“Xu Shuyuan?” Ying Qiuman called out. Xu Shuyuan’s grip only tightened, more and more.
The reading on the detection device in the staff member’s hand shot up at once, and they quickly handed Ying Qiuman a suppressant.
Ying Qiuman took it, turned around, and pried Xu Shuyuan’s mouth open to feed it to him.
Xu Shuyuan looked very heavy-lidded, half-lucid as he stared at Ying Qiuman’s blood-stained hand. After swallowing the suppressant, he buried his face in Ying Qiuman’s neck again, both arms locking him in his embrace. The detector in the staff member’s hand began beeping rapidly.
“Disgusting,” Xu Shuyuan said suddenly. “That alpha.”
Ying Qiuman didn’t know how to respond, so he simply held Xu Shuyuan too and gently patted his back to soothe him.
He had done this many times before during Xu Shuyuan’s susceptibility periods, but doing it in a public place made it feel stiff and awkward.
“It’s all other people’s pheromones,” Xu Shuyuan muttered in complaint. The staff member looked like they wanted to say something but hesitated, then finally spoke up:
“Sir, please do not release pheromones in a public space.”
Ying Qiuman had been completely unaware of it, and hearing the reminder behind him, his body stiffened even more. He pushed Xu Shuyuan slightly, but instead of loosening his grip, Xu Shuyuan held him tighter and shot back:
“I’m releasing them toward my own wife. Why don’t you go deal with that dog from just now?”
The staff member was left speechless. In the end they still bowed in apology out of professional duty, but went on reminding him:
“The gentleman from earlier has already been taken away. We will investigate, and the relevant departments will issue penalties, but… please still refrain from doing this in public…”
The staff member was holding a box of suppressants and some blocking patches. Xu Shuyuan took one bag, loosened his hold on Ying Qiuman a little, and handed him a pheromone-blocking patch.
Ying Qiuman had never used one before. His original body’s pheromones had been so faint that he’d never needed them, so there was nothing in his memory about how to use one.
He tore open the packaging and pulled out the blue strip inside, printed with the mall’s logo. It looked like a warming patch for the neck.
Now he understood. He raised it to apply it for Xu Shuyuan, then looked up to find Xu Shuyuan smiling at him.
“What are you laughing at?” His fingertips brushed over the patch he’d just stuck on, only to be lightly caught by Xu Shuyuan, whose breath grazed his ear as he murmured, “You looked so serious just now.”
The wound on Ying Qiuman’s hand had already scabbed over, and Xu Shuyuan’s warm palm covering it made it itch faintly.
He had never used a patch himself, let alone applied one for someone else, so of course he took it seriously when facing something unfamiliar.
Xu Shuyuan’s gaze lingered on Ying Qiuman’s face. Then, as if he’d noticed something, his gentle expression turned sharp. He released Ying Qiuman’s hand and instead pinched his chin, pulling him closer.
“What happened here?” He hadn’t witnessed all of it. After being affected by the alpha’s pheromones earlier, he had gone looking for Ying Qiuman, seeing that he was fine, he’d immediately clung to him, and only now noticed the injury at the corner of his mouth.
But he didn’t wait for Ying Qiuman to answer. His gaze turned even fiercer as he looked at the staff member. “Who was that alpha just now?”
The staff member was only responsible for staying on-site to calm things down, the detailed investigation wasn’t his job. Faced with this question, he looked rather helpless, and more worn out than ever, as he replied, “If you’d like compensation, our mall can offer you a few options. As for that gentleman, for now we’re temporarily…”
Ying Qiuman heard the manager’s helpless tone and felt a bitter pang of fellow feeling. He took hold of the hand gripping his chin and said, “It’s fine. It’ll be over soon.”
“Don’t speak for him!” Xu Shuyuan’s tone turned harsh, startling him. It also made Ying Qiuman a little angry. “Don’t you bite people too during your susceptibility period?”
Ying Qiuman’s tone carried little emotion. He tried to state it as calmly as he could, but it still managed to cool Xu Shuyuan’s anger, making him frown and fall silent.
