The Beautiful Wife I Picked Up Is A Little Mute - Chapter 45

Chapter 45: Never Again

Given Xie Mo’s aggrieved expression, anyone would have “overthought” it.

The meal itself passed somewhat pleasantly, except for the lingering frustration in Ji Hanyue’s chest. Since everyone had their own business to attend to, they didn’t linger long. Ji Hanyue didn’t want any more complications, so he booked flight tickets directly instead of driving back with Nie Xi and the others.

He thought they would return smoothly, but trouble arose mid-flight. Xie Mo suddenly clutched his stomach, his face turning deathly pale. He signed that his stomach hurt and he needed to use the restroom.

Last night had indeed been much more intense than usual. In a fit of perverse playfulness, Ji Hanyue had forced Xie Mo to swallow things he shouldn’t have. There was a high probability that this was the cause. So, he let him go.

At that moment, Xie Mo had only one intense thought: escape Ji Hanyue, the further the better. He managed to blend into the crowd and lose sight of Ji Hanyue, but just as he was about to exit the airport, the intercom crackled to life:

“Attention all passengers, attention all passengers! A child is currently lost in the airport. The lost child is an Omega, approximately 1.7 meters tall, wearing a white padded coat and brown straight-leg trousers…”

At that exact moment, Xie Mo felt the gazes of everyone around him shift toward him. He never dreamed Ji Hanyue would stoop to such a tactic. Under the watchful eyes of the public, airport security found him and told him earnestly not to wander off and worry his “elders.”

They escorted Xie Mo straight to the boarding gate. There, Ji Hanyue stood with his arms crossed, staring at him with a dark, heavy gaze. Though Xie Mo shouldn’t have felt guilty, he didn’t dare look Ji Hanyue in the eye.

Ji Hanyue walked over slowly, seized his wrist, and locked it in his palm. “Try running again, and I’ll send you right back to the casino.”

Xie Mo became obedient.

The journey back to the villa was full of twists and turns, but they finally arrived. Upon landing, Xie Mo turned on his phone and a message popped up. It was from Cui Yejin.

“If that Omega is truly unwilling, just let him go.”

Anyone could have said this to him, but Cui Yejin was the least likely candidate. Ji Hanyue was nearly moved to angry laughter.

“You didn’t think that way when you were chasing Xie Shi.”

Everyone knew about the incident at the Z City airport—it had caused a massive stir. To find a certain Beta, Cui Yejin had used high-level connections to forcibly delay the takeoff of every single flight. The Cui family was wealthy and powerful; if they hadn’t compensated every traveler, the complaints would have crashed their phone lines.

A moment later, another message arrived: “That Omega… he wasn’t bought from an auction, was he?”

Ji Hanyue frowned, suddenly feeling that the person on the other end didn’t sound like Cui Yejin. “I don’t have that fetish. That place is a cesspool; I’ve never been.”

“Okay.”

To test his theory, Ji Hanyue tentatively asked: “Mr. Xie?”

After that message was sent, there was no further reply.

…

After dropping Xie Mo off at the villa, Ji Hanyue received a call from his father. The tone was non-negotiable: he was to return to the ancestral home. He was impatient, but he had to go. To prevent Xie Mo from escaping again, he locked the doors.

When Ji Hanyue returned that night, he scanned the house and couldn’t see any sign of Xie Mo. A bad premonition grew wildly in his heart. The doors were locked; Xie Mo couldn’t have gotten out. He searched nearly every inch of the villa but couldn’t find a living soul.

Just as his anger reached a breaking point and he reached for his phone to call in a search party, the master bedroom door was pushed open. Xie Mo walked out wearing loose pajamas, his hair messy and sticking up. His face had the flush of someone who had just woken up; clearly, his spirits were quite good.

Ji Hanyue realized belatedly that when he searched the master bedroom, he had seen a pile of bedding tossed haphazardly on the sofa. In his frantic state, he had ignored the fact that a person was hidden beneath those ordinary-looking folds.

As a result, Xie Mo was scolded for no reason: “From now on, you’re not allowed to sleep on the sofa! And when you sleep, you must leave your face visible!”

It wasn’t that Xie Mo wanted to sleep on the sofa, but Ji Hanyue had locked every room except the master bedroom. He didn’t want to sleep in Ji Hanyue’s bed, so the sofa was a temporary solution.

During this period, Ji Hanyue was exceptionally busy. Sometimes he wouldn’t return for an entire day, only entering the bedroom late at night to hold Xie Mo while he slept. Meanwhile, Xie Mo was completely locked inside the villa; whenever Ji Hanyue left, the door was locked from the outside.

In the first few days, Xie Mo spent hours trying to pick the lock. After two hours of fiddling, he finally believed Ji Hanyue—he really couldn’t open this lock. He then turned his attention to the housekeeper. The housekeeper managed the villa’s affairs and surely had a key.

But Ji Hanyue had anticipated this. Before Xie Mo even arrived at the villa, he had granted the housekeeper a vacation, telling him to travel and not return until summoned. So, after nearly a week, Xie Mo hadn’t seen a shadow of the housekeeper.

Running out of options, Xie Mo began a hunger strike. He thought simply: if he was willful and acted against Ji Hanyue’s wishes, perhaps Ji Hanyue would grow tired of him and let him go.

He was wrong.

At first, Ji Hanyue didn’t realize Xie Mo was doing it on purpose; he just thought the food wasn’t to his taste. But after several times of Xie Mo sitting listlessly at the table, barely touching his lips to the sauce before claiming he was full or simply not hungry, Ji Hanyue finally realized it was intentional.

That evening, Ji Hanyue called in a private chef. The long table was covered in various dishes. He sat opposite Xie Mo with his arms crossed and tilted his chin. “Eat all of it.”

Xie Mo stared at the massive spread of food and wondered if he had misheard. Me? Eat all of this alone?

Under intense pressure, Xie Mo nearly vomited after eating only two bowls of rice and one full plate.

The next day, Ji Hanyue invited the head chef of a Japanese restaurant to the villa. Platters of sashimi were piled like mountains, sukiyaki bubbled away, and the table was packed. Ji Hanyue commanded indifferently: “Finish it.”

If Xie Mo didn’t listen, Ji Hanyue would use the casino as a threat. The third day, the fourth day…

Finally, unable to endure the nightly pressure and forced feeding, Xie Mo stumbled into the bathroom. Leaning over the toilet, he vomited everything in his stomach until he was empty.

Xie Mo cried uncontrollably; he felt Ji Hanyue had gone insane. Ji Hanyue stood in the doorway, his expression unreadable. He quietly handed over some tissues and leaned down close to Xie Mo’s ear, his voice calm to the point of coldness:

“All cleaned out? There’s some freshly steamed date paste cake. Do you want to try some?”

Xie Mo reached his breaking point. He clung to Ji Hanyue’s leg, shaking his head frantically. While sobbing, he pulled Ji Hanyue’s hand and wrote: “I won’t hunger strike ever again.”

Ji Hanyue looked down at the Omega beneath him. “And what else?”

Xie Mo’s mind was chaotic, but he finally remembered. He wrote with trembling fingers on the Alpha’s hand: “I won’t think about leaving ever again. I’ll stay obediently in the villa and wait for you to come back.”