Qi Feng · Chat

Qi Feng sat in the deepest private room of the exclusive club, his back against the black leather sofa. A silver brooch was pinned to the left lapel of his dark red jacquard suit. A playing card hovered between his fingertips, hesitating to fall onto the table. Three documents were spread out on the long table in front of him, laminated photos arranged in a neat row: Omegas with clean backgrounds, pheromone test reports attached behind them. Beautiful data, gentle temperaments, stable gland conditions—the very top tier that could be gathered in Hong Kong. He turned to the third page, pressing his thumb against the top of the photo. His gaze lingered for less than two seconds before he let go, letting the paper fall back onto the table. "Is this all?" His voice wasn't loud, and his tone was flat, but the backs of the other three people in the room tensed simultaneously for a split second. The broker responsible for scouting immediately offered a placating smile: "Mr. Qi, these are already the highest quality this season—the one from the Fang family had their pheromones tested, and the compatibility is two points better than the last batch—" "Two points." Qi Feng rolled the words over his tongue, his tone rising airily at the end, as if tasting a bland soup. "So it's still not enough." He picked up the test report from the table, his fingertips tracing the column of numbers. There was no emotion in his eyes, only a pair of pupils shrouded in cold mist. The paper lingered in his fingers for a moment before being set back in its original place, his metal ring clicking against the table with a soft, cold "clack." "Next batch." "We've already—" "I said, next batch." He finally looked up at the broker. There wasn't even a threat in that look, just a calm, temperatureless execution of an order. The broker's gland violently contracted at that gaze, cold sweat sliding from the back of his neck into his collar. He repeatedly agreed, his steps nearly twice as fast when he backed out as when he came in. Qi Feng leaned back into the sofa again. After the door of the private room closed, there was only the faint rustle of his own clothes rubbing together and the occasional glint of the silver chain on his wrist clinking. He lifted the playing card from earlier—the Queen of Hearts—turning it toward the ceiling light, letting the print on the card blur into a hazy red under the light. "……Another year," he muttered, his tone sounding like he was talking to himself, yet also to that Queen of Hearts. The broker quickly returned with a second batch. Three Omegas, looking younger, with fresher pheromone test reports. Next to one of their profiles, the words "excellent gland tolerance" were noted—likely a clever remark added by the broker. Qi Feng looked down, tapping his knuckles twice on the armrest. "Leave the documents. No need for them to come in." The broker froze, not daring to say more, placed the documents side-by-side on the table, and bowed out. After the door closed, Qi Feng didn't even touch those papers again. He simply maintained that posture, the silver ring spinning silently between his fingers. On the other side of the card table sat his half-finished whiskey, the ice melted to the point of being nearly invisible, leaving only a ring of condensation on the glass. He was truly weary, not physically, but with an exhaustion that seeped from the marrow of his bones—everything looked bland, everything smelled insufficient. They came and went, none lasting even three months, leaving him alone in this private room filled with alcohol and pheromones, facing an empty card table, waiting for the next round. The broker would probably bring a third batch, a fourth, a fifth in a little while. And he would flip through those photos and test data like flipping through files, his fingertips pausing briefly on the contour of each face before moving away. He hadn't expected "things to be different when turning the next page" in a very long time. Having expectations shattered too many times had become muscle memory, a habit of his fingers automatically sliding past and his gaze automatically skipping over. He tilted his head back and drained the last sip of whiskey, the ice clinking against his teeth as a chill rushed down his throat and plunged into his stomach. The glass was empty. He set it down, lifted his head, and his gaze casually swept past the crack of the open private room door, looking into the hallway. And then he froze. The hallway lights were warm and dark gold, casting large shadows against the dark wood paneling on the walls. You walked over from the far end, your pace neither fast nor slow, holding something in your hand. Maybe you were delivering documents, maybe you were just passing by, or maybe you had just taken a wrong turn—Qi Feng wasn't sure, and he wasn't looking at your hands at all. What did he see? He couldn't describe it immediately himself. He saw a silhouette, a stride, and a scent that he caught from five meters away—extremely faint yet extremely distinct. That scent didn't even seem like something an Omega should have—soft, sweet, and easily penetrable. Instead, it was like a clean breeze, gently lifting a corner of the heavy agarwood and bitter sandalwood in his room as it passed through the hallway, like someone opening a window in a sealed room. His fingers stopped at the edge of the card, motionless. The broker had mentioned the test values, gland states, and compatibility estimates of that batch of Omegas; he had memorized and then discarded every single number—because none of it was enough. Yet the moment that person in the hallway simply passed by, he felt his roomful of heavy, thick, suffocating pheromones suddenly sliced open by something sharp and light. It wasn't compatibility. He didn't even have time to use that word. He simply—stopped his movement of flipping the card, his gaze gliding along with the figure flitting past the crack of the door. Then, just as that person was about to walk out of his field of vision, he suddenly stood up from the sofa. His leather shoes stepped onto the carpet, silent, but as he stood, the air in the entire room seemed to rise by half a degree. He walked to the door, resting his palm against the doorframe, leaning out slightly to peer down the hallway. You had already walked a few steps away, your silhouette slightly blurring in the warm light at the corner. He stood in the dark, in the midst of his own suffocatingly heavy pheromones, his eyelashes lowered, his Adam's apple bobbing slightly. "……Interesting." The words were soft, almost a sigh, swept away by the draft of the air conditioning at the end of the hallway. He retreated back into the room, closed the door, and didn't call the broker, nor did he flip through the three new documents on the table. He simply sat back down on the sofa, placing the Queen of Hearts he had been holding all night face-up right in the center of the table. He lowered his head, his thumb slowly rubbing the edge of the card. The silver ring gleamed under the light. He closed his eyes. The clean breeze in his breath was still there, faint and elusive, like a breath of oxygen rising from deep water, causing the agarwood and bitter sandalwood all over his body to surge slightly. "……Tomorrow," he said to the empty air, his voice so low only he could hear. "Find out who that person is."