Chapter 39 Long-Premeditated "Omega's heat cycle is very..."
Compared to the chaotic first day of their date, the second day was even more turbulent...
Yan Ceyan was detained for eight hours, from midnight to eight o'clock the next morning.
While confined in the solitary confinement cell, Yan Ceyan's nerves remained on edge. When he emerged, there were still faint dark circles under his eyes, and he looked somewhat tired.
But there was no time to rest, so Yan Ceyan hurriedly took a shower. As he dried his wet hair with a towel and walked out of the public bathroom, he bumped into Yan Quan, who was also coming out of his room.
"..." Without saying a word, Yan Ceyan stared at Yan Quan calmly for several seconds.
"..." Yan Quan didn't speak. But when his gaze swept over the dark circles under Yan Ceyan's eyes, his eyelashes trembled slightly.
“Next time…” Yan Quan suddenly said as the two passed each other. “Don’t put me in solitary confinement again.”
The sound was very soft, like the sound of a breath in the wind.
Yan Ceyan felt that the last syllable of that sentence carried the damp steam from his still-wet hair—burning his fingertips with a faint heat.
Yan Ceyan even absurdly felt that there was a touch of "heartache" in it.
It's a bit ridiculous that "feeling sorry for someone" is an emotion that would never be present in Yan Quan's character. After all, Yan Quan only finds amusement in manipulating other people's emotions.
“If you want me to stay in solitary confinement, it’s simple.” Yan Ceyan raised his eyes and continued, “Yan Quan, you know what to do.”
If you choose me, you can "date" me.
“Your day won’t go smoothly,” Yan Ceyan continued, deliberately skipping the word “date.”
In Yan Ceyan's mind, apart from himself, anyone else spending time with Yan Quan could not be considered "going on a date".
"..." Upon hearing this, Yan Quan let out a soft sigh, then strode downstairs: "Yan Ceyan, this is my own business."
"You promised you wouldn't care about me."
...Yan Ceyan stared at Yan Quan's back as it disappeared at the top of the stairs, his eyes darkening: Yan Quan, are you allowed to lie?
Fu Duannian and Yan Quan's date.
He's determined to manage Yan Ceyan.
Moreover, that Professor Fu... Yan Ceyan gritted his teeth, quite agreeing with what Ji Yao had said yesterday.
"Did I give him face?"
*
"breakfast."
Yan Quan sat in the passenger seat of Fu Duan Nian's car, and the first thing he saw when he glanced to the side was a transparent takeout box being handed to him.
Inside lay a whole-wheat sandwich, topped with diced oranges that exuded a subtle fruity aroma.
Yan Quan glanced at it and felt a little nauseous.
Of all foods, Yan Quan dislikes anything made from oranges. She feels a disgusting sense of "cannibalism" in them.
Yan Quan had reason to suspect that Fu Duannian was handing over the sandwich as a show of force, the subtext being: "I know a lot of your secrets, so behave yourself."
What's even more alarming is that throughout the entire recording of the program, Yan Quan was extremely careful and thorough in wearing pheromone-blocking patches or neck rings.
How did Fu Duannian find out about his own pheromone scent...? Could it be from twelve years ago again?
"Fuck..." Yan Quan clicked his tongue inwardly. Why did the shadow of Baisha Street keep haunting him like a nightmare?
"You must be hungry." Before leaving, Fu Duannian held the sandwich in his hand and moved a little closer to Yan Quan's eyes.
"Aren't you going to eat?" Fu Duannian asked, a cold glint in the corner of his smiling eyes.
"I won't eat." Yan Quan met Fu Duan Nian's gaze and abruptly pushed away Fu Duan Nian's hand that was leaning towards her.
The thick, orange jam spilled and rolled onto the transparent side of the lunchbox, resembling some disgusting, distorted flesh.
"Disgusting," Yan Quan said coldly.
"..." A strange look flashed in Fu Duannian's eyes, but he quickly returned to his smiling and gentle expression. "If you don't eat now, you can eat later."
