Lop-Eared Guard

When Lu Shangjin regained consciousness, his chest was already soaked through. 

Thinking it was just tears, he reached out a shaking hand to wipe it from Yan Yi, “Don’t cry… Yan Yan… from now on, ge will really give you love.”

His hand was bright red when he lifted it. 

It all dripped down to his heart, seeping into the cracks, splitting off and growing like blades. It cut his flesh and blood into pieces.

Lu Shangjin scrambled to stand up while holding him sideways. The little rabbit in his arms was becoming pale as the blood drained from him, his weak arms hanging down limply.

It was the assistant that drove them to the hospital.

The whole car seat looked like a murder scene. There was blood everywhere. Lu Shangjin had a towel pressed tightly on the back of Yan Yi’s bleeding neck, his whole body covered in sticky blood.

At first, the sweetness of the milk-candy was still entwined with the blood, but slowly, it grew more faint as the blood overpowered the smell. 

“Yan Yan, wake up…” Lu Shangjin kissed Yan Yi’s forehead again and again, his temperature gradually fading, “Everything’s going to be okay. When you wake up, I’ll take you home. The house has already been chosen. I know that you like a view with mountains and water. In the future it’ll just be us two living together…”

In fact, come to think of it, he did know what the little rabbit liked.

It was only that he had never bothered to take his wishes to heart. There were always things more important than the little rabbit that he had put first. He had only ever given Yan Yi endless waiting and empty promises.

He had already improved himself. As long as Yan Yi got better—no, even if his future was just like this trance-like state, Lu Shangjin would not give him up again. 

Unexpectedly, he couldn’t afford the responsibility he wanted to take on. The people he wanted to protect had intently left. His beloved father and partner had chosen to relieve themselves from their pain the same way.

The little rabbit’s ears that once bounced around were also blood-soaked, his soft rabbit fur was stuck together with sticky plasma, hanging down helplessly. 

Lu Shangjin rubbed his little ears, lowered his head and gave them a kiss.

In the past, Yan Yi liked ear kisses the most. 

When he was a teenager, he used to run over to his side cutely to get pampered and asked him to touch his head, but also to get into his arms for a kiss on the ear.

The little rabbit’s ears were sensitive and no one was allowed to touch them. Only when Lu Shangjin kissed him was he willing to fling his little ears into his palm.

When the stretcher was urgently pushed out towards the hospital door, Xia Jingtian was in the hall listening to his brother’s lecture.

The oldest of the Xia family had sworn in front of his own father to strictly watch over his younger brother after he was brought back, and would never let Jing-zi do any more immoral things that would ruin the family again. 

Xia Jingtian leaned against the wall, lazily listening to the lecture.

“That’s more like it.” Xia Pingtian stretched his legs. He leaned right onto the bench, stopping a small nurse passing by and asked why his new love interest was not in the office.

In the last three days, he looked for reasons to run to the hospital just to meet the beauty. Where would you find such a rich master who was so eager to fawn over someone?

Xia Jingtian snorted lightly, “The upper beam isn’t upright, so the lower beam is crooked1. You still dare to lecture me.”

The little nurse replied anxiously, “Doctor Zhong came to the emergency room, he was just sent here. The glands of the lop-eared rabbit omega have been damaged!”

Startled, Xia Jingtian looked over, following the noise of people barging into the hospital, and caught a glance of the stretcher where Yan Yi laid.

It was like a dream, he could barely react.

A group of nurses and doctors flocked to the stretcher and rushed into the emergency room. Lu Shangjin ran after the stretcher with his head down, grabbing Yan Yi’s hand and looking over at him sorrowfully.

The emergency room doors closed in sight, families were kept outside.

The assistant ran to help him, but was pushed away violently. There was nothing he could do but stand aside and watch his boss kneel on the floor tiles, motionless and lost in thought, staring at the lights that came on during the resuscitation.

Xia Pingtian froze, “This… morning, everything was fine…”

Something nudged his shoulder. Xia Jingtian shoved past him and grabbed Lu Shangjin’s collar in his grip, his hand winding up into a punch.

“You fucking brought him back just to kill him, why the fuck was I so blind to send you the location—?!”

In order to stop Yan Yi from shooting the gun, Lu Shangjin had exhausted the energy of his glands, and Xia Jingtian’s punch was filled with his J1 ability. With a muffled sound, Lu Shangjin’s back hit the wall, his left cheek swelling up. 

He raised his hand and touched the corner of his lips, his fingertips wet with blood.

He grabbed Xia Jingtian’s wrist and said in a hoarse voice, “Get the hell out of here, I don’t want to watch a child.” His eyes hadn’t left the emergency room for a second.

