SDT 15

Chapter 15  The One I Love

Yu Xiaowen exhaled a puff of smoke, rubbed his eyes and looked at Xu Jie. “Go home for what, there’s still a lot of stuff I haven’t done yet.”

Xu Jie froze. “Master, you already worked the whole day yesterday, the team leader told me to take you home to rest. Look at your face, it’s pale.”

“No need. You go back.” Yu Xiaowen walked toward the door again. “I have a few materials to check.”

Xu Jie: “…”

Yu Xiaowen hadn’t gone home for three days. When he was tired, he took a shower at the unit and then lay down on the sofa with his clothes on. In between he wobbled and disappeared a few times, but soon he appeared in the office again. The whole team thought he was strange, but they couldn’t say where. He still joked, investigated seriously, still like every dull and busy workday in the past, ate fruit while swearing, then kicked the trash can at his feet far away, made a throwing motion and sent the fruit pit perfectly into the can.

On the fourth day, Team Leader Chen Zihan demanded Xu Jie forcibly send him home to rest.

He fell asleep on the way home. Then Xu Jie woke him up and sent him to his door. Xu Jie asked, “Master, the key?” He took out the key and handed it over.

He went in, collapsed on the bed and continued sleeping.

He sank into a borderless darkness where no one cared wherever he went.

…

After school in the afternoon, Yu Xiaowen got pinned and beaten in the alley next to the school, with a lot of trash poured on his head.

It started because he saw a few punks from outside the school bullying a female classmate together. That girl’s reputation was bad, and her father seemed to be a criminal who had just been locked up. Everyone in school knew this, and fearing being entangled with those punks and getting themselves burned, a lot of people saw it but did nothing.

This was too much.

Yu Xiaowen was probably a blockhead, he had been like that since he was little. The moment he saw it he went straight up to fight them, trying to 1 versus N. As a result the hero who stuck his neck out instantly turned into the one getting gang-beaten.

The girl ran away crying with fright, and he became the substitute target.

The stench of the garbage made him gag. He struggled and shook hard. He touched a swollen bag of spoiled milk inside the trash, bit open the bag and sprayed it accurately at every person, carrying out efficient and precise area attacks. The punks stepped back cursing. He took advantage of the chaos, got up and ran. He ran very fast, even older and taller Alphas chasing him had trouble, a whole group behind him panting and swearing.

Yu Xiaowen: “Hey brats, you can’t even catch your grandpa, drink more milk, get more calcium!”

He moved like a rabbit, climbed up the school’s courtyard wall, sat on top looking down. The punks were just half-grown kids too, only able to run wild outside, they didn’t dare climb the school wall, they just put their hands on their waists at the base of the wall, tilted their heads up and cursed for a while, then left. Yu Xiaowen clapped his hands and jumped down along the inside of the wall.

He didn’t know if that bunch was ambushing him outside, so he planned to hang around inside the school for a while.

The campus after school was very quiet. He held his hurting spots, moving low like a cat. He passed an activity room where only one student in uniform was reading by the window.

“…”

Yu Xiaowen went behind a cluster of redberry flowers to hide. Then he pried open the gap between the flowers with his fingers and looked carefully over there. That boy wore a bite-blocker that covered half his face. The school required Alpha students in the middle of differentiation to wear them nd wristbands at the same time, so this boy was likely in the middle of differentiation.

Even without seeing the full face, just the hair and eyebrows already sketched together the picture book that would appear in an adolescent dream.

Yu Xiaowen felt his breathing slow like an elephant and his heartbeat quick like a little bird.

Yu Xiaowen must have had his adrenaline spike just now and not yet come down, going crazy. He couldn’t help circling around, found the activity room’s main door and pushed it open to go in.

He scraped his toes at the doorway for a bit, then sat down in the last row of the activity room, the spot farthest from the boy, a dim obscure corner piled with dusty equipment in the shadow of the curtain.

The activity room’s ceiling was very high. Outside the window the redberry flowers in the wind were in full bloom, together they ate up a lot of light. So the shafts of sunset light coming in didn’t shine as bright as outdoors but swayed in a hazy way.

This student’s fingers pinched the page corner, spreading casually on the page. Different from his upright upper body, under the table he had his long legs stretched out, sneakers covered by loose uniform pant legs, moving now and then so the bows on the laces peeked out a little.

The boy from the picture book lifted his head and looked at Yu Xiaowen. All the dust motes in the air instantly turned into harmless little sprites. Yu Xiaowen slowly lowered his head and shrank back into the dimness.

Yu Xiaowen felt a little regret for coming in. Too impulsive, only thought about looking at him, didn’t think that he would also look at him. His face was bruised and swollen, hair messy, with crusted spoiled milk stuck on it.

