SDT 36

Chapter 36: Try Again

Lu Kongyun was lying on the bed, thinking.

He understood Gao Yuting; this doctor could not possibly be an accomplice of that spy from Country M. For Gao Yuting’s clinic to escape Lu Qifeng’s stringent surveillance, this spy must have help in Manjing, and this person should not be simple. Who could it be?

This was Lu Qifeng’s matter. It had nothing to do with him.

He began to think of his own affairs. Ever since hearing Lu Qifeng speak of middle school love letters and someone liking him, Lu Kongyun seemed to have some ideas unlocked, with certain thoughts inexplicably emerging.

The blackmailer was also his middle school classmate.

“…”

He flipped over on the bed, then slowly sat up. He turned on the bedside lamp, picked up his phone, and dialed.

The phone rang several times before the other answered.

“Connection successful. You have connected to the headquarters of Lucky Star.” The other’s voice sounded like an axle in need of lubrication: “What wish does Your Excellency have?”

Lu Kongyun: “…”

Lu Kongyun said: “I have no wish. I have a third answer I wish to ask you.”

“Oh?”

A rustling sound came from the other end, then the tone returned to normal: “I was wondering why you would call me so soon after parting; I thought perhaps your instructor had ill intentions and taken your phone to investigate your movements after leaving the team today.”

Lu Kongyun: “…You need not direct your vigilance there. There is no one around me more difficult to deal with than you.”

The blackmailer laughed again: “So eager. Did you just think of it? Are you in the dormitory? Can you make calls?”

“Sometimes it is permitted,” he answered.

The blackmailer: “Fine then; say it. We will roll the punishment die next time we meet.”

The blackmailer seemed certain he would be wrong.

Lu Kongyun was silent again.

He had proposed and eliminated two blackmail motives that had to be swatted away like flies.

What about this one?

(Did you like me? Without reciprocation, so you harbor resentment? Tormenting me to make it unforgettable, then vanishing forever, so I can remember you?)

…Upon hearing this guessed answer, the blackmailer would surely be astonished, rolling with laughter until tears came: Me? Liked you? Then he would deploy his linguistic talent to mock him thoroughly until the day their relationship ended. He certainly would.

In the end, Lu Kongyun said: “I will think again. Hang up first.”

After a while, the other did not hang up. He said: “Hello?”

The blackmailer then said softly: “Do the daily.”

Lu Kongyun: “Is it not to be a voice message?”

The blackmailer chuckled: “Then may I ask who set the rules?”

“Goodnight Sweetheart.” Lu Kongyun said.

The blackmailer breathed lightly into the receiver for a moment: “Hm? I can’t hear you.”

“…” He said it slowly once more: “Goodnight. Sweetheart.”

The blackmailer sighed. It was baffling.

“Very good. Doctor Lu.”

The blackmailer said, “The real-time version seems a bit more emotional than the voice message, as if you weren’t being forced.”

“…” Lu Kongyun squeezed his phone. “I’m going to sleep.”

Officers at the training camp who knew something about the incident said that the normally taciturn second son of the Lu family had beaten the grandson of the Ding family to the hospital. The trigger for all of this was that Ding Qi, another grandson of the Ding family, had been publicly humiliated and slapped after a jealous feud with Lu Kongyun at S House.

That Ding Kai had provoked him, originally intending to avenge his brother’s slapped face. Unexpectedly, he was met with the usually silent Lu Kongyun seizing the opportunity to hit viciously, counter-killing with one blow.

An officer who had a friend present at the S House scene recounted that on that evening, the friend himself had sat not far from him and personally heard Lu Kongyun tell Chen Jian to bring their most stimulating drugs for him to consume. Then Lu Kongyun drank while taking drugs, proceeding to go mad, beating people, releasing pheromones, and abusing everyone in the private room.

There was also corroborating testimony from another officer. Before Lu Kongyun slapped Ding Qi, he publicly declared a warning to those present: No one was to touch anything before he chose.

After the pheromone suppression ended, he calmly stated: There is only one master. Those who have called others cannot call me.

Contrasting the primal form of ABO pack social life, this territorial consciousness of the pack leader was the epitome, exhaustively manifesting the animal social attributes of ABO.

Lu Kongyun was a beast among beasts, an animal among animals.

When Lu Kongyun returned to the camp for training, everyone’s gaze toward him became subtly altered. As Dai Lanshan with gauze wrapped around his head and Lu Renjia with a bruised and swollen face rejoined the team, everyone looked at Dormitory 208 as if it were a haunted house, giving it a wide berth.

