The Cannon Fodder 'Seme' is the Center of Attention Again (Quick Transmigration) - Chapter 23

Soon, Li Qingran heard the sound of the doorknob turning. Inside the lock, the gears engaged and then slowly separated, emitting a series of faint friction sounds.

The noise was not loud. It sounded somewhat like a rope winding around a pulley, and as the rope tightened, the cold blade of a guillotine rose to its peak, waiting for the executioner’s command to deliver the final verdict to the criminal below.

Li Qingran watched the door push open. As he expected, the first figure to enter his sight was Gu Shiyu.

The Alpha must have gone to find Su Jingyi immediately after hanging up the phone, speeding all the way here without having time to tidy himself up. His hair was messy, noticeable raindrops clung to his pale face, and even the hem of his black trench coat was splattered with mud.

Li Qingran guessed that after getting out of the car, he hadn’t used an umbrella, but had braved the rain to knock open the gates of this ancient Jiang family manor.

The Alpha’s expression looked stunned. He seemed shocked by the scene inside the room, or perhaps, at the moment he opened the door, he was completely overwhelmed by the two equally powerful Alpha pheromones in the room, causing his brain to reel before it could react.

His Adam’s apple bobbed uncontrollably, and his pupils remained dilated for several seconds. The instincts of his body, desire and combativeness, made him want to rush into the room and beat down the two reckless Alphas who were still releasing pheromones.

Control. Suppress. Use pheromones to strike back until they both completely surrendered to him.

But before Gu Shiyu could take a single step into the room, a cool breeze brushed his face, clearing the haze from his eyes and revealing the scene inside without reservation.

In his line of sight, the youth with black hair and gray eyes was half-leaning against the arm of the sofa, whether pushed by the Alpha beside him or by his own will. He tilted his head back slightly, and his gray eyes, looking upward, were filled with a distinct shimmer of moisture. They were like a spring pond, with ripples of light extending into a vivid red at the corners of his eyes.

He didn’t seem to feel any discomfort. Even though he was at the center of a pheromone storm, there was no sign of pain on his face. In fact, his eyes were slightly curved, and his somewhat swollen lips were parted, revealing the tip of his pink tongue to the Alpha above him. He was tempting the other to willingly turn into a fish and bite the bait he had casually cast.

Gu Shiyu watched as the Alpha, who almost completely enveloped Li Qingran, leaned down cautiously and rubbed his nose against Li Qingran’s cheek.

And Li Qingran showed no rejection. He even reached out to pat the Alpha’s head as if rewarding him. Between his long, fair fingers, a dark green gemstone ring looked exceptionally conspicuous.

Gu Shiyu felt his mind go blank, and he froze on the spot.

Wait, was this really right? Aren’t they both Alphas? Shouldn’t their pheromones be mutually repulsive and disgusting? How could they be so intimately close, even doing…

Gu Shiyu’s gaze involuntarily fell on Li Qingran’s parted lips. He saw a clear tooth mark on the moist surface. Had he bitten it himself? Or was it Jiang Siran? If he hadn’t entered, what kind of scene would have played out in this room?

Gu Shiyu didn’t dare think further. He felt his brain might have been scorched by the two Alpha pheromones. While he couldn’t understand Li Qingran and Jiang Siran, a sense of wonder that “this actually works” emerged from the depths of his mind.

What on earth was he thinking?

In the room, the scents of the two suppressing and entwining pheromones grew even thicker, making it almost impossible to breathe. Gu Shiyu gritted his teeth and used all his strength to take two steps back. As he retreated, the heavy door, which hid all the ambiguity and intimacy, was closed once more.

Bang!

The irritating scent finally vanished from his presence, but Gu Shiyu’s heart was still beating fast, and his mind felt numb. He held his position at the door, his fingers gripping the handle tightly. His head was lowered slightly, and his damp black hair obscured most of his expression, making his face look even paler and the red on his lips even more vibrant.

“I am going out for a moment.”

After a long while, Gu Shiyu finally let go. He did not look up, nor did he spare a glance at Su Jingyi. He turned and left the dark, oppressive hallway.

The creaking sound of floorboards rang out again, but only for one person.

Su Jingyi remained where he was. He stared at the door that, even though closed by Gu Shiyu, continued to leak the scent of ice and snow mixed with gunpowder. His amber eyes seemed frozen, unable to move.

At the same time, he felt his mind was clearer than ever. While thinking about how to face Li Qingran, he could even spare a thought to calculate how many times the Alpha had done something like this.

The first time was the strawberry-scented Omega. His solution then had been to send the Omega out of the country and convince himself to go to the date happily, pretending nothing had happened since “he was the one chatting with the Alpha.”

