"Free things cost the most." Like an alert kitten that had spotted a trap, Nan Zhou nimbly leaped aside.
Huo Xingye smiled, his smile unreadable.
"I'm very petty. If you keep me, you can't keep anyone else."
"A good man doesn't keep a mistress. Besides, you alone could bleed me dry."
As Nan Zhou's words fell, both ends of the video call went quiet for a moment.
As though they had tacitly thought of the same thing.
Nan Zhou suddenly felt very thirsty and instinctively swallowed.
"Huo Xingye..."
He had only just spoken when the screen suddenly went dark. No matter how he pressed the power button, it wouldn't light up.
...Fuck, he had forgotten to charge his phone. The battery was dead.
By the time Nan Zhou hurriedly found a charging cable, plugged in his phone, and logged back into WeChat, he saw that Huo Xingye had left him a message too.
"Think carefully before you say certain things. I'm serious."
Even in writing, he could read the alpha's expression and tone in those words.
Forceful and cool, calm and unhurried.
In every encounter with Huo Xingye, he seemed to have the upper hand, but in reality, he had been the one being controlled all along.
Huo Xingye had always been calm.
Nan Zhou flopped onto the couch and murmured, "What exactly does he want from me?"
When the call abruptly disconnected, Huo Xingye froze briefly before his fingers moved to call back.
Just as he was about to touch the call button, he stopped, switched to the chat window, and typed a message.
On the table in front of him lay a magazine, an obscure publication that had sold out as soon as it went on sale online that day.
On the cover, Nan Zhou wore a fitted