The Cold Side Character from a Male-Lead Novel is Pregnant - Chapter 23.2

Just as he was preparing to finish, his gaze swept over a corner of the living room. There sat an extremely luxurious dog bed with plush lamb’s wool padding, surrounded by several chew toys and a very sturdy leather leash.

Zhang Xingzhi stopped in his tracks. The compass needle jumped violently again, even emitting a slight hum.

“This…” He crouched down, studying the dog bed closely, and sniffed the air with a furrowed brow. “This dog bed of yours is too, too, too scandalous, isn’t it?”

“What now?” Chen Kan was impatient. “Is there a problem with where the dog sleeps too?”

To ensure today’s survey went smoothly, Chen Kan had even sent their dog, Taro, and the cats to a pet groomer. He hadn’t expected this “Tony” to have cut off his brain along with his hair. Zhang Xingzhi began to rant at the dog bed with great excitement: “The problem is that the residue isn’t simply a pet’s scent at all!”

Zhang Xingzhi pushed up his glasses, his gaze sharp and his tone certain. “There has been an incredibly strong exchange of energy here, carrying the undertones of dominance and submission. And the frequency was not low.”

Chen Kan’s heart leaped, but his face grew colder. “Speak human.”

Zhang Xingzhi pointed to the leather leash, noting the obvious friction marks on the inside of the metal buckle. “This leash, was it really only used for a dog? Is it possible, it was used for someone else? For example, a certain owner who, on a whim, voluntarily put on a collar?”

Chen Kan: “…”

Chen Kan was out of options. He slightly regretted bringing this character Zhang Xingzhi here.

However, Zhang Xingzhi acted as if he didn’t see the terrifyingly cold expression. He pressed his finger into a slightly collapsed area of the lamb’s wool. “And this cushion, looking at the shape and depth of the pressure, it doesn’t look like a dog made it. It looks like… it was left by a human kneeling or lying prostrate for a long time. You two play quite wild, don’t you?”

The rims of Chen Kan’s ears were so red they almost bled. A memory from three years ago flashed through his mind Yan Yu with a collar around his neck, his black hair brushing against the velvet cushion, looking back at him with wet eyes full of trust and shyness.

But that only happened once… and Yan Yu was so shy he called for a stop after five minutes. Can five minutes even count? It wasn’t “frequent” at all. This was ridiculous.

Chen Kan forcibly cut off the memory, his voice dry. “Stop writing a novel. None of that happened. Just tell me what to do.”

“Fine, fine, it didn’t happen.” Zhang Xingzhi suddenly sighed and stopped questioning. He recorded quickly in his notebook. “Anyway, the energy field here is extremely disordered. I suggest a thorough cleaning. Move the dog bed to the sun for at least a week. As for these chew sticks and the leash…” He paused. “I suggest just getting rid of them. Don’t keep them at all.”

He stood up and summarized, “Overall, this house has too much ‘desire-poison.’ I will give you some incense and charm water to purify the home. You must do it as required.”

“What happens after ‘purification’?” Chen Kan’s tone carried obvious distrust.

“What else? The inner demon symptoms will lessen.” Zhang Xingzhi put away his compass and rubbed his chin. “But speaking of which, Director Yan’s current lactation issue is probably more troublesome than the desire-poison in the house.”

Chen Kan looked at him. “Do you have a way?”

“Well, there are two ways.” Zhang Xingzhi held up two fingers. “I’ll start with the less reliable one. There’s a folk remedy for ‘drying up’ milk using malt water. Its effectiveness varies. But that’s for postpartum women. Director Yan’s case… in principle, it belongs to ‘external evil invasion and disordered blood energy.’ But your wife is a man, after all. If we use this formula forcefully, it might clash with his own spiritual veins.”

Chen Kan’s brow tightened. “The other one.”

“The other one is more reliable but also more troublesome,” Zhang Xingzhi said seriously. “This ‘lactation’ is a physiological anomaly catalyzed by the inner demon. The root is in the mind, not the body. So we have to resolve it starting from the inner demon. Either you accompany him in acting out this ‘play’ smoothly until he ‘naturally’ stops lactating, or you find the crux of his inner demon and uproot it.”

“Act it out?” Chen Kan repeated.

“Yes. According to his current perception, he is a Consort who just gave birth, so you are the Prince.” Zhang Xingzhi rubbed his stubble. “Postpartum lactation is very logical in this context. If you forcibly interrupt or deny it, it might actually worsen his inner demon. Better to… go with the flow. Once he feels it is time to stop, the symptoms will naturally fade.”

Chen Kan was silent. Go with the flow? How exactly was he supposed to do that? If it only meant continuing to cooperate with Yan Yu’s requests for “fiefdoms,” that was fine, but going with the flow here likely included more intimate contact. He thought of Yan Yu’s appearance this morning, and that surge of bitterness rose again.

