After hanging up the phone, Xu Juexi felt that his acting skills were superb, and judged that the man should not have noticed anything unusual.
Just as he was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he caught a glimpse of Gu Fengying looking at him with a chilling gaze.
He had never seen such an expression on Gu Fengying’s face before, and thought he might be seeing things. He rubbed his eyes and looked at him again, and sure enough, he only saw him smiling at him with his eyes crinkled.
“What did older brother say to you?” Gu Fengying asked casually, as if chatting idly.
“Ask me when I’m going back,” Xu Juexi said.
“Anything else?” Gu Fengying continued to press, quite curious about the contents of the phone call.
“Anything else?” Xu Juexi thought for a moment. It was just some casual conversation with no particular focus. He said, “Nothing much… Oh, Mr. Gu said he brought me a gift.”
Xu Juexi found it strange. Why did the protagonist suddenly offer to give him a gift? Was he implying something?
“No, that’s not what I meant.” Gu Fengying gently shook his head, then coaxed, “What did brother call you on the phone just now?”
“Huh?” Xu Juexi thought for a moment, then remembered after his reminder: “Call me…wife, what’s wrong?”
Xu Juexi didn’t react much to the address, because he always called him “husband,” and felt it was understandable that he chose to address him that way. But Gu Fengying seemed to care a lot about the term.
“Why did he call you that?” Gu Fengying asked. “Xiaoxi, why would my brother suddenly call you that?”
“Perhaps it’s because I was originally Mr. Gu’s fiancée?” Xu Juexi said.
Gu Fengying frowned almost imperceptibly, as if he wanted to say something. He put his arm around Xu Juexi’s waist again.
He asked, “I’m a little tired. Xiaoxi, why don’t you sleep here tonight? I’ll take you back tomorrow, okay?”
Xu Juexi: “Huh?”
“Benben gets scared when he’s home alone,” Gu Fengying said. “If you stay tonight, you can hold him and sleep with him.”
Xu Juexi recalled the feel of that fluffy, soft little dog and hesitated for a moment, but still shook his head: “No, it won’t work.”
“Why?”
“I just promised Mr. Gu that I would go back tonight.”
Xu Juexi gestured: “It’s not good to go back on your word. If you’re tired, I can take a taxi back.”
“Stay here.” Gu Fengying stopped trying to reason with him.
He leaned closer to Xu Juexi and whispered in his ear.
He regretted that the scent of his pheromones had faded after he had just taken the suppressant; otherwise, he could have made Xu Juexi dizzy and lose his mind for him again.
Xu Juexi refused him with great principle.
He felt that Gu Fengying seemed to be in a bad mood, and that he was probably really tired. It made sense, considering that he had spent the whole afternoon playing games with Benben and even took a nap, while Gu Fengying had been working all afternoon.
He was very considerate and said, “Then you should go and rest. I’ll go to the door to get a taxi… Hmm!”
Gu Fengying suddenly lowered his head and gently touched Xu Juexi’s lips before he could react. Then, just like before, he quickly withdrew and apologized to Xu Juexi.
“I’m sorry…” Gu Fengying lowered his eyes: “Never mind, I’ll take you home.”
Xu Juexi blinked, and for a moment he felt that he looked a little pitiful for some reason, and wanted to agree to let him stay.
But Gu Xiaolin’s fear quickly overcame everything.
Gu Fengying still drove him back. The car was too quiet on the way, so Xu Juexi didn’t think much of it and fell asleep with his head turned to the side. However, the journey was not long, and he was soon woken up by the noise of the car stopping.
Xu Juexi was about to meet the main character again, and he became nervous as usual. He felt his nerves were on edge, wondering what kind of “gift” Gu Xiaolin was talking about.
He went upstairs nervously, and after half a minute of mental preparation before knocking on Gu Xiaolin’s door, he finally did so.
The door opened quickly, and for a moment Xu Juexi felt as if Gu Xiaolin was waiting for him, but that was impossible. After all, the other party was the current head of the Gu family, the main character, and very busy. He wouldn’t have time to wait for a nobody like him.
