Pei Siheng · Chat

The low hum of the central air conditioning buzzed in the luxurious VIP dressing room. You stood tall before the floor-length mirror. The slim-cut, high-end white suit contoured your lean yet powerful waist, and the lines of your neck and shoulders looked cold and arrogant under the bright vanity lights. You tilted your slender neck slightly, your well-proportioned fingers moving with a hint of irritability as you repeatedly adjusted a silver-gray tie that refused to be knotted perfectly. Today was your wedding to Pei Siheng. In the eyes of all the media and socialites in this city, this was a "wedding of the century" that would shake the economic foundations—a cold-blooded capital merger of two business empires. To you, however, it was merely moving the battlefield from the boardroom to the same household registry. You had been competing for the same rankings since you were ten, fighting for the same market shares at twenty, and now at twenty-six, you were even fighting for dominance over this very wedding. You had already calculated in your mind what kind of cold smirk and gaze you would use during the vow exchange to provoke that always-arrogant, never-losing rival Alpha. You imagined how he might narrow those deep eyes at your insolence, releasing his oppressive cedar pheromones to warn you, and you would absolutely strike back without yielding an inch. Your breathing was steady, your heartbeat strong, and your fingertips pulsed with warm blood; your entire being radiated a healthy, youthful, and aggressively vibrant life force. "Click—" The heavy oak double doors were pushed open from the outside. It wasn't accompanied by the usual aggressive, door-kicking arrogance. This push was incredibly heavy, even carrying an undetectable trace of hesitation and trembling. The sound of the hinges turning was drawn out in the quiet dressing room, as if the person pushing the door had exhausted all their strength. You didn't turn around immediately, merely using the mirror's reflection to nonchalantly tighten the knot of your tie. However, in the next second, a scent of pheromones that was both intensely familiar and completely foreign flooded the enclosed room. It was Pei Siheng’s cedar. But it was by no means the scent a 26-year-old top-tier Alpha at the peak of his power should have. What should have been sharp like a winter snowfield, full of pressure and the smell of gunpowder, now felt as if a massive fire had utterly razed the entire forest, leaving only the despair and dead silence of ashes. The moment that cedar scent touched your faint Omega pheromones in the air, it was like a dying man grasping for his only source of oxygen—crazed, greedy, yet extremely restrained and shrinking back. It didn't dare to wrap around you arrogantly as usual; instead, it crawled at your feet in an almost subservient posture, terrified that even a shred of aggression might hurt you. You sensed something was wrong and frowned slightly. You turned around, the mocking words "Pei Siheng, are your legs so weak from nerves?" already at the tip of your tongue. But the moment you saw who had entered, all sound died in your throat, and your pupils constricted in sheer shock. Pei Siheng stood at the door. He was wearing a matching high-end black groom’s suit, but the outfit that should have been impeccable—without a single wrinkle allowed—looked as if it had been crumpled in someone's hands. His tie was loosely pulled apart, his shirt collar was messy, and even his breathing carried a shattered heaviness. More terrifying was his face. That face clearly belonged to the 26-year-old Pei Siheng, the rival who had infuriated you at the negotiation table just yesterday. Yet, those dark eyes staring fixedly at you held a haunting sense of age, mourning, and despair. His eyes were filled with terrifying red veins, the rims so red they looked as if they had been soaked in blood all night. He looked at you, his gaze sliding inch by inch over your healthy cheeks, your steadily rising chest, and your fingers tightly gripping your tie. It was an intensely greedy look, as if he were confirming a hallucination that might shatter at a single touch. And in his stiff arms, he held a little girl of about two years old. The little girl wore a custom-made small white suit with a soft black bowtie, dressed like a little flower girl. She was sucking on a transparent pacifier, her beautiful eyes—slightly upturned at the corners—watching you curiously without blinking. It was a face... almost identical to yours. A miniature version of your features, though her hair color and texture favored Pei Siheng. A deathly silence fell over the dressing room. The air seemed to solidify into a physical glue, blocking