The cool beauty forcibly bids for top A: Chapter 14

“Bro.” Shen Xici stared at that half lidded face in the rearview mirror, unable to help himself from speaking up, “You’re really going to use that kind of trash… as a massage wand?”

The man in the back seat didn’t even lift his eyelids, letting out an extremely light single syllable from his nose, “Yeah.”

“Why him?” Shen Xici bit his teeth together, “You could pull any random person with a clean background out of Hong Kong, and they’d be cleaner than that wild dog from the gutter.”

“Clean background?” Shen Yanzhou opened his eyes, tilted his head to light a cigarette, and looked at Shen Xici up front through the smoke.

“Finding some clean cut young master, that’s asking for trouble. One night together and you have to take responsibility, have to talk about feelings. Even if you’re just paying them, you still have to worry about saving face.” Shen Yanzhou flicked ash off his cigarette. “Wild dogs are different.”

“Give them a bone and they’ll wag their tail. No need to coax, no need to take responsibility. If they’re good to use, keep them around. If they break or you get bored, just throw them back into the gutter, person and bedding together. No loose ends.”

“But bro, he towards you…”

The words reached his lips but got stuck.

How could Shen Xici possibly say it out loud?

Just thinking of that day in the entryway, that lowly person touching his brother’s snow white nape, licking his brother’s Adam’s apple, kept him awake all night.

That person was probably taking possession of his brother in countless unseen places, while he himself had to relieve his unspeakable desires within the cage called “brotherly love and respect.”

He was the family dog that Yanzhou’s parents had brought back from the orphanage twelve years ago. A family dog had to follow the rules, while wild dogs could just follow their noses and bite.

“Xici, your pheromones are going haywire. Pull them back in.”

“Yes, bro.”

“But why is the old man in such a rush to have us come back to the main house? Such a huge typhoon day, he insists on seeing me.” He rubbed between his brows, his voice carrying exhaustion.

“Is it because that waste Shen Xiuming made another mess of the company accounts? Or does Second Uncle want to stuff more people onto the board again?”

Shen Xici’s hands gripping the steering wheel tightened.

“It’s not because of Second Uncle, and it’s not because of Shen Xiuming.”

“Then what for?” he asked.

“It’s Fu Sihan. He’s coming back to Hong Kong early.”

Shen Yanzhou stubbed out his half smoked cigarette and tossed it into the ashtray.

The sun was setting as the black Maybach pulled up before a British style red brick castle.

This Shen family main house, backed by Victoria Peak and facing Victoria Harbour, was said to have cost his great great grandfather half his fortune to secure this feng shui treasure land.

“Young Master, Third Young Master.” The old butler Zhong Bo, who had been waiting for some time, hurried over with two Filipino maids holding umbrellas.

Shen Yanzhou habitually cast his gaze toward the western corner of the courtyard.

There should have been a full garden of Titanic white roses growing there.

Back then his father had specially had them airlifted from Ecuador to please his mother. And now the white roses were all gone.

Replaced by rows of exaggeratedly shaped “money trees,” and garishly blooming dahlias.

“Who did this?”

Zhong Bo didn’t dare meet Shen Yanzhou’s eyes, stammering an explanation: “It was the second madam.”

“Second Aunt?” Shen Yanzhou said coldly.

“A few days ago, the second madam invited a famous feng shui master from Wong Tai Sin to look at the house.” Zhong Bo wiped cold sweat from his forehead, “The master said… said this west side governs metal. White roses are pretty, but the color is too plain. Planting them there is like putting the house in mourning.”

“If you want the company stock to bounce back, you have to switch to these big red and purple prosperity flowers, plus plant money trees, and tie red strings for good luck. This is called red fortune upon your head.”

“Blocking the money path?” Shen Yanzhou chewed on these four words.

His father, for the sake of the Shen family’s shipping business, spent his life rushing about on the seas. In the end they hadn’t even found all his bones. His mother, to protect the Shen family business, had even sacrificed her own gland, suffering lifelong illness and pain.

These two lives traded for glory and riches were what fed these vampires, letting them live in mansions, drive sports cars, and spend money like water.

And now these same people found the flowers left by the dead inauspicious, said they blocked their path to striking it rich.

