Zhu Xing stood outside the washroom. She knocked on the door several times but didn’t hear any response from inside. After waiting for a while and still not seeing anyone come out, she felt something was wrong, knocked again, and called out, “Liu Luan, why did you lock yourself in the washroom?”
Maybe the person inside thought she was being noisy—suddenly there came a heavy thump against the door. Zhu Xing was startled and frowned in grievance. “Alright, alright, I won’t bother you. I’ll just wait for you outside, okay?”
She shuffled backward slowly, sat in the room, and stared at the tightly shut washroom door, thinking that an alpha’s susceptible period was really too troublesome. As expected, their temperament changed drastically—even Liu Luan, who had always been the gentlest in her mind, had become so irritable.
The irritating knocking from outside disappeared. Yan Qiongyu put down the hand that had pounded the door and turned a little red, resting it on Wang Luan’s shoulder.
“She’s really annoying, isn’t she?” Yan Qiongyu asked in a low voice.
Wang Luan stared at his lips. The wound there seemed to have grown a little larger from being licked repeatedly, vivid red and slightly swollen, like petals that would shatter if touched again.
Wang Luan lowered her head and didn’t look anymore, pressing her forehead against Yan Qiongyu’s shoulder, her voice so low it was barely audible.
But Yan Qiongyu heard it—she said she wanted to smell his scent.
An alpha telling an omega that they want to smell the other’s pheromones is basically equivalent to acting like a hooligan, but Wang Luan wasn’t like that. She said it while crying, pitiful and unbearably cute, as if she hadn’t fiercely bitten his lip just moments ago.
“No.” Yan Qiongyu lifted her head, deliberately putting on a serious face as he rejected her outright. When he saw tears well up in her eyes again, he suddenly sighed gloomily and said, “Because I recently used myself to conduct an experiment, I can’t release pheromones for the time being.”
In order to gain Yan Mu’s trust and make her feel at ease handing more power over to him, he had no choice but to treat himself as a test subject.
In the past, in the imperial capital, he still exercised some restraint so as not to let others notice anything amiss. Now that he had arrived at Yan Mu’s large experimental field, he had no more scruples.
“Sorry, I can’t satisfy Miss Wang Luan.”
Looking at his sorrowful and apologetic expression, rationally she knew he was pretending, but with her emotions surging, Wang Luan still couldn’t help but hug him and sob, “You’ve had it so hard…”
Yan Qiongyu almost laughed out loud. He barely managed to maintain his expression and said to her, “Without pheromones, let’s use other methods to soothe Miss Wang Luan’s emotions.”
Wang Luan: “…What?”
At times like this, she was especially easy to coax. Yan Qiongyu looked solemn and upright. “Body-fluid exchange. Although the effect isn’t as immediate as inhaling pheromones, it’s still effective. So, please continue.”
Seeing him smile like a blooming flower, Wang Luan silently reached out a finger and poked the wound on his lip.
Yan Qiongyu slightly parted his lips and gently bit her finger, laughing softly. “It’s fine—blood is also a kind of body fluid. I don’t mind Miss Wang Luan drinking a bit more.”
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Her teeth were gently brushed by something soft. Wang Luan felt as if her gland fangs had been exposed, the sharp gland fangs also being explored and brushed over, unconsciously secreting gland fluid.
This overly deep and intimate contact made Wang Luan think of when she had first met the person in front of her.
Back then, he would wear gloves to extract gland fluid for her. The cold instruments probed past her gland fangs, as cold as his gaze at the time. Later, when he jokingly brushed over her tooth row with his fingers, that sensation of coldness was still vivid.
Now, his fingers pressed intimately against her skin without any barrier, excessively warm—so warm it was almost scorching.
With the slightest movement, the sharp gland fangs could easily tear soft skin and the oral cavity. The metallic smell of blood lingered persistently, yet within that scent, Wang Luan also detected a trace of Yan Qiongyu’s pheromones.
