Sheng Li’s gaze seemed warm, and even with closed eyes, Zuo Chi could feel it. He breathed slowly, pretending to be asleep.
Exhausted from the day’s work and the car accident at night, despite the many thoughts swirling in his mind, Zuo Chi eventually drifted into sleep.
He woke up in the middle of the night, needing to use the bathroom. He struggled to sit up, and a hand reached out to help.
“Sorry for waking you up.”
Sheng Li hadn’t been asleep at all. He bent down to place Zuo Chi’s slippers properly and asked softly, “Can you see the way clearly?”
“Mmm.” Zuo Chi slowly moved forward, opening the bathroom door.
“Be careful,” Sheng Li said, standing by the doorway. After two minutes, he asked, “Are you done?”
Zuo Chi was awkwardly pulling up his pants with his right hand since his left hand couldn’t move. “Almost done, don’t come in,” he called out.
Even though he had differentiated into an Omega at eighteen, Sheng Li didn’t have a clear concept of it before their arranged marriage. To him, Zuo Chi was just Zuo Chi, unchanged. Initially, Zuo Chi didn’t quite adapt to his new identity as an Omega, so despite being an Alpha and an Omega, they didn’t see much difference between themselves.
For instance, in college, they used to share a changing room when playing basketball. It wasn’t until later that Zuo Chi gradually realized the differences between Alphas and Omegas and started paying attention to such details.
Sheng Li wanted to say, “Do we need to avoid anything between us?” but he knew he wasn’t in a position to say that now.
After talking to the doctor and learning that Zuo Chi wasn’t seriously hurt, he hoped the night would last longer. It had been a long time since he and Zuo Chi had shared the same space.
Zuo Chi opened the door. “You’re standing guard outside? Strange…”
Strange and creepy.
Sheng Li replied confidently, “You’re injured. Of course, I need to watch over you.”
…..
In the second half of the night, Zuo Chi slept soundly. Sheng Li felt a bit sleepy too. Though sleeping with his head on the bed wasn’t comfortable, the adjacent hospital bed only had an empty frame and couldn’t accommodate anyone. He also forgot to ask the nurse for an extra blanket.
He wasn’t sure how long he slept. He drifted in and out of sleep, sometimes waking up and checking if Zuo Chi’s blanket was properly covering him, other times feeling his eyes too heavy to keep open.
….
The next day, Zuo Chi woke up first. Seeing Sheng Li slumped over the bedside, he was momentarily confused.
Oh, right, it was the hospital, not his home. He came to his senses but couldn’t immediately look away from Sheng Li’s face.
Sheng Li was very handsome, a striking and roguish kind of handsome. But when he slept, these descriptors didn’t apply at all. Zuo Chi wondered what Sheng Li was dreaming about as his brows furrowed slightly and he mumbled something inaudible.
He suddenly thought, was it that Sheng Li’s looks fit his aesthetic taste, or had his aesthetic evolved to align with his long-standing affection for Sheng Li?
He couldn’t figure it out. He leaned over to grab his phone from the bedside table and sent a message to his work group chat, explaining he had been in a car accident and was temporarily unable to go to the office but could still manage work through video calls and other means.
The employees expressed their wishes to visit him and told him to rest and not worry too much.
The company was still small, with only a few dozen employees, but Zuo Chi knew each of them. They all believed in his entrepreneurial vision. Zuo Chi was very satisfied with his team. What he lacked wasn’t talent, but funds, so an incident like the car accident did affect work progress.
“Why are you looking at your phone first thing in the morning?”
Sheng Li raised his head, rubbed his eyes, and looked at Zuo Chi. “What do you want for breakfast?”
He added in his mind: Coffee is not an option.
Zuo Chi said, “Anything.”
“Okay.” Sheng Li didn’t find it difficult. After washing up, he went downstairs and bought soy milk and steamed buns, instructing the vendor not to add sugar to the soy milk.
After breakfast, he moved Zuo Chi to a VIP room. Although the VIP room was about the same size as the standard one, it housed only one person, with a more elegant environment, a private balcony and bathroom, complete with various amenities like a sofa, dining table, and even a projector—all brand new.
Sheng Li offered to go to Zuo Chi’s house to fetch some things.
Zuo Chi asked, “Aren’t you working today?”
Sheng Li replied, “I took two days off… Is it okay if I bring my computer here to work?”
Zuo Chi said, “I told you yesterday, just help me find a caregiver.”
“A caregiver is an outsider. They can’t help you with everything. Besides, if you get bored, I can keep you company. What can you talk about with a caregiver?”
“Sheng Li,” Zuo Chi emphasized.
Sheng Li felt a bit aggrieved. “I’ll stay here for two days at least, to see if the caregiver can do the job properly. If everything’s fine, I’ll go back to work.”
Zuo Chi gave in. “Do as you wish. Just don’t blame me if your work gets delayed.”
