Chapter 41
Shu Ci seemed not to hear his voice, standing utterly lost in his own world.
The moment he felt that tangible, humid warmth, Lu Wanqing instinctively froze. He retreated to a corner of the exhibition hall and held his breath.
What is he doing?
He had thought that taking the marriage certificate from Shu Ci would prevent this kind of awkward situation, but he never expected… Lu Wanqing suppressed the panic rising in his chest, allowing that faint breath to ghost across his neck as he clenched his fists at his sides.
Soon, the warmth of a fingertip traveled up from his neck.
It moved upward, touching the philtrum of his lips and sliding gently along their line.
Lu Wanqing’s breathing grew ragged. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped out from the corner. He walked quickly toward Shu Ci, who stood at the far end of the long hall. His footsteps were silent, his gaze locked on that slender back.
A tempestuous storm raged in his eyes.
The frames of the generals’ portraits were enormous. Shu Ci, wanting to see if they were photographs or hyper-realistic oil paintings, stood on his toes and craned his neck to get a closer look. He lost his footing for a moment and stumbled right into the Lu Wanqing in the portrait.
His eyelashes trembled.
His gaze fell on the man’s pale, tightly pressed lips, and for a moment, he didn’t move to get up.
A monster seemed to be roaring in his mind, a constant, buzzing noise. The vexation that had tormented him for hours on the film set suddenly had an answer.
—It was all his possessiveness acting up.
Shu Ci, oh Shu Ci, how dare you?
He had already been suffocated by the plot for a lifetime. It would be far too selfish to forcibly keep Lu Wanqing by his side, only to be able to look but never touch.
He pushed himself up using the frame, his expression gentle as he met the portrait’s gaze.
Thankfully, it was only an image and not the man himself; it spared him the pain of their contact. He greedily reached out, brushing his fingers across the painted lips before turning to look at the other portraits.
He saw the generals of the Far-flung Seventh District who had served before Lu Wanqing, including a General Yu who looked like he’d been cast from the same mold as Yu Xingxing. His gaze then landed on a general whose term had been even earlier. He strode in her direction.
He stopped, and just as he was about to reach out, a sharp stream of pheromones shot out from behind him. It bound his raised arm with the speed of lightning, the immense pressure forcing his hands to clench at his sides.
Shu Ci’s pupils contracted. He thought he was under attack.
He immediately released his own pheromones to parry. His winding pheromones condensed into sharp spikes, launching a counterattack against the rope-like pheromones binding him instead of retreating.
At the same time, he looked over his shoulder and saw the mountain-like figure of Lu Wanqing in the corner.
“Why is it you?” Shu Ci’s voice held a hint of playful complaint.
He didn’t immediately retract his pheromones. Instead, he habitually entangled them with Lu Wanqing’s, launching a series of harmless attacks.
Lu Wanqing frowned and walked toward him. With a mere thought, he forced Shu Ci’s pheromones back toward his glands.
“This is a public place. Control yourself,” he said, his displeasure evident.
The instant he saw Shu Ci reach for another general’s portrait, his pheromones had reacted faster than his own brain, snaking out to wrap around Shu Ci’s hand and stop him.
It was the first time he had ever acted so recklessly, so madly.
The question that had briefly flashed through his mind earlier now resurfaced, impossible to suppress.
—Does his touch only affect me this way? If he touched someone else, would they have the same reaction?
In a place Shu Ci couldn’t see, a shadow spread rapidly in his heart. Lu Wanqing didn’t want to find the answer to that question. He didn’t want to risk letting Shu Ci touch someone else in front of him. He wanted… he wanted to bind those restless hands of his, bind them tightly.
“Oh.” Shu Ci, completely bewildered, retracted his pheromones and shot him a puzzled look.
It’s not like he came to check on my training progress. Why did he suddenly attack me?
Lu Wanqing met his confused gaze and slowly looked away. “The person in charge said you hadn’t returned yet, so I came to find you.”
The dormitory buildings on the base were all mixed, for Alphas and Betas. Only the detached family houses were provided as lodging for the few Omega family members who could visit.
