44: Did You Fall For Someone?
That was basically the same as saying, “You’re not even as good as a cat or a dog.”
The tearful voice on the other end of the phone came to an abrupt halt, probably not expecting there could be such an ungentlemanly person in this world.
“Aren’t you being way too disrespectful?!”
The Omega wanted to end the call, but he couldn’t bear to. Qian Kun’s voice carried a strangely familiar feeling, and he still wanted to say a few more words.
“You’re already healed and still using my money for your medical bills, so I’d say you’re the one disrespecting me.” Qian Kun let out a light laugh, but there was no humor in his eyes.
“I’ll pay you back!” The Omega snapped, furious at being misunderstood.
“No need. I’ll count it as a donation to impoverished mountain areas. Also, I hope you stop occupying a bed that should belong to someone else.”
“Wait, your payment account, I—”
Before the Omega could finish, the other end had already hung up.
Not long after, Qian Kun got a question from his bodyguard. They were all Alphas, how were they supposed to withstand an Omega crying his heart out? The Omega said he’d make regular transfers, so could Qian Kun give them an account number?
Saving him in the first place had been forced by the situation, but some of the Omega’s follow-up behavior was strange. He looked weak, yet he wasn’t weak at all.
He had no interest in others. He was in a good mood today, so he had the patience to reply: [Give him one of your accounts, that’s fine.]
After cutting off the Omega’s route to contact him, Qian Kun stared at the “Milky Way” spilling beneath the streetlights. He wondered whether the youth had gotten soaked in the rain.
Qian Kun’s mother came home holding an insulated food container. The rain was absurdly heavy. Looking at her water-soaked sheepskin high heels, her heart ache.
She went to deliver dinner to her husband working late. Unlike most wealthy couples who only looked harmonious on the surface, Qian Kun’s parents had married for love. Even now, they were still as affectionate as ever.
When she set the container down in the kitchen, she realized her son, who was supposed to be staying at school, was home. Not only that, he was wearing an apron and simmering soup, holding a cookbook. One hand held a ladle, tasting as he went.
Her son excelled at everything, but maybe because everything came too easily, he rarely showed interest in anything at all. The arrogance in his bones was unmatched, proud to the point where he didn’t put anyone in his eyes.
Cooking soup late at night was something that only happened when he was in an extremely good mood, so good that even exercise couldn’t burn it off.
She walked closer, planning to startle him, but a top-tier Alpha with terrifying perception turned his head smoothly and said, “Mom, come taste it.”
Qian Kun’s mother shot her son a fierce glare. She never got surprises with him. Then she took a sip and, to her shock, it was genuinely good.
“Did something happy happen at school?”
The stretch before this had been nothing but dark clouds.
Qian Kun’s constant frown and heavy air had kept them worried that his aura might go out of control and that he’d blow up the school. Qian Kun’s mother had even spoken with the principal. If Qian Kun showed abnormalities, he had to be relocated immediately.
Qian Kun smiled and said nothing.
He carried the bowl upstairs, then his mother called after him. “That thing you said about staying single forever, does it still count?”
Qian Kun paused.
He answered in a low voice, “It doesn’t.”
His mother remembered something from years ago. Her son had once been trapped with an Omega who had been drugged and pushed into heat.
To avoid marking him, Qian Kun had shredded himself until he was covered in injuries.
When rescue finally forced the door open, Qian Kun was drenched in blood, like a walking corpse. He had hurt himself just to keep control.
That brutal image had never left his mother’s mind.
He had tied up the Omega in heat and slowly licked at the still-bleeding wounds on his own hand. With lips stained red, he said clearly, “No one can force me to mark.”
After that, her son refused to discuss heat periods or marking.
It was obvious he’d taken severe psychological damage from that incident. He’d even declared, without hesitation, that he wanted to stay single for life.
Qian Kun’s mother looked at her son’s slightly awkward back. “Brat, did you fall for someone?”
Downstairs, only her relieved smile remained.
*
The Xie family butler kept peering outside, trying to catch sight of Shen Jin.
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the courtyard was being ravaged by wind and rain. Water pooled into streams and rushed along the stone path.
The entire living room was unlit. On the dining table sat a caramel cake with an “18” topper.
Several candles glowed softly around it, their flames trembling with the drafts that slipped in. At the table, only Xie Ling sat there in silence.
The butler regretted it now. He should’ve ignored the young master’s objections and driven straight to the school to pick Shen Jin up.
He was about to call again, but Xie Ling stopped him coldly. “Don’t call again.”
The butler thought Xie Ling was simply born without luck in family bonds.
On the Xie family’s main line, the second young master was from Xie father’s second marriage. He and Xie Ling shared a father, not a mother, and he was always scheming for the heir position. The third young master was from Xie father’s third marriage. He wasn’t a bad kid, but under the second young master’s sweet talk, he’d drifted away from Xie Ling too.
Even when those two brothers hurt him, Xie Ling still sent gifts every year and waited for their birthdays.
And what did he get back?
“I’m coming back soon.” “I’m on the way.”
He waited until the next morning, candles burned out, food went cold, and nothing arrived.
Xie Ling could trust very few people, and even fewer mattered to him. Yet it was precisely these few people who specialized in stabbing knives into Xie Ling’s chest.
If even his two younger brothers didn’t come home, could he really expect a cousin with blood ties so thin they were practically nothing?