“I’m sorry for the trouble.” Hearing Ying Qiuman’s words, the manager bowed in thanks and quickly seized the chance to leave.
After the manager left, Xu Shuyuan let him go too. Only then did Ying Qiuman realize that the hand-holding had triggered his skin-contact anxiety. And earlier, being held by Xu Shuyuan had felt comforting, so much so that now, released, he felt a sense of loss.
The anxiety made him rub his palm against his clothes, and to cover it up, he clenched his fist again, his fingernails digging little by little into his flesh.
Only a minute or two passed. When Xu Shuyuan came back from paying at the counter, he found Ying Qiuman standing blankly in place, lips pale and eyes unfocused.
“Where do you feel uncomfortable?” Xu Shuyuan tilted his head to study him. The moment their eyes met, Ying Qiuman felt a violent surge in his mind, as if a roaring wave had shattered the boundaries he’d built up.
It grew so severe that he suddenly threw himself into Xu Shuyuan’s arms, like an unsatisfied creature craving something. His mind was resisting and clinging tighter at the same time.
Xu Shuyuan’s brow twitched. He thought of how Ying Qiuman had gone to see a psychologist earlier, and an unnamed bitterness rose in his chest.
After a long while, Ying Qiuman’s breathing finally steadied. The moment his awareness returned, he stepped back to put distance between them. His throat felt as though it had been soaked in cold water for a long time, and even his voice had changed. “Sorry.”
Xu Shuyuan moved closer, but the other man immediately retreated like a wary deer. Left with no choice, he reached out and grabbed him, speaking in a gentle tone: “If you’re uncomfortable, you can hug me. There’s no need to apologize.”
Ying Qiuman’s eyes were faintly red at the corners from his condition, his gaze damp. As if admitting defeat, he closed them.
On the way home, Xu Shuyuan asked whether he needed to go to the hospital, but Ying Qiuman refused.
He curled up against the far side of the car door, keeping his distance from Xu Shuyuan, building his inner walls back up again.
After they got out of the car, he tried to flee to his room, but Xu Shuyuan followed and caught him. “Can you tell me why?”
He looked like he practically had “ill” written all over him, yet Xu Shuyuan deliberately avoided saying the word “illness.” His thumb gently brushed over the back of Ying Qiuman’s hand, warm yet pressing forward step by step. “Don’t you trust me?”
The words struck like arrows, hitting the weak point in the wall and reaching inside. Ying Qiuman couldn’t answer. He truly couldn’t trust Xu Shuyuan, he couldn’t trust anyone in this world at all.
Yet he was drawn to the scenery glimpsed through the breach in the wall. He couldn’t help hiding off to one side and gazing into the distance, until he couldn’t even pull back his tightly held hand.
Xu Shuyuan held that hand and turned him around to face him. Silence spread between them for a moment. Ying Qiuman heard Xu Shuyuan let out a faint sigh, and a strong cold wind blew through the gap in the wall.
“Can you hug me? I was caught in that alpha’s pheromones. It really is uncomfortable.”
The cold air that had crossed snowy mountains, warmed by its passage over the plains, slowly flowed into the interior of the wall and turned into a moist, warm current, instantly wrapping around Ying Qiuman and seeping into his lungs with every breath.
“You’re not in a susceptibility period.” Ying Qiuman knew why Xu Shuyuan had said that, but he couldn’t strip away the layer of pretense and refuse the other man’s true intent. “You’re conscious.”
Xu Shuyuan didn’t know where Ying Qiuman had gotten this cause-and-effect logic, and let out a laugh. “You seem to have a misunderstanding about susceptibility periods. Didn’t you learn this in school?”
The original body’s grades had been average. After sensing his own degradation, he’d basically used biology class to catch up on sleep. By the time Ying Qiuman arrived in this body, he was already a beta again, and with so little time during his repeat studies, he’d never made up the biology he’d missed.
So when Xu Shuyuan asked that, he suddenly grew nervous. When he looked up, his confusion and uncertainty were caught precisely.