“Bro…” Shen Xici beside him looked at his brother’s pale face, wanting to say something, yet choked speechless by all this vulgar gaudiness in the garden. He felt sick too.

“Pull them all out.” Shen Yanzhou coldly spat out two words.

Zhong Bo was stunned: “Wh… what?”

“I said, pull all these flowers out for me.” Shen Yanzhou turned his head, “Tomorrow morning, if I see even one stalk of this trash still here, you leave the Shen family together with them.”

“But Young Master, this was specially arranged by the second madam…”

“Zhong Bo, this family is surnamed Shen.”

Zhong Bo didn’t dare say more, nodding repeatedly: “Yes! Yes! I’ll arrange for people to clear them out right away! Right now!”

“Xici, let’s go in.”

Pushing open the door, the living room was excessively lively. The long table that could seat twenty was already filled with people.

Shen Yanzhou had just taken off his coat and sat down, not even having time to catch his breath, before being surrounded by this group of relatives.

“Yanzhou, look at you, have you lost weight again?” The aunt seated on the left said with distress as she lifted a pot of soup, not allowing any refusal as she turned it before Shen Yanzhou, “This is top grade fish maw I specially had someone buy from Sheung Wan, stewed for a full eight hours. Best for building up blood and qi. You omegas have weak constitutions to begin with, you really need to take good care of yourself.”

“Thank you, Aunt.”

“Hey, no need for thanks between family.” The aunt smiled so hard her powder was about to fall off, her tone shifting extremely naturally, “Yanzhou, your cousin is taking his secondary school entrance exams this year, you know his grades. Ordinary schools won’t do. I was thinking of sending him to St. Paul’s Co educational College, heard you’re a school governor there.”

“See, could you write a recommendation letter? Just a word from you.”

Before the spoonful of soup even reached his mouth, the debt of favor was already being pushed to his lips.

Before Shen Yanzhou could open his mouth, Fifth Uncle on the right cut in, “Oh, school is a small matter! Yanzhou, Uncle has an urgent matter here.”

“Isn’t there horse racing in Sha Tin next week? Uncle wants to bring a few business friends to see the world. Heard you have a few top tier Jockey Club private box spots in your hand? Could you spare Uncle two?”

“You don’t know, those mainland bosses only recognize this! If I can bring them into your box, this deal is as good as done! When the time comes Uncle will give you a big red envelope!”

“Yanzhou…”

“Big Cousin…”

Someone wanted a charity gala invitation, someone wanted to stuff their good for nothing daughter into Shen’s as a secretary, and someone wanted to borrow Shen Yanzhou’s name to book a table at the Peninsula Hotel that had a one year waiting list.

Their mouths spoke concern, but the way they looked at Shen Yanzhou was like a human connection extraction machine, a black card with unlimited overdraft.

Shen Yanzhou only felt that familiar spasm in his stomach rising again. He looked at the bowl of valuable fish maw soup, which looked exactly like a bowl of slop.

“Enough.” Shen Xici couldn’t help slamming his chopsticks onto the table, “Bro just got back, soaked from the rain, can you let him eat a hot meal first?”

The noise at the dining table quieted slightly.

Second Uncle, who had been sitting steadily nearby without speaking, set down his teacup.

“Alright, everyone say less.” Shen Hong’s light sentence settled the room.

He turned to look at Shen Yanzhou, saying kindly: “Yanzhou, don’t mind them, eat first. They’re all short sighted, bothering you with these trivial chicken feather and garlic skin matters.”

As he spoke, he pointed at Shen Xiuming, who was sitting at the end of the table with his head buried in his phone.

“Last time was Uncle’s fault. You fished this lousy kid back from Sang Biao’s hands, but Uncle threw hot water at you. Is your foot still hurting?”

Shen Yanzhou smiled and shook his head, “It’s fine.”

“Xiuming, this kid, used to be a bit rough, but this time he truly knows he was wrong. He’s been reflecting at home for several days, telling me every day that he wants to go back to the company to help share your burden.”

“I was thinking, that newly acquired plot of land in the New Territories, the development project doesn’t have a person in charge yet. Why not let Xiuming try it? After all, he’s family, more trustworthy than outsiders, don’t you think?”

