73

Before Shen Dai had time to stop him, Qu Moyu had already gone straight for the crib.

He reached out and gently felt Qiuqiu’s downy little head.

It’s hot. He thought to himself. The doctor said that it was just an ordinary fever, that it would be fine once it subsided. He hadn’t thought it was a big deal either. After all, doesn’t everybody get sick?

Only, looking at Qiuqiu, so small, so soft, and so feverish his cheeks were flushed pink, watching him struggle to breathe, his slightly raised eyebrows furrowing over and over, one could only imagine the discomfort he was in, only he couldn’t express it yet and could only let it out by crying.

Qu Moyu felt a sudden pang of unease. While his child was going through the pain of illness for the first time in his life, he was feeling for the first time ever the heartache of wanting to but being unable to bear it in his child’s place.

As he was growing to care more about Shen Dai, so was he growing to care more about this child, even though he hadn’t wanted him to begin with. Taking into account the present situation and future considerations, the child’s existence was simply troublesome.

But now his state of mind had changed completely. He was glad that Shen Dai had given birth to Qiuqiu. Without a marriage or a mark between them, this child was a tie binding them together which could never be erased.

He bent over, supporting himself with both hands on the railing of the crib, unsure where to begin. He had never held such a small baby before. Qiuqiu seemed impossibly tiny, no bigger than his arm. How was he meant to pick up such a fragile little thing?

Shen Dai watched from beside him, torn between stopping him and letting him try. At this moment, all that mattered to him was Qiuqiu getting better. Whose pheromones were used was not important. He couldn’t let himself get caught up over something like this.

After a brief hesitation, Qu Moyu placed both his hands around Qiuqiu’s waist and lifted him. He was taken aback by the sensation. It felt no thicker than his own leg.

“You need to support his neck,” Shen Dai reminded him.

Qu Moyu got it. Shifting one hand to support Qiuqiu’s neck, he lifted the baby, but when he tried to adjust his hold to settle him into the crook of his arm, he got stuck. It felt awkward no matter what he did.

Shen Dai couldn’t stand to watch any longer. With one hand supporting Qiuqiu, he used the other to adjust Qu Moyu’s arm, guiding it into the proper position to hold him steady.

This was the first time after having parted ways that Shen Dai had taken the initiative to come close to him, taken the initiative to touch him. Qu Moyu gazed at his gorgeous features, his pale skin, as well as those delicate eyelashes, and couldn’t stop his heart from pounding faster. A faint trace of epiphyllum seemed to flicker in and out of his perception, only he couldn’t be sure if it was real or if he was deceiving himself from wanting it so badly.

Shen Dai very quickly stepped away. Qu Moyu looked down at the baby in his arms. He was light, but had a strange heft, as though picking him up in that instant had inexplicably bestowed him with a sense of mission.

Qiuqiu stirred uneasily, his little mouth puckering, yet his eyes stayed shut.

Qu Moyu very gingerly released soothing pheromones. In the past, whenever he had consciously released pheromones, it was always for the sake of competition or for sex, and more often than not, they were of an aggressive nature. Thinking back to it, he had only ever used his pheromones to comfort two people before. The first was Shen Dai while he was in heat, and the second, Qiuqiu.

He patiently used his pheromones to sense Qiuqiu’s. Infants generally had very faint scents, and now with the smell of medicine all over him it was even harder to detect.

From the medical records, he saw that Qiuqiu’s pheromone scent was the Chinese juniper. He was deeply curious about its smell. Once Qiuqiu was better, he would definitely make sure to get a good whiff. He still wanted to understand more about this child. All the time he had missed, from the time Qiuqiu was in the womb to now, a year later - he was going to make up for it.

At first, Qiuqiu seemed to grow more uncomfortable, beginning to whimper as he instinctively resisted the ebony wood pheromones that had once stressed and frightened him. He didn’t even have the strength to cry or hide away. Gradually, he seemed to accept them, or perhaps his genetic memory had awakened, but the blood ties between father and son were beginning to take effect.

Qu Moyu boldly released even more pheromones, using a rare gentle mood to surround Qiuqiu. Gradually, Qiuqiu started to calm down. Even his plump little eyebrows relaxed, and he began to suck on his thumb in his sleep.

Qu Moyu got a little excited. He glanced at Shen Dai as if wanting credit, waiting for the latter to praise him.

But Shen Dai only breathed a sigh of relief: “He must be hungry by now. Can you watch him for a bit? I’m going to make him some formula.”

“No worries.” replied Qu Moyu, sitting down with Qiuqiu in his arms, while Shen Dai, not far off, busied himself and pulled out a few things from the diaper bag.

He still remembered back when Shen Dai was living at his place, he always carried a black backpack to and from work which had been given out by the company one year. Even though it was a bit beat up now, it was sturdy and practical. Shen Dai would pack his laptop, documents, a few frequently-used items into it - not all that much, then sling it over his shoulder, hop on his bike, and head out, looking light and carefree. Now the bag he carried everywhere seemed to be filled almost entirely with Qiuqiu’s things and was bulky and cumbersome in contrast.

The Shen Dai he appreciated and liked was an Omega exceptional in his career, someone with a rare composure and quiet wisdom. Even if later on he had assumed that Shen Dai had schemed against him, that he had overestimated himself and done something foolish, Shen Dai remained in his eyes unlike anyone else.

