Resisting Arranged Marriages: Starting with Myself - Chapter 5

On the second morning, the program recording officially began.

After all the guests gathered in the courtyard of the homestay, the production team announced the first activity: Ancient Style Incense Making.

Nanfeng Village is a well-known heritage base for intangible culture. As the name suggests, ancient incense making involves using traditional techniques to create incense pills, incense tablets, or incense sticks. The process is both experiential and a test of the guests’ patience and meticulousness. For the production team, it served a dual purpose: it promoted intangible culture while gaining traffic and goodwill. It was a strategy that achieved multiple goals at once.

During the process, the production team also introduced two new requirements. Each guest had to create an incense product that matched their partner’s pheromone scent. Simultaneously, they had to wear wristbands that monitored their various physical indicators in real-time.

The production team explained, “Among you, there are couples in the passionate ‘honey phase,’ newlyweds in domestic bliss, and devoted partners who have supported each other for over a decade. When you promise an eternal love that lasts until the seas run dry and rocks crumble, does your body faithfully and intensely practice those vows? Physical indicators do not lie. The attraction of pheromones remains effective. Regardless of whether you speak of love, your body will still provide the most reliable response.”

After listening to the production team’s long-winded explanation, Han Ziqian was the first to laugh. “Aren’t you just picking on us old married couples? Our marriage has turned from a roaring fire into a steady stream. We cannot compete with the heart-fluttering excitement of the passionate or newlywed phases, can we?”

Standing beside him, the usually reticent Professor Duan Weiyue suddenly spoke up. “That is not necessarily true. Perhaps only you have become plain and dull.”

He Chen quickly nudged his lover with an elbow and explained with a smile, “Sorry about that. Old Duan can be a bit sharp-tongued.”

Duan Weiyue did not deny it. Rubbing his ribs, he reached out under the cover of his sleeve to tightly grip He Chen’s hand. He Chen squeezed back just as hard. Their strength was so intense it felt as though they might crush each other’s bones.

While the “Old Married Couple Group” was joking around, the truly nervous Le Xiao swallowed hard.

Heaven as his witness, he, the one in a fake marriage, should be the most nervous. He and Ye Jiming did not even have an emotional foundation, so what “physiological attraction” was there to speak of? Once the monitoring results came out, wouldn’t their arranged marriage be exposed?

He could not help but look at Ye Jiming, only to find the other man composed and at ease. He seemed completely unaware of the potential impact.

“Aren’t you nervous?” he whispered. “You cannot act out physical data. What do we do?”

“Do not panic,” Ye Jiming said as he reached out to hold Le Xiao’s hand. “It will be fine.”

His calm demeanor made Le Xiao wonder if he had bribed the production team to forge the data in advance.

The Art of the Scent

After the rules were explained, the first activity officially began. A teacher first demonstrated the incense-making process, after which the guests operated on their own. The style of the incense was also left to the guests’ choice.

After watching the teacher’s demonstration, Le Xiao decided to make a string of incense beads that could be worn on his wrist. Ye Jiming chose to make an incense tablet.

The production team had already prepared the necessary materials. Spices that matched each guest’s pheromone scent were essential.

Le Xiao picked up a piece of spice that looked like withered wood and sniffed it. “Ye Jiming, this is cedarwood too. So this is what cedar looks like when it is dried.”

Before Ye Jiming could answer, Le Xiao suddenly leaned in and sniffed the back of Ye Jiming’s neck. “But it is not exactly the same as your scent.” Having said that, he curiously moved on to study other spices, not forgetting to wink at Ye Jiming.

Ye Jiming understood the subtext of that wink. It was just an act for their “newlywed” status. However, when he looked down at the monitoring data on his wrist, the sudden spike in his heart rate from that moment was no lie.

He shook his head with a smile, appearing to indulge his partner’s playfulness, and lowered his head to select his materials.

The two quickly weighed their materials according to the formulas provided by the teacher and prepared to begin.

Le Xiao’s chosen formula included cedarwood, mugwort, mint leaves, and a bit of borneol. Seeing him select both cedar and mint, Ye Jiming teased, “Why take two kinds of materials? Do you want to make two different formulas?”

