Professional Death Faker [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 5

Mu Chuan’s body froze in place.

His Adam’s apple bobbed, but no sound came out. His lips pressed into a pale, thin line, as if something invisible was being rapidly drained from this vessel, leaving behind only a hollow shell.

Bloodless fingertips gripped the smooth silk cuff of the black shirt.

The phone screen on the floor remained lit, the speaker crackling with Pei Shu’s voice.

“It’s okay.  don’t be nervous.”

Pei Shu’s voice was low and soft, as if that cold, thick rose-honey pheromone was seeping through the airwaves. “Look at me, mhm? Ah Chuan, I’m not angry.”

He coaxed him gently like this several times, waiting with extraordinary patience. Finally, the Alpha’s eyelashes flickered, and he slowly lifted his excessively pale face.

“I was just asking casually.”

Pei Shu’s tone sounded like idle chatter. “Do you like those kinds of clothes?”

Mu Chuan shook his head.

He shook it again.

Pei Shu let out a small laugh.

Inside his designated safe house, his body slowly leaned back into the treatment chair used to suppress heat cycles. His right hand, bound by a restraint strap, toyed with the ring on his ring finger, rolling the metal band over and over.

“You don’t like them, then.”

He said airily, “Then take them off.”

Mu Chuan whispered, “Mhm.”

Behind the shadow of the lush greenery, Pei Linya abruptly took a step forward. His throat moved violently, and his pupils contracted as he stared at the lone figure in the lounge.

Mu Chuan raised his hand to unbutton the shirt.

The over-thinned Alpha moved with a touch as soft as a falling feather. Pale fingers reached for the cufflink and gave it a light press.

The warm mother-of-pearl slipped from the buttonhole, shimmering like a pearl under the overly bright airport lights.

Those invisible threads seemed to resume their orderly operation, following a pre-set program that brooked no interference. First the cufflinks, then the collar.

The first horizontal button.

The second.

The shirt collar gradually fell open, exposing skin so pale it was paper-thin. Faded scars on the back of his neck and spine became visible—the marks left by the prison, like torn paper that had been clumsily glued back together, never truly able to be restored.

Just as he reached the third button, a deafening crash suddenly erupted.

The frosted glass door rocked back and forth from a violent impact as an uninvited guest burst in.

Heavy footsteps approached with undeniable urgency. Mu Chuan looked up reflexively, meeting Pei Linya’s dark, icy expression.

The look was not directed at Mu Chuan, of course.

Pei Linya had returned, the atmospheric pressure around him terrifyingly low.

He strode over like a surging volcano, holding back a blazing rage that was about to erupt through sheer long-term self-restraint. His tightly locked, sharp brows cast a heavy shadow.

Pei Linya’s gaze was like a blade quenched in ice, pinned firmly to the high-end phone on the floor.

He leaned over, reaching out to snatch up that godforsaken metal block, but his pant leg suddenly grew heavy.

The Chief Correctional Officer’s movements snapped to a halt.

Mu Chuan’s fingers were death-gripping the fabric of his suit trousers.

His knuckles were a morbid white, trembling violently as if he were on the verge of death. This tremor traveled through the fabric, silent and pleading, reaching Pei Linya like a drowning man grasping the last crumbling rock on a cliffside.

Mu Chuan’s face looked fragile enough to shatter under the overhead lights.

Something even more terrible was happening.

To him, a disaster far more horrifying and desperate than stripping here was descending.

In the shadows hidden from the camera’s view, the youth shook his head silently, his bloodless, delicate face wearing a look of near-desperate entreaty.

He was begging Pei Linya to hide.

Pei Shu’s voice came from the speaker: “Ah Chuan?”

“Who is it?”

Pei Linya felt that trembling wrap around his legs and his throat.

The Alpha, who had been out of prison for eight years looked up at him steadily, like a prisoner being dragged onto the execution platform, using the ways he learned in prison to beg for the executioner’s mercy.

“Don’t.”

“My husband is in his heat cycle,” Mu Chuan mouthed silently. “He can’t handle it.”

This was the thorn forever embedded in Mu Chuan’s heart.

Mu Chuan could never forgive himself, nor could he face Pei Shu. How could he have been so stupid? Just because he was a Beta, he thought everything was fine?

He had truly only remembered the words of the prison guards: Contact between Alphas and Omegas is filthy; contact between Alphas and Alphas is dangerous.

Betas are safe, stable, and clean.

You can be friends with Betas.

He had naively believed he was just friends with Pei Linya.

