TL: Hua

Chapter 47

The mountain of chips tumbled down, and Zakun excitedly called the bet.

The pot instantly swelled to a staggering figure, but the dealer, seemingly accustomed to it, dealt the final community card without changing expression.

Ji Xuan remained in that same nonchalant manner, leaning halfway back into the sofa, looking down with pity at Zakun, who was already certain of his victory. His long fingers tapped rhythmically on the cards.

The hole cards were turned over; Zakun had hit a straight.

He raised his eyebrows and met Ji Xuan’s eyes playfully.

Only then did Ji Xuan pinch the cards with two fingers and slowly turn them over.

Ace of Hearts, King of Hearts.

Together with the other three Hearts on the board, they formed the highest possible flush.

Silence.

Zakun didn’t speak, and the other players at the table didn’t dare make a sound; only the sound of extremely shallow gasps could be heard.

Ji Xuan put a cigarette in his mouth, and Pei Yingye behind him lit it with an unreadable expression. Ji Xuan took a puff, and the milky white smoke blurred his current expression.

“I’ll take the win,” he said through the hazy smoke. His voice was a light rasp seasoned by the smoke, which, combined with his original vocal cords, had a unique lazy and decadent flavor.

The waiter was clearing the chips he had won. The “clack-clack” sound echoed across the table as the ivory chips piled into a new high wall in front of him. Yet Ji Xuan seemed not to care about how much money he had won; he didn’t even bother to lift an eyelid.

Once the chips were cleared, Ji Xuan stood up. With a light flick of his fingertip at the top layer of chips, he let them roll down from the peak with a “clatter.”

He didn’t look at anyone. He just pulled his loosened collar together. The pearl necklace, stained with wine, clung to his collarbone, giving off a damp, cold luster under the stingy light.

Ji Xuan turned to leave, his pointed leather boots dragging a shallow mark across the soft carpet of the casino.

“Please stay a moment.”

Zakun’s voice rang out from behind. Ji Xuan exhaled a cloud of smoke against his hand but didn’t look back.

The patterns on his light gray coat were like an ink painting, and the well-tailored fabric outlined his elegant and aloof silhouette.

Zakun walked around the table to his side. His gaze slid up from the damp collar, past his weary, lazy profile: “Tonight, Seraphina will pass through the most magnificent Carter Nebula in the Fourth Galaxy. I wonder if I might have the honor of inviting you to dinner?”

Before he had finished speaking, Zakun noticed that the Alpha behind Ji Xuan had uncontrollably released a surge of mental power.

He didn’t feel offended; in fact, he was even a bit excited. Mature, sweet fruit naturally attracts hungry beasts. To get close, one inevitably encounters danger. But danger makes the fruit even more enticing and adds a great deal of pleasure to the process of obtaining it. Zakun thoroughly enjoyed such challenging journeys.

Ji Xuan turned his head. The swirling mist made his expression look somewhat hazy and unpredictable. Perhaps the light overhead blurred in those eyes, turning the stagnant dead water into shimmering autumn water that made people unable to resist wanting to get closer and admire it.

The target of their trip was Zakun to begin with. Now that he had taken the bait so quickly, logically, Ji Xuan had no reason to refuse.

However, after a brief silence, his lips parted slightly, and his voice was as light as a sigh: “Stars?”

“I got tired of looking at them long ago. I’m not interested.”

Zakun had seen too many tactics of playing hard to get. Had it not been for the fact that the expression on Ji Xuan’s face was completely unfeigned, he would have even thought the other person was doing the same, intentionally waiting for a higher stake. But toward such a rare beauty, he was indeed willing to tolerate their willfulness a bit more. Just as he was thinking of how to propose a more tempting invitation, Ji Xuan left without looking back.

He truly had not the slightest bit of interest in his proposal.

Pei Yingye followed closely behind. At the moment they brushed past each other, he cast a dark, inscrutable glance at Zakun. It was part warning, part provocation, and part deliberate display of triumph over another’s failure.

It was as if he were telling him: Everything you take pride in is nothing in his eyes; it cannot stir even a spark of interest.