“My formula originally includes both. This is called ‘I am in you, and you are in me.’ What do you know?” Le Xiao snorted. “Do your own work. Do not expect me to help you.”

“Alright,” Ye Jiming laughed. His eyes crinkled behind his glasses.

Ancient incense making involves many steps. To save time, the production team had processed the spices in advance. Once the guests selected and matched their ingredients, they could begin grinding.

Ye Jiming used a mortar and pestle to pound the spices into small pieces, then placed them into a medicinal grinder for Le Xiao to grind into powder.

The medicinal grinder consisted of a boat-shaped iron groove and a wheel-like crushing disc. Le Xiao grabbed the handles on both sides of the disc and rolled it back and forth. With each press, the fragments in the groove slowly turned into fine powder. The refreshing fragrance of cedar and mint filled the air.

Perhaps stimulated by the scent-filled room, his glands began to throb slightly again. After looking around for a moment, he hid in a camera blind spot and quietly pressed his hand against his gland.

Once ground, the powder had to be sifted to remove impurities, leaving only the finest and softest incense powder. Water was then added to knead it into a dough-like consistency.

The scene was very similar to kneading dough for dumplings during the New Year. Le Xiao was like the mischievous child found in every household. The moment he saw dough, he had to join the fun.

He practiced the kneading techniques he had seen at home. Before long, his fingers were stained with the fragrance of the spices, making them crisp and fragrant.

However, Le Xiao was ultimately a “young master.” Since childhood, he had been teased by Wen Yan for having “no strength to even truss a chicken.” After kneading for ten minutes, his hands felt sore. He handed the incense dough to Ye Jiming as a matter of course. “I cannot knead anymore. You do it for me.”

Ye Jiming took it with a smile. After just a few kneads, his vision was suddenly obscured by a pair of hands covered in brown incense clay. “Smell this. It is all your scent. Does it smell good?”

“I cannot smell it,” Ye Jiming replied honestly as he turned his head to dodge the palm that almost slapped his face.

Alphas and Omegas are often insensitive to the scent of their own pheromones, much like how one often cannot smell their own perfume.

“Boring,” Le Xiao rolled his eyes at him, looked down to smell his own hands, and then went to the sink to wash off the clay.

While washing his hands, he noticed a subtle change in his glands. The original slight pain had transformed into heat, as if a thousand blood vessels were throbbing in unison.

Suddenly, a vibration came from his wrist. He looked down at the monitor. it showed large fluctuations in data due to the influence of pheromones.

But I only just smelled the cedar on my hands.

Thinking of this, his eyes darted around. After drying his hands, he went over to knead Ye Jiming’s mint-scented dough. After a few minutes, he repeated his trick, covering Ye Jiming’s eyes with his mint-scented hands.

“My scent, do you smell it?” he asked in a deliberately triumphant tone.

Before Ye Jiming could respond, the monitor on Le Xiao’s wrist began to wail with alarms. The urgent “beep-beep” sounds were particularly jarring in the small room occupied only by the two of them.

Le Xiao obviously had not expected such a strong reaction. Startled, he quickly pulled his hands away and peered at the monitor. Every indicator showed significant fluctuations: heart rate was too high, and pheromone concentration was high.

Le Xiao immediately lost his nerve for pranks. He slipped back to the sink to wash his hands again and then asked, “Then your incense dough, do you need me to help you knead it?”

“No need.” Ye Jiming took a few deep breaths and calmed down. The frantic monitor silenced itself. “It is a normal physiological response. It is fine.”

As he spoke, he secretly felt relieved that he had brought two doses of “Blue Tears” when he left the house this morning.

Normal?

Before they started, Le Xiao had been worried that a lack of physical attraction would lead to stagnant data. Now, it seemed he had to worry about the fluctuations being too large and abnormal.

Thanks to this accident, Le Xiao became much more well-behaved. He took a small hammer and the kneaded cedar incense dough to begin the “refining” process by hammering it.