The scenery outside the car window began to rush past rapidly. During this long journey... a sense of déjà vu began to sweep over Yan Quan's thoughts like a death curse.
It's Baisha Street.
At this intersection, turn left; there's a tall overpass there. After crossing the overpass, there's a small road; drive along it until the very end…
Then there will be a tall wall.
Very high, very high.
It was so tall that when Yan Quan was a child, he mistakenly thought that the whole world was only that big.
The tenement buildings on Baisha Street stand side by side, crammed together. The lights are like tiny beans, scattered here and there, weak yet dense, creating a chaotic mess.
The walls of the stairwell were mottled and moldy, with large patches of peeling paint revealing the red bricks or cement underneath. Small, white-on-black advertisements stood out starkly under the lights.
"1K per night, all-inclusive (oral/internal), second person half price"
"White light treatment costs 300 per session, cavity insertion is charged separately."
"AB blood type, oval-shaped, 1.5-2cm in diameter, O-type blood available, 50% match guaranteed."
These deepest gray areas of gland trading, sex work... are the most distinctive landmarks of White Sand Street. Because there is demand, there is a market.
Hidden behind the glamorous metropolis, the rotten and maggot-infested Baisha Street slum seems like another world.
Holy crap, does the capital still have places like this?
"No way, this episode has really blown my mind. This is the political and cultural center of the Republic! My great capital! Does this kind of place even exist?"
[I'm so shocked that I no longer find it strange to date in a place like this... the very existence of such a place is strange.]
If Yan Quan could see the comments posted by netizens in the public chat, he would definitely speak with a very serious and earnest expression:
some.
There are such places in this world.
Rather, it is the decades of economic and ecological squeeze-driven development that have given birth to such a distorted place.
White Sands Street slum. A place whose name can't even be seen on a map, densely packed with marginalized people from the bottom of society.
A gambling addict burdened with exorbitant loan amounts, a drug addict with arms covered in needle marks, a rapist who has been released from prison and now lives on the streets...
Yan Quan grew up in such an environment. He was born and raised as an "unregistered resident".
"We've finally arrived." Fu Duannian finally brought the car to a slow stop. After getting out, he wanted to walk to the other side to open the car door for Yan Quan.
"..." Yan Quan ignored him and got out of the car first. Standing on the familiar ground, Yan Quan's thoughts were momentarily dazed.
This is the entrance to Hongxing Middle School.
But now it is desolate and dilapidated, with the rusty iron gate locked up by chains.
"What are you doing here?" Yan Quan asked calmly, pulling his thoughts back to the present.
"Returning to this familiar place, Yan Quan, don't you recall even the slightest memory?"
“No. Those are garbage memories, long forgotten,” Yan Quan continued coldly. “I’m here to negotiate with you, not to see this.”
His cherished memories were belittled and discarded like trash by Yan Quan. Finally, a corner of Fu Duannian's smiling mask crumbled. His voice lowered as well:
"It's alright, we have plenty of time to let you remember slowly."
Why did the professor choose such a place for a date?
The professor previously mentioned that he happened to see Yan Quan at Hongxing Middle School during a field trip and then painted a portrait of Yan Quan.
That painting is amazing! It won so many awards and is now on display at the Capital Art Museum.
It's quite a coincidence that one of them came here with an elementary school organization to carry out a charity event, while the other came here to gather inspiration.
We're people who are completely unrelated, yet we bumped into each other in this remote corner. It must be fate.
[Um...it seems Yan Quan isn't too happy to be here? He doesn't even remember this place.]
It's only natural; do you remember where you went on your fifth-grade field trip? For Yan Quan, it was long forgotten.
[After all, it was the source of inspiration for his famous work; Professor Fu's impression of this place should be far greater than Yan Quan's.]
Oh, no wonder the professor chose this place to revisit.
