Lu Siyan could not have possibly kissed him of his own accord.
But Xiao Yanxiu would…
The man appeared to be seeking a kiss, yet his actions brooked no refusal. He hooked his arm around the Omega’s waist, pulling him into his embrace, and lowered his head slightly.
Lu Siyan had absolutely no experience with kissing, nor did he understand the nuances of lingering affection. He simply stood there stiffly as his chin was tilted up, and his lips were lightly brushed.
It was like a dragonfly skimming the water—gentle and restrained.
The scent of camellia and cedarwood became overwhelming, enveloping everything.
The Alpha’s breath was hot and soft, carrying a hint of sweetness.
From behind them, a friend’s voice drifted over in mock disgust: “Ugh.”
How annoying!
Lu Siyan’s face heated up; he felt embarrassed.
He had only been awake for two seconds, and his resolve to maintain a “surface-level” marriage with Xiao Yanxiu had already crumbled unexpectedly.
The man chuckled, patted his head, and left the house with his documents.
Before departing, he coldly instructed the butler standing at the door: “Prepare some burn ointment for the Madam.”
The roar of a car engine echoed from outside. Lu Siyan hid behind the living room curtains, watching his husband drive away.
Hidden beneath his sleeve, the back of his burned hand had broken out into a dense cluster of blisters. The skin around the wound was flushed red, and it throbbed with a piercing pain.
He treated the injury simply in his room.
Then, he grabbed his backpack, preparing to go to school.
To his surprise, he was stopped by Auntie Liu, who insisted on removing the crookedly wrapped bandage he had applied himself to re-apply the ointment properly.
The older woman nagged him repeatedly, showing more concern than his own parents ever had, telling him to be careful and keep the wound away from water.
Lu Siyan had never been cared for so meticulously.
The Omega arrived at school with a heavy heart. As soon as he entered the classroom, he was caught by Lu Shiyuan, who had clearly been waiting for him.
The other pulled him by the arm, dragging him into the restroom, shoving him into a stall, and locking the door.
“You actually dared to blacklist me?”
Caught off guard by the attack, Lu Siyan’s back slammed against the wall with a loud thud. He clutched his burned hand.
“You…”
Lu Shiyuan pointed at him: “Don’t think that just because you’re with Xiao Yanxiu, you have a backer. To scions of prestigious families like them, you’re just a toy to be kicked aside once they’re bored. Do you really think of yourself as Mrs. Xiao?”
Having the reality of his situation with Xiao Yanxiu poked at caused Lu Siyan’s heart to twitch violently. His expression turned cold.
“This is my business. It has nothing to do with you.”
The Omega didn’t want to engage and tried to push past, but Lu Shiyuan shoved him again, sending him stumbling back into the corner.
“Who wants to manage your life? I’m just giving you a ‘kind’ reminder. Don’t be so foolish as to help an outsider fleece your own family. When you lose your utility later, you’ll still have to beg us to save you.”
“Besides, no one in the circle even knows about Xiao Yanxiu’s marriage. Who’s going to acknowledge you as Mrs. Xiao?”
Lu Siyan: “Is this all you came here to say?”
Lu Shiyuan sneered and crossed his arms: “I came to get you to go to the police station with me.”
“The young master of the Qin family is being detained. You need to sign a settlement agreement.”
“Don’t say you don’t want to go. The elders at home are already hospitalized because of you. Under pressure from Xiao Yanxiu, a third of the Lu family’s accounts have been forcibly transferred to you.”
“The company’s capital chain was already having issues.”
“Now the mining business is being choked by the Qin family. If this isn’t resolved, the whole family is going to suffer.”
“Even though our parents were separated from you for a long time and aren’t close, they worked hard to find you and have been trying to make amends all these years.”
“You shouldn’t hate us this much.”
“You surely don’t want to drive us to bankruptcy.”
Lu Siyan didn’t exactly feel hate—at most, he felt a bit of resentment. He took the medical records Lu Shiyuan threw at him and saw that his Omega father had indeed been rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night due to extreme stress.
Up until now, Xiao Yanxiu had not mentioned the real reason he had fought that divorced man.
Ignorant of the inner details and the severity of the situation, Lu Siyan thought it was just a common conflict, so he agreed.
He would consider it paying back the debt for the four years the Lu family had raised him.
After asking Mu Yi to request a leave of absence for him, Lu Siyan followed Lu Shiyuan to the police station. His Omega father looked haggard and pale, sitting there with red, swollen eyes.
Seeing Lu Siyan enter, whether his grief was real or fake, he grabbed the boy’s hand and cried out “Yanyan, Yanyan” repeatedly.
Lu Siyan uncomfortably pulled his hand away and spoke to the officer in charge of the case: “Excuse me, where do I sign the settlement agreement?”
The police officer’s attitude was gentle, yet he asked with confusion: “You are Mr. Xiao’s spouse, right? Mr. Xiao has already given instructions regarding this case. Do you… really want to sign?”
Lu Siyan nodded. He reached for the pen on the desk.
The young officer organized the files in his hand.
“By law, we must inform you of the facts. On the day Qin was detained, we extracted a very high concentration of Omega catalyst from the shattered glass at the restaurant.”
