CH 22

Despite his look of gentlemanly scum (those who look refined on the outside but are black-bellied inside), Qi Chuan was a strict and meticulous person who wouldn’t allow the slightest mistake as long as he agreed to do something.

Qi Han helped him forge a hospital certificate, a pheromone type report, and a five-year pheromone donation certificate.

On top of that Qi Chuan came with a piece of gauze with blood on the back of his neck and made up a story that was 100% convincing.

“I had a younger brother who was also a Beta and had a similar experience to you, so I can’t bear to watch patients like you suffer.”

Fu Ge’s eyes widened as he listened, his fingers curled under the tip of his nose, “So I’m not the only Beta who was marked and then had the surgery to remove the mark… then your brother…”

Qi Chuan’s eyes dropped, “I couldn’t save him.”

Fu Ge’s eyes reddened with guilt, and for a moment it was as if he saw himself struggling with the same pain, “I’m very sorry to bring up your sad memories.”

“It’s okay, it’s all in the past.”

Fu Ge pursed his lips, his eyes turning to the “wound” on the back of Qi Chuan’s neck as he asked cautiously, “Did it hurt a lot to have the pheromones extracted?”

Qi Chuan said, “It’s fine, I’m used to it.”

“Nonsense,” Fu Ge disagreed, grimacing. “Pain is pain, there’s no such thing as getting used to it if you feel it often. Did the doctor give you any painkillers?”

Qi Han outside the door looked at the scene in front of him through the one-way glass, covering the back of his neck with a wry smile. He said in his heart that gege was right, pain was pain, and it would only hurt more the more times it happened.

He had just extracted a tube of pheromone this morning and it was given to Fu Ge under Qi Chuan’s name, and his glands had been squeezed to the point of ulceration.

But the little Beta would be grateful to a stranger he’d never met and wouldn’t feel even the slightest bit of sympathy for him.

Inside, Fu Ge looked like he didn’t know how to repay this kindness, “Mr. Qi, I… I am really very grateful. You saved my life.”

He bowed deeply and offered, “I know the process of extracting pheromones is very painful. I have a property under my name. If you don’t mind, I’ll transfer it to you, can I?”

Qi Han’s pupils shrank momentarily and returned to normal after a second, “The property, is it the small house I just returned to you? Gege used to say it was our wedding room.”

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the glass, “I haven’t lived in it yet…”

Naturally, Qi Chuan wouldn’t accept it. He comforted Fu Ge with a few words, saying that it was just a perfectly normal pheromone donation and that he shouldn’t feel guilty, and then, remembering Qi Han’s explanation, asked, “Do you feel more comfortable after the pheromone infusion?”

The Alpha outside the glass immediately opened his eyes and looked at Fu Ge, who smiled slowly and meekly. His palm raised unconsciously to touch his lower abdomen, and he nodded, blushing.

He said in a muffled voice, “It is… comfortable, I’ve never been so comfortable. Pheromones actually have such a magical effect.”

Qi Han let out a hum of mock relief, “Of course, because you are my wife, I marked you, we are a natural couple, you only recognise my stuff inside you.”

The next second he heard Fu Ge say, “Thank you, Mr. Qi. For the first time I think Alpha pheromones are not all that… disgusting.”

The corners of his smiling mouth froze, and Qi Han fell silent, slowly lowering his eyes and clenching his palms into fists as he propped himself up against the glass.

He thoroughly understood that what made Fu Ge sick was not his pheromones, but he himself.

But who could be blamed for this? When it came down to it, it was all his own doing.

The conversation that followed was inaudible, like the wind in his ears, and Qi Han didn’t dare to listen closely.

Before Qi Chuan went out, he politely stretched out his hand to Fu Ge. A small square handkerchief accidentally fell out of Qi Chuan’s suit pocket, revealing a planet brooch concealed in it.

Fu Ge inadvertently looked over, and with just one glance, he froze.