His hand was guided to touch the shielding patch on Xu Shuyuan’s neck. Once it was peeled off, his fingertip was pressed onto the gland on one side.
“Then I’ll teach you.” Xu Shuyuan turned serious. “A susceptibility period lasts seven days in total, give or take, but the peak only runs about a day. Like that alpha’s state today, or what you imagine my susceptibility period is like, that only lasts two or three days.”
Ying Qiuman knew that part. He had only ever accompanied Xu Shuyuan through those two or three days, when consciousness was muddled and desire needed release. He had always believed Xu Shuyuan’s memories of that time were just as blurred.
“I’ve always been conscious.” Unable to control his pheromones, but mentally clear, clearly, deliberately letting his pheromones treat Ying Qiuman as an omega, as his omega.
The wall collapsed again. Ying Qiuman felt himself dragged into the deep sea, unable to breathe, unable to hear clearly.
So his earlier reliance on that mistaken understanding, his craving for the “reward” during the susceptibility period, had in fact been so obvious from Xu Shuyuan’s side all along.
“Just hug me,” Xu Shuyuan pleaded again. He had already guessed something, so he laid his own vulnerability bare to let the other man accept him, to let him take without restraint.
Ying Qiuman swam through the water in confusion and exhaustion, then, suddenly guided by someone, found solid, safe ground.
Only then did pain slowly register at the corner of his mouth. Even parting his lips slightly set off a nerve pain that reached all the way to his heart. He stepped back and touched it, realizing it had already swollen up.
Xu Shuyuan looked at the swelling and felt an unbidden flicker of anger rise in his heart, but he didn’t let it show. He found the medical kit, helped Ying Qiuman apply ointment to bring down the swelling, and disinfected the wound on the back of his hand.
Since kissing wasn’t an option, Xu Shuyuan simply held him gently like this. The skin-contact symptoms eased, and Ying Qiuman’s eyelids grew heavy. Leaning against Xu Shuyuan’s shoulder, his consciousness went hazy.
“Take a shower before you sleep.” Xu Shuyuan pinched the back of his neck, abruptly pulling Ying Qiuman back to alertness. He looked at Xu Shuyuan and made to get up.
But the moment he moved, Xu Shuyuan scooped him up into his arms and carried him toward the bathroom.
“I can wash myself.” Ying Qiuman could just barely accept Xu Shuyuan’s therapeutic touch, everything else he still couldn’t face as calmly as before.
But Xu Shuyuan wouldn’t take that, his tone slightly displeased. “You won’t wash properly. That alpha’s pheromones are still on you.”
Ying Qiuman couldn’t smell anything, but he knew Xu Shuyuan had already released his pheromones at the mall. There was no reason that man’s scent would still be on him.
Still, he wasn’t confident. After all, he genuinely couldn’t tell whether anything was still there.
In fact, Ying Qiuman’s guess wasn’t wrong. Earlier at the mall, Xu Shuyuan’s pheromones had already forcibly driven away every other scent on him, including Ye Li’s, and the mixed traces he’d picked up while walking around.
Xu Shuyuan had frowned the moment they met. The alpha who’d gone berserk during his susceptibility period had handed him an opportunity.
Ying Qiuman knew none of this. He hadn’t been drinking, nor was he weak from anything else, yet here he was, being looked after like this. His whole body stayed tense, and he kept his face buried against Xu Shuyuan’s neck, never once lifting it.
At last the “torture” ended, but Xu Shuyuan still wouldn’t let him rest in peace.
Xu Shuyuan had only brought one set of pajamas. He put on the pants himself, but the top went on Ying Qiuman. It was oversized, the collar hanging loose and open, leaving Ying Qiuman, who normally buttoned every button of his shirt even in summer, feeling extremely, extremely uncomfortable.
“Don’t I have sleep clothes here?” Ying Qiuman asked.
Xu Shuyuan draped a towel over his head and rubbed it twice, answering calmly, “You’ll just have to take it off again in a bit.”