The wedding was anchored for the upcoming spring in the coastal city of Haicheng.
When Hunter Huo clutched the preliminary edition of the itinerary and—acting exactly like a massive canine—executed a sudden forward pounce from behind to wrap his arms around Silas Shen, Silas was standing before the bookshelf scanning the latest academic calendar. Unprepared for the impact of this hundred-and-fifty-pound iron frame, his body lurched a step forward, his spine pasting perfectly flush against the Alpha's scalding, broad chest.
"Professor, you selected Haicheng! Is it because that location houses our inaugural temporary marking, our inaugural shared bed, our inaugural date—"
Hunter sticky-sweetly buried his skull deep within the nook of Silas's neck, his scalding respiration puffing in consecutive waves near the Omega's hyper-sensitive gland. His voice was low and magnetic, laced with a post-success tone of asking what he already knew. The scent of blazing oranges within the atmosphere experienced a near-explosive expansion inside a single fraction of a second, violently kneading that cool fragrance of winter fir deep into his embrace.
Silas was nudged by his friction until his footing grew slightly unstable. His long fingers tightened marginally as he closed the calendar with a touch of embarrassed irritation, spitting out a phrase without altering his facial expression: "It is because Haicheng's academic conference venues possess a combined subsidy package from the university alliance. The cost-to-performance metric is optimal."
"…Could you please allow me to remain emotionally moved for more than three seconds prior to dismantling the fantasy?" Hunter's voice plummeted instantly, saturated with the grievance of a creature doused in freezing water.
"No," Professor Shen answered with his historical, clean-cut efficiency.
Yet stubborn lips aside, deep within the absolute dead of night—subsequent to the milestone where the lights of the Life Sciences building had comprehensively deactivated—a dim, warm desk lamp ignited inside the apartment's study.
Hunter meticulously placed that Wedding Itinerary Design and Risk Contingency Plan—an item he had likely pulled all-nighters to revise more than a dozen times, spanning a full twenty pages in thickness—flat across Silas's writing desk. The youth stood right beside the edge of the table, his fingers twisting together with a trace of nervousness, his puppy eyes locking un-blinkingly onto his professor. He looked exactly like a pitiful undergraduate student awaiting his thesis advisor's conclusive review.
Beyond all expectations, during this specific instance, this selfsame Professor Shen—whose reviews historically induced splitting headaches across even peer-reviewers for Nature—refrained from drawing his red ink pen to isolate typographical decimal-point errors across the party-favor unit costs on page three of the budget index.
Silas's long legs were crossed as he reclined back into his ergonomic chair, his pale, elegant fingers turning the pages of that weighty proposal one sheet at a time.
The itinerary was thoroughly packed with all manner of wild, unrestrained creative concepts engineered by Hunter—ranging from importing genuine Haicheng specialty orange trees via air transport to decorate the venue, to establishing a special requisition order to the Huo Corporation to command a standby helicopter on the wedding day to counteract potential sudden cloudbursts. Further down, inside the absolute final "Contingency Protocols" column, Hunter had even hand-scrawled a line of text packed with childish absurdity:
[Parameter: What is the protocol if the Professor experiences extreme academic anxiety right prior to stepping onto the red carpet and flees the scene? Solution: Do not hesitate for a single millisecond; instantly pilot the helicopter to execute a hot pursuit.]
Absorbing the text up to this milestone, a stroke of helpless yet thoroughly indulgent amusement finally materialized within the phoenix eyes shielded behind Silas's lenses.
He slowly extracted a red ink pen customarily reserved exclusively for correcting doctoral graduation papers. He refrained from modifying a solitary typographical error, nor did he streamline a single item of premium budget expenditure; instead, right across the absolute bedrock of that itinerary which was written full of the youth's raw sincerity and devotion, he executed a sweeping, beautiful stroke to sign two exceptionally absolute characters:
[准予 (Approved)].
