To Marry My Little Chestnut - Chapter 31

The pale white light of the streetlamp fell on Zheng Tingyang’s shoulders, tracing his silhouette against the darkness.

The man leaned against the roof of the car. In the night of mingled rain and snow, he had likely been waiting outside for a long time; there was no white mist from his breath when he spoke.

Yu Yan was somewhat dazed, sitting blankly in the back seat. Watching the man, whose suit was mostly soaked, lean in to invite him home, it felt as if a string in his mind had snapped. He murmured, “Tingyang.”

Zheng Tingyang’s eyes crinkled slightly at the corners. “Get out of the car, Little Fish. We are home.”

Yu Yan reached out blankly and let the man help him out of the car. Looking at the familiar streets and neighborhood, it felt as if he had never left, as if he had only taken a short nap in the car.

The phone rang abruptly again. The driver called out, “President Zheng, if there are no other instructions, I will head out now.”

Yu Yan looked up, watching Zheng Tingyang with caution and confusion. His gaze was as clear as transparent amber crashing into the boundless night, finally meeting Zheng Tingyang’s eyes.

By this time, the plane would have already taken off. He realized belatedly that he could not go to Country P. Zheng Tingyang had discovered his lie.

But Tingyang was not angry. When the phone rang for the third time with a call from Xiang Qian, Zheng Tingyang answered it for him and held it to his ear. “Tell him where you are.”

“Little Fish? Little Fish? Where are you? I cannot find you. I am at the boarding gate, I”

“Xiang Qian, I” Yu Yan frowned, still in a dreamlike state of disbelief. He looked up at the high-rise buildings of the surrounding neighborhood and muttered, “I am home.”

Before Xiang Qian could ask a follow-up question, Zheng Tingyang hung up the phone and put it in his pocket.

Zheng Tingyang’s palms were very cold from waiting in the rain and snow for a long time. A thin layer of snow had settled on his shoulders. He took Yu Yan’s hand. “Be careful going out in this weather. I have been too busy lately and put your matters in the back of my mind. You slept in the car for so long; is your back sore?”

“If you wanted to go abroad, why did you not let me help you pack? Are you afraid of me?”

Yu Yan shook his head obediently. As they entered the elevator, he softly called out, “Tingyang.”

Zheng Tingyang glanced at him. His cold eyes were filled with disappointment. As the elevator ascended floor by floor, Zheng Tingyang’s voice sounded calm but was on the verge of losing control from rage. The veins on the back of his hand bulged. When the elevator doors opened, he led Yu Yan out. “Little Fish, am I not good to you?”

“What are you dissatisfied with?”

The door to the apartment opened and the lights flickered on, making the man’s silhouette clearly visible. Yu Yan had never seen such an expression on Zheng Tingyang’s face before. It seemed painful; had he also been crying? His eyes were bloodshot, like a resentful Rakshasa crawling out of hell.

“I scared you, did I not?” Zheng Tingyang wiped his face and hurried to take the bag off Yu Yan’s shoulder. “I did not want to, Little Fish. There are many things I do not want you to know. How nice would it be if we lived our lives quietly without others disturbing us?”

Zheng Tingyang pressed him down to sit on the sofa. Yu Yan instinctively cradled his lower abdomen.

Zheng Tingyang gave a light laugh, kneeling on one knee and leaning his cheek against Yu Yan’s belly to listen. “The child is already this big. He will be born in a few months. He is our child.”

“Tingyang, I, I was not going to leave.” Yu Yan was a bit frightened by his behavior and bit his lip.

“A flight tonight to Country P. Were you not going to Xiang Qian’s house?” He sharply pointed out the lie.

“How did you know?” Yu Yan’s heart skipped a beat, but he did not dare meet the man’s eyes.

Seeing this, Zheng Tingyang’s eyes narrowed further, seeing through his heart. “Did you want a divorce, or did you want to see the Old Master one last time? You feel cheated, do you not?”

Yu Yan was shocked, staring at him with dilated pupils. This unheralded feeling of having his entire life controlled was terrifying. Yu Yan’s head buzzed, and he instinctively protested, “I, I did not want a divorce. I just wanted to go see him.”

Zheng Tingyang’s brow furrowed. He stared at him with dark eyes and sighed, “Little Fish, you are not being good.”

The man’s voice was ethereal. He pinched Yu Yan’s chin forcefully, and a kiss mixed with the sweet scent of chestnut came surging over. Yu Yan’s eyes widened. “Mmf!”