…

Tonight, Yu Xiaowen and Xu Jie’s mission was still to stake out at the Baixiang Wharf in Manjing’s old city district.

Since the death of their anti-narcotics police colleague, the arrest target had suddenly lost all trace, and the clues for closing the net had nearly been severed. Clearly, they had grasped much, yet it was just that one step short; sometimes everyone wondered if they had startled the snake into fleeing, if the target figure had already escaped the country? If they had found other routes, had the goods already been secretly transferred or dispersed? Should they wait or seek a new direction next? Would they miss the timing? This left everyone feeling confused, not knowing how to proceed.

The comrades in the anti-narcotics team were searching the transport warehouse for goods; he was in the car, organizing his insurance reimbursement form on his phone, occasionally glancing toward the dilapidated gate of the old wharf warehouse. It was not very bright there, and the sentry in the guard post was dozing off.

A colleague from another team assisting in the search walked over from the transfer point, opened Yu Xiaowen’s car door, and sat in the back seat. From his appearance, it was unsurprising; they had still found nothing. As soon as he got in the car, this colleague yawned and sought confirmation from the two on a rumor he had heard during their team’s search: “Hey, I heard that old bachelor in your team has a partner now? Getting married?”

Yu Xiaowen glanced at the rearview mirror, while Xu Jie, seated in the passenger seat, was very interested in the topic, half-turning his body back: “Yes! Really, so sudden. He said he met her through a blind date, over half a year ago, kept it hidden. I said, you are always trying to please our brother Xiaowen…”

“Shut your mouth,” Yu Xiaowen interrupted. “You keep spreading rumors about me, do you like me?”

“…” Xu Jie immediately flushed red in the face and neck: “…Ah? Master, I am not…”

“It’s not easy for people in our line of work to find stable happiness. I’m very happy for him.” Yu Xiaowen said, “I’m really very happy for him.”

Yu Xiaowen’s phone vibrated; it was a call from Lu Kongyun. He was stunned for two seconds: “I am taking a call.”

He opened the car door and got out, walking a few steps away before answering.

“Hello.”

Upon hearing his voice, the other paused slightly and said: “ I’m here to do the daily.”

“…” a gentle sea breeze ruffled NPC Yu Xiaowen’s shirt. He immediately pressed the receiver closer to his ear and covered the phone with his hand to block out the wind.

Then he heard the other say: “Goodnight, sweetheart.”

Yu Xiaowen took a deep breath and looked at the dilapidated warehouse door not far away. “Yeah. Goodnight. What did you call me about today?”

After a while, the victim said: “You are not at home?”

He was very perceptive.

“Mm,” Yu Xiaowen answered. “On a mission. But there is nothing much at present. What is it?”

After a few more seconds, the victim said: “I wanted to see if you had turned off your phone.”

Police could not turn off their phones.

A strange sensation suddenly washed over Yu Xiaowen, making his chest swell and his forearm feel hot. But before he could fully grasp the source of this feeling, the victim said, “One more thing. Can you give me back the wristband I gave you?” 

“…” His arm cooled down.

Yu Xiaowen chuckled and said, “No. I didn’t ask you for it. You put it on my wrist yourself. If you give it to me, it’s mine. If you want to buy another one, go buy one.”

The victim was silent for a moment, then said, “I need it.”

Yu Xiaowen flatly refused, “No. I need it too.”

The victim: “I can buy you a new one.”

Yu Xiaowen remained unmoved, “I want this one. I like it. I’ve become attached to it.” 

The victim said, “What attachment do you have to an old wristband?”

Yu Xiaowen said nothing. He clutched the wristband tightly.

The other exhaled: “Actually, this model’s wristband not only suppresses pheromones but also allows professional physicians, through monitoring, to judge risks of estrus or sensitivity loss of control in the body. It is currently connected to my phone and my doctor’s phone, and the monitoring activation authority is on my phone. If you wish for me to see your heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure, sensitivity changes, and pheromone indicators every time you go into estrus or intimate contact in the future, then continue using it. Doctor Lu can even know the duration of your most comfortable moments in seconds and how intense they are.”

Yu Xiaowen: “….”

The victim reasoned with him in the detached tone of a doctor.

After a long while, without receiving an answer, the victim continued to verify: “Don’t believe it? You can check the manual online. For example, I can turn it on now and see your current heart rate…”

The victim seemed stunned for a moment, then said: “Very fast.”

