Wen Song and Zhao Mingzhuo took the elevator down to the first floor.
The rain outside was getting heavier and showed no signs of stopping. The raindrops connected into lines as they fell, flowing along the slope of the bluestone slabs and pooling into a puddle in the low-lying area.
Wen Song tilted his head and asked, “Aren’t we going to the parking lot?”
Zhao Mingzhuo was replying to a message. Hearing the question, he put away his phone and said, “I didn’t drive here. I am hitching a ride with Duan Ze.”
Wen Song rarely attended gatherings of this scale. There was no other reason than that he was busy and not very familiar with Zhao Mingzhuo’s friends. He would only show up when the other person got drunk, acting as a designated driver.
If Zhao Mingzhuo hadn’t driven to the gathering, he wouldn’t have called Wen Song over, but today:
Zhao Mingzhuo took a cigarette case out of his pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and bit down on it. Then, he fished out a lighter, cupped his hand against the breeze blowing from the front, tilted his head, and with a click, a flame licked the tip of the cigarette and lit it.
Toying with the silver metal lighter between his fingertips, he blew a pretty smoke ring and said, “Let’s hail a cab.”
Wen Song’s eyebrows twitched slightly.
He understood this meant he had been played with and made a trip for nothing.
Seeing that Wen Song gave no response, Zhao Mingzhuo added, “Sorry, Xiaosong, I just remembered I didn’t drive today.”
Since Zhao Mingzhuo took the initiative to explain, Wen Song naturally wouldn’t hold onto the slight unhappiness caused by dropping unfinished work to rush over upon receiving a call, only to make a wasted trip.
Maintaining his composure, he nodded and said, “It’s fine. I’ll hail a cab back myself.”
Strictly speaking, there was a transaction at the core of their relationship.
There was no need for anyone to coax anyone else.
At that moment, the electronic ding of the elevator sounded from behind. Accompanied by the sound of the rain, footsteps echoed in the spacious and rather quiet environment, along with the oppressive aura unique to an Alpha mixed into the hot and humid air.
Before Wen Song could look back, he heard Zhao Mingzhuo biting on his cigarette, speaking in a lazy, languid tone as he reached out familiarly to greet the newcomer.
“Ah Sui, why did you come down too?”
Hearing the affectionate address, Wen Song turned his head and happened to lock eyes with Guan Sui.
It was that extremely aggressive Alpha.
Guan Sui’s eyelids drooped, giving him a cold, world-weary face. His bone structure and proportions were superior, and his deep, dark eyes carried a sense of aloof detachment when looking at people. Hearing Zhao Mingzhuo call out to him, he shifted his gaze from Wen Song to the other man.
“Bored.”
“Going back to sleep.”
Zhao Mingzhuo nodded, his eyes fixed intently on Guan Sui. “You drove here, right? I remember you didn’t drink tonight. Can you give me and my boyfriend a ride on the way?”
“It’s not very easy to hail a cab in this rain.”
Guan Sui’s gaze shifted to Wen Song, who was standing quietly to the side, nodding politely as a greeting.
Inside the private room earlier, the lighting had been rather dim, making things unclear. Only now did Wen Song realize that Guan Sui’s facial features and bone structure were so superior that he was easily the most handsome and intensely aggressive Alpha among all the celebrities and ordinary people he had ever seen.
As a Beta who clearly couldn’t smell the other person’s pheromones, he still had the illusory sensation of his legs going weak and wanting to kneel.
It made people instinctively want to stay away.
In addition:
Wen Song was sensitive and observant.
From the way the two men interacted just now, he noticed that Zhao Mingzhuo, who was usually lawless and unbridled, showed an imperceptible hint of ingratiating and unusual emotion in front of Guan Sui.
Guan Sui’s background was not simple.
Even though Zhao Mingzhuo was the young master of Zhengrong and a good buddy, he still had to show him a modicum of respect.
Wen Song thought to himself that in Sui City hereafter, he must never provoke this top Alpha.
It would be best to take a detour whenever he saw him.
“Sure.” Guan Sui’s voice carried a hint of coldness.
Zhao Mingzhuo finished his cigarette, blew out a smoke ring, flicked the ash, and stubbed the butt out into a trash can.
“Thanks, buddy.”
Wen Song didn’t want to ride in Guan Sui’s car.
His intuition told him not to have too much contact with this Alpha.
However, Zhao Mingzhuo was his boyfriend. Since the other made the request and Guan Sui agreed, he naturally couldn’t choose to hail a cab and leave alone, as that would be disrespectful.
Faced with useless social obligations and worldly sophistication, Wen Song had to fake it even if he hated it. Who told him to be trapped in the cannibalistic upper class of Sui City?
He knew well enough that the Wen family had never been his sanctuary.
The three walked to the underground garage and arrived in front of a million-dollar Maybach.
Zhao Mingzhuo was reeking of alcohol and cigarette smoke, so Guan Sui chased him to the back seat and didn’t allow him to sit in the front passenger seat. Wen Song originally wanted to follow him to the back, but:
“Sit in the front.”
Wen Song froze for a moment, seemingly not expecting Guan Sui to let him sit in the front passenger seat.
“He’s drunk,” Guan Sui said.
Wen Song: “He isn’t really.”
Zhao Mingzhuo probably wasn’t drunk.
Thinking about how the other man’s smell of alcohol and smoke was indeed a bit unpleasant, and coupled with the fact that the front passenger seat was empty, leaving it vacant would look like treating Guan Sui as a chauffeur, which lacked etiquette and wouldn’t be good, Wen Song nodded and accepted, “Okay.”