all breath. "Clang—Crash!" The glass baby bottle in Pei Siheng’s other hand slipped from his violently trembling fingertips without warning, smashing hard onto the thick handmade carpet. The sound of glass shattering was amplified infinitely in the dead space. Warm milk spread across the dark carpet in a piercing white stain, and a sweet, milky scent instantly filled the air. Following your habit of never backing down, you instinctively spoke, your voice laced with caution, absurdity, and a tremor you didn't even notice: "Pei Siheng, where... where did you get a secret daughter? And why does she look so much like me?!" He didn't answer. That tyrant of the Pei Group, who always looked down on others and always had to best you, suddenly swayed violently upon hearing your vigorous, angry question. It was as if the bones had been sucked out of his body, or as if his soul had been pierced by the reality of your voice. He didn't snap back with sarcasm, nor did he smirk and walk over to tilt your chin up. He couldn't even take a steady step; he stumbled, almost crawling, as he rushed toward you. With a dull thud... Pei Siheng slammed one knee onto the hard marble floor. The sound of his kneecap hitting the ground was heavy and cruel, painful even to hear. He knelt right there, beside the hem of your pure white suit trousers. His hands—well-defined, accustomed to signing billion-dollar contracts, and usually steady as a mountain—were now shaking like leaves in the wind. He reached out, hovering in the air with extreme humility for a second, as if confirming you weren't a bubble that would burst, before he suddenly and desperately grabbed your wrist. His grip was incredibly strong, as if he wanted to embed your wrist bones into his own flesh, yet the violent trembling traveled from his palm to your skin uncontrollably. His palms were covered in cold sweat, as icy as a stone without warmth. He lowered his head, burying that imposing face deep into your palm. "活着就好……" (Just stay alive...) His voice was unrecognizable, raspy as if ground by sandpaper, carrying a blood-weeping quality that made the heart stop. Each word seemed to be torn raw from the depths of his throat. In the next second, warm, rapid liquid splashed unexpectedly onto the back of your hand, rolling down in large droplets through the gaps between your fingers. He was crying. The Pei Siheng who never shed a tear even when bleeding, the rival who would rather have his hand broken than bow to you, was kneeling at your feet, his face buried in your hand, sobbing so hard his entire body shook. He didn't dare to wail out loud, only gritting his teeth while suppressed, beast-like whimpers escaped his throat. Tears completely soaked your palm, scalding hot. "I beg you..." He gripped you tightly, as if fighting a hallucination that was tearing him apart, pleading incoherently, "This time... stay alive..." You were completely frozen in place. The force on your wrist, the burning tears in your palm, and the suffocating scent of desperate cedar in the air left your mind blank. Your body fell into a physiological paralysis due to this irrational scene, and you even forgot to pull your hand away. Just then, the little girl who had been in his arms was placed on the ground because of his kneeling. She didn't cry or fuss. She seemed accustomed to Pei Siheng’s breakdowns. She pitter-pattered on her short legs across the expensive carpet, avoiding the glass shards, and wobbled over to you. She reached out with her chubby little hands and hugged your other trouser leg. The little girl looked up with a face identical to yours, her pacifier falling to her chest. She looked at the red-eyed Pei Siheng, then at the frozen you. Then, she did something that made your skin crawl. She reached out a tiny hand and, with extreme familiarity and caution, rubbed your stomach through your slim-fit suit vest. "Daddy, tummy doesn't hurt..." A milky, childish voice rang out in the empty dressing room, slurred with the lisp of a toddler. The little girl turned her head and used her other hand to pat Pei Siheng’s broad, violently shaking back, like a little adult, using the most innocent tone to offer the most cruel comfort: "Suisui will blow on it for Daddy... Big Daddy, don't cry..." The sweet scent of milk mixed with the desperate fragrance of cedar. The man's scalding tears, and the little girl's soft hand pressed against your stomach. A massive sense of absurdity and an instinctive shiver from the depths of your soul pinned you to the spot. You looked down at this strange father and daughter, at Pei Siheng’s hand that seemed to have used a lifetime of strength just to hold you, and all the mockery and aggression you had prepared turned into dust.