Kidnapping

Wang Jing could not abduct someone from the banquet hall under the watchful eyes of countless media outlets.

So he had someone take Ye Qingpu, who had been drugged, to a storage room behind the banquet hall.

A cool, aloof beauty did not need to lie on a red bed strewn with rose petals to stir up one's darker impulses. For someone as abstinent and icy as Ye Qingpu, lying amid the clutter in a storeroom was just as visually striking.

Ye Qingpu's mouth was gagged with a tie, his hands bound behind him above his head. He glared furiously at Wang Jing, the man who had slipped something into his drink.

"Qingpu, do you know how much I love you...?"

Wang Jing's voice trembled, and even his round body shook faintly along with it.

He stretched out his short, fat, greasy, sweat-slick hand and caressed Ye Qingpu's flushed face with infatuation, the drug's effects having turned it crimson.

"I fucking love you so much, yet you went and got together with some punk kid... Qingpu, you've disappointed me so much..."

"You're the rose I planted. You're mine... Since you chose to betray me instead of keeping yourself pure, then I ought to make you suffer a little!"

Wang Jing's gaze was obsessive, his words gritted out through clenched teeth. Finally, he seized Ye Qingpu's slender, pale throat in furious hatred.

"Today, let a few of us gentlemen cherish you properly... Let me have a taste too."

The intense suffocation made Ye Qingpu's vision go dark. He bit down hard on his lower lip as he watched the well-dressed beasts surrounding him begin to undress.

They released their alpha aphrodisiac pheromones at the same time. Though they still believed Ye Qingpu to be a beta, the special drug in his wine made even betas unable to smell pheromones fall uncontrollably under the influence of the emitter's pheromones.

They could hardly wait to reduce Ye Qingpu to a servant beneath their crotches.

Forcing down the nausea at being touched, Ye Qingpu clenched his teeth around the tie stuffed in his mouth. At the right moment, he viciously kicked Wang Jing in the groin. Before the other human-faced beasts could react, Ye Qingpu struggled to his feet and rushed for the half-open door, only to be dragged back into the corner by his hair the next second.

Wang Jing's face, contorted in pain, flushed liver-red as he viciously kicked the man on the floor several times.

Ye Qingpu curled up, shielding his head.

"Fuck, Ye Qingpu, have I been giving you too much face?!"

He grabbed Ye Qingpu by the hair and forced him to sit up.

Pain drained Ye Qingpu's face of color. A mocking laugh slipped from his throat as he looked at Wang Jing with contempt and disgust in his eyes.

Yet Wang Jing was obsessed with that very defiance in him. Compared to submission, he wanted even more to see Ye Qingpu's ruthless look—humiliated, yet still unable to break that proud backbone.

Wang Jing sneered. His beer belly pressed against Ye Qingpu's back as hot, alcohol-laced breath washed over him. Ye Qingpu turned his head away in disgust.

"Tell me, with a face like yours, what else is a beta for if not to be *? Was the deputy mayor's son-in-law better than me at *, huh? Did he fucking * you or not?"

Ye Qingpu's whole body went rigid. Feeling a sudden wet heat at his waist, he glared through gritted teeth at Wang Jing's infatuated face.

"I'll make you belong to me forever... I'll keep you caged! Baby! Baby, you can only be mine! Once I've * you enough, it'll be the turn of the men beside you. Look, they're all eyeing you hungrily!"

Wang Jing's thick lips pressed against Ye Qingpu's cheek.

Ye Qingpu's expression changed, his mind racing for a way out.

Just then, a commotion outside the door drew everyone's attention.

The excited men instinctively held their breath, listening to the footsteps drawing closer and closer.

While Wang Jing and the others were distracted, Ye Qingpu slammed his head hard into Wang Jing's flat nose bridge. Then his leather-shod foot kicked Wang Jing in the groin again. Fast, ruthless, and precise, he sprang up with the strength of his flexible waist before anyone could react and charged toward the waist-high window of the storeroom.

