Chapter 9: Fantasy Game

Hearing this question, Fu Rangyi’s expression became very subtle. His brow was furrowed, not pleased, yet his eyes held a trace of astonishment.

Zhu Zhixi sensed something was off but wasn’t entirely sure. He blinked, wanting to ask a second time, but as he opened his mouth, his next move was perfectly predicted.

“Zhu Zhixi, have you never taken a health and physiology class?”

Suddenly hearing his full name, and in such a serious tone, gave Zhu Zhixi the illusion of being called on by a professor.

“Huh?” He nodded uncertainly. “I have…”

He quickly added, “But we Betas usually call it ‘nap class’.”

Fu Rangyi looked like he had nothing more to say. “Forget it.”

“Don’t forget it. What does this have to do with physiology class?” Zhu Zhixi said with a look of perfect entitlement. “I know you’re an Alpha and have pheromones, and I can’t smell them, so just tell me.”

Fu Rangyi took off his glasses, placed them on the table, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Do you know that this kind of behavior is considered…”

“Considered what?” Zhu Zhixi looked bewildered. “I do this often. When I meet a new friend, whether A or O, I always ask. I’m curious. You’re not a Beta, you wouldn’t understand.”

After he said this, he thought Fu Rangyi would understand, but unexpectedly, the man seemed to get angry.

“I’m sorry. Others might be okay with it, but I refuse to answer.” Fu Rangyi was quite decisive, as if a line had been crossed. He stood up to leave, not even taking his glasses.

Zhu Zhixi didn’t know what was wrong and subconsciously grabbed his wrist. “If you don’t want to say, then don’t. Don’t be angry.” His voice was soft, laced with a child-like confusion.

Fu Rangyi suddenly calmed down a lot. He suddenly understood that Zhu Zhixi genuinely didn’t know how ambiguous and overstepping this behavior was; he was just purely curious. This was his way of life as a Beta. And he was also surprised at himself—why was his emotional management so poor? It was incomprehensible, improper, unhealthy, and abnormal.

So he took a deep breath, sat down, and pulled his hand back. “Is this question meaningful to this contractual marriage?” he asked, trying to make his tone sound restrained and emotionless. “As you said, you’re a Beta, you can’t smell it anyway. It would be strange for you to know too much about my pheromones.”

Zhu Zhixi was the type to push his luck. He was still a bit puzzled, but once Fu Rangyi sat down, he felt there was a chance again, so he became cheerful.

“You don’t get it, Little Classmate Fu.” He put on a serious air, got up from his chair, leaned against the long table, and crossed his arms. “Imagine this. Let’s say we’re not getting married just to deal with others, but are two people truly in love.”

This person was trying to manipulate his imagination again. His feelings were still complicated, yet he couldn’t bring himself to stop the smiling face before him.

Zhu Zhixi wasn’t looking at him either. When he started to fantasize, his eyes would always look upwards, making them seem exceptionally large, his eyelashes very long. Just like now.

He began to describe, on his own, vividly and colorfully, “On the day of our blind date, we fell in love at first sight, discovered that our interests and preferences were surprisingly similar, and we hit it off so well that we didn’t even bother to drink the lemonade you bought me, nor did we touch the soufflé.”

And so, Fu Rangyi’s brain was passively made to play a romance movie he would never have clicked on, complete with sound and even a background score. And he had no pause or exit button.

“We kept talking nonstop, left the cafe, walked down that street, talking as we went. We even bought a cup of hot mulled wine and continued to chat while holding it. Just like that, until it got dark and we had to part.”

“Then, we missed each other so, so much, couldn’t sleep at all, and immediately arranged a second date, then a third, a fourth… I liked you so much that when I was talking about Turkish cats, you suddenly interrupted me and said: ‘Consider marrying me?'”

“Impossible.” Fu Rangyi’s free will was briefly resurrected, suddenly breaking free from this semi-coercive role-playing game, the word slipping out.

Zhu Zhixi also blurted out, “Imagine!” in English, and then continued.

“Then I agreed without a second thought. That’s totally my style. Why not? So, we went to get registered without anyone’s permission or witness, happily took photos, got our certificates, and showed them off to the whole world. We didn’t even need rings or a wedding.”

“Because we had an endless curiosity about each other, we would lean against each other and talk all night long, about everything and anything we wanted to say. Our lips would be dry from talking, our eyelids drooping, but we still couldn’t bear to sleep.”

