The head chef at the Drunken Immortal Tower was said to be of Guxia descent, and many of the restaurant's delicacies were recreations of imperial court dishes from Guxia's historical dynasties.
The cooking process was elaborate. Although the food was delicious, it did not suit the fast pace of modern life and could not be promoted on a large scale. Most of the time, only families that controlled the vast majority of the Federation's wealth chose to dine there.
Seeing that the young man had eaten a little more than usual, Pei Ying guessed why.
His gaze swept over Xin Hexue before turning to Pei Guangji. "Brother, have you been busy with work lately?" he asked casually.
Apart from greeting each other when they met, that was probably the extent of the brothers' conversations. Pei Ying would casually ask Pei Guangji whether he was busy with work.
"Mm," Pei Guangji replied coolly.
Pei Ying knew that his older brother, as the Pei Corporation's heir, was bound to be constantly busy, unlike a defective product like him, who had been rejected from birth.
His eyes were clouded with resentment.
Pei Guangji pushed a dish Xin Hexue clearly preferred closer to him, then asked, "What is it?"
Pei Ying answered indifferently, "Oh, there's a parent-teacher meeting at school for senior year. The old man definitely won't have time."
Pei Guangji asked, "Is it mandatory for a parent to attend?"
Pei Ying pursed his lips. "No."
"Mm," Pei Guangji said.
That meant he would not attend.
Pei Ying had only asked as a formality. He did not care about the meeting either; he just thought it would be a hassle when the teacher asked.
"I'm full," Xin Hexue said softly.
He had eaten far too little.
Pei Ying looked at him, his brows knitting together.
Pei Guangji thought the same. He pushed the dishes toward Xin Hexue. "Eat a little more."
He thought Xin Hexue was too thin. When he held him, the bones of his back pressed against his hands, which was very bad for his health.
Even though that was what he thought, the words that came out were cold. "It'll go to waste if you don't finish it."
"..."
Even Pei Ying looked over at his brother's lack of tact.
Xin Hexue lowered his head and picked up his chopsticks to take some food.
That evening, while Pei Guangji was looking through documents in his study, someone knocked on the door.
"Come in," he said calmly.
The door creaked softly.
Pei Guangji looked up.
The young man came in through the door, dressed in comfortable loungewear. His gentle, soft demeanor made Pei Guangji instinctively want to embrace him.
Xin Hexue placed a contract on the desk in front of him and said softly, "There are two copies. I've signed both of them. I forgot to give them to you before."
Pei Guangji glanced at the contents and went rigid.
The contract, bearing both their names and fingerprints, had a term of one year and set out the nature of his relationship with Xin Hexue.
Pei Guangji parted his lips to speak, but the next second, Jiang Jing called.
He answered the call, leaving Xin Hexue to one side.
"What is it?" Pei Guangji asked.
Jiang Jing said, "Eldest young master, the new person in charge of the West City Pharmaceutical Factory in the Sixth District has uncovered some crucial information about the fire there. But he says the lead he has is important, and he wants to report to you in person as a condition."
Worried that Pei Guangji would not take it seriously, Jiang Jing added, "He said it has to do with the alien species."
Pei Guangji had not moved away from Xin Hexue to take the call, and Xin Hexue could faintly hear what was being said.
Alien species.
Xin Hexue repeated the words in his mind.
In the script, he ended up as cannon fodder on the front lines when war broke out between the alien species and humanity.
The story briefly mentioned Spark, the resistance organization that led the alien species.
The name of the resistance organization was also connected to Qiu Yuan, one of Pei Guangji's childhood friends.
At present, the core district was headed by two families: the Pei Corporation, which owned the Shennong Pharmaceutical Company, and the Xi Group, which owned the Nüwa Bionic Manufacturing Company.
The Qiu Group, once one of the three great conglomerates, had declined compared to the other two.
The reason was a biological modification laboratory established by the previous generation of the Qiu family. They had conducted human and biological experiments that could only be described as insane, claiming they could create a species that would obey human commands perfectly and eventually replace people in dangerous jobs such as security and firefighting.
The laboratory was named Prometheus, and it boasted that it could steal a spark from the heavens.
In the end, it backfired.
A fire broke out, and tens of thousands of experimental specimens in the laboratory vanished.
In their place came the nonhuman alien species that had repeatedly caused social unrest and harassed the Federation's borders. They could neither be driven away nor killed off.
The Qiu family had once used biological experiments and the name "Spark" to attract widespread public investment, creating these alien species. Now the family had turned around and opened numerous arms factories, profiting from researching and selling highly lethal weapons capable of exterminating them.
The current heir to the Qiu family was Qiu Yuan, also one of Pei Guangji's childhood friends.
Xin Hexue's gaze sharpened.
He had deliberately come to deliver the contract tonight to remind Pei Guangji.
He had no intention of letting Pei Guangji remain muddleheaded, indulging in role-play and following the route of sex first, love later.
For one thing, it did not suit the tastes of the audience in the greater world. For another, he still had other mission targets from whom he needed to farm affection points and heartache points.