It was his first time sitting in the front passenger seat of his boyfriend’s buddy’s car, and it somehow felt a little strange.
Mostly because Guan Sui’s presence right beside him was simply too strong.
It was impossible to ignore him even if he wanted to.
The car cabin was overly cramped and not very spacious, and the hormone scent unique to an Alpha lingered at the tip of his nose. Even though he couldn’t smell pheromones, Wen Song instantly guessed Guan Sui’s scent: Tequila.
It carried an untamable wildness, oppressing every nerve of the person beside him.
Wen Song fastened his seatbelt, stiffened his body, and clenched both hands together on his lap.
The car slowly drove out of the underground garage and merged into the main traffic flow.
Guan Sui gripped the steering wheel and asked, “Where do you live?”
Realizing that Zhao Mingzhuo in the back seat had fallen sound asleep the moment he got into the car, Wen Song lowered his eyelids as the only sober person involved and said, “Just drop us off at Silver Lake Mansion. I will hail a cab back myself later.”
Before he could finish his sentence, he heard Guan Sui drop a question: “Do you live together?”
His tone sounded mixed with a hint of displeasure.
Wen Song: “Yes, we do.”
The denial on the tip of his tongue turned into a light, airy “Yeah.”
Knowing full well that the two of them were in a relationship, Guan Sui still asked that question. Wen Song wasn’t narcissistic enough to think the other person had designs on him; the whole thing was far too bizarre. He could only blindly guess that Guan Sui had just returned from abroad and couldn’t help caring about his good buddy’s love life.
Wen Song noticed that after he acknowledged it, the air pressure around the Alpha in the driver’s seat dropped slightly.
What was that supposed to mean?
Without thinking too deeply about it, he quickly arrived at a conclusion: Guan Sui didn’t really like him.
Almost all of that emotion was laid bare without any concealment.
Indeed.
He was a Beta, and an illegitimate child at that.
Zhao Mingzhuo’s friends had never approved of them, and naturally, that included Guan Sui, who had just returned from abroad.
Soon, the Maybach stopped in front of a private villa.
The rain had stopped by now, and the ground was damp. Wen Song got out of the car, went to the back seat, and woke up the soundly sleeping Zhao Mingzhuo.
“Huh? Are we here?” The other man opened his eyes dazedly, pressed his palm against his temple, and yawned sleepily.
Wen Song made space for him. “We’re here. Get out of the car first.”
Leaning against the seat, Zhao Mingzhuo moved slowly and climbed out of the car.
The two of them greeted Guan Sui, who remained sitting in the driver’s seat with the engine running.
With a calm expression, the man glanced sideways at them, a very soft breath escaping his throat: “Yeah.”
“Going back first.”
With that, he started the car. Seeing the two take two steps back, he slowly drove away.
The orange streetlights stretched the shadows of Wen Song and Zhao Mingzhuo out, yet they didn’t intersect by even a fraction, like two unrelated parallel lines.
“I’ll hail a cab back,” Wen Song said.
Before Zhao Mingzhuo could speak, his phone suddenly rang in his pocket.
“Wait a moment.”
Wen Song waited quietly.
Zhao Mingzhuo distanced himself from him, answering the call only after putting two or three meters between them.
Two minutes later.
“Xiaosong, stay at Silver Lake Mansion for the night.”
Zhao Mingzhuo said, “I have something to take care of and need to go out. The door lock password is six zeros.”
Realizing that this place was indeed quite far from where he lived, being remotely located from the downtown area, there might not be any drivers accepting ride orders this late, Wen Song considered it and agreed.
“Alright.”
“Then come back early.”
Zhao Mingzhuo gave a vague acknowledgement. “I’ll watch you go in first.”
Without wasting any more time, Wen Song nodded and walked toward the villa.
Meanwhile.
The Maybach hadn’t left Silver Lake Mansion.
Guan Sui gazed at the entrance gate of the residential complex. He stubbed out one cigarette after another, the ashtray filled to the brim with butts.
Wen Song’s figure surfaced in his mind, overlapping with his memory.
Just as he finished his last cigarette and prepared to start the car and leave, he noticed that Zhao Mingzhuo, who had supposedly been dropped off at his doorstep, was actually walking out of the complex.
His gaze tracked the other’s footsteps.
It only stopped when he reached a McLaren parked not far away.
From his vantage point, he happened to see the driver’s side window roll down. An Omega flashed a seductive smile at Zhao Mingzhuo, and under the streetlight, the two of them shared a passionate, intense kiss right through the car door, so heated and emotional that it was almost unsightly.
The restraint Guan Sui had been forcing upon himself, the notion that he shouldn’t violate morality and poach someone else’s partner, suddenly burst forth at that exact moment.
Seeming too agitated to control himself, he released his Alpha pheromones, filling the entire car cabin with the thick, pungent scent of tequila.
He immediately pulled out his phone, snapped a photo of the two entangled in a passionate embrace in front of the McLaren, and then opened WeChat, found a contact in his chats, and sent a message:
【Investigate Zhao Mingzhuo’s private life after entering a relationship. Gather evidence, preferably with conclusive videos and photos.】
After sending the message, the McLaren sped away.
Guan Sui curved his fingers and tapped lightly against the steering wheel, producing a dull, rhythmic sound.
Very well.
He had found a way out.