The first thing Ji Chi did after leaving Huo Jin's house was have his driver track down everyone who had humiliated him outside the bar three days earlier.
Those fuckers weren't getting off easy.
In an alley outside a shopping mall, Ji Chi suddenly planted a foot against the wall, blocking someone's path.
The Alpha facing him still had injuries on his face.
Ji Chi gave him a contemptuous look. "You're the one who called me a slut, huh?"
The Alpha was so frightened at the sight of Ji Chi that he could barely speak.
The injuries this Alpha's Enigma had given him three days ago still hadn't healed.
He didn't dare provoke Ji Chi again.
"No, no, you misunderstood. I wasn't talking about you..." As he spoke, the Alpha abruptly turned and bolted deeper into the alley.
Ji Chi unleashed a thick wave of suppressive pheromones.
The heavy scent of plum wine spread everywhere.
The Alpha in the alley instantly struggled to breathe, unable to move. Ji Chi walked up, grabbed him by the collar, and beat the hell out of him.
"Aaaah!!!"
The Alpha's howls grated on Ji Chi's nerves.
"Useless piece of shit! You've got a death wish!"
"A slut? Strip you naked, and you'd look even sluttier!"
"Who the fuck are you to judge me?"
"I was wrong! I was wrong! Please, man, I really know I was wrong... Aaaah!" His pleas tangled with his sobbing screams.
Ji Chi felt so stifled he could barely stand it.
After beating the man on the ground until he fell silent, Ji Chi pulled a few bills from his pocket for medical expenses.
He threw them in the man's face. "Get lost!"
Ji Chi beat every Alpha who had insulted him until they begged for mercy, without taking so much as a scratch himself.
A bunch of lowlife, foul-smelling scum. Every fucking one of them deserved to die.
He couldn't beat Huo Jin, so he vented all his anger on them.
Every one of those Alphas gained fresh injuries before their old ones had healed.
Ji Chi realized Huo Jin had beaten them far more brutally than he had.
He couldn't fracture someone's bones with one hand.
But Huo Jin could.
When Ji Chi returned home, he found more than a dozen missed calls from Gu Baizhou on his phone.
Ji Chi called him back.
"Ji Chi? Are you okay now?" Gu Baizhou had called him many times over the past three days, but Ji Chi hadn't answered any of them.
He sounded pleasantly surprised when Ji Chi called.
Ji Chi gave a soft snort. "Not dead."
"Did you go to Huo Jin?" After a moment's hesitation, Gu Baizhou finally asked.
At the mention of Huo Jin, Ji Chi felt he still couldn't properly control his emotions.
"Yeah! Delivered myself to him to get f***ed! Begged him to f*** me!" Ji Chi seethed as he spoke. It sounded as though he had smashed every table and chair in reach, his fury savage, violent, obsessive, and wild.
Gu Baizhou: "..."
Silence lingered on the other end for two seconds.
"Calm down first," Gu Baizhou soothed him. "Remember that form I had you fill out?"
Ji Chi's gaze narrowed. He remembered Gu Baizhou having him fill out some sort of form, something like a questionnaire.
"What about it?" Ji Chi's tone was hostile.
Paper rustled on Gu Baizhou's end. "Could you come to the hospital with your father?"
Hearing that, Ji Chi felt anger flare from another source. He hung up immediately.
Ji Chi tossed his phone aside and went to the bathroom. Warm water trickled down, but it wasn't exhaustion it washed away.
Ji Chi closed his eyes, water dripping from the top of his head.
After this, he knew perfectly well that he couldn't resist his instincts.
Three years. His heat would come once every two months.
He would go to Huo Jin countless more times.
Beg him to f*** him, without a shred of dignity.
Even outside his heat, he needed Huo Jin's pheromones to sleep soundly.
Ji Chi had never understood how weak Omegas were.
Now he experienced it firsthand.
He couldn't escape.
Huo Jin was his demon.
Young Master Ji had always put himself first, whether he was resisting or acting out. Why should he have to live like this?
Why should he have to spend every damned day on edge, unable to sleep peacefully?
There was no escape.
Then why should he have to bear all of it alone?
After returning home, whether out of resignation or something else, Ji Chi dug a suitcase out of Lin Jun's place.
Then he packed some of his clothes.
"What are you doing? Moving out?" Ji Shengming asked in surprise when he came home and saw Ji Chi's suitcase.
"Thinking about it."
"Thinking about what? Are you dating someone?" Other than dating making it inconvenient to stay with his parents, what else could it be?
Dating?
Ji Chi turned those words over and over in his head.
Fuck off. Dating, my ass.
He would rather die than date Huo Jin.
After another week of consistently poor sleep, Ji Chi impatiently hauled his suitcase downstairs.
The reason was that Huo Jin's rabbit no longer carried any pheromones. They had all dissipated.
But Ji Chi wasn't going to keep tormenting himself.
It wasn't worth it.
Since Huo Jin liked him, he ought to put that to good use. If Huo Jin wanted to give, he would take. Why deny himself some comfort? If he lived like this for three years, even his company would go under.
Then neither of them would have an easy time.
Seeing Ji Chi looking as though he was running away from home, Ji Shengming stood in the doorway. "What are you doing?"
Ji Chi looked utterly calm. "Finding you a daughter-in-law."
"Really?!" Ji Shengming's eyes lit up. He instantly looked several years younger. "Wait here."
