HOYSE CHAPTER 74

Chapter 74 — Can You Dodge This?

Rong Jing felt the curve of his ear being… lightly licked.

Maybe Gu Xi’s lips were simply too close, because he flinched sideways without thinking.

The life-or-death urgency of a moment ago unraveled. His heart turned into a tangle of threads, all snarled together.

He knew very well that after that accident, the two of them could no longer be “just friends.”

Their bodies had crossed a line while their hearts lagged behind, so all they could do was search for a delicate balance inside whatever this was.

Gu Xi kept his eyes on the man not far away, a man bristling with hostility. Their gazes clashed and held, cold and quiet.

Wu FUyu saw the possessiveness in the Omega’s eyes rising like a tide. These two put on a show of unfamiliarity in public, yet in private were entwined beyond reason.

No Omega had ever slapped his pride down like this. Wu FUyu stared long at Rong Jing, let out a short, cold snort, and turned away.

If he did not leave now, he would rip them apart with his bare hands. And if he tried, Rong Jing would absolutely beat him down.

Rong Jing heard the retreat and began to turn his head, but Gu Xi’s fingers pressed gently to the nape of his neck. Gu Xi’s eyes were glossy-soft, and in an instant they pulled all of Rong Jing’s focus. “Just now, I thought you would…” he murmured, even as his cold gaze tracked Wu FUyu’s retreat.

“I am fine. Good thing you caught it in time.”

“Is this the ‘hallucination’ you mentioned before?”

With one strange incident after another circling Rong Jing, Gu Xi had already sensed that something unknown was lurking around him. The unknown is what terrifies most.

Wu Fuyu’s mood was raw and jagged. While recuperating in the hospital and scrolling his phone, he had seen the trending topic. That Alpha netizens were screaming “Face me head-on” at was clearly Rong Jing, caught half in frame.

More than the audience’s anticipation for the show, Wu Fuyu took a big-picture view. The search metrics alone said that once the program aired it would explode, and the downstream benefits would be huge.

When he had dug into Rong Jing before, he found Rong Jing already held controlling shares in a number of companies. Not to be outdone, Wu Fuyu had wrung a handful of small firms out of his father. He had also had his eye on the rights to this variety show.

He was just a step late, and someone else bought it first.

The sense of a great plan ruined at the finish line burned in his chest.

He remembered what his father had said: that Rong Jing had sharp foresight and a precise feel for the market. Compared to him, Wu Fuyu fell short. Hearing that from the man he most admired, and that the praise was for Rong Jing, made the flames surge higher.

When Gu Xi jumped into the water, Wu Fuyu felt the impulse to follow for a split second.

But mostly he agreed with the director and the others. Rong Jing was a famously self-controlled Alpha. He would never make that kind of mistake.

And yet this time, Gu Xi’s choice had been right.

Among their peers, Rong Jing stood like a mountain that could not be crossed. In love and in work, Wu Fuyu felt he was not enough. The taste of defeat was sharper than ever.

When the two men stepped out from the corner, Rong Jing looked thoroughly ill at ease, while Gu Xi looked like a fox spirit who had drunk his fill, sleek and satisfied.

Disguised again, Gu Xi escorted Rong Jing to the staff parking lot.

Rong Jing climbed in, his gaze snagging for a breath on the pale stretch of Gu Xi’s calf. He hesitated for a long moment and said nothing.

Gu Xi pretended not to notice his eyes, tapped his phone, and nodded toward it: WeChat me.

He watched Rong Jing drive off, then hummed a tune as he headed for the basement elevator.

He did not see the man in the shadows some distance away, roses in his hands, eyes poisonous and dark as he stared. It was like venom had been steeped into his gaze.

He had dreamed of coming back and courting his Venus again.

But the treasure in his heart had already fled into another Alpha’s arms. His jewel was stained now, unclean.

[You are mine. How dare you?]

[Darling, you will regret it.]

Gu Xi’s contented expression froze. He flung the elevator doors back open and rushed out.

