Chapter 11 White Strawberry
“I know you want to start that small company so that Dad can recognize your abilities. But actually, Dad has always known your abilities. You're suffering so much out there, and you're the one who's having a hard time. Dad has cut off all your credit cards, how can you handle that?”
Lu Chong felt even more agitated when he recalled that unpleasant argument.
"Is my sister here to persuade me to go home? Then you can hang up. I'm not going home."
His company has finally gotten off the ground and is already showing some success. The hardest times are over, so how could he possibly give up now?
When his sister saw that he was really about to hang up, she quickly lowered her head and changed the subject, telling him about their mother's recent situation.
The couple's mother was a senior judge, and when she married their father, they were seen as a perfect match by others.
However, the two eventually separated due to differences in their views. The father married his current wife, while the mother voluntarily transferred to the capital.
"She and Uncle Fang get along well, but she still doesn't want to register the marriage. Mom probably still has her own ideas. Mom also asked about you. She told you not to always go against Dad and to go home soon..."
When his mother said the same thing, Lu Chong, unusually, didn't lose his temper: "I'll visit you next time I go to the capital."
"Dinner's almost ready, I have to go now," Aunt Liu called to call her sister for dinner. Lu Chong heard her reply that she'd come down right away. "Do you really have enough money over there? If not, I..."
“It’s enough, sis, I can manage on my own,” Lu Chong interrupted her. “I don’t need your money. I said I don’t rely on my family, and I really won’t take your money.”
Although her father never interfered with Lu Zhi's spending, he knew about any money that was transferred from her card to an unknown account before anyone else.
Lu Zhi couldn't possibly be unaware of this; she probably just wanted to offer Lu Chong a way out at the last minute.
"Why are you so stubborn?" Lu Zhi finally got a little annoyed after being rejected. "You can endure hardship, but can your little lover endure it too? He has a bad temper and no money. Why should he stay with you?"
"It's none of your business."
Just as Lu Zhi was about to say something, all she heard from her brother was the busy tone after he hung up. She sighed and decided to go along with her brother.
Seeing that someone was taking him in and he wouldn't starve, Lu Zhi stopped worrying about him, responded to Aunt Liu's urging, and went downstairs to eat.
Lu Chong lowered his head, sat in his office chair, and stared blankly at the financial statements sent by his subordinates for a while, a rare occurrence for him.
He knew that Mu Yan had suffered a lot following him.
My sister is right. He has a bad temper. His good friends since childhood are either people like Jiang Yizhuo, who have an excessively good temper, or people who are willing to curry favor with him for the sake of the Lu family's power.
He's not good at being kind to people. His sister always says he's too picky and probably wouldn't even look at an omega as beautiful as a goddess. He had never been in a relationship before meeting Mu Yan.
During college, his way of being nice to Mu Yan was to spend money on him and give him things. However, all those things he gave Mu Yan were things that Mu Yan believed he had taken and sold after his family went bankrupt to support his own business.
Lu Chong felt a rare pang of guilt. He opened his chat history with Mu Yan, and the last text message was one he had sent himself: "My sensitive period is coming soon, can I skip the suppressant?"
Mu Yan is a beta, unlike an omega who can adapt to an alpha's reproductive cavity and cannot release pheromones to soothe him. Every time he is in his fertile period, Mu Yan is even more resistant than the alpha.
Despite feeling uncomfortable after taking the suppressant, Lu Chong still enjoyed making love with Mu Yan. Although his reproductive cavity was narrow and entry wasn't easy, whenever Mu Yan looked at him with those watery eyes, her eyelashes trembling as she begged him to be gentle, the combined psychological and physical pleasure almost made his scalp tingle.
Mu Yan knew he didn't like taking suppressants, especially now that they were short of money and had to buy cheap suppressants from ordinary pharmacies. But his body just couldn't take it. If he had to accompany Lu Chong through his most vulnerable period, he wouldn't be able to go to work normally for the next few days.
Apart from this incident, Mu Yan was almost completely obedient to him. Lu Chong was also afraid of pushing him too far, so they reached a consensus that Lu Chong would take suppressants himself a few days before or after the peak of his immune period, and only let Mu Yan accompany him during the most difficult days in between.
Mu Yan rarely asked him for anything...
Half an hour later, Lu Chong appeared in the pharmacy and asked the clerk for several alpha inhibitors.
"Sir, are you about to enter your fertile period? Your pheromones are already quite strong. Would you like to use a suppressant patch?" the shop assistant kindly reminded him.
The shop assistant was a low-level alpha, and this level of pheromone concentration was already making him feel uncomfortable. If an omega nearing their heat were nearby, there might be danger.
"No need, I'm going home right away," Lu Chong refused.
These cheap suppressant patches sold in pharmacies are more unpleasant than suppressants themselves.
"Okay, sir, please take care."
