Chapter 3
Central Hotel.
An alpha with crimson eyes and black hair leaned against a sofa, before him lay the shattered remains of the room’s furnishings. Debris littered the floor.
An alpha in a bodyguard uniform, forced to submit by his domineering bloodline, knelt amidst the shards, the color of blood seeping through his trousers, spreading into a brown stain.
“It’s been a whole night, where is he?” Gu Lan Zhu suppressed the rage in his voice.
“Gu… Mr. Gu, Mr. Shu left before the hotel was sealed off. We followed him on the security footage, and he was picked up at the intersection in front of the square.”
“Then?”
“By the time we got to the intersection, apart from a certain concentration of pheromones left in the phone booth, there was no trace of him anywhere else.” The bodyguard hung his head. “The pheromone tracking was ineffective, so we could only follow the surveillance cameras, but…”
“Speak clearly!”
“But after leaving the street where the hotel is located, the car was nowhere to be found in all the surveillance cameras we could check!”
The bodyguard closed his eyes, desperately speaking the truth.
But he was muttering in his heart; this was the first time they’d encountered such a situation since becoming Gu’s bodyguards.
Gu Lan Zhu looked up at him: “What do you mean by surveillance cameras we could check? Are there surveillance cameras in City A that I, Gu Lan Zhu, can’t see?”
The scent of sandalwood suddenly exploded in the air.
The bodyguard uncontrollably fell to the ground: “Access to city and road surveillance requires authorization from the city hall. The person who recently took office at city hall is… not someone from Councilor Gu’s faction.”
Bang—
As soon as he finished speaking, the table shattered into dust in front of him.
“Because of this? Without my uncle’s help, you can’t even find the person?”
“…” The bodyguard choked.
He really wanted to say, haven’t we been relying on Councilor Gu being your father, Mr. Gu’s elder brother and uncle, and the entire Gu family having influence across politics and business in City A, to act so arrogantly?
But he couldn’t say that, so he just grumbled inwardly.
Of course, he couldn’t just stay silent and let Mr. Gu feel awkward.
He glanced at the assistant who stood behind Gu Lan Zhu like a shadow.
Gu Lan Zhu followed his gaze, his eyes shifting to his assistant, slightly raising his chin: “Where did he come from? What’s his name and address in City A, you don’t know?”
Gu Lan Zhu had not previously known about the global selection of an omega wife. The news didn’t seem to have been publicly announced, and the selection was handled by his father.
Gu Lan Zhu had only just gotten off the plane yesterday and heard from his assistant on the way that his father wanted him to go to the Central Hotel. Only when the car arrived downstairs did Gu Lan Zhu learn from his assistant what his father had done.
He had intended to go through the motions and let the person go.
Who knew that this candidate would actually escape?!
As the heir to the Gu family, people had always fawned over him, never abandoned him. Gu Lan Zhu couldn’t accept being ignored, so he had to chase the person down to the ends of the earth and bring them back.
The beta assistant responded: “I didn’t know. Mr. Gu used the guise of an actor selection to hold this event. People were brought to the hotel via audition text messages, but he didn’t bring any personal information, materials or identification, so I don’t know his identity.”
Gu Lan Zhu raised an eyebrow: “Then how did you determine that no one was impersonating him?”
“Compatibility verification. Few people can have 100% compatibility with you.” After answering, the assistant continued, “But I checked Mr. Shu’s registration information.”
Tracing it back from the registration information was indeed a good method. Gu Lan Zhu nodded approvingly.
But the assistant looked apologetic: “The IP address used to upload the registration information is overseas. He shouldn’t have been able to travel back and forth from City A in such a short period of time, so we guess he didn’t register himself. We also checked the address on the registration information, and no one lives there. If we have to search the entire city for the Shu family, it would be fruitless.”
It was the same problem that bodyguard mentioned earlier, this involves resident information management.
“Now there are many proposals in the council to protect the privacy of omegas, and the city hall is strengthening personal information protection. If we make a big fuss about this investigation, it could be dangerous.”
In the past, they could easily get help from the city hall through connections and relationships, but now… unless Councilor Gu regained his influence in the council, it would only give their political opponents a handle.