“Your brooch… is so special…”

He murmured, his eyes unblinking as he stared at the strange numbers mingled together on the brooch, like intertwined snakes or schools of fish. He felt dizzy and something seemed to rush through his head.

A pop sound echoed in his ears as Qi Chuan snapped his fingers, “It’s time for you to wake up.” 

Fu Ge’s pupils shrank abruptly and dilated again. For a moment the two of them looked at each other with a sudden clarity, silent, and then blankness returned to Fu Ge’s eyes.

After Qi Chuan went out, he nodded to Qi Han. The latter pulled up the high collar of his sweater to hide his injured glands. Since the pheromones he pumped were coming from “other people”, he could no longer show bleeding wounds.

When he opened the door and entered, Fu Ge thought it was Qi Chuan who had returned, and looked over with his eyes curved in a smile, “Mr. Qi?”

His expression froze instantly upon seeing it was Qi Han, and his face immediately clouded over.

Qi Han felt like he had been punched in the face as he walked over and stood behind him, “So unwilling to see me?”

Fu Ge pushed him away, “Go away.”

Qi Han’s weakened body was pushed back, his festering glands hitting the knob of the wooden clothes rack. “Ugh—” he grunted in pain, cold sweat dripping down his face as he held onto the wall so as not to fall down.

When Fu Ge looked over in confusion, Qi Han immediately braced himself and stood straight, jokingly saying in a hoarse voice, “I’m going to blackmail you if you move your hands on me again.”

He could feel the blood or inflamed pus running down and staining his back; everything from his glands to his tailbone was already numb with pain.

He couldn’t stay much longer; the smell of blood would surely be noticed by Xiao Ge.

“Gege, I just came to let you know that someone will come over this afternoon to help you move to another ward. It’s too basic here, there’s nothing. Let’s change to a bigger room with soft furnishings in it.”

Fu Ge: “No need.”

“I need it,” Qi Han said as he walked away, “so that I have somewhere to run to if you hit me again.”

Fu Ge turned his head to look at his back and shook his head hard as if he had a headache.

Pheromone infusion was really the best treatment.

After five tubes of pheromones in a row, Fu Ge’s body had improved significantly. He had fewer nightmares and had longer periods of restful sleep. His pale cheeks finally became a little rosy and there was even some flesh on his bones.

In contrast, Qi Han was getting more haggard by the day.

Like a vine carrying a dodder flower, he was draining his own nutrients to feed the small flower on his body. The stamens of the flower gradually became brighter and brighter, while the vine was getting dry and shrivelled.

Even the young nurse who hated him the most could see how weak Qi Han was, but Fu Ge didn’t notice anything.

Because he felt that even one more look at Qi Han was dirtying his eyes.

The pheromones from the “good man” had brought him back to life, and the young Beta had to personally go to Qi Chuan to thank him after each infusion, and he even wept with guilt once he looked at the increasingly red gauze on the back of Qi Chuan’s neck.

At that moment, Qi Han was half-paralysed in the extraction room a wall away, drenched in sweat, his glands festering, so weak that he couldn’t get up.

His eyelids were half-open, his mind filled with the eighteen-year-old Fu Ge tenderly coaxing Mr. Bear Cub who had woken up from a nightmare, and his ears were filled with the sympathy that his twenty-three-year-old lover was generously giving to others and that he couldn’t dream about.

Fu Ge asked Qi Chuan, “I’m sorry, do you feel better this time?”

Qi Han thought despondently before he passed out: Gege, it still hurts…

A week passed, and Fu Ge’s body had recovered a lot.

The doctor suggested that Qi Han could extract pheromones every other day, but Qi Han was afraid that if he suddenly changed the frequency, the little Beta’s body would not be able to adapt, so he delayed it for another week.

Today, when he came out of Fu Ge’s room, he saw Chen Xing. The man, who looked like he’d just come from the tender land (was in bed with someone), raised his hand and threw a bag of things at him. Qi Han reached out to catch it and shook it: “What is it?”

