Part 2
Song Zhiyuan withdrew his gaze and quickly walked over to pick up his frail daughter, wrapping a blanket around her. “Can’t sleep?”
Song Shiyu nodded, then shook her head.
Tomorrow, she was being sent to live at the home of her father’s friend. She didn’t want to leave him and was feeling nervous, but she was a good girl and didn’t want to cause him trouble.
“Uncle Shen and Auntie are very gentle people. They will love you just like I do.” Song Zhiyuan kissed her hair. “I’ll visit you often.”
“Then you have to tell me before you come. I’ll go with Xiao Xi to pick you up.”
Song Shiyu raised the doll in her hand. Xiao Xi was her playmate.
“Of course.” Song Zhiyuan held his daughter, his fist tightening.
He still wasn’t working hard enough; he didn’t have enough power. He had to climb faster.
Once he could create better living conditions for Shiyu, he could live with her openly and honestly.
“Father, do you like her?” Song Shiyu leaned into her father’s ear and whispered, “You’re always watching the news about her.”
Song Zhiyuan followed his daughter’s gaze.
On the TV was a replay of the inauguration ceremony for the new General of District 7. The screen was frozen on a close-up of Lu Wei’s face.
He had hit pause, and it had landed right there.
A high-level military-political meeting was coming up soon, to be held before the new General returned to their district. They would likely meet, but he had no idea how to face her.
—Hello, I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye after we slept together last time. —I was pregnant with your child. Her eyes are as beautiful as yours. —I’ve seen the news about you. District 7 is tough, isn’t it? —I still love you. What about you?
None of them were appropriate.
He had pressured Shu Changze, forbidding him from revealing any information about him to her. He could be shameless in front of a romantic rival and devious in his work, but he didn’t want that version of himself to appear before her.
“…Yes,” he replied, suppressing his emotions.
He carried his daughter back to her bedroom and tucked her in, only to hear a small, clear voice ask: “How much do you like her?”
Song Zhiyuan’s hand paused.
In the darkness, he closed his eyes. “I like her very, very much.”
Lu Wei stood before the mirror, adjusting her tie and leather belt for the eight hundredth time. The uniform of a District 7 General outlined her waist perfectly.
During her few meetings with Song Zhiyuan, she hadn’t really paid attention to her appearance.
The first time, she was in a plain tank top, looking like a hooligan. The second time, she was in the loungewear she’d been wearing when Si Huai woke her up. …Basically, it wasn’t good.
When an Alpha is openly chasing someone they like, they naturally have to act like a peacock, defeat all their rivals, and show off their charm.
She applied a bold red lipstick, took one last look in the mirror, and walked into the banquet hall with satisfaction.
Amidst the clinking glasses, she searched for the person in her memory.
At the meeting this morning, the camera on the big screen had panned across the participants. When she saw Song Zhiyuan in his suit, her heart had hammered wildly.
Both of them were newly appointed and didn’t have much of a voice yet, so they were seated opposite each other near the wall at the end of the hall. Song Zhiyuan was poised and calm, his black ballpoint pen dancing across the paper. She had seen the red glint of his pinky ring on the screen close-up.
Lu Wei’s gaze was like a radar, scanning the room until it finally landed on that memorable ring.
Song Zhiyuan was chatting and laughing with the former Speaker of District 5.
Lu Wei’s eyebrows knitted together.
That old lecher! He kept several Omegas as playthings on the outside, and he was still getting that close to him!
Wait, here comes another one? Hey, old man, I’m warning you—keep your hands to yourself!
“General Lu.” Someone blocked her path. “So young and successful. In the future, our Districts 6 and 7 will need to develop together; we’ll be counting on you.”
“Speaker Chen, you flatter me.”
Lu Wei had a smile on her lips, but her peripheral vision remained fixed in the distance.
She dealt with the people coming to find her one after another while watching Song Zhiyuan navigate a crowd of Alphas with ease.
After a long while, she drained the wine in her glass.
That was right. In her heart, she only remembered the way he blushed and looked so scared he needed her to send him home. But as an Omega who had made it to this position today, what kind of scene had he not experienced? What kind of hardship had he not endured?
If she pursued him, what could she offer him?
Yu Yao at least had his massive family behind him. What about her? She only had herself, and the constant danger of losing her life.
Lu Wei put down her wine glass and went to speak with He Lian, making an excuse that she wasn’t feeling well and needed to leave early.
He Lian looked at her in surprise. “Is that lipstick you’re wearing, or were you poisoned?”
“…” She had no idea what Si Huai saw in this “steel-straight” Alpha.
Lu Wei didn’t bother saying more. She flashed a smile to finish her casual goodbyes to the people she’d met today and strolled out of the banquet hall.
She hadn’t gone far when someone suddenly grabbed her shoulder.
“!?”
After hundreds of ambushes, Lu Wei’s reflex was to seize the hand on her shoulder.
She knew there were people in that banquet hall who wanted her dead—the Gu family, the Chen family, the Bai family… she found them all disgusting.
Lu Wei didn’t want to alert the high-ranking officials inside, so she neatly shoved the person into a dark corridor and pinned them against the wall.
“…Cough.” A soft tremble escaped Song Zhiyuan’s throat. He looked up, using the moonlight to see her.
“Why is it you?!”
Lu Wei quickly let go, wanting to check if she had hurt him. Unexpectedly, he met her palm with his own, wrapping his hand around hers.
“Why didn’t you come find me?”
Song Zhiyuan’s breath brushed against Lu Wei’s fingertips. His hot lips nearly touched them as he stroked her smooth knuckles. A faint spark of joy flickered in his heart.