At this exact millisecond, the concept of romance and the parameter of systematic rigor achieved a supreme pinnacle within this red-ink annotation.
"Professor…" Hunter stared at those two blazing red characters, freezing for a brief fraction of a second before launching into a complaint that carried a touch of laughing helplessness, "Are you treating this like grading a student's homework assignment? This constitutes our official wedding itinerary; could you not write a few characters that are slightly more pleasing to the ears, such as 'I am highly expectant' or 'I love you too' or something of that nature?"
Silas looked at this Alpha before his eyes who was clearly pulling a shameless display subsequent to securing an absolute advantage, his hand gripping the red pen tightening marginally.
The next second, this selfsame Professor Shen—who was historically characterized by a cool self-possession and never uttered a solitary syllable of superfluous waste across a lecture podium—executed an action that comprehensively obliterated Hunter's capacity for rational cognitive thought.
Silas slow-pan deposited the red pen down across the surface, the rounded back of his chair generating a minute whirring sound as it rotated within the quiet of the deep night. Turning his frame around, he lifted those phoenix eyes which were as clear as pristine water. Extending his long arm, his elegant fingers actually executed a flawless, unheralded maneuver to trap Hunter by his slightly loosened silk necktie.
A minute trace of physical traction traversed down the length of the silk. Hunter harbored zero intent to mount a resistance, submissively and half-tilt leaning his physical frame downward.
The spatial distance isolating the two individuals was instantly compressed to the ultimate boundary where their respiration intertwined.
That winter fir fragrance clinging to Silas's person—which historically manifested as a faint trace—had at this milestone become exceptionally dense due to a rare surge of internal emotional waves deep within the Omega's core, carrying a brand of near-fatal seduction. He tilted his head slightly upward, his line of sight behind the gold-rimmed glasses scanning across the youth's handsome yet utterly bewildered features one inch at a time. Within the interlock of their slightly warm respiration, his cool voice became laced with a stroke of raspy texture that threatened to turn bones to liquid:
"Student Huo, listen with absolute clarity. Within my research project database, there has never been a history of retaining any unresolved applications."
Silas's fingers clutched around the silk necktie tightened marginally, the tips of his fingers flushing a pale pink hue due to the force exerted, yet the gaze he anchored against Hunter was as searingly hot as an absolute sacred vow:
"This constitutes the solitary, life-term project I have approved across my entire existence. Since the status has already been flipped to 'Approved,' what additional special privileges do you desire... You may submit the applications to me simultaneously right this second."
With a mental boom, the cognitive chord designated as "rationality" inside Hunter's brain snapped comprehensively the exact millisecond those words "solitary, life-term project" struck his ears and his eyes locked onto Silas's mist-rimmed phoenix eyes.
The blazing orange pheromones that had been suppressed within the atmosphere for a vast duration experienced a total, chaotic breakout, bearing the thick, near-consuming territorial aggression of a top-tier Alpha. Hunter inverted the physical dynamic, locking his hand around the fingers Silas deployed to trap his necktie, violently pressing his physical frame forward.
With a sharp clatter, that heavy volume of biochemical literature and the newly signed itinerary were knocked off the edge during the scuffle, plummeting down against the floorboards.
Silas's entire person was instantaneously pinned flat against the expansive surface of the writing desk by the youth's massive, scalding physical frame. The cool temperature of the desktop formed a highly impactful contrast against the burning chest pressing from above. Prior to the milestone where he could even generate a single gasp of surprise, Hunter's kiss—bearing absolute possessiveness and a sticky-sweet intensity—had already crashed down in an all-enveloping manner, carrying the heat density of a volcanic eruption.
"Special privileges, is it..." The youth's murmurs broke into fragmented shards between the interlock of their lips and teeth, carrying a frantic surge of absolute ecstasy, "Professor, you were the one who authorized me to submit the application... Across this entire existence, do not dream of ever returning me to the vendor!"