Do I have to treat you like this before you'll listen?

Huo Xingye said nothing, his eyes darker than before, but in the end, he still didn't take Nan Zhou to the hospital.

They returned to their room in the apartment, and he had someone bring a thermometer gun to take Nan Zhou's temperature.

Thirty-eight degrees.

Sure enough, a fever.

Compared with when they were in the lounge downstairs for the group dinner, Nan Zhou was visibly much more relaxed. While Huo Xingye took his temperature, he leaned against the sofa without any regard for appearances, his eyes half-lidded as he gazed at the handsome face before him, seemingly entranced.

"Go lie down in bed," Huo Xingye told Nan Zhou while asking his assistant to bring up fever medicine and other supplies.

His tone was different from usual.

Ever since they had joined the variety show, his attitude toward Nan Zhou had always been indulgent and gentle, and so had his tone of voice.

But at this moment, there was an unmistakable forcefulness in Huo Xingye's voice.

A slight hint of command.

[Is Huo Xingye angry? He seems different from usual?]

[He isn't like this with other people either. With outsiders, he's polite on the surface, but his tone and everything else are very distant.]

[Jealous?]

The cameraman was still filming inside the apartment. Since Huo Xingye hadn't told him to leave, he had to stick it out until the very last moment. Otherwise, if those two were left alone in a room, the Automatic Camera would barely be any use. It would be covered in no time.

Still, filming at a time like this had the cameraman on edge too.

Not everyone could withstand the oppressive air around Best Actor Huo.

A faint trace of Alpha pheromones drifted through the room.

Huo Xingye had released them deliberately.

Half-reclining against the sofa, Nan Zhou didn't consciously want to move, but the scent reaching his nose from the Alpha before him made his mind submit against his will.

His body couldn't resist. He could only obey.

At this moment, Huo Xingye resembled the man he had been that night more than he had at any other time over the past two days.

Nan Zhou walked to the bed and was just about to sit when he heard Huo Xingye say, "Take your clothes off."

A flood of exclamation marks swept through the livestream chat.

Even the cameraman's eyes widened.

This...

I'm still here...

As though he had heard his thoughts, Huo Xingye turned and cast a brief, indifferent glance at his face.

That silently intimidating presence sent a shudder through the cameraman.

"Mr. Huo, this is a live variety show. The cameras can't stay off all the time." Under immense pressure, the cameraman left those words behind and swiftly exited the apartment, thoughtfully closing the door behind him.

Huo Xingye glanced toward the apartment's Automatic Camera.

His dark, fathomless eyes were like sharp blades.

[Camera: have mercy!]

[We're not trying to look at your wife's body. We just want to watch you two kiss.]

[If you won't let us see Nan Zhou, let us look at you instead.]

[Turning off the camera for domestic violence?]

[So is what comes next not suitable for broadcast? Pant, pant. Honestly, jealousy play works too, but I want to watch!]

[Are the people still shipping this sick in the head?]

[Shipping everything will only hurt you. Wake up.]

Yet, unexpectedly, Huo Xingye remained standing where he was.

Beside the bed, Nan Zhou took off his sweater.

The wool sweater generated a burst of static, leaving his hair a little disheveled.

His close-fitting undershirt fully revealed his slender but not scrawny upper body.

Below the undershirt were his long legs, encased in jeans.

Although Nan Zhou wasn't as tall as Huo Xingye, an Alpha, he was still nearly six feet tall. And two years of singing and dance training and stage performances had covered his body in a thin layer of muscle.

An Omega's skin was naturally finer than an Alpha's or a Beta's, and since he liked wearing long sleeves and long pants year-round, his body was very pale.

As a result, his figure was actually better than outsiders thought. He looked better undressed than dressed, and was particularly alluring.

Huo Xingye knew all of this better than anyone else.

He had touched and rubbed every inch of the skin of the person before him with his fingers, carefully tracing and kissing it with his lips.

Nan Zhou rested his hand on the button of his jeans. "You want to watch?"

Huo Xingye said nothing. He watched him with a calm expression, his gaze icy and devoid of any intimacy, every inch the one in command.

Alpha pheromones filled the room, much stronger than when the cameraman had been there.

The only thing the Omega pheromone patch on the back of Nan Zhou's neck accomplished was keeping other people from discovering that he had already been marked.

In front of Huo Xingye, the Alpha who had marked him, it was nothing but decoration.

Fine. Since he doesn't mind, I have nothing to mind either.

Nan Zhou moved his fingers.

At the same time, Huo Xingye casually picked up the towel Nan Zhou had used to dry his hair that evening from the sofa and tossed it over the Automatic Camera's lens.

The livestream viewers only had time to see the towel flying toward them before the screen was obscured.

Throughout the entire process, Huo Xingye never once looked in that direction.

[Damn it! I knew he'd never let us see.]

[He still loves him so much. I'm crying.]

[Whatever else, this is Nan Zhou's privacy, right? As a celebrity, how could he strip on a livestream?]

[He's wearing thermal underwear, right? It's so cold. How could Nan Zhou not be wearing thermal underwear? Is he crazy?]

As it turned out, Nan Zhou really wasn't wearing thermal underwear.

He was a real man, a man of steel. Style over warmth. Thermal underwear was absolutely out of the question!

Huo Xingye gave a cold snort.

Nan Zhou didn't understand why, but with his fever, he didn't have the energy to think much about it.

This time, without Huo Xingye needing to tell him, he lifted the covers and lay down in bed himself.

Even with the heat on, he felt cold.

The quilt that had been perfectly warm last night had become completely useless, though he didn't know whether that was because of his fever.

"It's cold," he complained.

"Now you know what cold feels like?" Huo Xingye asked.

"Why did we both get rained on, but only I caught a cold?" Nan Zhou asked.

He genuinely couldn't understand it. Surely it couldn't be because he hadn't drunk the ginger soup.

Huo Xingye didn't answer.

Nan Zhou curled into a ball, pulling the quilt up until it nearly covered his head, his voice muffled. "Did you drink the ginger soup?"

"That was made for you." Huo Xingye walked toward the bed.

So he didn't.

Damn it. Why!

The Alpha pulled back the quilt covering almost half his face. Long fingers gripped Nan Zhou's chin, then stroked his bobbing Adam's apple.

Looking into his hazy eyes, Huo Xingye said slowly, "You took off your jacket in the winter rain to act tough. You wouldn't drink the ginger soup when I told you to, and you wouldn't wear thermal underwear either. Do I have to treat you like this before you'll listen? Is that it?"

That unmistakably intimidating presence, that control that allowed no refusal, the restraining force, the Alpha pheromones that compelled submission, and that deliberately lowered voice and manner...

Every last bit of it was so familiar.

Overwhelming heat exploded in Nan Zhou's mind along with the memories of that night, making his breathing quicken.

He couldn't help rubbing his cheek against that gentle, large hand, but a moment later, he was held firmly in place, unable to move.

Nan Zhou couldn't resist defending himself. "I didn't think I was that weak."

Getting a fever right after being caught in a little rain was something he would never have imagined possible before.

He gazed back into Huo Xingye's deep eyes, waiting for his response.

The Alpha had put away his usual gentle expression. His eyes were cold now, his thoughts unreadable, and he was a little frightening.