最佳契合 (Perfect Match) – 十九瑶
Chapter 24
“Father.”
With a deep voice and a straight back, Zheng Feiluan called out.
However, Zheng Hongming pretended he hadn’t heard, as he continued to fish without reacting or even turning his head to look at him, still quietly watching the lake. A long shuttle-shaped fishing buoy hovers in the water, with the waves rocking it from side to side.
A little sprinkling of snow fell from the sky in a vertical line, hitting the icy waters below like crystals of salt and covering the trails.
No one in the Zheng family is allowed to get in without permission from the elders. After enduring the pouring rain and wind outside, Zheng Feiluan came home to be with his father and followed the exact codes of conduct expected of a good son. In compliance with his father’s strict rules, he had no choice but to wait outside in the freezing cold and rain.
The shirt became soaked, and a huge dark-colored stain formed over the fabric at the back along the shoulders. It stuck tightly to the skin, and the lack of ventilation made the bones and muscles shiver.
And still, Zheng Feiluan stood perfectly straight; he didn’t slouch at all, not even a frown.
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Zheng Hongming saw the buoy sink suddenly and responded by lifting his hand and holding the pole. A plump silver crucian carp was pulled out of the water, spreading ripples as it broke the water’s surface.
He took off the silver carp that was still thrashing fiercely. He held it in his palm and weighed it; it was quite heavy, so he tossed it into the fish basket with a heaving sigh of relief and carried it as he stepped out of the gazebo.
“Father.”
Zheng Feiluan called out once more.
Zheng Hongming was in a somewhat better mood and eager to pay attention to him, but the first sentence of his greeting was filled with bitterness, “In the past, the old Qin family produced an omega daughter, and the entire family treasured her as though she were a priceless diamond. It must be nice, you got one in a blink of an eye, and you’re still hiding it from us even though she’s already a year old—you were aware that Yan Ning wished for an omega granddaughter; would you dare pretend like you don’t know?”
Realizing that the cat was finally out of the bag, Zheng Feiluan’s heart dropped.
Old Man Zheng wiped off the scattered snow from his shoulders and carefully made his way down the path to the villa. Zheng Feiluan followed behind him and said, “If the two of you like your granddaughter, I promise you’ll have more in the future.”
“You promise? How dare you make assurances with such a poor seed?” Zheng Hongming shifted his head back and questioned his son harshly, “Yan Ning wants the omega granddaughter, and I want an alpha heir; are you capable enough to give me both?”
“Father…” Zheng Feiluan felt powerless, “If you really like that child, I’ll bring her back to you tomorrow to take care of her, okay?”
Old Man Zheng was furious, “Do you think I give a hoot about a milk-guzzling child? If you bring the girl to us, what about the omega—the one who is perfectly compatible with you? Will you bring him here as well?”
Zheng Feiluan hesitated, “Impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t love him.”
Zheng Hongming gave a stern nod as if he agreed with this explanation. Seconds later, his expression changed drastically, and he yelled, “Enough with your charades; is it time to think whether you love him or not?!”
“I…” Zheng Feiluan was speechless.
Where on earth did Father hear about this?
Jiang Qi?
If it were really Jiang Qi, knowing his extremely cautious behavior, he would have undoubtedly revealed that He An and his daughter exist, as well as the details of the pheromone report from last night.
Zheng Feiluan knew it was impossible to hide it, so he gritted his teeth and explained, “Father, I don’t love him, and I don’t need him.”
Zheng Hongming laughed coldly. With a dry, harsh voice that engraved sarcasm deep into people’s minds, he said, “You don’t need him? Do you take me for a fool who has no idea what kind of life you’ve been leading these days? What kind of ridiculous things you’ve done?”
Zheng Feiluan clenched his fists and said, “Father, I’m fine.”
