The night was thick as ink, and the surrounding streets lay silent. Only the Fulì International Hotel remained ablaze with lights.
In the penthouse suite, the curtains billowed, framing two intertwined silhouettes.
The warm lighting lent an intimate glow, and uneven breaths echoed through the room.
The slender young man clung to the man as he carried him toward the large bed, refusing to let go no matter how hard the man tried to shake him off.
"Song Yunxing! There's a limit to drunken antics!" The man's jaw tightened, his voice terribly hoarse.
The young man's eyes were hazy as he raised a hand to cover the man's thin lips.
"You're so noisy... my neck hurts~"
His cheeks were flushed like peach blossoms, and discomfort reddened the corners of his eyes. A few tears slipped down his face.
The more he cried, the more upset he became, until he unconsciously buried his face against the man's sweaty neck and sobbed.
Warm tears fell into the hollow of the man's neck. His body stiffened, his broad hand hovering in the air for a long time without settling.
A sudden sting shot through his neck. He glanced down to find that the young man had tilted his head and sunk his sharp canine teeth into the back of his neck.
"Hiss-Song Yunxing!" Veins bulged on the man's forehead. Just as he was about to push him away, the young man released his bite and cautiously licked the wound like a small animal.
"Fuck." The man pressed his tongue against his back teeth, then brought the edge of his hand down on the young man's vulnerable nape.
The troublemaker lost consciousness and collapsed into his arms.
"Song Yunxing... I must have owed you in my past life!" Gritting his teeth, the man roughly bundled him into the sheets.
Shen Yanci touched his own lips, his gaze darkening.
As an Alpha, he had been both molested and bitten on his gland in a single night. Sooner or later, he would make Song Yunxing pay for it.
The next day, Song Yunxing opened his eyes to the ceiling of a hotel room.
He slowly propped himself up, holding his head as it throbbed from his hangover.
Yesterday had been his good friend Jiang Huaizhi's birthday. He had run into that nuisance Shen Yanci, and somehow they had started competing over how much they could drink. He had no idea how much alcohol he had downed.
He pushed back his messy, short silver-white hair and instinctively picked up his phone from the bedside table.
The battery was dead. Song Yunxing put it back, plugged it into the hotel's spare charger, and got up to head into the bathroom.
Steam filled the bathroom, accompanied by the splashing of running water.
A little while later, the young man stood at the sink brushing his teeth, a bath towel wrapped around him.
During his shower, the back of his neck had kept itching for no apparent reason, and he had scratched it several times.
With his toothbrush between his teeth, he turned his head to look and abruptly widened his eyes.
Fuck! How had something grown on the back of his neck when he was a Beta?!
He put down his toothbrush and tentatively touched the slightly raised patch of reddened flesh on his nape.
The soft flesh was swollen, and touching it sent a sharp, stinging pain through him.
Could this be a bite from some new kind of mosquito?
Still doubtful, Song Yunxing put the toothbrush back in his mouth and continued brushing.
Suddenly, the doorbell rang urgently. Whoever was outside seemed so anxious that they never stopped pressing it.
"Coming! What's the rush?" Song Yunxing got dressed and opened the door.
A meticulously dressed woman stood outside, looking anxious. Before he had opened the door all the way, she squeezed straight inside.
"Meng, what's wrong?" Song Yunxing watched Meng Ruo pace around the room, utterly baffled.
Having failed to find anyone else, Meng Ruo pressed her aching temples and asked bluntly, "You hooked up with Shen Yanci!"
"Huh?" Song Yunxing's brows drew together. "Meng, are you okay? Shen Yanci and I are mortal enemies! Everyone knows that!"
Meng Ruo glanced at him and heaved a long sigh. "Have you checked Trending Search?"
"What Trending Search?" Song Yunxing looked bewildered.
Meng Ruo handed him her phone. Her gaze happened to catch his reddened nape, and her expression grew complicated.
He was still pretending? His neck was covered in hickeys and scratch marks.
And Shen Yanci had actually just left like that! Sure, her Xingxing was a Beta, so Shen Yanci didn't have to take responsibility, but he had pulled up his pants and walked out! How could he be so heartless?!
Meng Ruo's expression darkened. She decided to seize the opportunity to hire some online trolls to smear Shen Yanci.
Song Yunxing took her phone. The top several entries on Trending Search were all tagged as explosive.