Shen Yanzhou looked at that “right hand man” who was still playing with his phone without even lifting his head.

The New Territories land was Shen’s most important strategic project for next year, with investment exceeding two billion.

Recommendation letters, Jockey Club boxes, charity galas… these were nothing but bloodsucking mosquitoes. And this good Second Uncle before him was the real wolf that wanted to swallow him whole, skin and bones.

Shen Yanzhou didn’t immediately refuse nor agree. His silver gray eyes swept over the entire room, finally landing on Shen Hong’s hypocritical face. It seemed this old thing had already greased the palms of these relatives in advance.

“Since that’s the case, if Xiuming wants to manage earthworks and demolition, then let him manage it.”

Shen Yanzhou glanced at the surprised Shen Xiuming, then swept his gaze over the second aunt whose face showed delight, the same woman who had people pull out his mother’s white roses.

“Tomorrow morning, I’ll have the legal department change the legal representative of the New Territories demolition subsidiary to Xiuming’s name. All signing authority, all approval authority, will go to him.”

“Equal power and responsibility. As long as he signs the Safety Responsibility Letter and the Integrity Commitment Letter, this piece of fat meat is his.”

“This…” The smile on Second Uncle’s face froze, cold sweat instantly beading on his temple, “Yanzhou, Xiuming is still young, legal representative is such a big matter.”

Shen Xiuming was waste, the second aunt was greedy for money, but Second Uncle was shrewd.

Earthworks and demolition had plenty of grease, but it was also the place closest to prison. Once something went wrong, the legal representative was the first scapegoat to go in and take the fall.

“Alright.” Old Master Shen came down from upstairs supported by the butler, sitting beside Shen Yanzhou.

“That’s settled then. If Xiuming doesn’t have the guts to sign, don’t bring up entering the company again.” The old man waved his hand, ending this topic, “Start eating.”

“Heard that a couple days ago you went to the Peninsula Hotel and met Master Lai?”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

“The shipping route matter, worked it out?”

“Worked it out. The United Society only takes twenty percent profit, no longer interfering with logistics.”

“Hmph.” The old man didn’t praise him, instead letting out an extremely cold laugh, “Twenty percent profit? That’s snatching meat from Master Lai’s mouth. Yanzhou, do you know what people on the streets are saying about you now?”

Shen Yanzhou raised his head: “What are they saying?”

“Saying that you, Young Master Shen, are ruthless enough, absolute enough.” The old man slammed his chopsticks onto the table.

“Using Interpol to pressure local snakes? And you want to do some joint blockade exercise? Even going so far as to smash the pot so nobody gets to eat?”

The old man shook his head, his eyes full of disappointment at failing to make steel from iron, “Yanzhou, you’re still too young.”

“Doing business, what matters is harmony brings wealth, a gentle flow runs long. This approach of yours where you want to ‘fish die, net breaks’ at every turn, that’s what hotheaded youngsters do!”

“Grandfather.” Shen Yanzhou couldn’t help refuting, “The times have changed now. If Shen wants to become a proper listed company, it can’t keep associating with those triad types anymore. If you don’t hit them hard in one go, they’ll stick to Shen’s artery like leeches forever, sucking blood.”

“Naive!”

The old man barked sharply, “When water is too clear there are no fish! You do business in Hong Kong, you really think you can throw your weight around with just those few legal documents? Without Master Lai and them keeping order at the docks, your shipping containers will be burned clean tomorrow!”

“Leave a line when you do things, so you can meet again another day. You do things so absolutely, aren’t you afraid that one day when you lose power, you’ll end up dead in the street?”

The dining table fell into dead silence.

Shen Yanzhou looked at this old man before him, spouting full mouthfuls of “jianghu righteousness” when in reality he had long been marinated in the dregs of the old era, finding him both laughable and pathetic.

So in his grandfather’s eyes, his desperate efforts to protect company interests, even gambling with his life, were just “young and impetuous,” just “not understanding the rules.”

“Your grandson has learned his lesson.”

Seeing Shen Yanzhou soften, the old man’s expression eased slightly.

“Since you also know you’re young, some matters you can’t handle, so find a backer early.”

