Chapter 37

Chapter 37

After dinner, the family took a stroll through the botanical garden to aid digestion.

The botanical garden at Jingying Manor was considerable in size, divided into two sections: an indoor greenhouse and an outdoor area. The outdoor section featured mostly native tree species, with a gravel path winding through the woods, lined with various rare plants on both sides.

He Yishui walked at the front, with Wen Shijun beside him, the two maintaining their characteristic unspoken understanding.

Although their marriage was an alliance between wealthy families, their relationship was actually very affectionate. Wen Shijun had never been involved in any scandals, and Wen Yanxu had no illegitimate siblings—his position as heir was extremely secure.

In a family like the Wen household, this was almost a miracle.

Wen Jueqian watched their backs and suddenly felt a twinge of envy.

He envied the harmonious family atmosphere in a household that should have been cold and unfeeling.

Just then, He Yishui stopped and pointed at a plant by the roadside. "This dove tree was planted by your father the year I was pregnant with Yanxu. Look how tall it's grown now."

"That patch of snowdrops is a new variety introduced last year—extremely delicate. I consulted many experts to keep them thriving."

"A few have bloomed recently. Would you like to go see them later?"

His tone was light, like an ordinary homemaker proudly showing off his garden.

But Wen Jueqian knew that maintaining a botanical garden this size required a massive horticultural team behind the scenes. He Yishui's "careful tending" was more a matter of directing and decision-making.

Wen Jueqian and Wen Yanxu followed behind, keeping a few steps' distance.

The air carried the scent of soil and flowers, occasionally carrying a trace of datura fragrance from Wen Yanxu—reassuring and calming.

Wen Jueqian watched the backs of He Yishui and Wen Shijun ahead. The two walked shoulder to shoulder, occasionally exchanging soft words, with Wen Shijun subtly leaning down to listen to him.

He suddenly thought that if He Yishui could maintain this attitude toward him from now on, it wouldn't be so bad.

Perhaps the time when He Yishui would completely turn against him hadn't arrived yet.

Those embarrassing moments hadn't happened yet.

"If Uncle could always be like this toward me, that would be great."

The moment the words left his mouth, he realized he had blurted out his thoughts.

Wen Jueqian's heart dropped. He instinctively glanced at the two figures ahead.

Luckily, they didn't turn around.

"I'm sorry." Wen Jueqian's throat tightened as he lowered his voice, speaking to Wen Yanxu. "I mean, Uncle was very warm and caring toward me today. It took me by surprise."

His palms grew sweaty, and his voice grew quieter and quieter. The more he explained, the more he felt he was digging himself into a hole.

Finally, he stopped, lowered his head, and stared at the ground, afraid to look at Wen Yanxu again.

Wen Yanxu said softly, "It's fine. They didn't hear anything up ahead. Nothing bad happened."

But you heard me.

As if knowing what he was about to say, Wen Yanxu spoke first: "Qianqian can say what's truly in his heart when he's with me."

Wen Jueqian looked up.

In the night, Wen Yanxu was looking at him. The alpha's ice-blue eyes had lost all their sharpness, like the deep sea—as if they could hold anything, whether it was Wen Jueqian's good side or his bad side, everything about him held securely.

"Qianqian, I love you, and my family will accept you too."

"So don't worry, okay?"

Wen Jueqian was taken aback.

A light promise, but behind it was Wen Yanxu's actual follow-through.

He always kept his word.

Wen Yanxu reached out, put his arm around his shoulder, and pulled him close, his palm warm, the heat seeping through his clothes.

He asked softly, "It's getting cold at night. Are you cold?"

"I'm fine."

Wen Yanxu tightened his arm slightly, pressing Wen Jueqian's body close to his.

"I'll shield you from the wind."

Then he called out to the two ahead: "Father, Dad, we're going to take a look at the greenhouse."

Wen Shijun turned back. "Alright, go ahead. I'll keep walking with your dad."

Wen Yanxu, with his arm around Wen Jueqian, walked quickly toward the greenhouse.

Wen Jueqian had heard about He Yishui's greenhouse before, but this was his first time actually seeing it in person.

The glass dome let in soft light, like a giant eggshell covering the ground.

The moment they stepped inside, the chill outside was shut out by the glass. This was a separate, carefully tended world.

