Chapter 21

Wednesday morning, Xu Ze opened his eyes to a heavy head. He glanced at the time and saw his alarm had already rung for the third time; he got up at once, washed, and rode to school.

The cafeteria was quiet in the morning — it always was at the Preparatory Academy. Most students had meals brought by nannies or were driven out by drivers to eat elsewhere; only a handful actually ate in the cafeteria.

Chi Jiahán sat in his usual spot, eating breakfast. Xu Ze walked over and sat down across from him. Chi Jiahán looked up and, after a brief pause: "What happened to the corner of your mouth?"

The bodyguard's punch to his face the night before had landed too hard; half of Xu Ze's face was slightly swollen, and the bruising at the corner of his lip was unmistakable.

"Got into a fight." Xu Ze answered.

"Yesterday was only Tuesday." Chi Jiahán's brow immediately creased. "Did you add a match?"

"No." Xu Ze felt he shouldn't have sat down across from Chi Jiahán out of habit today. He'd drunk too much the night before, and his head hadn't been right since he woke that morning; for a moment he hadn't remembered the wound on his face, and as a result Chi Jiahán had spotted it.

"Then why the fight?"

Xu Ze took a bite of bread, his eyes lowered. "Tang Feiyi told me to go help him drink."

"Is this what you meant by 'I'll think it through'?"" Chi Jiahán's face flushed with anger. "Xu Ze, you're really stubborn."

If he could, Chi Jiahán would have given Xu Ze a thorough dressing-down — but he knew better than anyone why Xu Ze had done it. Besides, Xu Ze wasn't the sort of person who'd change his mind just because someone yelled at him.

"And then? Why the fight?" Chi Jiahán pressed down his anger and asked again.

"I wanted to leave. They made me fight one of the bodyguards. Win and I could go."

"Did you win?"

"No." Xu Ze shook his head. "A draw."

"Impossible." Chi Jiahán said at once. "Tang Feiyi would never allow a draw."

"Halfway through, Gu Yunchi and the others showed up."

An unexpected name. Chi Jiahán thought for a few seconds, then said: "Tang Feiyi has offended the Gu Family before, so it's possible Gu Yunchi came to interrupt midway... but I don't feel like Gu Yunchi is the type to go looking for trouble when he's bored. He's not that idle."

Then he asked, offhand: "Besides Gu Yunchi, who else? He Wei?"

"Mm."

"Was Lu Heyang there too? The three of them are so close — they should all have been there."

Xu Ze paused for a moment before saying: "He wasn't there."

"Lu Heyang wasn't?" Chi Jiahán took a sip of milk and glanced up at Xu Ze, only to see an expression on his face that was unusually unnatural — a strange feeling. So Chi Jiahán asked, "Were you recognized?"

"No. I was wearing a cap."

Chi Jiahán still felt something was off.

He quickly figured out what.

That morning there was a school-wide assembly; all the students sat in the stands around the field to listen. The second-year seats were arranged six classes per row; Chi Jiahán was in Class 9, one class apart from Xu Ze's Class 11.

Chi Jiahán only glanced casually toward Class 11, but noticed Xu Ze's gaze was intently following something. Following it, he saw the students of Classes 1 and 2 walking over. There were many of them, and Chi Jiahán couldn't make out who Xu Ze was watching.

But he knew that for Xu Ze, who it was didn't matter — what mattered was the act of "looking" itself, which already carried some unusual meaning. Xu Ze never paid attention to anyone at the Preparatory Academy; even if someone walked up to him and stepped on his foot, Xu Ze might not look up, just quietly step around them and keep walking.

Soon, Chi Jiahán saw Xu Ze's gaze come to rest straight ahead, and follow the other person's downward motion as they sat.

In front of Xu Ze was Class 2. Chi Jiahán looked over and saw He Wei.

And beside He Wei, the Alpha who didn't belong to Class 2.

Lu Heyang, from Class 1.