However, along with the constant hammering, the monitor on his wrist continued to vibrate incessantly. The screen flashed messages like “Large Data Fluctuation” and “High Pheromone Concentration.” On the other side, as Ye Jiming kneaded the mint-scented clay, his expression was hidden in the shadow of his lowered head. Only the alternating “beeps” and “buzzing” vibrations from his wrist exposed his true reaction.

For a moment, the silent room was filled only with the rising and falling alarms of two monitors, like a strange sort of symphony. Amidst the noise, Le Xiao’s face quietly flushed red.

After spacing out for who knows how long, Le Xiao was suddenly jolted awake by Ye Jiming calling his name. “Xiao Xiao, this is kneaded. You refine the incense first. I am going to the restroom.” Having said that, he placed the kneaded dough in front of Le Xiao and hurried out of the room.

When he returned a few minutes later, his complexion had returned to normal, and the monitor on his wrist was quiet again.

Once the refining was complete, the incense clay needed to sit for half a day before the next step of mold-pressing. The two left the room together, tacitly avoiding each other’s gaze, though neither knew exactly why they felt so guilty.

The Scent of Attraction

A romance reality show is not like a competitive variety show with a tight schedule and a drive to win. Most of the time, it is like a vacation, giving guests leisure time to relax while the filming focuses on “sweet moments.”

After lunch, Le Xiao took a blissful nap. By the time he woke up, the incense clay from the morning had sat long enough to be pressed into molds.

The pressing process was simple. One just had to pack the clay into the mold. Le Xiao enjoyed it immensely. He pressed the clay into small beads and picked them up to examine them, rolling them into spheres or flattening them like a child playing with plasticine.

Ye Jiming was making an incense tablet, which required a mold with a more complex pattern. He pressed several in a row, but even though his hands never stopped moving, his gaze was like it was fixed with superglue, firmly stuck on Le Xiao.

“Xiao Xiao, can you give me two of your beads?”

“What for?” Le Xiao looked up, puzzled, and covered his pressed beads with his hands. “I made these. Why should I give them to you?”

Ye Jiming laughed at his protective behavior. “You said it yourself, ‘I am in you, and you are in me.'”

Seeing Le Xiao start to glare, he quickly added, “The incense tablet alone is too plain. Adding two beads will make it look better when I string it.”

Le Xiao pursed his lips, appearing to reluctantly accept the explanation, and picked out two beads for him.

“Thank you, Xiao Xiao.” Ye Jiming smiled and reached out to ruffle his hair, but Le Xiao tilted his head to dodge.

“My hands are covered in clay. Do not touch me.” He muttered under his breath, lowering his head to continue pressing molds and ignoring Ye Jiming.

The pressed tablets and beads needed to air-dry for five to seven days before they could be polished and strung into finished products. During this time, the production team had other activities planned, bringing the incense-making session to a close.

At dinner, the eight guests reunited. Everyone was permeated with a heavy floral or herbal scent similar to their partner’s pheromones. If you got close, you could even guess what their actual pheromones smelled like.

Han Ziqian carried a refreshing osmanthus fragrance, which must be Chang Si’s pheromone, while Chang Si carried a faint scent of green grass.

Wu Shuo’s pheromone was likely an intense rose, while the jasmine scent she carried exposed Xie Zhimuo’s pheromone.

He Chen smelled strongly of sandalwood. It was unlike his personality, but it perfectly fitted the aura of his lover, Duan Weiyue. Meanwhile, Duan Weiyue carried a scent of bergamot that did not quite match his own vibe.

From a distance, it felt like an ocean of fragrances.

Upon meeting, Le Xiao chatted with the others while secretly sniffing everyone’s scent. However, the monitor on his wrist remained silent and still.

It was not until he lowered his head to smell the cedar on his own palm that the monitor buzzed twice.

Seeing this, Ye Jiming joked in his ear, “Little puppy nose, truly sharp.”

Le Xiao rolled his eyes and turned away.

He clearly had not been marked by Ye Jiming. They were not even a real couple. Why did he react so strongly to his pheromones alone?

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