The second time was Qi Ziyan. He told himself that the Omega couldn’t control himself during heat and that Li Qingran hadn’t marked him, meaning the Alpha was still his alone and still loved him. He hadn’t even held Qi Ziyan accountable.

The result was Qi Ziyan a third time. Knowing clearly that the Alpha was his boyfriend, Qi Ziyan still chose to betray their years of friendship, kneeling before his boyfriend in a rut and begging Li Qingran to let him offer himself up to help the Alpha through the rut.

Su Jingyi didn’t want to blame Li Qingran for that. It was normal to lose control during a rut; the only one at fault was Qi Ziyan. So he chose to leave immediately and began planning to take Li Qingran away to a place far from the city where there were only the two of them. That way, they would only have each other and could only possess each other.

But before he could finish his plan, while he was picking out clothes to see Li Qingran, someone new appeared by the Alpha’s side. This time it was an Alpha. Unlike the previous Omegas, he was forceful and violent. Before Su Jingyi was ready, he had taken Li Qingran to his own nest.

This time, would he choose to leave silently again?

Su Jingyi looked at the heavy door and blinked slowly. Should he still pretend nothing had happened? Should he continue to maintain a false peace? Would doing so actually work?

No! Su Jingyi knew clearly.

The door was pushed open once again. Li Qingran reached out to push away Jiang Siran’s approaching face and looked toward the door. Su Jingyi was standing there, looking back at him.

His face was pale, and his blond hair was slightly damp, looking like a dead sea under the sunset: golden, dazzling, yet lifeless.

Li Qingran saw him smile. The corners of his mouth were pulled up like a marionette, stiff and lifeless, completely failing to reach the Omega’s eyes, which were so calm they held only desolation.

“Brother.” In the air that was about to freeze into ice, Su Jingyi looked at Li Qingran and spoke slowly. His voice was light, yet it was crystal clear in the silent room.

He said, “Am I interrupting you?”

Li Qingran did not speak.

Su Jingyi didn’t mind the Alpha’s silence. He walked slowly into the room and approached the sofa. His gaze bypassed Jiang Siran and landed on Li Qingran’s face. He paused, then continued downward until he stopped at the flash of dark green between the fair skin.

Thinking of something, he suddenly laughed out loud. The smile on his face deepened with the laughter, but his eyes became increasingly dark and unreadable.

“I remember we bought a pair of rings when we first started dating.”

Su Jingyi said softly, “But later you said wearing a ring made it hard to do experiments, so you took it off. I had a bad temper then, so seeing you weren’t wearing it, I took mine off too. Thinking about it now, I should have insisted that you wear it all the time.”

That way, there wouldn’t be so many reckless people throwing themselves at him, and the current situation where the Alpha was wearing someone else’s ring would not have happened.

The Omega leaned forward slightly, reaching his fingertips toward Li Qingran, seemingly wanting to touch the ring on his hand.

Beside him, Jiang Siran acted like a puppy about to have its favorite bone stolen. He stepped indignantly in front of Li Qingran and grabbed his hand. The dark green ring was completely shielded by another hand with distinct knuckles, and Su Jingyi’s fingertips froze in mid-air.

He blinked in great surprise, as if only just noticing that there was another person beside Li Qingran. Then, he spoke in a gentle tone.

“And you are?”

The Omega’s obvious act of playing dumb naturally did not escape Jiang Siran’s eyes. Moreover, when he had previously invited Su Jingyi, the other party clearly knew his identity. Jiang Siran did not believe that Su Jingyi wouldn’t send someone to investigate his background after returning home. Therefore, the other man definitely recognized him. This act of pretending to be a stranger, as if Jiang Siran were invisible, was merely a tactic to make him feel embarrassed and ashamed, a way to make Jiang Siran lose his nerve before they truly clashed.

This was a common tactic used by high-society “primary” Omegas to handle the “third party.”

But Jiang Siran was not an Omega, nor did he feel like a third party between Li Qingran and Su Jingyi. In fact, he behaved more like the “primary” than the actual one. Jiang Siran let out a cold snort, pressing his body even closer to Li Qingran while his dark green eyes locked onto the Omega like a venomous snake.

“Young Master Su truly has a busy person’s memory. You’ve so quickly forgotten about breaking our appointment.”

His tone was sharp, and his words were full of provocation. Li Qingran felt that Jiang Siran was one step away from jumping up, pointing at Su Jingyi’s nose, and saying, “Come on! Let’s go outside and fight. Whoever wins gets to be Li Qingran’s boyfriend!”

It was the quintessential Alpha way of handling problems.

