Bai Heting bowed and excused himself from Bai Jiashu’s presence.
He left without a single trace of reluctance. Looking down at the chaotic mess scattered all over the floor, Bai Jiashu squeezed out two muffled words: “More wine.”
The attendant scrambled and ran out in a hurry, nearly colliding head-on with an oncoming Alpha.
“Are you blind?” Shao Yixiao glared at him, only feeling a frustrating tightness at his gland. He ripped off his inhibitor patch, tossed it onto the ground, and grumbled in annoyance, “Never make me wear this piece of garbage again, it’s suffocating!”
Deaf to his complaints, Bai Jiashu’s voice was so low he might as well have been talking to himself: “Ever since we were kids, he has excelled over me in absolutely everything. I admired him, loved him, and even envied him, but I have never once thought of forcing him.” He paused before letting out a low chuckle. “In his heart, I really am vile.”
“Self-righteous Omegas are just like that, which is exactly why they need to be taught a lesson.” Carefully avoiding the mess scattered across the floor, Shao Yixiao dragged over a chair and sat down at a clean patch beside the table. “Can an Omega in heat even hold a blade? If you were determined to have him, how could he possibly resist you?”
This wasn’t mere boasting on his part.
Though both experienced cycles, an Omega in heat would be left weak and completely drained of strength, whereas an Alpha would reach the absolute peak of their physical condition. Bai Jiashu, however, did not offer a response.
Bai Heting’s blade had been too fast; it hadn’t given him any time to react at all.
Shao Yixiao said lazily, “I told you long ago, that guy looks down on you entirely.”
Only then did Bai Jiashu lift his head. “Don’t you look down on me too?”
Shao Yixiao froze for a moment.
A trace of mockery appeared on Bai Jiashu’s face. “If it weren’t for my current status, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to stick by my side either.”
With him being so direct, Shao Yixiao actually found it amusing instead. He had no intention of playing hypocritical games, asking curiously, “You think I have ulterior motives, yet you still mingle with me?”
“I need a friend I can talk to. Even a hypocritical one doesn’t matter.” Bai Jiashu said, lowering his head once more.
Shao Yixiao suddenly found him a bit pitiful.
Taking the wine vessels from the attendant, he refilled Bai Jiashu’s cup. “There are countless beauties in the world. Why must you hang yourself from a single tree?”
Bai Jiashu countered, “Then why do you always cause trouble for Heting?”
Heting.
Shao Yixiao let out a soft sneer.
The guy wouldn’t even give him a proper look, yet he still called him Heting so intimately.
“Why?” He thought about it, then said slowly, “The Lord has arranged a place for everyone. I don’t like people who overstep their bounds. People like that set a bad example and make things very troublesome.” Passing the wine cup to Bai Jiashu, he looked him in the eye and asked, “An illegitimate child should act like an illegitimate child, and an Omega should act like an Omega. Don’t you think so, Your Highness?”
Bai Jiashu pressed his lips into a tight line, neither taking the wine cup nor offering a reply.
Shao Yixiao placed the cup on the table and poured some wine for himself. “Then why must you go against His Majesty’s wishes? He certainly doesn’t agree to the marriage alliance you want.”
“Shut up.” Bai Jiashu glared at him fiercely.
“Fine, fine.” Shao Yixiao raised his hands, his expression the picture of innocence. “I’ll shut up.”
After finishing the drinks with Bai Jiashu, the sky was completely dark by the time Shao Yixiao returned to his own camp.
He paused slightly at the entrance of his sleeping tent, an inexplicable trace of tension rising in his heart. Straightening his appearance, he finally stepped inside with slow strides.
“Fa—” Before Shao Yixiao could even finish a single word, a head-on slap struck him so hard he completely lost his balance before collapsing to his knees on the ground.
Shao Cheng had always doted on him, but Shao Yixiao knew better than anyone just how ruthless his father could be when he turned cruel.
Just like right now.
His face was likely swollen, and nothing remained around him except a piercing buzzing sound, drowning out every other noise.
A long while passed. Only when his hearing gradually returned did Shao Cheng’s deep voice finally sound from above him.
“I told you to make friends with the Crown Prince. I didn’t tell you to drag me down.”
Shao Yixiao spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva.
Adjusting his breathing, he lowered his voice and said, “I did it very cleanly. It won’t be discovered.”
The wild, deserted mountains were an excellent place to dispose of evidence. The attendants who had presented the wine cup and run the errands had been quietly executed by him during the hunt that very day.
“Cleanly?” A ruthless edge was pressed into Shao Cheng’s voice. “You left ten corpses for Bai Heting.”
At the mention of this matter, Shao Yixiao also grew intensely vexed.