“If Mr. Xiao hadn’t arrived in time to stop you from drinking that lemonade, by now, I’m afraid…”
I’m afraid…
Lu Siyan stood up abruptly, his face turning deathly pale. Goosebumps crawled up his spine to the top of his head, and he shuddered.
An Omega controlled by hormones, at the most severe level, loses all control over their own behavior.
Not to mention, it was a chemically induced heat.
He had never used suppressants since he was a child.
No one understood the terror of being manipulated by a Heat period better than he did. That divorced man had actually…
Waves of coldness washed over the Omega.
Lu Siyan recalled the day he first met Xiao Yanxiu, surrounded by those three punks. Back then, he had even considered jumping off the roof.
He threw the pen down.
“I won’t sign.”
Hearing this, Lu Shiyuan rushed over: “It’s not like anything major actually happened. You didn’t lose anything. Why insist on making a fuss over this?”
Lu Siyan couldn’t believe his ears. His fingertips trembled. “What do you mean ‘no loss’? What if Xiao Yanxiu hadn’t been there that day? What if he hadn’t been eating at that restaurant? What if he hadn’t seen me at all?”
“What would have happened to me then…”
Lu Shiyuan was dismissive: “Your ‘what-ifs’ didn’t happen. Just sign it already.”
Lu Siyan looked away, his gaze falling on his still-weeping Omega father. The man didn’t stand up for him; his silence was a tacit demand for the signature.
The Omega felt an immense wave of disappointment.
Outside the room, news that the settlement process had stalled reached the interior. The young master of the Qin family could no longer restrain himself and began to roar and curse.
“Lu Shiyuan, you backstabber!”
“You were the one who gave me that drug! You said nothing would go wrong!”
“You were the one begging to cooperate with the Qin family, and now your brother won’t let me go? You’re playing both sides of the fence!”
“If this isn’t resolved today, my parents will never let your family off!”
The truth was accidentally spilled. Lu Siyan looked over in shock.
“It was you again…”
“I haven’t even settled the score regarding that bottle of Omega scent from before…”
Lu Shiyuan panicked briefly but immediately regained his composure: “He’s just desperate to get out and is talking nonsense.”
“What proof is there that I instigated it?”
“Dad, I grew up by your side. You know me. How could I do such a thing?”
Lu Siyan: “You’ve tried to harm me more than once or twice. If necessary, let that man named Qin come out and testify.”
Lu Shiyuan: “Dad, Yanyan was lost for years and suffered outside, while I have stayed by your side to comfort you. If he hates me and resents me, I have nothing to say.”
“But this matter concerns the Lu family. This isn’t the time for personal grudges. The Qin parents will be here any moment.”
The Lu family had already lost funds to Lu Siyan and Xiao Yanxiu. The cooperation with the Qin family was a lead Lu Shiyuan had worked tirelessly to secure.
The Omega father snapped out of it: “Yanyan, Shiyuan wouldn’t do something like that. There must be a misunderstanding.”
“Sign the settlement first. Whatever the issue is, we can talk at home. We have to get him out first.”
Otherwise, the Lu family would truly be doomed.
Lu Siyan was in disbelief. Facing this, his parents’ attitude was to prioritize the family business over him. His fingers shook.
“They… they gave me a catalyst.”
He was an Omega—an Omega who couldn’t use suppressants and was allergic to most stimulants.
If someone had succeeded in such an insulting way… Lu Siyan’s heart felt as if it were being torn open, aching and numb.
His Omega father nearly knelt before him.
“Yanyan, Shiyuan wouldn’t do this.”
“Regarding this entanglement with the Qin family, I beg you. I, your father, beg you. Please give the Lu family a way to survive.”
Lu Shiyuan pulled at his father: “Dad, Dad.”
“Don’t kneel to him. He doesn’t deserve it.”
“If this settlement isn’t signed today, at worst, I’ll go to jail in the Qin son’s place.”
“The Lu family won’t fall just because we don’t have Lu Siyan.”
The Omega’s trouser legs were being pulled repeatedly.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Every breath he took felt like a long, sharp blade stabbing into his lungs.
This would be the last time.
“I’ll sign.”
That night, a light rain began to fall. Lu Siyan’s phone was turned off.
The driver the butler sent to the school missed him. Just as the news reached Xiao Yanxiu, the Omega, drenched to the bone, turned the doorknob and walked in.
Auntie Liu cried out: “My goodness!”
She hurried over with a towel to wipe the water off him. “It’s pouring outside, why didn’t you call home? No matter where you were, we would have picked you up.”
“The Master will be heartbroken when he sees this.”
Lu Siyan exhaled a slow, weary breath. He turned to go upstairs, his voice raspy: “I’m tired.”
He left everyone behind.
Xiao Yanxiu, upon hearing the news, rushed back in a hurry.
After reaching home, he went straight to the second-floor master bedroom. The moment he pushed the door open, he was met with a rich, thick, and rampaging scent of syrupy bergamot filling every corner of the room.
The pheromone scent was intense and overwhelming.
The Alpha’s footsteps halted abruptly at the door.
His nose twitched slightly as he inhaled, carefully identifying the scent.
Is this… Heat?