Chapter 141: XIAOYU? YOU’RE THE ORF PERSON?

"You just said supposed to.." Moying said quietly. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Limo pressed the tape down along the edge of the gauze and smoothed it carefully, taking longer than necessary.

He couldn’t explain it.

He had met Alphas his entire life and felt nothing beyond the natural friction of two people built similarly occupying the same space. It was biology, it was chemistry, it was the way the world worked.

Two Alphas weren’t drawn to each other, they competed, they circled, they kept a respectful distance.

And yet here he was, struggling to maintain a perfectly reasonable one.

"You should rest," Limo said, sitting back. "Your face needs time."

Moying looked at him for a long moment, that same open expression, not pushing, not retreating, just there and honest and waiting.

"Okay," he said finally, softly.

He leaned back against the couch cushions and closed his eyes, and Limo sat beside him with the first aid kit open on the coffee table and looked at him for a moment longer than he should have before looking away.

Two Alphas.

He had no explanation for it.

Limo brought Moying to the guest room. Set water on the nightstand without being asked.

Closed the door quiet enough that Moying barely heard it.

Moying sat on the edge of the bed. Didn’t move for a while. Then he lay back and stared at the ceiling.

Two Alphas didn’t work. That was fact one.

He wanted children. Fact two.

And he was still in love with someone who’d chosen someone else. Fact three.

He lay there in the dark and turned each one over like a stone in his palm.

His cheek throbbed under the gauze. A slow, steady pulse. His thumb found the edge of the tape on its own and pressed down lightly. Limo had smoothed it down with more care than the situation asked for.

Moying moved his hand away.

Limo had looked away before he answered. One second. That was all. But he was still there with it, in a room that didn’t belong to him, in the dark.

Moying turned onto his stomach and buried his face in the pillow.

He knew the answer before he asked. But he asked anyway.

That said something about him, and he wasn’t ready to pick at it.

Eventually he shut his eyes and sleep came later.

*****************

Morning came into Guiying’s room through the curtains, pale and unhurried, and he surfaced from sleep slowly, reaching out instinctively before he was fully awake.

His hand found an arm and his movement paused.

Cracking one eye open, he glanced to the other side to confirm who this foreign entity was.

Liuxian was in his bed, fully dressed, sitting up against the headboard and having at some point in the night slid sideways into sleep, his head fallen slightly to one side, his jacket still on.

Guiying sat up carefully so as not to wake him and reached over to ease the jacket off his shoulders, folding it over the chair by the desk.

Then he crouched down and removed Liuxian’s shoes one at a time, setting them neatly by the bed before straightening and pulling the blanket up over him, smoothing it once across his chest.

He stood there for a moment, looking at Liuxian’s face in the pale morning light, the slight crease in his shirt from sleeping in it, the way his chest rose and fell slowly and evenly.

Guiying leaned in slightly without meaning to and breathed.

Liuxian smelled like himself. Just himself, clean and familiar, nothing foreign clinging to him, and Guiying straightened and stood there a moment longer before turning away and going to wash up.

He came out of the bathroom to find Liuxian still asleep, the blanket exactly where he’d left it, and stood in the doorway for a moment before going to get dressed.

The sheer navy shirt first, the rust brown trousers, the silver chain at his collar. He checked himself in the mirror once, added his rings, and went downstairs.

Old Li was already in the kitchen and looked up when he heard him on the stairs.

"You’re up early," he said. "Sit down."

Guiying sat and Old Li put congee in front of him without asking, then a plate of sides, then stood at the counter with his own tea.

"The young master hasn’t come down yet?" he said, after a moment.

"He’ll be down when he’s up," Guiying said.

Old Li nodded and said nothing else, which meant he had noticed whatever he had noticed and had decided to keep it to himself.

Guiying ate and checked his phone. Bai Feng had sent a message early that morning, he and Liang Xueyi had been pulled into an emergency case and couldn’t make the Bao’an visit.

He had arranged for two other ORF members to go in their place and asked Guiying to oversee things on his behalf.

Guiying read the names. He didn’t know either of them well. He replied that it was fine, finished his congee, and went to get ready.

——

Haiyan picked him up at eight thirty. The two ORF members were already waiting outside the building when he arrived, a man named Guo Sheng and a woman named Wei Ling, both in their thirties, both looking at the Bao’an district with the barely concealed discomfort of people who hadn’t spent much time in places like this and had already formed opinions about it.

"This is the area?" Wei Ling said, looking up at the building.

"This is the area," Guiying said, and headed for the entrance.

The stairwell was the same — damp, dim, the broken bicycle still on the second floor landing. Wei Ling’s heels clicked unevenly on the stairs and she made a sound when she saw the bicycle that she clearly didn’t intend to be heard but that carried perfectly in the enclosed space.

Guo Sheng had his phone out and was looking at it rather than at where he was going, which told Guiying everything he needed to know about how present this man intended to be today.

They knocked on Rongquan’s door.

No answer.

Guiying knocked again. Nothing.

He crossed the hall and knocked on Arang’s door.

Arang opened it and behind her, sitting on the couch with one of the children in her lap, was Fangfang.

She looked up and her eyes went wide. "XiaoYu? You’re the ORF person?"

"You didn’t know?" Guiying said.

"I just knew someone was coming," Fangfang said. She shook her head, something close to laughter in her expression. "So it was your case. This whole time." She looked at him. "You told me you met her here doing ORF work, I didn’t know it was this one. I came straight after the shoot yesterday."