The Beautiful Cannon Fodder Becomes The Heartthrob of the Dating Show - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: He Looks at the One He Likes

“Buzz— Buzz—”

Huo Yun was calling.

The perfect atmosphere was abruptly shattered.

When Xu Jingchu looked up, he noticed the expression on the man across from him had turned cold.

Huo Yan didn’t answer. He stared at the phone with deep, dark eyes until the call timed out and disconnected.

Xu Jingchu didn’t ask why he didn’t pick up. With a quick shift of his eyes, he picked up the rose sitting beside him and held it out. “This is for you.”

Huo Yan powered off the phone, looking up at him. “Are you… trying to coax me?”

Xu Jingchu nodded honestly. “Yes.”

“Why?” Huo Yan gripped the phone in his hand. This was, after all, the very first time they had met face-to-face.

Xu Jingchu thought for a moment. “Because you’re good-looking?”

Huo Yan stared straight at him.

Xu Jingchu didn’t shy away from his gaze; his expression was completely candid.

After a long silence, Huo Yan took the rose and whispered, “Thank you.”

In the span of these two days, he had experienced being “discarded” by his relatives and being comforted by a stranger.

For the first time in his life, Huo Yan felt fortunate that he possessed a handsome face.

It wasn’t until they left the cake shop and parted ways that Huo Yan realized, in hindsight, he had forgotten to ask the boy’s name or where he went to school.

He placed that rose into a vase in his bedroom with great care. Perhaps it was an illusion, but he felt as though the flower carried a faint, refreshing scent of narcissus.

That afternoon, Huo Yun returned home and threw a fit, complaining to his parents (Huo’s second aunt and uncle) that Huo Yan had stood him up, causing him to be mocked by his friends. He caused a massive scene, yet he didn’t dare knock on Huo Yan’s bedroom door.

That night, Huo Yan had a very long dream.

In the dream, he lived inside a book. He was an incredibly tragic and pathetic antagonist. On the day of his eighteenth birthday, his parents died in a car accident, and he was taken in by his father’s younger brother. However, the aunt and uncle who had extended a hand during his most painful hour never truly treated him as family; all they wanted was the company his father had left behind.

Their son, Huo Yun, was the protagonist of the book.

To help Huo Yun seize the company sooner, his aunt and uncle began secretly scouting for an infertile Omega partner for him from the age of twenty. Under the strict marriage laws regarding Alphas, as long as he married an infertile Omega and “finalized” the union, Huo Yun would logically become his successor.

The truly tragic plot began at age twenty-eight, starting with the moment Huo Yun invited him to dinner at Jinghui Garden.

In the book, he overheard Huo Yun’s conversation with other wealthy heirs outside the private room, but out of a sense of long-standing familial loyalty, he went inside and had a drink. That very drink was the poisonous brew that dragged him into the abyss.

The wine had been laced with a prohibited drug that could trigger an Alpha’s Enigma/Susceptibility Period.

Following that, he was sent into the room of the infertile female Omega his aunt and uncle had arranged. Losing his sanity, he naturally gave her a permanent mark and was subsequently forced to register the marriage.

To be safe, Huo Yun played a double game. He specifically arranged for the “Protagonist Shou”—who secretly harbored a crush on Huo Yun—to approach him. Miraculously, he fell madly in love with this Protagonist Shou. To be with him, he used every means possible to divorce the female Omega. Ultimately, blinded by love and a hollow promise of marriage from the Protagonist Shou, he completely handed the company over to Huo Yun at the age of thirty.

The moment Huo Yun got the company, he hired people to break Huo Yan’s legs and kicked him out of the Huo house like a dog. Huo Yun then turned around and held a “wedding of the century” with the Protagonist Shou, and the two lived happily ever after.

And so, his achievements were unlocked: unrequited love, bankruptcy, disability, being cast out, and sleeping under a bridge.

In the early morning, Huo Yan opened his eyes, staring at the familiar ceiling for a long time without moving.

It wasn’t until the alarm on the nightstand rang that he got up and walked into the bathroom, staring expressionlessly at his reflection in the mirror.

“Do I look like an idiot?”

For the first time in his life, Huo Yan cursed at himself.

He couldn’t comprehend how someone could be stupid enough to be played like a puppet, hand over his father’s company, and end up in such a miserable state as he did in that dream.

Yet the facts proved that for the past ten years, he had been led around by that family as if he were blinded.

In the air, an Alpha’s pheromones spread silently, carrying an irrepressible irritability that mirrored its owner’s current mood.

Perhaps because he was still immersed in the suffocating and absurd plot of the dream, Huo Yan didn’t notice the abnormality in his own body.

Exiting the bathroom, he looked at the rose placed by the window.

After one night, the rose was no longer as brilliant as it was yesterday, but it still commanded attention with the radiance it once held.

Huo Yan’s gaze shifted as he picked up the little dog keychain on the nightstand and shook it gently.

“Ding-ling-ling— ling-ling—”

“When I miss my mom and dad, I shake it. The sound makes me feel better.”

The boy’s clear, soft voice echoed in his mind.

Many people had appeared in Huo Yan’s dream, but that angel-like boy was the only one missing. It was precisely because the boy appeared yesterday that he hadn’t entered that private room…

At this moment, Huo Yan was like a drowning man clutching at a straw. He felt an intense, overwhelming impulse—he wanted to see the boy.

It wasn’t until he had driven out of the Huo estate that his mind began to cool down—he had no idea where the boy was.

He didn’t even know his name.

Huo Yan took a deep breath. Perhaps he had caught a cold last night; his breath was scorching, and his head felt heavy.

The black Maybach wandered aimlessly through the streets. By the time Huo Yan snapped back to reality, he realized he had unconsciously arrived outside the art studio where he had met the boy the day before.

As if possessed, he stepped out of the car and walked up the stairs.

Life always holds surprises.

Just like now—through the transparent glass door, Huo Yan saw the person he wanted to see.

Today was Sunday, and Xu Jingchu had arrived at the studio early. He was currently teaching a ten-year-old child how to apply colors.

“Teacher Xiao Chu, there’s a handsome uncle outside looking at you,” a seven or eight-year-old child whispered nearby.

Xu Jingchu looked in the direction the child was pointing.

Their eyes met.

Huo Yan felt as if something had slammed violently into his heart. With his heightened hearing, his thundering heartbeat felt impossible to hide. The gland at the back of his neck seemed to burn with excitement at the other’s attention.

Xu Jingchu walked out of the classroom, tilting his exquisite face up, his voice light and airy: “Why are you here?”

Huo Yan looked him over subtly.

Likely for the sake of work, the boy was wearing a simple pair of overalls today. He wore a cute cartoon apron stained with a few spots of paint, the straps pulling slightly at his waist, making it look so slender it could be held in one hand.

The boy radiated the scent of youth and sunshine.

“Do you want to come in and take a look?” Xu Jingchu looked at him and curled his lips into a smile.

Huo Yan’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Okay.”

The two of them walked into the studio, one after the other.

The studio was quite crowded today; over thirty children looked over curiously.

“Xu Jingchu, who is he?”

Zhang Yihui marched over aggressively from the other end of the studio, his eyes fixed deathly on Huo Yan.

This was an Alpha!