The Alpha in the cage

[Before we begin: This is an ABO boys' love novel, not an interstellar story. A clingy, manipulative horndog top × a queenly bottom. By "horndog," I mean he can get it up anytime, anywhere, on the spot.

The spells in this book all draw on reference material, but please don't take them seriously! If anything offends you, let me apologize in advance! Also, the male lead's surname is Weisheng, not Wei. "bj" stands for marking; spelling it out wouldn't pass moderation.]

"Young Master Mo, our Weisheng Family has prepared a gift for you. Would you do us the honor of taking a look?"

In a sprawling courtyard residence in the mountains, a potbellied middle-aged man bowed at the waist, speaking into a room with a fawning expression.

His black-and-white suit strained around his body, making him look like a tightly trussed peanut.

After speaking, the middle-aged man waited in the courtyard, hardly daring to breathe. A long time passed, but no one acknowledged him.

The blazing midsummer sun roasted him until sweat poured from his body, yet he dared not make the slightest movement that might breach etiquette.

He ventured again, trembling, "Young Master Mo?"

"Please leave. Our young master has no interest in the gift you mentioned."

A firm male voice came from inside.

"Lord... Ye Liang, please let Young Master Mo take a look! This is a talent our Weisheng Family went to great pains to cultivate! A Super S-Rank Alpha, a born beast. Tell him to go east, and he'll never go west!"

Weisheng Yan took an excited step forward.

Seated in the front hall, Mo Lu paused with a book in his hand and frowned.

Seeing this, Ye Liang's expression immediately hardened, and he said coldly:

"Weisheng Yan, the young master only allowed you to keep speaking out of respect for the Weisheng Family. Rein in those foul, inferior pheromones of yours."

At that, Weisheng Yan immediately covered the back of his neck, backed away several steps, and dropped to his knees, drenched in cold sweat.

He had specifically put on a fresh blocking patch before coming, and had even added a suppressor collar around his neck. How could they still smell him?

Mo Lu lifted his eyes to glance at the lump of flesh slumped on the ground outside, then set down his book.

His pale, slender hand lifted a black-glazed tea cup with a hare's-fur pattern. He casually skimmed the foam from the tea and took an unhurried sip before finally speaking:

"Super S-Rank?"

His voice was like water striking jade, cool and lovely, yet utterly devoid of warmth.

"Yes, Young Master Mo! I would never dare deceive you!" Weisheng Yan immediately prostrated himself properly.

Mo Lu raised his fair, smooth chin a fraction.

Ye Liang immediately said, "Bring him up."

"Bring him up!" Weisheng Yan hurriedly beckoned behind him.

Several men in black pushed a huge iron cage forward.

The cage had clearly just been cleaned. As they wheeled it up, a cloud of perfume drifted along with it.

The instant the iron cage appeared, Ye Liang's brows drew tightly together. What was this pungent smell?

It was so heavily perfumed that it stank.

Ye Liang instinctively wanted to cover his nose, but seeing that Young Master Mo Lu had made no move, he forced his newly raised hand back down.

The man inside the cage was draped in iron chains as thick as an arm. Hideous wounds covered his entire body, some visibly rotting and oozing pus.

Even so, his cold, vicious eyes shone with startling brightness, brimming with defiance.

Mo Lu narrowed his eyes slightly as he studied the man in the cage.

Golden pupils.

Gold was a color that only appeared in high-ranking Alphas who could not control themselves.

And all that perfume sprayed over his body to mask the odor...

Mo Lu rubbed the space between his brows.

Within that nauseating stench, he precisely distinguished a trace of Alpha pheromones.

It was the heady, faintly intoxicating scent of hard liquor.

Hard liquor.

Quite unusual.

Mo Lu lightly tapped his fingers against the table, his white jade thumb ring reflecting a lustrous gleam.

He stopped looking at the Alpha in the cage and turned instead to the man on the ground, a teasing smile curling his lips.

"This is your Weisheng Family's Super S-Rank Alpha? The one who wouldn't dare go west if told to go east?"

Weisheng Yan pressed himself flat against the ground, trembling all over.

"Young Master Mo, this Alpha goes berserk from time to time. Our Weisheng Family truly has no way to handle him. We believe Young Master Mo Lu will certainly be able to cure his madness."

Otherwise, who would willingly hand over a Super S-Rank Alpha, a rarity even in a hundred years, to the empire's most powerful and mysterious Witch Doctor Family, the Mo Family?

Wouldn't that only raise their already terrifying power to another level?

Still, trading a berserk Super S-Rank Alpha for the Mo Family's goodwill, while less profitable than keeping him, was a deal guaranteed to pay off.

Besides, they might even get to observe the Mo Family's Witch Doctor healing methods up close.

"Are you trying to use the Mo Family? Do you know the consequences of deceiving the young master?" Ye Liang's voice was vicious. "How dare you bring such a filthy, deranged creature here to sully the young master's eyes?"

Weisheng Yan immediately lowered his head even further and said in alarm:

"The Weisheng Family wouldn't dare! From this day forward, the Weisheng Family will have nothing more to do with this man! In life, he belongs to the Mo Family; in death, his ghost belongs to them."

Ye Liang sneered. "Hah. As if any beast deserves to enter the Mo Family."

Mo Lu watched the man in the cage, rubbing the White Jade Thumb Ring on his thumb, his pale lips pressed lightly together.

He had felt something unusual happening within his body ever since he caught the scent of the caged man's pheromones.

A suffocating silence hung over the hall.

Weisheng Yan knelt on the ground with his head bowed, not daring to move.

He had always been deeply curious about the Mo Family, but his status was too low for him to have any contact with people at their level.

If his family had not sent him to deliver this gift, he might never have seen a member of the Mo Family in person, let alone their legendary eldest young master, Mo Lu.

Mo Lu was a Super S-Rank Alpha of the empire, a genius of the ancient Mo Family.

In the eyes of the world, this witch doctor was an existence akin to a ghost or god.

Mo Lu was now twenty-three, yet he had only acted twice.

Once, to prolong the life of the Mo Family's old patriarch.

The other time, to kill the Lu Family's master with a deadly curse.

But the claim that he had killed the man with a curse came solely from the Lu Family. After all, the Lu Family's master had been lying at home at the time, while Young Master Mo Lu had been drinking tea at the Mo Family residence.

The Lu Family had taken their accusations all the way to the Mo Family, causing an uproar throughout the empire, only to receive a single, offhand reply from Mo Lu:

"So what if it was me?"

After that incident, the very mention of Mo Lu of the Mo Family struck terror into almost everyone.

Because no one knew when he might take a dislike to someone and make them die without a sound.

In the front hall, Mo Lu, the poised and elegant eldest young master of the Mo Family, tilted his head slightly as he looked at the savage, beastlike man in the cage. A cold smile curved his lips, and his teardrop-shaped red agate earring swung with an icy glint.

He rose and, ignoring the pungent smell, slowly walked over to the cage, bending slightly to look at the man inside.

Prostrate on the ground, Weisheng Yan finally dared to raise his head and steal a glance at the legendary young master of the Mo Family-