If it hadn’t been for the wedding night, when Pei Shu held him from behind, took his hand, and softly taught him the rules a spouse must follow… he might never have realized what a grave mistake he had made back then.

For eight years, Mu Chuan had been tortured by this sin—guilt, shame and insomnia. He deliberately avoided any occasion where he might cross paths with Pei Linya. Even when Pei Shu took him back to the Pei family home, he would only give a hurried greeting and brush past.

If it weren’t for the emergency with Pei Shu today, the need to reach the airport immediately, and the inability to find a taxi, Mu Chuan would never have messaged Pei Linya.

Pei Linya read this shameful repentance in those tea-colored pupils.

Of course he understood.

Mu Chuan was the fledgling he had personally dug out of the mire, the juvenile offender he had corrected and sent out of prison. The thoughts, the emotions, the trembling of every down feather under those soft wings—it was all transparent to him.

Pei Linya’s gaze gradually deepened into a bottomless abyss.

He finally realized that in less than two months, during those forty-seven days he had stayed away using the clumsy excuse of a “business trip” someone had poured something incredibly distorted into Mu Chuan’s mind.

Mu Chuan’s expression left him speechless.

This wrongly-raised Alpha devoutly believed he was heavily burdened with sin, punishing himself and begging Pei Linya to be a silent accomplice.

“It’s  the airport.”

Mu Chuan spoke haltingly, each word labored, as if tearing them from thin white paper soaked in rain. “Beta.”

His bloodless lips pressed together in desperation.

He didn’t even know what kind of staff worked at the airport.

Pei Linya’s Adam’s apple rolled in the silence. He knelt on one knee and silently mouthed the word: “Ground crew.”

“Ground. crew,” Mu Chuan repeated with effort.

In a spot the camera couldn’t see, Pei Linya took that trembling hand, guiding those cold fingers to press against his own lips.

The cold fingertips recoiled violently before cautiously tracing the warm lips, feeling the movement of the mouth as it simulated the pronunciation.

This was something Pei Linya had taught him in prison.

When he first entered, Alpha violent offenders would “enjoy” 48 hours of sensory deprivation. Pei Linya had stayed with him then.

Mu Chuan actually remembered. Pei Linya’s lips moved, his dark gaze fixed on the skeletal Alpha youth, watching Mu Chuan repeat the words he felt, syllable by syllable.

“Coming  to ask me  if I need  help.”

Soft fingers accidentally touched a warmer sensation and retracted instantly in fright.

Pei Linya’s gaze turned sharply deeper.

His throat moved again. He suppressed his breathing and continued with the next phrase: “VIP.”

“VIP,” Mu Chuan’s eyelashes fluttered. “They said… the ticket I bought was a VIP ticket.”

From the speaker came the messy noise of medical equipment clashing.

Pei Shu was receiving an inhibitor injection. His slightly heavy breathing caused his strangely soft, guiding tone to falter: “And so?”

Pei Linya opened his phone, pulled up the service terms, and enlarged them to fill the screen.

“They have a clothes ironing service,” Mu Chuan read haltingly. Pei Linya’s warm palm wrapped around his icy fingers, guiding his touch on the lips. “Mine… was too thin. They ruined it with the iron. So they gave me a spare.”

“Is that so?” Pei Shu laughed. “That high-end?”

He didn’t recall airport spare shirts being made of this high-quality black silk.

Mu Chuan’s eyelashes trembled even faster; he could barely sit steady, but Pei Linya gripped his wrist.

Dark pupils held that pale mint-colored panic in a silent, unwavering gaze.

Pei Linya acted as his accomplice.

“Sir.” The Chief Correctional Officer illegally used a voice changer outside of work hours, turning his cold, deep voice into that of an ordinary ground crew member. “We have negotiated to the best of our ability.”

He picked up the phone, avoiding his own face, and supported Mu Chuan’s back, picking him up with one arm and gently placing him on the sofa.

“Your spouse is excessively stubborn, refusing to let any clothing handled by others touch his skin.”

“Despite our repeated guarantees of absolute cleaning, high-temperature steam disinfection, and UV sterilization.”

“This gentleman said you are sensitive to smells.”

“He didn’t want you to be unhappy.”

On the other end of the video, amidst Mu Chuan’s intermittent, fledgling-like weak breathing, Pei Shu froze for a moment.

Pei Shu stared at the screen. A hint of tenderness seemed to appear in his eyes, but his expression remained gloomy. One hand propped up the phone. “You can take more of my clothes when you go out.”

