Chapter 41: A Conversation Between Equals

Hearing this, a pang of sourness suddenly pricked the tip of Zhu Zhixi’s nose.

The ever-expanding bubble of irritation popped with a “pah.” A gentle knife pierced his chest, and all that gushed out was heartache.

The wind made his eyes sting. He lowered his head and heard Fu Rangyi continue in a hesitant tone.

“Is it because of that Omega just now?” Fu Rangyi paused for a moment. “I don’t know what his intentions were, but I don’t think he was ‘interested’ in me. Maybe he just wanted to use the opportunity to provoke your brother.”

He added, “I’m repulsed by all Omegas, you know that.”

Zhu Zhixi’s eyelashes trembled slightly, as did his voice. “I don’t know.”

After speaking, he looked up, his eyes rimmed with red. “I don’t know anything about you, but as for me, I’ve shared all my secrets with you. This isn’t fair.”

If the previous sorrow had been viewed through frosted glass—vague and indistinct—at this moment, the glass shattered. Zhu Zhixi could clearly see his insides twisted into a knot, see the crux of his pain. It was just two words: greed.

He wanted a great deal, wanted to be special, to be the only one.

He wanted this version of Fu Rangyi to appear only before him, to reveal his helplessness only to him. To be picky and hesitant only in front of him, carefully choosing the right words to say, and to speak softly only when he threw a tantrum.

No, that wasn’t enough. He even wanted to be a failing in Fu Rangyi’s meritocratic life, a drop of coffee on his pristine white coat, a misplaced image in his thesis, an uncorrectable modeling error, a shard of porcelain he personally unearthed but could never be restored into any ancient artifact.

He wanted to be an existence that would make Fu Rangyi frown slightly when he thought of him, an unforgettable presence.

These emotions could no longer be crammed into the category of “having a good impression.” That exquisite, light, and flawless packaging could not contain such an overly sharp possessiveness.

Zhu Zhixi’s heart was in turmoil. He once thought he was open-minded, colliding with the world sincerely, allowing anyone to flow through his life and calmly accepting their departure. The most important person in his life was long gone, so what else could he not accept?

Apparently not.

It turned out that when you fall in love with someone, you become a person even you don’t recognize.

It turned out that he had truly fallen in love with Fu Rangyi.

The result of this “health check-up” came much faster than he had imagined.

For someone who grew up surrounded by love, the first time touching the opposite of love, it was black. Zhu Zhixi panicked a little, not knowing what to do. The courage magic he was born with seemed to have failed.

He took another step back and smiled.

“Forget it. Just assume I’m still drunk from last night and going crazy. I really have to go.”

But Fu Rangyi stepped forward without hesitation and grabbed his wrist forcefully, squeezing it until it hurt a little. Zhu Zhixi frowned and looked up at him.

He couldn’t read Fu Rangyi’s gaze, only feeling that it was very bright, as if filled with countless shards of broken glass.

“Don’t go,” he said. “What do you want to know? I can tell you everything.”

Zhu Zhixi stared at him, a new wave of sadness welling up in his heart, not for himself.

I’m forcing him again. He’s giving in again. I’m such a bad person.

He let out a deep breath, and the white mist obscured his poor attempt at managing his expression.

“Let’s just forget it. This isn’t a good place to talk. It’s so cold here, let’s go home.” He even managed a smile, patting the hand Fu Rangyi had clamped on his wrist, trying to cover it up with a playful tone. “You’re hurting me.”

But this trick also failed. Not only did Fu Rangyi not let go, but he forcefully pulled him away.

“What are you doing? Where are we going?” Zhu Zhixi couldn’t break free.

Fu Rangyi was silent, offering no answer, stubbornly walking forward. In the snow-covered garden, only the voices of those two children could be heard, loud and clear. One of them shouted, “I hit you! You lose!”

Lose.

Zhu Zhixi let himself be dragged, into the elevator, and down to the garage.

Fu Rangyi pulled open the passenger door and finally spoke again. “Get in the car first.”

This kind of Fu Rangyi was a rare sight. Zhu Zhixi was quiet for a moment before obediently getting into the car.

“Where are you taking me?” He looked at Fu Rangyi in the driver’s seat. “Home?”

“No.” Fu Rangyi focused on driving. It wasn’t until they left the S Institute and were on the road, surrounded by a blinding white expanse, that he spoke again. “To a place.”

“What place?” Zhu Zhixi pressed.

“A…” Fu Rangyi paused for a long time, seemingly searching for a suitable word.