Zheng Tingyang leaned over, instantly pinning him down and giving him no chance to resist. Yu Yan’s belly made movement inconvenient. When a faint pheromone quietly bloomed in the air, Yu Yan’s limbs went soft. It was a soothing pheromone used for the heat period.

Smothered by the scent, Yu Yan immediately lost his strength and lay back on the sofa. “Tingyang.”

Zheng Tingyang held a needle, grabbed Yu Yan’s arm, and slowly pushed the soothing pheromones into his skin. “Little Fish, I will not hurt you. This will make you comfortable, and it is good for our child. You will be very awake, but you will not be able to speak, and you will feel almost no pain.” At this point, Zheng Tingyang suddenly laughed to himself. “If I were an Alpha, why would I need to give you an injection?”

Zheng Tingyang gathered Yu Yan’s soft, animal-like body into his arms, affectionately nuzzling his neck with his nose. “In the end, I am still useless.”

Zheng Tingyang’s voice was so gentle. When he kissed him, it was very light, for fear of hurting him. But his hands were clenched tight, and the madness in his eyes could not be hidden. He buried his face in Yu Yan’s neck, sniffing his scent and muttering, “Why can I not smell it? Your chestnut scent, why can I not smell it?”

Yu Yan’s breath nearly stopped. He opened his mouth, but his limbs had turned as limp as a boneless animal. He was carried to the bed by Zheng Tingyang and sank heavily into it. He tried to struggle, but his wrists were grabbed. His eyelids could no longer stay open under the invasion of the pheromones, but he heard the clinking sound of metal.

“The baby, the baby is” He sobbed because his lower abdomen felt uncomfortable.

His skin had a clear perception. He could feel the man’s palms wandering over his body, moving from his collarbone slowly down to his protruding belly. He was dreaming while wide awake.

“Yu Yan, why did you want to leave! Why?”

Yu Yan’s breath was scorching. The man’s voice tore back and forth between extreme rage and gentle calm. The raspy voice was more like a wild beast pressing against him, pinning him down and tearing at its prey.

It was snowing heavily in Haicheng today. The cold wind was piercing.

Yu Yan’s body could not withstand this to begin with. Furthermore, Zheng Tingyang’s surgically altered body would cause him to respond fervently even when not in his heat period. Yu Yan’s tears gradually turned from murky to transparent. He buried his head in the pillow and wailed, breathless with sobbing.

Zheng Tingyang throttled his throat and turned his head from behind, forcing his fingertips into Yu Yan’s mouth. “Breathe, baby, breathe.”

“Tingyang, you cannot” Yu Yan tried hard to open his eyes, letting out a nearly suffocating whimper from his throat.

“Why can I not? Yu Yan, do not be so heartless to me.” Zheng Tingyang bit his lip and bit the back of his neck, his voice pleading, “Please, do not do this to me. If I were an Alpha, would it be okay?”

Yu Yan could not tell if this was a dream. He had experienced very similar dreams before. In the dreams, a car repeatedly smashed and crushed him, watching him in pain but refusing to stop. Time and again, it watched him cry until he convulsed but still wanted to crush him. This nightmare had haunted him many times during his pregnancy, making him toss and turn in extreme pain, tearing him apart.

The dream of being hit and then clutching his belly to beg the killer to let him go had now become clear and vivid. The killer in the dream was Zheng Tingyang, and the person in reality was also him. He was smashed to pieces, lying in disarray, his eyes swollen from crying and unable to open.

“You are crazy, Zheng Tingyang! Do you not know he is pregnant?” Zhou Jiangru arrived in the early morning. Seeing this scene upon entering, she nearly called the police.

Zheng Tingyang’s chest and back were covered in bloody scratches, and there were two clear slap marks on his face—Yu Yan had hit him while crying when the pain became too much.

“I know.” Zheng Tingyang rubbed his temples. “He has been in a fever. Will his body be affected because”

Before Yu Yan completely fainted, he had been unable to breathe; his emotions were too intense, leading to a syncope.

Without waiting for him to finish, Zhou Jiangru called Jing Chen to have him send medicine. “You injected him with a sedative? How could your illness make you hurt even him?”

The small person on the bed was gasping for air as if his breath might break at any moment. The severe bruising on his body looked horrific. The handcuffs on his wrists had been removed. When Zheng Tingyang went mad, he recognized no one. His bipolar disorder was very severe. To achieve his goals, he would use any means necessary; he had once even cut his own neck until the vertebrae were exposed just to try and create a gland.