He still couldn't be certain of anything until an Alpha sitting diagonally behind Lu Heyang patted his shoulder and, smiling, said something to him — probably asking why he'd sat in a Class 2 seat. Lu Heyang turned his head, and Chi Jiahán clearly saw that in that instant Xu Ze hastily lowered his head and pulled his gaze back.

It was a feeling close to nervous panic, but Chi Jiahán remembered that Xu Ze, facing an opponent twice his size at the Underground Club, had never shown such an expression.

Something in Chi Jiahán's chest sank without reason.

For the half-hour assembly, Chi Jiahán didn't hear a single word. After dismissal, he caught up with Xu Ze and pushed him toward the small path beside the flowerbed: "Walk that way."

Gradually moving away from the crowd, Xu Ze asked: "What's wrong?"

"That's what I should be asking you." Chi Jiahán said. "What's going on between you and Lu Heyang?"

Xu Ze visibly paused for a moment, then asked: "What do you mean?"

For Xu Ze to throw out such a roundabout deflection — even if nothing were going on, something was going on.

"You kept looking at him the whole time. It's obvious, you know that?"

Xu Ze said nothing, his face expressionless, but Chi Jiahán distinctly felt that the person was thinking — thinking about where exactly it had been obvious.

So Chi Jiahán decided to ask the most outrageous, most unlikely guess first.

He asked: "You've been looking at him this whole time — do you like Lu Heyang?"

Xu Ze stopped walking, staring at the new sprout in the flowerbed as if in a daze. Chi Jiahán didn't think this question was hard to answer; the answer had to be no. He didn't know what Xu Ze was dazed about.

"Yes." Xu Ze said.

Yes what — yes, he liked the sprout?

Chi Jiahán stared at the sprout too. After two seconds, his face suddenly changed.

"You really like Lu Heyang?" he asked, unable to believe it.

"Mm." Xu Ze didn't hesitate. He nodded.

For a moment, Chi Jiahán couldn't speak.

Xu Ze could actually like someone.

Xu Ze already had someone he liked.

The person Xu Ze liked was an Alpha.

Xu Ze liked Lu Heyang.

Each of the above struck Chi Jiahán with shock, and the shock was progressive.

He'd always thought of Xu Ze as a kind of robot, detached from everyone at the Preparatory Academy, with his own program, logic, and way of doing things — silent, indifferent to everything, uninterested, unable to see any human warmth or emotional fluctuation in him.

But the facts proved this robot had fallen for a person of the same sex — an Alpha with superior conditions and great popularity.

Absurd, and cliché.

"Why?" Chi Jiahán's instinct told him Xu Ze's secret crush had to have lasted quite a while. He found it hard to digest. "How could you like an Alpha, how could you like Lu Heyang? Because you think he's perfect?"

Xu Ze seemed somewhat puzzled by the word "perfect." He paused, then said: "I don't think he's perfect."

Everyone has flaws, just more or fewer of them; no one is perfect. Xu Ze wasn't so blind as to be that degree.

But if he had to vote for the Alpha closest to perfect, Xu Ze would choose Lu Heyang — at least in his heart.

"I don't get it." Chi Jiahán rubbed his eyes, finding it hard to recover.

Xu Ze reached out and removed a small leaf that had drifted onto the Omega's hair. "Class is about to start."

"...Let's head back." There was so much he wanted to say, but he didn't know what would be most appropriate. Chi Jiahán sighed.

He felt that Xu Ze always ran into, always did, very hard things — whether it was risking his life to earn money or liking someone with no possibility.

Friday morning, Lu Heyang finished washing and went downstairs. Crossing the living room, he reached the dining room door and saw someone eating breakfast at the table — but making no sound at all, the silence almost oppressive.

Lu Qingmo glanced at Lu Heyang. After their eyes met, Lu Heyang turned his head toward the Alpha at the head of the long table and called out: "Dad."

Lu Chengyu turned a page of the League's internal daily, glanced at his watch, then said: "Sit down. Eat breakfast."

"Mm."

The brief exchange ended there, and the table fell silent again. The expressions on Lu Qingmo's and Lu Heyang's faces were as usual — long accustomed to this family atmosphere: distant, cold, silent.

