CH 102

He YunTing didn’t respond immediately, and for a moment, Lin Han even felt he was timid.

“You don’t need to worry.” Lin Han didn’t directly point it out, just said, “Your pheromone smells really nice, I like it.”

He was telling the truth. A man who looked that cold, had a mellow and strong scent with a tenderness completely different from how he appeared. But for an Omega to say this to an Alpha, it was almost a blatant invitation.

Lin Han smiled very lightly, his tone very relaxed, as if He YunTing was really worried about this.

He YunTing looked at him.

Lin Han obviously just learnt of those bloody facts, knew that his mother had not died peacefully of illness, knew that they had missed out for many years, and had regretted it for a long time. But after crying, he could still smile.

Before the smile on his lips dissipated, He YunTing took a step forward and walked up, and without saying a word, reached out and took him into his arms.

Lin Han didn’t resist, his eyebrows were closely pressed to the other’s body, and even though they didn’t have skin-to-skin contact, he didn’t need to hear what the other was thinking, but still felt at ease.

“Good.” He YunTing said.

Grr, who had just woken up, wriggled through the doorway and saw this not-so-glamorous scene. He YunTing’s eyesight was good, and he looked down at the little thing that had scurried in, and silently locked eyes with it. 

He YunTing’s eyes lifted a little, “…”

Grr’s beady eyes blinked, “…”

If it was a day ago, maybe it would have rushed up to pull He YunTing’s pants leg.

But… The next day, after being coaxed by the snacks, the little guy hesitated for half a minute, shook its fur, retracted its short legs, rustled half a circle on the ground and slipped away.

After all, it was a Kudzuar with principles.

He YunTing realized in this moment of hindsight that he seemed to be coaxing people with snacks recently, and the effect seemed to be pretty good. The first time was to carefully pass the snacks hidden by Lu AnHe to Lin Han, and now he was handing over the things Lin Han bought to a certain small creature.

He YunTing rarely wasted his time thinking about such things, and before he could figure out a pattern, Lin Han looked up from his arms with surprised eyes.

The next second his lips pressed on his, but quickly left again.

“I have to go out.” Lin Han said.

He YunTing nodded his head. Because the flying machine was parked nearby, Lin Han didn’t refuse the other’s request to take him to work. In any case, the flying machine was so big that his colleagues would see it anyway, so Lin Han simply let He YunTing park it at the entrance.

It was still early and there weren’t many people at the entrance of the Institute.

He YunTing called out to Lin Han before he left, “If you get off work early today, come to the base. I have some information to show you.”

Lin Han nodded his head and responded.

He was just about to press the switch on the side door of the craft, when he suddenly thought of something and turned back.

Lin Han saw a few rays of sunlight falling through the front glass of the craft onto He YunTing’s side face, and even though he had no expression at the moment, Lin Han could still feel a kind of transparent tenderness.

“That’s right.” He twitched his lips, “When we went out today, you smiled beautifully. I liked it a lot.”

—

Lin Han greeted the colleague he ran into at the door, knowing that others were probably still wondering about the identity of the owner of the flying machine that had just flown away. But his heart was a little more open than usual.

He changed his clothes and walked out. He went back to his office to organize his schedule for the day, allocating the time needed to make sure he could finish it all before the end of the day.

Lin Han didn’t make it to the base, however, and heard some subtle news during a break in the middle of the day.

Since Xu Zhiheng took the initiative to publicly explain the situation of V Proton Star at that time, those malicious remarks about He YunTing were much less, and most people were still willing to believe that he was indeed looking out for the Empire, and not a murderous demon.

However, there were always some people who stubbornly believed that Xu Zhiheng was absolving He YunTing’s actions, unable to accept that so many people have really died, so those people still had a lot of malice towards He YunTing.

But the Institute’s attitude was always clear, so when Lin Han heard the news, his colleagues were still upset about He YunTing.

He passed by the terrace with his coffee and couldn’t help but walk over when he heard He YunTing’s name.

“So I’ll just say that some people at the Empire Life Forum are simply in bliss, and question this and that all day long.”

“Even I think that the General did the right thing, whether Professor Xu spoke for him or not…”

“Yeah.”

“But it shouldn’t be a big deal, I heard that the formation completely revamped the supply system before returning.”