Sigh, I can actually understand Professor Fu's obsession with this place, because apart from that one Yan Quan portrait that appeared out of nowhere when he was twenty, Professor Fu hasn't produced anything since.
The art world is now rife with skepticism towards Professor Fu, with many saying he is unworthy of his position.
[Recently, universities have been conducting large-scale purges of the research output of their faculty members. Professor Fu has been the most criticized, and his professorship is in jeopardy.]
Professor Fu's appearance on this program was most likely a roundabout way of salvaging his influence.
Fortunately, Professor Fu met Yan Quan, who was able to reignite his inspiration and creative desire.
However, Yan Quan's attitude seems somewhat uncooperative right now. I wish Professor Fu success.
Just as the barrage comments were speculating and explaining the cause and effect, and discussing it heatedly.
Fu Duannian, having somehow obtained a key to the school gate lock, turned it with a "click," and the rusty chain descended. Pushing open the door, a choking cloud of dust billowed out…
Yan Quan covered his nose and, led by Fu Duannian, crossed the uneven cement playground. There was no running track on the playground, only black arcs painted with black paint, making it look quite rudimentary.
It was the season when locust trees were in bloom, and the air was filled with the faint fragrance of locust blossoms. Yan Quan could almost see the children playing and chasing each other on the playground as he took a sniff.
Yan Quan once envied those children.
The sound of footsteps, "tap tap tap..." echoed through the abandoned and desolate school corridor, each step kicking up fine dust.
Finally, Fu Duannian stopped in front of a low, two-story house built of cement bricks. It was a very ordinary house, like the security booths commonly found in ordinary residential areas.
If there's anything special about it, it's its high elevation. Through the windows on the second floor, you can have a clear view of the entire playground.
If the observer has other auxiliary equipment... then they can record every move of everyone on the playground like a camera.
A low back wall, a tall bungalow, an old locust tree with branches extending from the wall...
Yan Quan remembers that the security guard at Hongxing Middle School was very fierce and strict. When he was a child, he often climbed up the locust tree, scaled the back wall, and sneaked into the teaching building to watch the children in class.
Thinking of this, Yan Quan almost instantly pieced together the fragmented clues, revealing a chilling truth.
In a "secret space" where he was alone with Yan Quan, Fu Duannian once showed Yan Quan his famous work on his phone. At that time, he said:
“When I was 20 years old, I had the opportunity to visit Hongxing Primary School in Baisha Street Community for research. The area was very strictly controlled, so I could only look inside from afar through the rusty, openwork iron gate…”
The most difficult lies to detect often contain more than 70% truth, while the remaining 30% represents the darkest and most unspeakable parts of the human heart.
"By chance, from afar..."
Perhaps it really was "accidental" at first, and just a fleeting glimpse of something from afar, but later...
It is the exact opposite of a lie, such as "waiting patiently for a rabbit to run into a tree stump" or "surveillance from a very close distance"...
Even the series of documents sent to Yan Quan yesterday, which proved that Yan Quan was from Baisha Street, were just a lure.
The bait was to lure Yan Quan out of the Love House and back to Baisha Street for a 1V1 "date".
Fu Duannian may have been certain of Yan Quan's origin from Baisha Street from the first glance he saw her on the show; even more frighteningly, twelve years ago, when Yan Quan was still unaware, Fu Duannian had already begun a long period of surveillance and observation from this low-rise house.
Goosebumps instantly rose from the soles of his feet to his scalp, and Yan Quan seemed to stumble backward in terror—
The moment I climbed up the branches of the old locust tree as a child, the moment I stood on the low back wall, the moment I found the right posture to jump down, and the moment I landed safely and triumphantly...
Twelve-year-old Yan Quan sneaked in, thinking no one would notice, just to listen to a lesson outside the first-floor classroom filled with the sound of students reading aloud.
Little did they know that their every move and action had already been observed by a telescope behind a glass window.
The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.
