Professional Death Faker [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 6

Pei Shu tightened his arms.

Mu Chuan was pulled away from the harsh, blinding lights of the airport and tucked into his embrace. The body beneath the trench coat was terrifyingly light, like a fragile skeleton barely propping up the fabric.

He had only been gone for a few days, and Mu Chuan had withered even further.

But it was alright.

Pei Shu’s fingertips tightened, wrinkling a small patch of the submissive fabric. He kept his gaze lowered, his arms pulling the trench coat into deep creases as he pressed his nose into the pale, heatless hollow of Mu Chuan’s neck, inhaling deeply.

Only after a long time did his tensed fingers finally relax. He caressed the icy cheek, gently brushing aside a stray lock of hair.

Mu Chuan lifted his face.

Pei Shu let out a nearly imperceptible sigh of relief.

There were none of those disgusting, chaotic Alpha or Omega scents only the faint, years-old fragrance belonging to Mu Chuan himself, a scent so light it seemed ready to vanish with a single breeze.

Pei Shu’s thumb pressed against the small, inconspicuous gland, slowly rubbing and meticulously massaging it.

It was alright, but it wasn’t enough.

Mu Chuan’s scent was too faint.

It wasn’t enough; he couldn’t smell it clearly, couldn’t catch it. It was like a wisp of mist that was about to dissipate.

Not enough.

“Ah Chuan.” Pei Shu stroked Mu Chuan’s ear, lowering his head slightly. His voice was soft and tender. “I left you a note. I’ve been cooking for you every day.”

Pei Shu did, in fact, cook every day with his own hands.

His team was frantic trying to keep it a secret. They had to rent professional kitchens, scramble for specific spices, and line up at vegetable markets in the early morning. When a paparazzi caught him once, they had to explain it away as the superstar being obsessed with “hand-crafted private cuisine.”

Sweet and sour pork ribs—Pei Shu only wanted the tenderest spare ribs. He sent someone to the countryside just to buy specific rock sugar and fragrant vinegar. He chose only the most vibrant greens for the stir-fry… and then there was the rice.

He used measuring cups for the water and a scale for the rice. The texture of the finished product was indistinguishable from what Mu Chuan used to eat at the orphanage.

The doctors said this would make Mu Chuan willing to eat. It would stop him from vomiting all over the floor when they injected him with pheromones.

Pei Shu did this three times a day. The meals were vacuum-sealed, delivered via cold-chain private jet to preserve flavor and nutrition, and then reheated by someone before being sent to the house.

“I didn’t do it well,” Pei Shu said. “It didn’t suit your taste, did it?”

Mu Chuan shook his head.

“Then why?”

Pei Shu’s gaze dropped coldly. Inch by inch, he caressed the bony ridges of Mu Chuan’s neck with a gentle force. “I heard the food left in the foyer was never touched. It all went moldy…”

His voice was raspy, his pronunciation carrying a strange, eerie slowness. Without the barrier of the phone screen, the gloom on his abnormally pale face remained thick, like a ghost lingering in the living world out of some unresolved resentment.

Slander!

The System was indignant, standing up for Shen Buqi: Is someone slandering you?

Mu Chuan clearly listened to Pei Shu; he wouldn’t defy a single word.

And Shen Buqi was a highly professional person.

The System had checked Shen Buqi’s career history. For the sake of KPIs, Minister Shen was the type of person who would dip sand, rocks, and broken glass in ketchup and eat them without blinking.

Could Pei Shu’s cooking really be harder to swallow than that?

The System offered to check the surveillance: I’ll go right now. It must be that security captain framing you. What were you doing those few days? Let me see.

“Ah.” A thought bubble popped up happily from Shen Buqi. I wasn’t home. I was cheating.

“Good, good, I’ll just” The System, buried in data, suddenly paused. 

“You came late, so you didn’t see it.”

Shen Buqi had been having too much fun those few days to even think about going home. He leaned his head against Pei Shu’s chest, feeling a bit nostalgic. The racecar driver’s body is really something. After washing his hair, he shakes his head to dry it just like a puppy.

System: 

Yes, I saw it now.

There was a hidden album on Mu Chuan’s phone, filled with photos that would likely cause Pei Shu to blow up the entire world in a single second a nineteen-year-old Alpha racer with bulging muscles and a well-defined physique, his wet, bright gold hair shimmering as he smiled at Mu Chuan in the photos.

When the youth smiled, his canine teeth pressed against his lip and his eyes sparkled, looking exactly like a large dog waiting for praise with a frisbee in its mouth.

Pei Shu is ‘allergic’ to pheromones, after all. Shen Buqi had no choice. Pei Shu reacted violently to the pheromones of other Alphas and Omegas. If even a trace was brought home, Pei Shu’s eyes would turn red, and he’d uncontrollably pin Mu Chuan in the bathroom to scrub him for an hour or two.

