Xu Ze woke up on Wednesday morning feeling groggy. He checked the time and realized that his alarm clock had already gone off three times. He immediately got up, freshened up, and rode his bike to school.
The cafeteria was empty in the morning. In fact, the cafeteria at the Preparatory School was always deserted. Most of the students had housekeepers who delivered their meals or drivers who took them out to eat. Only a few students ate in the cafeteria.
Chi Jiahan sat in his usual spot and ate breakfast. Xu Ze walked over and sat across from him. Chi Jiahan raised his head and was stunned, “What happened to your mouth?”
The punch from the bodyguard last night had been too hard. Half of Xu Ze’s face was swollen, and the bruises on the corners of his lips were obvious.
“A fight,” Xu Ze replied.
“But yesterday was only Tuesday.” Chi Jiahan immediately frowned, “Did you add a match?”
“I didn’t.” Xu Ze felt that he shouldn’t have sat across from Chi Jiahan today. He drank too much last night and hadn’t been in good shape since he got up this morning. He hadn’t even noticed the injuries on his face until Chi Jiahan pointed them out.
“Then why did you fight?”
Xu Ze took a bite of bread and lowered his eyes, “Tang Feiyi made me drink for him.”
“I thought you said you were going to think it over?” Chi Jiahan’s frustration was evident on his face, “Xu Ze, you’re so stubborn.”
Chi Jiahan wanted to scold Xu Ze, but he understood better than anyone why he was doing this. Besides, Xu Ze wasn’t the kind of person who would change his mind just because he was scolded.
“Then what happened? Why did you fight?” Chi Jiahan suppressed his anger and continued asking.
“I wanted to leave so they told me to fight a bodyguard. If I won, I could go.”
“Did you win?”
“No,” Xu Ze shook his head, “It was a tie.”
“That’s impossible,” Chi Jiahan replied straight away, “Tang Feiyi would never allow a tie.”
“Halfway through, Gu Yunchi and others came.”
An unexpected name appeared. Chi Jiahan thought for a few seconds and said, “Tang Feiyi offended the Gu family, it’s possible that Gu Yunchi interrupted in the middle… But I don’t think Gu Yunchi is the kind of person who would cause trouble for no reason. He’s not that bored.”
Then he asked casually, “Besides Gu Yunchi, who else was there? He Wei?”
“Mn.”
“Was Lu Heyang there too? The three of them are so close, they should all be there.”
Xu Ze paused before saying, “He wasn’t there.”
“Lu Heyang wasn’t there?” Chi Jiahan took a sip of milk and looked at Xu Ze, only to see that his expression was unusually unnatural—it was very strange. So Chi Jiahan asked, “Were you recognized?”
“No, I was wearing a cap.”
Chi Jiahan still felt something was off.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Chi Jiahan casually glanced at Class 11 and noticed that Xu Ze’s eyes were focused on something. Following his gaze, he saw students from Classes 1 and 2 walking over. There were a lot of people and Chi Jiahan couldn’t tell who Xu Ze was looking at.
But he knew that when it came to Xu Ze, it didn’t matter who he was looking at. What mattered was the act of looking, which already carried some unusual meaning. Xu Ze never paid attention to anyone at the Preparatory School. Even if someone walked up to him and stepped on his foot, Xu Ze might not even look up, he would simply walk quietly around them.
Soon, Chi Jiahan saw Xu Ze’s gaze stop directly in front of him and then follow the person as they sat down.
The class in front of Xu Ze was Class 2. When Chi Jiahan looked over, he saw He Wei.
And next to He Wei, the alpha who didn’t belong to Class 2.
Lu Heyang from Class 1.
At first, Chi Jiahan couldn’t be sure of anything, until an alpha from behind Lu Heyang patted his shoulder, and started talking to him with a smile, probably asking him why he was sitting with Class 2. Lu Heyang turned around, and Chi Jiahan saw that in that instant Xu Ze hastily lowered his head and withdrew his gaze.
It resembled nervousness and panic, yet Chi Jiahan remembered that Xu Ze had never shown such an expression, even when he faced an opponent twice his size in the underground club.