Zakun stood frozen in place, his fingers unconsciously crushing his unextinguished cigar. He watched the master and servant walk through the casino one after the other, and the initial shock rising in his eyes was replaced by something deeper and more burning.

It was the base instinct of an Alpha, a paranoid desire for conquest; the more uncontrollable and unreachable something was, the more he wanted to grasp it in his palm and watch it shatter and be destroyed by his own hand.

He slowly took a puff of his cigar, then pulled his subordinate, who had appeared silently behind him, aside and whispered, “Investigate. I need to know this person’s background and everything related to him.”

—

The investigative data from his subordinates had not yet arrived, but Zakun encountered Ji Xuan again that night.

The dome on the top floor of the starship was made of completely transparent material, housing a swimming pool in addition to the restaurant. Seraphina was currently cruising slowly past the outer edge of the Carter Nebula. From inside the pool, one could look up and see the boundless universe outside; magnificent stardust blurred into a flowing blue Danube, wrapped in an outer ring of brown. From a distance, it looked like an eye opening in the depths of space.

Ji Xuan was leaning against a lounge chair by the pool, wearing a pair of form-fitting black swimming trunks. His pale legs were crossed, his skin looking like fine white porcelain under the lights. He was no longer holding a cigarette; instead, he seemed to have a piece of candy provided by the suite, holding the slender stick between his fingers and pressing it to his lips to suck on it in small bites.

He had already been in the water; his body was wet, black hair clung to the side of his face, and his expression was unreadable as he admired the nebula outside the dome.

So it wasn’t that he was uninterested in the nebula, but simply that he was uninterested in him.

Zakun stood in the distant lounge area, watching through a glass window, thinking with gritted teeth.

The light flowed over Ji Xuan’s body like a glaze. When he raised his hand, the tattoo on his wrist was revealed. The snake flicking its tongue looked like the demon in mythology that tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. Zakun licked his parched lips with an ambiguous expression. Just as he was debating whether to step forward and expose the lie, he saw Ji Xuan suddenly stand up and walk toward the pool.

Shoulders of moderate width, a lean waist, and straight legs.

The Alpha accompanying him had already swum a lap; seeing him approach, the man immediately stopped in the pool. Soaked black hair clung to his temples, and water droplets rolled down his bulging muscles and intricate tattoos.

Ji Xuan reached the edge of the pool. Without any warm-up movements, and without even saying a word or sparing a single glance for Pei Yingye, he simply stepped forward and allowed himself to fall into the water.

Splash—

Water sprayed everywhere. Pei Yingye moved with lightning speed, his arms accurately catching Ji Xuan’s waist amidst the azure ripples.

Ji Xuan seemed entirely unsurprised and didn’t even struggle. His black hair fanned out in the water like seaweed, making him look like a beautiful siren. He turned his porcelain-white face toward Pei Yingye; his dark eyes actually brightened for a startling moment under the refraction of the water, like stars sunk to the bottom of the sea.

Without receiving any command, Pei Yingye tightened his grip on Ji Xuan’s waist and swam toward the deep end of the pool.

As if enjoying this feeling of being coerced and controlled, Ji Xuan’s body relaxed completely. One hand even rested unconsciously on Pei Yingye’s shoulder, his gaze quietly fixed on the shimmering water and the flowing nebula.

The current brushed past them gently. Their bodies inevitably collided in the water, and droplets snaked across their skin, making it impossible to tell whose body heat was which. It wasn’t until another splash sounded that Pei Yingye abruptly brought Ji Xuan breaking through the surface.

Ji Xuan leaned against his shoulder, coughing and gasping. Water droplets slid continuously down his cheeks and neck, and his soaked long hair clung messily to his collarbones and back, giving him a heart-stoppingly fragile appearance.

Pei Yingye held him firmly by the waist with one hand while using the other to pat his back clumsily yet carefully. Once the coughing gradually subsided, Ji Xuan pushed him away, wiped the water from his face, and slowly walked back to the lounge chair.

Leaving a trail of water behind him, Ji Xuan snatched the bath towel from the chair and threw it toward Pei Yingye, who followed behind, without looking back.

Pei Yingye caught it steadily and instantly understood his meaning. He walked to the lounge chair and half-knelt. However, before he could drape the towel over Ji Xuan, he saw the other man raise a leg.

