A thick, heavy scent of roses mixed with the cool, medicinal smell of mint and wood, along with the lingering smell of what had just happened, filled every corner of the room.
Jiang Yi leaned back against the headboard, his flirtatious, bewitching peach-blossom eyes tilted slightly upward, looking at the man in front of him with a look that was almost a smile.
“Is Teacher Ying in such a hurry to leave right now? Won’t you stay with me a little longer?” Because he’d overused his voice, it had gone a little hoarse, and paired with the deliberately drawn-out, raised pitch of his tone, it fell into the quiet room and rippled outward, layer after layer.
But several minutes passed, and he got no response at all.
The man stood at the foot of the bed, his expression severe. He finished doing up the last button of his shirt, slowly bent his lean, powerful waist, picked up the black wool coat that had fallen on the carpet, and brushed off dust that wasn’t even there.
He walked past Jiang Yi, straight to the nightstand, picked up the phone that didn’t belong to him, and tossed it onto Jiang Yi, his tone cold. “Password.”
“Ow!”
The softest part of his body was suddenly struck hard, and Jiang Yi couldn’t help but frown sharply, letting out a pained grunt.
But only for a moment, and then he returned to his previous lazy posture. “What, you’ve only just gotten together with me and Teacher Ying already wants to check my phone?”
Jiang Yi ignored the pain in his stomach where the phone had struck him, lit up the screen, entered the six-digit password, raised his arm covered in red marks, and handed the unlocked phone to Ying Xun.
His tone was docile and ingratiating. “There you go, Teacher Ying can look now, look at whatever you want.”
At Jiang Yi’s behavior of taking advantage and then playing innocent, Ying Xun’s dark, deep eyes were full of disgust.
He reached out and took it, tapped the dial pad in the bottom right corner of the screen, quickly entered a string of numbers, dialed, then hung up.
He tossed the phone hard back onto Jiang Yi again and said, brooking no argument, “Three days. Twenty million. Go get the mark removed yourself. I’ll treat this whole thing as if a dog bit me.”
Another hard blow, and Jiang Yi grunted again, instinctively covering his bruised stomach, breathing hard a few times before he managed to hold back the tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.
He curved his lips up again, looking at Ying Xun’s sharp, clean jawline, and said weakly, “What does Teacher Ying mean by this? I’m the one who got bitten, and now Teacher Ying’s going to pull his pants up and pretend he doesn’t know me? Is there a second option? I want to pick the second option. I like Teacher Ying. Teacher Ying, be my boyfriend.”
With every sentence Jiang Yi said, Ying Xun’s face darkened another degree. “I’ll say it one last time. Three days. After that, don’t bother.”
Having said that, he no longer spared Jiang Yi a glance, turned around directly, and walked toward the door.
As his hand touched the door handle, Jiang Yi picked up the phone on him, waved it toward his back, and said lazily in his hoarse voice, “Don’t worry, Teacher Ying, I’ll definitely contact you.”
“Bang!”
What answered Jiang Yi was the heavy sound of the door slamming shut.
Ying Xun left, taking with him the pheromones that belonged to him, and the VIP presidential suite fell quiet again, along with it the ambiguous scent that had filled the air fading considerably.
Jiang Yi looked at the empty doorway, the curve of his lips flattening out instantly, and the tender, alluring look in his eyes disappeared entirely, leaving only cold.
More than ten minutes later, the quiet room was broken again by a guilty, mechanical voice.
【H-Host, the conquest target seems to be angry. He doesn’t seem to, um, like this method of conquest very much. Would you, would you consider switching to a different method of conquest? According to the data…】
Hearing this, Jiang Yi lifted his eyelashes, glanced coldly at the white mist-like cloud of gas in the corner of the wall, and cut it off coldly. “Since that’s the case, why don’t you go instead?”
The white mist huddled in the corner, the system numbered 999, immediately shut up, sensing the aura of near-death coming off Jiang Yi, and shrank back further behind the curtain, not daring to make a sound.
Out of sight, out of mind. Jiang Yi withdrew his gaze, and ignoring the pain and soreness on his body, lifted the blanket and got out of bed.
The instant his feet touched the carpet, his limbs went weak and sore, and he fell back onto the soft bed again.
The discomfort in his waist and behind made him frown tightly, and he cursed quietly under his breath.
Only after tossing back and forth several times did he find his footing, and wrapping himself in the coat that had been thrown in a mess on the floor, he made his way to the bathroom one step at a time, leaning against the wall.
A huge bathroom mirror was set into the cabinet, and his skin, marked all over and exposed to the air, was fully visible in the mirror.
Jiang Yi raised his eyes and met his own gaze in the mirror.
The bruised, ambiguous marks covering his whole body made him feel disgust, nausea.
But the terrifying finger marks on his slender neck made him feel a rush of satisfaction.
That feeling of suffocation, as if the next second he could leave everything behind completely, was something to be nostalgic for, something to long for.
If he could, he really wished Ying Xun hadn’t let go in the end.
