Xiao Can was stunned for a moment and asked, “Are you planning to tell him the truth?”
“I suppose…” Tan Zhen took a deep breath, determined. “I should.”
Xiao Can’s lips moved, feeling uneasy.
“To be honest, I’m not mentally prepared yet…” Tan Zhen said, “But… after knowing the truth, the nature of this matter will change for me.”
Xiao Can turned his head. “It’s not necessary. If you continue to keep it from him, I won’t be displeased with you.”
“Don’t you want me to say it?” Tan Zhen asked. “Don’t you mind him being kept in the dark?”
Xiao Can had other concerns.
If He Xingzhou found out that the person who had sex with him that day wasn’t Tan Zhen, he would surely try to find the real Omega who had sex with him.
By then, Xiao Can’s fragile lie would collapse on its own, and even He Xingzhou, despite being foolish, would start to suspect.
From a certain perspective, Tan Zhen’s existence had solved a considerable trouble for him.
Tan Zhen, seeing him silent, gradually guessed what was on his mind and asked, “Are you afraid he’ll find out that it was you?”
Xiao Can nodded.
Tan Zhen pursed his lips at the answer, lost in thought.
“Don’t go to such lengths,” Xiao Can said nervously. “He and I aren’t as compatible as you imagine! I don’t like him, and I don’t want to get too involved with him. Please respect my opinion, okay?”
Tan Zhen lowered his gaze. “Rest assured, I won’t intentionally make things difficult for you.”
Xiao Can breathed a sigh of relief, suddenly remembering something and asked, “By the way, didn’t He Xingzhou report the incident when he was drugged? The police should have extracted the surveillance footage, right? Why didn’t they find any problems?”
“The drug was administered by a hotel employee, who was afraid of getting caught and destroyed the hard drive storing the surveillance footage,” Tan Zhen said. “The data hadn’t been recovered by the time the case was solved.”
“I see…” Xiao Can smiled wryly. “Since there was no footage, how did they catch him then?”
“After investigation, it was found that only he had the opportunity to take the hard drive during that time period,” Tan Zhen said, smiling. “It was a case of being too clever for his own good. Later, the police found records of his purchase of banned substances online, and they also found the damaged hard drive under his bed. That’s when he confessed.”
Xiao Can shook his head with a bitter smile. “I hope this guy gets a long sentence.”
“Do you usually feel uncomfortable when you’re not in contact with He Xingzhou?” Tan Zhen asked.
Xiao Can didn’t want to sound pitiful, so he downplayed it, saying, “Taking medication helps a bit.”
Tan Zhen tilted his head, thinking for a moment, then asked, “Would it help if you had a sample of He Xingzhou’s pheromones with you?”
This suggestion was quite novel, and Xiao Can had never thought about it before, so he fell into thought.
“Nowadays, many young couples exchange pheromone pendants, right?” Tan Zhen became enthusiastic. “Maybe it would work!”
Xiao Can’s heart fluttered.
According to the doctor, reducing contact wasn’t very effective anymore. This indeed seemed like a good way to temporarily alleviate the symptoms.
“But how do we get He Xingzhou’s pheromone sample?” Xiao Can asked.
Tan Zhen’s eyes lit up. “Leave it to me!”
The next day, the recording continued.
He Xingzhou was in a good mood and waved for him to come over as soon as they met. Then he showed him his phone screen.
On the screen, a parrot with a green body and a red beak was stretching its body.
“Charlie!” Xiao Can exclaimed in surprise.
He Xingzhou squeezed next to him in front of the screen and said to the phone, “Charlie, say hello.”
Charlie tilted his head, silent.
It was then that Xiao Can realized it was a video call.
He Xingzhou pointed to Xiao Can and asked, “Charlie, do you remember him?”
Charlie turned his head to the other side.
“Charlie, darling~” Xiao Can couldn’t help but raise his voice. “Do you remember me? I’ve held you before.”
Charlie still didn’t react, and He Xingzhou whispered softly, “Clipped tone.”
Xiao Can gave him a hard hit.
On the other end, Charlie finally remembered something, stood up straight, flapped his wings, then raised his head and shouted, “BQ! BQ!”
He Xingzhou turned pale. “Why did you remember that!”
Xiao Can burst into laughter.
Charlie hopped over to the camera, tapped it twice with his small red beak, then He Xingzhou quickly ended the video call.
“You’re not letting me see him?” Xiao Can was displeased.
“He can’t distinguish between video and reality,” He Xingzhou explained. “If we keep watching, he’ll cause chaos.”
“Does that mean he wants to come out of the camera and stick to me?” Xiao Can asked.
He Xingzhou nodded.
Xiao Can felt soft-hearted and wished he could rush to He Xingzhou’s house right after the recording to become a parrot thief.
“Whenever you have time, you can come and see him,” He Xingzhou said.
Xiao Can snapped out of his reverie and replied evasively, “Let’s talk about it later.”
The two of them had a fruitful morning, obtaining four puzzle pieces.
Even luckier, one of them was red.
At the second exchange meeting at noon, the enthusiasm for exchange between groups was much higher than yesterday.
After several rounds, most of the exchanges were successful, and each group also figured out which colors of puzzle pieces they were collecting.
Xiao Can and He Xingzhou successfully exchanged for a red puzzle piece, totaling seven pieces. With the wildcard puzzle piece, they were only one piece short.
As the exchange drew to a close, Qin Ge suddenly asked, “Why aren’t you two using golden eggs for exchange today?”
Xiao Can chuckled, “What’s the rush?”
“We still have a red one,” Qin Ge said. “Are you considering it?”
