He lowered his center of gravity just enough to show traditional respect, presenting the cup to the matriarch with a completely level, unbothered hand.
“Mother, please accept the morning tea,” Qing delivered the formal line, his voice a quiet, steady rasp that held zero hesitation.
Gu Mingzhu reached out to take the cup, but as her fingers brushed the porcelain, her gaze dropped.
The tilt of Qing’s head brought the dark, violent bruise on his neck directly into her line of sight.
The matriarch stiffened completely, her tea cup rattling sharply against its saucer as her breath hitched.
The shock on her face was absolute.
She had spent the entire night terrified of her son’s unmedicated violence, but seeing that deep, possessive mark on the Beta’s throat forced her mind to race with an entirely different, upcoming dread.
She imagined it to be the undeniable proof of a rough, completed midnight intimacy convinced that Canglong had claimed the civilian Beta the moment the world was locked out.
Mingzhu’s fingers trembled slightly as she forced herself to take a sip of the hot liquid, her voice strained and tight as she tried to test their defense.
“The mountain winds were incredibly heavy last night, Qing.
I trust my son didn’t…
distress your rest.”
It was a direct trap, a maternal probe looking for a crack in their front.
But the two men stood like a unified wall of stone.
They didn’t explain, they didn’t blush, and they didn’t offer a single correction about what had actually happened in the dark.
To defend themselves or explain the bickering would look like an admission of weakness, a loss of control before the household.
They let her imagine whatever she wanted, weaponizing her own traditional assumptions against her.
Canglong stood at absolute military attention, his face an unreadable slate, his voice a flat, clipping vanguard rasp that cut off any further discussion.
“The room was perfectly quiet, Mother.”
Beside him, Qing remained completely calm, the tiny ink-drop mole under his right eye entirely steady as he rose from the cushion, leaving the matriarch thoroughly defeated by the fortress of their silence.
Gu Mingzhu slowly set the empty porcelain teacup back onto its saucer, the faint rattle the only indication of her internal unease.
Trying to master her nerves, she reached for a small, velvet-lined carved cedar box resting near her elbow.
Her features hardened back into a mask of rigid, aristocratic composure as she pushed it across the table toward Qing.
“This is the ancestral white jade brooch,” the matriarch said, her voice dropping into a quiet, cold, and formal tone.
“It is traditionally presented to the spouse of the first-born son.
You will wear it tonight for the grand introduction party.
Your grandfather has already confirmed his attendance; he will be standing at the head of the main hall to oversee the reception personally.
Every family branch and alliance partner will be watching.”
The mention of General Gu Zhen’s presence added a heavy, suffocating weight to the long pavilion hall.
The old patriarch’s calculating eyes were the most difficult variable to manage in the house, making the success of tonight’s presentation absolutely critical. Find the original chapter at novelping.com.
Qing didn’t blink.
With an efficient, dignified grace, he picked up the cold, flawless piece of jade and fastened it cleanly near the collar of his cream morning robe.
He sat down at the breakfast table, his posture perfectly straight.
Canglong’s knuckles turned white against his silver chopsticks, his dark eyes flashing with a sharp spike of irritation from across the table.
Seeing that specific heirloom pinned so close to the Beta’s throat grated heavily against his pride.
As the servants began arranging the breakfast dishes, Gu Mingzhu’s gaze lingered on the jewelry, her eyes narrowing slightly.
“The brooch is tilted, Qing.
Fasten it properly so it sits flush against the high linen of your collar.
It shouldn’t hang loose.”
The simple instruction shattered Canglong’s remaining patience.
Blinded by a sudden, unmedicated surge of frustration, the Commander couldn’t stand seeing the civilian manipulate his family’s heritage any longer.
He didn’t care about family protocol anymore.
Canglong took one massive stride forward, his giant frame completely leaning straight across the table.
He lunged directly toward the smaller man, his broad shoulders casting a massive shadow as his large hand snapped outward, aggressively reaching to rip or unpin the jade piece from the cream silk robe himself.
But to the rest of the room, the angle was catastrophic.
Because Canglong had pounced so fast, diving his head and torso directly into the close profile of Qing’s neck to wrest control of the pin, his massive back blocked the physical struggle entirely.
