It was Sunday, and the lab was closed—no assistants or staff from the first or second floors were working. At this hour, aside from the night-shift security guards, there wouldn’t be anyone else around.
When they arrived, only the guardhouse light was on. The two security guards were slightly surprised by Meng Ting and Yan Sui’s arrival but complied with their request and opened the gate.
One guard stayed behind to continue guarding the gate, while the other escorted them inside, only leaving after guiding them to the electronic door of the underground level before returning to his post.
“This place looks like a high-end residential area,” Shi He muttered quietly to Gu Lang and Zhong Ming as he glanced around.
But once they descended to the basement, that impression vanished. Layer after layer of security—fingerprint scans, facial recognition, and more—stood between them and the innermost areas. Without Meng Ting leading the way, even Yan Sui wouldn’t have been able to enter the deepest section.
Normally, only when Meng Ting was present would the fragrance-mixing lab be operational. Otherwise, not even his four assistants could gain access.
Once inside, Meng Ting immediately headed for the storage room next to his perfumery lab, which held large bottles of ‘Yan-Ting’—his practice batches. Just these alone would be enough to last Yan Sui several years of use.
After entering, Meng Ting quickly stepped forward and opened several bottles, sniffing them closely. After making a round of inspections, he immediately discovered where the problem lay.
Every batch of practice perfume he made was meticulously labeled—down to the milliliter—before storage. Though the bottles in the storage room appeared untouched, some had been stolen and replaced with diluted, inferior substitutes.
The base ingredients were similar, and the amount of counterfeit perfume added was minimal, making the difference nearly imperceptible—even for Meng Ting—unless examined carefully.
“Shi He, come over here again.”
Meng Ting turned and gestured at Shi He, who, though confused, obediently stepped closer. Before he knew it, Meng Ting was leaning in to sniff him intently. Even though Meng Ting wore a serious expression, under Yan Sui’s sharp gaze, Shi He still felt an inexplicable urge to break out in a cold sweat.
An angry, determined Meng Ting was hard to handle—but a seemingly jealous Yan Sui was even worse. Shi He felt utterly miserable.
After thoroughly inspecting Shi He, Meng Ting walked to Yan Sui’s side and also leaned in to sniff closely. But before he could pull away, Yan Sui embraced him.
Yan Sui’s embrace was brief, but it exposed the uncontrollable urge of jealousy in his heart. Even though they were friends he trusted, even though his reason told him there was no special, romantic meaning, he still couldn’t tolerate anyone getting too close to Meng Ting.
Meng Ting blinked, unable to comprehend Yan Sui’s complex thoughts, but being embraced by Yan Sui suddenly made his gloomy mood feel a bit better.
He leaned in, not to kiss, but to nuzzle Yan Sui’s cheek. He didn’t deliberately smile, but this feeling of intimacy was something Meng Ting only experienced when he was with Yan Sui.
After organizing his thoughts slightly, he spoke from within Yan Sui’s embrace to explain, “He diluted my perfume with inferior counterfeit perfume.” This angered Meng Ting even more than if it had just been diluted with water.
“So he already knows your formula?” Yan Sui had basically narrowed down the suspects who might have stolen the perfume.
Only Meng Ting’s four assistants had access to the perfume and could tamper with it. Having worked with Meng Ting for so long, and with him never hiding his blending process from them, the ingredients were all there. Over time, figuring out the correct formula wasn’t impossible.
Moreover, due to his injury recently, Meng Ting had been in and out of the lab hurriedly. His work attitude might have given the culprit a sense of opportunity, coupled with the huge financial temptation—it wasn’t impossible for someone to develop crooked intentions.
However, Meng Ting didn’t answer immediately. His nose detected several scents—differences barely noticeable to Yan Sui and others, but to Meng Ting, even slight variations were significant.
After about ten minutes, Meng Ting finally responded to Yan Sui’s question, shaking his head lightly. “Wrong. Completely wrong!”
To put it harshly, it was a mess. Meng Ting had told them long ago that acting now was too soon. Someone must have disregarded his warning and went ahead to create this disgusting counterfeit perfume.
Pulling away from Yan Sui’s embrace, Meng Ting took out two bottles and headed toward the adjacent analysis room. After a couple of steps, he turned back to look at Yan Sui. “I need to figure out how to salvage my perfume…”
The longer the inferior perfume neutralized it, the worse the damage would become. If left unchecked, all the perfumes he had blended for Yan Sui would be ruined.
“Go ahead. I’ll wait for you here.”
Yan Sui didn’t follow but stood by the analysis room’s window where Meng Ting could see him, and he could see Meng Ting.
***
Yan Sui, Gu Lang, and the others hadn’t been standing long before Yan Mingya arrived. They had called him on the way, deciding that matters concerning the perfume company were best handled by Meng Ting and him.
The phone call hadn’t gone into much detail, so after arriving, Gu Lang and Shi He thoroughly explained everything from beginning to end. Then, they went into the surveillance room to review the footage, only to find portions had been deleted.
