After My Cheap Husband Faked His Death, I Ended Up Happily Ever After with His Younger Brother - Chapter 5

“Hello, what can I get for you?” The waiter noticed a beautiful Omega enter the bar and approached quickly, asking with a gentle demeanor.

Luo Huai glanced around the room, his gaze sweeping quickly over a corner before retracting.

“Sparkling water, please. Thank you.” He smiled at the waiter.

“Understood, just a moment.”

Luo Huai rested his chin on his hand, continuing to look around, his expression innocent and earnest, as if he were trying hard to find someone.

Quite unexpectedly, his gaze swept over the direction where Pei Jiheng was sitting again. This time, he happened to see that man leaning his head on his hand, looking at him with a composed, unhurried air.

Their gazes collided in the dim light.

Luo Huai paused, then moved his eyes away as if nothing had happened, lowering his head to pull out his phone.

[Uncle, where are you? Why can’t I see you?]

He was feeling quite guilty. From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Pei Jiheng in the corner looking down at his phone, then curling his lips into a smile.

It was a cold sneer. Even from halfway across the bar, Luo Huai could feel a sense of chill.

He suddenly regretted being so dramatic…

He saw Pei Jiheng raise his phone to his lips. A second later, Luo Huai’s phone vibrated.

He clicked it open; it was a voice message.

Hesitating for a moment, he held the phone to his ear.

Pei Jiheng’s voice came through the receiver, deep, slow, and incredibly magnetic, carrying a lazy sense of amusement, yet the tone remained frigid:

“You managed to bump into me accurately even in the darkness of the night before last. Have you gone blind and heartless now, Acacia Blossom?”

Luo Huai: “…”

He placed his phone face down on the table with an expressionless face, picked up the sparkling water that had just been served, and took a sip.

Thirty seconds later.

Luo Huai picked up the drink, stood up, and walked dejectedly toward the corner, sitting down opposite Pei Jiheng.

The man’s expression did not change, only his brows lifted slightly. Luo Huai quickly forced a smile: “I really did not see you just now, haha.”

Pei Jiheng did not speak.

The saxophone music shifted to a slower, more soothing rhythm, but Luo Huai’s nerves tightened.

Luo Huai put down his glass and spoke first: “Uncle…”

Pei Jiheng leaned back in his chair, his fingers still turning the glass, interrupting him: “What time did you leave?”

“Two-thirty.”

“What time was the appointment?”

“Two.”

Pei Jiheng nodded and said in a bland tone: “An hour late. Is this your upbringing?”

Luo Huai smiled awkwardly: “But did you not wait, Uncle?”

Pei Jiheng glanced at him sideways without replying.

Luo Huai did not intend to beat around the bush anymore. He cleared his throat, regaining his poise.

He leaned back against the chair, crossed his hands in front of him, and spoke in a relaxed tone, deliberately lowering his voice: “You are an Alpha.”

Pei Jiheng’s motion of turning the glass finally stopped.

The air remained quiet for a moment.

Then Pei Jiheng smiled again, though the warmth did not reach his eyes, and he spoke without reservation: “Your husband does not love you.”

Luo Huai raised an eyebrow, not expecting the other man to say that.

“You pretend to be obedient in front of your father,” Pei Jiheng continued. He spoke very slowly, his gaze locked onto Luo Huai: “In private, you have a malicious nature.”

He drawled the last four words extremely slowly.

Luo Huai was not angered by such a description. He narrowed his eyes and reacted quickly, stepping down the stairs he had built for himself, changing his strategy instead.

Luo Huai lowered his head, his shoulders shrinking slightly. After a silence of about five seconds, when he raised his eyes again, they were already red, filled with tears that were about to fall.

“Uncle,” Luo Huai’s voice trembled: “I was truly confused that night…”

Pei Jiheng did not move.

“Lin Yuhe did not come home on our wedding night. I was so heartbroken and sad that I went to the club.” Luo Huai sniffled, and the tears in his eyes fell as soon as he blinked, rolling down his cheeks, looking pitiful: “I… I have never done such a thing, and I do not know how I… how…”

He spoke with such sincerity, his voice growing lower, his shoulders shivering slightly.

He acted so well he almost believed it himself.

Luo Huai thought that no matter what, the other party would feel at least a little pity for him, so he raised his eyes, looking at Pei Jiheng through a blur of tears.

The man was sitting with his arms crossed, watching him with a composed air, a hint of interest even hanging on the corners of his lips.

Luo Huai: “…”

He gritted his teeth and continued to escalate his performance: “I am sorry, Uncle. I should not have slept with you while confused, even though I loved another man. But I am sorry, I cannot be responsible for you because I truly love Lin Yuhe, and I want to live a good life with him.”

He wiped away his tears, his voice becoming unnaturally soft: “Uncle, let us forget everything that happened that night, okay?”