Gu Lan Zhu frowned, feeling a sense of frustrated helplessness for the first time in his twenty years of smooth sailing and arrogant life.
He turned to look at the room, devoid of any lingering pheromones.
Last night felt like a dream.
He didn’t believe his bodyguards were incompetent, so he personally came to investigate, only to be enveloped by his destined 100% match the moment he entered the room.
Unable to remain rational, he wanted to sink and drown in the intoxicating feeling brought by the jasmine fragrance; only the destined match could bring such delightful indulgence.
At that moment, as if a voice whispered in his ear—
He had to find him.
Sunlight streamed in from the window, reflecting on the floor. Gu Lan Zhu took two steps closer and picked up a camellia necklace from the ground.
“Where did this come from?”
“Mr. Shu dropped it in the stairwell.” The bodyguard lowered his head. “It was just on the table.”
…But you smashed it off the table.
“It’s a limited edition from Shi Chen Jewelry, a long time ago.” Gu Lan Zhu leaned closer, noticing a faint pheromone scent on the necklace. “Checking their customer records shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
Since the city hall route was blocked, the path through their own headquarters shouldn’t be.
“Yes.” The bodyguard took his leave.
Gu Lan Zhu took a deep breath, as if trying to inhale the lingering scent on the necklace into his lungs.
He clenched the necklace, his gaze dark, muttering to himself: “You can’t escape.”
___
Shu Ci watched helplessly as red marks appeared on his wrist, his beautiful eyes filled with surprise.
Oh, look at this delicate omega with skin like congealed fat!
He was mocking his own persona and forgot to answer the man’s question, so the man asked again: “Where’s your necklace?”
He came to his senses, blinked, and looked at his sunglasses: “What… necklace?”
If Shen Ti were present, she would have been surprised by Shu Ci’s composure.
At this moment, the alpha’s imposing aura in the car had already spread to the omega’s neck. If he leaned forward slightly, he might be knocked to the ground by intense mental pain.
“The one you’ve been wearing, the one with camellias.” The man explained in a low voice.
Shu Ci tilted his head and recalled that he had casually thrown the necklace on the ground when he first arrived.
“That… I threw it in the stairwell.”
In the original book, the omega escaped after a night with the alpha, and he couldn’t remember how Gu Lan Zhu tracked Shu Ci down to his home, but the camellia necklace was an important prop.
For some reason, the alpha in front of him held his hand even tighter.
He froze, suspecting that this cheap husband already knew that he had almost been cuckolded by Gu Lan Zhu.
Since he didn’t plan to continue their marriage anyway, Shu Ci concisely told the other person about what had happened to him.
He paused, puzzled by the other’s silence.
Was the necklace more important than being cuckolded?
He quickly used his experience of reading countless scripts to rationalize his actions of throwing away the necklace—
“You know, I was drugged and brought to the Central Hotel. Who knows what they would do while I was unconscious? I was afraid they’d put a tracking device in the necklace to locate me, so I threw it away.”
The other person loosened his grip on his hand.
Shu Ci looked down at him: “That necklace, did you give it to me?”
The alpha retracted some of his imposing aura, silent for a moment: “You… don’t remember anything?”
His voice was magnetic and dangerous.
Shu Ci thought that his hot-tempered, straightforward personality didn’t match the original owner’s, so he simply admitted it, making it easier for him to act later. He nodded vigorously: “Not complete amnesia, you can understand it that way. I suspect it’s a problem with the drugs they gave me!”
Whatever, he would shift the blame to the legal-breaking male lead first.
“Not complete amnesia…” The man slowly repeated his words, and Shu Ci could feel his gaze through the sunglasses. “You can still remember me?”
“Of course I don’t remember.” Shu Ci told the truth. “Shen Ti told me you brought me back, otherwise I wouldn’t have known you were here.”
I also didn’t know you were my cheap husband.
He paused: “So the necklace was really given to me by you?”
The alpha seemed to be judging the credibility of his words.
After a long while, he opened his thin lips and slowly said, “Can you remember your illness?”
“Pheromone dysregulation? My pheromones’ scent and energy are constantly changing, right.”
The alpha nodded: “The necklace was left by your father, he said it could suppress the frequency of attacks.”
Shu Ci recalled a bit of the plot.