Yan Sui made another call, and Wang Feng brought in a computer expert. It took over two hours to restore the deleted footage.
By then, Meng Ting had also emerged from the lab. Of course, even Meng Ting couldn’t find a solution in just two hours—he had only managed to reverse-engineer the counterfeit perfume.
Shaking the bottle of perfume, his face darkened with visible anger. As he walked behind the group, Gu Lang and Zhong Ming instinctively made way for him. Truly worthy of being their elder brother’s partner—his anger wasn’t something ordinary people could handle.
“It’s him!”
After all this time, even if Meng Ting was bad at remembering people, he had at least memorized the faces of his four lab assistants.
Meng Ting stared at the person on the monitor, watching his obsessed expression in front of the perfume and his restless, fidgeting demeanor while concocting it. If Cheng Guang were right in front of him, Meng Ting would probably want to beat him up first.
But Cheng Guang was merely the one secretly mixing the perfume. The actual thief wasn’t him—it was the always far more low-key Ma Jili. It was he who had been using the perfumes Cheng Guang concocted to exchange for Meng Ting’s own creations and sell them elsewhere. Moreover, he didn’t dare sell them within Xia Country, instead using another channel to funnel them to the black market in distant A Country—the mountain is high and the emperor is far away[mfn]山高皇帝遠 (shān gāo huáng dì yuǎn): lit. the mountains are high, and the emperor is far away; the law of the land is not enforced here; the central authorities fail to reach this area; the mountain is high and the emperor far away—remote areas where laws and decrees are not strictly enforced; difficult to get justice; originally refers to a remote place where the power of the central government cannot reach. Now it generally refers to an institution that is far away from the leadership and acts on its own without being restrained. Alt: 天高皇帝遠 (Tiān gāo huáng dì yuǎn), lit. Heaven is high and the emperor is far away.[/mfn].
After watching the entire process, Meng Ting turned to Yan Mingya. “Send the evidence to the police. Have them come to the lab tomorrow to arrest him!”
As he spoke, he still felt a violent impulse surging within him, but he also knew he was different now. He had Yan Sui, he had many family members—he no longer needed to resort to such methods to protect himself or what was his.
“Understood,” Yan Mingya nodded. Before Meng Ting had even stepped out, he had already discussed the matter at length with Yan Sui and the others. “I’ll send people to recover all the perfumes that made it to A Country’s black market…”
Halfway through his sentence, he noticed Meng Ting still staring at him and paused. But Meng Ting simply turned away to speak to Yan Sui instead.
“I won’t sell them anymore, but for those already sold… I want to use the real perfume to get them back. Is that okay?” It wasn’t that Meng Ting was reluctant to spend the money—he just didn’t want the world to misunderstand the scent of the perfume he had made for Yan Sui. It was truly perfect, just like his Yan Sui himself.
“You can.”
Yan Sui took two steps closer to Meng Ting, raising a hand to rub Meng Ting’s hair. Fearing that words weren’t enough to express his meaning clearly enough, he also nodded.
After a brief moment of contemplation, he suggested, “Keeping it just for me is still a bit of a waste. In the future, we could hold online auctions and donate the proceeds…”
“Or we could establish a ‘Yan Ting’ foundation. As for which groups to donate to, we can discuss that later.”
Yan Mingya picked up where Yan Sui left off, offering his own input. After all, there were plenty of unreliable charities organizations these days, and any scandal could tarnish their original intentions. Besides, the ‘Yan Ting’ perfume already had a compelling story—why not make it even more meaningful?
“That’s a good proposal,” Zhong Ming commented. With their exceptional vision, they quickly exchanged ideas, discussing numerous details before Meng Ting could even nod in agreement.
Meng Ting listened in a daze for a long while before finally nodding, but the others, engrossed in their lively discussion, didn’t notice his gesture.
Of course, it wasn’t intentional. It was just that Meng Ting and Yan Sui had been standing too close for too long, and out of propriety[mfn]非禮勿視 ((fēi lǐ wù shì): look at nothing that is not consistent with propriety; not to look at things which do not conform to the rites. Part of Confucian Analects BOOK XII. YEN YUAN. 非禮勿視，非禮勿聽，非禮勿言，非禮勿行 (fēi lǐ wù shì, fēi lǐ wù tīng, fēi lǐ wù yán, fēi lǐ wù xíng), Look not at what is contrary to propriety, listen not to what is contrary to propriety, speak not what is contrary to propriety, make no movement which is contrary to propriety. The more popular adaptation is the three wise monkeys, a Japanese pictorial maxim, embodying the proverbial principle ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’.[/mfn], they avoided staring at Meng Ting—especially with Yan Sui right beside him.
“Is everything settled?” Yan Sui didn’t join Yan Mingya and the others in their lively discussion. Instead, he gently guided Meng Ting a few steps away and asked softly.
“No,” Meng Ting shook his head. To save his perfume, it would take at least a week—and that was assuming he was on the right track.
