The Beta Wife Claimed by Competing Alphas - Chapter 6

Lu Chong was very clingy when drunk. By the time Mu Yan managed to get him settled for sleep, it was nearly midnight. With work the next day, Mu Yan was exhausted and hurriedly lay down. As soon as he did, Lu Chong pressed against him, pulling him into an embrace from behind.

His shoulders were broad. When he held Mu Yan, he could encircle him completely within his arms.

“Why is my wife only coming to bed now? I waited until I was sleepy. I want to hold you while I sleep,” Lu Chong murmured groanningly, seemingly truly tired.

“I… went to take a shower.” Mu Yan averted his gaze, not looking into Lu Chong’s eyes.

Mu Yan had already showered that morning, yet he felt the need to wash himself again. The water in the suite took a long time to heat up; Mu Yan had wet his body with cold water, shivering. He changed out of the clothes Shang Qiyue had bought him, shrinking back into his own loose pajamas, yet he did not feel any better.

“This morning, what was it that Yan Yan wanted to tell me?”

Lu Chong’s embrace was warm. He was wearing matching coral fleece pajamas with Mu Yan. The fabric was soft, something they had bought by chance while browsing a night market. Mu Yan was a Beta and could not smell pheromones. Lu Chong had mentioned his scent was Vetiver, so he intentionally used a perfume with a similar fragrance.

Mu Yan snuggled into his embrace, inhaling the familiar Vetiver scent and shaking his head.

“Then, is Yan Yan still sad?”

Mu Yan remained curled in his arms, his shoulders trembling imperceptibly. Under normal circumstances, Lu Chong was not particularly attentive. A drunk Lu Chong was even less likely to notice that Mu Yan was quietly crying in his arms. Hearing no answer for a long time, he sounded confused. “Yan Yan?”

“Go to sleep. You are drunk. Goodnight.”

Mu Yan did not sleep well that night. He suffered a rare bout of insomnia, and by the time morning approached, his head ached as if he were the one who had been drinking. After finally falling into a heavy, dazed sleep, he was awakened shortly after by his alarm.

Lu Chong had already left for the office. On the dining table sat a cup of soy milk and two red bean buns that had already gone cold; they were likely left for him by Lu Chong. Mu Yan did not heat them up, eating the cold buns with the soy milk that still held a trace of warmth.

Lu Chong did not like breakfast, nor did he have a habit of morning runs. He must have gone out specifically to buy these for Mu Yan. Looking at the packaging, it was from the shop Mu Yan usually liked; it was just a pity they were cold.

This was likely Lu Chong’s way of apologizing.

Mu Yan checked the time and dragged his tired body out the door to catch the subway. His phone, set to silent, vibrated. Seeing a call from his little niece, Jia Jia, he immediately answered.

“Jia Jia, what is it? Are you at kindergarten yet?” He forced himself to sound cheerful.

Although they were not related by blood, Mu Yan, his brother, and his stepmother had always depended on each other and shared a deep bond. Seeing the innocent and lively Jia Jia was like seeing a version of his brother who had not suffered so much. His brother and Brother Xiang Zhuo had bought Jia Jia a phone-watch, and she often called Mu Yan just for fun. Mu Yan would answer whenever he had time; if he was working, he would message her to say he was busy, and Jia Jia would obediently apologize.

“Uncle, I am not at kindergarten yet. It is so boring. Father and Papa won’t let me go.”

“Why won’t they let you go?” Mu Yan asked instinctively.

Jia Jia sounded wronged. “Papa said I have a cold and might give it to the other children. He told me to stay home and look at picture books, but I have read all of them. They won’t play with me either.”

Mu Yan smiled. “Then Uncle can only talk to you for a little bit, okay? I have to go to work, too.”

Jia Jia gave an obedient reply. Mu Yan could imagine the child smiling sweetly at her watch on the other end. When he first answered, he had been worried. Lin Guojun knew his brother’s address, and there was no guarantee debt collectors wouldn’t show up to cause trouble.

Jia Jia showed him a photo of the puzzle Lin Yi had bought her yesterday, asking Mu Yan to teach her how to do it. Mu Yan was very patient with her. “Jia Jia, look. First, pick up the pieces that have two flat sides. That’s right. Now, where do you think this piece goes?”

As the subway approached his stop, Jia Jia finished her puzzle. Mu Yan said he was heading to the office and asked if she would try to put it back together if he scrambled it.

“I will!” Jia Jia said confidently. “Hurry to work, Uncle. Goodbye!”

“By the way, Jia Jia,” Mu Yan thought of Lin Yi’s habit of only reporting good news. “Have any strange people come to the house lately?”

“Strange people?” Jia Jia was confused.

“People Jia Jia hasn’t seen before. Have there been any?”

Jia Jia thought for a moment. “I don’t think so.”

She seemed to move the watch further away, making her voice sound faint. But amidst the background noise, Mu Yan clearly heard a discordant thumping sound.

“Is someone knocking on your door, Jia Jia?”

Jia Jia seemed to run toward it because the thumping became clearer. Mu Yan even heard the muffled shouts of men.

Thump. Thump.

