Gu Xici · Chat

The crystal chandeliers cut the banquet hall into countless dazzling spots of light, and the champagne tower reflects the ostentatious gold. **You stand half a step beside Gu Xici—the standard distance for Mrs. Gu, showing intimacy without actually touching.** His cedar and whiskey pheromones construct an invisible barrier around you, cold and restrained. Rather than protection, it's more of a warning: **do not cross the line**. The Patek Philippe on his left wrist occasionally flashes with a mechanical cold light, and that red string is deliberately hidden by him under the cuff of his custom-made suit. You have just finished taking a group photo with the shipping magnate couple. The moment the camera is put away, the hand he rested on your waist withdraws seamlessly, his fingertips not lingering on the fabric for even a second longer, as if he had touched something that needed immediate disinfection. The discomfort started two hours ago. Bouts of burning pain throb from your gland, and your temples pulse. Even after injecting a long-acting suppressant, the high-concentration Alpha pheromone field still makes your body sound an alarm. The air is mixed with the cigars of power, the metal of capital, and the musk of ambition, wrestling with each other, compressing the entire space into an invisible colosseum. And you, an unmarked Omega, are like walking barefoot on the edge of a blade. "Excuse me," you say softly during a gap in Gu Xici's greetings with the Lu family elders. He doesn't even turn his head, his grayish-green eyes still fixed on the person he's talking to, just giving an imperceptible nod—as if your departure is no different from a falling petal. The restroom is the only place in the entire mansion where you can catch your breath. You lock the stall door, lean against the cold marble, and fish out the emergency suppressant from the depths of your clutch. When the needle pierces the skin next to your gland, you bite your lower lip without making a sound. The stinging pain of the liquid being pushed in makes your eyes sting, but what is even more embarrassing is this sneaky shame—**as if your body is a flaw that needs to be hidden.** At the sink, you splash cold water on the back of your neck, trying to cool down that patch of burning skin. The person in the mirror perfectly plays the role of what Mrs. Gu should look like; only a trace of exhaustion that cannot be completely concealed remains in the depths of your eyes. You take a deep breath, ready to return to that **role you need to play**. The moment you turn around, you almost crash into a chest. A highly aggressive pheromone invades your senses before your vision—a base note of cedar, but unlike Gu Xici's cold and detached cedar, the cedar here is entwined and ignited by blazing incense. Like sandalwood burning in an ancient temple, a scorching temperature hides beneath the solemnity. You subconsciously take a half-step back, look up, and meet a pair of amber eyes. **Lu Qianyu.** The Gu family's trickiest opponent on the "Heart of Genting" project, **Gu Xici's teammate at the fencing club in his youth, and now a bitter rival facing off in the business world.** He is a bit taller than you remember. The black velvet suit makes his skin look even colder and paler. His chestnut-brown hair is meticulously combed back, with only one strand falling over his forehead, breaking the perfect facade and revealing a hint of wildness. A faint, ambiguous smile hangs on his lips, but his gaze is as sharp as a knife, sweeping from the tips of your hair to the toes of your shoes, and finally settling on the back of your neck where you splashed cold water. "Mrs. Gu," he nods slightly, his voice deep and magnetic, carrying deliberate politeness. "You don't look too well. Do you need any help?" "Thank you for your concern, Mr. Lu, it's just a bit stuffy." You turn sideways to walk past, but he seamlessly shifts half a step, perfectly blocking the most convenient path. Close enough that you can feel the temperature of his suit fabric, yet far enough that you cannot accuse him of being rude. "Brother Xici is really something," his tone is like the teasing of an old friend, but his eyes hold no smile. "On such an important occasion, he actually let his wife leave the table alone. What if you were bothered by someone without eyes?" Who that "someone without eyes" refers to goes without saying. The incense and cedar pheromones belonging to him in the air seem to thicken a bit—not an attack, but more of a probe, a measurement. **He is measuring your reaction, measuring the distance between you and Gu Xici, measuring the cracks in this arranged marriage.** You cannot stay here for long. Any solo contact with Lu Qianyu could be twisted into some hint of betrayal in Gu Xici's eyes**—even though there was never any loyalty between you two to begin with.** "Xici is waiting for me." You raise your eyes, trying your best to keep your gaze calm and unruffled, calling out the name you almost never have the chance to say in private, like a declaration. "Excuse me, Mr. Lu." This time he doesn't stop you again. You walk quickly past him, only a thin layer of air separating your shoulder from his chest. It isn't until you step back into the sea of sound and light in the banquet hall that you dare to quietly take a breath. **Then you suddenly realize—at the gland on the back of your neck, besides the cold stinging of the suppressant, there seems to linger a very faint aftertaste of incense that doesn't belong here. Like accidentally stepping into a burned forest, the corner of your clothes tainted with unextinguished sparks.** You raise your head, searching for his figure. Gu Xici is facing away from you, conversing with a European banker. His posture is as straight as a pine, his golden-brownish-grey hair reflecting a cold luster under the light. His right hand hangs by his side, the cuff covering that red string. You walk toward him, one step, two steps, three steps. Just at the moment you are about to step into the range enveloped by his pheromones, he suddenly turns his head. His grayish-green eyes narrow slightly behind his glasses, like a sudden layer of thin ice forming on a fog-shrouded lake. His gaze falls on you, from your slightly messy hair tips to your hands unconsciously clenched tight from nervousness, and finally, as if tangible, **settles on the position of the gland on the back of your neck.** There, perhaps the aftertaste of Lu Qianyu's incense and cedar still lingers. Even if nothing happened, under his gaze, you feel as if your guilt is written all over you from head to toe. He says nothing. He just slightly adjusts the angle of his already detached cedar pheromones—**you can't describe that change, but your body catches it. In the base note of whiskey, a more piercing, almost dangerous chill suddenly seeps out, like the first frost of winter, silent, yet making all things fall quiet.** He turns his head back and continues conversing with the banker. The corners of his lips even curl up slightly, as if that glance just now never happened. You stand half a step beside him, once again becoming that Mrs. Gu who is neither too far nor too close, neither intimate nor distant.