“It’s getting late. Mom and Dad must be asleep by now. Let’s come back tomorrow, alright?” Yan Sui coaxed him gently. He knew Meng Ting was deeply frustrated, but the suspect needed to be handed over to the police, the perfume needed to be salvaged, and Meng Ting himself still needed proper rest.
Meng Ting glanced at the infuriating perfume in his hand, then back at Yan Sui. After a brief pause, he nodded. “Alright, let’s go home first.”
“You all should head back and rest too. I’ll take Meng Ting home first.”
Yan Sui took Meng Ting’s hand and addressed Yan Mingya and the others.
“Uncle, Auntie, you two head back. I’ll handle things here!” The security breach in the lab wasn’t just a matter of Cheng Guang’s misconduct—it also exposed flaws in their management. He would organize a meeting to address it as soon as possible to resolve it.
Gu Lang and the others also turned to bid Yan Sui and Meng Ting farewell.
Just as Yan Sui was about to lead Meng Ting out of the surveillance room, Meng Ting suddenly remembered something. He stopped, turned back to Shi He, his brow slightly furrowed, and said with a hint of reluctance, “Don’t use the perfume you bought. Ask Mingya to give you a new bottle later.”
“Ah… got it! Thanks, Sister-in-law!” Shi He’s voice instantly brightened—this was an unexpected stroke of luck.
After saying that, Meng Ting gave Shi He a pointed glare before turning and pulling Yan Sui out.
Even though they had settled the matter, he was still unhappy that the perfume he had given Yan Sui had been used by someone else.
***
Even after sitting in the car for a while, Meng Ting still felt depressed. His frustration manifested in clinging tightly to Yan Sui, even with Zhao Bing driving in the front seat.
“Angry!” Meng Ting muttered, hugging Yan Sui even tighter.
“Be good, don’t be angry anymore,” Yan Sui soothed, gently stroking Meng Ting’s back. His heart ached seeing Meng Ting distressed, but he also found his anger endearing—so honest and unreservedly clingy, evoking both tenderness and sweetness.
Meng Ting nodded, but after a moment, he muttered again, “Still angry…”
“Don’t be angry, don’t be angry…” Yan Sui could only continue to coax him. He hugged Meng Ting back, and in an angle where Zhao Bing couldn’t see, he kissed Meng Ting’s cheek and ruffled his hair, hoping to soothe Meng Ting’s anger before they got out of the car.
By the time they returned to the Yan residence, it was already eleven o’clock at night. Normally, Meng Ting would be sleepy by this hour, but tonight, his anger had chased away his drowsiness. Though Yan Sui had managed to calm him down, his sleepiness hadn’t returned—he still looked wide awake.
Yan Sui held Meng Ting’s hand as they walked inside, occasionally glancing at him.
“I’m not as angry anymore…” Meng Ting met Yan Sui’s gaze and repeated it once more.
Truthfully, when he thought about it, he still felt angry. But with Yan Sui by his side, even if he was still angry, his heart wouldn’t feel as heavy.
“Not sleepy?” Yan Sui was confident in his coaxing skills and didn’t doubt Meng Ting’s words. But now, he needed to bring back Meng Ting’s drowsiness. Meng Ting had been slightly injured today and should rest well tonight.
When Meng Ting didn’t respond, Yan Sui suggested, “How about I make you noodles? With a little spice today.”
Meng Ting nodded, and the gloom in his eyes visibly dissipated, leaving them clear and beautiful, reflecting the faint glow of the night lights. He edged closer to Yan Sui, his lovely eyes naturally narrowing as he rose on his tiptoes to press a kiss to Yan Sui’s cheek.
“Okay.”
Before his heels could fully touch the ground again, Yan Sui turned his head, and their lips brushed against each other.
Meng Ting instinctively flicked his tongue out to taste Yan Sui’s lips, savoring the flavor before pressing his lips together. Only then did his heels settle back down. After a brief pause, they continued walking inside.
Meng Ting peeked at Yan Sui and added, “I’ll wait for you by the kitchen door…”
Truthfully, Meng Ting really wanted to wait for Yan Sui inside the kitchen, but even if he didn’t touch anything, he’d still be suspected of causing trouble. To let Yan Sui finish cooking the noodles as quickly as possible, it was best for him to wait outside the kitchen.
But he didn’t want to wait in the living room either, so the kitchen door was the only option.
“Alright,” Yan Sui replied, sensing Meng Ting’s constant desire to stay close to him. He couldn’t refuse.
[dropdown title=”List of Idiom in Chapter 091″]
有機可乘 (yǒu jī kě chéng): there’s an opportunity to take advantage of; there’s a loophole that can be used; to have an opportunity that one can exploit (idiom); chance to take advantage of; opening to seize; moment to act; a loophole to exploit.抓耳撓腮 (zhuā ěr náo sāi): to tweak one’s ears and scratch one’s cheeks (as an expression of anxiety, delight, frustration etc) (idiom); scratch one’s head (out of anxiety); be filled with joy; be beside oneself with joy.
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