Finally, he said, “A ruin.”

Zhu Zhixi didn’t understand, but the word subconsciously stung him. He even felt a little afraid to face it, even though he was the one who had asked for it.

But it was obviously too late to call a halt midway.

After driving for a while, Fu Rangyi suddenly said, “It’s a bit far. You can sleep for a while. I’ll wake you when we get there.”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“You don’t have to worry.” The earlier paranoia was completely gone; Fu Rangyi now seemed extremely rational. “I won’t take you anywhere dangerous. And I’m very calm right now, no driving risk. You can check the monitoring data on your bracelet.”

After hearing this, Zhu Zhixi said bluntly, “If I was worried, I wouldn’t have gotten in your car.”

After a pause, he added, “No, wait, this is my car.”

Fu Rangyi glanced at him.

The overly solemn atmosphere changed slightly because of this sentence.

Zhu Zhixi pressed his lips together and stopped talking, turning his head to look at the scenery.

A moment later he added, “I didn’t mean you can’t drive it.”

This time, he heard Fu Rangyi laugh, very softly. He quickly turned his face to stare at Fu Rangyi.

“I didn’t mean to laugh at you,” Fu Rangyi said, mimicking his way of speaking. “I just think you’re very interesting.”

Interesting when I’m angry? Interesting when I’m looking for a fight?

Zhu Zhixi’s face suddenly grew hot.

The navigation system suddenly issued a warning that they had deviated from the route and replanned it. He was wondering why when, not long after, they arrived at a drive-thru fast-food restaurant. Fu Rangyi lowered the window, quickly ordered a combo meal, and a few minutes later, smoothly picked up the food at the next window.

“Thank you.” Fu Rangyi took the paper bag and handed it directly to Zhu Zhixi.

“Eat. You’ve been hungry all morning,” he said. “Make do with this for now.”

Looking at the burger and fries inside, Zhu Zhixi felt a strange sensation. Rather than fighting, it felt more like they were on a road trip.

But he was indeed hungry. And while this was “making do” for Fu Rangyi, it wasn’t for him. He loved fast food.

The quiet car was filled with the rustling of unwrapping food and the sound of soft chewing, no longer unbearably silent.

Zhu Zhixi took a bite of the burger, chewing quickly with his mouth closed, untangling the knots of sorrow in his heart as he ate.

I get angry and pick a fight, saying nasty things. He doesn’t fire back, he coaxes me, and even buys me food.

Then it’s not without reason that I fell in love with him…

Once he had confirmed his feelings, Zhu Zhixi began to resignedly accept it. And once he accepted it, he couldn’t help but start clumsily building himself a way back down.

“You only bought one?” Zhu Zhixi asked in a low voice. “You’re not eating?”

“I’m not hungry yet.”

“But you haven’t eaten either.” He paused, then said, “What if your blood sugar gets low and you can’t hold the steering wheel? Wouldn’t that be dangerous for me?”

His tone seemed… a little exaggerated.

Fu Rangyi turned the steering wheel, and after making a turn, said, “It’s not convenient to eat now. I’ll just have a little something later, don’t worry about me.”

Just as he finished speaking, a french fry was held to his lips.

It’s over. I jumped right off before I even finished building the steps.

As expected, Fu Rangyi was also stunned.

“Eat it,” Zhu Zhixi said, now truly giving up and awkwardly finding an excuse. “I’m doing this for my own safety, don’t read too much into it.”

“Mm,” Fu Rangyi ate the fry. “Thank you.”

You’re welcome. Zhu Zhixi rummaged through the paper bag and handed over a chicken nugget, specifically without sauce. “Your favorite protein, great professor.”

“There’s less protein in this than there are innovative points in my student’s thesis,” Fu Rangyi commented.

“So are you eating it or not?” Zhu Zhixi raised an eyebrow.

The great professor compromised.

A french fry, a chicken nugget, a piece of torn-off burger, and the Coke he had selfishly not changed the straw for… like this, bite by bite, intermittently, the two of them shared all the fast food in the bag as if playing house. Zhu Zhixi’s temper was also swallowed bite by bite, and he calmed down considerably.

He was silent for a long time, replaying everything from the past two days in his mind, and also began to self-reflect.

Last night had been chaotic, and they went straight to the hospital this morning, with no chance to talk alone. Then Zhu Zeran had interfered, stirring the muddy waters even further.

And he had dragged Fu Rangyi into dealing with this farce with him.