“That kid Sihan, his flight arrives in Hong Kong tomorrow morning.”

The old man seeing he had no reaction, continued: “This weekend’s charity gala, you clear all your work and accompany him. Also, I’ve already leaked news of your engagement to the media.”

The silent Shen Xici suddenly raised his head, “Grandfather, this is too rushed!”

“Shut up! No place for you to speak here!”

The old man glared at him, then turned to look at Shen Yanzhou, saying coldly: “Yanzhou, you’re not young anymore. Don’t make a fuss with Sihan over those unclean gossip scandals.”

“The Fu family has promised that once the wedding is complete, they’ll inject one billion in liquid funds into Shen. This is a matter concerning the family’s life and death.”

“Which alpha doesn’t sneak around? As long as he’s willing to come back and marry you, give you the status of main wife, how he plays outside, you just turn a blind eye.”

“Endure it, bear it. That is the duty of an omega from a great family.”

Endure it, bear it?

So it was for a one billion Hong Kong dollar capital injection.

He had originally wanted to come back and ask Grandfather whether he knew about Limpy Hao’s matter, whether he had found any clues about the cruise ship accident after investigating all these years. Now it seemed completely unnecessary.

“Grandfather, are you finished speaking?” Shen Yanzhou raised his head, “If you’re finished, I’ll head back first. I still have a few reports to handle.”

The old man’s brows furrowed tightly, clearly very dissatisfied, but looking at Shen Yanzhou’s completely undisturbed face, he couldn’t find any fault, only letting out a cold humph and waving his hand.

“Go. Remember what I said.”

Shen Yanzhou didn’t nod nor shake his head. He stood up and turned to leave.

“Bro!” Shen Xici grabbed Shen Yanzhou’s arm, his eyes rimmed red, heartbroken: “Bro, such heavy rain, I’m not at ease. I’ll take you back.”

“No need. Leaving the table at this kind of occasion breaks etiquette. Stay and finish the meal with Grandfather.”

“But…”

“Be good.”

Shen Yanzhou patted his shoulder and left the noisy living room.

Passing by the western garden, Shen Yanzhou’s footsteps involuntarily slowed.

Rainwater washed over the ground full of wreckage. Zhong Bo and several Filipino maids were bent over, laboriously pulling those vulgar money trees out by the roots. Mud water splashed all over the old butler, but he didn’t dare stop. The cold wind made his hunched back shiver.

Shen Yanzhou looked at this scene, and in a daze, the image before his eyes overlapped with twenty years ago.

Back then this place was still a sea of white roses.

Also on a rainy day like this, the young him had pressed against the window, watching his father rush into the garden, to put up rain shelters for those few recently transplanted, fussy roses.

Zhong Bo had followed behind back then, wanting to hold an umbrella for his father.

But Father had pushed the umbrella away, smiling at Zhong Bo: “Uncle Zhong, the rain is heavy, your old cold legs can’t take it. Hurry back inside and rest. These few flowers I can handle myself. Arou likes these the most, if they get ruined she’ll be heartbroken.”

That tall, gentle father in his memory, for the sake of his lover’s single flower, wouldn’t even let an old servant get rained on. And now, this whole house full of relatives, for the sake of fortune, could trample all over this without a care in the world.

Shen Yanzhou closed his eyes, forcefully pressing back that sourness at the bottom of his eyes.

When he opened his eyes again, he thought of that clumsy man at Repulse Bay, carefully tending to the roses in his garden, getting pricked all over with wounds. He thought of him today bent over the desk, stroke by stroke, crookedly writing:

Can’t let Master hurt, Master’s life is more important than anything.

“Young… Young Master?” Zhong Bo beside him, still standing in the rain, saw Shen Yanzhou and hurried over, his old face pale white: “Young Master, rest assured! Even if I don’t sleep tonight, I will definitely clear out all these dahlias! They won’t offend your eyes!”

Shen Yanzhou looked at this old man who had served the Shen family his whole life, now in such a sorry state, and the ice in his eyes finally cracked.

“Zhong Bo.”

“Yes! I’m here!”