Wang Jing clutched his vital parts, baring his teeth in agony, but still instinctively grabbed Ye Qingpu's ankle.

Momentum sent Ye Qingpu crashing to the floor. His forehead struck the window ledge, lessening the impact against the ground, but sharp objects in the piled clutter pierced his flesh. The dull pain in his lower abdomen made him cough up a mouthful of blood.

He could not spare a thought for any of it. With the rusty taste filling his mouth, he kicked Wang Jing in the face, pushed himself up as though he did not care whether he lived or died, shoved open the half-closed window, and jumped down from the waist-high sill.

The entire struggle had lasted only a few seconds. Ye Qingpu had moved with agility and ferocity, nothing like a sickly invalid. Perhaps it was instinctive desperation to survive, or perhaps he had truly been disgusted beyond endurance.

The people in the storeroom changed expression. They hurriedly put themselves back together and left Wang Jing, who was sweating coldly in pain, behind—they had merely wanted to sample the high mountain flower they had coveted for so long, not thrust themselves into the spotlight.

"Fuck! Get him!! We have to catch him before the media gets a shot of him!"

Wang Jing raged in humiliated fury. He had never expected Ye Qingpu to resist so fiercely even after drinking that potent "wine."

After leaping from the windowsill, Ye Qingpu fell sideways onto the bluestone floor.

A small door stood not far away, leading to the main banquet hall on the first floor. The storeroom he had jumped from was at the very back of the auxiliary banquet hall on the second floor.

Behind the two banquet halls lay a garden, rich with the fragrance of blooming gardenias.

The rope around Ye Qingpu's wrists hung loose. His eyes were bloodshot, and the burgundy tie that had cut bloody marks into the corners of his mouth had been soaked an even deeper shade.

Wang Jing's men quickly chased him through the emergency passage into the garden.

Ye Qingpu's legs trembled as he forced his burning, aching body upright, staggering toward the door leading to the first-floor banquet hall.

"Ye Qingpu!"

Wang Jing, his clothes disheveled, lowered his voice in angry embarrassment. There was a trace of smugness in his eyes—he assumed Ye Qingpu would not open that door. Ye Qingpu was proud to the bone; he would never appear before the public in such a miserable state.

They all knew what it meant to cross through that door.

But the truth proved that Wang Jing did not understand Ye Qingpu at all, no matter how many years he had spent as his self-important lapdog.

Ye Qingpu gasped and coughed, both hands resting on the doorknob. He turned back to look at Wang Jing's deathly pale face and gave him a disdainful smile.

The previously peaceful, lavish banquet hall erupted into a wave of shocked murmurs when the door opened. The media at the edge of the venue surged forward, while security struggled to maintain order as the place instantly descended into chaos.

Jiang Wenke, frantic as an ant on a hot pan, was drawn by the commotion. At a glance, he spotted the person collapsed on the marble floor.

The instant Ye Qingpu opened the door, all strength left him and he fell to the floor. His white shirt hung loosely from his body, the tie in his mouth soaked in blood. Fingerprints around his neck had darkened to a bluish black, while bruises of varying sizes mottled his half-exposed shoulder and neck...

His suit trousers were soaked with blood. As he fell, he dragged a streak of blood across the floor... a horrifying sight.

Miserable and broken, he made anyone who saw him ache with pity and suck in a sharp breath.

Countless spotlights fell upon Ye Qingpu. He kept his head lowered, blood still trickling from his mouth.

Jiang Wenke hurriedly took off his coat and draped it over Ye Qingpu, then quickly undid the restraints around his mouth and wrists.

He felt his hands trembling beyond his control, and could only use his body to block as many cameras as possible from Ye Qingpu.

"Help me... up..."

There was still bloody froth in Ye Qingpu's throat. He coughed twice and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper.

Then, gripping Jiang Wenke's wrist, he rose to his feet and barely steadied himself. He limped outside, doing his best to keep his movements even.

Perhaps walking out on his own two feet was Ye Qingpu's final shred of stubborn pride.