The floor was paved with light gray stone slabs, with tiny moss growing in the cracks, soft to step on. On both sides of the stone path were flower beds and trees arranged at different heights, their branches and leaves spreading in elegant shapes.

The greenhouse's temperature zones were carefully controlled—the deeper they went, the warmer and more humid the air became.

Wen Yanxu patiently walked him through everything.

He explained the origins of the plants and the constant-temperature, constant-humidity conditions they required.

Wen Jueqian listened, then asked out of nowhere, "How do you know this place so well?"

Wen Yanxu replied, "I took a botany elective in high school. I did a lot of my assignments here."

He led Wen Jueqian through a tropical plant section, past a dense shrub, and past a row of neat seedling racks.

Further ahead, through an arched flower trellis, the space suddenly opened up.

Wen Jueqian stopped in his tracks.

Before him was a patch of datura.

Dozens of datura plants stood at varying heights. Flowers hung from the branches, hanging elegantly like inverted golden bells.

What caught his eye the most were the rare black datura and blue datura specimens, each individually covered with a glass dome—clearly prized and specially cared for.

Wen Jueqian stood there, at a loss for words.

The air was thick with the unmistakable scent of Datura, the exact same as Wen Yanxu's pheromones.

"Do you know why my pheromones are Datura?" Wen Yanxu's voice came from behind.

Wen Jueqian snapped out of it.

He was actually pretty curious about that.

Before they even met, Wen Yanxu had already gone through differentiation.

An Alpha's secondary gender was set by genetics from birth, but the type of pheromones wasn't.

So what influenced Wen Yanxu's pheromones?

"Do you like Datura?" Wen Jueqian asked.

Wen Yanxu didn't keep him guessing.

"Back in freshman year, I was working on a project—comparing Datura grown in greenhouses versus out in the open."

His gaze landed on the sea of flowers. "That period happened to be right before my differentiation. I didn't go out—I basically lived in the botanical garden during the day. Every day I took notes, watched the plants grow, and compared how they bloomed in different conditions."

He paused, like he was remembering something.

"The difference between greenhouse and open-air growing was way bigger than I'd expected."

Wen Jueqian listened, picturing a younger Wen Yanxu bustling around the greenhouse.

Wen Yanxu's voice continued. "That day, I suddenly felt my temperature spike and my glands start to swell."

"I knew my differentiation had started."

His tone was calm, but Wen Jueqian knew that for an Alpha, differentiation meant a total overhaul of body and mind—everything changing at once.

During this process, an Alpha had to endure intense pain—bones, muscles, and nerves all had to rebuild themselves.

The higher the differentiation level, the more complete and brutal the physical transformation.

And the top-tier S-class Alphas went through pain way beyond what regular Alphas felt.

"But it wasn't some out-of-control accident. I was the only one in the botanical garden. Later, when people noticed what was happening, my dad sealed off the whole garden and had someone bring me meals on a set schedule."

"I went through my differentiation right here."

Wen Jueqian's breathing unconsciously got quieter.

"The whole time, my consciousness was hazy." Wen Yanxu's voice lowered. "The only thing that stayed clear was the Datura scent hanging around me. The later it got, the stronger the smell became—wave after wave, wrapping around me."

"That's when I thought of what Datura symbolizes."

"Unpredictable death... and love."

Wen Jueqian grabbed his hand tightly.

"After the differentiation ended, my pheromones became Datura."

As he talked, Wen Jueqian's gaze went from listening to a focused stare. He unconsciously leaned closer to Wen Yanxu, like he wanted to say something but couldn't get the words out.

Wen Yanxu could see the ache in his eyes.

"My differentiation was years ago now." His voice was gentle.

Wen Jueqian reached up, his fingertips gently tracing the back of Wen Yanxu's neck. The skin was smooth and warm, the gland resting quietly underneath.

Once, on a night between late summer and early fall, a silent storm had raged right there.

Wen Yanxu suddenly said, "Too bad I didn't know you back then."

Wen Jueqian's fingers paused.

"If I'd known you earlier," Wen Yanxu said with a playful tone, "I could've had you take care of me after my differentiation."

Wen Jueqian lowered his hand and said quietly, "Yeah."

Before he met Wen Yanxu, Wen Jueqian's life at Beichen hadn't been great.

Getting into Beichen High School was extremely hard.

Even if you managed to get in, the real competition started once you were inside.