“You’re fine? What’s so fine about not sleeping at all and running all day and all night searching for that person in the streets? Are you fine that you have to rely on sedatives to stay conscious?” Zheng Hongming was almost amazed, “Thanks to Jiang Qi still having a few brain cells left, knowing that he’d have to follow you to the grave if you died, he told me every little thing about this; otherwise, probably when Jiusheng is fully and completely destroyed, I wouldn’t have known that it’s been wrecked by the hands of an omega who doesn’t even have a stable job!”
Just as he thought, it was Jiang Qi.
He was an excellent doctor, yet he turned his back on him and chose to side with his father at the worst time possible.
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After bursting through the small wooden door, Old Man Zheng stormed angrily into the living room.
Mama Xu was boiling a pot of mountain spring water, preparing to make tea for them, and when she heard the noise, she quickly took off her apron and walked over to greet them. She was taken aback by Zheng Hongming’s sullen expression, then she saw Zheng Feiluan’s dripping wet shirt and asked, “Master, second young master, is everything alright?”
Zheng Hongming gave her the heavy fish basket and instructed in a stern voice, “Take it to the kitchen and cook it; simmer it in white soup, boil it until it’s soft, take out the spiky bones, and then bring a bowl to Yan Ning.”
“Yes, sir. We’ll prepare it right away!”
Mama Xu took the basket and was delighted to see the fresh and plump carp inside. After giving the instructions to the cook, she brought a towel over to dry Zheng Feiluan’s body, but the father and son had already left the living room.
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The second-floor office has the heat set all the way up.
Zheng Feiluan sat down firmly without wiping his face. The rain trickled down from his jaw, the hem of his shirt, and the slacks of his suit, leaving a wet outline on the sofa.
There was zero empathy in Old Man Zheng’s heart for his son. He smoked a cigarette with a glum expression while potted orchids with silvery edges blossomed around him.
The massive walls of glass from ceiling to floor helped keep the harsh wind outside. It was getting closer to noon, yet the temperature still hadn’t increased. There were traces of light rain a few moments ago, but now there is nothing except a huge field of falling snow. The snowfall that had been as thin as grains of salt built up, forming layers of white foam, as if hundreds of feather-filled pillows had spread across the ground.
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“Bring them home before the shareholders’ meeting starts on Friday.”
Old Man Zheng smoked about halfway through a cigarette before finally speaking.
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that.” Zheng Feiluan refused to cooperate and said, “Father, give me a little more time until I can figure it out myself.”
Zheng Hongming laughed coldly, ”You’ve been passing up the easy way instead of the complicated one since the beginning and picking the worst possible approach. If you don’t stop now, how much longer do you plan to drag this out? Didn’t that omega like you and decide to follow you on his own? Take him back, give him a place to live, and keep him as a flower and a bird. He has no name and no background. He’s just an ant at the bottom of the food chain, and he can’t interfere with you. You can still go out and have fun, marry whoever you want, and sleep with him when you need pheromones—is that so hard?”
Zheng Feiluan answered with a straight face, “It’s not hard, but I don’t like him.”
With a cigarette in his hand and amusement in his eyes, Old Man Zheng asked, “So what if you don’t like him? Do you know anyone in the world who hates taking medicine, yet they still have them in stock at home?”
“He’s a person, not some drug.”
The analogy instantly made Zheng Feiluan uneasy.
Although he didn’t love He An, his thorough education had kept him from treating him like medicine.
“Hypocrite.” Another snicker escaped from Old Man Zheng’s lips as he flicked the cigarette ashes and said, “Have you asked him? I bet you didn’t. If he offered to help you, don’t you think saying ‘he’s a person and not a drug’ means nothing?!”
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With a frown on his face, Zheng Feiluan pursed his lips and pressed all of his fingers down hard on his knees.
Right, he wasn’t all that noble.
He didn’t need to ask He An about his opinion at all since the answer was obvious: as long as he said so, He An would meekly bow down at his feet and look up at him with vulgar, infatuated eyes, serving as his bottle of medication until the day he died. That “humans are not medicine” argument is merely an excuse to keep He An away from him.