Xiao Can looked at He Xingzhou, who raised an eyebrow, looking hesitant.
“We have one too, want to exchange with us?” Yumi interjected.
“Sure, what color do you want?” Qin Ge asked.
“Yellow,” Yumi said, “If you have it, I’ll give you a golden egg.”
“Don’t you have two?” Qin Ge asked.
Tan Zhen on the side said, “We used one.”
Not only the members of other groups were surprised, but He Xingzhou was also astonished.
“How was it used?” an Omega girl nearby asked.
“Exchanged for something,” Tan Zhen said.
“What did you exchange it for?” Qin Ge was also very interested.
Tan Zhen nervously glanced at Xiao Can and answered, “It’s not convenient to say.”
“If you don’t explain its use, I’m not sure if I want to exchange,” Qin Ge said teasingly.
“Then forget it,” Tan Zhen looked at Yumi, “We only have one left, let’s keep it?”
In the deadlock, He Xingzhou strode over to Qin Ge, took out a golden egg from his pocket, and handed it to him.
Xiao Can shouted from behind, “What are you doing!”
Ignoring him, He Xingzhou said to Qin Ge, “I don’t like beating around the bush. Do you want to exchange for a red piece or not?”
Qin Ge was stunned for a moment and chuckled, “Actually, we don’t have a red piece.”
He Xingzhou was speechless and shook his head as he walked back, “What a waste of emotion.”
Seeing this, Xiao Can exaggeratedly sighed in relief.
“We have one!” the Omega girl from Team Charge charge charge jumped up. “Let’s exchange!”
He Xingzhou made a calming gesture to Xiao Can and walked over to her with the golden egg, extending his hand.
Qin Ge, looking at them exchanging, exchanged a few words with his teammates in a low voice and then said to Yumi and Tan Zhen, “But we do have yellow ones, want to exchange?”
Yumi obviously already knew that these things were useless. Seeing the bait, she seemed excited, trying to conceal her disappointment but not very successfully, forcing a smile, her expression twisted.
“I’ll listen to you, whatever you say to exchange,” Tan Zhen said to her. Without waiting for her answer, he sighed again, “Okay, let’s exchange then. It’s already been used anyway.”
Their performance was far less natural and genuine than Xiao Can and He Xingzhou’s. Qin Ge became somewhat suspicious, hesitating when picking up the puzzle piece, but ultimately completed the exchange.
“Alright, now each team has one. It’s fair,” Xiao Can said.
“Shouldn’t you tell us what it’s actually for?” the Omega girl asked.
“Well…” Xiao Can smiled at her. “You’ll have to explore that yourselves!”
Exiting the exchange area, He Xingzhou couldn’t stop laughing.
“I used to think you were a very honest person who would never lie,” Xiao Can said. “But I didn’t expect you to be even more committed than me.”
“I didn’t lie,” He Xingzhou shook his head. “Did I say a single false word from start to finish?”
Indeed, he hadn’t. Every word was true, extremely honest.
Not only had he not lied, he hadn’t even acted.
It was also thanks to his mysterious and unpredictable demeanor that everything went so smoothly.
“I used to think you were a bit stubborn,” Xiao Can said.
“I’ve learned to be flexible from you,” He Xingzhou said.
Xiao Can thought to himself, there seemed to be a hint of irony in that statement.
“Yesterday, I thought the first game was kind of boring,” He Xingzhou continued. “But it turned out to be quite interesting.”
Xiao Can speculated that what he found interesting probably had nothing to do with the program’s setup, purely because he found it amusing to see that group of people being toyed with by the golden eggs.
The program team probably thought this segment was quite entertaining too, so they didn’t intervene at all and let them fool around.
“Oh, didn’t we have a chicken too?” He Xingzhou asked. “Why didn’t we bring it?”
“Are you addicted to lying now?” Xiao Can chuckled, “Enough is enough, let’s call it a day!”
In the afternoon, they ran into Tan Zhen and Yumi again.
The two of them were very excited to see them, and they hurried over.
“You guys are so bad!” Yumi said with a smile. “I was so nervous when Qin Ge was staring at me that my hands were shaking!”
“Tan Zhen is quite good at making up stories too,” He Xingzhou said. “He even said he was going to exchange it for something.”
“It’s true,” Tan Zhen said sincerely, “We did exchange it. This morning, a little kid said he liked this egg, so I gave him one, and he gave me two candies.” Saying that, he took out a candy from his pocket and handed it to Xiao Can, “Here, have one.”
Xiao Can happily took the candy, popped it into his mouth, and enjoyed the sour-sweet taste.
“It’s good that it was exchanged. Otherwise, I would have been upset with you guys,” Yumi said.
“If we find any yellow ones later, we’ll exchange them all for you guys,” Xiao Can said.
“Deal!” Yumi agreed satisfactorily with a thumbs-up.
After parting ways, Xiao Can savored the candy in his mouth and said cheerfully, “Now we’ve guaranteed that we’ve collected all the red ones. We’re still missing four purple ones. I wonder if we can collect them all.” Suddenly realizing something, he clapped his hands forcefully, “Do you think other teams have also obtained treasure cards?” He frowned, “Oh no, we kept it to ourselves. Maybe others have the same idea. I should have asked Tan Zhen how many pieces there are in total.”
He muttered to himself for a while, but He Xingzhou remained unresponsive.
“Are you listening?” Xiao Can turned his head.
He Xingzhou stared ahead, his face inexplicably turning slightly red.
“Is this candy… raspberry flavored?” he asked Xiao Can.
