Following the vibrant and clamorous banquet, the ancestral Huo family estate gradually returned to a serene, time-settled tranquility.
Inside the side parlor, a floor lamp radiating a soft orange hue projected a warm halo across the carpet. Outside the window, stars flooded the boundless sky as the night breeze brushed through the bamboo forest, generating a light rustling sound. Silas Shen was nestled deep within a broad, comfortable leather sofa, a copy of the latest issue of a top-tier international biochemical journal resting on his lap. His clear phoenix eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses were focused intently on the complex data plots of the research papers.
A burst of exceptionally light, rhythmic footsteps approached from a distance.
Louis Lu walked over cradling a cup of clearing tea that radiated curling tendrils of steam. His movements were neither rushed nor slow, and his gray sweater appeared remarkably soft under the illumination. He took a seat on the single-occupant sofa opposite Silas, smoothly setting the teacup onto the white porcelain coffee table situated between them.
The crisp aroma of tea interlaced with the faint woodsy fragrance lingering within the side parlor.
Neither of them opened their mouths immediately; the air fell into a marvelous silence. This silence did not cause anyone to feel awkward or anxious; rather, it carried an attraction field unique to biological entities of the same classification—one that required zero superfluous words. They were both individuals accustomed to dealing with high-precision instruments and cold, lifeless medical charts day in and day out. In the deep of the night after stripping away their white lab coats, this boundary of absolute silence made them both feel exceptionally comfortable.
"Professor Shen," ultimately, it was Louis who shattered the stillness first. He extended a long finger to lightly rest it against the edge of the teacup, his dark eyes behind his lenses staring directly into Silas's countenance, his delicate face bearing a flat expression. "There is a matter I wish to consult you on."
Silas lifted his head from the journal, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose slightly, his tone cool and polite: "Please speak."
Louis lowered his eyes marginally, watching the undulating green leaves inside the teacup, a sliver of long-absent confusion creeping into his cool voice: "Julian Huo—when exactly did he begin to generate this... so-called 'interest' toward me?"
He paused briefly, appearing to weigh his vocabulary. Though his tone was flat, it carried a logical stubbornness:
"I am an ordinary Beta. Between us, it is forever impossible to possess that so-called, predestined pheromone tether that exists between Alphas and Omegas. From a medical or physiological standpoint, I truly find it somewhat difficult to comprehend why he—"
"Why he would choose you?" Silas seamlessly took over his unfinished thread.
Louis lifted his eyes, nodding his head lightly with a touch of relief.
Looking at the young doctor opposite him who had likewise been thoroughly run ragged by the Huo brothers, Silas suddenly hooked his lips, unfurling an exceptionally shallow yet breathtakingly beautiful curvature. His long fingers gripped the temples of his glasses, slowly removing the gold-rimmed frames and resting them onto the journal cover.
Subsequently, his gaze traversed Louis's shoulder, looking out through the tightly shut, carved French windows.
Across the expansive courtyard of the ancestral estate, the silver-white moonlight poured unreservedly across a massive grove of mandarin trees. As the breeze swept past, the dense branches and leaves swayed gracefully. Directly beneath the thickest mandarin tree, the two Huo brothers were currently standing shoulder to shoulder.
The younger Hunter was gesturing hand-over-foot about something unknown, his frame swaying back and forth as if boasting about some magnificent treasure to his biological brother. Meanwhile, Julian Huo—who was perennially as unyielding as an iceberg—tilted his head slightly, and though his expression remained cold, his gaze was exceptionally gentle. The tall, straight silhouettes of the two brothers were pulled remarkably long and distant by the bright, clean moonlight.
"To be frank with you, I used to ask myself a similar question in the past."
Silas retracted his gaze, looking back at Louis opposite him, his voice sounding low and soothing in the deep of the night: "Why did Hunter pursue me? Why did he pester me so relentlessly and unyieldingly—was it truly because my gland just happened to possess a high compatibility with his, or was it because of... my person itself?"
Louis's fingertip smoothed over the rim of his cup: "And afterward?"
"Afterward, I discovered that within this world dominated by second genders and pheromones, if we simply attribute every single instance of heart-fluttering and entanglement to genetic attraction and instinctive dictates,"
Within Silas's clear-as-water phoenix eyes, a staggering trace of tenderness quietly surfaced:
"Then we will instead miss the absolute most important, and most precious thing in this world."
"What thing?" Louis lifted his gaze.
