A Beta from the Countryside (19)

When Xue Ci heard about the reward the other person wanted, his first reaction was to check his bank account.

It wasn't the money the Gu family had given him, but the allowance he had saved up bit by bit.

There were only three thousand yuan.

He was the poorest of the poor.

Xue Ci was just about to text and ask whether that was enough when another message arrived.

[Baby, answer my call.]

[I want to hear your voice, baby.]

As he hesitated, Xue Ci heard someone beside him say, "Class president, your score wasn't very good this time."

He froze and looked over at Xie Yishu.

Xie Yishu lowered his eyes, looking somewhat dejected.

Was his drop in grades related to him...? Guilt made Xue Ci come to a decision. The bell rang just then. This was a self-study period, and he couldn't take the call in front of so many people, so he planned to get up and go to the restroom.

When Xin Yue saw that Xue Ci was leaving, he immediately followed.

Of course, Xue Ci didn't want Xin Yue there. His eyes darted around. "Could you buy me a bottle of water?"

They were standing close together. Xin Yue didn't know where his eyes had landed, but he immediately looked away. "...Okay."

He didn't go to buy water right away. He took a few strides back to the classroom and gave Xue Ci a jacket before leaving.

After successfully shaking off Xin Yue, Xue Ci went to the restroom. It was empty during class, and he found a stall by the window.

The call came through shortly afterward.

Xue Ci's heart pounded nervously as he carefully pressed the answer button.

There was silence on the other end for a few seconds, followed by a voice. "Baby."

The voice had clearly been altered, and it sounded heavily robotic.

Xue Ci pressed his lips together, not daring to speak.

The person on the other end spoke again. "Baby, let me hear your voice."

Xue Ci tightened his grip on his phone. After hesitating for a long while, he said stiffly, "Don't do anything to Xie Yishu."

The breathing on the other end suddenly grew heavier.

"Doesn't baby hate Xie Yishu? Why won't you let me teach him a lesson?"

Xue Ci frowned slightly and said softly, "I don't hate him."

"Then why does baby spend so much time with Xin Yue? Does baby like Xin Yue? Or Gu Xu? Or Duan Xingyan?"

The person on the other end knew everything... Xue Ci began to feel afraid, and even his breathing turned shaky.

His ragged breaths made the other person's tone grow excited.

"Baby's wearing white today, aren't you? I don't like that outfit on you. The neckline's so wide. Baby, don't get so close to other people. They're having the time of their lives with you pressed up against them."

"I can help baby too."

Perhaps the words came too quickly, but it took Xue Ci a moment to process them. When he did, the corners of his eyes flushed red with shame and anger. His shoulders trembled slightly as he reached to hang up.

The other person seemed to have anticipated it. "Is baby going to hang up on me? That's all right. I'll come find you. Baby's alone in a stall right now, aren't you?"

Xue Ci was stunned with fright.

This virus that had hacked in... was a pervert.

A beeping sound soon came from the phone. His finger had unconsciously hung up.

His two slender legs began to go weak. With trembling fingers, Xue Ci was just about to unlock the stall when he heard the door being pushed open.

Frightened, he immediately retreated.

The footsteps drew closer, steady and heavy, as though deliberately making sure he could hear them.

Xue Ci bit his lower lip hard, afraid he might make a sound he couldn't control. He curled up on the toilet like a pitiful kitten afraid of being caught.

His whole body trembled uncontrollably, and his eyelashes were soon wet with tears.

The corners of his eyes were intensely red.

His tightly clenched fingers were pale and slender.

Xue Ci tried hard not to make a sound, unaware that his trembling breaths had already given away his location.

When a shadow stopped outside the door, the kitten nearly stopped breathing.

Don't scare me...

A faint whimper escaped his throat despite himself.

The next moment, a familiar voice sounded outside the door. "Xue Ci, are you in there?"

It was Xie Yishu's voice!

It wasn't that person. That person had deliberately scared him... Trembling all over, Xue Ci opened the door.