“It’s hard to say, I just hope it doesn’t get any bigger or get to the Empire.”

“Don’t worry about that, this place is still quite far from V Proton.”

One of the colleagues looked like an obvious supporter of He YunTing, “You may not believe me, but I’ve been paying a lot of attention to this lately, and it’s actually not the first time it’s been reported, and I don’t know why you’re just learning about it now.”

“Anyway, I’m really distressed for the General, most of those who say these things are petulant kids with little life experience, right?” He frowned, “What’s the meaning of our Institute’s existence? If we really follow the hypocritical peace theory of those people, then the military system of the Empire is good enough now, so why don’t we ask His Majesty the Emperor to end the research of the new mecha?”

Lin Han went up to him and asked, “What’s the matter?”

Recently, Lin Han has been talking with his colleagues more because of the “mysterious big brother in the core area” behind him, and while gossip was gossip, there was nothing malicious about this matter.

When several colleagues saw him coming, they smiled kindly and handed the light screen to Lin Han, “The latest report about V Proton Star, it’s all from some small media, I don’t know if it’s true or not.”

Lin Han, who wasn’t wearing gloves, avoided the other man’s fingers and took the light screen, seeing the focus of their discussion.

[V Proton Star’s Beta mutagenicity gene or resurgence? Are antigens really effective?]

This headline was normal, but the following articles were all fearless tabloids, with horrifying titles such as “V Proton Star suspected to be wiped out” and “Research or Fake, a planet’s rapid fall”.

The headlines weren’t accompanied by pictures, or by pictures of events that weren’t related to this in the slightest, but were posted as if they had been sent from V Proton, with a very deliberate style of writing that summarized the event in general.

Someone secretly sent a message to the Empire, saying that the genetic disease that had been suppressed on V Proton had reappeared, and that people who had recovered had regained similar habits, such as making meaningless hissing and not understanding human speech.

But these reports stopped there, followed by subjective comments and speculations, and the tendency wasn’t friendly, pointing to Xu Zhiheng’s falsification, or He YunTing’s failure to clean up the infected people.

It looked like some kind of incompetent media that was bored to the point of rubbing people’s eyes with hot sauce.

“These reports look like a traffic attraction, just look at them.” The colleague took the light screen Lin Han returned and said casually, “The official media was praising Central City yesterday for its good governance.”

Lin Han didn’t say anything.

“Yes, don’t take it seriously.” Another colleague added.

Lin Han’s expression didn’t change, he nodded along with their words and left with his coffee.

The colleague wasn’t surprised by his reaction, after all, Lin Han always seemed to be very gentle and calm, as if nothing could cause him to have violent emotional ups and downs.

“I suddenly wondered again who the big guy that sent him to work this morning was.” Two colleagues lamented, “Because I’m really curious what kind of Alpha an Omega like Lin Han would look at.”

—

The two had no intention of making their relationship public for the time being, though the base was considered an exception.

Lin Han got off work on time as planned, didn’t let He YunTing call someone to pick him up, and took a public flying machine to the base by himself.

The non-commissioned officers here would look at Lin Han, greet him and make way for him — they probably knew that this person had an unusual relationship with the General, but no one dared to ask what kind. Everyone was well-trained and tight-lipped, so this matter was like an unspoken secret here, which was carefully concealed by everyone inside for the General.

When Lin Han talked to He YunTing, it was also the base’s rest time, and he had been in the base for a while, so he followed his memory to He YunTing’s room.

When he entered, He YunTing was sorting out information in the virtual database.

When he saw him coming, He YunTing glanced at the time, then stood up and searched in the cabinet, and found a nutrient from it, unscrewed it and handed it to Lin Han, “It’s time, I think it’s the third one today.”

“…” Lin Han’s face instantly fell, pushing He YunTing’s hand away, “Why do you want me to drink this as soon as I arrive?”

He YunTing’s expression was very solemn, and he seriously said, “I’ve done some calculations for you, If you don’t drink, you’ll lose your strength again at night.”

Lin Han frowned, “I don’t want to drink it.”

The next thing he saw was He YunTing lifting his hand and trying to take the nutrient in his mouth and passing it to him, just as they had done when they had just confessed their feelings.