“Jia Jia!” Mu Yan shouted urgently. “Do not open the door. Go back to your room.”

“I’m sorry, Uncle, I was wrong.” Jia Jia seemed frightened by Mu Yan’s rare stern tone and apologized immediately. “I just wanted to look through the peephole. Papa said if I hear knocking, I should look through the peephole first.”

The noise on the other end gradually quieted as Jia Jia likely returned to her room, but Mu Yan dared not relax. “Jia Jia, stay in your room now. Do not open the door under any circumstances, do you understand?”

Mu Yan quickly called Xiang Zhuo. Xiang Zhuo said he would rush back immediately and told Mu Yan not to worry or call Lin Yi.

“He is an Omega. He can’t help even if he comes. Xiao Yan, you know that.”

“There are probably many of them, Brother Xiang Zhuo. You can’t handle them alone. I am coming, too.”

“How can you do that?” Xiang Zhuo refused immediately. He was a traditional Beta; he felt there was no reason to involve his brother-in-law in his own family’s mess. “Don’t come, Xiao Yan. Your work is more important.”

But the debt wasn’t Lin Yi’s. It was only because Lin Yi had been soft-hearted in the past that Lin Guojun happened to know his address. Mu Yan exited the subway at the nearest stop and hailed a taxi.

“Seventeen Tonghuatang Lane,” Mu Yan told the driver.

On the other end of the line, Xiang Zhuo sighed repeatedly. In his eyes, Mu Yan was still just a younger brother—a college graduate who had just started working. He didn’t want to pull Mu Yan into this, but he felt powerless against the family’s mess on his own.

Lin Guojun and Mu Juanhua were a remarried couple, each bringing a child to the new family. After they married, Lin Yi changed his surname to match his stepfather. Most remarried couples of that era did the same, likely because Mu Juanhua hoped Lin Guojun wouldn’t target the child she brought from a previous relationship.

Mu Yan was the child of Lin Guojun and his ex-wife. According to him, Mu Yan’s mother “ran away right after giving birth and never gave him a drop of milk.” But Mu Yan felt that even if his mother had truly abandoned him, he did not blame her.

Lin Guojun had been a gambler since his youth. Day and night, he was always at the village entrance playing cards with thugs, only returning home when it got dark. When there was truly no food left in the house, he would take his small cart into the city to sell pancakes for a couple of days.

The stepmother was a virtuous woman. If not for her poor health, she would have worked the fields like the local men. Even so, she raised both children while weaving bamboo baskets in her spare time to supplement the household income. On the day Mu Yan became an adult, he went to change his name, taking his stepmother’s surname.

His brother was soft-hearted, always feeling that Lin Guojun had, after all, given him food and raised him. He and his mother were both Omegas; if they had been turned out onto the street, who knew what might have happened.

Lin Guojun knew this well. The stepmother was soft on the outside but firm on the inside, and Mu Yan had long ago made his stance clear. His brother was the easiest one to manipulate.

When he owed fifty thousand in gambling debts, the first person he dared to tell was Lin Yi. In fact, he had certainly asked Lin Yi for small sums of money before, unbeknownst to Xiang Zhuo or Mu Yan.

This time, he had wept to Lin Yi, saying that if the money wasn’t paid, they would cut off his finger. He cried and swore he would never gamble again, asking for only twenty thousand to deal with the collectors, promising to pay the rest back slowly by selling pancakes.

But twenty thousand was too much. Lin Yi had a mortgage; how could he produce that kind of money? He could only desperately take on more work, hoping to earn a few thousand quickly so his father could pay off a portion. He couldn’t help with much more. Normally, he would never have accompanied a client to a place like Liuguang.

It was through this incident that Mu Yan learned Lin Guojun owed so much. That day, he ran back to the countryside home he never wanted to see again. Holding a kitchen knife, he forced Lin Guojun to write a guarantee that he would never gamble again, telling him that if he ever bothered Mu Yan or his brother again, he would kill Lin Guojun and turn himself in.

A-City wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t small either. Mu Yan had good grades; his first year of tuition at A-University was put together by the village. Over the years, many villagers remained in contact with him, and Mu Yan couldn’t guarantee Lin Guojun wouldn’t find him eventually. He wouldn’t actually kill someone, but with someone like Lin Guojun, reason and written guarantees were useless. Only making him believe he was capable of murder worked.

Mu Yan, who had never raised his voice to anyone, looked terrifying with the knife. Lin Guojun seemed truly frightened; he was still shaking when Mu Yan took the blade away from his throat.

“Xiao Yan, I am your biological father! Trust me, I just help me this one last time.”

“Keep dreaming!” Mu Yan was exhausted from shouting, his throat feeling incredibly dry. Hearing his raspy voice, the man eagerly poured him hot water, telling him not to be angry.

As Lin Guojun watched him drink, he seemed to hesitate as if to speak. Mu Yan assumed he was going to beg again and didn’t want to hear it; he just wanted to leave immediately.

However, perhaps because he had been too emotional, he felt dazed. Mu Yan suffered from mild anemia, so he didn’t think much of it, simply sitting down on a chair to rest for a moment.

But when he next regained consciousness, he was in Shang Qiyue’s bed.

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