Pei Jiheng watched him with cold eyes, taking a full five seconds to react.

He was actually laughed at by his own anger…

He leaned closer, eyebrows raised, and spoke in a low voice: “Little one, stop acting.”

Luo Huai’s tears were still hanging on his face.

“You are using that Lin kid,” Pei Jiheng said coldly: “Just because others cannot see it, does not mean I cannot.”

Seeing that this move was ineffective, Luo Huai’s tears stopped instantly, controlled at will. He exhaled through his nose, leaned back, crossed his legs, and wiped his face casually with his sleeve.

Luo Huai decided to stop caring about the consequences and his tone changed instantly: “Hey, then you would not want others to know that you are pretending to be a Beta, right?”

Pei Jiheng kept that same cold expression, not easily taking the bait.

“You had better not provoke me.” Luo Huai was full of threats.

Pei Jiheng laughed again, this time as if he had heard a very funny joke.

He put down his glass and leaned forward slightly, his gaze piercing.

“The biological son of Luo Congqian, lost in childhood, wandering for over ten years, and the moment he returns home, he…”

He spoke very slowly, drawing closer to Luo Huai with every word:

“…engages in deception, thinking he is quite something?”

Luo Huai instinctively wanted to retreat, but his back was already pressed against the back of the sofa.

Pei Jiheng reached out, not holding back any strength, and gripped his chin firmly, turning it from side to side.

“You look okay, and you are an Omega.”

Luo Huai’s chin hurt from the grip, and his lips parted unconsciously.

“I imagine your life before was indeed hard,” Pei Jiheng’s voice was very light: “I actually pitied your circumstances at first.”

The force suddenly increased.

Luo Huai felt the pain and furrowed his brows.

Pei Jiheng narrowed his eyes, and something else finally appeared on that stern, cold face.

It was ruthlessness.

Like a forest of fir trees trapped in the dead of winter, sunless and chilling.

“However…” his voice dropped extremely low, speaking only to Luo Huai’s ear: “Whoever I want to silence will never speak again. Do you believe me?”

Luo Huai’s heartbeat accelerated suddenly.

He felt Pei Jiheng’s other hand pressing against the gland on the back of his neck, through the suppression patch. The pressure was not light, but it was enough to make him freeze.

He looked at those eyes behind the glasses and suddenly felt that the person in front of him was far more dangerous than he had imagined.

The air remained tense.

Luo Huai struggled to calm his heartbeat, closed his eyes, and his eyelashes fluttered. When he opened them again, all the ferocity in his eyes had been tucked away.

He turned his head, met Pei Jiheng’s gaze, and curved his lips, smiling sweetly and softly: “Uncle, what are you saying? We are family now, I… I was wrong, is that not enough…”

Pei Jiheng looked at him for two seconds before letting go.

Luo Huai sat up straight, rubbing the back of his neck. His heartbeat had not fully returned to normal, but his appearance had returned to that obedient demeanor.

Pei Jiheng lowered his head to tidy his cuffs, his movements unhurried.

“Are you short on money?” he asked suddenly.

Luo Huai was startled.

He remembered that morning, the sentence he had murmured in his sleep: “Go back and keep counting the money.” This man had heard it, and remembered it.

“Why?” Pei Jiheng raised his eyes to look at him, his gaze returning to his usual gentle, distant self, as if the gloomy person from just a moment ago was not him.

Luo Huai did not answer.

Pei Jiheng did not press.

He was in the position of power and did not intend to force Luo Huai to reveal everything. He only had one goal: to let the secret that he was an Alpha rot in Luo Huai’s stomach.

Pei Jiheng picked up his glass and took another sip, looking at Luo Huai over the rim of the glass as if re-evaluating something.

“For the sake of your father,” he finally spoke, his tone no longer gloomy, but even gentle: “How about this, Luo Huai? If you are short on money, you can come to me.”

Luo Huai looked up.

“But if even a hint of this matter leaks out,” Pei Jiheng put down the glass and leaned forward, his deep eyes staring directly at him: “I cannot guarantee whether the son your father worked so hard to find will disappear again.”

“Do you understand?”

Luo Huai shivered and nodded mechanically: “I understand.”

“That is right, do not bare your fangs at me again in the future.”

Pei Jiheng took a card from his pocket, slapped it on the table, and stood up.

Luo Huai looked down at the card, then up at Pei Jiheng’s back.

He saw that man walk through the dim bar, push open the wooden door, and sunlight poured in from the door crack, forming his silhouette before returning to calm.

The door closed.

The saxophone melody hit its final note.

Luo Huai picked up the card, flipped it over and looked at it, then tucked it into his pocket. He picked up the glass of sparkling water, which had gone quite flat, and drank it all in one go.