The units were two-bedroom, one-living-room, and fully equipped. For safety, to prevent family members from being affected by the hot-blooded Alphas on base, the houses had their own curfews and security locks. If necessary, a door could even be deadlocked with a partner.
However, Lu Wanqing had been too busy the last two days and had never gone to see him.
Shu Ci turned his face away. “Filming didn’t go well today. I’m just clearing my head.”
Lu Wanqing nodded. “Don’t overwork yourself. I’ll walk you back.”
A small smile touched Shu Ci’s lips. The main culprit for his bad day was standing right in front of him, which made it rather difficult to complain.
He turned away, his eyes falling on the nearby photograph, only then remembering that Lu Wanqing’s sneak attack had interrupted him.
“You’re just in time,” he said, pointing at the portrait. “Is it just me, or does this general look incredibly familiar?”
She was an early general of the Far-flung Seventh District, her term predating even Yu Xingxing’s father. She was a formidable female Alpha. Her smoky gray, wavy hair was tied back, with two curled bangs draping down along her ears.
He had his own way of remembering faces. Although his memory wasn’t what it used to be, the fact that she looked familiar meant he must have seen her somewhere before.
A trace of surprise flickered in Lu Wanqing’s eyes. He nodded. “You have. At my home.”
“Ah!” Shu Ci exclaimed, tapping his forehead.
“Your teacher.”
He took two steps back, studying the female general’s photo. In the picture of Lu Wanqing and his teacher under the peach tree, her hat had been pulled down low, hiding her face, and her hair color was different, but the beautifully sculpted line of her jaw was a perfect match.
“Lu Wei?” Shu Ci glanced at the biography beside the portrait. “She has the same surname as you?”
Lu Wanqing shook his head. “I took her surname.”
Shu Ci opened his mouth, about to ask more, but the exhibition hall’s closing announcement cut him off. Lu Wanqing started toward the exit, and Shu Ci hurried to follow, stepping out into the night with him as the closing music played.
The night air was cool. The moment Shu Ci stepped outside, the wind made him sneeze.
A warm jacket was draped over his head the next second.
The jacket was scentless, as clear and pure as Lu Wanqing’s own pheromones. The corners of Shu Ci’s eyes crinkled. He wrapped himself tightly in it and took a few steps closer to him. “Did your teacher send you to the Far-flung Region?”
Lu Wanqing shook his head. “She appeared in our town very suddenly, and she left without saying goodbye. She never even told me her name. I only found out who she was after seeing it on the news.”
Though her appearance, hair, and clothes had changed, her aura was unmistakably hers.
“At the time, the Far-flung Seventh District had the most severe border disputes. It was constantly unstable due to conflicts over glaciers and mineral resources. By the time I recognized her, she had been killed in action during a battle. I also learned from the news that she had no parents and no children, and that before she died, she had saved several children who were being held hostage by a neighboring country.”
Shu Ci stopped in his tracks. “So that’s why you changed your surname and went to the Far-flung Region?”
“Yes.” Lu Wanqing’s voice was low. He hadn’t thought about these things for a long time, but Shu Ci had brought him back to the past. “I had seen what she was capable of. There was no reason for her to lose that battle so tragically. It wasn’t until I went there many years later that I learned what kind of predicament she had been facing.”
“Because of… a mole?” Shu Ci recalled the story Yu Xingxing had told him.
Lu Wanqing stepped onto the stairs and glanced back at him.
At times, this Omega who didn’t belong to this world was so perceptive it left one speechless.
“She was killed by her own people.” Lu Wanqing waited for Shu Ci to join him on the step before continuing, “The resources in the Far-flung Region are too abundant. The number of operatives planted there by the great families is countless. The locals don’t understand any better; as long as those families establish a few connections, they can easily obtain mining rights.”
Shu Ci snorted softly. “General Lu Wei must have gotten in someone’s way.”
“She did. She couldn’t stand watching those aristocratic families abuse their power and lord it over the Far-flung Region. The marshal at the time nearly thought she was going to lead the Seventh District to independence. They were afraid she would become a threat, so they sent people to eliminate her under the cover of chaos.”