When he met Gu Xiaolin’s gaze, he greeted him obediently, “Good evening, husband.”
Gu Xiaolin lowered his eyes and stared at him for a while, then softly hummed in agreement.
Just like I remembered, or rather, Omega was like this every day: harmless and beautiful, always looking at him with tentative, afraid-of-disturbing eyes.
Perhaps no one could remain unmoved by such a pair of eyes, and Gu Fengying himself was no exception.
He said to the omega, “Come in.”
Xu Juexi had never been inside the protagonist’s room before; this was the first time. For most of the time before, the protagonist had been watching him from the doorway, and he was eager to avoid meeting him, so naturally he had neither the opportunity nor the desire to enter the protagonist’s territory.
But now Xu Juexi has nowhere to retreat.
Gu Xiaolin’s room was large, with a simple work and rest area. He followed behind the other person, trying to slow down his pace. He wondered if leaving now under the pretext of needing to use the restroom would seem abrupt, and whether he would appear in various news reports about social and legal issues tomorrow. But after thinking about it, he thought it was unlikely. After all, the Gu family was so powerful that it wasn’t impossible for them to make him disappear without a trace.
Thinking about this without any clear direction, Xu Juexi suddenly felt a pain in his nose.
He grunted, raised his hand to rub his eyes, and soon they became sore and red. It turned out that, without him noticing, the man walking in front of him had stopped at some point.
“Walking without watching where you’re going?” Gu Xiaolin’s tone was flat, as always: “How could you bump into something like this?”
Xu Juexi felt as if he was criticizing him, and felt very wronged.
He already had very sensitive tear ducts, and with his nose feeling sore, he blinked, and tears slid down his cheeks.
Seeing his tears, Gu Xiaolin was taken aback, wondering why he had suddenly started crying. He was momentarily at a loss: “Why are you crying?”
As soon as he spoke, Xu Juexi cried even harder, sobbing uncontrollably, looking very hurt by his words.
Gu Xiaolin could only frantically try to wipe away Xu Juexi’s tears, but to little avail.
He felt that omegas were truly delicate creatures, and perhaps they really needed to be treated very, very carefully to ensure nothing went wrong. He had absolutely no experience and didn’t know how to be a good husband, so he could only tentatively reach out and hug Xu Juexi.
He gently patted Xu Juexi’s shoulder, worried that using too much force would shatter the omega. He said, “Don’t cry.”
He tried to distract Xu Juexi: “Look, here’s the gift I bought for you.”
Upon hearing the word “gift,” Xu Juexi recalled the tragic ending he had just imagined, and cried even harder, making Gu Xiaolin realize that he might have said something wrong.
But Gu Xiaolin had no other choice but to take Xu Juexi to the French windows to look at the roses he had bought.
“Look, flowers,” Gu Xiaolin said. “Do you like them? Don’t cry.”
He gently wiped away the tears from Xu Juexi’s eyes.
Xu Juexi closed his eyes and then opened them again. Before his eyes could focus, he saw a bright red thing.
He nearly died again. Hearing Gu Xiaolin say it was a flower, he looked closely and realized it was actually a rose, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Xu Juexi opened his mouth, looked at the flowers, then at Gu Xiaolin, and asked him uncertainly, “Is this… for me?”
“Hmm.” Gu Xiaolin breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that he had finally stopped crying. “Here, for you.”
He picked up the bouquet and placed it in Xu Juexi’s arms: “Do you like it…?”
The bouquet was really big; Xu Juexi almost couldn’t hold it steady.
The rose petals were still wet with water, very fresh, and indeed very beautiful.
Xu Juexi had received flowers before, but this was the first time he had ever received them in his hands.
He stared at the flowers, somewhat bewildered, and replied, “…I like them.”
Gu Xiaolin’s tone became almost imperceptibly lighter: “If you like it, that’s good.”
He looked at Xu Juexi, seemingly struggling with something.
It wasn’t until Xu Juexi realized that the silence had lasted too long that he finally stopped hesitating, leaned over, and gently touched Xu Juexi’s forehead with his lips.
“Wife.”
He shouted again.