Xie Ling had raised Shen Jin for a few years, but they hadn’t stayed in close contact afterward. He only hoped Shen Jin wasn’t the same kind of ungrateful wolf.
Don’t blame him for being harsh.
The other two young masters drank Xie Ling’s blood and never gave anything back.
The butler was thinking that no matter what, he had to get Shen Jin here, when the next second, a slender figure appeared in the rain outside.
The butler’s mouth fell open. He slapped the window hard. Oh my, young master, excellent entrance!
Xie Ling frowned at the butler’s wild flailing and reminded him, “Mind your manners.”
The butler was practically incoherent. “Eldest Young Master, the young master is here!”
Xie Ling nearly stood up, voice cracking. “He’s here?”
He wanted to go greet him, but then he remembered his identity as the elder brother. An elder brother needed steady dignity. He couldn’t look overeager. So he sat back down, spine held even straighter.
The Xie main residence was in the suburbs. After passing the gate, there was a lawn spanning over a thousand square meters.
Shen Jin basically sprinted across the ridiculous stretch of grass. He even thought he should suggest to his cousin that they put some kind of ride at the entrance in the future.
He reached the door and tried to steady his breathing before entering, but the butler opened it from inside. Shen Jin saw Xie Ling sitting in the darkness.
Shen Jin asked, “Cousin, am I late?”
Xie Ling glanced at his watch. In truth, there was still half an hour before the agreed time.
“You’re not late. I’m too early.”
The fingers gripping his trousers finally relaxed.
Shen Jin changed into slippers, and the butler, unusually enthusiastic, ushered him straight to the table.
Shen Jin looked at the normally rule-bound uncle in disbelief. “Uncle Zhang, why are you so happy?”
His grin was nearly reaching his temples.
Uncle Zhang didn’t rein it in at all. Why should happiness be restrained?
He handed Shen Jin a towel and said with a smile, “Because starting today you can drink alcohol. Want some?”
Xie Ling decided instantly. “Give him juice.”
Even if he’s an adult, in my eyes he’s still that little kid who cried and called me “geigei.”
Xie Ling was always imposing, and Shen Jin had always been a little in awe of him. He nodded quickly. “Whatever cousin decides is fine.”
Seeing Shen Jin behave so obediently, Xie Ling nodded in satisfaction. I raised him well. The posture, the expression, the etiquette, it all looks like me.
This must be what it feels like to have a younger brother.
Not bad.
The butler served dish after dish and noticed these two cousins moved in eerily identical ways.
Even their expressions were similar. When the younger one was little, he used to have expressions. Not like now, carved from jade.
The butler looked back and forth between the two of them as they ate.
Did the younger one become an ice-faced “statue” because he’d been copying Xie Ling?
Kids who admire someone love to imitate. If they do it long enough, it becomes habit, and then it sticks.
The butler felt like he’d accidentally discovered the truth.
Shen Jin knew Xie Ling was strict about rules. At the dining table, you didn’t speak while eating, and you didn’t speak while sleeping.
They finished the meal in silence. Only then did Xie Ling take out the lighter he’d bought today and light the candles.
In the warm orange glow, Xie Ling looked like he was in pain. With obvious reluctance, he asked, “Do I have to sing you ‘Happy Birthday’?”
Shen Jin was stunned. “Huh?”
His brain lagged for a second, and he waved his hands frantically.
Who would dare force Xie Ling to do something he wasn’t good at? What kind of guts would that take?
Shen Jin blew out the candles. The butler turned on the lights and served two cups of tea.
Xie Ling took a sip and asked, “Have your parents contacted you?”
Shen Jin nodded. “They have.”
They’d texted. After the time he ran away from home, they contacted him more often, but Shen Jin no longer knew how to respond.
Xie Ling made a decision on the spot. “From now on, you’ll live here.”
“I’m living in the dorm right now.”
“What about weekends? You’re supposed to watch other students go home while you have nowhere to go?”
Nine years ago, when this kid had stood in the drizzle and looked at him with so much reluctance, he should’ve kept him.
He’d thought that returning to Shen Jin’s biological parents would make him happy.
Instead, he had personally pushed this child into the abyss.
If his psychologist hadn’t noticed Shen Jin’s abnormal behavior and state, Xie Ling wouldn’t have realized it at all. Shen Jin looked like he handled everything with ease, yet his mind might’ve already been breaking.
“Next week, I’ll go with you to get your things.”
“Then my parents…”
“You’re an adult. You can decide where you live.” Xie Ling paused, then stared straight at his cousin, who always showed reverence more than closeness.
Shen Jin lowered his head, fighting to shove down the emotions that threatened to surge out.
Xie Ling said, “If you care that much about the gossip of people who don’t matter, why don’t you care about what I think?”
Xie Ling knew exactly what Shen Jin had been worried about all these years.
Why he sent greetings every year, yet never got close again.
The Xie family’s sprawling branch lines were a mess of all kinds of people. Back then, when Xie Ling only raised Shen Jin for three years, those people were so jealous they practically went insane.
Even though the situation was handled afterward, those words had already been branded into Shen Jin’s young heart.
Shen Jin looked up, the corners of his eyes red. “I don’t care what they think of me anymore.”
“Can I be your little brother, Ge?”
Author’s Note:
This chapter is mainly about family, okay. Warming each other up.
Slowly he becomes everyone’s darling.
It’s a bit short, hehehehe, I’m being lazy for a second.
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