She isn’t that into Shu Changze after all, is she?
Look, she isn’t even wearing a ring, Song Zhiyuan thought secretly.
“I…”
Lu Wei was a bit flustered. She’d known since that night years ago that she had no resistance against Song Zhiyuan. With a sweet scent in her arms, if the setting weren’t so wrong, she could have had him right now.
But she was someone being watched by a certain group of people at the top.
“I was afraid I’d bring you danger,” Lu Wei said, her voice hoarse as she pressed his waist against her.
Song Zhiyuan thought of her blood-stained keys that night and understood what she meant. He let out a relieved sigh.
Fortunately, it wasn’t because she was thinking of the person at home. If she had said that, he would have died of jealousy.
“My house isn’t too dangerous.” He slipped off his pinky ring and put it on Lu Wei’s hand, whispering in her ear, “Are you coming?”
Things had progressed to this point, and Lu Wei felt Song Zhiyuan bore a lot of the responsibility.
They’d only met a few times—why was he seducing her every single time?!
“Do you love me?” Song Zhiyuan leaned against her collarbone.
“Of course.” Lu Wei kissed him back.
“I don’t believe you. How much do you love me?”
She held his waist and pulled him onto her, her dense kisses trailing upward. She vaguely felt that his skin was even more delicate than it had been years ago.
She wasn’t sure if it was an illusion, but she kept thinking she smelled a faint scent of milk… Hiss. It was all Yu Yao’s fault for making so many jokes; it had gotten to the point where she was hallucinating that she’d already gotten someone pregnant just by sleeping with them.
No, no, this was the famous Speaker Song, admired by countless people. Giving him pleasure was fine, but a child… that was too dangerous!
As soon as Lu Wei’s mind wandered, Song Zhiyuan noticed it.
What was she hesitating about? In that second of pause, was she feeling guilty about her lack of self-control? Or was she hesitating because she thought of Shu Changze?
Or… was she sad because the person she’d saved had become this “lowly”?
Song Zhiyuan leaned down and bit her lips, a storm of sensation sweeping across the various scars on the soldier’s body. He released his pheromones with all his might, entangling her as they climbed higher.
“Love me until you die. Please.”
He could never possess her in the light; he wanted to belong to her completely in the dark.
“How did you get pregnant again?!”
Shu Changze felt the new life in Song Zhiyuan’s womb and nearly fainted.
“She’s just… very capable.” Song Zhiyuan smirked, reviewing documents while shooting Shu Changze a provocative look he couldn’t quite decipher.
If Shu Changze had been the fully functional Original Consciousness of the world at that moment, he probably would have wanted to swear.
Because of the Si family ring Lu Wei had casually thrown to him, Song Zhiyuan assumed Shu Changze was part of Lu Wei’s “harem”… and he had misunderstood for many years.
Fortunately, Shu Changze had experience this time. He manipulated the world’s space-time to help Song Zhiyuan hide the truth and gave birth to this child.
If his future premonitions were correct, this second child would be the savior of this world.
“What’s the name?”
“Shu Ci.”
“You’re going to let the Shen family raise this one too? One is fine, but for two, you’re eventually going to need to provide some ID, right?”
“I’ll think about it.” Song Zhiyuan shot him a look. “How about you be the godfather? Since you’re a ‘runaway’ and a rebel anyway, no one will think it’s strange if you have a child out of wedlock.”
Song Zhiyuan firmly believed this guy had run away from home to elope with Lu Wei, so he said it with a touch of malice.
Shu Changze stroked the child’s red hair and said with a smile, “Sure. I’ll even raise them for you; no problem at all.”
A casual remark, yet this memory surfaced again in the depths of his heart, out on the swaying sea.
The world had lost many children. He had fully awakened in the midst of the tragedy and saw the image of another world within the small infant sinking into the water.
Shu Changze manipulated the waves, resisting the constraints of a certain power, and carefully took the infant into his arms.
“Shu Ci, your godfather’s world’s freedom… is all up to you.”
At the moment her blood was about to run dry, Lu Wei heard the sound of reinforcements echoing through the mine.
Great. They’re saved. She slowly closed her eyes, her short life playing frame by frame before her.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have come to District 7. In order to eliminate her, those people had plotted against all of District 7. She was a sinner to District 7; she should give her life for the people here.
But on second thought, if it hadn’t been District 7, it would have been somewhere else. She was always going to bring danger and pain somewhere.
Including to Song Zhiyuan, the only person she ever loved.
If they hadn’t met in the beginning, if she hadn’t given him a certain hope… would he still have chased the light of his ideals so desperately, believing that everyone should accept the concepts she had passed to him?
In that sense, she had stained him with the color of danger.
He was too excellent, too terrifying, too influential.
He had climbed to the position of Chief Executive candidate, which had put immense pressure on those noble families. They couldn’t wait to get rid of him.
On the day the shipwreck was reported, she went to the Chengxin Sea alone and drank all night.
There was no official status, no public acknowledgement. The surge of love they shared in hidden corners would only ever be remembered by her.
Lu Wei coughed up a mouthful of blood and pulled the arm of someone who had been blown up beside her toward her. Looking at the pinky ring he had given her, she kissed it before her eyes closed for good.
He didn’t know that she had left the address of his office in the emergency mailing system.
That address was deleted forever along with her death. Along with it, a suicide note that would never leave a trace in this world was also erased.
The content of the letter was very short, but it had taken her a long time to write.
My dear accomplice, now you finally know. I really did love you until I died.
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