“The wind is strong tonight, the rain is heavy too.” Shen Yanzhou looked at the servants shivering in the storm, “Stop all this. Eat a hot meal first, go back and rest.”

“Huh?” Zhong Bo was stunned, “But you just said…”

“Just get it done within this week.”

Shen Yanzhou didn’t explain further. He withdrew his gaze, gripped the umbrella handle tight, straightened his spine, and walked toward the Maybach parked in the rain mist.

“I’m tired.”

He softly murmured one sentence, as if speaking to Zhong Bo, as if speaking to himself.

Right now, he only wanted to go back to Repulse Bay.

Get a good sleep.

On the other side, St. Mary’s Hospital, back alley.

Su Muran held up a black umbrella, brows tightly knitted, quickly walking through this narrow alley.

Tonight his nape had been inexplicably tight, his heart beating fiercely.

This feeling was like being locked onto the throat by some apex predator across the rain curtain, assessing in the dark where to bite for a one strike kill.

When he reached the dead end deep in the alley, the chill of being watched reached its peak.

By the trash can up ahead, a wet stray cat was crouching. Suddenly, the stray cat seemed to see something extremely terrifying, letting out a “meow” of miserable scream, fur exploding as it scurried into the sewer.

“Who?!” Su Muran suddenly turned around, shouting sharply, “Get out here!”

No answer.

Only the dull sound of heavy rain pounding on the rusted tin rain awning, like dense drumbeats.

However, the instant he turned around, a terrifying pheromone burst out without warning.

A tall shadow that made one suffocate peeled out from behind the discarded medical equipment box.

He wore a wide black old raincoat, the hood pulled extremely low, covering most of his face. His entire person nearly melted into the thick darkness, carrying an aura that wanted to swallow a person alive.

“You…” Su Muran was hit by his pheromones until his stomach churned, fear making his voice change pitch, “Who are you? I’m the young master of the Su family, do you know what happens if you touch me? Inspector Li of West Kowloon Police Station is my…”

The black shadow didn’t listen to his nonsense at all, directly slamming him hard against the rough, wet, moss covered brick wall.

“Cough… ugh!”

His internal organs were all violently shaking. Su Muran felt his spine was about to break. The black umbrella flew from his hand, spinning in the muddy water.

Before he could slide down, that large hand wearing a black glove had already moved upward, clamping around his throat like iron pincers, pinning him against the wall with his feet off the ground.

Rainwater dripped from the brim of the black raincoat’s hood, smashing onto Su Muran’s panic stricken face.

By the flickering red light of the lamp at the alley entrance, he finally saw the eyes beneath the hood.

Pitch black, deep, completely gone was the silly and docile appearance from the Shen family villa. What remained was jealousy burned red with madness, and the undisguised cruelty belonging to an S+ class alpha.

“Doctor Su.”

The man tilted his head. His other hand extremely roughly patted Su Muran’s pale white cheek.

His voice was hoarse, rough, the original tone unrecognizable, carrying an intimacy that made one’s hair stand on end:

“So late, still haven’t vented enough? Your scent can be smelled from two streets away.”

“You… Thirty… Thirty Million?!” Su Muran squeezed out these words with difficulty from between his teeth, “Have you gone mad… if Yan finds out…”

“Shh.”

The man raised a finger to his lips, a flash of violence passing through his eyes, “You also dare speak his name?”

He leaned forward slightly, his high nose bridge approaching Su Muran’s neck side, sniffed with disgust, then let out a cold laugh: “As expected.”

“Today at the Shen house, when you were staring at him, you got hard, didn’t you?”

His face went pale white: “You… you’re talking nonsense! I’m a doctor! I was…”

“Still pretending?”

The man suddenly leaned in close. The distance between the two was nearly touching, aggressively invasive pheromones drilling into Su Muran’s pores, forcibly destroying his will.

“Today in the living room, when he bent down to get a book, his collar opened.”

The man described unhurriedly, yet his gaze grew increasingly sinister, “That silk bathrobe was very slippery, sliding down his shoulders a bit, revealing half a shoulder, and inside the faintly visible pink…”

Su Muran’s heart pounded wildly.

“I was right beside him at the time.” The man stared dead into his eyes, his tone gloomy, “I saw your gaze. That gaze was like a sticky slug, wanting to crawl into his clothes, lick his skin.”

