“Cough… cough, cough.”
The man turned his head away in embarrassment, suppressing the itch in his throat. His clumsy attempt to swallow and take him in moments ago had caused him to choke on his own breath. The heat rushed up his rough neck, flushing his honey-toned skin with a thin, shameful crimson.
He didn’t dare look at Shen Yanzhou. His large hands tightened helplessly against his knees, and only after a few seconds did he gather the courage to lift his eyelids, peeking cautiously at the person above.
That look was wet, innocent, and carried a touch of grievance from being rejected looking exactly like a large dog that had failed to please its master, instead making a total mess of things, tucking its tail and whimpering for mercy.
“Master, I’m sorry…”
His voice was raspy, mixed with heavy breaths that hadn’t yet steadied. The man dithered for a long moment before squeezing out a clumsy explanation from deep in his throat:
“I… it’s my first time.”
“First time?”
“Mm.” The man nodded forcefully, his adam’s apple rolling up and down. “Back in the Walled City, everyone was focused solely on staying alive; nobody ever taught us this. I thought… as long as it was like eating food…”
He couldn’t go on, finding it far too humiliating, his ears turning an even deeper red.
Yet he quickly crawled forward half a pace on his knees, lifting his head as his stubborn gaze locked onto Shen Yanzhou’s bare ankle. “If Master thinks I’m stupid… I can learn.”
“Next time, next time I will definitely make you feel good.”
Staring into these sincere puppy eyes, the suspicion in Shen Yanzhou’s heart didn’t clear completely. Who knew if this fellow had crawled into his bed in the middle of the night to play foul, only to play dumb and act innocent upon waking?
Just then, the doorbell rang.
Shen Yanzhou swept a glance over the video intercom monitor on the wall. Recognizing the visitor, he stopped dwelling on the matter he would just let the doctor run some tests to find out.
“Dr. Su has arrived.” He gave the man at his feet a light kick. “Go open the door. I’m going to take a shower.”
As the bathroom door snapped shut, the flush and timidity on the man’s face vanished instantly. He went downstairs to open the door.
Standing outside was a refined man wearing a beige trench coat and carrying a silver medical case. It was Shen Yanzhou’s private family physician, the young master of the Su family Su Muran.
Catching sight of the stranger opening the door, Su Muran furrowed his brow. He instinctively took half a step back, raising a hand to cover his nose and mouth. The scent of cheap tobacco radiating from this man left someone like him, who had been raised in sterile cleanrooms, thoroughly nauseated. Behind his lenses, his eyes made no effort to hide his disgust and vigilance.
“Who are you? Why are you here at A-Yan’s place?”
The man didn’t respond, stepping aside to grant him passage.
Su Muran let out a cold snort, having no desire to waste time on such a crude brute, and strode inside with his medical box. After sitting on the sofa for roughly twenty minutes, a sound finally emerged from the spiral staircase.
Shen Yanzhou supported himself against the banister as he walked down slowly, his dark silk bath robe tied loosely. With every stride, his long, pale calves flashed beneath the hem. His silver hair was draped damply behind his back, water droplets sliding down his cheeks and gathering in the deep hollows of his exquisite collarbones.
Su Muran rose to greet him, pointing toward the man by the entrance. “A-Yan, a newly bought bodyguard?”
Shen Yanzhou leaned lazily into a high-backed chair, propping his chin with one hand while his other hand casually swirled his water glass. His gaze shuttled back and forth between the two men.
“Not a bodyguard. The Shen family has never lacked dogs to block bullets,” his voice carried a trace of raspy hangover fatigue. “Dr. Su, there’s no need to play dumb at a time like this. You should have guessed what I bought him for.”
The warm smile on Su Muran’s face froze. Then, he let out a sigh, as if indulging a willful child. “A-Yan, I know the board of directors is pushing you hard, and that old thing Shen Hong is using marriage to make a statement again. I can understand if you want to find a shield to irritate the Fu family.”
“But even if you want to find one, there’s no need to pick up trash from a mud-gutter. Who knows how many pathogens and lice this person carries? You have a cleanliness obsession; what if you catch some foul disease…”
Su Muran cast a meaningful sideways glance at the man, pulling a handkerchief from his trench coat pocket to gently wipe the fingertips Shen Yanzhou had used to touch the glass moments ago. Then, with total fluidity, he tossed the handkerchief into the wastebasket.
The sequence of movements was smooth, dealing minimal damage but carrying an intensely insulting undertone.
Watching this display, the corners of Shen Yanzhou’s mouth curled into a playful arc. He extended a pale fingertip, tapping the air toward the man.