“So, wearing it will keep my pheromones stable and unchanging for a longer time?”
If he remembered correctly, his last pheromone was camellia, and it was this pheromone that had a 100% compatibility with Gu Lan Zhu.
In the original book, because he saw Gu Lan Zhu immediately upon waking up, he was stimulated and had an attack, instantly turning into jasmine. The new pheromone’s scent stimulated some nerve in Gu Lan Zhu, causing him to instantly fall.
But how Gu Lan Zhu reacted was unimportant for now.
What was important was that this cheap alpha husband wasn’t angry that he was almost sacrificed to Gu Lan Zhu, but instead cared about his illness. What was the reason for this?
He said, “If you want to find the necklace, bring someone with you, like Shen Ti.”
Shu Ci: “…”
Wouldn’t finding the necklace mean he had to see Gu Lan Zhu? Was he crazy? What was the point of doing something so suicidal?
“Forget it, it’s gone. My pheromones changing frequently isn’t a big deal, as long as I don’t die.” Shu Ci waved his hand.
In the original book, Gu Lan Zhu abused him even during his pregnancy, and he still survived to reach a happy ending. With a mere pheromone disorder, he believed the original owner’s incredible body with the protagonist’s halo could handle it.
The alpha hesitated.
But he seemed to swallow his words, releasing his hand, fastening his seatbelt, and saying distantly: “I have something to do, I’ll go first. You’d better not go home, stay at Shen Ti’s place for a few more days.”
“Hey.” Shu Ci leaned against the car door, reaching out to stop his arm resting on the steering wheel.
He looked down at the alpha in the car.
“You’re done asking, but I’m not.” He rested his hands on the car window frame, smiling obediently. “You know I have amnesia, so let me at least know my husband’s name and appearance.”
The alpha stiffened for a moment.
It was at this moment that Shu Ci reached out and removed his sunglasses, meeting his eyes.
He froze in place.
A stunning face with not a single extra line, deep-set and three-dimensional; a jaw-dropping appearance matched with exquisite bone structure.
His eyes were like a high-altitude lake with scattered stars.
The moment he took off his glasses, a ripple appeared in them before returning to calm, commanding respect without anger.
“Holy shit—”
Although he hadn’t seen the original male lead Gu, he wasn’t interested anymore. Because the person in front of him made him unable to look away.
If he remembered correctly, his cheap husband was a never-before-described passerby character.
But now, he saw with his own eyes how perfectly stunning this “passerby” was.
Even though he had seen countless actors in his previous life, Shu Ci had never seen such a divinely blessed face. Even artificial ones couldn’t achieve this naturally unadorned feeling.
Shu Ci, the former face-obsessed director, was furious, why the hell aren’t you the male lead?! This unbelievably handsome man is actually an honest man who was constantly cuckolded but still endured his divorce?!
The author is heartless!
“Give it back.” The stunning alpha looked at him, reaching out, saying coldly.
Shu Ci felt his soul being drawn in by those eyes.
He stepped back, putting the sunglasses behind his back. He said stiffly, “Do you always have this unfaithful expression when looking at people?”
Cheap husband: “?”
“Name, address, contact information.” Shu Ci shook the sunglasses in his hand. “Otherwise, I won’t give it back to you.”
“…”
The alpha took out his wallet from the center console and handed Shu Ci a small red booklet.
“Exchange.”
Shu Ci suspiciously took the small booklet, his eyelids jumping at the gold-stamped words “Marriage Certificate” on the cover. He twitched his mouth and placed the sunglasses on his outstretched palm.
The two people on the marriage certificate wore strained smiles, their eyes dark against the red background, as if they were two dolls deliberately placed together. Shu Ci moved his gaze from the lifeless photo to the words below.
So, the cheap husband did have a name.
“Lu Wanqing?” He blurted out.
The alpha put on his sunglasses, and heard him read the words aloud.
His hand gripping the steering wheel tightened for a moment.
Underneath his unseen sleeve, veins bulged.
Shu Ci was still savoring the handsome alpha’s name, when the car suddenly sped off.
…?
Author’s Note:
Ci’er: Can I call you something?
Old Lu: Call me when you should, don’t call me when you shouldn’t.