Lop-Eared Guard

After hanging up the phone, Lu Shangjin stayed by the bedside for a while.

He went to the rooftop and leaned against the railing to smoke a cigarette, then glanced at the time. It was already four o’clock in the morning, and it would be light in a while.

When he finished the cigarette, Lu Shangjin suddenly kicked over the small round table on the roof, forcefully stepped on the foot of the engraved table, and muttered “fuck”. 

As if out of strength, he sat down and leaned against the carved fence, his back facing the whole starry sky. 

Why was he so agitated?

Did the charge balance of this house fail? Why was it so fucking cold with the lack of one person?

It was the second time that this kind of irritable and restless feeling appeared. The first was the period of time after he broke up with Yan Yi.

Hence, when Yan Yi came running back and solemnly vowed to be the butler of the villa, Lu Shangjin didn’t refuse.

When the passionate hormones gradually cooled down to bland waters, it seemed that they wanted to restore the feelings that had already extinguished, but couldn’t raise the interest they once had that year.  

He would only selfishly leave Yan Yi by his side as a pot of Devil’s Ivy plant to decorate the yard in the garden. He was used to seeing him, but he would be absolutely unbridled and turn a blind eye to him. 

When he went back to the bedroom, he swept the thin quilt and bathrobe onto the ground in a disorderly manner, then fished out his phone. With one hand involuntarily holding the glands at the back of his neck, he continuously scrolled through his contact list with the other. 

Most of the omegas who had contact with him had no names, only serial numbers like 1, 2 and 3. Lu Shangjin scrolled down to the bottom of the contact list but there wasn’t any serial number that he could pick from. 

He selected one then deleted one, and in the end, he deleted almost all of his contacts, but he still couldn’t find anyone he wanted. 

When he came back to his senses, his fingers had already unconsciously dialed Yan Yi’s number. 

Lu Shangjin was a little discomfited as he sat on the carpet, waiting for the wait tone on the phone to pass one sound at a time. 

Thirty years passed since he was born, yet it was only now that knew that this was what it felt like to wait for someone to answer the phone. He couldn’t tell whether it was anticipation or agitation, or maybe it was both, or maybe it was the sudden absence of something that he was used to, but he couldn’t find it back. 

The other party answered when he waited until the sixth waiting tone.  

“What’s the matter?” Yan Yi’s voice was very clear. It seemed that he hadn’t slept yet. 

Lu Shangjin breathed out a sigh of relief. That agitated feeling of ants crawling over his heart faded by half. He lifted the corners of his lips and said with a smile:

“I can’t sleep.”

Yan Yi let out an “ah” in surprise. He walked to the bathroom, leaning against the door to listen to the young master who had insomnia in the middle of the night making a willful speech. 

“Haven’t slept yet.” The receiver couldn’t filter out the softness in Yan Yi’s voice, “Just now-  were you angry?”

Lu Shangjin leaned against the bed calmly, stretching his long legs and crossing them on the carpet, “I wasn’t angry.” 

But he was unhappy.

Yan Yi: “I’m…hearing that your voice is hoarse. Smoke less.”

Lu Shangjin conveniently stubbed the cigarette he had just lit in his mouth into the ashtray to extinguish it, and said lightly, “I didn’t smoke, the weather’s just too dry. Are you not in bed? Where are you?”

Yan Yi hesitated as he held his phone. He was currently in the bathroom at the lobby of the bar, while Xia Jingtian was by the bar counter.  

Lu Shangjin seemed to have keenly caught on to something and suddenly straightened up, “Is there another alpha beside you?”

Yan Yi sighed, “Go to bed quickly, I have to work tomorrow.”

Lu Shangjin’s anger from his video call being interrupted earlier suddenly came up, “I’m asking you if there’s someone else beside you.”

Yan Yi was intimidated, “Don’t be so loud.”

“I’m warning you, don’t get together with others when I’m not around.” Lu Shangjin’s tone rose increasingly without his control. He firmly pressed onto the glands at the back of his neck, gripping the phone as though he wanted to squeeze the little rabbit in the phone to death. 

“What do you mean get together? Why? Why can’t I do it but you can?” Lu Shangjin brought out the feeling of resentment Yan Yi had. He had just used all his willpower to throw off an M2 alpha’s hand. If it were Lu Shangjin, would he push away an omega that was sent into his arms?

“You can try.” Lu Shangjin first loosened up, but he still didn’t want to fall out of the conversation with Yan Yi and said harshly, “I won’t mess with you, I’ll mess with him.”

Just as one’s own porcelain cannot be stained with the fingerprints of outsiders, Lu Shangjin couldn’t stand Yan Yi being tinged with the scent of other alphas. 

Let alone that Yan Yi was working at a husky alpha’s shop. It’s just that he subconsciously thought that the husky wasn’t a threat to him; low grade, plain and ordinary looking, and had no outstanding abilities. 

“Is that dog circling around you?” Lu Shangjin said harshly, “I’ll send someone over to buy that street tomorrow, you can be at any shop you want.”

Of course, if he guessed it right, a dead dog would also appear on the street. 

“My boss went to bed long ago. You’re always like this.” Yan Yi’s voice became exhausted and disappointed, “I don’t want to argue with you, I’m going to bed.”

Lu Shangjin softened his approach again, “It’s good if there isn’t any. I’ll come find you in a few days.”

After a pause of about ten seconds, neither of them hung up. It seemed that they wanted to say something else, but couldn’t find another topic. 

Lu Shangjin hung up irritably and flushed his face with cold water in the bathroom.

He then drew out two inhibitors from the medical kit behind the mirror, bit open the seal, and stabbed it into the glands at the back of his neck.

He held the basin with both hands. In the mirror, streaks of veins crawled in his eyes. The stubble on his chin was also not carefully shaved. These days, he had been living like the synopsis of a book, the details in his life thrown behind his head. 

Taking three deep breaths, Lu Shangjin closed his eyes and laughed bitterly. 

Little goblin. 

He hadn’t injected inhibitors for many years, so he had forgotten this type of numbness and slight pain, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. 

When he put away the medical kit, he found a roll of unopened inhibitor needles in the corner, each tube pasted with a cute sticky note in the shape of a carrot to carefully distinguish them apart.

Lu Shangjin took a tube and looked at it. The needle of the syringe was printed with the drug name “high concentration inhibitor”; for A3 glands, mutation-enhanced glands, and glands resistant to prolonged injection of inhibitors. Note: Intravenous injection should not be directly injected into the gland.