Chi Jiahan felt a sinking feeling in his heart.
Chi Jiahan didn’t listen to a single word of the half-hour assembly. After they were dismissed, he caught up with Xu Ze and pushed him toward the path by the flowerbeds, “Go this way.”
As they gradually moved away from the crowd, Xu Ze asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I should be asking you that,” Chi Jiahan said, “What’s going on between you and Lu Heyang?”
Xu Ze was clearly taken aback, and he asked, “What do you mean?”
For Xu Ze to beat around the bush like this, there had to be something going on.
“You’ve been staring at him the whole time. It’s so obvious, don’t you know?”
Xu Ze didn’t respond and his face remained expressionless. But Chi Jiahan thought it was clear that Xu Ze was deep in thought, trying to figure out what exactly had been so obvious.
So Chi Jiahan decided to make the most outlandish and unlikely guess.
He asked, “You kept looking at him, do you like Lu Heyang?”
Xu Ze stopped and stared at the newly sprouted buds in the flowerbed as if lost in thought. Chi Jiahan didn’t think there was anything difficult to answer in this question. The answer was bound to be negative. He didn’t know what Xu Ze was mulling over.
“Like,” Xu Ze said.
Like what? This bud?
Chi Jiahan also stared at the bud for a couple of seconds, and then his expression suddenly changed.
“You really like Lu Heyang?” he confirmed in disbelief.
“Mn.” Xu Ze nodded without hesitation.
Chi Jiahan was left speechless.
Xu Ze actually had feelings for someone.
Xu Ze had someone he liked.
The person Xu Ze liked was an alpha.
Xu Ze liked Lu Heyang.
Each of these things shocked Chi Jiahan, and the shock became more and more intense.
He always felt that Xu Ze was like a robot, disconnected from everyone in the Preparatory School, with his own programming, logic, and behavior. He was silent, unconcerned, indifferent, and uninterested in everything. There was no sign of any human touch or emotional ups and downs in him.
But it turned out that this robot fell in love with a human being of the same sex, a privileged and very popular alpha.
It was simply absurd and tacky.
“Why?” Chi Jiahan had an intuition that Xu Ze’s secret crush had been going on for a long time. He had a hard time digesting this matter, “How can you like an alpha? How can you like Lu Heyang? Because you think he is perfect?”
Xu Ze seemed puzzled by the adjective “perfect”. He paused and said, “I don’t think he’s perfect.”
Everyone had flaws, it was just a matter of how many or how few. No one was perfect, and Xu Ze wasn’t blind to that extent.
But if he were to vote for the alpha who was closest to perfection, it would be Lu Heyang, at least in his opinion.
“I don’t understand.” Chi Jiahan rubbed his eyes, finding it hard to recover.
Xu Ze reached out to remove a small leaf that had drifted onto the omega’s hair and said, “It’s time for class.”
“…Let’s go back to class,” Chi Jiahan sighed. There were many things he wanted to say, but he didn’t know what was the most appropriate thing to say.
He felt that Xu Ze always faced difficult challenges, whether it was working hard to earn money or liking someone who was unattainable.
—
On Friday morning, Lu Heyang went downstairs after washing. He crossed the living room and went to the dining room. He noticed people sitting quietly at the table, eating breakfast. It was so quiet that it was almost oppressive.
Lu Qingmo glanced at Lu Heyang. After making eye contact with her, Lu Heyang turned to look at the alpha seated at the head of the long table and called out, “Dad.”
Lu Chengyu turned over the Union’s internal daily newspaper, checked his watch, and said, “Sit down and have breakfast.”
“Mn.”
The brief conversation ended, and the dining table fell back into dead silence. Lu Qingmo and Lu Heyang’s expressions were as usual. They had long been accustomed to this kind of family atmosphere—estranged, indifferent, and silent.
Three minutes later, Lu Chengyu set down the newspaper and finished his breakfast. The housekeeper immediately came over to help him with his tie and coat. Lu Chengyu buttoned up, his figure was tall and straight, and his hair was meticulously groomed. His face was still young, with expensive gold-rimmed glasses perched on his prominent nose, hardly diminishing the imposing aura typical of an S-level alpha.