“Thirty Million.”
Hearing the summon, the man stopped two paces away from Shen Yanzhou, lowering his head with absolute compliance.
“Master.”
“Did you hear what Dr. Su just said?” Shen Yanzhou used a bare foot to lightly kick the man’s knee. “He claims you are trash, claims you are filthy.”
The man lifted his head. “Dr. Su is a refined gentleman; it’s only natural for him to find me filthy.”
“As long as Master doesn’t find me distasteful, that’s enough.”
Shen Yanzhou let out a shallow laugh.
The sensation of a punch hitting thin air left Su Muran thoroughly irritated. He detested the way this man looked at Shen Yanzhou even more an expression that appeared as compliant as a house pet on the surface, yet hid an unquantifiable amount of wolfish greed deep within his eyes.
“A-Yan, have him get out,” Su Muran maintained his precarious mask of refinement, offering a smile. “Regarding the private details of your gland treatment plan, it’s inconvenient with an outsider present.”
“Speak right here.”
Shen Yanzhou stepped onto the Persian rug barefoot, moving from the high chair to sit on the sofa, crossing his legs. “He isn’t an outsider. He is the treatment plan I intend to discuss with you.”
“What do you mean?”
Shen Yanzhou lifted his eyelids, a light flickering within his silver-gray eyes that was calm to the point of madness:
“I want a child.”
The smile on Su Muran’s face shattered completely.
“A-Yan, this joke isn’t funny at all,” he attempted to suppress his emotions using professional logic. “You know your own physical condition best. Your reproductive chamber is atrophied; pregnancy would place a massive burden on you. Furthermore… who do you intend to conceive with? Fu Sihan?”
“Fu Sihan?” Total disgust filled Shen Yanzhou’s eyes. “That pervert? I fear whatever is born would be a lunatic too.”
He leaned his frame back, sinking into the soft sofa as he glanced over the silent man. “I’m going to borrow his seed.”
“I’m going to borrow his seed.”
“S-tier genes, a healthy body, knows how to f—” Shen Yanzhou recalled the man’s clumsy behavior this morning and caught himself. “Most importantly, it’s a clean break with money and goods settled zero residual complications.”
“Absurd!”
“A-Yan, have you gone mad?!” Su Muran rushed over in a few strides, his civilized mask vanishing entirely.
“You are the master of the Shen family! The most noble S-tier Omega in all of Hong Kong! How can you allow a gutter rat’s bodily fluids to enter your body?!” His eyes flushed red with anxiety, his voice trembling: “If you truly require soothing, we can find other methods! Even… if you don’t mind, I can also…”
“Su Muran.”
Shen Yanzhou cut him off coldly. “You are merely my family physician, a childhood friend.”
“Don’t cross the line. You know my temperament.”
The words caught in Su Muran’s throat, his face turning instantly pale.
“Take him to the guest room for an examination,” Shen Yanzhou stopped looking at him, turning his focus toward Thirty Million. “The full suite. Gene sequencing, viral screening I want to ensure he is clean.”
“Particularly, check that thing of his see if it can still be used, and if it’s any good.”
Su Muran knew he couldn’t dissuade him. From childhood to adulthood, he had never managed to change a single decision A-Yan made.
He turned around, looking at the man, letting out a cold laugh. “You, come with me.”
The first-floor guest room was temporarily requisitioned as an examination room.
Su Muran opened his medical case with a grim face, first pulling out a bottle of medical alcohol to spray a circle into the air. Then, donning blue rubber gloves and a dedicated mask, he exposed only a pair of disgusted eyes.
“Strip completely.”
“Throw your clothes into that yellow medical waste bag. Don’t soil the carpet in A-Yan’s guest room.”
The man offered no resistance, complying silently.
The body exposed beneath the lights was wild, packed with an intimidating, explosive power. This raw masculine tension left Su Muran feeling threatened; the mere thought of this physique entangling with A-Yan, making love…
Jealousy grew rampantly like a poisonous weed.
The examination process was dull and stifling. Until the final step.
“I need to measure the data down there. Get it up yourself,” Su Muran turned his back to calibrate the instrument, the biological repulsion between Alphas leaving him unwilling to spare another glance. “Hurry up, don’t waste my time.”
However, there was none of the expected crude hand movements, and no urgent, lustful pants.
Finding it strange, Su Muran intended to turn around and urge him along, only to see the man lying flat on his back, his hands casually pillowed behind his head. He hadn’t closed his eyes, and he hadn’t even touched himself with his hands.
He kept his head tilted slightly, those pitch-black, bottomless eyes staring deathly at the tightly closed room door.
