To Marry My Little Chestnut - Chapter 33

The heart is like a double silk net with a thousand knots within.

Yu Yan’s eyes were red from crying and his lips were swollen from kisses. He cautiously touched the back of Zheng Tingyang’s neck, feeling the uneven scars on the skin, some even overlapping.

Yu Yan had always felt he was not smart enough, but now he felt that Zheng Tingyang was even more foolish than he was. Zheng Tingyang was as ruthless toward himself as he was toward others, showing no mercy. “Stop touching it; it will scare you.”

Yu Yan whispered, “I am not afraid.”

If they had not spoken openly, and if they did not love each other enough, they might have lived this entire lifetime deep in misunderstanding and hatred.

Yu Yan lay on the bed and slowly explained to him that he did not truly want to tear up the love letter back then. He was simply afraid of what his father would do. “I could not let my father involve your foster father, and I could not let him involve you. We had not even spoken throughout high school.”

Zheng Tingyang lay beside him, kissing his fingertips. “I know.”

“When the family went bankrupt back then, I actually felt quite fortunate because I finally felt free. Although it was miserable, seeing you made me happy. Do you know why I did not stay the next day?”

Zheng Tingyang’s eyes softened. “I understand.”

Yu Yan frowned. “You understand that too?”

“You wanted to try the new world after gaining freedom. If it were possible, you would come to my side on your own.”

Yu Yan opened his mouth in surprise. He had not expected Zheng Tingyang to understand him to such an extent. There were many things he did not know.

After the night they spent together, when Yu Yan chose to leave the hotel and live alone, Zheng Tingyang smoked for a long time before convincing himself to take it slow. He had waited seven years; waiting a few more months did not matter.

He bought a flower shop and watched Yu Yan’s small figure busy himself inside and out, slowly building up Yu Yan’s self-confidence and giving him the ability to stand on his own two feet. Once the flower shop business was revitalized by Yu Yan, Zheng Tingyang allowed the owner to hire another laborer to help out. Otherwise, with his possessive nature, he absolutely would not have allowed any other man to appear by Yu Yan’s side.

There were too many things Yu Yan did not know. Zheng Tingyang would not tell him about the hardships of those years, but Yu Yan knew it must have been incredibly difficult. Just thinking about it made him sad. Perhaps due to the surge of pregnancy hormones, his tears would not stop falling.

“Back then, my father said he wanted to arrange an engagement for me. I knew it was because they thought my gland was good. They were coming for this body of mine. Tingyang, I wanted to cut off my gland too, but I thought it would be too painful.”

The higher the concentration of pheromones, the more sensitive an Omega’s gland is.

“Am I very useless?” Yu Yan sniffled, looking up with a hint of self-reproach. He thought he was indeed too delicate. Why could he not do something like cutting his own neck like Tingyang did? Was his love for Tingyang not as great as Tingyang’s love for him? He made a useless comparison in his heart, for once not wanting to lose in this regard.

But he was carrying their baby, so surely his love was a bit more, a bit stronger? After making the comparison, Yu Yan looked up with a smile, meeting Zheng Tingyang’s eyes filled with undisguised worry and heartache. He could not help but pull the man into an embrace.

This was not Zheng Tingyang’s original intention. The high position he worked so hard to achieve was meant to protect Yu Yan from the wind and rain, to take over from the old man in building a golden cage for Yu Yan.

“Tingyang?”

“Yu Yan, have I been too bad to you?” Zheng Tingyang asked, pained. How could he bear to let his Xiao Yu experience that kind of feeling? He only hoped he could spoil Yu Yan to the heavens, make him even more delicate, so that Yu Yan would know that no one in the world would treat him better. To like someone, to love someone, should it not be exactly like this? One would wish to tear out their heart just to show it to them. “Did I scare you?”

Yu Yan swallowed a laugh in his arms. “A little bit. Especially the day before yesterday. You were very fierce, and I was very afraid.”

When Zheng Tingyang thought of the day before yesterday, he admitted he had gone too far. “Does your belly hurt?”