Ji Xuan stepped onto his thigh. The cold touch formed a sharp contrast with the burning temperature of his own body, and Pei Yingye’s muscles suddenly tensed up.

Water droplets were still sliding down Ji Xuan’s body. From this high-and-mighty posture, his lips parted slightly.

Zakun read his lips; he said, “Ah Ye, wipe me dry.”

Almost simultaneously, both his and Pei Yingye’s Adam’s apples bobbed violently, the latter’s eyes surging with a dark tide. Pei Yingye silently touched one knee to the ground, unfolded the towel, and covered Ji Xuan’s leg.

Starting from the ankle of the foot resting on his thigh, he moved upward, wiping the slender calf and the back of the knee gently and meticulously…

He didn’t overstep the bounds in the slightest.

Even when wiping near the root of the thigh, his breathing only deepened slightly.

Zakun didn’t know where Ji Xuan had found this Alpha. He claimed it was for training, yet the man was filled from head to toe with an untamed wildness. He had been so bold in the pool just now, yet now he was so law-abiding. It was almost the same as in the casino. Though he wore shackles and a collar, he was ready to bite his master at any moment.

He suddenly remembered a theory mentioned by a guest at a banquet three years ago: that beauty is not something placed in a glass display case, but something that moves through golden palaces, surrounded by flowers and coveted by wolves.

Now Zakun understood. Compared to this person, his collections were truly pale by comparison.

After finishing one leg, Ji Xuan naturally switched to the other foot on Pei Yingye’s thigh, repeating the same process.

The cigar between Zakun’s fingertips had burned to its end, but he was completely unaware even as it burned his fingers. He silently extinguished the cigar and took a sip of wine. The billiards behind him no longer held any interest; putting down his glass, he turned and left the lounge.

He couldn’t watch any longer.

There had never been a moment where he wanted to snatch an Omega away from his “loyal” guard so badly.

—

“Tomorrow, he should take the bait.”

The room door closed behind them. Ji Xuan fumbled for the light on the wall and spoke casually.

However, just as he touched the switch, his fingers were caught.

Pei Yingye embraced him from behind. Before he could react, he was pulled back and crashed into the recently closed door. A muffled thud sounded as his back hit the wood, and Pei Yingye’s silhouette immediately loomed over, trapping him completely in the narrow space between the door and his chest.

“How was my acting?”

His voice was incredibly raspy, and the mix of cold and hot air from his body surged toward Ji Xuan. His warm breath fell on Ji Xuan’s forehead and eyes, and the temperature in the room began to climb uncontrollably.

“You seemed pretty happy stepping on me just now, didn’t you?”

Ji Xuan looked up at him with a half-smile. In the dim room, Pei Yingye’s eyes were stubbornly bright.

“What do you think?”

Pei Yingye licked his lips and stared straight at him. “You must have been very happy. It was the same when you were pouring the wine this afternoon… You have wanted to do this for a long time, right?”

Ji Xuan tried to push him away. “Don’t pin false accusations on me. We discussed it last night, and you agreed.”

He had agreed. To attract Zakun’s attention, they needed a few unorthodox plays. But he couldn’t help remembering Ji Xuan’s expression at that time; it didn’t seem entirely fake. His gaze was involuntarily drawn in, and as he greedily and secretly traced all of Ji Xuan’s actions, he couldn’t tell for a moment if it was acting or reality.

In the casino, and in the pool, he had countless times birthed unspeakable, improper thoughts, wanting to act on them, wanting to carry them out, only to forcibly endure.

Now, he had finally waited long enough.

“Yes, I agreed,” Pei Yingye’s voice was very low, murmuring against Ji Xuan’s ear. Their hot breaths intertwined, becoming almost indistinguishable. “Was my acting good enough, Master?”

The last word seemed to be ground finely between his teeth, filled with endless intimacy and a veiled, taboo desire to defy his superior.

“…So, I’ve come to claim my reward.”

Hearing this, Ji Xuan let out a very soft laugh. Pei Yingye couldn’t tell if it was permission or refusal, and he had no time to think.

Following his instincts, he abruptly lowered his head and kissed the lips he had been coveting for so long.

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