That voice dragged up old ugliness. Someone was definitely in this parking structure.

He ran a full circle and found no one, until, shoved into a corner, he spotted a bunch of vivid red roses flung to the ground. The bouquet had been smashed hard; most buds were beaten off, the branches bare, as if ground under a polished shoe.

On the gray-black concrete, it looked like a crushed body.

Gu Xi scanned the dim basement, face gone solemn. There was nothing aside from the low lights and the smell of dust.

Roses…

They made him think of a certain person.

Uneasy, he did not return to set.

He did not have any scenes today anyway, and after he had pulled Rong Jing out, everyone had urged him to go back and rest, to calm his nerves.

He agreed that he needed it, especially after seeing that crushed bouquet.

He kept his head, though. Passing the street food stall outside the film city gates, he remembered that ordinary evening he could not forget and walked over.

“Can I get a skewer of candied hawthorn?”

The vendor did a double take at the fully covered-up Gu Xi, then lit up but did not push for a signature.

When Gu Xi lifted his phone to scan, the vendor covered the code.

“It is on the house. For you… and your friend. Good luck!”

Gu Xi looked at the stick of rock candy shoved into his hand, then at the boy’s sun-bright grin, and could not help smiling too. “Thanks.”

He took advantage of the boy’s hand moving away, scanned fast, and paid.

Before the boy could protest, Gu Xi glanced back with a half-smile. “Small business is hard. May your sales boom, and I hope you get into your dream university.”

The boy wiped at the corner of his eye only after Gu Xi had gone a long way.

It was good, he thought, to have an idol like this.

Gu Xi nibbled the candied fruit and stared at the chat thread with Rong Jing.

There was nothing in it at the moment. He just had a habit of opening it.

A business van that had been idling by the curb finally opened its door, and a man in a suit stepped out. His attire was immaculate. He approached politely. “Mr. Gu, is it? May we speak somewhere a bit more private?”

Gu Xi took in the posture and tone, then nodded coolly.

“First, congratulations,” the man said. “Your younger brother Gu Yue has exceptional talent in biocapsule carriers and pheromone research. He has already been pre-admitted to our S-class laboratory in Country M. Before signing, he made one request, that the lab take care of his older brother. Chairman Wu always treats exceptional talent well. When he heard this, he asked us to contact you. 

You can choose to accompany him to Country M, and the lab will secure a stipend for Gu Yue. Or you can stay here in Huaguo. In five days your contract with Shengteng Entertainment expires. At that time, Chairman Wu is prepared to fund you to open your own studio. What do you think?”

Gu Xi knew his brother’s research was remarkable. A few days ago they had talked about the upcoming signing.

He had even looked up the lab online. It was rated S-class, which meant, worldwide, it was licensed to pursue up to ninety percent of research topics with cutting-edge tech.

All the web would say was that it had been established with Huaguo investment. In heavily exclusionary Country M, squeezed by policy and politics, it was the only S-class lab with a Huaguo background that had managed to survive.

The brothers had decided that, rather than work for Country M, they preferred a lab rooted in Huaguo. That had never changed in their blood, so both had leaned toward signing.

What Gu Xi had not expected was that after all that circling, the line would still lead back to the Wu family.

“Chairman Wu… you mean Wu Hanqi?”

At that moment, Rong Jing was at the hospital, waiting on a full workup.

The near-drowning had been smoothed over as he had hoped. With Liu Yu and the others coordinating, there was no public ripple for now.

He zoned out a bit, then, out of habit, opened the backend of the Mulini app again.

This time something was different. The blue dot that marked Gu Xi was flickering with a yellow edge. The wearer-initiated call function was active.

The necklace looked ordinary by design. Its creator clearly wanted it to blend in.

Beyond Bluetooth and location, if the wearer allowed, it could make brief calls. You could treat it like a short-range tap.

Most Omegas considered that feature insulting. Almost none would use it.

Everything about it screamed Alpha possessiveness. Rong Jing tapped to accept.