Zheng Feiluan, however, isn’t willing to accept a partner who is a perfect match for him but is lacking in personality as a pet. Even if He An doesn’t care about being treated like this, Zheng Feiluan cannot tolerate it.
He couldn’t imagine living in such a nightmare.
There’s an omega who would stay at home twenty-four hours a day waiting for him, and if he strayed away and went out all day long, the insanely high compatibility would torture the other person to the point of losing consciousness from bawling their eyes out. But once he’s back at home, he’ll see a passionate but lifeless set of eyes and an empty soul in mindless obedience.
The flow of their lives will come to an end. There will be no arguments, conflicts, or playful fussing and fighting in bed since the other person will blindly obey him, just like he said.
The omega will always be gentle, like the slender roots of water lilies that hold on to him delicately, surviving because of him, but also gradually squeezing his ankles, gripping him tighter and tighter, until he’s dragged down to the bottom of the pool, drowning in the unending depths of “love”.
If you bring together two people who are perfectly matched for each other, you won’t get anything good out of it.
It’s best not to get involved.
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The furious old man couldn’t possibly consider this, but Zheng Feiluan did everything he could to explain, ”Father, it’s not He An’s genuine desire to feel emotionally invested in me; it’s the pheromones. As long as the attachment is severed, he can live his own life, and I can go back to being normal just like before. Forcing us to live together and under coercion will benefit no one.”
Zheng Hongming blew smoke out of his nostrils and said, with a cold smile, “Your sympathy is in the wrong place. An omega doesn’t need a ‘life of his own.’ Soon enough, he’ll have to rely on someone else if he doesn’t rely on you.”
“If he relies on someone else, at least he’ll be treated well, but if he relies on me…” Zheng Feiluan hesitated and added, “I can’t give him what he wants.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t love him, I can’t be his husband, I can’t provide him with a normal home, and I cannot offer him any emotional support.”
Zheng Hongming put down his cigar for a second, looked at him directly, and sneered, “Consider it the same as tending to flowers and birds. You’re free to keep it around for as long as you like. You can stop dealing with it if boredom sets in一you’re not actually feeling sorry for an omega, are you?”
He was so nonchalant that it instantly hit Zheng Feiluan’s nerves.
He forgot his etiquette and shouted, “When you did this to dad back then, did you not feel guilty either?!”
“You!”
Zheng Hongming’s face turned red. He slapped the armrest and stood up. He moved so strongly that the force even knocked down a pot of orchids beside him.
Zheng Feiluan took the risk to meet his oppressive gaze and asked without changing his tone, “Don’t you want to ask my dad what it’s like to be left out to dry and neglected for twenty years?”
“Shut your goddamn mouth!”
Old Man Zheng was so outraged that he could hardly keep his cigarette from falling out of his trembling hand.
Zheng Feiluan didn’t back down and kept going, “Your belief in caring for flowers and birds, as well as your remarks just now, if they reach my dad’s ears, all of your efforts over the years will likely be all for nothing. Though I respect you, my father, I am not you. I can’t possibly do what you did back then without batting an eye!”
“Don’t threaten me with Yan Ning. It’s useless!”
Zheng Hongming angrily put out the cigarette, scooped the ashtray and slammed it on the table, and said sternly, “Zheng Feiluan, I won’t speak anymore, but I’m only going to give you two options. First, bring the person back and resolve this matter right away; second, hand over all the power of Jiusheng to Feiyi, and starting tomorrow, you’ll be on leave for an indefinite amount of time. You want to fix this on your own? Fine, take all the time you need, handle it the way you want, and come back when you’re done. If you can’t do it, then you don’t have to come back.”
He placed his hands on the table, gave Zheng Feiluan an intense look, and said, “Two options. It’s all up to you to decide.”
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Translated and edited by janemoyu (11/09/23)
