always felt there was something slightly different about Chu Yanyan.
“Also, investigate…” Chu Yanyan curled his fingers and tapped the desk. “When the snow is heaviest tonight.”