The boy stood up and walked to the lockers. He opened one door, took something out, then went to the wash sink in the corner and put it down, then went back to his seat.

“Go wash up.”

Yu Xiaowen froze for a bit, then obediently walked along the wall to the wash sink. There was a towel there, and a small first-aid kit. He washed his face, rinsed the milk off his head, then covered his head with the towel, wiping as he turned back.

The boy said, “Treat the wounds.”

Yu Xiaowen was stunned and blurted out, “No need.”

“Use it.” The boy said. “Do it yourself.”

“…”

Yu Xiaowen rarely did as told. He walked back. He opened the first-aid kit, took out some band-aids, tore them open and slapped them roughly on the spots that felt painful.

“…Use the mirror and stick them properly. Don’t stick the adhesive over the wound. Take the spray with you and spray it every three hours.” The boy didn’t turn his head, still speaking with the back of his head to him.

Yu Xiaowen stood for a few seconds, then walked to the nearby full-length mirror and readjusted the band-aids on his face.

“Now can you leave?” The boy said.

Yu Xiaowen: “.”

“Thanks.” He could only say these two words, then left the activity room.

He felt compelled and circled back half a round to behind the redberry flower tree again.

Through the window the boy frowned, from time to time raising his hand to tug at the bite-blocker on his mouth.

…Even when he himself was uncomfortable he still helped him.

Just like…

The rain on his head had been covered by a black umbrella, then the Alpha wearing the bite-blocker asked him, “Do you need any help, officer?”

Yu Xiaowen couldn’t keep his eyes closed. He opened them, came out of the memory, and returned to the silent reality.

His chest started hurting again. Very very much. But this time he didn’t take painkillers. Because he thought sometimes pain itself might also be another kind of painkiller.

He curled up and cried for a while, then wiped his face, propped himself up and opened the materials he had brought back from the bureau. Biochemical pharmaceutical technology was M Country’s pillar industry, many related regulations and clauses directly controlled by pharmaceutical conglomerates, lacking public authority supervision. Therefore many biochemical drug products and controversial medical technologies in the gray zone circulated from M Country to the world.

This was the list of medical research projects and drug catalogs publicly released in recent years by M Country’s pharmaceutical conglomerates that he had organized. Since that captured M Country small fry had said this case was related to a newly developed drug stolen from M Country, then based on their original research directions he definitely could get some related clues.

A moment later, he stood up, went to the living room’s TV and took out a disc. This was when he first blackmailed Lu Kongyun, in order to give Lu Kongyun some psychological expectation of the moral level of the blackmailer he was about to face, specially prepared as a prop.

It could also be considered doing a bit of the necessary mental immorality construction for himself, who was about to become a law-breaking blackmailer.

He played the disc again. In the video two artists were enthusiastically performing.

Yu Xiaowen leaned on the sofa watching the TV, wanting to recall that day, go back to the warm blackmail scene of the two of them sitting on the sofa watching together. But his head was filled with Lu Kongyun and that elegant female Omega who could push him into rut.

He bit his fingertips mercilessly.

…Damn it, I’m already a dying man, the body I craved my whole life I haven’t even touched once. What mental construction am I doing, building what, built where?

“Should’ve gone to bed with him the first time we met.” Yu Xiaowen drew a heroic conclusion. “‘Xiaoyun sweetie, come here, copy one-to-one on me what your dad in the video did to the bearded guy. It’s an order.’”

“Hahaha!” He laughed until coughing and spraying tears.

He wiped his tears, then opened the materials again.

…Or, if he hadn’t gathered the courage to do that stupid thing, if they had stayed forever on opposite ends of the world, it would’ve been fine. The little chick not greedy for the soft white clouds in the sky, step by step walking into nowhere, maybe wouldn’t have fallen that badly.

If he hadn’t tried to touch the cloud, he could’ve died with his feet on the ground.

…

“Amazing.” Gao Yuting said on the phone to Lu Kongyun. “Your indexes are basically back to normal, no need to wear the bite-blocker anymore.”

Very few Alphas could get through the rut period completely by themselves, let alone someone like Lu Kongyun with super S-class genes. Control desire, possessiveness, sexual desire, power desire all not satisfied, but Dr. Gao based on experience was sure that Director Lu during treatment hadn’t even handled it himself.

So this guy really was a pervert right?

Gao Yuting opened his phone and used the doctor’s app to remotely unlock the bite-blocker. After a crisp sound Lu Kongyun reached to the back of his neck and removed the bite-blocker.

“Thanks.”

“Hey,” Gao Yuting asked, “you really didn’t lose control at all?”

“What?”

“For example, the thing bred by not satisfying all the ‘instincts’ during rut… beast nature?”

Lu Kongyun thought for a moment and answered, “I contributed once in a police-civilian cooperation.”

