"Sir." Old Fu’s voice carried the particular calm of someone who had heard every version of this speech before. "Please don’t shout in the car."
"I’m not shouting. I’m expressing my pain." Nuocheng slumped low in his seat, arms crossed. "Do you know what I’m going home to, Old Fu? My dildos. That’s it. That’s the future of my love life. At least they never disappoint me."
Old Fu, wisely, kept his eyes on the road, then sighed "Young master please have some tact."
"You’d think," Nuocheng continued, undeterred, "that with all my money, all my resources, someone in this entire city could produce one — one — decent man. Is that too much to ask? I have three criteria. Three. That’s not even a long list."
"Sir, if I may."
"You may."
Old Fu’s eyes met his in the mirror, patient in a way only decades of driving spoiled young masters around could make a man. "You’ll find him. When you least expect it, probably. Good men don’t always come wrapped up in a folder with a photo attached."
Nuocheng snorted. "That’s very poetic for someone who’s about to drive me home so I can cry into a pillow."
"I try, sir."
They drove in comfortable silence for a while after that, the city lights blurring past the window, Nuocheng’s mood only slightly improved by the venting. As they turned onto the street near his apartment, the car slowed at a red light directly in front of the supermarket, its bright signage lit up against the night.
Nuocheng’s gaze snagged on the display through the window, stacks of his family’s new snack line arranged in a tower near the entrance, exactly where the marketing team had promised it would go.
"Pull over," he said suddenly, sitting up.
Old Fu blinked. "Sir?"
"I want to see how it looks on the shelf. As a customer. Not as the CEO, just — a normal person, buying chips." He was already unbuckling his seatbelt. "Give me five minutes."
He didn’t wait for a response before climbing out of the car, straightening his jacket, and striding toward the sliding doors like he owned the place.
Which, in fairness, he sort of did.
The store was quiet at this hour, fluorescent lights humming overhead, a couple of late-night shoppers scattered through the aisles. Nuocheng made a beeline for the display near the front, already mentally cataloguing the packaging, the shelf placement, whether the promotional signage was crooked.
Then he looked up.
Standing behind the register, restocking a shelf of gum with the kind of unbothered focus that suggested he had no idea anyone important had just walked in, was quite possibly the most beautiful man Nuocheng had ever seen in his life.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Black hair falling messy over his forehead in a way that looked effortless because it probably was. Sharp jaw, sharper eyes, forearms visible where his sleeves were pushed up, doing something devastating to a box of gum that had no business being that attractive.
Nuocheng forgot about the shelf placement entirely.
He forgot about Jiang Boyu, about his dad’s phone calls, about the folder of alphas sitting useless in his office. He even forgot, briefly, how to breathe.
Then his feet were moving before his brain caught up, carrying him straight toward the register with the singular focus of a man on a mission.
The man looked up as he approached, clearly clocking the way Nuocheng was staring, one eyebrow lifting in mild confusion.
Nuocheng didn’t give him a chance to speak first.
"I like you." The words tumbled out before he could stop them, urgent, entirely too loud for a supermarket at this hour. "Give me your sperms."
The man froze mid-restock, a pack of gum still in his hand, staring at Nuocheng like he’d just watched him grow a second head.
Sicheng blinked. Once. Twice.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me." Nuocheng straightened his jacket, chin lifted, doing his level best to look like a man who hadn’t just said something completely unhinged. "I like you. I want you. Give me your sperms. I need them for reproductive purposes."
"For—" Sicheng set the box of gum down very slowly, like he needed both hands free in case this situation escalated further. "Reproductive purposes."
"I’m an omega. I’m looking for a husband. You’re the first man I’ve seen in months who might actually meet my criteria." Nuocheng gestured vaguely at him, up and down, entirely unbothered by how it looked. "Face is a ten. Heart’s unconfirmed, but I have a good feeling. And I need to check the last one, obviously, but statistically the odds are in your favor given the rest of the package."
Sicheng stared at him. He looked, briefly, like a man reconsidering every decision that had led him to this exact shift, at this exact register, in this exact universe.
"I don’t know who you are," he said carefully, "but I’m going to need you to leave."
"I’m Gu Nuocheng." He said it like it should mean something, because it usually did. When Sicheng’s expression didn’t change, didn’t so much as flicker with recognition, Nuocheng faltered for the first time since walking in. "The Gu Corporation. Snacks? Chips? The tower of products literally behind me that your store is currently displaying?"
"Cool." Sicheng picked the gum back up. "Still going to need you to leave."
Nuocheng gawked at him. No one had ever, not once in his entire life, responded to his name with quite so much indifference. People fawned. People stammered. People occasionally forgot how to form full sentences. This man looked at him like he was mildly inconveniencing his restocking schedule.
It was, infuriatingly, kind of hot.
"You don’t know who I am," Nuocheng said, slower this time, like he was testing the words for a reaction that wasn’t coming.
"Should I?"
"Yes! I mean — no, not necessarily, but most people—" He stopped himself, pressed his lips together, and tried again with whatever dignity he had left. "It doesn’t matter. What’s your name?"
"Why."
"Because I asked."
Sicheng studied him for a long moment, gum forgotten in his hand, something unreadable behind his eyes. Whatever he saw must have been more amusing than alarming, because the corner of his mouth twitched, almost a smile, gone before it could fully form.
"Han Sicheng."
"Han Sicheng." Nuocheng repeated it like he was tasting it, nodding to himself. "Good. Great, actually. Very solid name. Do you work here full-time?"
"Part-time. In between things."
"In between what things?"
"None of your business."
"Everything is my business, I own this—" Nuocheng caught himself, exhaled, and reset. "Fine. Fine. Forget the sperm thing, that was—" He waved a hand vaguely, as if that could erase the last two minutes.
"Too fast. I know. But I’m serious about the rest of it. I’ve been on exactly one thousand terrible dates this year and you are, without exaggeration, the first man to walk into my life who hasn’t immediately ruined it by opening his mouth."
"I feel like I should be offended by that."
"You should be flattered."
Why was he only encountering lunatics?!
Sicheng huffed, something almost like a laugh, quiet and reluctant, like it had escaped before he could stop it. He shook his head, turned back to his shelf of gum, clearly done entertaining whatever this was.
"Goodnight," he said, without looking back.
Nuocheng stood there another second, staring at his back, at the width of his shoulders under that plain store uniform, at the stubborn, unimpressed set of his jaw.
He smiled slowly. "I’ll be back for your sperms," already turning for the door. "Han Sicheng."