At Beichen, being "excellent" was just the bare minimum.

The school used a system called the "Beichen Index" to grade students. It turned grades, extracurriculars, projects, and everything else into points, all rolled into one number. Students with too low an index risked getting kicked out.

Under these rules, the competition ran from day one all the way to graduation.

During his first two years at Beichen, Wen Jueqian worked really hard.

But his Beichen Index had been stuck around 700—only about a hundred points above the 600 survival line.

In academics, he'd already pushed himself to his limit.

But in areas that depended on outside factors, he struggled.

Take the summer charity volunteer scoring, for example. Even though he actually did better than most, he only got a score barely above the baseline.

Because those activities needed influence, resources, and families with money and connections pulling strings behind the scenes.

And Wen Qishan would never invest in him like that.

Back then, just keeping up with his classes was enough to overwhelm Wen Jueqian.

Wen Yanxu was the biggest name at school. If Wen Jueqian hadn't worked up the courage to apply to Wen Yanxu's practical group that one time, the two of them would've never crossed paths until graduation.

Wen Jueqian lowered his eyes. Those distant memories surged up, carrying a damp and heavy feeling.

Wen Yanxu keenly noticed his shift in mood.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Did something unpleasant come to mind?"

Wen Jueqian answered honestly: "I was thinking about my time studying at Beichen. The pressure every day was enormous."

The pressure of an ordinary Beta student was something Wen Yanxu could never understand, and Wen Jueqian didn't seek his understanding either.

To keep the conversation from turning heavy, Wen Jueqian looked up and said in a lighter tone, "If we had known each other in our first year, would you have let me join your practical group?"

He didn't wait for Wen Yanxu to answer, then continued on his own: "If so, my Beichen Index would have been higher, and I wouldn't have had to worry every day about being expelled."

Wen Yanxu stepped forward a few paces and led him to sit on a lounge sofa across from the Datura flowers.

He didn't call Wen Jueqian unrealistic, but instead went along with the hypothetical and ran with it.

Wen Yanxu said, "If we'd met freshman year of high school, I wouldn't have just let you join my practice group—I would've started taking care of you from day one."

Wen Jueqian's lips curved into a slight smile. "I'm not a kid; I don't need anyone to take care of me."

Wen Yanxu slung an arm around him. "So I'm just 'anyone'?"

"Not just anyone—you're my boyfriend."

Wen Yanxu really had always been taking care of him.

He also thought back to those tough times and the help Wen Yanxu had given him.

When he was a senior in high school, Wen Yanxu used the excuse that "the practice project had set Wen Jueqian back academically" to let him tag along to his private lessons with a top-tier teacher.

The tutoring worked really well. After just two months, his math and physics had improved significantly, and he even placed in the top five of his grade on the midterms.

"That way, I could also join a bunch of school clubs." Wen Jueqian looked at the blue datura and said, smiling, "Back then, I was drowning in schoolwork all day and never had time to join any of them."

The real reason was that Beichen's clubs were all pretty fancy.

Not to mention sports clubs that needed equipment and space—even something as ordinary-sounding as the anime club would regularly organize in-person events or have members bulk-buy all kinds of "merch."

Most clubs had outrageous membership fees; the esports club was relatively cheap because in-game purchases didn't count toward the membership criteria.

Although this wasn't a big deal for most Beichen students, Wen Jueqian wasn't among them.

He couldn't afford to join many clubs.

Wen Jueqian didn't mention any of that. Instead, he said, "I was already interested in gaming back then and even joined the esports club. But I rarely played, and I never found a suitable teammate within the club."

Wen Yanxu gazed at him, his eyes holding something deep.

"If I could go back in time, I would join the esports club with you."

Wen Jueqian was momentarily taken aback.

Wen Yanxu: "To be your teammate."

Wen Jueqian snapped back to reality, a knowing, gentle smile spreading across his face. He reached out and lightly tapped Wen Yanxu's arm. "I understand what you mean. But you don't need to go back to high school to fulfill that wish of playing games with me—it can happen once Fusheng Realm goes into open beta."

Wen Yanxu smiled indulgently. "Alright. When Fusheng Realm launches, I'll be among the first to register."

"Then it's a deal."

"Want to record it?"

"No need!"

The two chatted for a long while in the botanical garden before finally getting up to leave.