Three minutes later, Lu Chengyu put down the newspaper and finished breakfast. The housekeeper immediately came over to tie his tie and drape his coat over his shoulders. Lu Chengyu fastened his buttons. His build was upright, his hair groomed to perfection, which made his face still appear very young. Expensive gold-rimmed glasses perched on his high nose bridge, barely softening the oppressive aura of an S-Class Alpha.

No small talk, no farewell. Lu Chengyu straightened his attire and left the dining room. Through the floor-to-ceiling window, Lu Heyang saw the driver open the car door for Lu Chengyu, then close it, and the car drove out of the garden.

"Dad's going to a meeting." Lu Qingmo took a sip of milk. "We came back together in the early hours of the morning."

"How long is he staying this time?" Lu Heyang asked.

"He leaves tomorrow. I leave the day after."

Lu Heyang said "mm" and continued eating.

After breakfast, Lu Qingmo drove Lu Heyang to school; she was then going to attend a diplomatic event. The two didn't talk much along the way until they were nearly at the Preparatory Academy, when Lu Qingmo finally spoke: "You've been going to Chengxi a lot lately. Dad knows."

"Mm." Lu Heyang wasn't surprised — the bodyguards should have reported his movements to Lu Chengyu the very first time.

"It's too chaotic there. Better not go so often." Lu Qingmo said. "If Dad brings it up to you himself, it won't be that simple."

Lu Heyang said nothing. Lu Qingmo turned to look at him.

"Don't worry." Lu Heyang looked back at her and smiled. "You know I'm very obedient."

"I don't know that." Lu Qingmo's brow furrowed slightly. "Sometimes I don't understand what you're thinking."

She slowly parked at the Preparatory Academy's gate and said: "I don't want you to be like me, but I also don't want you to actually cross the line."

"I won't." Lu Heyang got out of the car and took his schoolbag from the back seat. He walked to the driver's side window and said, "Drive carefully on the road. Rest well at home after the event."

Lu Qingmo gripped the steering wheel, her lashes lowering. She only occasionally showed a tired expression in front of Lu Heyang; the rest of the time, she was always mature and capable — the widely recognized youngest and most outstanding diplomat in the League.

"No time to rest." Lu Qingmo smiled. "Going to the Wei Clan for lunch."

In the entire Capital City, the only family whose wealth and power could barely rival the Gu Family's was the Wei Clan. The Wei Clan's eldest son, Wei Lingzhou, had been married to Lu Qingmo for a year and a half. Lu Heyang had only met this brother-in-law a few times, but his name appeared in almost every piece of gossip in the Capital City's upper circles.

Of course, in a marriage of political and commercial interests, the unspoken understanding was not to interfere with each other's private lives. The wedding a year and a half ago had been magnificent and grand, gathering all the powerful and prominent figures in the League. Lu Qingmo sat in front of the mirror in her wedding dress; Lu Heyang stood beside her. In the mirror he saw a face beautiful to the extreme yet numb and lifeless, holding no expectation of love or marriage.

Fifteen-year-old Lu Heyang felt for the first time that his sister was beautiful in a sorrowful way.

When they exchanged rings, Lu Heyang, sitting in the first row, saw Lu Qingmo's eyes redden — like a moved bride — but he knew the truth wasn't that. He knew what Lu Qingmo was regretting, and for whom.

Once a person has their weakness seized, they're forced to accept one thing after another against their will, with no possibility of turning back. It's a dead knot.

Lu Heyang stepped back, waved, and said: "Goodbye. Drive slowly."

After Lu Qingmo turned the car around, Lu Heyang walked into the Preparatory Academy. As he turned, he happened to see Xu Ze standing on the pedestrian path coming from the bike shed. Xu Ze looked as if, while walking, he had unconsciously been drawn by something and stopped there without realizing it — he might not even have noticed how conspicuous he was, standing still among a crowd of moving students.

Meeting Lu Heyang's eyes from a distance, Xu Ze seemed to be startled — as if tapped — and looked away, continuing to walk forward.