Outside, Xie Yishu was looking at him with a worried expression.

"Class president..." Xue Ci sniffled, his voice thick with tears. As though he had found a lifeline, he grabbed Xie Yishu's arm, terrified that he would leave him behind.

"What's wrong?" Xie Yishu gently soothed him, a hand on his shoulder. "Are you feeling unwell? Should I take you to the infirmary?"

Xue Ci shook his head. His voice was very nasal, and he was very reliant on Xie Yishu at that moment. "I'm much better now. Class president, could you walk back to the classroom with me?"

Xie Yishu wiped away his tears with his fingers. "Are you sure you don't need to go to the infirmary?"

Xue Ci insisted on returning to the classroom. He kept his head down the whole way, his body pressed tightly against Xie Yishu's arm.

He didn't see the frighteningly possessive Alpha beside him lick the tears he had wiped away into his mouth.

After being deliberately frightened that time, Xue Ci became much more cautious and asked Xin Yue to accompany him whenever he went out.

But for the final exams, everyone was assigned to different exam rooms, so Xin Yue couldn't enter the teaching building with him.

Xie Yishu readily offered to accompany him.

Xue Ci was afraid of losing plot progress and couldn't decide. Fortunately, 11 said that since Xie Yishu had approached him, he wouldn't lose progress as long as he was careful not to talk to him too much.

So during those days of exams, Xie Yishu was busy almost every minute, from waking him up in the morning to helping him organize his exam notes at night.

Xue Ci felt a little sorry toward Xie Yishu.

Even though he treated Xie Yishu so coldly, Xie Yishu was still so good to him.

So Xue Ci bought a cup of milk tea and secretly left it on Xie Yishu's desk.

When one person was happy, another was dejected.

Xin Yue's physical test results dropped a little from their usual level.

One look at his lovelorn face was enough to tell what had happened. His teammate tried to cheer him up. "It's no big deal. Xie Yishu just gets good grades. Once the exams are over, Song Xueci will definitely still want to spend time with you."

"But the strange one is Xie Yishu. He usually seems so dependable, but it turns out he's completely love-brained. When Song Xueci ignored him, he acted like he was dying and didn't even want to talk to anyone else. You should've seen the look on his face during that time! I didn't dare talk to him."

"Why don't you try acting pitiful too?"

Xin Yue said nothing.

He had seen that the milk tea Xue Ci bought Xie Yishu had tapioca pearls, unlike his own cup.

The Alpha sulked in private, but on the surface, he treated Xue Ci just as well as usual. Perhaps his sincerity moved the heavens, because Xue Ci chose to sit beside him at the schoolwide end-of-term assembly.

All his earlier grievances vanished.

The end-of-term assembly at Holy Spiral Academy was mainly for students to choose their summer activities. The children of nobles were being trained as successors, so even during vacation, those who needed extra lessons took them, and those who had exams still had to sit them.

The school handed everyone a form to fill out on the spot.

According to the plot, Xue Ci's grades were only above average, and he wasn't good at the other sports nobles played. The only thing he had a foundation in was painting. Living under someone else's roof, he saw the prize money offered for a competition and was eager to try for it, so he joined the school's month-long summer training camp.

Seeing Xue Ci carefully filling out his form, Xin Yue leaned closer. "What are you going to sign up for?"

Xue Ci grew wary. "What are you signing up for?"

Xin Yue answered casually, "Whatever you sign up for, I'll go too."

Neither Gu Xu nor Xin Yue was fond of studying, and neither entered any competitions. Xue Ci's skin hunger flared up before the painting competition, and because there was no one familiar around him, his physical discomfort affected his performance, leaving him without a placing.

Afraid that Xin Yue would follow him and affect the plot, Xue Ci immediately covered his form, leaving no gaps the entire time.

Xin Yue was so annoyed he laughed. "That stingy?"

Xue Ci said, "Fill out your own."

In the end, Xin Yue left everything blank as usual and handed in an empty form. Only then did Xue Ci relax.

