Chapter 20

Chapter 20

The bubble wontons were all wrapped up, each one round and cute, plump and pudgy, with lots of filling and thin skins. When cooked in the chicken broth, they looked like little goldfish, flicking their tails as they swam around all playful.

Aunt Zhang had gone home to look after her grandkids. By the time Lu Xingwen scooped out the wontons, Su Xingze had already brought all the dishes to the table.

Four dishes plus a soup. Pork belly shrimp rolls, corn and mushrooms, braised beef, sautéed ferns, and the wontons Xiaolu had just made.

Su Xingze wolfed down half a bowl of wontons, all happy and satisfied: "The way we are now is basically no different from a newlywed couple in love."

Lu Xingwen picked up a piece of his favorite beef and put it in his bowl, then slid over a glass of hawthorn juice: "We've been living like this for over ten years."

Except for those five years when Chen Chen was in his body.

That's right. Back then, Su Xingze, who was seventeen, agreed to Lu Xingwen's request because he wanted to keep this relationship going forever.

Getting married just to be brothers for life sounded crazy, but it was the only way Su Xingze could think of.

With this tie, they could live like before without anyone questioning them.

Su Xingze picked up a piece of pork belly shrimp roll and reminded him: "Don't you dare try to get rid of me. I'm gonna be your brother for life."

Lu Xingwen clutched his chest, almost coughing up blood.

Can he just stop saying the word "brothers"? It was grating on his ears.

"What happened to your wrist?" Su Xingze walked over and leaned in to get a closer look.

Earlier, when Lu Xingwen raised his hand, his sleeve had slid up with the motion, revealing the lower part of his arm. Su Xingze, sitting off to the side, happened to catch a glimpse of the scar on the inside of his wrist.

Lu Xingwen quickly pulled his hand back, tugging down the sleeve he'd rolled up while cooking, his eyes darting away. "It's nothing. I fell once and scraped my wrist. It healed a long time ago."

Liar.

But this was the first time anything had made Xiaolu so scared that he showed it this clearly.

Su Xingze was curious but finished his wontons first, then casually suggested: "Xiaolu, you wanna take a shower with me tonight?"

"Cough, cough..." Lu Xingwen choked on his soup, coughing hard, almost coughing up a lung.

Su Xingze recalled: "We used to shower together all the time. You'd wash my back, and I'd wash yours."

That was the past. You can't chase the past.

Before he turned seventeen, Lu Xingwen was open and carefree. Even knowing he liked Su Xingze, he could handle it easily.

Sleeping in the same bed at night, sometimes showering together, sharing chopsticks... these were all just part of their everyday routine, so he could easily keep his deeper feelings hidden.

But Lu Xingwen at twenty-two was different. Having lost Su Xingze for five years—each day of those five years felt like a year, pure torture—his old ease was long gone, replaced by nothing but dirty thoughts.

Lu Xingwen had no idea what would happen if his pheromones fully erupted and his desires were exposed. And that was a consequence he could never let Su Xingze deal with.

Lu Xingwen tried to reason with him: "Alphas and Omegas can't shower together, you know."

Su Xingze said "Oh": "I wish I hadn't turned into an Omega. Then I could shower with you."

If they kept talking about this, little Lu Xingwen was really gonna explode.

*

After dinner, Lu Xingwen still had work to do. Su Xingze headed back to his room to lie down.

Not this time—he'd catch him another time. A scar was on a person's body; it wasn't gonna run away.

He flipped through his textbooks again. Still couldn't get it. He confirmed he just wasn't cut out for this.

Su Xingze could roughly guess. He'd probably chosen this major because Ying Ying had picked it, so he'd followed along.

He'd done so many reckless things over those five years, and this one didn't even seem that crazy by comparison.

If he really couldn't learn it and failed too many classes—and since he couldn't switch majors in his senior year, and he wanted to stay away from those two idiots Ying Ying and Yang Ye at school—he'd have no choice but to drop out.

Acting was probably something he'd never master. But opening a shop and making a bit of money was doable. Who didn't love soft, sweet little cakes?

A lot of the old masters from his mom's shop had found new bakeries and settled into steady jobs. Only one master who had been with his mother from the very beginning hadn't found a new bakery. He'd heard the man had taken up food delivery instead and stopped making cakes.

Su Xingze scheduled a meeting for next Saturday, and the old master readily agreed.

It was already dark, ten at night. Su Xingze still hadn't heard the door.

Something was off. Knowing Xiaolu's personality—they lived right next door—shouldn't he be trying every trick to stay over and sleep in the same room? Why hadn't he come by this late?

Xiaolu was afraid of the dark and afraid of ghosts. There was no way he'd stay alone in his room next door.

Su Xingze found some short dramas to pass the time. The short dramas these days were pretty good, actually quite entertaining.

Most of the streetlights had gone out, leaving only a few small ones burning lonely. The lights in the villa courtyard had gone dark too.

Su Xingze looked over from his balcony to the next room and saw that the light in Lu Xingwen's room was also off.

Su Xingze: ??? He's really not coming? He's overcome his fears?

But he remembered that at the hospital before, Lu Xingwen had sneaked into the bathroom to cry in the middle of the night. The sound was intermittent and hoarse—he must have been terrified.

Nearly midnight, Su Xingze went out and knocked on Lu Xingwen's door.

Not a sound came from inside—not even footsteps approaching.

"Xiaolu? Still working?" If he was still working, Su Xingze would go back to sleep. If his childhood problem was acting up again, he'd stay here and wait with him.

Still no sound from inside. After a long while, no one answered his question.

The door was locked from the inside—clearly, he didn't want anyone going in.

The brotherly bond they'd had in their teens was never like this. Xiaolu used to beg him to come sleep together, never locking his door, let alone deadbolting it.

Over these five years, too much had come between them.

He had school tomorrow and would have to face those two idiots. Who knew what would happen. Su Xingze said goodnight and went back to sleep.

Inside the room, hearing the footsteps fade away, Lu Xingwen took a few deep breaths and continued enduring the torment of his pheromones.

In his room, hidden inside the bathroom, was a secret chamber about the size of a storage room. It had no windows, a thick iron door, and a single fluorescent light hanging from the ceiling.

Though the room looked like a rough concrete shell, its ventilation system was top-notch, capable of clearing out his released pheromones within minutes.

Two safes sat in the room. On his birthdays and during pheromone surges, he would hide here alone, getting through it with whatever was inside the safes.

His gland had accumulated too many pheromones, so he experienced a pheromone surge once a month. Fortunately, the medication kept it in check, so each surge didn't completely turn him into a madman.

But this time was different.

He presented even later than Su Xingze. The later a person's pheromone presentation, the higher their rank, the higher their danger index, and correspondingly, the more powerful that Alpha becomes.

For five years, Chen Chen had been absent. He bore it alone, and when he couldn't take it anymore, he forced himself to keep going.

But now Chen Chen was back. Lu Xingwen simply couldn't control his desires. Even trapped in the secret room, he was crazed with the urge to burst out, pull the man outside into his arms, and claim him recklessly.

So, he handcuffed himself to the bed leg in the secret room. Even as he thrashed until blood ran down his wrists, he never touched the keys on the table.

There were already scars on his wrists—old wounds left from previous pheromone eruptions when he could barely endure it. Now new wounds replaced the old, skin torn, bloodied and raw. At least he could make up an excuse, tell Chen Chen he'd injured his wrists in an accident.

Not because he'd lost his mind wanting to fuck him and ended up hurting himself like this.

==========Author's Note:==========

Oh my god! I was typing away and realized I missed the update deadline! My bad, my bad.