“Birthday present, your birthday is next week, are you stupid?”

He really forgot. Qi Han smiled, “What did you buy?”

“Purple underpants! Wish you success in chasing your wife. Purple butt can do it!” (Purple underwear seems to be used for good luck, mostly for exams)

After speaking, the kid ran away. Qi Han didn’t have the strength to chase him. He put his hand in the bag and took a look. There were at least three pieces. Chen Xing must have collected them for years.

Qi Han absent-mindedly hooked his lips and thought of Fu Ge again.

Pheromone treatment was not without any benefits to the Alpha. At least Fu Ge wasn’t as repulsed by him as he was before and could even get used to being in the same room with him for long periods of time.

The doctor said it was because the body had re-established an intimate connection and the spirit had succumbed to the body and slowly started to soften.

Only Fu Ge himself hadn’t noticed it.

For example, today at noon, Qi Han quietly walked in during Fu Ge’s nap time to see if he was sleeping well, but just when he was about to sit down, the young Beta suddenly opened his eyes.

Qi Han’s whole body froze as he expected Fu Ge to yell and chase him away as usual.

But to his surprise, Fu Ge only frowned and muttered “You’re annoying” before turning away and continuing to sleep.

Qi Han was so flattered that he carefully sat on the edge of the bed and squeezed his soft palm, “Gege?”

The sleeping man didn’t answer, so he won an inch and wanted a foot and kissed his soft cheek, “If it bothers you, why don’t you kick me out…”

“Good dreams, baby.”

Fu Ge slept very deeply this time. It rained lightly outside the window. He nestled in a quilt full of Qi Han’s pheromones, lazy and unwilling to wake up.

Afraid that if he slept any longer, he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, Qi Han could only endure his distress and come to wake him up. But before he could call his name, he knocked the calendar book at the head of the bed. The page that opened was of this month, with a date boldly circled in red pen.

The 17th, his birthday.

His fingers suddenly felt numb, but his brain was blank. Qi Han wouldn’t be narcissistic enough to think that Fu Ge would celebrate his birthday, but this date was at least too coincidental.

After two or three seconds of silence, he began to look around the room for other clues.

The ward was large. There was an open kitchenette full of cut fresh fruit, and post-it notes on the fridge recorded the proportions of sugar and cream. At last, Qi Han opened the oven and found a half-finished cake inside.

It was like a bomb exploding in a frying pan. He didn’t know how to describe how he felt at that moment, perhaps happy to the point of tears. He ran back to Fu Ge with tears in his eyes, his voice trembling along with his heart.

“Gege? Why didn’t you tell me…”

Not wanting to wake him up, he touched Fu Ge’s hand, and sure enough, he saw some red burns on his fingertips, and in an instant surprise turned into guilt.

“Why are you doing these things? If you want, I’ll just buy a cake, and you know I don’t like birthdays anyway.”

After being excited, he couldn’t help feeling sour in his heart again, “Suddenly being so nice to me, it is because of the influence of pheromones, right?”

“That’s okay,” he kissed Fu Ge’s fingertips and comforted himself, “Let’s take our time and it’ll get better little by little.”

From that day on, Qi Han looked forward to his birthday, his anticipation and excitement even greater than he felt when hearing the doctor’s announcement of “it’s over” after each pheromone extraction.

Afraid of spoiling the surprise that the little Beta had prepared, he wisely retreated silently when the sweet smell of the cake came from the ward, pretending not to know.

He even rehearsed his surprised face when receiving the cake in front of the mirror many times and felt he was too stupid to let Chen Xing know.

But too much joy can be overwhelming.

On his birthday, Fu Ge had just finished the pheromone infusion and sent Qi Chuan out.

