Resisting Arranged Marriages: Starting with Myself - Chapter 35

Le Xiao never knew that being marked felt like this.

The sharp tips of teeth pierced his soft skin, bringing a momentary needle-like sting. Beads of blood emerged from the puncture, looking particularly stark against the fair skin of his gland, like a trail of cinnabar ink dropped in the snow. The blood droplets were gently licked away, and then he smelled the scent of his own pheromones.

At first, it was faint, like a mint seedling in a flowerpot with morning dew still clinging to its leaves. Then it grew stronger, as if the mint leaves had been plucked and steeped into a lemon beverage. Finally, the minty aroma became so intense it felt as though a mint power-bead had suddenly burst, or as if someone had detonated a mint-scented bomb in the room.

Le Xiao could hardly imagine how high the concentration of pheromones in the ward must be if even he could smell it so clearly.

Next, he felt Ye Jiming’s pheromones being poured into his gland in a steady stream. He considered himself sufficiently familiar with Ye Jiming’s scent. During the filming of the show and their honeymoon phase, he smelled the cedar fragrance every day. Sometimes it was warm, like pine wood crackling in a fireplace; other times it was crisp, like thin snow on forest branches.

However, he realized now that the pheromones lingering around Ye Jiming or the traces in his saliva during a kiss were not on the same level as this. The cedar scent was like a freezing spring, washing through every blood vessel and every nerve. It felt like a bucket of cold water poured from head to toe, waking him up with undeniable authority. The two scents met within his body, colliding head-on with equal strength. The cool cedar swept in like a tide, suppressing the spicy mint and simultaneously extinguishing the dry, burning flames within him. The steady, gentle woody fragrance acted like fuel added to a bonfire, growing more intense by the second.

His fingers instinctively climbed onto Ye Jiming’s shoulders and then gripped the back of Ye Jiming’s neck. Ye Jiming raised his eyes and let go, asking nervously, “What is wrong? Are you uncomfortable?”

The cedar pheromones stopped abruptly. Le Xiao felt as though he had fallen from the ethereal heights of the clouds back down to the mortal realm. The massive contrast brought a surge of intense, inexplicable loss. His body temperature rose, and his gland throbbed. He said in a raspy voice, “Continue.”

Continue.

The two forces became entangled and knotted within him, inseparable. He lowered his head, pulled back Ye Jiming’s collar, aimed at the already scarred gland, and bit down hard. They were like a pair of crazed beasts, tearing and biting at each other, wishing they could devour one another whole, refusing to stop until blood was drawn.

In his last shred of memory, they both collapsed onto the bed. Someone leaned toward his ear, calling him “baby” over and over again. His eyelids grew heavier. Finally, he fell into a deep sleep.

Ye Jiming opened his eyes to see the pure, flawless moonlight streaming through the window, softly illuminating Le Xiao’s cheek. The person who had been aggressive and full of bluster during the day was now sleeping peacefully, curled up in his arms like an infant, completely defenseless.

He reached out gently to pull back Le Xiao’s collar to check his gland. A row of fresh teeth marks now adorned the smooth surface. The two drops of blood had long since stopped, leaving only a faint patch of red. Unable to help himself, he leaned down to kiss it again, as if he could never get enough.

Sensing the movement at the back of his neck, Le Xiao stirred slightly and let out an unconscious hum. Ye Jiming quickly held him close, rhythmically patting his back as if soothing a small child. He suddenly realized that he had not held him like this in a long time.

The successive nights staying at the company for overtime, the heat cycle Le Xiao endured in the dark while knowing nothing, the heartbreak witnessed firsthand at the bar, the towering rage provoked by the divorce proposal, the overseas trip that was a flight disguised as business, and the hospital ward filled with the pungent smell of disinfectant, the last time he had held Le Xiao in his arms to kiss him, caress him, and whisper into his ear felt like a lifetime ago. It felt like another world.

He looked at the person in his arms and his peaceful sleeping face, and a question quietly formed in his mind. Was everything he did worth it?

To leave his lover behind for the sake of his career, letting him keep watch over an empty nest while repeatedly deceiving himself: “This is only temporary, he can understand, I will compensate him a thousand times over in the future.” To suggest a divorce for the sake of completing him, holding an airtight document while comforting himself: “I know this is the ending Le Xiao wants most.”