Although he was throwing a little tantrum, he didn’t want Fu Rangyi to be hurt by others’ words.

Who told me to like him?

“Actually…” Zhu Zhixi began haltingly, chewing on the Coke straw. “Actually, Zhu Zeran wasn’t targeting you. That’s just how he is, he has a nasty mouth. Don’t take what he says to heart.”

“Mm. I won’t.”

Speaking of this, Zhu Zhixi suddenly realized that he himself rarely spoke to Fu Rangyi about his family. Thinking about it, he wasn’t as honest as he claimed to be.

“My brother… he’s a bit neurotic.” Zhu Zhixi paused, hesitating for a long time, before finally saying lightly, “I haven’t told you yet, my mom actually passed away a long time ago, from cancer.”

Fu Rangyi’s hand on the steering wheel tightened for a second.

“When my mom passed, my brother was only 12.”

And what about you? Fu Rangyi thought. Weren’t you even younger? Why don’t you talk about it?

Zhu Zhixi continued. His tone was very calm. “My mother had a difficult birth with me, it was a near-death situation. Zhu Zeran was still young and very scared. Although she was saved, it left him with some trauma. Dad said he cried the whole day. When Mom asked him to hold me, he held me while wailing his eyes out. It was terrifying, thankfully he didn’t drop me.”

“After my mom passed, a friend of hers who was very close to her often came to our house to take care of us. He was a Beta.”

Hearing this, Fu Rangyi probably guessed the rest.

“He got pregnant,” Zhu Zhixi said.

Fu Rangyi: “Betas can’t get pregnant.”

The vast majority of Betas do not have a developed reproductive cavity. A very small number do, but it is usually not fully functional. An embryo implanting means planting a dangerous seed. The chances of a successful birth are minuscule, with most ending in difficult labor. Both the fetus and the mother are in extreme danger during delivery, with a very high mortality rate.

“Mm, but there’s a very small chance. He was one of them. And he was very happy, saying it was the crystallization of his and his husband’s love. He even told us that when the baby was born, it would call us big brothers. We were all looking forward to it.” As he spoke, Zhu Zhixi sighed. “But something went wrong during labor, and neither the adult nor the baby made it.”

“Maybe because I look like my mom, my brother gets especially nervous when it comes to me. But I happen to love my freedom and hate being controlled, so we fight a lot, a total mess all day. My dad can’t do anything about us either.”

This was their way of interacting as brothers, hard for others to understand. They argued when they met and worried when they were apart.

“Before, when I was abroad, I lost contact with them for a while due to local signal issues. After we got back in touch, he flew directly to find me and insisted on installing a tracking app on my phone.” Zhu Zhixi said with a small laugh. “Exaggerated, right? But the app’s location isn’t very precise, it’s within a three-kilometer radius.”

“He’s worried about you, I can understand. It gives him peace of mind,” Fu Rangyi said. Connecting it to the background he mentioned, he added, “He might have post-traumatic stress.”

“I think so too, but he won’t see a doctor,” Zhu Zhixi pouted. “He says nasty things, but he doesn’t have a bad heart, and he wasn’t targeting you.”

Fu Rangyi nodded. “I can understand. After all, I don’t speak very pleasantly either.”

Hearing this, Zhu Zhixi almost laughed. So you do know.

“Besides, his worries are very normal,” Fu Rangyi said. “For his younger brother to suddenly get married, and if by some one-in-ten-thousand chance, he became a pregnant Beta, it would probably be a nightmare for him too.”

This is also why I don’t want to tell them about the countdown, Zhu Zhixi thought.

And there was more. From Zhu Zeran’s perspective, he had married someone with malignant susceptible period syndrome, doubling the danger index.

“But don’t worry, I won’t…” Fu Rangyi started, then suddenly fell silent.

Zhu Zhixi caught it sharply. “You won’t what?”

“…I won’t take it to heart.”

It felt like that wasn’t what he originally meant to say. But Zhu Zhixi nodded anyway.

After explaining for the disagreeable Zhu Zeran, one of the stones pressing on his heart was lifted, but many remained. He weighed them one by one, intending to pick a small one and toss it out gently, as a test.

But Fu Rangyi spoke first. “Actually, there are many things I didn’t deliberately hide from you. I’m just… used to not talking about them.”

This disrupted Zhu Zhixi’s rhythm.

He suddenly remembered Fu Rangyi sitting at the dining table, their first in-depth conversation—so rational, so clear-headed, and so full of defenses.