System: That isn’t an allergy.

Besides, if Pei Shu couldn’t stand the pheromones of others, did Shen Buqi really just leave a “mannequin” in the bedroom while he went out to cheat and stay out all night??

So that was why Pei Shu thought Mu Chuan was a pathetic creature who didn’t even dare to open the curtains or leave the bedroom without him.

Shen Buqi was very humble: Precisely.

System: AAAAAAAH!

He’s a bubble machine!

Then what about Pei Shu? How was the story supposed to play out??

Shen Buqi wasn’t worried. He pulled up the performance points he had just earned from the previous round and bought a luxury massage rocking chair for the System, inserted two coins, and draped a small towel over it.

****

“Why aren’t you eating properly?”

Pei Shu trapped the overly thin Alpha in his embrace.

He had promised the team he would play the entire season without a break just to earn the privilege of picking Mu Chuan up from the airport. There were no annoying flashes here, no voyeurs. The plane and the shuttle bus were gone.

He could hold this Alpha, who always drove him to madness, without any restraint.

“Look at me.” Pei Shu made Mu Chuan lift his head, cradling the slightly trembling back of his skull. He locked the youth between his arms, gently stroking the ear-tips that had turned a violent red from embarrassment. “Use your mouth to tell me, Ah Chuan.”

Mu Chuan was allowed to refuse to use his mouth to bite him after eight years of hopeless struggle, the near-mad Pei Shu had finally been forced to compromise. He couldn’t have Mu Chuan vomiting all over him every time.

But he had to use his mouth for something.

Speaking, eating at some point, these basic survival instincts seemed to have gradually vanished from Mu Chuan.

Pei Shu felt the outline of the bones beneath the trench coat. He had only been away for a few days, and yet Mu Chuan had refused to even eat, letting himself waste away into this ghostly state.

“So thin.”

Pei Shu applied pressure with his fingers, sinking into the trembling hollows behind Mu Chuan’s shoulder blades. “It’s ugly.”

“I don’t like it when you’re too thin. Ah Chuan, like you are now.”

He stopped mid-sentence.

Pei Shu’s pupils contracted slightly.

To his shock, he found Mu Chuan leaning into him something he would never have done in the past. Mu Chuan’s body was sinking into his arms, weakly and slowly, like a pile of old snow melting into his embrace.

Pei Shu’s body actually went rigid.

It was as if he had been burned. He froze for several seconds before suddenly tightening his arms with a fierce force.

Thanks to those godforsaken “Alpha Socialization Rules” from prison.

In eight years, Pei Shu had never had the chance to hold Mu Chuan like this.

The soft mist had finally fallen into his arms. Mu Chuan’s weak breath brushed against the side of his neck; that hint of thin, dew-like Alpha pheromone instantly scorched his eyes a burning red.

The System watched with disbelief—it was as if, in just a few seconds, Pei Shu had changed.

The gloom, the paranoia, and the suppressed violence beneath the thin shell of ice all receded like a tide.

Pei Shu’s arms were wrapped around Mu Chuan’s back as he looked down to see his reaction.

On that face that was usually pale and sinister, there was even a trace of the same green hesitation and cautious fear of messing things up from eight years ago.

…It was as if time had reversed in an instant.

Pei Shu turned back into that gentle noble. He softened his hold, carried Mu Chuan into the car, and gently touched his pale face. He smiled, then immediately controlled his expression.

“What is it?” Pei Shu let the car enter autopilot and knelt down to find Mu Chuan’s eyes. “Are you unhappy? Did the people at the airport bully you? Shall I have them all exiled to some godforsaken countryside?”

Mu Chuan rested quietly against his arm, his breathing light, and shook his head slightly.

His tea-colored eyes seemed to be behind a layer of impenetrable misty water, and they curved weakly for a moment.

This caused Pei Shu to fall completely under a spell.

He constantly adjusted his embrace, moving from stroking the neck and rubbing the spine to circling the youth entirely in his arms and refusing to let go.

Finally, he even dared to lower his head and touch Mu Chuan’s hair with his lips.

He looked Mu Chuan up and down, frowning. The trench coat was stiff and uncomfortable, so he peeled it off, crumpled it up, and threw it aside. The shoes were stiff and restrictive, so he untied the laces and warmed those ice-cold, pale feet in his embrace.

“Birds.”

Mu Chuan’s voice was as light as a feather landing on water.

Pei Shu, holding those cold fingers, immediately leaned in close. “What?”