Was it all worth it? Was it all correct? He looked down, his fingers gently stroking through Le Xiao’s hair.

This was the person he had loved for so many years. He had known since he was a child that he would marry Le Xiao when he grew up. When he was diagnosed with Pheromone Disorder Syndrome, he was nearly ten years old, old enough to remember and understand things. His mother told him that only by marrying Le Xiao after growing up could their illness be cured.

So, from that time on, he repeatedly told himself that he would like Le Xiao and that he would fall in love with Le Xiao. And he really did fall in love with him. The scenes from childhood were still vivid: the saliva Le Xiao smeared on him, his chubby cheeks and smiling eyes, and the way he pulled on Ye Jiming’s arm, saying innocently, “Brother, I want to marry you.”

On the day he was discharged, Le Xiao’s mother found them and said solemnly, “Before Xiao Xiao is twenty, I do not want him to know about this illness or this engagement.” She begged them not to let Le Xiao learn the truth or appear in Le Xiao’s life for the next seventeen years. He could see that his mother was unwilling. She tried to argue her point, but she was firmly blocked by Le Xiao’s mother. He knew his mother was thinking of him. The words of Le Xiao’s mother meant that for seven years, he would have to live with pheromone blockers.

His mother finally compromised, holding him and weeping silently. He smiled and said, “It is okay.”

In the blink of an eye, ten years passed. He did not see Le Xiao again, only quietly imagining his current appearance in his heart on certain nights when he could not sleep due to the pain in his gland. Seeing Le Xiao again was also a coincidence.

One ordinary afternoon when he was twenty, he passed by a key middle school and happened to see a poster at the gate. On the first line of the school anniversary program was a song title and a band name. In the small print for the band members, the lead singer was Le Xiao. For a moment, he was in a trance, unsure if this was his childhood friend. He did not even know if Le Xiao’s name was written with those specific characters. But Le was not a common surname, so he decided to try his luck, even though he knew it was not quite right.

“I am just curious to take a look; I will not disturb him,” he comforted himself.

On the day of the anniversary, he pretended to be a student returning to visit his alma mater after graduation and successfully slipped onto the campus. Standing on the edge of the crowd, he immediately saw the band playing passionately on stage and that shining lead singer. On stage, he was so confident and dazzling. His cheeks had lost their childhood baby fat and were dusted with a bit of blush, like the sunset glow.

Ye Jiming stood at the back of the crowd, listened quietly to the end of the song, and then turned to leave. That night, he used pheromone blockers for the first time in his life. As the blue medicine was injected into his gland, he inevitably thought of Le Xiao’s face.

Gradually, he began to see Le Xiao’s name in various corners of the city. His band was clearly not satisfied with singing just two songs on a school stage. Bars, shopping malls, live houses, he would always hear of Le Xiao from posters, programs, or the mouths of others. Sometimes he would go to the venues, standing in the dark below the stage, silently watching Le Xiao bathed in the spotlight.

Later, the seventeen-year-old Le Xiao released his first album and became an overnight hit. At nineteen, he released his second and immediately began touring. Whenever he had time, Ye Jiming would go to Le Xiao’s concerts, watching him go from a small school stage to a massive stadium, the center of public attention.

When he was twenty-seven, his mother called him to say that Le Xiao’s family had invited him over to meet Le Xiao, who had recently turned twenty. Then they got their marriage certificates, got married, and fell in love. Everything happened as planned when they were children, so naturally and logically. Le Xiao had simply fallen into his arms and filled his entire heart, making it full and rich, sometimes soft as a cloud, other times as steady as a mountain.

This was the person he had loved for so many years, like a bright pearl, radiant and eye-catching. How could he ever have been willing to let go?

The person in his arms stirred slightly and slowly opened his eyes. Le Xiao seemed not to realize what was happening at first. He blinked several times with sleepiness and then realized where he was. This was Ye Jiming’s ward, and he had just received a temporary mark from him.

He was instantly awake and scrambled out of bed, making a move to leave.

“Xiao Xiao!” Ye Jiming’s voice sounded behind him.

A corner of his clothes was grabbed. He tugged, but he could not break free.

“Baby, do not go.”

He turned back and unexpectedly saw grievance in Ye Jiming’s lowered eyes. And guilt. And more things he had not yet understood. His heart slowly collapsed, like a biscuit softened by milk or the earth’s crust slowly sinking into magma.

His footsteps stopped.

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