Fu Rangyi was silent. Midway, he glanced up at the narrator twice, but quickly looked away, picking up his water glass and drinking quietly.

“So,” Zhu Zhixi broke into a smile, “we would definitely talk about pheromones! Because I like you, but I’m a Beta, I can’t sense your pheromones. Think about it, how sad and regrettable is that? I would definitely pester you, constantly saying, ‘Rangyi, please tell me, describe it to me. I really want to know, please.'”

His tone changed, his expression more vivid than ever, so full of emotion that anyone would fall into this woven trap of love. “And then, you would pretend to be helpless and say, ‘Alright, alright, I’ll tell you.'”

Finally, his gaze landed on Fu Rangyi, and he raised an eyebrow. “How about it? Isn’t it very reasonable? I’m very good at figuring out characters’ psychology. I even audited classes in the directing department because I wanted to be a play director for a while…”

Before he could finish.

“Cypress.”

Fu Rangyi, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly spoke. He listed the names of spices one by one, without a trace of emotion.

“Wormwood.”

“A cold, slightly pungent smell, similar to… aldehydes?” He seemed to be conducting a chemistry experiment.

And Zhu Zhixi, in a daze, came to his senses and became the diligent partner taking notes.

“And, a very faint floral scent… Have you smelled grapefruit blossoms? They bloom in April. That’s about it, mixed together.”

After Fu Rangyi finished, he felt a bit of regret, even disappointment in himself. He knew full well that opening up would lead to no good end. This might lead to a broken windows effect. He knew it, yet he still did it. He must have been under some kind of spell.

Did Zhu Zhixi underreport one of his occupations? Like a hypnotist or something.

Fu Rangyi took another sip of water.

And just then, Zhu Zhixi suddenly reached out, grabbed his arm, and shook it twice. “When you put it like that, I think I can actually smell it!”

His eyes once again looked up and to the right. The warm yellow light of the dining table spilled into his eyes, like the last rays of sunset on a lake.

“It’s like… someone walking in a forest during a blizzard for a long, long time, so cold they’re about to lose their sense of smell. Suddenly, they find a small log cabin, push open the door, and smell a clear, bitter scent, because medicinal herbs are being boiled in the house. It’s wormwood. Then they walk further in and faintly, they smell a very light floral scent. They turn around, and on the windowsill, a branch of grapefruit blossom is in a vase, snow-white, just like the snow outside.”

After speaking, he looked at Fu Rangyi and laughed as if he had really smelled it. “It smells so good.”

Fu Rangyi’s mind wavered. This was an impossible story. How could there be grapefruit blossoms in a blizzard? It was completely out of season, absurd. Just as absurd as him saying he could smell it.

It took him a moment to come out of it. He subconsciously used his left hand to grip his right hand wearing the bracelet. Then released it. His mind was in a mess. Another voice inside him was sounding an alarm, warning him: Do something, wake yourself up.

“I’ve suddenly discovered a profession you’re very suited for.”

Hmm? Zhu Zhixi was a bit curious. Is this an occupational hazard of being a professor? Why the sudden career path exploration?

“What profession?” he asked with interest.

“A marketing scammer who gets paid to write fragrance reviews.”

“Then you’re a critic who makes money by being vicious. No wonder you don’t take the subway to work. That mouth of yours would never pass the subway security check!”

“Even if I can’t pass, I won’t let you pass either,” Fu Rangyi said faintly.

This person was really… After their bickering, looking at the few scents written on the paper, a sense of regret still surfaced in Zhu Zhixi’s heart. He sniffed. Besides the sandalwood incense in the house, he couldn’t smell anything. And in all likelihood, he would never smell it before he died. It was like an item on his bucket list that could never be checked off. The terrible thing was, besides him, many people could easily check it off. Any Omega or Alpha.

His gaze gradually shifted downwards, finally landing on Fu Rangyi’s wrist. “Actually, you don’t have to wear it at home.”

Fu Rangyi looked at him, said nothing, subconsciously avoiding the topic. But Zhu Zhixi reached out directly, his fingertips hooking the silver bracelet on his wrist. “This.”

“Although I don’t need a suppressor, my brother and my dad both have one. I know wearing this thing for too long is bad for your health. It’s natural for AOs to release pheromones. Constantly suppressing and blocking them can lead to pheromone disorders. The same goes for inhibitors. My brother only wears his during his susceptible period.”