“Birds, also…” Mu Chuan’s expression became uneasy, a faint, uncomfortable flush rising on his pale ear-tips. He gripped the soft silk cuff of his black shirt, pursing his lips several times, wanting to repeat Pei Shu’s “godforsaken countryside,” but found he truly couldn’t utter those words. “Also. countryside. There are many…”

Pei Shu looked at the Alpha’s awkward state in his arms and smiled again. His smiles were always like lightning never staying, vanishing as quickly as they appeared.

He began to think that Mu Chuan looked very cute in this black shirt too.

He decided he would let Mu Chuan wear black shirts from now on.

“There are bird droppings?” Pei Shu looked down, intentionally using words this overly proper country Alpha couldn’t bring himself to say. He gently twirled a strand of Mu Chuan’s hair. “What else?”

It felt like they hadn’t talked like this in many years.

Mu Chuan was awkward, pursing his lips and avoiding his gaze. He looked at the hem of his clothes, at the soft blanket Pei Shu had pulled over, at any corner that didn’t involve eye contact  and haltingly spoke of the foxtail grass and dandelions on the ridges of the fields.

“I can  weave puppies.” Mu Chuan’s head was buried very low, his voice very light, his neck turning red. “With foxtail grass.”

Mu Chuan’s hands used to be very nimble.

Used to be.

He could help the old director and the lady with many things, he could play with the children, and he could weave many toys out of foxtail grass.

The children at the orphanage loved them.

They would jump and play around him, pulling at his clothes, asking for a puppy, a kitten, or a bird that could fly high and never come down.

Pei Shu listened half-heartedly, offering a casual comment here and there. Taking advantage of the boy’s distraction, he fed him half a carton of warm milk and a few crackers.

He held Mu Chuan’s deformed hand—the one that had been hidden for so long it could barely even be straightened and gently toyed with those soft, misshapen, curled fingers.

They arrived at the residence provided by the event organizers.

Pei Shu gave the keys to the team manager who came to collect the car, gave a few instructions to the attendant, and returned to the room to find Mu Chuan vomiting into the toilet.

Pei Shu’s footsteps stopped outside the washroom.

Mu Chuan looked up in panic, his fingers hurriedly wiping his eyes. He always tried to hide this from Pei Shu, even though nine times out of ten he was caught more often than not, he would be pinned to the bed by a red-eyed Pei Shu, convulsing as he vomited all over him.

“So… sorry.” Mu Chuan’s voice was as thin as a mosquito’s buzz. His left hand was pressed deep into his stomach, his shirt was crumpled, and his voice trembled uncontrollably. “I…”

Pei Shu wasn’t angry.

The conversation in the car seemed to have awakened the Pei Shu of eight years ago.

Pei Shu wet a towel with hot water, walked to Mu Chuan’s side, knelt down, and gently wiped his face. Instead of being comforted, Mu Chuan’s face turned deathly pale as he frantically turned his head away. “Filthy…”

“Not filthy,” Pei Shu said softly. “Ah Chuan is clean.”

If the towel got dirty, he’d just change it for a new one.

He wiped the corner of Mu Chuan’s mouth, discarded the towel, and got a fresh, steaming one. He showed it to Mu Chuan, who was clean and gently wiped the cold face covered in tear tracks and sweat.

The eyelashes, the bridge of the nose, the delicate corners of the eyes, stained red by tears.

Mu Chuan was very beautiful.

Pei Shu brushed back the hair on Mu Chuan’s forehead, looking at the face that was always strictly hidden behind heavy glasses per his demands.

Back in university. many people had secretly stuffed love letters into Mu Chuan’s bag when he wasn’t looking.

Mu Chuan never knew how to keep his distance.

A country Alpha youth who knew nothing, dressed in shabby clothes, surrounded by a group of Alphas and Omegas. Other people’s arms were around his shoulders; someone would rub his hair, his ears, or pinch his face.

And Mu Chuan? He only knew how to stand there with his head down and his face red, smiling shyly.

He had no idea how much hidden, unspeakable filth was concealed beneath those touches disguised as friendly affection.

A country Alpha who would wag his tail just because someone touched him.

Pei Shu stared at this face, his gaze gradually darkening. He wanted to draw close to those bloodless lips, but the moment their breaths touched, he was shoved away with a force that seemed carved into the boy’s very bones.

A series of toiletries crashed onto the floor, making a thunderous noise.

The team manager, who hadn’t gone far, rushed back in a fright and pounded on the door: “What now?!”

Mu Chuan curled against the wall, his arms protecting his head.

Dead silence.

Pei Shu took a few steps back, his gaze dropping as he looked at Mu Chuan.

After a long time, he walked over slowly. The dark, turbulent waves in his eyes gradually returned to calm. He pushed aside the shattered bottles and jars, knelt down, and sat beside Mu Chuan.