But the Shen Dai of now had lost his lustre, like pearls or jewels marred with dust. Whoever saw him would not be able to stop themselves from shaking their heads in regret. He was forced to contemplate a question he had deliberately been avoiding: How had Shen Dai been doing the past year?

He knew he couldn’t have been doing well - poorly, in fact, though to say concretely, in what conditions, how bad it had truly been, he was instinctively avoiding these specifics.

He wanted Shen Dai back by his side. He was going to be good to him. And then everything would get better.

After Shen Dai was done preparing the formula, he had a taste to check the temperature, before bringing it over to feed Qiuqiu.

Qiuqiu latched onto the bottle’s nipple, suckling it weakly but still trying his best to drink.

Shen Dai smiled. “Eat more and you’ll recover faster.”

“Hurry up and get better. Stop putting your Dad through the wringer like this,” teased Qu Moyu, poking Qiuqiu’s cheek with a finger.

Shen Dai felt a tremor on his heartstrings.

He imagined “looking” down at the three of them from a higher vantage point. Qu Moyu holding Qiuqiu, and himself seated beside them feeding the baby, looking no different from any of the countless, ordinary families of three in this world.

More than a year had passed, and not a single day had gone by without those unthinkable memories tormenting him. Only in this instant did he find himself completely at ease within this fleeting, tender illusion.

Qu Moyu stayed at the hospital for the entire day. He had originally had an important meeting today and an itinerary that had been fixed well in advance, but everything had been cancelled, resulting in him receiving phone calls almost every hour.

He used to avoid personal matters interfering with his work, but now he didn’t want to leave the hospital, to leave his omega and his sick child, for even a step.

At times like these, people’s psychological defences would be at their weakest, forcing them to confront practical questions. Shen Dai seemed for once unusually relaxed and at ease. He could not let this opportunity slip.

・・・  

During that time, he also received a call from his father. He hadn’t wanted to answer. Only, thinking about the board meeting the next day, to ignore it now would only mean facing more reproach tomorrow.

His father was calling to urge him again to apologise to Zhou Xiaochu.

“Didn’t he already go back to France?” asked Qu Moyu impatiently.

“Not yet. You frightened him off last time, and he still hasn’t recovered. And even if he already went back, you should have expressly flown over to apologise. He’s your fiancée, what kind of message are you sending, leaving him out to dry like that without a single word of concern?”

“Dad, I think the apology should come from you. I made it clear I would never mark him. So why did you have to send him into my safe house? Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? If I hadn’t been able to control myself back then, he would be dealing with a lot more than just being frightened off right now.” Incidents in which an Alpha would injure, maim, or even kill an omega they were unwilling to accept during rut were by no means unheard of.

“Do I really repeat my reasoning to you again? Marking him is in your best interests. Stop clinging to your so-called top Alpha pride and refusing to give out your mark at all costs. Do you think yourself some kind of emperor? As long as he can give birth, all you need is for him to father a few children. You'll always be able to select the best heir out of all of them."

Qu Moyu swallowed his anger. ”I don’t want to. I can’t accept someone using a mark to control me.”

Aside from not wanting their reproductive capacity monopolised by a single person, top alphas were reluctant to give out their marks because of their lofty pride. They could not accept an omega manipulating them at a genetic level, affecting their emotions and decisions. For those accustomed to being in control and trusting only themselves, such a state was unimaginable, filled with the fear of the unknown.

“What ‘control’ are you going on about? You’re going to be husband and wife. A husband and wife should be of one mind. Once you mark him, he’ll only be more devoted to you. The Zhou family will also back you with all their power. Now that you’ve frightened him, you are the one at fault. Go see him and apologise, coax him a little. Why is that so difficult? He’s your fiancée after all!”

“In that case, let’s call off the engagement.”

Once he had finished this sentence he himself was stunned. It seemed he had blurted it out as if without thinking, but deep down he knew had been thinking about it for a long time.

He knew clearly that he should marry Zhou Xiaochu. He was the best candidate for a wife that his family had carefully selected. Marriage was a move he had to make, nothing more than a move, a strategic decision. And in such decisions, what mattered were results. Feelings were immaterial. And naturally, so was being willing or unwilling. Only, in the present situation, logic was telling him what he needed to do, and yet he found himself unwilling.

He didn’t want to marry Xiaochu.

Qu Shen was quiet for a long time. “Qu Moyu, Have you lost your mind?” he said, forcing the words out through clenched teeth.

Qu Moyu was also silent in response. His mind was in disarray. He couldn’t put a single thing in order. The only thing he was certain of was that he didn’t want to marry Zhou Xiaochu. He would wait until his mind was clear again before trying to analyse the reason. But that wasn’t possible now. Right now, his child was still in the hospital ward behind him.

“Is it because of Shen Dai?” During his rut, he had seen firsthand how Qu Moyu used Shen Dai’s clothes to nest. Qu Shen had already begun to have a bad feeling, but he still believed his son wouldn’t go so far as to let his emotions dictate his actions.

“Dad. I have matters to attend to. Let’s talk about this again tomorrow,” replied Qu Moyu in a low voice.