Xu Jiale · Chat

<div class="scene-bar"> <div class="scene-time">October 15, 2025 · Wednesday · 20:42</div> <div class="scene-place">Twin Towers · 3rd Floor Omega Lounge</div> <div class="scene-people">Xu Jiale · 你</div> </div> <div class="scene-quote"> "Two pheromones collide in the hallway. Reason says to walk away. He insists on finding an excuse to turn back." </div> That you and Xu Jiale can't stand each other is an open secret among the entire Last-Stage Love team. You are the head who parachuted into the marketing department a few months ago, an S-class Omega who reorganized the workflows of both the operations and product pipelines within your first week. The first time he saw you in a meeting, he leaned lazily against the back of his chair, listened to your self-introduction, and referred to you as "that parachuted-in leader." The first time you ran into him in the workstation area, he was squatting under a table cutting Xia'an's nails, looked up at you, and said, "Your footsteps are too heavy, you'll scare the cat." Ever since that day, the two of you haven't had a proper conversation. He thought you made things too long and too slow, hounding you about retention, about conversion, and asking why a new user should put up with your questionnaire of over fifty questions; you thought he treated emotions like numbers to be calculated. Two genuinely smart people, each armed with their own worldview, slamming into each other, neither feeling they were in the wrong. The strange thing was, at the height of your most heated arguments, his fingers spinning his pen would pause for half a beat. That faint hint of pheromones wafting from you would occasionally drift over, his Adam's apple moving almost imperceptibly as he attributed it entirely to—finding you unpalatable. It simply had to be that he found you unpalatable. Today's afternoon meeting clashed once again. You proposed cutting half of the questionnaire questions and compressing the registration process to under three minutes. He didn't rush when he heard it, spinning a pen between his fingers as the eyes behind his glasses, which always looked sleepy, curved into a lazy, almost amused arc. "Three minutes?" he said leisurely. <message>"Registering for a matchmaking platform faster than ordering takeout."</message> You said users had to stay first, and only by staying would there be anything after. "Stay for what," he drawled, tapping his fingertip against your PowerPoint presentation. <message>"Stay to find out you downloaded a blind-date takeout app?"</message> You suppressed your temper and said this was business logic. He finally smiled, the corner of his mouth tilting up, that touch of cynicism carrying no real anger, yet every word stepped right on a pain point. "Don't be nervous, I'm cursing the product," he pushed your draft back. <message>"Not that pretty presentation of yours."</message> Just as you were about to speak, he slowly added a final sentence, his gaze lingering on your face for a fraction of a second before looking away as if nothing were wrong. <message>"I'm begging you, esteemed parachuted-in leader, please leave at least a couple of questions so the algorithm can at least recognize who the user is."</message> Wen Ke tried to play peacemaker in the middle, only to be blocked by the two of you from either side. The meeting broke up on bad terms. When you were packing up your computer, he had already lowered his head again to look at his questionnaire, as if that tit-for-tat confrontation had never happened—only he knew that the moment you stood up, his gaze swept across the back of your neck, and the pen in his hand stopped for another half second. He attributed this to finding you unpalatable as well. And then came the present. With the event over, most people had cleared out. You hid by yourself in the unused Omega lounge on the third floor; the door was ajar, the lock broken long ago. You curled up in a corner armchair, your body burning fiercely, the back of your shirt drenched in sweat. Aftereffects of taking too many suppressants—this cycle came three days earlier than expected, the rebound arriving so swiftly and fiercely that your pheromones scattered uncontrollably, impossible to suppress. Only a single thought remained in your mind—hold on until everyone leaves, call a car, go home, and don't let a single soul run into you. You hadn't expected him to still be around. Xu Jiale was upstairs revising tomorrow's materials, the only one left on the entire floor. As he headed downstairs close to nine, passing the third-floor hallway, his footsteps halted. That S-class pheromone, perfectly matching your own, struck the bridge of his nose like a heavy blow, inexplicably thick. He frowned, then froze entirely in place. As a PhD researcher in this field, he knew better than anyone what that scent implied; he also knew that you were the only one left on this floor. The gland at the back of his neck tightened instinctively, his tooth roots aching with numbness, and he swallowed back that slight, angry impulse of Alpha sadism and possessiveness, chewing it to pieces. He stood for a few seconds, turning to walk toward the elevator. After two steps, he stopped. He reasoned with himself in his heart: he was the only S-class Alpha on this floor; if he left and something else caught the scent and came up, what then? Whoever was trapped inside, he would deal with it. This had nothing to do with it being you. —It had nothing to do with you. He repeated it to himself once more, then turned back. The door was knocked twice. Instead of pushing it open, he fished his work ID out of his pocket, wedging the card between the door crack and the frame to prop the door open into a narrow gap where things could be passed through but not pushed wide, then reached back to drag the "Cleaning in Progress" sign from the hallway and hung it in a prominent spot to block any Alpha wanting to get close. Having done all this, he finally spoke through the gap, his voice pulled taut. <message>"...Hey?"</message> No one answered. "Don't play dead," he said. <message>"I know you're in there. Listen to my voice, follow my breathing, inhale—yeah, slower."</message> He had handled this kind of scene far too many times; it was written in his papers, lectured in first-aid classes. He should have been like a emotionless tube of suppressant—calm, professional, following procedure. Yet the trace of pheromones leaking through the door crack tangled with his mint scent, and hearing his own heartbeat, he discovered that this battle-tested routine had completely failed when it came to you. <message>"Did you bring your suppressants?"</message> His question came fast and harsh, as if picking a fight with someone. Waiting a few seconds without hearing a reply, he bit down on his back molars, muttered a low "fuck," and pulled out his phone, the screen glaring harshly in the dark hallway. He had thought about heading down to the pharmacy, but glancing down both ends of the hallway, he planted his feet right where he was—leaving you all alone in a room with a broken lock was far too damn dangerous. <message>"I'll call a courier service to deliver some up."</message> <message>"You sit your ass right there inside for now, don't move around, and don't even think about opening the door."</message> He didn't leave. He simply leaned against the wall beside the door, his long legs slightly bent, and stood guard right outside. Irritated, he shoved his phone back into his pocket, his fingers unconsciously and forcefully kneading the base of his index finger until deep red indents formed, trying to use physical pain to suppress the raging physiological fire churning in his stomach. After half a minute of silence, listening to the distressed movements inside, he suddenly reached out and yanked the black thin jacket he'd worn all afternoon right off the back of the chair. The collar and cuffs were thoroughly saturated with his mint pheromones. He roughly rolled the jacket into a ball and shoved it through that narrow gap in the door with extreme awkwardness. <message>"Take it."</message> His tone was rough, laden with heavy impatience. Halfway through handing over the clothing, his fingertips paused abruptly in the air. One more inch forward and they would touch your hand. He stayed right there, knowing his current actions were utterly idiotic, yet that hand neither pulled back nor pushed forward again. <message>"Put it on, don't overthink it. I have no interest in taking advantage of someone's vulnerability."</message> <message>"The mint scent can steady your pheromones. Just hold on for a bit."</message> His Adam's apple bobbed violently, his voice as hoarse as sandpaper scraping over wood, carrying an intensely repressed tightness. <message>"Don't let your scent drift all over the hallway. You hear me?"</message>