Lu Wanqing paused, then added, “General Yu’s fate was a near-perfect echo of hers.”
Shu Ci looked at him from the side. “You mean the mole incident you went through back then?”
Lu Wanqing nodded slowly, waiting until Shu Ci was inside the house before he spoke again. “The Far-flung Region is a bargaining chip in their game of power. As they climb the ladder, competing for the highest position, they need the region to be a source of their strength. If chaos is profitable, their insiders stir up trouble. If peace can win them more votes, their insiders lie low and behave.”
These were words that could only be spoken behind closed doors.
When the public called them the “Golden Shield,” Lu Wanqing only felt shame. They were praised only when their superiors ruled with benevolence. When their hands were tied, they could even become the executioners for those powerful families.
Just like in the world he had once experienced, after Councilor Gu came to power.
“That person—in the lifetime where the real Mr. Shu was with Gu Lanzhu, General Yu sided with Councilor Gu. In the end, all the resources of the eight districts in the Far-flung Region fell into the Gu family’s hands.”
Shu Ci, who was in the middle of hanging up Lu Wanqing’s jacket, turned his head at these words.
“So I—uh, no—so that Shu Ci was tormented by Yu Xingxing until he was barely recognizable? Because the councilor didn’t need to eliminate General Yu, the mole incident never happened, and Yu Xingxing wasn’t influenced by you, so he grew up to be an arrogant, overbearing psycho?”
“…You could put it that way.”
“How bizarre.” Shu Ci finished hanging the jacket and sank into the sofa in a daze. “From Gu Lanzhu’s perspective, all his actions seem to have followed the predetermined plot without any change, but in reality, the entire world is completely different now, isn’t it?”
Lu Wanqing gave him a deep look. The image of his teacher’s listless eyes from when she used to teach him seemed to surface before him.
In truth, in that other lifetime, he had never gone to the Far-flung Region either.
Now, he had no idea if the butterfly that fanned the winds of this immense change was Shu Ci, or if it was himself.
“It took several generations of replacing the old guard for the twelve districts to become what they are today.”
Lu Wanqing felt he had said far too much tonight. But looking into Shu Ci’s eyes, he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to pour out all the words he had kept hidden in his heart during his years of struggling alone.
“But this step… we’ve been taking it for far too long.”
His voice was distant and deep. Long after Shu Ci lay down, Lu Wanqing’s sorrowful tone still echoed in his mind.
In the middle of the night, he tossed and turned, unable to sleep. He threw off the covers, got out of bed, and felt his way to the kitchen for a glass of water. On his way back with the cup, he was startled to see Lu Wanqing doing sit-ups in the pitch-black living room.
In the darkness, the crimson-blue glow of his eyes was the only light.
Shu Ci faltered for a moment, then walked closer, only to see that Lu Wanqing’s shirt was draped over the sofa.
The solid planes of his musculature were veiled by the night. Moonlight slowly peeked out from behind the clouds, casting a glow on his shoulders that made Shu Ci’s eyes burn.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” Shu Ci raised a hand to cover his eyes, peeking through the gaps between his fingers.
“Can’t sleep,” Lu Wanqing’s voice was slightly hoarse. He paused, holding the sit-up with his abs tight.
He had said too much today. Whenever he closed his eyes, all he saw were scenes from his time in the Far-flung Region. In his dream of a snowy day hunting for the mole, a voice he had only faintly heard before became increasingly clear, carrying Shu Ci’s unique intonation.
In the dream, he had followed the sound and rushed in, but it wasn’t the dangerous scene from his past.
Instead… Shu Ci was tied between icy rocks, his eyes hazy, looking utterly helpless and easy to bully.
Lu Wanqing had woken with a jolt, and for a long time afterward, he couldn’t shake the staggering image from his dream.
“Have you ever been to the Far-flung Region?” he asked, hugging his knees and looking up at Shu Ci. “Why do I feel like I heard your voice when I was there?”
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