“And…”

The man suddenly reached out, grabbing Su Muran’s wrist.

“At that time you had your phone in your hand, the lens aimed at that gap.” The man’s voice suddenly turned cold, carrying substantive killing intent, “You took secret photos of him, didn’t you?”

“Hand it over.”

“Don’t make me say it twice, or I’ll dig your eyeballs out and stuff them in your mouth.”

Su Muran trembled. Under extreme fear, he fished out his custom phone with shaking hands.

The man snatched it away, grabbed Su Muran’s hair and forced him to scan his face to unlock it.

The album opened, and he saw that album named “Moon.”

As expected, the newest photo.

The angle was extremely low, extremely tricky.

In the photo, Shen Yanzhou was bending down without any guard, and beneath the loose collar, that patch of snow white, delicate chest skin was fully visible, even faintly showing a color that made blood rush.

Although only a blurry corner, that privately taboo image, as if you could smell the milk scent, nearly overflowed from the screen.

“Heh…” A low pant escaped from the man’s throat.

He looked at that photo, a nearly sick obsession surging in his eyes. He stretched out his rough thumb, rubbing hard across that snow white skin through the screen, as if he were touching the real him.

Scrolling up, one photo, two photos, ten photos… tens of thousands.

All secret photos, all of him, from different periods.

There was him at a gala lowering his head to sip wine, red wine moistening his pale lip bead. There was him reading a book in the Shen family garden, bare ankles stepping on green grass, toes round and cute. Even, there were several photos with extremely tricky angles, clearly shot through a door crack.

Shen Yanzhou’s back while changing clothes in the dressing room.

The silk shirt sliding down to his elbows, revealing the entire jade smooth back. Shoulder blades like butterfly wings about to take flight, waist dimple deeply set, faintly visible erotic color, enough to make any alpha’s blood vessels burst.

“Heh…”

An extremely light cold laugh overflowed from deep in the man’s throat.

The speed at which he flipped through photos grew slower and slower, the pressure of his finger on the screen growing greater and greater, as if he wanted to directly crush the skull of the secret photographer through the screen.

“Doctor Su.”

The man squatted down, his gaze level with Su Muran collapsed in the muddy water. He took off his mask, revealing that face handsome beyond criticism, yet twisted with a terrifying smile.

“This is what you called… doing it for his own good?”

“This is what you called… childhood friends?”

“Keeping these photos, what do you want to do?”

“You’ve seen him before he was eighteen? Seen him in his school uniform? Even… seen him cry when he differentiated?”

“On what basis?” The man’s voice instantly lowered, becoming a serpent’s tongue like whisper: “On what basis does trash like you… get to have his past? Truly makes one… jealous to the point of madness.”

The man’s breathing instantly grew heavy and turbid. He fished out his old phone, using Bluetooth to transfer photos while looking at Su Muran collapsed on the ground, his gaze sinister:

“Just thinking that during your rut period, you hide under the covers, looking at these photos to jerk off to him, getting your disgusting stuff all over your hands… I can’t help but want to dig your eyes out.”

Bang!

He slammed a fist into the wall beside Su Muran’s ear. Stone fragments flew, cutting Su Muran’s face.

“No… don’t kill me… don’t kill me…”

The man took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing that impulse to kill him. Killing him would cause trouble for Shen Yanzhou.

As the final photo finished transferring, the man carefully put away his old phone, tucking it into the innermost pocket against his chest, pressed tight against where his heart beat.

Then, he picked up Su Muran’s phone again, looking at the wallpaper of that teenage Shen Yanzhou, wearing the white school uniform shirt of St. Paul’s, quietly sleeping on the afternoon classroom desk.

A trace of reluctance flashed in his eyes. Then, two fingers pinched the phone body.

That phone which recorded Su Muran’s more than ten years of secret unrequited love, filled with his filthy thoughts, was snapped in half and thrown into the nearby stinking stagnant ditch.

Standing up, pulling the hood low, melting back into the darkness.

“This is just a warning.”

“Stay away from him.”

“If I smell that nauseating covetous scent on you again…”

“Next time what breaks will be your bones.”