"Choice itself."
Silas turned his head, directly meeting Louis's eyes, his voice light yet carrying the weight of a falling boulder: "Under the premise of possessing countless choices, Julian ultimately chose you. It was not because of what gender you are, nor because you possess a gland radiating an alluring fragrance. It was merely because on that cold, private medical chart, you ruthlessly wrote a single line: 'Stop fabricating excuses to visit the hospital.'"
The illumination inside the side parlor seemed to soften marginally.
"In that exact millisecond, you weren't an ordinary doctor he could casually give perfunctory answers to in his eyes, and he wasn't some all-powerful executive director of the Huo Group before you, nor was he some top-tier Alpha sitting at the apex of the food chain." Silas paused, the amusement at the corners of his lips deepening by a few fractions. "In that exact millisecond, he was merely a troublesome patient whose stomach was hurting to death yet who still refused to eat properly—one who required your focused care."
Listening to this, Louis's fingers resting against the teacup tightened slightly, a series of fine ripples expanding within his dark eyes.
"Dr. Lu, I have conducted research on biochemistry and gland mechanisms for so many years, witnessing countless tragedies and comedies triggered by pheromones. However, tonight, there is a conclusion that cold data and formulas can forever never prove, yet one I personally am highly certain of—"
Silas put his glasses back on, the gold-rimmed frames flashing with a sliver of certain brilliance under the light:
"Love, to a massive extent, can be learned through nurture. Whether one is a Beta, an Omega, or an Alpha, those most steadfast tethers and bonds across the long expanses of time are never due to innate compatibility. Rather, it is because at every subsequent crossroads, every single piece of subjective choice made through nurture unreservedly points toward the exact same person."
The side parlor fell into silence once more.
The wind outside the window ceased, and the rustling sound of swaying bamboo shadows gradually dissolved away.
Louis remained silent for a long duration. Letting out a long, thorough breath, it appeared as though a certain academic confusion pressed against the bottom of his heart for a long duration had been thoroughly unraveled, yet it also looked as if he had been tightly enveloped by a certain warm substance.
Lifting the teacup before him, he took a light sip, utilizing the rim of the white porcelain cup to covertly conceal that trace of a faint yet thoroughly sweet curvature at the corners of his lips.
"Professor Shen, I think I finally comprehend somewhat why that fellow Hunter's eyes turn into sparkling starlight every single time he mentions you inside the laboratory," Louis set his teacup down, bantering lightly.
Silas's originally cool countenance flashed with a sliver of consternation, and he cleared his throat somewhat unnaturally: "...He behaves this way toward outsiders too?"
"No."
The eyes behind Louis's lenses were brimming with amusement, looking at him with a touch of sympathy mixed with hilarity: "He only behaves this way when mentioning you. To be precise, he is flaunting you to the entire world."
"..."
Silas's fingertips abruptly gripped the edge of the journal tightly. Under the bright floor lamp, his delicate ear tips—which were perennially somewhat pale—turned thoroughly crimson at a speed visible to the naked eye, silently and completely.
Right at this moment, a burst of somewhat intentional, rustling commotion erupted beneath the mandarin trees outside the window.
Silas instinctively cast his gaze sideways.
The large golden retriever who had just been speaking with his brother had clawed himself against the transparent French glass window of the side parlor at some unknown point. Hunter's entire handsome face was practically plastered against the glass, squishing into a somewhat comical shape. The exact刹那 he connected with Silas's line of sight, the youth's eyes instantly brightened as if a sky full of starlight had been concealed within them.
Separated by the thick, double-layered acoustic glass, Hunter grinned widely to expose his two small canine teeth while using extreme force and an exceptionally sluggish pace to mouth an exaggerated phrase toward Silas—
[I—LOVE—YOU.]
He even went so far as to raise his hands above his head after finishing the lip-sync, forcefully forming a massive heart shape like a childish elementary school student.
Silas massaged his temples with a touch of a headache. Expressionless and exceptionally ruthlessly, he shifted his gaze away, pretending he hadn't witnessed a single thing.
However, Louis opposite him saw it with absolute clarity.
The Beijing University Professor Shen—who was historically renowned for being cool and rigorous—had a layer of pink crimson blooming across his delicate collarbone under the camouflage of lifting his teacup to drink water. And behind the curling mist of the white porcelain teacup, that beautiful curvature of his lips, which had originally been pressed deathly tight, ultimately curved upward quietly and highly lightly.