As Yan Quan stared intently at the words and phrases arranged in chalk on the blackboard, the deep, unfathomable eyes behind the binoculars... were also gazing at Yan Quan with a dazed and infatuated expression.
No wonder, no wonder Fu Duannian knew the scent of his pheromones...
Several times, Yan Quan slid down the rough wall, his knees and calves bleeding from the uneven surface, leaving faint traces of blood on the stone bricks.
The scent of blood evaporating and dissipating is the smell of pheromones... a faint orange scent.
No wonder, no wonder every time Yan Quan went to check the next day, he would find the bloodstains had been meticulously cleaned away. Twelve-year-old Yan Quan naively thought it was because the school was very thorough in its cleaning...
"You are my muse, Yan Quan."
“From the first time I saw you at Hongxing Middle School, I was deeply attracted to you. Right here in this room, through this window, I've been watching you, and I've drawn many pictures of you…”
A burning flame began to ignite in Fu Duannian's pupils behind his glasses. "Now, do you remember?"
A chill ran from head to toe, and the words Fu Duannian had said at the beginning of the program now took on a deeper meaning:
"Especially those eyes... From the first moment I saw you, I knew it was you."
"After all these years, I've been searching for you. Fortunately, fate has brought us together again."
"I painted a picture for you, my masterpiece, which is now on display at the Capital Art Museum..."
Now, Yan Quan was absolutely certain. Fu Duannian's purpose in inviting him here was not as simple as finding incriminating evidence, exchanging favors, or engaging in power-money transactions.
This guy is a complete psychopath!
Thinking of something… Yan Quan clenched his knuckles, took a step back with his fist, and warned in a deep voice, “What do you want to do…”
"Bang—" Fu Duannian pulled Yan Quan forcefully into the house, and with the loud bang of the door closing, the camera crew following the program was blocked outside.
The cameraman froze for a few seconds, then started banging on the door, trying to remind Fu Duannian to let him in.
"We're still outside—", "We're filming, you're interfering with the recording—", "Hey, can't you just say it openly—", "We working people work really hard too—"
The curtains were drawn tightly shut, and the room was pitch black as the lights were off. Fu Duannian ignored the knocking at the door, slowly pulled a pair of handcuffs from his coat pocket, and made as if to cuff Yan Quan.
"I didn't want things to come to this."
"It's been so long since we've been reunited. I originally wanted to take things slowly and gradually, letting things develop naturally..."
Fu Duannian's deep murmur seemed to come from a state of madness, "But you never intended to be with me... You were just following a script, using us all as bait..."
“Yan Quan, if you treated everyone like this, it would be tolerable... but then Yan Ceyan appeared.”
“Yan Quan, he’s different, isn’t he?” Fu Duannian approached step by step. “I can feel it, Yan Quan, you’re serious about him, aren’t you?”
"No, this won't do—Yan Quan," Fu Duannian hissed in a low voice, "You are my muse—"
"I can't paint anymore. Ever since I couldn't see you, I haven't been able to paint..." Fu Duannian muttered incoherently, his obsessive emotions growing increasingly erratic.
"Ten years ago, you left... Where did you go? Ah... Yan Quan? Is this why you suddenly became the heir of the Yan family?"
“No wonder I couldn’t find you… I searched the entire Baisha Street but couldn’t find you…” Fu Duannian’s seemingly eloquent words ultimately circled back to the central sentence:
"I can't paint anymore. Without you, I can't paint..."
"No...this won't do. If I can't paint, my whole life is over..."
The gleaming handcuffs gleamed eerily in the dark room, and Fu Duannian's eyes, which had been filled with madness, gradually turned resolute:
"Yan Quan, I must possess you."
"With you, everything will come back: my inspiration, my masterpieces, my muse... everything will come back."
Cold sweat poured down his back; Yan Quan was already tense, ready to pounce.
Yan Ceyan taught Yan Quan the most basic fighting skills, and Yan Quan had the upper hand when facing Fu Duannian, an Alpha who had not received any fighting training.