In order to figure out the exact state of Bai Heting’s body, he had even kidnapped his physician.
“I didn’t expect… that bunch of useless trash couldn’t even handle a single Omega in heat.” He tilted his head up, looking at his father’s face in the darkness, his tone hardening. “Rest assured, Father, there is no evidence that can lead back to me.”
Everyone who could speak had been rendered permanently silent.
“Evidence? Evidence has never been important.” Shao Cheng shook his head. “You don’t understand. Bai Heting is not Zheng Yunshang. He stays in his place only because the King wants him to stay in his place.”
These words were vague and cryptic, and Shao Yixiao genuinely could not understand them, merely assuming his father was worried about the chief justice being manipulated by the Church.
“Even if the truth behind the attack on Zheng Yunshang is exposed, His Majesty will just turn a blind eye…”
“Don’t be too naive, son.” Shao Cheng interrupted him.
He fell silent for a long moment, ultimately letting out a soft sigh.
He had allowed Shao Yixiao to live a life that was far too easy.
This twenty-three-year-old young man still possessed a sort of pure, unadulterated foolishness.
He looked down at Shao Yixiao, lowering his voice even further: “In the King’s heart, do you think there is any difference between me and Pei Ming?”
Shao Yixiao stared at Shao Cheng with his eyes widened, his mouth hanging open as if to speak, but not a single sound came out.
He had never once considered this question.
“The only reason he turns a blind eye is because my value as a chess piece still outweighs the drawbacks.” Shao Cheng leaned down, bringing his lips close to his son’s ear, and murmured in an extremely low, slow voice, “Son, loyalty is worthless. You must always keep the weapons in your own hands.”
It was unclear how much of Shao Cheng’s words Shao Yixiao actually grasped, but the matter was gradually pushed to the back of his mind.
Half a month have already passed, and there was no movement from Bai Heting’s side at all.
According to the spies he had sent out, the general spent the vast majority of his time inside his mansion and had barely even visited the infantry training grounds.
*
By late September, a chill had settled over the weather in the capital. Clad in a long coat, Bai Heting sat behind an ebony desk carved with exquisite patterns, idly toying with a dagger styled like a short sword.
Zheng Yunshang’s lips were sealed tighter than imagined. A chief justice capable of standing out from among the commoners was bound to be shrewd above all else. For a person like that, the biggest weakness was the lack of backing power.
By now, he presumably had one.
What was strange was that it was impossible for the king not to see through the shady dealings between the chief justice and the Church, yet for some reason, he had actually acquiesced to it.
“Your body temperature is still on the higher side.” The refined-looking Beta physician packed away the thermometer and said gently, “Your current physical condition remains unstable. It would be best if you didn’t leave the General’s Mansion.”
Following Lin Ze’s disappearance, it had taken Qiu Chen quite some effort to find a suitable new physician for Bai Heting. This man was a lecturer’s assistant at the medical academy; though young, his capabilities were outstanding, and he had even been stationed at the hunting grounds for half a month as a royal physician during the autumn hunt.
Bai Heting fastened the buttons of his coat and said, “I have official matters to attend to.”
Seeing him retrieve two syringes from a wooden box on the desk, Zhou Chengbei quickly cautioned, “You have already developed a severe resistance to inhibitors. If you continue to use them, the situation will only get worse and worse.”
This time, Bai Heting ignored his advice.
Zhou Chengbei had been using this exact rhetoric for over a week, making him feel as though he was practically under house arrest in his own mansion.
Bai Heting suddenly said, “I heard that the medical academy is developing a new type of inhibitor.”
Zhou Chengbei nodded, but his answer was vague and tactful, “You are also aware of the current situation… research on the new formula has not been going very smoothly.”
Bai Heting caught his underlying meaning.
These days, the Church’s influence was extending further and further. Not long ago, the pope had given a speech in which he made a particular point—using artificial suppressants to endure the heat cycle was an act that went against divine will and should be condemned.
Bai Heting continued, “I also heard that you are in that very research group.”
“I am merely assisting my mentor.” Zhou Chengbei added a remark, though his attention was already drawn to several sheets of paper on the desk bearing Bai Heting’s name.
The strokes were crooked and askew, resembling a child’s handwriting.
He had seen Bai Heting’s signature before; the handwriting was fluent and elegant, completely unrelated to this script that looked like a crawling spider. By the time he snapped out of it, he happened to collide right into Bai Heting’s icy gaze.
“Forgive my presumption.” Zhou Chengbei’s expression remained very gentle. He curved his eyes and smiled at Bai Heting. “I haven’t seen any children around the mansion, so I was a bit curious for a moment.”
