– – There were clear footsteps in the hallway.

And they were getting closer.

Going straight to Huo Tinglan’s bedroom.

Ye Ci’s face turned white with horror. When his shock faded, he rushed out.

As a result, as soon as he stepped out, he ran into Huo Tinglan head-on. The two looked at each other and saw one another clearly and distinctly, with no room for salvaging the situation.

However . . . . the hallway was silent for only a second.

No, maybe not even a second.

Huo Tinglan looked calm, glanced at the exercise book in Ye Ci’s hand that was on the verge of being crushed, and asked lightly: “Which question are you having trouble with? Why didn’t you go to the study to find me?”

“. . . . . .” Ye Ci’s throat felt like it was filled with cement, and he hesitated. Let alone saying nonsense, he couldn’t even squeeze out a single syllable.

But Huo Tinglan seemed to be asking casually. He didn’t give Ye Ci time to answer and didn’t even look at his panic-stricken face. Instead, he went straight to the bed and picked up a document from the bedside table that he had been reading when he fell asleep last night, and said to him: “I have an emergency meeting.” He looked down at his watch and confirmed the meeting time. “I’ll try my best to be back before ten o’clock. If you don’t know the questions, save them and I’ll go over them with you tonight . . . . is that okay?”

Coming back from death’s door, Ye Ci regained his language ability and nodded like he was pounding garlic: “O, okay!”

Huo Tinglan’s lips curved into a covert arc. He walked into the cloakroom, took out a coat and put it on his forearm, and strode toward the stairs like he was really in a hurry.

Ye Ci didn’t dare to linger any longer and quickly went back to the room, clinging to the window and looking out.

In the distance, a black Maybach 62 slowly drove towards the gate of the house.

– – Huo-shushu really went out.

The fever period was making his brain dull, otherwise Ye Ci would have noticed that Huo Tinglan’s “consideration” was familiar.

Seeing through everything, but staying silent. Just lightly prodding from the side to provide guidance. It was completely in accordance with Huo Tinglan’s consistent style.

The miserably suffering brain that was hijacked by the Omega glands desperately craved Huo Tinglan’s pheromones. Ye Ci had never been in Huo Tinglan’s bedroom until he went there and tasted how sweet and comfortable it was to be soothed by an adoring Alpha during the fever period. That greed and thirst were twice as difficult to contain, and his body temperature continued to rise.

It would be fine if he didn’t touch what he shouldn’t touch.

For a while, nothing moved in the house.

Huo-shushu wouldn’t return home until ten o’clock.

There was even time to open the windows and ventilate the “evidence” of the smell.

What was he afraid of?

The brain dominated by love instigated him every minute and every second, without end.

When he regained his senses, he had already returned to Huo Tinglan’s room as if sleepwalking.

Their pheromones were so compatible. The burning glands were soothed, and just like dipping burnt skin into ice water, Ye Ci was immersed in a kind of extreme comfort that made his muscles and bones go soft.

The object with the most residual pheromones, aside from the laundry basket in the bathroom, was the big bed in the center of the room. He was like a cub attracted by bait. He knew he shouldn’t go, but his stomach was empty. Hungry and thirsty, sniffing the fragrance and anxiously going in circles, round and round, he couldn’t overcome his instincts in the end and looked for an excuse to draw near . . . .

Just a sniff.

He wouldn’t touch.

Huo Tinglan’s bedsheets and quilt cover were an identical graphite color made of satin material, cool and soft, overflowing with a silk-like brilliance. Ye Ci had never seen anyone use a four-piece bed set like this . . . . he couldn’t describe it, and only felt that just looking at it could make people blush.

He stood beside the bed with a dense fog in his eyes, sniffing greedily.

He couldn’t get enough.

It was so strange.

Wave after wave, his hot blood surged.

When the good child did a bad thing, at first, fear and dread interweaved. But then, a secret and novel excitement quickly fermented, awakening a part of the green youth that overlapped with his Omega attributes . . . . his qi and blood flourished, restless and reckless. These things had been lying dormant inside him all along.

His fingertips rebelled, casually stroking the silky graphite-colored satin soaked in Alpha pheromones.

It was like licking a dark pool of water with the tip of his tongue.

Sweet and tempting.

Ye Ci’s face and ears were red, his eyes blank and unfocused. It was difficult to control his throbbing heart, which was like a bad boy coaxing a little lover to taste the forbidden fruit for the first time. He pricked up his ears to catch the subtle noises outside the window and the hallway, and kept glancing at the gap in the door – the soundproofing in Huo Tinglan’s bedroom was very good. He didn’t dare to lock the door, for fear that he wouldn’t be able to hear noises from the hallway, or that a servant would suddenly break in and stumble upon his dirty desires.

Confirming that no one would break in, Ye Ci cautiously lay on his stomach, resting his head on the side of Huo Tinglan’s pillow.

At first, he tried to hold his bottom line.

He maintained his restraint and tried not to take up space. His thin body was neatly tucked into a line along the bed, so that he would fall off if he turned over. He breathed in small sips, as if he were sipping strong wine, but also as if he would be charged by the millileter for the air he breathed in this room.

But gradually, this sort of contact was no longer satisfying. He moved towards the middle impatiently, and no longer lay rigidly like a corpse at a funeral.

After some time, he began to rub his hot face against Huo Tinglan’s pillow. His thin lips were open, greedily taking in the pheromones in the air with his mouth and nose. The soft little red tip of his tongue could be seen between his teeth. He was addicted and drunk. Like a little cat that fell into a pile of catnip, he didn’t know what it meant to stop, just wanting to build a nest with catnip and live there forever. 