Lu Chong took the bag containing the alpha inhibitor and nodded. As he reached the door, he seemed to remember something and turned back to the counter.
"Give me a box of these pain relief patches."
The shop assistant, of course, did not inquire why he had returned, but simply gave him a box of pain relief patches: "Take care, sir."
Before going home, Lu Chong planned to go to the fruit shop first.
Last week, when he and Mu Yan were taking a walk and passed by a fruit shop near their home, they saw several boxes of white strawberries displayed prominently. Mu Yan, probably because she had never seen white strawberries before, found them intriguing and took his hand to look at the price tags on the strawberries.
There weren't many people at the fruit shop at that time. The stall owner had met Mu Yan a few times and remembered him, so he took the initiative to come over and introduce him.
"This white one is a new variety, it's very sweet, and it sells very well. Why don't you buy a box to try?"
Upon closer inspection, the strawberries are actually not white, but rather light pink, which looks very pretty under the overhead lighting in the fruit shop, and each one is quite plump.
Mu Yan smiled and shook his head: "It's almost seventy yuan a pound, a bit expensive. Sorry, boss, I'd better not buy it."
Saying such things was not shameful to Mu Yan at all. He seemed to be used to refusing things because of poverty, and he did not feel that it was shameful to not be able to afford strawberries at seventy-one pounds.
The stall owner smiled and didn't press the issue, instead beginning to introduce the common varieties of strawberries: "The regular ones are forty yuan a pound..."
"Can you make it cheaper?" Mu Yan asked naturally.
The owner looked quite embarrassed: "No, strawberries are priced like this this season... It's okay, come again next time!"
Lu Chong felt embarrassed, and his face immediately fell.
It was hard to say whether he felt embarrassed because he genuinely couldn't afford strawberries costing over a hundred yuan, or because Mu Yan acted so nonchalantly and mercenarily.
University A was like a utopia, connecting two people who would otherwise never have met. This was the first time Lu Chong realized that Mu Yan and he were from completely different worlds. He would habitually haggle, even more meticulous than the nanny who used to work at Lu Chong's house.
Mu Yan sensed his displeasure and didn't dare to come up and hold his hand. It wasn't until they were almost home that he cautiously mustered up his courage and asked Lu Chong if he didn't like what he had done earlier.
In truth, Lu Chong knew that the poor had their own way of living, and it would be foolish for him to still cling to the ways of a rich young master now that he was down on his luck. However, he was not truly poor and could return to his luxurious home at any time, so he could not truly empathize with Mu Yan.
“I’m not upset,” he said. “Buy it if you want to eat it.”
Mu Yan was really easy to deal with, or rather, Mu Yan wasn't unhappy at all. He shook his head: "I don't want to eat it. I've just never seen white strawberries before and I'm curious. If they're cheap, I'll buy some and try them."
Mu Yan was not materialistic. Even before Lu Chong's family went bankrupt, he never showed any desire for anything in front of Lu Chong.
Standing at the entrance of the pharmacy, Lu Chong put on a suppressant patch and, feeling a pang of conscience, decided to go to the fruit shop to buy Mu Yan a box of strawberries that he wanted to eat.
The fruit shop I passed by last time had sold out of that variety of strawberries. The stall owner remembered him and smiled, saying that he was really good to his boyfriend, and asked if he wanted to buy some regular varieties first.
Lu Chong shook his head and refused, then went to the nearest fruit shop. This shop was more expensive than the one he had passed by last time, but Lu Chong bought two jin (1 kg) and took it home.
The bag containing the inhibitor was tossed on the coffee table; he hadn't taken it yet.
He was a little dizzy from needles and wanted to wait for Mu Yan to come back and give him the injection. When Mu Yan gave him the suppressant, he would stand between his legs, gently tell him to turn his head away, and comfort him by saying that he would feel better soon.
Mu Yan hadn't come home yet, and Lu Chong, unable to stay idle, washed another bowl of strawberries and sat on the sofa to wait for him.
The house wasn't well soundproofed; he could hear every rustle of wind in the hallway from the living room. He could tell Mu Yan was back just by the sound of footsteps.
Footsteps sounded, but there were two people; they must be going upstairs.
“Really? We were laughing so hard when we heard that. Later, I asked my friends in the engineering college, and they said that's how this teacher usually teaches... Then I thought, isn't this just like your and Yao's graduation thesis advisor?”
"Yes, he's a very nice person, and quite humorous... Would you like to come in and sit down? I'll get you a glass of water. Thank you so much for your help today."
“I think I won’t go in,” He Fan said hesitantly. “Isn’t Lu Chong going through his most sensitive period? He’ll probably feel uncomfortable smelling other alpha pheromones. I don’t want to cause you any trouble.”
Just as Mu Yan was about to say something, the door in front of him was suddenly pulled open.
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