“A lifelong mark. Once I mark you for life, you will become a prisoner of my pheromones, and you will belong to me completely.” Fu Duannian, holding the unlocked handcuffs, pounced on Yan Quan.
"Bang—" It was a dull friction sound from the collision of muscles. Yan Quan bent his knee and raised his leg forcefully, accurately kicking Fu Duannian in the abdomen.
"Get lost—" Yan Quan said coldly, looking down at him. "Want a lifelong mark? Dream on."
"Ugh..." Fu Duannian was kicked and immediately staggered back several steps in pain—this distance was shorter than Yan Quan had imagined; last time, this move sent Murong Yuan flying half a meter away.
Yan Quan's body... also began to feel weak: What... happened?
"Haha... Yan Quan." Fu Duan Nian struggled to sit up, supporting his stomach. "I know you're better than the average omega."
"You think I didn't have a backup plan?" Fu Duannian's lips curled into a smile. "Starting to feel weak, aren't you?"
"The Omega aphrodisiac is working... Slowly, you'll start to go into heat..."
"Omegas are very obedient during their heat; they'll do whatever you want..."
*
Meanwhile, on an elevated highway in the city, Ji Yao was sitting in the passenger seat, cursing, "That bastard Fu Duannian—how did he disappear in the blink of an eye?"
As Ji Yao spoke, she opened the map navigation on her phone: "Um, next turn right onto the highway..."
"..." Yan Ceyan ignored him, stepped on the gas pedal to the floor, and the speed reached 200 miles per hour. The white supercar sped away.
"Damn it! Are you crazy?!" Ji Yao exclaimed in surprise, quickly grabbing the roof railing. "Are you deaf? I said turn right."
Yan Ceyan continued to ignore him and sped down a steep slope.
"Fuck—I was speeding, bro. I've already racked up all my points for traffic violations this year. Oh well... consider it a charity donation." After yelling that, Ji Yao continued to remind him, "Turn right, bro, turn right!"
“Your navigation is wrong.” Yan Ceyan finally couldn’t take it anymore and explained, “I know where Fu Duannian went.”
Yan Ceyan had been to Baisha Street Community.
When he was eighteen years old.
Moreover... Yan Ceyan felt a slight burning sensation in the glands at the back of his neck, and subconsciously he felt that Yan Quan might be in danger.
Faster, even faster...
"Hold on tight." Yan Ceyan gave Ji Yao a brief reminder, then gritted his teeth and slammed on the accelerator, sending the sports car speeding up to 400 miles per hour.
At that moment, the white sports car sped away like a shooting star into the shadowy, dilapidated city center.
Ji Yao felt like he was about to ascend to heaven. He vaguely recalled the sales pitch from the handsome Omega salesman when he bought the supercar.
"Our car, theoretically, can go up to 400 miles per hour—" At that moment, Ji Yao was busy flirting with the salesman and didn't remember what the salesman said next:
"But if you drive at 400 miles per hour on city roads, you'll be thrown off your feet. The driver must be some kind of superhuman daredevil."
At this moment, Ji Yao's long black hair was all over her face, and all that could be heard was the buzzing sound of the wind, louder than an engine.
Ji Yao made a silent resolution: if he didn't die on this bus today and could get back alive... he would definitely find the salesman's contact information in his address book.
I told the salesman seriously, "You won't get thrown off, because there really are reckless bastards in the world who drive at 400 miles per hour on city roads."
Unlike Ji Yao's breakdown, Yan Ceyan gripped the steering wheel, his face growing increasingly grim. The wind whistling past his ears made his heart clench tighter and tighter.
Faster, faster...
Otherwise, it will be too late...
-----------------------
Author's Note: Generally speaking, after the heat cycle, a yellow heart will appear, probably in the next chapter.
The prototype of Baisha Street is an "urban village," but it has been artistically rendered to be darker and more chaotic... Does saying it this way make it more relatable?
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