The sun beat down on the way from the assembly hall to the dormitory. As they stood by the entrance, Xin Yue took a sun-protective jacket out of his bag as usual, only to feel something soft bump against his shoulder.

The familiar sensation made him smile. Thinking Xue Ci was urging him to hurry, he said, "Almost done."

But Xue Ci complained softly, "The sun's really strong here."

Xin Yue turned sideways and met those light-colored eyes.

How can he be so good at acting spoiled?

He coughed and moved a little closer to Xue Ci. "How's this?"

Xue Ci said, "You need to come closer."

Any closer... and they would be pressed completely together. Xin Yue inched over a little more. The summer heat made Xue Ci's scent stronger and humid.

As though he had lost his senses, he stared at Xue Ci's mouth.

He leaned closer.

Closer still.

Just as they were about to touch, someone yanked his collar hard from behind, then punched him viciously on the right cheek.

The punch was so forceful that Xin Yue staggered back several steps. When he got a clear look at Gu Xu's cold eyes, the vicious expression on his face froze.

Xue Ci didn't know why things had turned out this way either.

He had carried out the task as 11 instructed, deliberately pressing close to Xin Yue in front of Gu Xu to make him mistake him for a frivolous person. Yet Gu Xu not only punched Xin Yue in the face, but also asked Xue Ci whether Xin Yue was bullying him.

Xue Ci had been completely bewildered. Seeing the tension between the two, he had hurried to stop the fight. A teacher happened to be nearby, and after someone reported them, both were called into the office.

Not knowing what was happening inside, he stood outside the office, waiting helplessly.

Before either of them came out, he received a call from Gu Ling.

This time, Gu Ling had come in person to take him home, and he was only picking him up.

Uneasy, Xue Ci said, "Big brother, Gu Xu..."

"He said he was swatting a fly on the other boy's face, and the other boy said the same thing. Everything's fine now." After reassuring him, Gu Ling looked at Xue Ci's round eyes, wide with surprise, then asked in a low voice, "When your skin hunger flares up at school, do you always go to that classmate called Xin Yue?"

Perhaps because he had been called to the school to deal with a fight, Xue Ci felt that Gu Ling seemed to be in a very dark mood. His eyes were lowered at the corners, and his face looked almost expressionless.

He nodded cautiously.

He gave a vague answer, but Gu Ling asked for details, including how many times he had hugged Xin Yue, how long the hugs lasted, and whether there was anything besides hugging.

"I can't remember..." Xue Ci thought Gu Ling was worried he would cause trouble for someone else. "I only touched his arm and back and things like that. He doesn't know I have this condition."

Gu Ling said nothing more.

Xue Ci relaxed a little.

Then, after they returned to the villa, Gu Ling stopped him in the second-floor hallway.

The Alpha was tall, and the shadow cast by the light completely enveloped Xue Ci. Without showing it, he gradually backed him into a corner, yet spoke as though making a suggestion.

"Xiao Ci, shouldn't we try the next step of desensitization?"

Try what?

The next step was...

Xue Ci slowly raised his head, only to see Gu Ling's face right in front of his.

The man had no practical experience, but he had explored the theory beforehand.

At first, he was very careful when he touched him, but the moment they made contact, he lost his reason.

Xue Ci got a lot of his saliva in his mouth.

He tilted up his tiny face, looking somewhat pained. Tears clung to his eyelashes, and the flesh of his cheek had been bumped red by the man's prominent nose.

Xue Ci felt as though he was about to be kissed senseless.

His whole little face was wet with tears. He seemed unable to endure the prolonged deep kiss, letting out a trembling nasal sound every now and then.

His chin was soaking wet, and the center of his lip glistened, swollen several times its usual size.

When he was finally released, he tilted his face up and stared blankly at the person before him, forgetting even to close his mouth.

Seeing Xue Ci's expression, Gu Ling had only one thought in his mind.

Without hesitating for even half a second, he pressed the bridge of his nose into the soft flesh of his cheek again.

The author has something to say:

Another day of gritting my teeth in envy.