The doctor performed an emergency examination on Yu Yan. Because Yu Yan was in the mid-to-late stage of pregnancy, the fetus was stable. A pheromone injection had also been administered beforehand. It was intense emotion and continuous stimulation that caused respiratory alkalosis, inducing the faint. Zhou Jiangru used the diagnostic equipment to check him. “Dammit, even the reproductive cavity is open.”

Without an Alpha, it is difficult for an Omega’s reproductive cavity to react, especially when not in a heat period. It was evident how heavy-handed Zheng Tingyang had been.

Zheng Tingyang had taken a sedative, but his palms still could not stop trembling. “Little Fish.”

“I am warning you, you cannot do this! Do you want him to be scared to death by you?”

Zheng Tingyang’s Adam’s apple rolled with tension. He was so frustrated he wanted to take a knife to himself. Recognizing the reality, he could only nod repeatedly. “I know, I know.”

Before leaving, Zhou Jiangru was still uneasy and ordered him to put on a heart rate monitor. If it exceeded normal indicators, she and Jing Chen would rush over immediately.

Once everyone left, Yu Yan lay on the bed receiving a nutrient drip, still unconscious. Even in his dreams, he could not stop crying, sobbing over and over again.

Zheng Tingyang knelt by the bed and slapped himself several times. How did it come to this? Why could he not control himself? Yu Yan was carrying his child; it was not easy and very tiring. How could he have the heart to do this? How could he be such a monster?

“Do not leave me, please, please. Without you, I would be dead.”

Zheng Tingyang held Yu Yan’s hand, his palms still shaking uncontrollably. He was truly afraid. Yu Yan was his everything, his only one in this life. In the five years from Haicheng to the capital, he had gained everything—money, status, power—except for the one thing: he could not mark Yu Yan.

Why was it that things others were born with were impossible for him to obtain no matter what he did? When Yu Yan’s scent was smelled by others outside, he could not even detect it immediately. Even an animal like Gao Wenjing could smell it; why could he not?

Yu Yan could not be marked by him; Yu Yan was not his. As long as he was the least bit careless, this person could buy a ticket and fly to some corner of the world. A completely marked Omega cannot leave an Alpha’s pheromones. But Yu Yan would never be marked by him. Never!

He remembered the years of struggling at the port, taking bullets and knives for others, thinking that having everything would buy him a marriage with Yu Yan. His Little Fish—why did he want to leave the cage he had painstakingly built?

Zheng Tingyang stayed by Yu Yan’s bedside, carefully kissing his face and crying like a man possessed. Then he laughed at his own absurdity. This layer of pretense had finally been torn open by his own hands.

Yu Yan’s physical strength was too depleted. His pregnant body had been suffering as the baby grew. He slept for an entire day. That endless dream lasted too long; when he opened his eyes, it took him a long time to regain his senses and gather his thoughts.

“Mmf.” His first reaction was to touch his lower abdomen. Feeling the protruding curve and, a moment later, the little thing moving inside, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Tingyang was too much, too mean to him. He almost thought the baby was gone.

Incense and a humidifier were active in the room. Outside the window, the snow continued. Christmas had passed, and he had only just woken up. His lower abdomen felt a heavy downward pull, and his legs felt as weak as if they were floating. Yu Yan waited a while before sitting up. He was surprised to find an electronic lock around his ankle. As his memory returned, his throat hurt so much he struggled even to let out a whimper into the quilt.

He did not understand why Tingyang would treat him like that. In truth, it was not painful. The injection Zheng Tingyang gave him was likely pheromones extracted and purified from another Alpha, making the physical pain almost disappear. He was just scared; after all, he had never seen his gentle husband throttle his neck like that.

While throttling him, the man asked if he still dared to leave. Zheng Tingyang’s body had undergone surgery, and Yu Yan’s pregnant body was exceptionally sensitive. He was too busy crying to speak. Finally, finding he could not speak, he tried to crawl away. It would have been better if he had not struggled; as soon as he made a move to leave Zheng Tingyang’s embrace, the man went mad. Even as a Beta, he actually bit Yu Yan’s glands!

Did he not know an Omega’s glands were ultra-sensitive? Having his glands bitten was exactly like having a kitten grabbed by the scruff of the neck; he could not move at all.