A wasteland after heavy rain—damp, bitter, but very alluring, making the whole body relax.
After a long while, the two separated. Yan Qiongyu parted his lips toward the completely dazed Wang Luan, revealing the vivid red interior of his mouth, streaks of blood visible on his lips and tongue.
“Miss Wang Luan, you really didn’t hold back with me.”
From the mirror behind him, Wang Luan saw her own face. Her lips were also very red, red like she’d just eaten, with a bit of blood at the corner of her mouth.
She covered her mouth, guilt surging up, tears streaming down. “I’ve turned into a vampire.”
Yan Qiongyu chuckled quietly, then suddenly felt his head being hooked and pressed against Wang Luan’s neck.
“Mm?” He let out a questioning sound from his nose.
“Bite back.” Wang Luan said fairly.
Although an alpha’s nape has no gland, it is still a relatively sensitive area.
Alphas are innately combative and instinctively guard their own vital points. Yan Qiongyu’s hand rested against the pulsing vein at the side of her neck, feeling the blood flowing beneath. Just this simple action was enough to make Wang Luan tense her shoulders.
Yan Qiongyu did not refuse Wang Luan’s goodwill at this moment. He looked at her neck for a while, then really lowered his head and bit down.
He had no sharp gland fangs, and the force he used wasn’t very great, only leaving a clear bite mark.
Wang Luan reached up to touch it. In her susceptible state, she was a bit dull and stubborn, and immediately emphasized, “There’s no blood.”
Yan Qiongyu was being held with his head pressed against her neck. He felt that if he didn’t meet her requirement, he would probably have to stay leaning like this forever.
Wang Luan waited for a long time without waiting for the pain of being bitten. Instead, she felt her neck constantly itching, his warm breath making her face flush red.
The two of them lingered together in the washroom. Outside, Zhu Xing waited for a long time without seeing anyone come out, and couldn’t help coming over to knock again. “Liu Luan? What on earth are you doing in there? Why haven’t you come out after so long?”
Hearing this voice, Wang Luan suddenly felt a sharp pain in her neck. The person who had seemed to be merely perfunctory just now truly used force, and at the same time lifted his leg and kicked heavily at the door—twice.
Wang Luan: “…………”
Yan Qiongyu lifted his head and said to her gently, “Tell her. Tell her to get lost.”
Wang Luan: “…………”
“Go away.” Hearing Wang Luan’s hoarse voice come from inside the door, Zhu Xing was furious. Why was she being so fierce? She had never been like this before. In a huff, she turned around and left, slamming the outer door shut with a thunderous bang.
“Click.” The washroom door finally opened. Yan Qiongyu pulled Wang Luan out, and Wang Luan covered her neck.
Yan Qiongyu glanced at his wrist-brain and said to Wang Luan, “Tonight, come to my room.”
He dragged Wang Luan out the door. The corridor outside was empty, and they smoothly arrived at Yan Qiongyu’s room. As soon as the door opened, Wang Luan was pushed inside first.
The room was dim. Wang Luan was still in a daze when she suddenly sensed a figure pouncing from the darkness. She instinctively stepped forward twice, grabbed the person, and slammed him to the ground.
By the time Yan Qiongyu entered behind Wang Luan, the person was already unconscious on the floor. Wang Luan, who had knocked him out, even turned her head back with reddened eyes. “I knocked him out.”
Glancing at the unfamiliar alpha, Yan Qiongyu wasn’t surprised at all. He gave him an extra injection and tossed him aside, then pulled Wang Luan toward the bed. “It’s fine. Don’t mind him.”
The room was on the upper levels of the tower. Curtains hung down by both the window and the bed. Within layers of drapery, soft quilts wrapped the two of them. At times there were quiet murmurs, at times a bit of rustling movement.
Zhu Xing didn’t sleep well that night. Early in the morning, she summoned a beta servant and heard that the high-tower alpha sent last night had entered Yan Qiongyu’s room and hadn’t come out all night. She immediately revealed a delighted expression; even the foul mood from being shut out by Wang Luan the night before eased considerably.