Jiang Yi reluctantly traced over those finger marks.
Suddenly a flash of ruthlessness passed through his eyes, and the hand gripping his own neck suddenly tightened.
Only when the suffocating feeling hit did his body’s survival instinct force him to let go, and he leaned against the cold tile, gasping for breath.
A few seconds later, a trace of coldness surfaced at the corners of his tightly pressed lips.
Twenty million. Heh. He didn’t expect himself to be worth so much. If he’d known earlier, he’d have sold himself long ago.
Ying Xun’s face was dark, and wrapped in a body full of anger, he strode quickly out of the hotel. The biting cold wind lifted the hem of his coat, and an aura that warned people to keep their distance surrounded him, making people afraid to get close.
His assistant Miao Xiuwen, who had been waiting at the entrance for over half an hour, ignored his murderous expression and hurried over with a scarf in hand. “Brother Xun, how are you? Your rut period…”
“We’ll talk in the car.” Ying Xun’s face was cold as he brushed past Miao Xiuwen, took a big step, bent down, and got into the car.
The door of the Rolls-Royce van was closed, and before Miao Xiuwen could speak, Ying Xun’s icy voice rang out in the car again, sounding unusually alarming.
“Have you heard of this person, Jiang Yi?”
“Jiang Yi?”
Miao Xiuwen was stunned for a moment, then came back to himself and explained, “Isn’t he the eighteenth-tier actor who was exposed a few days ago for using backdoor connections to get resources? I heard he had several sponsors at the same time, and one of them accidentally found out, which is how it got exposed. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but this person probably can’t survive in the entertainment industry anymore.”
Miao Xiuwen was a beta, and couldn’t sense the rose pheromones on Ying Xun that didn’t belong to him.
Having said that, he looked at Ying Xun, a trace of doubt showing on his handsome features. “Brother Xun, why did you suddenly bring him up? Did you run into him?”
Having heard what Miao Xiuwen said, the disgust in Ying Xun’s deep, dark eyes instantly overflowed, and his sword-like brows knit tightly together.
After a good while, a voice carrying violence and no warmth at all rang out in the car again. “I marked him.”
The instant Ying Xun’s words landed, the atmosphere in the heated car dropped to freezing point in an instant.
Unable to believe what he’d just heard, Miao Xiuwen’s eyes widened in shock, and it took him a long time to find his voice again. “…Wh-what do you mean? How is that possible? Brother Xun, you, you two… How could Jiang Yi possibly, possibly… With the laws these days, marking… What are we going to do about this?”
Ying Xun leaned against the seat back, legs crossed coldly, and cut off Miao Xiuwen expressionlessly. “Go get the hotel’s surveillance footage from three days ago. Also find a lawyer and prepare to send a lawyer’s letter.”
As a qualified top assistant, Miao Xiuwen, despite his extreme shock, quickly pulled himself together and nodded in agreement.
A few minutes later, he looked at Ying Xun’s expression and couldn’t help but speak up carefully again. “So right now, you and Jiang Yi…”
He really couldn’t figure it out no matter how hard he thought about it, how could this Jiang Yi possibly, how could he have the nerve to get tangled up with his Brother Xun?
How dare he climb into his Brother Xun’s bed?
And he’d actually succeeded. No wonder Brother Xun’s face had looked so awful coming out of the hotel.
Miao Xiuwen’s hands, resting on his legs, clenched tightly, a fire of anger churning in his chest.
His Brother Xun, who had never even had a scandal and had always kept himself clean, it wasn’t hard to guess whose scheme this was.
Just a couple of days ago he’d still been half-doubting Jiang Yi’s exposé, afraid of wronging the man just because he’d followed the crowd, and he didn’t expect that today this despicable trick would be used on them.
What a lowlife, really willing to do anything for exposure!
Miao Xiuwen was indignant on behalf of his brother Ying Xun’s innocence, and wished he could rush right up to Jiang Yi and beat him up hard, to vent his anger for his brother.
Wanting to sleep his way up by getting into bed with his brother, wanting his brother to support him? Keep dreaming!
Even if the law favored omegas, he would never let someone like Jiang Yi get away with it!
Ying Xun ignored Miao Xiuwen’s mood, lifted his eyelids, glanced coldly out the window, and said to the driver, “Don’t go to the office for now. Find some hotel, anywhere, and stop there.”
Having said that, he turned his face to look at Miao Xiuwen and instructed coldly, “Xiao Wen, go back and bring me a change of clothes.”
“What is it, Brother Xun? Is something wrong with your clothes?” Miao Xiuwen suddenly remembered that Ying Xun’s rut period had just ended, and hurriedly asked with concern, “Are you feeling unwell anywhere? Should we go see a doctor?”
The words “or, why don’t I help you find a psychologist to see” hadn’t yet made it out of his mouth.
Ying Xun raised his eyes, staring straight ahead expressionlessly, and the words of disgust and revulsion were squeezed out one by one from his throat, cutting off Miao Xiuwen.
“I do need to go to the hospital.”