Yu Yan himself forgot how he fainted; it was from crying, anyway. He touched his eyes, and sure enough, they were swollen into little walnuts. Even after sleeping for so long, the swelling had not gone down. He could not help but feel a bit resentful. Did the man not know there was a baby in his belly? Was he not afraid of hurting them?

Yu Yan sat by the bed like a pouting pufferfish for a long time. He wanted to be angry, but he also felt he could not truly stay mad. The surgery Zheng Tingyang had undergone was simply too grueling. Why was he not this powerful during the heat period? He bullied him for no reason and made him miss the flight. Xiang Qian would definitely be angry about being stood up.

He slowly stood up by the side of the bed. His back was sore and uncomfortable, and his eyes reddened uncontrollably from the grievance in his heart. He did not know why his husband had suddenly turned bad and was not by his side when he woke up. What did the man take him for? Making him all dazed and then ignoring him now.

He poked the quilt irritably and went into the living room to find water.

“Tingyang.” There was no one in the living room, and not even a light was on. The fireplace was burning, and a faint scent of chestnut drifted warmly through the bedroom. A pot of Bird of Paradise was placed in the center of the living room; because the fertilizer was good, the leaves seemed even larger than when it was first brought home. This plant was usually kept in Zheng Tingyang’s study, but for some reason, it was in the living room today. Yu Yan was stunned and turned to find the study door open.

He had never entered this study. Although Zheng Tingyang had never forbidden him from entering, he would lock it when he went to work. Yu Yan had marked it in his heart as territory he could not enter. Even after nearly four months of marriage, he had never set foot inside.

The pitch-black study emitted a ghostly blue mechanical light, likely the blue light from a computer screen. Yu Yan called Tingyang’s name again, wondering if he was working inside. He wanted to clear things up with Tingyang, tell him that he was a bit angry and that he could not be treated like that. Their marriage should be equal; at least he had used his own salary to buy fertilizer for the man’s plants. He could not force him like that. Even if it felt comfortable, it was not okay.

He slowly walked to the study door, supporting his waist, and knocked. There was no response. Yu Yan gripped the doorframe tremulously, and the door slowly swung open.

Yu Yan stood in the study, frozen for several seconds. On two computer monitors were surveillance feeds from every corner of the house. On the wall, small clips held dozens of rows of photos—of him sleeping, of him naked, and of them together. On the screen, he could even see the footage of himself walking into the study. Yu Yan’s heart seemed to stop. The massive impact left him momentarily speechless, and his nervous heart beat violently.

In the dim light, he walked in slowly, gasping as he approached the wooden desk. On the desk lay a photo album containing torn love letters; his seventeen-year-old youth was sealed within. Yu Yan coughed twice, holding the album with downcast eyes. His pale skin took on a sickly red hue, sweat broke out over his body, and his breath was weak and hot.

Looking up, he saw photos from his pregnancy pasted everywhere in the corners of the room. The dark study was like a black hole, gradually swallowing and burning his thin consciousness. Trembling, he picked up a document on the desk. It was the cremation notice for his father.

He could not understand the documents behind it—bankruptcy, buying shares, changing legal representatives. A loud buzz exploded in his brain. He instinctively stepped back several paces. His thin chest seemed ready to burst from the sudden pounding of his heart as the secrets were revealed. He took a step back, nearly losing his footing.

“Little Fish, do you hate me?” The man supported his waist from behind, his chest pressed against Yu Yan’s back, affectionately cradling his pregnant belly. He held Yu Yan firmly in his arms, feeling his trembling shoulders. His voice gradually tightened. “Hate me if you wish, just do not leave, okay?”

The man’s voice was raspy. Yu Yan turned his head blankly, looking at Zheng Tingyang in disbelief. But before he could ask a question, he noticed the man’s neck was bleeding. Blood snaked down from the back of his neck, but Zheng Tingyang did not care. He cupped Yu Yan’s cheeks to wipe away the tears, his voice trembling. “Little Fish.”

A crimson hue stained his originally calm, dark eyes. He carefully cupped Yu Yan’s face and kissed him with gentle intensity. In his eyes was only a slow, gradual loss of control. The world was collapsing, flames were burning, and his kiss became somewhat rough.

“Mmf!” Yu Yan could not stand steadily, held in his arms like a little deer.

“Little Fish, what should I do? What should I do? What am I to do with you?” He choked up, his voice trembling and deep, as if the beast hidden deep in his heart had broken its cage in the blink of an eye. If the words Yu Yan spoke were not what he wanted to hear, he would tear him apart at any moment.

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