Mu Chuan bit his lip, lowering his eyelashes and nodding gently. “Mhm.”

Pei Shu in his heat cycle, wasn’t exactly thinking clearly his discernment and logic weren’t up to their usual standards.

Mu Chuan was actually a very fast learner.

He learned everything quickly: university courses, mecha maintenance, the Alpha Behavioral Code, how to play a normal spouse  and now this.

Pei Linya taught Mu Chuan to lie to his spouse.

Pei Shu asked Mu Chuan, “Have you eaten?”

Mu Chuan nodded.

Pei Shu seemed to touch his face through the screen.

“Are you cold?” Pei Shu said. “You can buy a trench coat. Camel color, cashmere, size 38. No notch lapels; the belt should be the same color.”

Pei Shu said, “Buy it yourself.”

Mu Chuan nodded.

Pei Shu watched him for several more seconds, perhaps longer until his team rushed in to grab him.

Pei Shu was taken away for a strong inhibitor shot. The screen went black, likely from being hurriedly turned over. There were frantic shouts: “Who gave him his phone again!”

“Are you kidding me! If this gets out…”

Pei Shu’s public persona was that of an elegant noble; if he was seen like this, it would be a disaster.

Luckily, he had only made a video call to Mu Chuan. If he had done anything else shocking in the heat of the moment, the whole team would be finished.

The video call was abruptly disconnected.

Only then.

Mu Chuan seemed to suddenly let out a breath. His spine went limp, and his body lost all signs of life, dissolving into the dark shadow cast by Pei Linya.

Pei Linya tightened his arms. “Mu Chuan.”

He called out several times, his palm cradling the paper-pale face, his thumb brushing over the drenching cold sweat.

Mu Chuan had almost no reaction. It wasn’t until the final boarding call that he slowly flicked his eyelashes open and looked at him.

His scattered, cool gaze drifted over Pei Linya’s tensed jaw.

It seemed to have exhausted all his strength; after just one look, his eyes closed again, powerless. Mu Chuan had clearly fainted again.

Pei Linya buttoned his shirt for him. When he gripped the thin arm, his pupils contracted, and he violently pulled up the soft black silk.

The thin wrist was covered in scars of various depths.

Pei Linya looked as though a knife had been jabbed into his own throat with the same force and frequency.

He gripped that powerless, icy hand.

Hearing his name called over the intercom, Mu Chuan’s spine shivered slightly. He propped himself up and opened his eyes, even trying to stand.

Pei Linya tightened his arms, stopping the youth’s weak movements.

“It’s not a roll call.”

Pei Linya said, “Ah Chuan.”

“It’s the airport announcement. It’s time for you to board.”

Pei Linya spoke to him slowly and in a low voice: “Security is done. I’ll take you through the special channel, okay? I’m taking this flight too. I happen to  have a business trip.”

Pei Linya said, “Let’s go together.”

As he spoke those last few words, it felt as if he were holding a mouthful of thorns, stabbing at the root of his tongue and the soft flesh of his mouth.

Mu Chuan looked at him quietly, as if he saw him clearly, and as if he didn’t.

Aaaah, let’s go!

The System was the type that absolutely couldn’t handle being called out at the airport. It was addicted to counting its mountain of performance points but still couldn’t help being anxious, spamming the screen: Run!

The plane is leaving! Fifteen minutes! Tell him to run.

Carry Mu Chuan and run!

A Hong Kong drama run!

Shen Buqi knew what he was doing and wasn’t in a hurry. He manually crafted a small bamboo dragonfly for the System in the consciousness world.

Pei Linya picked Mu Chuan up and wrapped him from head to toe in his own coat. The Chief Correctional Officer hadn’t been on the front lines for years, but his physical fitness hadn’t declined. He even bought a trench coat.

The one Pei Shu told Mu Chuan to buy.

Camel, cashmere, size 38, stand collar, matching belt.

His ID slammed against the gate sensor, forcibly stopping the alarm. At the very last second before the plane began to taxi, the flight attendant looked in shock at the man who looked like he was storming the plane.

The Chief had violated more regulations today than in his entire life combined.

And he had likely never been this disheveled.

Pei Linya’s throat moved violently, his breathing heavy, his voice raspy beyond recognition. “Imperial Capital. Correctional Department. Two seats…”

He also needed a private rest area. The head purser checked the gold-edged special ID and complied immediately, leading them to a private space in first class.

Warm water, emergency medicine, a constant-temperature warmer, and a portable oxygen mask were delivered.