“Calm down.” Xia Pingtian came over in a hurry to separate the two, shooting Xiao Jing-zi a glance to ask him to stand aside.

Xia Jingtian straightened his neck, his face flushed bright red like a roaring lion cub.

He could feel the attraction from Yan Yi’s body, it was so strong that his struggle to break free of the attraction disappeared.

Like the sudden release of handcuffs and shackles, this feeling of powerlessness and freedom was by no means what an inhibitor could achieve. The only possibility was that the glands on the back of Yan Yi’s neck, which he had a fit of over 90% with, were gone.

For a fragile omega, the damage to his glands was a serious injury he dared not think about.

“Mr. Lu.” Dr. Zhong withdrew his usual cheerful face and handed him a life-threatening notice. “The bullet cut across the gland and damaged the nerve tissue at the root. Please mentally prepare yourself for this.”

“What is the meaning of this? Will he die? WILL HE DIE?!” Lu Shangjin threw Xia Pingtian aside and grabbed Dr. Zhong’s collar, his bloodshot eyes almost bursting at the corners, “Are you even a doctor? Can you not fix this little wound? If he comes out covered, I will have you…”

Dr. Zhong was an omega. He was weaker in both size and strength, in the end it was still Xia Pingtian who deescalated the tension.

Lu Shangjin grabbed onto Dr. Zhong’s sleeve, the ends of his words became pleading, “Save him, no matter the cost, however many resources, I can afford it all… save him…”

Dr. Zhong could only say that he would do his best and pushed Lu Shangjin’s hand away as he hurried back to the emergency room.

The glandular department at An Fei Ya Hospital was arguably world-class. If there was nothing they could do, Lu Shangjin had no glimmer of hope trying his luck at a better hospital.

Xia Jingtian closed his eyes and sat down on the bench, rubbing his face to keep himself awake.

“”To be honest, I’m really not surprised it ended up like this. I just couldn’t imagine that you could be ruthless to this extent.” Xia Jingtian’s eyes rippled with a layer of water.

“He shot himself right when I was away. If I hadn’t taken him out, he would have shot through his own neck.” Lu Shangjin’s expression was numb, there was no light in his eyes, “I really didn’t do anything, I want to take care of him, I want him to get better.”

“Sure, you didn’t do anything, your prodigal son returns your deep affections. Yan Yi’s diary is full of his paranoia.” How Lu Shangjin felt like he had done nothing wrong left Xia Jingtian absolutely speechless.

From his pocket, he took out the old notebook and threw it in front of Lu Shangjin.

As if a basin of cold water had been poured over his head, Lu Shangjin picked up the old notebook at his feet, holding it like an expensive silk gold foil.

At some point, he loosened his hand and the notebook fell open by his feet to a page on which was written::

“Take you home. +112 points”

On this day, the proud son of the peregrine falcon family, the young master of the Lu family, knelt at the door of the resuscitation room and cried especially hard. 

Only after midnight did the noise gradually die down.

Lu Shangjin’s had an IV in his hand and an energizer stuck next to his glands, the old notebook clutched in hand as he stayed up alone in the quiet, empty corridor.

For them to have come to this point, it was all because of him.

He had broken his own rose with his own hands, and yet wondered why it was withering.

Even if the consequences were unbearable, he had to bear it, even if Yan Yi really decided to leave, leaving him to suffer alone in this world.

In just one year, his loved ones left him, one after another. His extreme panic was followed by almost complete emptiness and confusion, and there were always moments when he forgot where he was, whether the rabbit was waiting for him to come home to take him out of the closet.

Xia Jingtian spent half the night on the rooftop in a daze.

Their family had opened the hospital for so many years, all the births and deaths that happened here were only like passing clouds. They all passed through in a day or two.

Life hung by a thread. Life and death were so uncertain. Their hearts longed for the person in the resuscitation room, but they had no idea whether they were waiting for a living person or a dead body. That was a taste more potent than wine.

It was a pity he didn’t even have the right to wait outside the door. Other people had families, even if they were a jerk. What was he, if not even qualified to sign his name on the critical illness notice.

He tossed and turned into the middle of the night, his thoughts still a jumble. His heart hurt vaguely as he silently hung on to the worrying thought, not daring to say anything. 

Dr. Zhong was an expert in glandular research and the awakening biology of the plant “Qingfeng”, J1 and M2 differentiation were the emergence of therapeutic abilities. The cure rate of his patients was far above average.

Xia Jingtian restrained himself from thinking about it for the moment. There must be results tomorrow.

His fingers swiped back and forth between apps on his phone. At this time, there weren’t many friends to chat with.