“No, no, no, I’ll drink it myself.” Lin Han hurriedly stopped him from doing this, grabbed it and drank it with his nose pinched. After all, the taste of this stuff was really not good, he couldn’t  aggravate He YunTing every time and make his mouth have that taste as well.

But he didn’t expect that He YunTing’s tongue would move in his mouth.

Lin Han was kissed by him and his cheeks were red, when he looked up at the other’s calm and composed expression, he simply didn’t know what to say.

“He YunTing,” Lin Han called his name with a flourish, “do you want to kiss me on the pretext, or did you want to see if I drank the nutrient?”

Lin Han didn’t wait for He YunTing to say anything, but simply reached over and touched He YunTing’s glistening lips.

【Mr. Lin should drink the nutrient on time.】

【But from the first moment he came in, I couldn’t help but kiss him.】

【Obviously, we’ve just seen each other this morning.】

Lin Han withdrew his hand, “…”

He’s changed so much from the man who had to invite himself on the grounds that Lu AnHe’s mecha was broken, and who clumsily had to dance with him. He was so mushy that it didn’t match his status at all.

Lin Han curled his eyes at the other man.

If they had been together back then, maybe He YunTing wouldn’t have reacted the way he did. After all, this was the sweetness that he was once afraid to touch, but lost and found again.

Lin Han was suddenly not so sorry for the lost time.

He YunTing knew that his mind was read, but not clear if it was a cover-up or not, he shifted his gaze away without any expression, not looking at Lin Han.

Lin Han saw this, smiled mischievously, deliberately stepped up to him, earnestly cupping the other’s face, making He YunTing look at him, as his eyes flashed with a little cunning light, “General, next time you want to kiss me, you don’t have to find an excuse.”

This time he didn’t call his full name again, but called him General.

The majestic imperial General couldn’t stand it and bit on the increasingly bold Omega’s finger.

But the two didn’t mess around for long. Lin Han knew that He YunTing had asked him to come to him for something else. He tugged on He YunTing’s neck and let him hold him on his lap before he straightened out He YunTing’s messy lapel, “Okay, General can talk about business now.”

He YunTing then handed him a handful of documents that were prepared on the table.

“This is what I have organized, originally I didn’t want to tell you, but then I thought, you even know what happened back then, so there’s no point in hiding it.” He YunTing said it naturally and believed Lin Han could understand him.

Lin Han took it, the smile at the corner of his mouth gradually faded away, and his expression also became serious.

— 

He YunTing was busy with training at the base these days, so Lin Han took Grr back to his apartment for a few days.

Grr seemed to be more accustomed to Lin Han’s apartment, mainly because there was a small corner inside that Lin Han tailored just for it, unlike the big house before, where there were so many rooms that it almost got lost several times.

It wasn’t a public holiday, so Lin Han was working as usual, but it didn’t affect Grr, after all, it was no different from when it was alone at home. It still ate, slept and watched TV, and when it felt tired, it would do exercises around Lin Han’s sofa cushion.

Lin Han would probably be back in a few hours, and Grr’s previous favorite drama had long been caught up, but it didn’t like the end. The Omega ended up forgiving that scum Alpha, and they got back together in peace, and the Omega even gave birth to another child for the reformed scum Alpha — it was angry for a long time when it saw this end credits.

Hurt by the drama, it decided to turn on the Empire news.

It didn’t really understand the news, but the scrolling subtitles and people of all shapes and sizes appealed to it, and every now and then it would see its own Alpha that it had just reconciled with the other day.

Now, for example, it saw He YunTing on the news again. And next to his picture, there was a middle-aged man with half-white hair.

Grr stretched out its paw and scratched the nearby fur, looking at the dense text on it in confusion. It couldn’t read, but that didn’t stop it from listening to the news with enthusiasm.

On the TV, Grr tuned to a channel that was one of the most authoritative official media in the Empire. After the picture of He YunTing and the man flashed by, a brand new picture appeared.

The picture was of a teenager in tattered clothes, clutching a box with half of a cake that had long expired. His eyes were shaded with a chilling look, and his mouth was open, as if he was saying something, or just hissing meaninglessly.

The news headline read “Antigen failed, V Proton may re-emerge with genetic disease”.