“What about uprooting the crux?” Chen Kan’s voice was heavy.

“That’s like the last book; you have to find the ‘core’ of his inner demon.” Zhang Xingzhi spread his hands. “Why did he project himself into this specific book? Why is he obsessed with ‘fiefdoms’ and ‘heirs’? What kind of fear or desire in his reality corresponds to these obsessions? You have to figure that out before you can apply the right medicine.”

Chen Kan leaned against the wall, his gaze shifting to the maps Yan Yu had stuck on the living room wall. The Liangguang region had been circled in pencil over and over again. Fear? Desire? What was Yan Yu afraid of? And what was he seeking?

“I’ll… think about it,” Chen Kan finally said.

“Alright, take your time.” Zhang Xingzhi pulled several items from his bag rolls of incense, several yellow charms, and a small porcelain bottle. “Use these first. Stick the charms in the four corners of the front door, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. Light one incense stick in the living room every day before bed. Mix the charm water from the porcelain bottle into fresh water and wipe down the places where you two often stay. At least it will stop the situation from worsening. I’ll have my assistant send some things over immediately; they’re expensive, but I won’t charge you. Just place them in the house as he instructs.”

Chen Kan took the items and nodded.

“As for Director Yan…” Zhang Xingzhi paused, his tone unusually serious. “Captain Chen, just follow his lead. People inside an inner demon are fragile. Every time you reject him, he might retreat a bit deeper. Even if it’s for his own good… don’t be too harsh.”

Chen Kan didn’t respond; he just tightened his grip on the porcelain bottle. The cold temperature seeped into his palm.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city. During a break in the academic conference, Yan Yu sat alone in a corner of the lounge. His notebook was spread before him, but he held his phone in his hand. The screen was on, displaying a real-time view of the living room at home. The angle was clear, and the sound was also clear.

He wore wireless earphones. His handsome face was expressionless, but his fingertips unconsciously stroked the edge of the phone. In the video, Chen Kan was standing in front of that dog bed, his back looking somewhat stiff.

After a long while, the tall man in the video bent down and picked up the leather leash. He gripped it in his hand for a moment before walking toward the trash can on the balcony.

Yan Yu didn’t hear a single word of the speeches during the second half of the academic conference.

Initially, he had opened the home surveillance app during a break just to check if the cubs were secretly tearing up the house. Instead, he saw Chen Kan chatting happily with a clean-cut young man. Although he couldn’t hear everything, the fragments of sentences echoing in his earphones were automatically pieced together by his brain:

“…Dominance submission collar, Master next time, try it.”

What on earth?

How scandalous.

And in his “bedchamber,” no less pointing at his things and telling Chen Kan how to rearrange them?

Most importantly: Where were his cubs? Had Chen Kan driven them all out just to have a tryst with this man in his room?

Yan Yu’s head throbbed with anger. He pocketed his phone and rushed home.

By the time he arrived, the “little concubine” was already gone. However, this boundary-less interloper had indeed sent various items as promised, setting up a Feng Shui ritual site in his room.

In the center of the originally minimalist modern living room, several bright yellow charms were stuck symmetrically to the edge of the imported Italian wool rug. As Yan Yu’s gaze shifted right, he saw a row of bronze “Five Emperor” coins strung on red thread, lined up along the edge of the kitchen island like a bizarre decorative strip.

That wasn’t all.

By the floor-to-ceiling windows, next to a carefully nurtured fiddle-leaf fig, stood a massive, menacing cactus. Shimmering crushed stones were scattered over the soil. Even next to the dog bed, there was now a small bronze incense burner with three sticks of incense burning quietly. The blue smoke rose straight up, and when Yan Yu pushed the door open, the scent of sandalwood mixed with metallic rust hit him in the face.

Was he trying to smoke out his cubs?

Yan Yu grew angrier as he looked around, finally meeting the gaze of Chen Kan, who had hurried out of the bedroom upon hearing him return. After a few seconds of silence, Chen Kan spoke first:

“You’re back early today.”

Yan Yu didn’t respond.

He changed into his slippers and walked to the island, his fingertips brushing over the cold bronze coins. He moved to the bathroom door, touching the tassels of a peach wood sword, and finally stopped before the incense burner, staring at the burning sticks.

“What is this?” he asked, his voice flat.

“Purifying the house,” Chen Kan replied concisely.

Yan Yu’s lips curled into a faint, cold smile. “Don’t be too possessive of someone else’s bedchamber. If you wish to frolic with your concubine, why not open another courtyard?”

Chen Kan was stunned. “What concubine?”