There was actually someone posting to their stories. After clicking it open, it was a screenshot of a live performance of them holding a guitar and singing, with the caption: “Boss Gu is still as handsome as fireworks today.”

With a handsome face, he randomly picked up a tight vest with holes in it and deliberately lifted it up to reveal the corner of his abs. A thin silver chain hung around his neck, and on the chain was a ring.

Xia Jingtian zoomed in on the picture to look at the ring. At first he thought that boss Gu had made omega friends, but after a careful look at the ring, he noticed the engraved “GW” initials. It was his own name.

Xia Jingtian clicked on it with a smooth movement, and commented casually, “That’s flashy.”

Boss Gu replied immediately, “Sell art, not your body.”

It seemed as though the bar had just closed. Gu Wei was free and asked, “What’s up?”

Xia Jingtian’s heart was clogged even more.

“Your former employee is being resuscitated in my hospital.”

At 5 A.M., the doors of the emergency room were pushed open.

Hearing even just a bit of noise, Lu Shangjin immediately looked up and saw Yan Yi being pushed out. He hastily stripped off the needles in his hands and next to his glands before running over to follow the stretcher.

“Yan Yan…” Lu Shangjin’s weary face finally showed a hint of comfort.

Yan Yi was quiet and gentle while he slept, just that his face was white like a piece of delicate porcelain eggshell. 

Xia Jingtian stood in the distance and leaned on the window frame. He gently let down his heart that was hanging in his throat.

Lu Shangjin followed them all the way to the intensive care unit, but was stopped outside again. He gently grabbed Yan Yi’s hand, but it still slipped off, and the ring that the little rabbit had worn for years without removing fell into his hand.

At that moment, Lu Shangjin was surprised to see the tiny tattoo on his ring finger.

“everlastinglove”.

“I’ll only look at him for a bit!” Lu Shangjin held open the door and refused to leave, “He must be so scared, I won’t touch him, just let me see…”

He once got tired of playing with this omega whom he didn’t even bother to look at, but he was actually the person he most wanted to spend his life with and spoil. He had failed too much, so much that he couldn’t think of a fitting punishment for his crimes.

The sound of rushed footsteps travelled through the corridor, and a set of strong alpha hands pressed on Lu Shangjin’s shoulders. All ten fingers extended and grew into pitch black vines, wrapping around Lu Shangjin’s body like a dumpling and dragging him out of the ICU.

“Still clinging to the ICU, hurry out, save some face.”

The black wooden vines retracted back into their fingertips and went back to the original color of skin. Bi Ruijing fixed his cufflinks,“Ping-zi told me everything. You really gave us a long face. If it weren’t for An Fei Ya here, you would be on the front page of the news this morning. What has the doctor said?”

Dr. Zhong walked over. Lu Shangjin immediately looked up to meet him.

“The patient’s glandular roots are completely damaged. They are unable to regenerate and heal themselves. If we rely on glandular energon life support, this could drag on for up to a week.”

Lu Shangjin’s eyes went black as he staggered two steps and froze for a moment. He then sat down on the bench, seemingly paralyzed as if out of strength, “There’s no way at all?”

Dr. Zhong presented a scenario.

“With our current situation right now, there is only one method we can try—glandular transplant. But considering the success rate, we need to use homoglandular stem cells with our existing technology to clone and regenerative transplant.”

“Homoglandular?”

Both Lu Shangjin and Bi Ruijing were silent.

Xia Jingtian looked at them oddly, “The lop-eared rabbit glandular type…is very common right? They have them there in the donation library.”

Dr. Zhong frowned, “The transplanted stem cell gland type must be the same A3 lop-eared rabbit as the patient, or lop-eared rabbit glandular stem cells with A3 differentiation potential.”

“A…” Xia Jingtian choked for a moment, staring at his brother in surprise.

The A3 grade glands already had a very small chance of mutation. Most likely the only A3 lop-eared rabbit in the world was lying in the ICU.

Lu Shangjin suddenly stood up.

“I’ll go find it.”

Bi Ruijing’s face darkened, “You get back here.”

Lu Shangjin turned a deaf ear to him. 

Xia Jingtian shrugged off his brother and ran out the hospital following Lu Shangjin, who was rummaging through the trunk.

He slowed his pace and asked in a low voice, “Where can we find it?”

Lu Shangjin assembled an AWM, hit the side of his car hard with the butt of his rifle, and buttoned up tightly.

    “PBB.”

The Pacific Biodifferentiation Base.

footnotes

上梁不正下梁歪: idiom which means that if the people at the top do not behave rightly, the ones below would do bad things too