Article 165 Bo Yan X He Li (10)
This was the first time He Li had seen such a complex look in his eyes, and all she could say was, "I'm sorry."
"What are you apologizing for?" Cheng Boyan slightly curled his lips, his tone very calm. "I locked you up first, and now it can only be considered that I've had a change of heart. Have you been driven crazy by being locked up?"
He Li shook his head, but he had a vague premonition that if he and Cheng Boyan could not take things further, they would probably only drift further apart.
"Can't we just stay the way we were before?" He Li said, then contradicted himself, "I know we can't, but I'm just fooling myself."
"Don't contact me until you've thought it through." Cheng Boyan seemed to have reverted to his usual rational self, cruelly drawing a dividing line. "Not contacting me means you're not allowed to call me, not allowed to text me every day, and not allowed to see me whenever you want."
He Li's eyes instantly reddened: "Does it have to be this way?"
Cheng Boyan looked down at him, afraid that he wouldn't understand, and explained slowly.
"He Li, I told you yesterday that I wanted to lock you up and make you only have me in your world. But you didn't want to, did you?"
“Even when I get close to you, you resist my pheromones, so I let you go.”
"You can't contact me every day, cling to me, but you don't like me. It's too much of a torment for me, isn't it?"
He Li understood and nodded slightly: "Okay, I understand."
He saw Xie Xingchen get out of the car parked at the door, stride over, and observe their expressions for a while: "I'll sit with Boyan for a while, Yaoyao will take you back first."
"Thank you." He Li's mind was in a mess. He gave Cheng Boyan a deep look, grabbed his schoolbag, and quickly went down the steps.
Cheng Boyan watched his retreating figure, then bent down and got into the car before disappearing again, his face expressionless.
Xie Xingchen stepped into the room and smelled a faint scent of pear blossoms still lingering in the room: "You two, did it? You scared He Li into silence. It's the first time I've seen him so quiet."
“It’s not the final step yet.” Cheng Boyan sat down, took the cigarette pack the other person threw at him, lit a cigarette, and said, “He can’t accept it.”
Xie Xingchen fiddled with the lighter and analyzed, "Thinking about it, it makes sense. Although that guy looks like an Omega, he's still an Alpha after all. It's normal for his instincts to resist when his pheromones clash."
Cheng Boyan slowly exhaled a puff of smoke, his voice low: "It might not just be a matter of pheromones. He's a very insecure person and doesn't want to change the balance we had before."
"It was entirely expected that He Li was slow to react and didn't catch on immediately."
Xie Xingchen glanced at him and said slowly, "If I were you, I should go to the research institute right now and make a special barrier agent. So what if it's AAA? You're studying drug research, can't you make this?"
Cheng Boyan, with a cigarette dangling from his lips, looked at him.
Xie Xingchen shared his experience: "I consulted about this when Lin Yao was an Alpha before, and it's not entirely unsolvable. When you first get together, you'll definitely feel uncomfortable. You can use some supplements to help you, but once you get used to it, you might not need them anymore. You might even find it quite exciting."
"What if he doesn't like me?"
Cheng Boyan flicked his cigarette ash, his expression indifferent. "Two years have passed. I've boiled the lukewarm water into boiling water, but I still got scared and ran away."
Xie Xingchen said, "Impossible, how could he not like her? He's quite similar to Lin Yao in this respect; they haven't been loved much, so it takes them a long time to realize their feelings."
"It's good to be apart for a while now. I'll definitely miss you after not seeing you for a while, and then I'll realize it."
Xie Xingchen lay lazily on the sofa and sighed, "Let him stay with us for a while. I'll subtly hint at it for you. It's just that it's tough on us, this inseparable couple, as we can't be passionate anytime, anywhere. You have to compensate me for my emotional distress."
Cheng Boyan transferred the money to him, and his annoyance eased a little: "You're quite carefree, just handing over an Alpha in his sensitive period to your wife like that."
"What can we do?" Xie Xingchen laughed. "But it doesn't matter. If they were going to be together, they would have been a couple long ago. It's not our turn yet."
Cheng Boyan lowered his eyes and stubbed out his cigarette: "I don't want to think about it anymore. Let's go to the research institute."
Xie Xingchen spent the afternoon with him, and then went to a bar for drinks in the evening. Only after confirming that the other person was not in a bad mood did he go home.
As soon as the door opened, Lin Yao was coming down from the second floor. He habitually walked over, grabbed her arm, and kissed her: "Baby, I'm exhausted! You have no idea how much trouble Cheng Boyan can cause!"
Lin Yao bit his lip and whispered a reminder: "He Li."
Xie Xingchen slowly realized, oh right, there's an extra light bulb in the house.