“The clean-cut man you brought into my room today.”

Chen Kan paused, realizing Yan Yu must have seen something on the surveillance. He frowned slightly. “You mean that slightly balding, small-eyed Zhang Xingzhi? You think I’d have the stomach for that?”

“Oh,” Yan Yu shrugged, “don’t you love to play?”

The “official lead” in the novel was indeed like that indiscriminate and notoriously debauched.

Chen Kan took the hit with a cold face: “Even if I loved to play, I wouldn’t be that desperate.”

Yan Yu extinguished the incense in the burner and gave a slight sneer. “With someone as unscrupulous as you, even a sixty-year-old man would probably look like a beauty once the lights are out.”

Chen Kan: “…?”

It took a long time for the vein in Chen Kan’s forehead to stop throbbing.

“Yan Yu, are you sure you were watching the home surveillance and not footage from a criminal case?”

Yan Yu, likely distinguishing facts through his subconscious, couldn’t understand him but was venting his suppressed anger. He gave a cold, dismissive glance as if he found the room dirty, turned to open the windows for ventilation, and then said grandly:

“It doesn’t matter if you like to play. If you need it, I can find seventy or eighty old men for you.”

Chen Kan’s forehead vein throbbed again. Seventy or eighty old men? A different “father” every day? That would be…

“You’re surprisingly kind.” Chen Kan mused. “Since you’re being so good to me, should I give you some benefits in return?”

Yan Yu replied solemnly, “Of course. I’ve been ‘shared’ by the Chen father and son for so many years. Even if I weren’t good to you, you’d still owe me.”

Chen Kan’s fists tightened at that specific word. “Xiao Yan” had clearly been loaded with too much “smut fiction” data; even his speech was becoming aggressive.

“What do you want then?” Chen Kan asked.

Yan Yu walked to the wall and pulled out a mechanical pencil. He stared at the map in deep thought, unconsciously poking his cheek with the end of the pencil, clicking out a bit of lead. Then, he lifted his hand and began drawing circles on the map—one, two, three.

Besides the Liangguang region already marked with a dart, four or five more areas were circled. He still wanted land.

Chen Kan was prepared for this. Since learning that Yan Yu’s inner demon required “fiefdoms” as a way to plan for the cubs, Chen Kan had been thinking of ways to provide more emotional value to break the spell.

He had commissioned a custom set of darts overnight. Each flight was printed with a kitten’s head—seven darts, seven different faces. The shop owner had thrown in an extra one with Taro’s photo on it.

Currently, the dart representing the long-haired “Green Tea Cat” was already pinned to Liangguang, its little flag fluttering with the hilarious air of the “Meow-Meow Sect” occupying the region. Now that Yan Yu was starting to “distribute land,” Chen Kan immediately pulled the remaining darts from the drawer.

He grabbed one at random—it was Taro’s.

Without picking favorites, Chen Kan followed Yan Yu’s lead and “thwack”—pinned the small dart with Taro’s face right in the center of Handong Province.

“Handong has a lot of ‘dishes’ (food), so let’s put the ‘vegetable dog’ (slang for a weak player/noob) there.”

He spoke as if he were Qin Shi Huang, but he was really just playing along. It’s not like he could actually give away provinces.

However, as soon as the dog dart hit the map, Yan Yu became upset. He stared at the “Taro Flag,” his eyelashes casting shadows on his porcelain skin, and his cheek puffed out slightly, a tiny habit Chen Kan always caught when Yan Yu was about to express his feelings.

Sure enough, Yan Yu’s voice was cold and his rejection explicit:

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Handong goes to Sister Calico (Sanhua).” Yan Yu pointed at the map. “She is frail and needs a wealthy land to recover. This ‘son’ of yours, ” he paused, choosing a refined but disdainful term, “is simple-minded and physically strong. It would be a waste for him to occupy such a treasure.”

Chen Kan: “…”

Son? If Taro knew his status in his “father’s” heart, his dog food would lose its flavor.

Fortunately, Chen Kan was a fair father. “The map is so big, what does it matter where I put it?”

Chen Kan kept a straight face and picked up the dart with Sister Calico’s head. He gave it a casual toss and as luck would have it, it landed right on Japan.

Chen Kan thought, Japan it is then. It’s like sending his daughter to study abroad. They have plenty of fresh fish there; she can eat all the sashimi she wants.

The next second, Yan Yu’s left cheek, which had only been slightly puffed, suddenly filled with air like a blowfish. His cold gaze became sharp as a hooked knife, glaring at Chen Kan.

“The Land of Wa?” Yan Yu’s tone was flat, but his eyes looked ready to kill. “You want to send Sister Calico to a place where even a dog wouldn’t go?”

Chen Kan: “…”

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