He went inside, fetched a stack of bills, and handed them to Ji Chi. "Good, good, good. Finding a wife is important."
Opening the front door, he instructed, "If you like someone, take responsibility. But one thing-you can't get them pregnant, or your dad will beat the spine out of you!"
"No getting anyone pregnant before marriage."
Otherwise, Lin Jun wouldn't just break Ji Chi's legs. A son's failings were his father's fault, so he wouldn't get off easy either.
Holding the money, Ji Chi gave a loud scoff. At the thought of Huo Jin, his earlobes burned irritably. "Don't worry. He's infertile."
An Enigma couldn't get pregnant.
An Alpha's censored cavity was sealed off within twenty-four centimeters.
Only medical instruments could see it.
Neither was possible.
At that thought, something suddenly flashed through Ji Chi's mind like lightning.
Wait.
Huo Jin seemed... capable of reaching it?
Fuck.
Ji Chi looked up at the sky and offered a slightly unhinged prayer in his heart: Please let me be infertile.
Ji Shengming's expression darkened at Ji Chi's words.
"That won't do either! I won't agree to you marrying someone who can't have children."
"If he has health problems, take him for a checkup. If he really can't have children, I absolutely won't let him through the Ji Family's doors!"
For some reason, Ji Shengming always became so serious whenever having children came up.
Ji Chi wheeled his suitcase out the door.
Ji Shengming looked solemn. "Whose kid is he?"
"Bring him home for your dad to meet when you have time." He himself didn't really mind, as long as the person had good character. What mattered most was that Lin Jun liked him.
Ji Chi tightened his grip on the suitcase handle. "You don't want to know."
With that, Ji Chi left, leaving Ji Shengming puzzling over it alone.
Restless, Ji Chi didn't drive. Instead, he wheeled his black combination-lock suitcase along the street. Tall and model-like, he drew plenty of attention as he walked.
He hadn't been on the main street long.
Suddenly, a sports car stopped in front of him.
Ji Chi was about to walk around it when he heard a familiar voice.
It was Song Lin.
"Chi, what are you doing here?" Song Lin sounded delighted and eager.
He stopped the car and got out.
Noticing Ji Chi's hand on the suitcase, he looked puzzled. "Where are you going?"
Aside from harboring ulterior feelings for him, Song Lin could be considered a perfect friend.
But Ji Chi could no longer see Song Lin the way he once had.
In his eyes,
Song Lin was every bit as disgusting as Huo Jin.
Ji Chi narrowed his eyes and smiled, utterly defiant. "Going to see my boyfriend."
"Boy... friend?" Dressed in a suit, Song Lin sounded surprised, though displeasure ran deeper in his eyes.
"Who?" Suppressing his emotions, he studied Ji Chi's expression.
Ji Chi clicked his tongue impatiently. "Haven't you met him? That Enigma at the hospital last time."
"Pretty handsome, right?"
Song Lin stepped closer to Ji Chi, closing the distance between them. "You're together?"
Ji Chi nodded. "Isn't that only natural?"
"I don't have a choice."
Ji Chi deliberately gave a bitter smile, stressing every word. "Besides, he treats me pretty damn well. Might as well give dating him a try."
Song Lin abruptly grabbed Ji Chi's shoulders. "You're lying. How could you possibly agree to be with an Enigma?"
His grip tightened without him realizing it.
After all these years, how could Song Lin not know Ji Chi's temperament?
He only liked Omegas, and had since childhood. He had always put himself first, refusing to be constrained by anyone. He had a mind and ideas of his own, which was why he had grown into someone nobody could control. How could he submit and be with an Enigma?
Other Alphas might desire and worship Enigmas, but Ji Chi wouldn't. He had been born above the clouds.
He would never do that.
Never.
Ji Chi knocked Song Lin's hands away.
He stared straight at Song Lin, his gaze frighteningly cold.
"You're right."
Ji Chi's eyes were dark and still. "Anyone who wants to mark me will have my hatred for all eternity."
With that, Ji Chi walked past Song Lin.
Song Lin clenched his fists.
He had already become suspicious the last time Ji Chi took him to a bar and hired Omegas to drink with them.
Now he was certain. Ji Chi knew how he felt.
Watching Ji Chi's retreating figure, his eyes stung. He couldn't accept it.
Suddenly, Song Lin let out a low laugh.
He had only harbored those feelings. He hadn't acted on them at all.
Yet Ji Chi already loathed him this much.
That Enigma certainly wouldn't end well.
Ji Chi must hate him to the core by now.
Thinking that way, Song Lin felt somewhat relieved.
He hadn't lost yet.
Ji Chi walked the whole way in an irritable mood, his pace alternately fast and slow. He had memorized the location when he left Huo Jin's house a week earlier.
It would take three hours to walk there.
But he wanted to stomp around for a while. Even the stones he passed got a couple of kicks.
By the time he reached Huo Jin's house, his shoes were ruined too.
Thirteen thousand. He would make Huo Jin pay for them.
It was already getting dark when Ji Chi arrived at Huo Jin's house.
He lifted his suitcase up to the door.
Looking down at his ruined shoes made his mood even worse.
Without giving any advance notice, Ji Chi pounded on the door, so loudly it sounded as though he might smash a huge hole through it.
Like a debt collector.
Bang!!! Bang, bang, bang!!
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