“It won’t.” Sheng Li opened the notes app on his phone to jot down what Zuo Chi needed.
Zuo Chi reminded him, “This time, don’t break my computer.”
Sheng Li: “…”
Sheng Li, still in his pajamas, attracted a lot of attention while trying to hail a cab, so he went home to change clothes and grabbed his computer.
Holding the key Zuo Chi gave him, he felt complicated as he opened the door to Zuo Chi’s home.
He looked around and was relieved to see no signs of anyone else living there. He first signed for the birthday gift he had sent to Zuo Chi, placed the record player in the viewing room, and then started gathering the items listed on his notes app.
Zuo Chi needed quite a few things, so Sheng Li packed them in a suitcase. While packing the iPad, he felt a small, ring-shaped object in the corner of the suitcase compartment.
It was their engagement ring. It had already been a year since they got engaged.
Sheng Li’s eyes lit up, and he carefully held the ring, feeling a pang of sorrow.
So, Zuo Chi hadn’t thrown it away.
But Zuo Chi had a new ring.
Suppressing his sadness, Sheng Li put the ring back and continued packing more quickly.
……..
Pulling the suitcase into the inpatient department, he saw someone standing at the door, hesitating whether to enter or leave. He recognized Zuo Chi’s mother.
When the knock came, Zuo Chi thought it was Sheng Li returning and said, “Come in,” only to see Shu Qingyu walk in.
Although he hadn’t notified Shu Qingyu, he wasn’t surprised she knew where he was. He felt there was no need for her visit.
“Zuo Chi.” Shu Qingyu stood at the door, still elegant and poised, but without her hair up or a necklace or scarf around her neck. She scanned Zuo Chi from head to toe. “Is this how you manage your life alone? Ending up in the hospital?”
Zuo Chi said calmly, “It was an accident.”
Shu Qingyu: “What did the doctor say?”
Zuo Chi: “Torn arm tendons and a fracture, nothing serious.”
“That’s ‘nothing serious’?” Shu Qingyu’s eyes widened. “How did the car accident happen? Were you driving while fatigued? If you were working at the Zuo Group, would you be this exhausted…”
“Are you here to pick a fight?” Zuo Chi was a bit irritated. “First, the accident wasn’t my fault. Second, I was even more exhausted when I worked at the Zuo Group because, besides my main job, I had other matters to worry about. Haven’t I cleaned up enough of Zuo Lie’s messes?”
Shu Qingyu took a deep breath. “We all know Zuo Lie isn’t cut out for business. Recently, he messed up another project, and your father was furious. Soon he’ll realize that only you can be the future leader of the Zuo family.”
“I don’t care,” Zuo Chi said. “Is this what you came to say?”
Shu Qingyu: “Is this how you talk to your mother?”
Zuo Chi: “Didn’t you say that if I started my own company, you wouldn’t consider me your son anymore?”
Shu Qingyu was stunned, unable to believe that Zuo Chi would say such things.
After hearing about Zuo Chi’s car accident, she had rushed to the hospital. Zuo Chi was her son, her flesh and blood. How could she not be worried?
“Is the mother-son relationship something you can just sever?”
Zuo Chi said, “If you need me to support you, I will fulfill that obligation. Other than that… I don’t know what a normal mother-son relationship is supposed to be like.”
Zuo Chi thought of Qin Xu and his mother. When she fell at home, Qin Xu’s concern and anxiety were palpable, even from thousands of miles away. He took the earliest flight back to Berlin.
Yet, the first thing Shu Qingyu said upon entering his hospital room was to blame him.
Zuo Chi’s words made Shu Qingyu lose control of her emotions. “I didn’t raise you just to have you support me!”
“Then what for? You want the Zuo family fortune. You force your desires onto me. Is that fair to me? I’m a living person with my own thoughts and aspirations. Have you ever respected my wishes? Wasn’t I obedient enough? Didn’t I try hard enough? I’ve been submissive for so many years just to satisfy you.” Zuo Chi’s chest heaved as he directly confronted Shu Qingyu for the first time. “But you will never be satisfied. You have never genuinely praised me. I’m just a tool for your gain, a pawn in your hand. And now you want to talk about our mother-son relationship? You are not a qualified mother.”
Shu Qingyu looked struck, her face drained of color. “Is that how you see me? Do you know how many internal struggles I went through from the moment I found out you were an Omega to when I decided to keep you? If all I cared about was the family fortune, knowing that Zuo Yi wanted an Alpha heir, why didn’t I abort you and have an Alpha instead? Yes, maybe I’m not a perfect mother, but I gave you life!”
Zuo Chi couldn’t help but question, “You gave me life, so does that give you the right to harm my health?”
Shu Qingyu: “What?”
Zuo Chi: “Can you deny that you made me take medication to delay my differentiation?”