“Don’t be afraid,” Pei Shu said. “I’m not angry.”

His voice was exceptionally peaceful and steady, even carrying a hint of long-lost, restrained tenderness.

Pei Shu said, “It’s not your fault… It’s Pei Linya.”

Mu Chuan’s spine suddenly shuddered.

As if pierced through the chest by an invisible blunt knife, the Alpha’s face turned an extreme, deathly pale. His tea-colored pupils scattered and lost focus in a state of sheer terror, turning him into a doll whose soul had been snatched away.

Fortunately.

What Pei Shu intended to blame was not an act of infidelity.

Pei Shu didn’t know yet.

He didn’t know that the buttons on this black shirt—the one he finally liked and was willing to let Mu Chuan keep had been done up one by one by Pei Linya’s own hands.

“He taught you wrong in prison.”

“He filled your head with the wrong things. It’s okay, we’ll change it slowly… Ah Chuan.”

Pei Shu asked, “Are you still in contact with him?”

He saw the extreme terror on Mu Chuan’s face.

Indeed, it was that puritan Pei Linya who should have died long ago. Pei Shu thought to himself that a godforsaken thing like the Alpha Socialization Rules was something only a celibate, germaphobic madman who deserved to die alone could treat as a golden rule.

“Ah Chuan? Look at me.” Pei Shu told Mu Chuan patiently, word by word. “We can change it slowly; it doesn’t matter. But starting today, you aren’t allowed to see him again.”

“I know you asked him to send money to the orphanage.”

Pei Shu gently stroked Mu Chuan’s hair.

He looked at Mu Chuan’s instantly stiff spine and lowered his gaze this poor country Alpha knew nothing, thinking he could keep secrets from him.

He waited several seconds on purpose before finishing his thought: “I can help you too.”

Pei Shu waited for Mu Chuan’s body to return to calm.

He didn’t get angry; he simply held Mu Chuan’s shoulders and forced those eyes to look at him. “I hate Pei Linya, do you understand?”

Mu Chuan lifted his face to look at him, his pupils as faint as mist. After a long time, he finally nodded gently.

Pei Shu reached out and pulled him gently into his arms. He had finally done something right; for the first time, Mu Chuan acted like a heat-deprived, weak animal, unconsciously curling into his embrace.

Mu Chuan was soaking up the warmth of his embrace.

Pei Shu nearly bit through his own mouth trying to suppress his violently surging pheromones.

He restrained his strength and gently stroked the back of Mu Chuan’s neck.

He had finally learned a bit of self-reflection, and he struggled to constrain that burning desire as he coaxed Mu Chuan softly: “You’re homesick, aren’t you?”

Mu Chuan had been talking about the countryside the whole way.

This poor Alpha, having left his soil, had withered like a vine that had been uprooted for too long.

Pei Shu gently touched his hair: “Be good, and I’ll take you there.”

Mu Chuan seemed to be dazed for a moment.

It was impossible to tell what those tea-colored eyes were thinking. It looked like anticipation, or perhaps fear. Regardless, that tiny, weak glint of light was like gold dust stirred into long-still water.

Pei Shu calculated the time.

The season would end in twenty days. Adding in promotion, interviews, and filming, it would be about a month.

In a month.

He would take Mu Chuan there in a month.

But Mu Chuan’s voice was as light as the wind: “Can we go tomorrow?”

Pei Shu frowned slightly.

This was the first time Mu Chuan had ever made a request, though he couldn’t understand why Mu Chuan would make such a bizarre request that completely ignored practical reality.

“I’m taking you to a banquet tomorrow.”

Pei Shu said, “Since we’re here, have some fun. There are hot springs, a fireworks display, and a racing competition tomorrow night.”

The Alpha he was holding was as light as a withered leaf. He was too thin; his cheekbones were slightly sunken, making his mint-colored eyes look huge.

Mu Chuan said softly, “Then the day after.”

He had come to deliver the pheromones to Pei Shu.

The pheromones had been delivered.

He wasn’t needed here anymore.

There was a piece of paper hidden in his pocket with a route written on it. He could take a bus from here, transfer, and reach the countryside in three days. He wanted to spend a day helping the lady pick vegetables, a day drinking the tea the old director brewed. He was tired. He wanted to go back and find his pillow.

Pei Shu didn’t understand what he was thinking. He frowned and tightened his arms to pin the youth in his embrace. “Stop it, Ah Chuan.”

“I’ll take you back next month.” Pei Shu looked down. “Be obedient. You can pick a gift. What do you want?”

He looked into those eyes that were as faint as dissipating mist.

Mu Chuan was obedient. He thought hard for a moment.

He said, “A green one.”

Then he wanted the little green wooden box.