And the higher the rank of the Alpha, the more they need to release and channel their pheromones, because their pheromones are more complex, concentrated, and dominant than a typical A’s.

From the moment he met Fu Rangyi, this bracelet had never been taken off. He suspected this person never took it off, which led to an endocrine disorder, which was why he was in a bad mood every day.

“It has nothing to do with you.” Fu Rangyi pulled his hand away.

“How does it have nothing to do with me?” Zhu Zhixi’s tone was natural. “I’m a Beta, I can’t smell pheromones, and I’m not affected. You can just pretend I don’t exist and take it off at home. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Fu Rangyi said nothing more, just stared at him quietly.

“Whatever you want. I just want you to be a little more comfortable at home.” Feeling that Fu Rangyi really disliked this topic, Zhu Zhixi timely shifted it, looking at the questionnaire and continuing downwards, asking questions one by one. He still didn’t cooperate with most of them. Like a highly gifted student, he looked down on the difficulty of the textbook exercises and only liked the extension problems beyond them.

And Zhu Zhixi, as it happened, had a divergent mind and really did think of another extension problem.

“Ah, I almost missed another super important one.”

Fu Rangyi raised an eyebrow, for once not immediately rejecting it.

“Do you have any birthmarks or anything like that? A very iconic mark,” Zhu Zhixi asked.

But he wasn’t that cooperative either, still preferring to answer questions with questions. “Do you?”

Unexpectedly, Zhu Zhixi answered very honestly. “No birthmarks, but I have moles. Two rather representative ones.”

As he spoke, he suddenly moved closer, without warning, like a little dog that had randomly approached on the street and started sniffing on its own, with a pair of round, innocent eyes staring intently. For a moment, he smelled the same scent as on himself, the smell of a wood-scented shower gel, subtly emanating, as if this Beta had suddenly acquired his pheromones.

“You really haven’t noticed all this time?” Zhu Zhixi still maintained this excessively close distance, blinking.

Fu Rangyi turned his face away. “Noticed what?”

However, the next second, his chin was met by a pen. Zhu Zhixi applied a little force, using the pen to turn his face back towards him, and then closed his eyes to Fu Rangyi.

“It’s here, look.” The pen that had just touched him now dotted his closed left eye.

On his thin upper eyelid, there was a very light red mole. Rose-colored would be a more appropriate description than red.

He quickly opened his eyes again. The small mole disappeared into the crease of his eyelid, like a little bit of a rose bookmark left on the edge of a quickly closed book page.

Fu Rangyi’s expression was almost unchanged, as usual, covered with a thin layer of ice. “I see it.”

Actually, he had noticed it the first time they met. On a fair, clean face, any small mark was hard to ignore. At that time, he had subconsciously associated it with a dessert he ate as a child: a round, white glutinous rice ball filled with crushed sesame seeds, peanuts, and white sugar, with a small red dot on top. During festivals, each child would get one. The red dot on the one he got was always crooked, which annoyed him. But the one on Zhu Zhixi’s eyelid was perfectly centered, right above his pupil.

“It’s been so many days. I thought you would have seen it long ago.”

“I thought it was a smudge of dirt.”

Zhu Zhixi laughed in exasperation and backed away. The distance was restored. The pen dangled between his fingers, swinging a few times.

Fu Rangyi, for once, took the initiative to ask, “And the other one?”

“Not on my face.” Zhu Zhixi stood up and even bounced lightly a couple of times, trying to shake out his clothes. He was wearing an oversized Christmas green knit sweater, tattered and full of holes and pulled threads, with a white base layer underneath.

He looked down, his fingers searching the knitted fabric, finally stopping at a hole and tapping it. It was his lower abdomen, or more accurately, the lower part of his abdomen, next to his left hip bone.

If it weren’t for the white long-sleeved shirt, at this moment, his reddened fingertips would be poking through the hole in the cardigan, pointing at this private mark.

“It’s dark, and quite obvious. I look at it in the mirror every time I undress before a shower.” When he said this, Zhu Zhixi’s expression was even still innocent. He lifted his thin eyelids, looked down, and stared straight at him.

“Remembered?”

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Author’s Note:

Juicy, aren’t you just asking for it?

By the way, please remember this mole. It will be called back during the rut period, friends.