“Huo-shushu . . . .” In a trance, he sat up and rolled up Huo Tinglan’s quilt, folded it like a nest, and piled it high with the quilt under his legs and his face buried in it. The “only ten minutes” that he had thought about before he came in had long been ejected into the atmosphere. He couldn’t remember how many “ten minutes” he had lingered on Huo-shushu’s bed. He had long forgotten to be alert to the sound of vehicles outside the window, and his ears were full of his frantic, clumsy heartbeat and hoarse murmurs of, “Huo-shushu . . . .”

At this moment, the sound of footsteps came in through the crack in the door, neither light nor heavy.

The delirious Ye Ci caught this signal.

The moonlight spilling into the room suddenly became brighter, not like moonlight . . . .

The scent of tequila became fragrant . . . .

These signs were very weak, and he was still in a daze, but his instinctual vigilance rose from the chaos, breaking through the surface of the water . . . .

Ye Ci raised his eyes, took a breath of cold air, kicked the quilt away suddenly, and bounced up in a single movement.

The bedroom door opened at an angle.

Huo Tinglan stood backlit at the doorway and looked at him quietly.

He woke from his trance.

But it was too late.

He was caught in the act.

“Huo . . . . . .”

Ye Ci’s cheeks lost color. His eyes trembled slightly, staring in disbelief, as terrified as a criminal caught in the net or a startled wild goose.

Why did he come back this soon?

Was it ten o’clock?

No, that was wrong . . . .

How long had he been there?!

What time was it now?!

To avoid being noticed, Ye Ci hadn’t dared to turn on the lights. It was pitch dark, and the dim room was gently soaked in the warm light from the wall lamps in the hallway.

Huo Tinglan was afraid to startle him again, so he didn’t turn on the light. His sharp figure gradually approached in the haze, and he opened his mouth, as always, with a gentle and apologetic tone: “Sorry, did I scare you?”

With Ye Ci’s current state of mind, it was obviously difficult for him to notice the uncontrolled trembling at the tail end of his words.

It was agreed that he would be back at ten o’clock and it was now 10:01. Right on time. He couldn’t be called a cheater.

He had been thinking for the past few days that Ye Ci was concealing the situation from him, but he couldn’t be sure. After all, Ye Ci evaded him too well.

However, when he ran into him in the hallway tonight, he basically confirmed it with one glance.

He’d wanted to take the opportunity to grab a few clues and use them to scratch Ye Ci’s soft, ticklish flesh, to tease him, to play with him. To let him explain why he wanted to go into his room when no one was there, touching his clothes and sleeping in his bed. To force that tightly closed little clam shell to sip some water, and then slowly pry it open.

Unexpectedly . . . .

He simply caught him.

With his eyesight, he could clearly see from the door that captivating, charming and gentle picture.

At this moment, he could still hold back the wicked fire due to having endured the past two months, accustomed to playing the role of a good person.

“I, I wasn’t. So, sorry, Huo-shushu, I’m, I’m not . . . .” Ye Ci returned from the dead, wanting to prevaricate, but the joints of his mouth were rusted and hard, and couldn’t be opened.

He wanted to slip away.

But before his toes touched the ground, that cool tequila fragrance approached and the mattress sank as Huo Tinglan knelt on one knee on the edge of the bed, cutting off his path.

Ye Ci shrank back and fell onto the stack of quilts, and the blood gradually poured back into his face.

He could no longer run, dizzy with shame, and the secret excitement of stealing the forbidden fruit had already been swept away. He was remorseful, and stammered an apology: “I’m really, really sorry, Huo-shushu . . . . I, today I’m especially, especially uncomfortable. Sorry, I also don’t, don’t know what’s wrong with me, it’s like, like . . . .”

Intense self-loathing and tremendous shame made his voice ripple on the verge of a sob.

He was the very picture of speechlessness.

That word was so shameful.

In front of Huo Tinglan, he couldn’t speak, couldn’t make it come out.

He was finished.

Ye Ci’s slender chest rose and fell rapidly, accompanied by a small and helpless sob.

He didn’t even remember how old he was the last time he cried in front of someone.

Disgraceful. He wiped his face with his arm a few times, gritting his teeth to stifle it.

Suddenly, an arm hugged him firmly and tugged him into an embrace, while the other pulled over the thin quilt he had stacked into a mountain, shook it out, and wrapped up his tense, icy limbs as if spinning a silk chrysalis around a tiny butterfly.

The slight pressure and heat all over made Ye Ci temporarily return to the present like a soul that had strayed from his body.

“Don’t cry.” Huo Tinglan was reclining on the bed, hugging him. His posture was very possessive, as if he wanted to completely encircle Ye Ci. He took out his handkerchief and carefully brushed the corners of Ye Ci’s eyes, which were scratched red by the sleeves of his pajamas. He softened his voice to help that soft, clumsy little tongue explain: “It’s close to your fever period, and you’re very uncomfortable. You can’t use the inhibitors, so you had no choice but to come to my room and lie down for a while……right?”

Ye Ci sniffed and nodded lightly as he was coaxed, but felt aggrieved as another round of tears welled up but didn’t fall.

“That’s a very legitimate need, why didn’t you tell me?” Huo Tinglan slowly tightened the arm that hugged Ye Ci’s shoulders, asking gently and knowingly: “You’ve been avoiding me these days…….do you hate Huo-shushu?”

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