From the perspective of the table and the gallery, it looked exactly as if the dangerous, volatile Commander had suddenly lost all primal restraint, pinning his new spouse against his frame to deliver a fierce, bruising morning kiss right against the skin.
A collective, suffocating gasp caught behind a dozen throats.
Gu Xiaolan’s hand froze mid-air, her eyes widening to the size of saucers as her breath caught behind her teeth.
Beside her, Chenwei’s intelligent neutrality completely shattered, his posture going rigid against the mahogany pillar in absolute shock.
At the head of the table, Gu Mingzhu’s teacup rattled violently as she stiffened in profound horror, convinced her unmedicated son was openly ravishing his partner in broad daylight before the lower servants.
Yet, inside the shadow of the illusion, a silent, vicious physical lock occurred.
Qing’s hand snapped upward like a vice, his fingers clamping around Canglong’s thick wrist mid-air to halt the theft of the brooch.
Their bodies slammed together from the waist up.
In that intense, frantic tussle over the jewelry, the sharp, heavy silver needle of the brooch catch slipped, the blunt metal edge gouging violently upward against the soft skin of Qing’s throat, right besides his chin.
The physical contact was brief but brutal.
When they finally broke apart and separated, the room remained completely paralyzed in a state of hell-shock, utterly scandalized by the aggressive display of public affection.
Canglong stepped back, adjusting his dark cuffs with a dangerous, clipping efficiency, his jaw clicked shut as he tried to mask the sudden realization of how the room had misinterpreted his lunge. This chapter is updated first at novelping(.)com.
Qing remained entirely unbothered, his dark eyes freezing over as his hand calmly dropped to his side.
But as he tilted his head into the piercing morning sun, the damage from the hidden tussle became instantly visible.
Sitting right over his upper throat, just besides his chin, a fresh, angry red pinch-mark was already darkening into a deep plum color.
To the horrified matriarch and the frozen staff, it looked exactly like the second half of a fresh, ravenous mark, absolute proof that the Commander had just kissed him with a desperate, animalistic hunger right in front of the entire household.
Qing looked flatly at the broken piece of pickled radish on his plate, his inner monologue clicking with the dry precision of a spreadsheet.
Fascinating.
The Commander’s operational speed is highly commendable, but his coordination remains fundamentally sub-par.
If he intended to assassinate me over ancestral jewelry, he should have targeted a vital artery.
Instead, he has simply altered the local layout of my skin tone and given his mother a minor cardiovascular crisis before the main entree.
At this rate of domestic escalation, I will require a comprehensive physical damage stipend written into the next annex of our agreement.
Across the table, Canglong was internally burning through every swear word in the vanguard military manual.
Are you kidding me?
A kiss?
They actually think I kissed him?
I was trying to extract the brooch before his civilian incompetence ruined the structural integrity of the heirloom!
Now my mother looks like she is about to summon an exorcist, my sister has completely forgotten how to breathe, and this scentless, unbothered brick of a Beta is just sitting there looking at his vegetables like he didn’t just lock my wrist with the grip of a hydraulic crane.
If he leaves that scratch exposed during the nine o’clock alliance pool, the entire northern command is going to think I am a feral beast who feeds on cream linen.
At the head of the table, Gu Mingzhu’s mind was a spinning vortex of absolute, aristocratic panic.
Merciful heavens.
In broad daylight.
Right over the braised ginger.
I spent twelve hours weeping into my tea robes thinking my poor, unmedicated boy would break a civilian, and instead, he is ravishing him like a starving wolf before the kitchen staff has even cleared the morning protocol.
The sheer, shameless, unbridled desperation of an Enigma baseline.
Look at that poor boy’s neck—the child is practically covered in battle scars from his affection, yet he sits there with the quiet, tragic dignity of a martyr accepting his fate.
I must immediately contact the estate physician to double the shipments of soothing tonics, or we won’t have a spouse left by the winter solstice.
Qing calmly lifted his tea cup, his fingers entirely steady as the deep plum mark by his chin caught the full morning light, leaving the room trapped in a suffocating, hilariously distorted reality.
VOTE for me!