“Let’s go, take a look.” Zhu Xing walked to Yan Qiongyu’s door, eager to see the shattered look on his face.
Hearing the knock, Yan Qiongyu quietly said a few words to Wang Luan, then rose from the bedside and opened the door, unsurprised to see Zhu Xing’s expectant face.
At a glance, Zhu Xing saw that Yan Qiongyu’s usually tightly fastened collar was open, revealing bite marks on his neck. Seeing the ruined wound on his lips as well, the smile at the corner of her mouth grew wider. “Oh? Looks like you had a very pleasant night last night?”
Yan Qiongyu’s reaction, however, was beyond her expectations. His smile seemed to carry some deeper meaning, and the look he gave her made her feel subtly uncomfortable.
He said in a light, brisk tone, “Of course it was pleasant. I should thank you, actually. It was the alpha you sent, right? I like him very much.”
Zhu Xing was suspicious, not daring to believe he was telling the truth. Then she thought again—this man liked to put on airs. He was probably deliberately putting on this indifferent look so she wouldn’t see how miserable he was.
Having figured that out, Zhu Xing smiled as well, her expression innocent. “Is that so? If you really like him that much, I’ll give him to you. I have plenty of alphas like that in my tower.”
“Then many thanks for your generosity.” Yan Qiongyu turned his head to glance back and pushed the door fully open.
Zhu Xing saw the person behind him, and the innocent smile on her face instantly froze. She widened her eyes in disbelief and suddenly let out a shrill, furious scream: “What did you do?!”
After a night of soothing, Wang Luan’s emotions had already stabilized a lot—at the very least, she was no longer full of thoughts about piloting a spaceship into the cosmos and ending this meaningless life with a brilliant explosion.
She looked at Zhu Xing, who seemed on the verge of going mad with anger, then looked at Yan Qiongyu’s politely fake smile, and said, “We did many things. It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Why are you so angry?”
Actually, not really—just sticking close, that kind of thing. Sticking close for a bit too long. Wang Luan showed her face briefly, then, against the backdrop of Zhu Xing’s furious screaming at the doorway, went into the washroom to freshen up. Afterward, she returned to the bedside and rolled herself up in the blanket.
The blanket carried Yan Qiongyu’s scent. Although it wasn’t pheromones, it was still a very pleasant smell.
Zhu Xing wanted nothing more than to rush into the room and drag Wang Luan out, but Yan Qiongyu kept smiling as he blocked the doorway, and Zhu Xing simply couldn’t get past him.
Seeing with her own eyes how Wang Luan rolled herself into Yan Qiongyu’s blanket, the motion familiar and taken for granted, Zhu Xing suddenly recalled Wang Luan asking about Yan Qiongyu on the spaceship. In an instant, she understood something and sharply looked at Yan Qiongyu. “You know her. You’ve known her all along, haven’t you?”
Yan Qiongyu stood at the doorway with his back to the bed. He casually closed the door, the smile on his face slowly fading. Looking at Zhu Xing’s furious expression, he raised his hand and pinched her chin. “That’s right. She belongs to me… so all your anger is an affront to me, because you have no qualification to be angry over this. Do you understand?”
Zhu Xing stiffened in place. Looking into Yan Qiongyu’s cold eyes, for a brief moment she felt as if she were seeing the godmother.
When she was young and still learning at the godmother’s side, she had once seen that same look in the godmother’s eyes. Although the godmother always smiled gently at them, she had still feared her—fear born from the keen instincts of childhood.
The godmother did not care about any of them. After Qin Ling’s death, she understood this even more clearly.
At this moment, facing Yan Qiongyu, who was infinitely similar to the godmother, she found herself unable to restrain the fear rising in her heart.
Yan Qiongyu released her and said flatly, “Don’t provoke me again.”