Without chatting or saying goodbye, Lu Chengyu left the dining room after arranging his clothes. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, Lu Heyang watched as the driver opened and closed the car door for Lu Chengyu, and the car pulled out of the yard.
“Dad went to a meeting.” Lu Qingmo sipped milk, “We came back together early in the morning.”
“How long will he be at home this time?” Lu Heyang asked.
“He leaves tomorrow. I leave the day after.”
Lu Heyang hummed and continued to eat breakfast.
After breakfast, Lu Qingmo took Lu Heyang to school. She was going to attend a diplomatic event. They didn’t talk much on the way. It wasn’t until they approached the Preparatory School that Lu Qingmo said, “Dad knows you’ve been going to the Westside a lot lately.”
“Mn.” Lu Heyang wasn’t surprised. The bodyguards had probably reported his whereabouts to Lu Chengyu from the first visit.
“It’s too unsafe there, you should go less.” Lu Qingmo said, “If Dad brings this up to you, it won’t be so simple.”
Lu Heyang said nothing, and Lu Qingmo turned to look at him.
“Don’t worry.” Lu Heyang also looked at her and smiled, “You know I’m very obedient.”
“I don’t know.” Lu Qingmo frowned slightly, “Sometimes, I don’t understand what’s going on in your head.”
She slowly parked the car in front of the Preparatory School and said, “I don’t want you to be like me, but I also don’t want you to cross the line.”
“I won’t.” Lu Heyang got out of the car and took his backpack from the back seat. He walked to the driver’s side window and said, “Be careful on the road. Go home and have a good rest after the event.”
Lu Qingmo gripped the steering wheel and lowered her eyelashes. She rarely showed signs of exhaustion in front of Lu Heyang. The rest of the time, she was always mature and capable, recognized as the youngest and most outstanding diplomat in the Union.
“No time to rest,” Lu Qingmo smiled, “I’m going to have lunch with the Wei family at noon.”
In the entire capital, the Wei family was the only family that could rival the Gu family in wealth and influence. Wei Lingzhou, the eldest son of the Wei family, had been married to Lu Qingmo for a year and a half. Lu Heyang had only met his brother-in-law a few times, but his name could be heard in almost all the gossip in the capital’s upper-class circles.
Of course, in a marriage of political and business interests, there was an unspoken agreement not to interfere in each other’s personal lives. The wedding a year and a half ago had been magnificent and grand, attended by all the influential and distinguished people of the Union. Lu Qingmo sat in her wedding dress in front of the mirror, and Lu Heyang stood beside her. When he looked at her reflection, he saw the face of someone who had no expectations of love or marriage, an extremely beautiful face yet numb and lifeless.
For the first time, fifteen-year-old Lu Heyang felt that his sister’s beauty was somewhat tragic.
When the rings were exchanged, Lu Heyang, sitting in the front row, saw Lu Qingmo’s eyes turn red like a bride moved to tears. But he knew that the truth was different. He knew what regrets were weighing on Lu Qingmo’s heart and who they were for.
Once someone’s weakness was exposed, they would be forced to accept one unwanted thing after another with no way to turn back. It was a dead end.
Lu Heyang took a step back, waved his hand, and said, “Bye, drive slowly.”
When Lu Qingmo turned the car around, Lu Heyang walked toward the Preparatory School. As he turned around, he happened to see Xu Ze standing on the sidewalk coming from the bicycle shelter. Xu Ze looked as though he had been walking and had unconsciously been drawn to something and stopped in his tracks—he probably didn’t realize how out of place he looked standing still among the walking students.
When Xu Ze met Lu Heyang’s eyes from a distance, he seemed to be jolted by something. He avoided eye contact and continued to walk forward.
Thank you for the chapter~
“I won’t”
Oh but you probably will.<3
First way to piss off the traditional & cliché dad: say “nope” to arranged marriages.
Second way : say “yes” to a cutie ALPHA.
And there’ll be a third way, I can feel it coming.
EXCITING.
tysm for the chapter, so good!! have an awesome rest of ur day~ 🫂💫
I’m really obsessed with their story! Thank you so much for the chapter 🤍