There were few Betas in District One, and most were employees of the major families.
The plutocrats tended to groom Alphas as prospective heirs, while smaller families tended to raise Omegas to marry into the major families.
Pei Ying had no interest in dull, bland Betas.
But now he wanted to see whether the other man would take on a more seductive expression after being made to drink a whole glass of rum.
Would those pale pink lips flush red?
Perhaps his skin would flush with a lovely color.
When Pei Ying realized that the young man might also be his older brother's lover, his sympathetic nervous system grew even more active, and his blood surged. He even felt a shiver of excitement.
Xin Hexue had noticed the discreet gaze on him early on.
What was more, Xin Hexue had heard the system's notification from the moment that gaze settled on him.
[Pei Ying's Affection Points +1]
[Pei Ying's Affection Points +1]
[Pei Ying's Affection Points +1]
Now, for some inexplicable reason, the notifications were coming even faster.
Xin Hexue knew of this character, who was mentioned very little in the plot. He was the Pei family's second young master, inferior in every respect to his older brother Pei Guangji, and the Pei family did not seem to value him much either.
The script scarcely mentioned any contact between Pei Ying and him.
Xin Hexue figured this character was probably a freebie, because the system's notifications indicated that Pei Ying had no heartbreak value target to farm.
In that case, his Affection Points were something Xin Hexue could farm on the side.
Without warning, Xin Hexue's right hand went weak and trembled. A piercing sound rang out as the glass clattered onto the floor.
It shattered into pieces, leaving a mess of scattered shards and spilled water.
The young man leaned against the edge of the bar, coughing into his hand, the coughs growing more frequent.
Seen from behind, his gaunt figure looked like a green willow branch on a river cliff, caught up in a raging storm.
His thick, dark hair trembled along with him.
For some reason, Pei Ying's heart panicked for a moment, as though someone had seized it in their hand, and all his messy thoughts vanished.
He came down the stairs, helped Xin Hexue around the broken glass, and sat him down on the sofa.
Xin Hexue seemed to recover a little.
Pei Ying could feel the body in his arms trembling slightly all the while.
Soft coughs escaped his throat, impossible to suppress, sounding as though they were right by Pei Ying's ear.
"Thank you." Sitting on the sofa, the young man spoke gently, sounding uncertain. "Guangji?"
Pei Ying's face darkened at once.
He gripped Xin Hexue's chin and lifted it, his brows and eyes carrying a youthful defiance as he said coldly, "Look carefully. I'm not him."
His movements were rather rough.
Xin Hexue lowered his eyes, his lashes trembling as he brushed Pei Ying's hand away.
Pei Ying looked at the faint red mark on his jaw, his gaze shifting.
He had just...
Clearly not used much force.
"Sorry." Xin Hexue sighed. "My face blindness is quite severe."
Pei Ying froze.
Not because Xin Hexue had face blindness, but because the other man had suddenly cupped his face.
They were too close.
So close that Pei Ying could clearly see the moisture that had gathered at the corners of Xin Hexue's eyes during his earlier coughing fit, spreading across the reddened skin like water staining a touch of cinnabar.
He had leaned closer to study him.
Pei Ying realized what Xin Hexue was doing.
Those hands also stroked up the sides of his face, then back down.
Xin Hexue's body temperature felt cool to the young, vigorous Alpha as he touched Pei Ying's earlobe.
A jolt of numbness shot up Pei Ying's spine.
What the hell?
Was this man playing with him?
Xin Hexue slowly let go, right at the limit of Pei Ying's patience, and said gently, "You have blue highlights in your hair, and a stud in your left ear."
Pei Ying's natural hair was pitch-black, with a Klein blue underlayer, and he wore two silver cone-shaped studs in his left ear.
Xin Hexue nodded, as though committing those features to memory.
"You're different from Guangji."
[Pei Ying's Affection Points +5]
Pei Ying stared at him, his eyes dark.
The rebellious little brother's value was pretty easy to farm.
Xin Hexue lowered his gaze, looking unconcerned.
K suddenly asked, [Are you all right?]
He had seen how much the host seemed to be suffering as he coughed just now.
[?] Xin Hexue said in puzzlement, [I was pretending.]
He teased, [Brother, why are you as stupid as he is?]
K: [...]
Xin Hexue was pleased. [I know, worry makes you muddleheaded.]
His acting had always been good, but he had made one small mistake.
The shards from the shattered glass had cut his lower leg.
Pei Ying had evidently noticed the blood seeping out too. He focused his gaze on it for a few moments. "Why hasn't it healed yet?"
Oh, he had forgotten.
The other man was an ordinary Beta and might not even have undergone genetic modification.
A wound of this degree would heal completely within a minute for anyone in the Pei family.