"Um... I... shouldn't I be here...?" He Li was nestled on the sofa eating cake, and seeing the two of them so openly together for the first time, she didn't know where to look.
"It's okay, you can keep eating." Xie Xingchen, with excellent composure, gave two quick pecks to end the meal, then took two steps back and sat down on the other side of the sofa. "You're on vacation recently, so stay here. It just so happens that Yaoyao isn't busy lately and can keep you company."
He Li swallowed the cake and mumbled, "You wouldn't be cursing me behind my back for stealing your wife, would you?"
Xie Xingchen reached for the fruit on the table and said with a smile, "I'm not that stingy."
"You two have been drinking?" Lin Yao smelled a faint scent of alcohol on him. "Is Bo Yan alright?"
Upon hearing the keywords, He Li suddenly looked up at the only person in the know at that moment.
Xie Xingchen noticed his actions and exaggerated the situation, making up a story: "I didn't drink much, he drank more, he must be quite upset. But Boyan has a high alcohol tolerance, he'll just throw up once and then go to sleep, it's not a big problem."
Lin Yao glanced at him, his face conveying an all-knowing "keep making this up" expression.
He Li's brows were already furrowed tightly: "Why didn't you stop him?"
"I couldn't stop him." Xie Xingchen said innocently. "He was in a bad mood, so couldn't he drown his sorrows in alcohol? Anyway, he was sent home. As for whether he had any stomach pain, dizziness, or hangover, I don't know."
He Li hesitated, as if he wanted to say something but then stopped.
"Why don't you go and ask him if he's feeling unwell?" Xie Xingchen suggested.
“I…” He Li thought of what Cheng Boyan had said before he left: “Don’t send any messages, don’t contact me again, and don’t give him any more hope until you’ve thought it through.”
He lowered his head and muttered, "Never mind, I won't ask."
Xie Xingchen and Lin Yao exchanged a glance, realizing that things were not as simple as they had imagined.
"Are you afraid that if things take a step further, it won't be what you imagined, and then you won't be able to go back to just being good friends?" Lin Yao tried to guess his thoughts. "You can't let him go, but you're not sure if you like him, right?"
He Li nodded slightly.
Lin Yao posed a hypothetical question: "So, if he lets go of this relationship and gets together with someone else in the future, what would you think?"
"I haven't thought about it." He Li looked at him blankly and repeated, "I haven't thought about it."
Although I used to always say that I wanted to find a beautiful Omega, most of my time was filled with studying and playing Engineering Mastery, so I didn't have time to meet other people, and the other person probably did too.
So, in this close daily interaction, it's hard to tell whether it's out of habit or affection.
Xie Xingchen continued the conversation, saying, "If you two each have partners in the future, the balance of good friendship will inevitably be broken. You will no longer be each other's first priority; lovers will be."
He paused, then said more directly, "Like you and Yaoyao, you're already best friends, but he still puts me in the most important position. If Cheng Boyan has someone like that in the future, someone who puts him before you, can you accept that?"
He Li bit her lip, and her eyes welled up with tears again.
He found it hard to imagine such a scene, or even to simulate it; he just felt a tightness in his chest.
"Do I have to be in a relationship?" he asked softly. "I can stay single, but I don't want to... what if we break up because it doesn't work out? Wouldn't that be even worse?"
His past with Cheng Boyan was too wonderful; he didn't want to change it in the slightest.
However, even Xie Xingchen and Lin Yao could not answer this question.
After all, they started out as adversaries, and things couldn't get any worse than before, so they couldn't empathize with the hurdle of going from good friends to lovers.
Xie Xingchen thought for a long time and then said, "We can't give you an answer; you have to make the choice yourself."
This was the first time Lin Yao had seen him with such a pained expression, and he finally softened: "It's okay, we don't have to find the answer today. If you're tired, get some rest."
He Li nodded, feeling dizzy and disoriented, and got up to go into the second bedroom.
He lay in bed and carefully opened Cheng Boyan's chat window. Every day before, as long as they hadn't met, they would say goodnight to each other.
But today, he can no longer send that message: Goodnight, brother.
He turned his head away and buried himself in the pillow, his mind filled with countless moments from the past, and the expression on his face every time he called his name.
Cheng Boyan, Cheng Boyan, Cheng Boyan...
He murmured softly, "Cheng Boyan, I really hope that He Li from ten years from now can tell me now that my choice was right."
My finger slipped and I accidentally touched the other person's profile picture, triggering a notification.
He Li turned his head and saw the "typing" message at the top of the chat box; his heart jumped into his throat.
[Little Sweet Pear]: I bumped into you by accident, I didn't mean to bother you.
Five minutes later, I received a very calm voice message from the other party.
"It's okay, I wasn't just being presumptuous."
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