Chapter 2: Rainy Night in Hong Kong

The torrential rain gradually subsided in the early hours of the morning.

“Cough… cough cough…” Shen Yanzhou pushed open his bedroom door. Without his outer shell of composure, his inner exhaustion was impossible to hide. He walked barefoot to the liquor cabinet, simply gripped the cork stopper with his teeth and yanked it out hard, then tilted his head back and drank straight from the bottle.

The fiery liquid burned down his throat.

Tonight in the basement, after being crushed by Sang Biu’s Alpha pheromones, although this “scentless” Omega wouldn’t go into heat, his bones ached with a stripping, tearing pain.

Only alcohol could numb this kind of pain.

Half a bottle of hard liquor down his throat, and the originally bloodless face flushed with a layer of sickly red.

He walked to his desk, turned on the computer, and clicked open an encrypted folder on the screen.

This was information he had spent a fortune to buy from that intelligence broker in Tsim Sha Tsui [1] who only wanted money and didn’t care about dying.

[File Number: S-008 · Fu Sihan]

The outside world widely claimed that the Su family monopolized jewelry, the Tang family controlled media, and the Shen family held shipping, making them wealthy families already in the clouds. But in Shen Yanzhou’s eyes, this claim was merely a joke told for outsiders.

Before the Fu family, so-called wealthy families were nothing more than leeches clinging to the docks, fighting over rotten meat.

Rising from gray industries in the 1930s, to now controlling the throat of ninety percent of high-grade suppressors in all of Hong Kong, every page of the Fu family’s rise to power reeked of blood that could never be washed clean.

As for Fu Sihan, naturally he couldn’t be any simple character either.

Shen Yanzhou moved the mouse and clicked open a somewhat blurry photo.

The background was the Western Cemetery. The man in the photo wore a charcoal gray trench coat. The mud beside his feet was freshly filled, the new soil not yet dry. The brief annotation had only a sparse line of text, yet it sent chills down one’s spine:

[During the Fu family internal strife, Fu Sihan buried his third uncle Fu Shen alive before the ancestral grave.]

“Buried alive…” he murmured to himself.

So, he was a madman capable of being ruthless even to his own family.

The file continued scrolling down.

Personality: Extremely violent, unpredictable moods, pathological need for control.

Rank Assessment: S-rank Alpha.

Further down were several disturbing negatives.

No glamorous affairs of the wealthy, only shocking brutality. In the photos, Omegas and Betas had their hands bound behind their backs with belts, naked and kneeling on shattered porcelain shards, red wine mixed with blood pouring down, their backs covered in crisscrossing bruises and whip marks.

More than bed partners, they were like disposable consumables used to vent.

Another madman who liked to play S&M.

Did Fu Sihan name him specifically just for a marriage alliance?

Shen Yanzhou looked down at his pale wrist, tilted his head back and took another drink. “Other Omegas are too easy to break, so he wants to find one that can take a pounding… is that it?”

“Knock, knock, knock.” An extremely light knocking came from outside the door.

Shen Yanzhou reined in the mockery at the corners of his eyes, restoring his usual coldness and distance. “Get lost.”

The person outside did not get lost.

“Brother, it’s me.” A young man’s voice, warm and clean.

As the doorknob was gently turned, a tall figure walked in.

The newcomer wore light brown loungewear, his appearance extremely handsome. He was the adopted son his parents had taken in from an orphanage over a decade ago, and also the chief lawyer of the Shen Group’s legal department.

“Why are you coming in so late?” Shen Yanzhou immediately closed the computer.

Shen Xici did not answer immediately. His gaze passed over his brother’s pale cheek, landing on his bare ankle. The skin scalded by hot tea had already blistered. He carried a medicine box, knelt on one knee, his eyes full of heartache:

“Second Uncle is so lacking in propriety. I’ll make him lose several more percentage points in the next quarter’s equity dividend bill.”

“I’m fine.” Shen Yanzhou retreated indifferently, but Shen Xici’s hand was faster than his, gripping Shen Yanzhou’s ankle in one move.

The force was controlled perfectly, making it impossible for him to break free without causing pain to the wound.

“Brother, you need to apply medicine. If it scars, I’ll be heartbroken.”

He opened the medicine box, used a cotton swab to apply cooling ointment, his movements practiced and focused. Shen Yanzhou looked at him with a slight frown, but did not refuse again.

In this filthy Shen family, Shen Xici was an anomaly.

He was smart, rational, and most importantly, he listened to him, only to him.

“I heard Grandfather wants you to get engaged to Fu Sihan.” Shen Xici applied medicine while asking.

“You heard?” Shen Yanzhou was unconcerned.

“Fu Sihan is a madman.” Shen Xici’s fingers gripping his ankle suddenly tightened, and when he raised his head, his eyes were bloodshot.

He could not bear it, his brother whose every hair was exquisitely perfect, being sent as a marriage tool to that madman’s bed.

“I heard last month, an Omega used pregnancy to force him into marriage, and he directly threw the person into the sea. When they were fished up, the gland had been dug out alive. Fu Sihan doesn’t need a partner, he only needs obedient dogs and dead people. Does Brother want to become like that too?”

Shen Yanzhou laughed lightly. “So what? You came so late tonight to do a pre-marital risk assessment for me?”

“Brother, my trust fund in Zurich has already been unfrozen. The safe route to Europe is also arranged.”

“New identity, new passport, even how to clean up the mess on the Shen family side, I’ve made contingency plans. As long as you nod, I can take you away at any time.”