His shoulders slumped, and he said softly, “I understand. I’m not asking you to be completely honest with me, that’s impossible. I’m not that naive. I just… I just want a little more right to know.”

Outside the car window was a vast expanse of white, and Zhu Zhixi’s gaze drifted far away.

He wasn’t being completely honest either, only saying, “Like you said, I’m your friend. Friends can know about some of your past, right? Like Li Qiao.”

At least he knows what happened when you presented. Not like me, who rashly tries to make decisions about your treatment plan for you, only to be bypassed.

“Maybe in your eyes, talking about your past is like exposing a wound, giving others a chance to hurt you, but I can swear to you, I’m not that kind of person.” Towards the end, Zhu Zhixi’s speech quickened, sounding a little anxious.

This seemed to make his words even more feeble.

The car was silent except for the howling wind.

After a few seconds, Fu Rangyi finally spoke, his voice carrying the tolerant strength of someone older. “Why do you need to swear? Of course, I believe you.”

“You just want to eliminate the information gap, to stand on an equal footing and have a conversation with me. And the purpose of your conversation is actually just to help me, or rather, to comfort me.”

This sentence was like a scalpel, precisely dissecting Zhu Zhixi’s heart.

“Your assessment of yourself is very objective,” Fu Rangyi said in a gentle voice. “You really are a little angel.”

“I’m not,” Zhu Zhixi retorted quickly, then lowered his eyes.

No, this knife is too merciful, it hasn’t cut deep enough, not thoroughly enough. Cut a little deeper, and you’ll see his truest desires.

After a moment of silence, Zhu Zhixi said, “When I’m with you, I can always feel that you have a lot of unhappy history. Every time I want to ask, you’re unwilling to say. If no one knew, I wouldn’t have any reason to be upset, but…”

“Today I discovered that’s not the case.” In the end, he lifted the biggest stone in one go. “This past is just like your pheromones. Many people can smell it, but I’m the only one who can’t.”

“But… am I not the ‘most special existence’?”

As he asked this, he belatedly realized his voice was trembling, so he coughed twice and fell silent.

Fu Rangyi didn’t answer him immediately. Instead, he stopped the car.

Only then did Zhu Zhixi realize they had arrived at the “ruin” he had mentioned. However, the surroundings were very different from what he had imagined. There were no signs or fences, nor any excavated construction site.

As far as the eye could see was a stretch of dilapidated buildings. Many of the brown, crumbling walls were painted with bright red characters for “demolish.” When the car door closed, it startled a few white birds, which circled in the gray sky. A few snowflakes drifted down, like feathers scattered after flapping wings.

Fu Rangyi led him across the road to a certain building on this desolate street.

It looked like an old elementary school. The mint-green paint on the building’s exterior had long since peeled, like patches of mold. The window lattices were rusted and missing their glass, turning every window into a gaping hole. The sign above the main gate seemed to have been removed, leaving only some wrought-iron brackets hanging overhead, looking as if they could fall at any moment.

Fu Rangyi reached out and pushed a small side door. One of its two hinges was already gone, the other rusted. With a creak, the door opened inward, and snow and dust fell to the ground.

He walked in, and Zhu Zhixi followed, turning back to close the door.

“Actually, in the past, not many people could smell my pheromones. It only started after you.”

It took Zhu Zhixi a moment to realize he was responding to what he had just said.

“They can only smell my pheromones on you,” Fu Rangyi said.

Zhu Zhixi’s heart skipped a beat, and he clenched his fists.

Why is he suddenly saying something like this…

“The unhappy past you mentioned, not everyone knows about it either.” Fu Rangyi walked forward step by step, leading him through the open space to a long corridor. “Li Qiao doesn’t know either. He just happened to be involved in a part of it.”

With that, Fu Rangyi stopped, tilted his head slightly, and stared at something hanging on the corridor wall. He turned his head and gestured for Zhu Zhixi. “Look.”

It was a dust-covered photo frame. The photo inside was old and yellowed, showing two rows of children and a few adults. Centered at the very top was a line of text—Guangming County Happy Home Children’s Welfare Center Group Photo.

Zhu Zhixi’s eyes widened, and he found it hard to breathe. His thoughts were in a jumble, his mind a complete blank. For a moment, he didn’t know what to say or how to begin, and could only turn his face, his eyes red, to gaze at Fu Rangyi.

And Fu Rangyi looked back at him, his gaze soft, and he was even smiling. In a teacher-like tone, he posed an encouraging question to his overly slow student.

“Can you find me in here, little angel?”