His gaze became intensely sticky and dark, like moss that had festered for thousands of years in a gutter, wordlessly piercing through the thick solid wood door panel, winding greedily outward.
Outside the door lay the living room. Outside the door sat his master.
No touch was required, and no erotic imagery was needed. Merely the awareness that that person was right across a single wall caused the originally dormant behemoth to fully awaken within moments.
Displaying a desperate scale and power.
Over the next half hour, Su Muran utilized every professional technique to find fault, yet every metric returned data that was similarly perfect to the point of despair.
Pinching the deep assessment report, he looked at the conclusion, the expression on his face turning complex to an extreme degree.
In the living room, a vinyl record player from the 1940s turned slowly, the needle tracing the grooves to pour out Leslie Cheung’s deep, lazy rendition of Secret Love.
“Distrusting emotions, never having met…”
The brilliant Cantonese lyrics blended with agarwood, the sharp notes of overnight whiskey, and the scent of rain outside the window, fermenting a nearly decadent intimacy in the air.
When the two emerged, Shen Yanzhou was just setting down the book in his hands. He swept a glance over Su Muran’s horribly sour complexion and let out a soft laugh. “Dr. Su wears such an expression; it seems the examination went poorly? Is he sick?”
“He isn’t sick.” Su Muran’s voice was dry as he handed the assessment report over. “Not only is he healthy, but his physical constitution is also absurdly good, above S-tier, a one-in-a-million sample in the genetic database.”
“But A-Yan, as a doctor, I have an obligation to warn you.” He pushed his glasses up, his gaze cutting coldly toward the man standing in the shadows. “First, the cavernous structure down there is unique. Once engorged, the blood drainage is exceptionally slow. Meaning—”
“Once he goes in, if he doesn’t drain you completely, it will be very difficult for him to pull out.”
“Figured as much,” Shen Yanzhou showed no panic, casually surveying the man’s leg muscle contours like a buyer examining a useful tool meant for heavy labor. “But that’s nothing. As long as I can conceive, even if the process is arduous, it isn’t unendurable.”
“But…” Su Muran threw out a second fact that he found difficult to voice: “Furthermore, he has zero sexual experience.”
“A virgin?” Inside Shen Yanzhou’s beautiful silver-gray eyes, a flash of astonishment finally surfaced. His gaze cut toward the man with probing intent. “A wild dog who clawed his way out of that mud-pit is actually a virgin?”
“What? Does he have an underlying dysfunction? Or is he… even more asexual than I am?”
“He isn’t,” Su Muran recalled the man’s gaze inside the examination room. “He shares absolutely zero connection with the word asexual. In fact, you could say… he’s hyper-aroused.”
“Oh?” The amusement deep in Shen Yanzhou’s eyes grew richer. “If it isn’t dysfunction, then he’s been holding back?”
“What, in a place like the Kowloon Walled City, nobody managed to catch your eye?”
After a long pause, the man’s gaze locked deathly onto Shen Yanzhou’s pale neck, squeezing out a few syllables slowly from deep within his throat:
“Never met… someone I wanted to sleep with.”
“Who knew he was a pure-hearted guy,” Shen Yanzhou let out a brief laugh, his tone returning to detachment. “However, even if you don’t want to sleep with me, you don’t have a choice.”
“After all, I splashed thirty million on you. You are my private property your essence, your bones, even your life belongs to me.”
“Dr. Su,” he raised his wine glass again, swirling it gently. “Are you finished speaking? If you’re done, you may leave.”
Su Muran looked at the final line of the report sheet, his fingers trembling slightly. He didn’t want to say it; as a doctor who understood pheromone theory inside out, dealing with a person he had harbored an unrequited love for over many years, admitting this fact was more agonizing than killing him.
But as a physician, he could not conceal it, should a variable crop up later…
His gaze traveled back and forth between that silent, massive brute and the noble, exquisite Shen Yanzhou, before finally squeezing out a few words from between his teeth:
“You and him, a 99.99% match.”
Hearing this, the man who had been keeping his head lowered with minimum presence slowly lifted his head, his pitch-black eyes staring at Shen Yanzhou with pure excitement.
Shen Yanzhou froze, his gaze crossing Su Muran’s shoulder to slam directly into those untamable wild black eyes.
“Su Muran, what nonsense are you spouting?” Shen Yanzhou let out a cold sneer. “Me and him? 99.99%?”
“The data doesn’t lie,” Su Muran offered a tragic smile, pointing to the red conclusion on the report sheet.
“He is your fated pair.”
“From a biological standpoint, in this lifetime, besides him, nobody else can mark you.”