On the other end, the phone paired with Bluetooth, and Gu Xi’s cool voice came through the speaker.

“Chairman Wu, hello. This is Gu Xi.”

“I know. We spoke not long ago. How have you been?”

“Good. I never properly thanked you for your help before.”

“A trifle. And Chu Yang got out anyway. I am sorry about that.”

Wu Hanqi glanced at the signal alert on his own screen that indicated a listening device was close by. He smiled silently and kept talking.

“It was not your fault. You have already done more than enough. About my brother…”

“So you met my assistant. I did not expect it either, that Gu Yue would be your brother. A top student from M University. Several companies want him. He prefers us, but he had a condition, that we look after you. Which option will you choose?”

The moment Rong Jing heard Wu Hanqi’s voice, his laziness vanished. He straightened and stepped into a corner.

Gu Xi said, “Can I pick neither? Chairman Wu knows I can support myself.”

Wu Hanqi chuckled. “It is a choice question, not true or false. But your brother will not be pleased. You do not want him to have peace of mind in his research?”

Gu Xi’s voice went light. “I think as long as I am doing well, he will be at ease.”

He hung up, calmly returned the phone to the assistant, hailed a cab, and waited until the assistant’s car was well behind him before calling Rong Jing back.

“Rong Jing…” There was a shade in his voice only he would catch, a small reliance.

“Do not be afraid.”

Just those few words took some of the strain out of him.

“You do not want your brother going to that lab, do you?” Rong Jing asked.

“No.” The growth would be real, yes, but it would also mean laying an obvious hostage under Wu Hanqi’s eyelids. How could he agree?

Wu Hanqi had never done anything overt to harm him, but Gu Xi could not make himself trust the man. He trusted his instincts.

“Call your brother now and refuse the offer. Then pick a lab of similar size, preferably one the Wu family cannot touch.”

“If he refuses, would they retaliate against my brother?”

“Unlikely. If Chairman Wu contacted him personally, your brother is a top talent. If anything happened to him, a lot of people would be on it.”

---

Shanghai.

Wu Hanqi ended his call and closed his eyes.

On the board in his mind, the golden human-shaped token that had dimmed when Gu Xi refused his offer flashed once more, its light fading a shade.

From the start he had suspected that the brightest piece on the board was Gu Xi. He had guessed right.

Gu Xi was simply too conspicuous. Many Alphas would be drawn to him despite themselves, would become obsessed and predatory.

And things around Gu Xi always unfolded with story-like rhythm, wrapped in pheromones that intoxicated everyone. With that kind of specialness, how could you not notice?

Next came identifying the key bug. Who would it be?

It had to be someone around Gu Xi. Maybe out in the open, maybe in the dark. Names ghosted through his thoughts.

There was no rush. Games are better when laced with the unknown.

In his mind, the other options above the word “bug” were all grayed out. The resource labeled “Illusion” was fully depleted, gray as well.

To unlock something new, he had to trade away one of his senses.

Reasonable. To gain, you must give.

There are five: taste, hearing, sight, smell, touch.

Touch is paramount, followed by hearing and sight. Lose those and you hand your weakness to someone else. He would not use them unless he had no choice.

Which left only two he could afford to sacrifice.

Two should be enough.

Wu Hanqi felt vividly alive. Heaven’s threat meant nothing. It could not bend his will.

He was playing because he wanted to.

For a long time now, the world had been dull to him.

His emotions did not rise or fall. Not until he found the peculiar taste of Gu Xi’s pheromones, and then another child he admired, did he begin to feel interest again. Even then he held back from rash moves.

He could not understand the pull between A and O, could not feel the allure of pheromones.

He only wore a human mask among humans, flawlessly.

It had been so long since his nerves had felt anything.

If he was going to play, he would play big. Otherwise, what was the point?

He selected taste. His mouth went blank in an instant.

In exchange, he unlocked a second finishing move: Confinement.

This time, can you dodge this?

---

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