The victim: “So fast. Why?”

Yu Xiaowen: “…”

After another moment, the victim coughed over the phone, as if he had a sudden realization. His voice dropped, a slightly different tone from the diagnostician’s earlier: “How could you so easily…”

“Master,” Xu Jie called Yu Xiaowen. He approached with a rather hesitant expression. “Master, I was wrong just now. Are you upset? I’m sorry…””

Yu Xiaowen immediately hung up on the victim, lifted his leg, and kicked Xu Jie away: “Fuck! I said I was taking a call; I even deliberately stepped away for privacy, could you please not show up so suddenly?”

…

Lu Kongyun stood alone in the darkness opposite the dormitory building, holding his phone.

The military camp at night was very quiet. Only some faint insect chirps.

There was a white lamp at the dormitory entrance.

The air was damp, and a gentle breeze stirred the grass and trees behind him, sending a subtle shiver through the Alpha’s sensitive nerves. It was like a sudden fluctuation in his physiological state, this instinctive, momentary alert, akin to murderous intent.

Lu Kongyun returned to the dormitory. The two in the dormitory were very quiet. Lu Renjia had had his phone confiscated by his family and now could only lie on the bed, staring rigidly at the ceiling. Dai Lanshan held his phone in hand but, breaking precedent, was not looking at photos of his brother-wife; instead, like Lu Renjia, he stared at the ceiling.

Like two corpses in a haunted house.

Lu Kongyun climbed onto his bed, becoming the third.

After a while, it was Dai Lanshan, the sweet brother, who spoke.

“This time when I went out for the fight, I conveniently returned home. I discovered my brother had hacked my surveillance. When I called him before and spoke to him, he had been deceiving me. He was not home at all.”

After a pause, Lu Renjia turned his head and curiously looked toward Dai Lanshan.

“I waited for him to return and pretended nothing happened,” Dai Lanshan covered his face. “But I know he went out to meet someone else.”

After a while, the back of his hand was even wet.

Lu Renjia: “…”

After a while, Lu Renjia walked over and sat on a stool opposite Dai Lanshan, scratching his head with the hand not wrapped in bandages.

“Enough. You two are married; you marked him, so he is yours. Even if he does not like you, what can he do?”

These words did not achieve a good effect; Dai Lanshan lowered his hand, his eyes red as he glared angrily at him. But this time, he said nothing. Merely, without the hand’s obstruction, the tears flowed even more smoothly, turning his face into a miniature waterfall landscape.

Seeing this vicious S-class Alpha crying like this, Lu Renjia felt horrified. So he stood up and lay back on his bed: “I can’t do it anymore. Second Young Master Lu, why don’t you try to persuade him.”

The third corpse spoke in a cold voice: “Find that person and kill him.”

Lu Renjia: “That makes sense. Stealing an Alpha’s wife is the same crime as burning the ancestral grave. I support it.”

“How is that the same? What’s the ancestral grave?” Dai Lanshan said, “It’s not that I haven’t thought about it, but the main thing is how can I make my brother not suspect that I did it?”

Lu Renjia: “…For a fellow like you. Isn’t it obvious that you did it?”

Lu Kongyun typed: Busy?

Lu Kongyun typed: With milk tea

Lu Kongyun’s phone soon vibrated. After a few seconds, he picked it up to look.

艹: There’s an old bachelor in our unit getting married, and that idiot Xu Jie even spread rumors about us in front of other teams [laughing without saying a word]

艹: He thought I was mad when I came out to answer the phone. So he suddenly came out and startled me. I hung up.

艹: You’re okay anyway, right? You called because of the wristband, right? Okay. No big deal. I don’t really need it anyway. I’ll give it back to you.

Lu Kongyun looked at it for a moment and replied: Chen Zihan is getting married?

艹: …Bastard!

艹: I laughed out loud in front of colleagues

艹: Fine. Okay. I can give you the wristband back when you’re out and we meet.

艹: You don’t have to buy a new one.

Lu Kongyun: Out and meet? Have you prepared to issue the final order?

艹: Not yet. I’m going to give you the wristband when we meet.

艹: What, do you want me to mail it to you? What is wrong with meeting once?

Lu Kongyun set down his phone.

He heard Dai Lanshan’s voice again: “What if my brother knows that it was me and he no longer loves me?”

Lu Kongyun: “Then speak properly with him.”

He raised his hand and replied to the message: Understood. I will find you after training ends.