Xin Hexue waited patiently for Pei Guangji to finish his call.
Sure enough, after the call, Pei Guangji looked at the contract and then at him, his gaze devoid of warmth. "I know. Leave it there."
The Alpha put on his coat and departed into the rainy night.
Pei Ying tossed his exercise book onto the living room sofa. He could not even be bothered to copy the answers.
Rain fell outside, and the shadows of the trees swayed.
It was the perfect weather for some strong alcohol and a nap.
He went to the bar and opened a bottle of specially brewed whiskey.
A loud crash came from the second floor.
Pei Ying's eyelid twitched.
He abandoned his glass and rushed upstairs, taking the steps three at a time.
The young man had collapsed on the floor. Fortunately, a soft carpet covered it.
Even so, his face was pale, his hair was damp with sweat, and his brows were drawn together. He looked disheveled yet beautiful.
"What's wrong?"
Pei Ying went over and helped him sit on the sofa.
Xin Hexue's vision blurred with pain, and his voice was so weak the words seemed forced out. "Guangji...?"
He quickly identified him by his earrings. "Pei Ying?"
Beads of cold sweat the size of beans rolled down his forehead and stung his eyes. "My... stomach hurts..."
The dishes from the Drunken Immortal Tower had tasted like the food once made in the imperial kitchens, and Pei Guangji had urged him to eat more, so he had not been able to resist eating too much.
It might have been acute gastritis.
Xin Hexue had suffered so much that he was all too familiar with his calamity-prone body.
Pei Ying said, "Wait here. There's no stomach medicine at home. I'll call a doctor over."
He called the family doctor.
Then, after a moment's hesitation, he sent Pei Guangji a message.
[Xin Hexue's stomach hurts. He was just looking for you. Do you want to come back and check on him?]
Pei Guangji, sitting in the back of the aircraft, frowned deeply when he received the message.
He was on his way to meet the person in charge of the West City Pharmaceutical Factory in the Sixth District.
Pei Guangji thought again of the contract in his study and recalled his foolish behavior over this period.
He was only a lover Pei Guangji had brought home to deal with his rut.
There was not even any "love" between them yet.
Besides, it was only for one year.
Pei Guangji felt he had been paying him a little too much attention.
He was not that important.
It was only the result of withdrawal following his rut.
Pei Guangji had successfully found a reason for his recent loss of control.
He even warned Jiang Jing, "Don't leave those random books in my office again."
Jiang Jing fell silent for a moment. "Yes."
Pei Guangji looked at Pei Ying's message again.
His stomach hurts. Come back and check on him.
His gaze rested on those words, and he calmly sent a message.
[If he's sick, have him see a doctor.]
Pei Guangji ordered, "Send the medical team to the Halfway-Up-the-Mountain Villa."
Jiang Jing wiped away his sweat. "Yes."
Pei Ying had just given Xin Hexue some warm water.
He read Pei Guangji's reply and raised an eyebrow.
Chapter 8: Face Blindness (8)
It was acute gastritis, accompanied by a persistent high fever.
During a skin test, the Pei Corporation's medical team discovered that Xin Hexue was allergic to many of the medications currently in use. Perhaps it was because Xin Hexue was a completely pure-blooded human who had never undergone any genetic modification or physical enhancement. With no other choice, the doctors drew blood for testing and put him on an IV, choosing the slow-acting but safest treatment plan from among the various options.
As soon as the ice pack was placed on his burning forehead, the pale young man's brows flinched.
He turned his head slightly, sinking his cheek deeper into the soft down pillow.
The ice pack slipped off as a result.
Pei Ying had only just brought it up from the freezer.
Pei Ying clicked his tongue and was trying to put the ice pack back in place when a doctor stopped him. "Second young master, if you use that, Mr. Xin might get frostbite."
Frostbite?
The young, vigorous Alpha held the ice pack in his palm and pressed it against his face to feel its temperature. For an Alpha in summer, it could only be described as cool, nowhere near cold enough to cause frostbite.
Pei Ying lowered his gaze. The young man on the bed had his eyes tightly shut, and his expression was not peaceful even in sleep. The corners of his eyes were flushed red from the fever, and his eyelashes trembled slightly.
The doctor suggested, "It would be better to wet a towel with warm water and wipe him down. A water temperature of around thirty-three degrees Celsius would be more suitable, and it should be done for ten to twenty minutes."
Pei Ying memorized each instruction. The villa was brightly lit, and the two silver cone studs in his left ear reflected a cold gleam.
Unlike his usual carefree and unruly self, the second young master of the Pei family seemed especially docile as he committed the doctor's instructions to memory.
Pei Ying said, "There are guest rooms in the villa. Go and get some rest."
"I'll call you again if anything happens."
The Halfway-Up-the-Mountain Villa was large enough to accommodate twenty or thirty servants with room to spare. But Pei Guangji disliked having living people around, so apart from them, the only ones moving through the villa were robots, each performing its assigned repetitive tasks.