#Shen Yanci and Song Yunxing's passionate kiss#
#Top movie star and popular singer's romance exposed#
#Shen Yanci and Song Yunxing's one-night stand#
#Shen Yanci and Song Yunxing, you've been playing us#
Looking completely bewildered, Song Yunxing tapped the Trending Search video.
The camera was pointed at a corridor. Judging by the angle, it had been filmed from outside the hotel, and the picture was exceptionally clear.
Figures soon appeared in the video. A silver-haired young man in a fashionable hoodie slumped against Shen Yanci, who wore a black suit.
The six-foot-three Shen Yanci held the young man's slender waist and lowered his head to say something.
The young man in his arms looked up, his cheeks flushed pink. His hands wound around Shen Yanci's neck of their own accord, and the upturned corners of his eyes were a vivid red.
Shen Yanci seemed about to say something else, but the young man rose onto his toes and pressed his alcohol-flushed lips against the man's thin, incessantly talking lips.
Beneath the dim yellow lights of the hotel corridor, the two embraced and kissed, sending the intimate atmosphere to a fever pitch in an instant.
The man's lashes trembled. Veins stood out on his large, well-defined hands as he held the young man's waist tightly.
He lowered his lashes, concealing the look in his eyes, but the bob of his Adam's apple betrayed his desire.
As the young man stood on tiptoe, the hem of his hoodie lifted to reveal a strip of snowy-white waist. The man's broad hand completely covered the dark mole in the hollow of his lower back.
The brief, gentle kiss ended, but the man had yet to recover. His dark eyes remained fixed on the young man in his arms, his gaze seeming both unsatisfied and helplessly indulgent.
A moment later, half supporting and half carrying the young man, the man struggled to fish out his key card with his long-fingered hand. They lingered cheek to cheek for quite some time before finally entering the room.
Song Yunxing finished the video in a daze, heat slowly rushing into his face.
Aaaaaah! Help! He needed to flee this planet overnight!
He didn't know that person in the video! That was right! He must have been possessed!
Song Yunxing unplugged his still-charging phone and prepared to bolt out the door.
"Song Yunxing! Stop right there!" Meng Ruo blocked him, her expression grim. "We can't leave right now! There are reporters all over downstairs, and they've blocked both the front and back entrances! You're going to explain exactly how this happened!"
Song Yunxing covered his face, his voice trembling. "Meng! I really don't remember. I drank too much yesterday. Why don't you ask Shen Yanci?"
Meng Ruo was so angry that she rapped him on the head. "I'm your manager, not Shen Yanci's! Since when did you come with this feature that makes you black out whenever you drink?!"
Song Yunxing sat on the sofa, head bowed in silence, knowing he had caused trouble.
Meng Ruo let out a long sigh. "Luckily, you switched career paths early. You haven't lost many fans. Most of them still support your relationship with Shen Yanci."
"...Huh?"
Why did he understand every individual word, but not the sentence as a whole?!
"See for yourself." Meng Ruo shoved the phone into his hand.
Song Yunxing was an artist Meng Ruo had nurtured. He had debuted in Kimchi Country as an idol in a top boy band. With his exquisite, alluring looks and cool, resonant voice, fans affectionately called him the Runaway Mermaid.
After his contract with his original company ended, Song Yunxing returned home and signed with a new company.
To finish the schooling he had fallen behind on, he had chosen to pursue a career as a singer.
He had sung the theme songs for most of the hit television dramas and films, his original albums were wildly popular both at home and abroad, and he also appeared onstage and in musicals.
By all rights, someone as gentle, cheerful, and professionally capable as Song Yunxing should never have made an enemy of anyone. Yet the entertainment industry happened to contain his sworn enemy from middle and high school: Shen Yanci.
The entertainment industry was only so big. Sooner or later, the two were bound to meet.
More than once, they had mercilessly attacked each other in public. At first, their fans had fought too, but eventually even the fans grew tired of arguing while the stars themselves kept going at each other. That was a first.
Then Trending Search in the early hours of that morning had utterly stunned both fandoms.
[Holy shit, I must've gotten up too fast! Let me watch that again!]
[Ah!?? So this is what you two are like in private!]
[So arguing is your kink? Are we part of your play too?]
[Let me tell you a joke. Shen Yanci: (scornfully) Song Yunxing is just a jukebox~]
[Let me tell you a joke. Song Yunxing: (scornfully) Shen Yanci is just a pretty face~]
Before you continue