The moment Gu Chenyu clearly heard those three words, the atmosphere around him abruptly dropped to freezing point.
The urge for beast transformation that had been building inside him also vanished in an instant.
His dark eyes fixed coldly on Lu Yan’s proud, beautiful face, still lost in sleep.
After a long while, he finally suppressed the emotions churning in his eyes and coldly lifted her back onto the bed.
He tucked the blanket securely around her, didn’t spare her another glance, and got out of bed.
After leaving the bedroom, Gu Chenyu’s peripheral vision caught sight of the bathroom.
His footsteps paused.
Then he turned around and went back.
Back when he had taken care of Lu Yan throughout her pregnancy, she had probably deliberately wanted to torment him. She refused to let anyone else touch any of her clothes and insisted that he wash them by hand himself.
Even after the two of them eventually began living separately, those habits had long since become ingrained in his very bones.
Gu Chenyu carried the clothes Lu Yan had changed out of into the washroom.
His tall, straight figure stood before the sink, the sleeves of his military uniform rolled up past his forearms.
His expression was cold and solemn as his large hands scrubbed Lu Yan’s dress, the one he’d accidentally gotten dirty.
Water rushed noisily from the faucet.
Gu Chenyu washed the dress with steady, restrained movements. There was no obvious change in his expression, but the coldness in his eyes never faded.
After washing the dress and her undergarments, he also cleaned her shoes before finally leaving the standalone apartment.
The base was silent at night.
The patrol lights atop the towers swept back and forth in a mechanical, rhythmic pattern, while the biting northern wind of the frontier continuously howled across his face.
When Gu Chenyu arrived at the medical department of the base, Professor Rofi, who was responsible for treating abnormal conditions in Beastmen serving in the military, was working overtime in the laboratory.
Upon learning that Gu Chenyu had come, Rofi put down the reagent in her hand and stared at the man who had entered with utter surprise.
“Colonel Gu, if I remember correctly, when you returned to the base the day before yesterday, you had just taken a box of beast-transformation suppressant injections from me. You couldn’t possibly have used them all already, could you?”
“Mm.”
Gu Chenyu calmly and skillfully signed his name on a prescription, then handed it to Professor Rofi.
“Professor, please prescribe me another box of suppressant injections.”
Professor Rofi took the prescription but didn’t immediately sign off on it.
Her expression turned grave.
“Wait, Colonel Gu. Increasing your dosage like this isn’t going to solve anything.”
“I’ve already told you before that, when necessary, beast-transformation suppressants can indeed alleviate the heat period of a Beastman. But you can’t keep relying on medication to suppress it.”
“When you came in for an examination the day before yesterday, your test results were already showing a significant spike in abnormal indicators. I don’t know what you experienced that day, but your condition today clearly hasn’t improved.”
She paused, her tone becoming even more serious.
“I have to warn you, Colonel. If you keep suppressing and delaying the onset of your heat period, there’s a possibility that your beast-transformation genes will eventually develop an immunity to the medication. If that leads to a beast-transformation rampage, the consequences will be unimaginable!”
At this point, she softened her voice slightly and cautiously continued persuading him.
“So, really, aren’t you going to consider discussing this with the Colonel’s wife?”
“She’s your legal wife, after all. And with your compatibility rating being so high, if the Colonel’s wife were to help you…”
Before she could finish, the usually taciturn Gu Chenyu finally interrupted her.
“No need. I’ll handle it myself.”
Professor Rofi had long heard the rumors that Colonel Gu and his aristocratic wife, who lived far away on the Imperial Star, had a strained relationship.
Seeing how firm his attitude was, with absolutely no room for negotiation, she stopped trying to persuade him.
She frowned, picked up her pen, and let out a heavy sigh.
“All right. For the sake of your safety, Colonel, you’ll have to undergo four hours of rejection-guidance therapy this time before I can give you the medication.”
Gu Chenyu was already accustomed to this.
He merely nodded.
“Mm. Thank you, Professor Rofi.”
·
When Lu Yan woke up on the single bed in the apartment bedroom, there was, as expected, no sign of Gu Chenyu beside her.
She rubbed her sleepy eyes and pushed herself upright against the edge of the bed.
The blanket slipped from her body.
Warm sunlight streamed through the window and fell across her toes, bathing them in a cozy warmth.
Lu Yan lazily rubbed her ankle bone. When she lowered her head, she immediately spotted a brand-new pair of shoes neatly placed beneath the bed.
She remembered how Gu Chenyu had coldly told her yesterday that there were no shoes at the military base suitable for her.
Yet while she had been asleep, he had secretly gone and found her a pair that fit.
The corners of Lu Yan’s eyes curved slightly, and she couldn’t help smiling.
She got out of bed and slipped her feet into the soft, comfortable shoes.
When she walked out of the bedroom, she immediately saw her dress and clothes hanging on the balcony to dry.
They had been washed smooth and neatly hung, carrying the faint, clean, warm fragrance she liked.
It was obvious at a glance that Gu Chenyu had washed them by hand himself.
If he’d simply handed them over to the cleaning system, there wouldn’t have been any need to hang them out to dry.
In the past, Lu Yan had never paid attention to these little gestures.
She had simply regarded them as Gu Chenyu’s duty. Sometimes, she’d even found them annoying and unpleasant to look at.
But at this moment, her heart felt warm, and the corners of her lips unconsciously lifted into a small smile.
Not only that, there was also a bionic robot named Millie in the living room, specifically assigned to take care of her daily needs.
The moment Millie detected that Lu Yan had awakened, she immediately instructed the kitchen system to prepare breakfast.
When she noticed Lu Yan coming out, Millie hurried over cheerfully.
“Good morning, Madam! I’m Millie, the bionic robot assigned by the Colonel to take care of your daily needs! Madam, are you hungry? Millie has already prepared a delicious breakfast for you!”
Lu Yan smiled and went over to sit down.
Watching Millie bustling around, she couldn’t help asking, “Where’s Gu Chenyu?”
“The Colonel left for the Y-Zone on a mission two hours ago!”
Lu Yan raised her eyebrows slightly.
Was he really busy with military affairs, or was he deliberately avoiding her?
Still, considering all the terrible things she’d done in the past—hurting and humiliating him again and again—it was perfectly normal for him to still hold a grudge against her.
Lu Yan suppressed the slight disappointment in her heart.
She told herself not to push him too hard, so she didn’t ask any further.
After breakfast, Lu Yan changed into a more formal outfit.
She planned to take advantage of Gu Chenyu’s absence to go see her little baby at the training camp.
After asking Butler Chen at the official residence for the stellar coordinates of the location where Gu Xinghuai was attending training, she set off immediately.
Before noon, Lu Yan arrived at the children’s modeling training center.
The entrance to the training center had a strict family-member identity registration system.
Lu Yan passed through the identity-recognition gate almost effortlessly.
After confirming her identity, the intelligent teacher responsible for reception couldn’t help showing a trace of surprise.
Clearly, she hadn’t expected the aristocratic wife who was rumored to live far away on the Imperial Star to make a special trip all the way to the frontier just to see her child.
After her initial surprise, she quickly reminded Lu Yan,
“Hello, Colonel’s wife. Young Master Gu’s grandmother just came by and picked him up after class.”
“Grandmother?”
Someone from the Gu family had come to take her little baby away?
Lu Yan immediately became wary, her brows knitting tightly.
“Where did she take Gu Xinghuai?”