Gao: “…Oh, nice. Really positive energy.”

“Director Lu.” Gao Yuting asked again, “are animals really that important?”

“Is this an academic discussion? I’ll call you later. I have a form to finish right now.” Lu Kongyun hung up the phone.

Gao Yuting: “…”

Lu Kongyun disinfected the bite-blocker, put it in the box together with the wristband and threw it in the drawer. Then he looked up at the two sticky notes under the computer screen.

First one: During rut, the possessiveness toward the heat target is a reproduction instinct, to monopolize mating rights with the mate. I have no intention with (X). Control.

Second one: Violence is very low-level. Don’t break other people’s parts. Even if they can reset it’s not okay. Control.

These days the blackmailer hadn’t harassed him. Lu Kongyun sent “Good night sweetheart” on time every night but didn’t get any reply. Thinking back to that day when the blackmailer caught a foreign suspect, Lu Kongyun figured he was probably busy and hadn’t gotten around to harassing him. Just as well, he himself needed to handle his rut, the absence of the target at this time was very beneficial.

Because without the blackmailer’s harassment his rut finally passed smoothly and returned to normal.

He glanced at the sticky notes, then removed them, tore them into pieces and threw them in the trash.

He opened the computer document and began filling in the experiment form.

…Although the blackmailer’s absence was a favorable condition, it was indeed a bit abnormal.

He was thinking this when his phone received a message.

A PDF file. Then another message popped up.

艹: Translate the drug names and effects in it into human language, send it back to me.

Lu Kongyun waited for a while, 艹 didn’t send anything else. Only this one message.

Lu Kongyun called back.

It rang many many times before the other side picked up. Then silence for a few seconds, “Hello.”

Even this one syllable sounded polite, different from the usual blackmailer image.

Lu Kongyun asked, “What did you send me.”

“Some clues.” The blackmailer this time didn’t circle around him, didn’t tease on purpose, answered directly.

“It’s materials I found based on the clues provided by that M Country suspect caught last time.”

“M Country.” Lu Kongyun thought.

Blackmailer: “What’s wrong?”

“M Country’s biochemical pharmaceutical technology.” Lu Kongyun said. “You and your team leader went to our institute before, also because of this case?”

The blackmailer sighed on the phone.

“Really worthy of a professional. Found the relevance in one go.” Then the blackmailer paused and said, “Then translate this for me, it should be simple for you right. I really can’t stand looking at it.”

Lu Kongyun flipped through the PDF file, stood up and went to the bookshelf, taking down a very heavy reference book. “Not simple.”

“…Is that so?” The blackmailer again behaved abnormally, he didn’t pick up the idle teasing tone belonging to him.

Lu Kongyun asked, “Is it an order?”

After a while the blackmailer asked, “Does that matter? Don’t you like police-civilian cooperation?”

Lu Kongyun: “If it’s not an order I can choose not to do it. I’m busy right now.”

“…” Again. The blackmailer was silent.

“Yu Xiaowen.”

Lu Kongyun seemed to be calling the blackmailer’s name while he was sober for the first time.

The other seemed surprised too, after a while softly “Mm”ed, very small.

“You what on earth are you trying to pull.” Lu Kongyun wanted to say, but didn’t. The blackmailer wasn’t simple, he couldn’t be too naive either. Instead he asked, “How’s that person’s arm?”

“No problem.” The blackmailer answered. “Thanks last time for you and your… mm, providing help.”

“What do you mean?” Lu Kongyun asked.

“Just thank you for letting us take shelter from the rain.” The blackmailer said.

“What ‘my’? I went to sign a project agreement. She’s a division head at the Ministry of Finance managing project funds.” Lu Kongyun said.

“…” The phone fell silent yet again.

Lu Kongyun put the big reference book on the desk. Then he looked at the experiment form on the computer screen, the mouse hovering over the minimize icon, and asked again, “Is it an order. Hm?”

Still no sound.

After a while the blackmailer’s voice with a note of suspicion came through the receiver. “Rut? Sign project agreement?”

“What?” Lu Kongyun said. “Rut period means no work? Aren’t you also always wearing patches on the street beating people.”

The phone went silent again. The blackmailer definitely had a problem today.

Then he him laughing. “Dr. Lu. Since you’re busy then be busy. Bye.”

He hung up.

Lu Kongyun immediately pushed aside the reference book and clattered on the experiment form.

More than an hour later, the blackmailer sent him three short voice messages. Lu Kongyun clicked them open.

First was calm breathing. After a while, the blackmailer spoke slowly and carefully, word by word.

艹: “After work, come to my home.”

艹: “I want you to come to my home. Tell me face to face.”

艹: “Order.”

The blackmailer’s last sentence sounded so commanding that it almost gave the illusion that he was giving himself an order.