Qi Han changed his clothes, sprayed on perfume and walked to the ward with a smile at the corner of his mouth. The cake was brought out precisely as he walked in, and then heard Fu Ge, whose back was turned to him, say, “Wait a moment, Mr. Qi, I’ll pack it so we can carry it easily.”

He turned his head and raised his eyes, facing the stunned Qi Han.

“Why are you here?”

“What did you say?”

Fu Ge didn’t want to talk to him, wrapped the cake and carried it out.

Qi Han pulled him back, “Where are you going?”

The young Beta said casually, “I have an appointment with Mr. Qi to go to a painting exhibition.”

In that instant, Qi Han understood everything.

“The cake isn’t for me, and you’re going to the exhibition with him?”

“For you?” An inexplicable sneer flashed across Fu Ge’s face, “Why should I make a cake for you?”

The disappointment at this moment was ten times more than the anticipation there was before. Not only was he disappointed; Qi Han didn’t know what was wrong with him, it was obviously just a cake but he was about to go crazy.

“It’s not for me, it’s not for me, it’s for Qi Chuan, why did you make him a cake? You’ve only known each other for a few weeks!”

Staring straight at Fu Ge, he snarled, his chest heaving violently with anger. The young Beta took two steps back, feeling that he was unreasonable.

“He extracted fifteen tubes of pheromones for me, I made some snacks to show—”

With a bang, the cake was knocked out of his hands and flew two metres high. Qi Han’s scarlet eyes almost burst with blood. “Who are you supposed to show that to, those fifteen tubes are my fucking—”

The words stopped abruptly. The last vestiges of sanity came back to his head. He panted for breath, raised his hand and pressed his headset, ordering, “Come up and deliver the food, and send two people to send Qi Chuan back to his own home.”

Fu Ge panicked a little: “What do you mean?”

“Nothing.”

Qi Han roughly ripped off his headset, his voice grim and cold: “Gege’s heart starts to get wild when he gets well, so you won’t go out today.”

“You want to imprison me again…”

“Right.”

“Qi Han! You’ve gone crazy again, haven’t you?”

He said the same word: “Right.”

Being locked up again after a month, Fu Ge didn’t have any fear or disappointment. All that went through his head were just a few words: Ah, I knew it would be like this…

He tidied up his ward, ate and slept as usual, and was even prepared for Qi Han to come in tonight and tie him to the bed and use force.

However there was no movement until midnight, when a smell so strong that it was bitter suddenly wafted in from the corridor.

Fu Ge couldn’t really smell it, but his perception confirmed that it was Qi Han’s pheromones.

The sweet white bellflower had become terribly bitter, and the concentration had soared to such a high level in an instant that there was only one possibility: the Alpha had entered the rut period.

Fu Ge subconsciously rushed to the door to call for help, but as soon as he touched the door handle, the door opened.

Fu Ge froze for a moment. Wasn’t he a prisoner? How come the door wasn’t even locked?

He stepped out into the dim corridor, and the sensor light overhead lit up with every step he took.

A raspy, plastic song echoed in the not-so-spacious corridor, and only when he got close could he hear that it was a cheap lotus lamp given when someone bought a cake, playing the “Happy Birthday” song on a loop.

Qi Han was sitting in the room at the end of the corridor, with a cake full of candles in front of him.

His eyes were dull and unmoving, as if he had been sitting here for a long time, completely unaware that he had entered the rut period.

Seeing that Fu Ge walked out of the ward, the last glimmer of hope in the Alpha’s eyes was also extinguished, “Do you have to go out with Qi Chuan…”

Fu Ge didn’t answer the rhetorical question: “What are you doing here?”

Qi Han said, “Waiting for you to say happy birthday to me.”

He pushed the cake forward a little, his red eyes curved in a smile, “I’m sorry I lost my temper with you today, I’ll make up for it.”

The wicked beyond redemption convict actually cried and begged the lamb to be slaughtered: “Gege, don’t go out, okay? You’ve been with him for many, many days, just stay with me tonight, okay…”