“Go? Go where? Hide abroad like a stray dog, living off a trust fund?”

Shen Yanzhou leaned forward. “Shen Xici, do you know how many pairs of greedy eyes in this mansion right now are staring dead at my position?”

He extended his pale finger, pointing toward the door. “The moment I leave, that old thing Shen Hong and that waste Shen Xiuming will be popping champagne to celebrate the next moment. They’ll surge forward like hyenas, tearing and biting at the bit of foundation my father and mother left behind until not even scraps remain.”

Speaking of parents, the coldness in Shen Yanzhou’s eyes deepened. “This is what my parents traded their lives for. Even if I personally destroy it, burn it, I will never let it go cheaply to that group of bloodsucking maggots.”

“But, I can’t watch you be destroyed. You’re so smart. With your methods, even if you went abroad, in a few years you’d still thrive, still be able to build a business empire belonging to you.”

“Not worth it?”

“You’re a good lawyer, you understand weighing pros and cons, you understand cutting losses in time. In your eyes, perhaps living is the greatest win.” Shen Yanzhou’s voice was very light, carrying a weary hoarseness.

“But to me, some things are more important than life.”

“I’m very tired, and my head hurts too. I just want to sleep now. You go back first.”

Shen Xici knew that saying any more would only make his brother more annoyed, so he had the sense to stand up and said gently: “Don’t let the wound get wet.”

When he reached the door, he looked back at Shen Yanzhou again and said softly: “Good night, Brother.”

—

After Shen Xici left, the bedroom fell back into dead silence.

His brother’s words were naive, but they reminded him of one thing: Fu Sihan was a perverted scumbag, and marrying him meant certain death.

If he didn’t do something, by the time of the engagement, once he walked through the gates of the Fu family, he would be fish on a chopping block.

His body simply couldn’t withstand the torment of an S-rank Alpha.

If he didn’t resist, he estimated he could only slowly rot in the Fu family, becoming one of Fu Sihan’s many collectibles.

But he had never been someone who sat waiting for death.

“Since you want to push me into a pit of fire…” His fingertip traced across Fu Sihan’s face on the screen. “Since you’re certain I’ll act like a weak Omega and let myself be slaughtered, then I’ll send you a ‘great gift’ you’ll never forget.”

A plan so crazy it reached the extreme, and so malicious it reached the extreme, slowly took shape in his mind.

Would a madman like Fu Sihan, with his cleanliness obsession and pathological need for control, touch an Omega who had been marked by other wild dogs and was carrying a “mongrel” in their belly?

As for those old antiques in the Shen family, what they wanted was nothing more than an S-rank Alpha to inherit the family. Just because he was an Omega whose pheromones had no scent, but if the child he carried was a top-tier Alpha?

Even if the father was unknown, the Shen family would still want this child.

By then, the Fu family would break off the engagement, and with this S-rank bloodline, the Shen family would still have him firmly seated as the family head.

Although it was jumping from one pit of fire into another cage, at least he wouldn’t rot in the hands of that pervert Fu Sihan.

Shen Yanzhou picked up his phone and dialed the intelligence broker’s number.

“Beep—beep—”

The receiver transmitted noisy background sounds, mixed with a few crude Cantonese curses. After a while, the call was finally answered.

“Hello—which bastard is disturbing people’s dreams in the middle of the night?” The voice carried an impatient ferocity.

After seeing the caller ID, the tone on the other end instantly became polite. “Oh, so it was Shen young master. What wind is blowing tonight? You’ve patronized my business twice in one evening. Which family’s ancestral grave has caught your attention again?”

Shen Yanzhou stood barefoot on the carpet, walking to the floor-to-ceiling window.

“I want to buy goods,” he spoke.

“Buy goods? Our prices aren’t low.”

“I want a person, an S-rank Alpha who can sleep with me.” Shen Yanzhou didn’t beat around the bush, speaking directly.

“Shen young master, you want to go out for wild food?”

“No, you think S-rank Alphas are fish balls on the street, available to pick up anywhere?” The intelligence broker exhaled a smoke ring, his tone becoming shrewd and cold: “These kinds of people, either like your fiancé, born to live on The Peak, or they’re death row inmates locked in the maximum security wing of Stanley Prison waiting for execution.”

“Where do you want me to find this kind of dangerous element for you?”

Shen Yanzhou frowned slightly. “Really no way?”

“The proper path definitely won’t work, but…” The intelligence broker’s tone shifted, his voice dropping extremely low, “If you’re truly willing to go all out, there is a gutter you could try your luck in.”

“Where?”

“Kowloon Walled City, underground cage houses.” The broker spoke slowly. “Three days from now there’s an auction. As long as you can pay the price, let alone buying him for one night, even if you buy his life, no one will dare say half a word.”

Speaking to this point, the other party paused. “But Shen young master, that place is filthy and foul, the ground covered in mud and blood. Someone of your status, are you truly going to roll around in that doghouse?”

Mud? Doghouse? What was his current situation, if not mud?

“Send me the address.” Shen Yanzhou replied succinctly.

 

Translation Notes

Tsim Sha Tsui: A major shopping and tourist district in Kowloon, Hong Kong, known for its dense urban environment and historically as a hub for various underground activities in fiction.

Kowloon Walled City: A real historical location in Hong Kong, a densely populated and largely ungoverned settlement that existed until its demolition in 1994. In fiction, it often represents the ultimate lawless zone, a place of extreme poverty, crime, and desperation. The “underground cage houses” refer to the inhumane subdivided housing conditions historically found there.