“This,” the attendant chose their words carefully. “This is your.”

Pei Linya’s arm holding Mu Chuan tensed like cold iron for a moment.

He fell into a ridiculous silence.

He couldn’t find a usable identity. What was he to Mu Chuan? His correctional officer? His supervision had long since expired. A friend? That naive term had likely been ruined beyond recognition by Pei Shu.

Could he bring Mu Chuan in and say he was the biological elder brother of the Alpha’s legal spouse?

Pei Linya’s gaze dropped to the person in his arms.

One hand held Mu Chuan, the other supported the oxygen mask. Most of the thin youth’s face was covered as he breathed submissively and quietly with the inflow of air.

The attendant tactfully shut their mouth and retreated.

The door to the rest area closed with a soft “click.”

Pei Linya couldn’t help but gently touch the hair that was still slightly damp.

He sensed Mu Chuan’s slight stiffness but didn’t move his hand. He was filtering through correction plans he hadn’t used in years: exposure therapy, aversion therapy, systematic desensitization. None of them were good plans.

He had missed out for too long.

Not forty-seven days, but eight years.

Perhaps he had never truly escaped the prison of that Alpha youth.

Mu Chuan’s body was a precarious tower made of chaotic dry branches. It couldn’t be moved or shaken; every part was already filled with cracks. Pulling out even one would cause it to collapse entirely in an instant.

And Pei Shu. Pei Shu was the lantern that had been imprisoned by this tower through a stroke of luck.

The entire flight was a long silence.

When the plane began its descent, Pei Linya finally spoke. His gaze was on the window, his voice deep like a storm-cloud he had swallowed alone.

“Let it be like this.”

Pei Linya opened the trench coat and gently helped Mu Chuan put it on. “I’ll only take you this far. I won’t get off the plane, to avoid being seen. It wouldn’t be good for you.”

“If anything happens, find me at any time.”

“We will maintain this relationship for now.”

He said to Mu Chuan, “I will cooperate with you. I won’t let Pei Shu find out.”

Those words were like a blunt knife not just for Pei Linya. Beneath the oxygen mask, the thin Alpha’s eyelashes seemed to flicker slightly. He lowered his gaze submissively and gave a nearly imperceptible nod.

The flight was a stopover. The attendant reminded passengers to disembark. Mu Chuan slowly propped up his body, listened to his words, and walked into the line on his own.

Pei Linya knew Pei Shu was staying for fifteen days this time. He watched Mu Chuan’s back, planning that once these fifteen days were over, he would take Mu Chuan to the hospital for a full check-up no matter what.

They walked a long distance, but a figure remained by the porthole.

“Sigh.” The System was losing its stance, even feeling a bit reluctant—after all, Pei Linya provided a lot of performance points.

What a pity.

“It’s not a pity.” Shen Buqi found a maple leaf he liked and tucked it into the inner pocket of his trench coat, comforting the System with a smile. “I left a gift.”

Why give him a gift.

The System couldn’t help but feel the sting; Pei Linya was the one who chose to leave back then. “A person like him… eh?”

Wait.

What gift??

Shen Buqi softly hummed his song “Little Pillow Fell Down,” trying his best not to walk too briskly. The System flew back and saw Pei Linya standing by the porthole.

He was looking at the object he had pulled out of his pocket.

A little pillow.

Quite tiny. It was sewn by the old lady at the orphanage; all the “good children” got one. Mu Chuan was the best of the good children, so the lady had sewn him the prettiest one.

It had a little lace border.

In prison, Mu Chuan’s refusal to let this be taken away had enraged that death-row inmate. When he was pinned in the corner with his clothes being torn, he had used that umbrella to stab the bastard through the stomach.

“Then you are also a good child.” The Chief Correctional Officer back then had been very serious. His tall shadow fell over the boy as he told him, “Self-defense and resistance are brave. You can keep the little pillow.”

Pei Linya looked at the old, clean, masterless stuffed toy, from which Mu Chuan’s name had been meticulously removed.

He suddenly bolted toward the hatch, only to be frantically stopped. The plane had already begun to taxi and would soon take off again.

There was no way out.

Pei Linya rushed back to the porthole, slamming his hand against it and shouting words that could never be heard outside. He watched as Mu Chuan slowly walked toward a black luxury car that Pei Shu had somehow managed to get driven right up to the shuttle bus.

Mu Chuan submissively allowed Pei Shu to stroke the back of his neck before being pulled into an embrace.