“If it hurts, is it not a bit late to ask now?” Yu Yan looked up in his arms, poking his face with a fingertip. “It was a bit uncomfortable. You did not listen to me, and it only hurt because you were always so forceful.”

An Omega’s body has specific triggers that must be found slowly during heat. Finding the right spot is like opening a dam to a flood. However, these triggers are hidden within a narrow passage. Who knows if they are on the left, right, top, or bottom? Zheng Tingyang’s surgically altered body did not care for any of that; he simply filled the space until it was nearly bursting. When it is filled so completely, the triggers are easily found regardless of where they are. Yu Yan had no chance to resist; before he could even struggle, he went soft.

“In the future, I will listen to you. I will listen to everything.”

Yu Yan’s fever had not broken yet, and his voice was soft as he huddled in Zheng Tingyang’s arms. “What if I had not gotten pregnant? What if I did very well at the flower shop, became the manager, and opened a nationwide chain? What would you do?”

Zheng Tingyang drew out his words. “Naturally, I would…”

“Hmm?”

“Send you to the heavens.”

He earned his tens of millions in wealth only for one person. If Yu Yan was happy, he was willing to let him carve out his own world, provided that world was one Zheng Tingyang had personally secured and made safe.

Hearing this, Yu Yan contentedly nuzzled his chest, thinking that his Tingyang was indeed the best and kindest. Those photos, the surveillance, the business wars, was it not all because he loved him? Essentially, Tingyang was no different from when he was seventeen.

Zheng Tingyang patted his back to lull him to sleep. Yu Yan liked to sleep holding the man’s pinky finger, buried in his chest. Even though this man had no pheromones, the faint warmth of his body provided an infinite sense of security.

As for that video, when Yu Yan woke up dazed in the evening and was led out for dinner, he saw someone sitting in the living room.

“Doctor Jing?”

Jing Chen had performed a psychological assessment on him during his pregnancy to ensure he was not suffering from depression. Although they had only met once, Yu Yan remembered this tall, handsome doctor.

Jing Chen was annoyed to death; he felt the misfortune of his life was meeting Zheng Tingyang. Zheng Tingyang led Yu Yan to the sofa. A pot of bird’s nest and cassava sweet soup had long been simmering. Zheng Tingyang served a bowl for Yu Yan but did not even offer one to Jing Chen.

“Is it too hot?” Zheng Tingyang asked.

Yu Yan shook his head. He thought the sweet soup was delicious and obediently opened his mouth. “It is good!”

Zheng Tingyang tossed the phone to Jing Chen. “Explain it yourself.”

Jing Chen asked, “Why did you not give me a bowl?”

Zheng Tingyang did not even bother to look at him, his focus entirely on Yu Yan. Yu Yan was dazed, and only after seeing the video on the phone did he remember he had not asked about Xiao Kai. However, seeing the situation, it seemed to be a misunderstanding; he felt it did not matter whether he heard the explanation or not.

Jing Chen tsked, dissatisfied that he had nothing to eat. He lazily held a pillow and looked at the two of them with a sigh. “Zheng Tingyang, you are truly inhuman. Showing off your affection in front of a divorced man, may heaven strike you down. Yu Yan, let me tell you, he has committed quite a few inhuman acts over the years.”

Yu Yan chewed slowly with puffed cheeks, quickly covering his ears and mumbling, “I will not listen to bad things about Tingyang!”

“Good heavens!” Jing Chen muttered. “You actually are not afraid of him?”

Yu Yan pursed his lips and smiled, not understanding why he should be afraid. “Tingyang is very good.”

Zheng Tingyang raised his eyebrows triumphantly and fed him another spoonful. Jing Chen rolled his eyes, wishing he could smother himself with the pillow.

“Fine, I will say it. Zheng Tingyang did not cheat. At that time, Xiao Kai had not been divorced from me for long. Nothing happened in that car.” Dissatisfied, Jing Chen got up and went to the kitchen to get a small bowl for some sweet soup.

Zheng Tingyang said, “Do not take from the top row.”

Jing Chen replied, “But the bowls on the top row are the most beautiful.” The bowls on the top row were various colored ceramics, oil-resistant glazes specifically brought back from the south. Zheng Tingyang did not speak, and Jing Chen did not take them either, grumbling as he found a disposable bowl to serve himself.