However, just as Jiang Siran was not an Omega, Su Jingyi was not an Alpha. Faced with the provocation, the Omega standing before the sofa simply tilted his head slightly and replied in an innocent tone, “Is that so?”

Then, without sparing Jiang Siran another glance, he looked directly at Li Qingran.

“Brother, aren’t you going to introduce me?”

Jiang Siran didn’t care who the question was directed at; he rolled his eyes and snapped, “What is there to introduce? Didn’t you see that he’s wearing my—”

“That’s enough.”

Before Jiang Siran could say something that would cause Su Jingyi to have a mental breakdown, Li Qingran interrupted him. Then, seeing the instantly aggrieved look in Jiang Siran’s eyes, he gently patted the back of his hand to soothe him.

“Do you remember what we agreed on earlier?”

“But—” Jiang Siran was still unwilling, but under Li Qingran’s persistent gaze, he eventually backed down. “Fine, I won’t say it. I’m not like some people who go back on their word!”

Jiang Siran stood up from the sofa with great reluctance.

“I’ll be just outside. Call me immediately if anything happens.”

“Okay,” Li Qingran gave Jiang Siran a smile. The smile flickered brilliantly under the firelight, so much so that Jiang Siran almost sat back down. However, remembering the words he had just boasted, Jiang Siran gritted his teeth and turned to walk toward the door.

The wooden door, which had endured a heavy workload today, opened and closed once more. Following the dull thud of the lock engaging, only Li Qingran and Su Jingyi remained in the room, which was still thick with the scent of gunpowder.

Su Jingyi watched as Li Qingran took the dark green ring off his middle finger and placed it in the wooden box on the table. Then, the Alpha looked up at him. Orange flames danced in his gray eyes, but unexpectedly, Su Jingyi felt no warmth from them.

Su Jingyi suddenly felt that the Alpha before him was a stranger.

Was it because they had spent too little time together recently? Or had the Alpha truly had a change of heart? Did he love someone else and want to leave him—leave him forever?

The Omega’s fingertips at his sides trembled uncontrollably. His gaze remained fixed on Li Qingran’s hand. Even though the ring had been removed, he still felt a faint trace of green between those fair knuckles, like a snake coiled there that refused to leave.

How could he treat me like this?

He refused to mark him, yet he could accept comfort from others. He told him to shut up, yet he could smile while waiting for someone else’s answer. He wouldn’t wear his ring, but now he allowed someone else to leave a mark on his finger.

Why? By what right?

By what right could the Alpha provoke him and then leave so abruptly, leaving him alone to struggle and suffocate in this swamp of emotion until he died?

“You can’t…” Su Jingyi heard his own trembling voice. “Brother, you can’t.”

“You can’t leave me. You are mine—for this entire life!”

Rumble—

The rain outside grew heavier, but the temperature inside the room rose because of the fireplace. Amidst the flickering firelight, the slender figure that had been standing on the gray-black floor drifted down to the Alpha’s feet like a leaf battered by heavy rain.

He reached out and grabbed the finger Li Qingran had worn the ring on. Before the other could react, he shoved it into his mouth.

The long finger was forced violently into his throat. The urge to gag brought a mist of tears to the Omega’s amber eyes, but even so, he did not spit the finger out. Instead, he pushed it even deeper.

The rounded fingertip stimulated the Omega to swallow repeatedly, and saliva began to pool in his tender mouth. The finger became wet under the wrapping of his tongue, and finally, at the base of that once-markless finger, a clear tooth mark appeared thanks to the Omega’s efforts.

“You are mine!”

Even if he deceived him or betrayed him, he had to be his!

“Then help me do an experiment.”

Just as the Omega wanted to deepen the brand he had just left on the Alpha’s hand, a hand that felt as though it had been soaked in ice water for a long time suddenly gripped his chin.

The freezing touch stopped the Omega’s primal biting. The released finger slid out of his mouth, and a silver thread of saliva flashed in the air. In the next second, Su Jingyi found his heavy head tilted upward by the force on his chin.

As he struggled to see the gray eyes before him, a flash of white light streaked past the window. The instantaneous illumination revealed the Alpha’s current expression and, simultaneously, Su Jingyi’s own damp reflection in those gray eyes.

Another clap of thunder exploded over the manor. Between the lightning and thunder, the sky looked as though a massive, pitch-black gash had been torn into it, threatening to swallow the entire world.

Anxiety. Struggle.

In the deathly silent room, as a thick scent of lemon rapidly spread, Li Qingran’s voice drifted through the crack of the door to the Alpha waiting outside.

“Jiang Siran!”

In the next second, two hands grabbed the doorknob at the same time.

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