Pei Ying found those thin streaks of bright red unbearably glaring.
He stood up, silently fetched the household medicine box, and had a cleaning robot clear up the mess on the floor while he was at it.
Perhaps pleased by what Xin Hexue had just said, Pei Ying inexplicably crouched down to treat his wound.
Then he raised a brow and asked, "Is my brother too stingy to give you a genetic improvement agent?"
The agents fetched exorbitant prices on the outside black market, but to the Pei Corporation, they were nothing more than monetary figures piled up in a warehouse.
Pei Ying did not think Pei Guangji would be so stingy with his lover.
Xin Hexue's eyes flickered, and he avoided the subject.
Pei Ying did not press him.
He stared at the treated wound and noticed that, although Xin Hexue was tall and slender, his frame was delicate. Pei Ying could probably wrap one hand around his calf.
When the cotton swab applied the medicine to the wound, the muscles in his calf tensed, their lines showing.
Did it hurt that much?
Pei Ying had already forgotten what he had asked when Xin Hexue finally answered softly, "I'm in poor health. The agent's side effects are too strong."
Even the most common physical enhancement agent on the market could not be used on Xin Hexue.
Pei Ying replied absentmindedly, "Mm... oh."
His gaze drifted from time to time to the hickeys on Xin Hexue's neck, some red and some pink, suggestive and pretty.
Even the hollow of his collarbone was tinged pink.
"Are you Guangji's younger brother?" Xin Hexue asked, a little embarrassed. "He never mentioned you, so I thought you were him just now."
Pei Ying pressed against a canine tooth in annoyance. "...Yeah."
Perhaps feeling it was very improper to chat under these circumstances and dressed like this, Xin Hexue excused himself. "I'll go upstairs first."
"Pei Ying."
He spoke up suddenly, and when the young man looked at him in confusion, Pei Ying repeated with a sour face, "My name is Pei Ying."
Pei Ying felt like an idiot. He tossed out, "Isn't there still something cooking in the kitchen? Go eat. I'm going to bed."
He stomped heavily up the stairs.
Because the script mentioned Pei Ying very little, and he had done nothing bad, Xin Hexue had a decent impression of him.
Besides, the rebellious little brother's Affection Points should be easy to farm, and he already had a preliminary plan in mind.
Back in the room, Xin Hexue looked at the Alpha still lying alone on the floor and asked, [You shocked him unconscious just now. You didn't fry his brain, did you?]
K: [No.]
With the system's assurance, Xin Hexue was reassured.
He kindly tossed Pei Guangji a blanket.
Xin Hexue curled up in bed again and fell asleep peacefully in a position that, to K, looked exactly like a curled-up kitten.
[Pei Guangji's Affection Points +1]
[Pei Guangji's Affection Points +2]
[Pei Guangji's Affection Points +3]
Still half-asleep, Xin Hexue could not help covering his ears with a corner of the blanket, but he soon realized the sound was coming from deep within his mind.
What was it now, so early in the morning?
Didn't Pei Guangji need to sleep?
[Pei Guangji's Affection Points +1]
[Pei Guangji's Affection Points +2]
Xin Hexue could not stand it any longer and opened his eyes.
Pei Guangji was already dressed and put together, his shirt impeccably covering his solid, powerful upper body. There was no sign at all of the marks Xin Hexue had scratched into his back last night.
He was standing by the bed, studying Xin Hexue with an inscrutable, shadowed gaze.
Xin Hexue could not help wondering whether Pei Guangji had noticed his unusual behavior the night before.
Before Xin Hexue could speak, the Alpha in front of him suddenly apologized. "I'm sorry. I lost control last night."
Pei Guangji's body clock was very regular; he got up at six.
As a result, when he woke up, the aftereffects of his rut left him muddleheaded. He had no memory of what had happened last night, only a few flashes.
After he had filed away the evidence of Xin Bao's crimes in the small apartment, his rut had suddenly begun, followed by fragmented scenes—
The young man pinned down in the aircraft, tears running down his cheeks under the lights, a warm embrace with no space between them.
He pressed a hand to his forehead, where a lingering ache remained.
When he woke up, the room was a mess, and he himself was still lying on the floor. Xin Hexue was on the inner side of the bed, his body forming a soft curve as he slept, and every patch of skin visible outside the blanket bore his marks.
Pei Guangji's face darkened.
In the past, his rut would last three to five days, sometimes as long as a week, and Pei Guangji would lock himself in his room to get through it.
This was the first time it had been resolved in a single night.
He must have been very rough with Xin Hexue.
Pei Guangji hated the way major families bred their descendants as though conducting genetic experiments. The Alpha offspring they produced were no different from mindless beasts during their ruts, devoid of reason and hardly human at all.