Yu Yan asked, “Why did they get divorced?”

Jing Chen was tall and long-legged, an Alpha who looked like a celebrity. Xiao Kai’s face was not clear in the video, but he was not short either. Dressed in a suit, he looked like a rogue chasing sunflowers in the vanity fair. As a pair, they were very easy on the eyes. But Xiao Kai was a Beta.

“They have known each other since childhood; it was a marriage alliance between families.”

The two were childhood friends. Xiao Kai’s parents died early, and he was raised in the Jing family. In reality, the Jing family had always coveted the insurance payout Xiao Kai would receive upon reaching adulthood. They registered their marriage as soon as they became adults, and the Jing family swallowed all of the Xiao family’s shares. Originally, Xiao Kai did not care, treating the money from those shares as a repayment to the elders for raising him. But it turned out the death of Xiao Kai’s parents was related to the Jing family, and Jing Chen had known the truth since he was a child, deceiving Xiao Kai for all those years.

Once Xiao Kai found out, he left a divorce agreement and went abroad. He was relieved that as a Beta, he could not be marked. Abroad, he met Zheng Tingyang, who was also using any means necessary to climb the ladder at that time. Zheng Tingyang was responsible for investment and controlling interest behind the scenes; he wanted actual power. Xiao Kai was responsible for operations and social networking in public; he wanted to return home for revenge with a soaring reputation. One was running toward love, the other toward hate. In a short time, they monopolized many shares. The price of the cryptocurrency Xiao Kai created had inflated to a terrifying level over the past two years.

Xiao Kai originally intended never to return, but last month Jing Chen’s parents died in prison. Xiao Kai returned to pay his respects. After all, those two were the benefactors who raised him. He also returned to take over the Jing family, as the Jing family had been acquired by a subsidiary under Xiao Kai’s name six months ago. None of the people who were involved in the car accident of Xiao Kai’s parents years ago met a good end.

“The day Xiao Kai was drunk in the video was when our stocks doubled. He finally had the ability to contend with the Jing family, and I was one step closer to making the Yu family go bankrupt,” Zheng Tingyang said.

That was why Xiao Kai was dead drunk in the video. Zheng Tingyang remembered Xiao Kai crying and laughing like a madman in his car that day, covering his face as tears flowed through his fingers. “Jing Chen begged me, begged me to let his family go. Zheng Tingyang, if it were you, if the person you loved begged you to spare his father, would you be willing?”

Zheng Tingyang replied, “No.”

Vengeance was instinctual for people like them. What kind of people were they? Pitiful people.

In the car, Xiao Kai loosened his tie to show Zheng Tingyang the back of his neck. He said drunkenly, “He cannot mark me, or my life would be ruined! How many times did Jing Chen hate me for this? Hated that I am a Beta!”

“Yes, it is a good thing I am a Beta, but why am I a Beta?”

After saying that, Xiao Kai stumbled out of the car and walked in the heavy rain for a long time. Zheng Tingyang rolled down the window and watched Xiao Kai in the rearview mirror. He was also in a complex mood. He hated that he was a Beta and had never once felt fortunate for it.

These matters were so complex they left Yu Yan stunned. He could not help but observe Jing Chen, who was sitting in the dining room slowly eating cassava with relish. Yu Yan hooked Zheng Tingyang’s pinky and asked, “But is not Doctor Jing a psychologist?”

Zheng Tingyang nodded. “As a doctor, he is quite dutiful. But a healer cannot heal himself.”

Jing Chen mocked himself, “If I were not a doctor, who would not go crazy with a life like this?”

“This sweet soup is not bad. Xiao Kai taught you, right? He loves making this kind of sweet food. Tell Yu Yan to eat less; he will definitely have diabetes when he is old,” Jing Chen muttered.

Yu Yan was puzzled. According to Zheng Tingyang, the two clearly loved each other very much. Why could lovers not be together?

Jing Chen smiled bitterly. “Yu Yan, not everyone has the ability to turn a stone into gold like Zheng Tingyang, and not everyone can find a way out of a dead end.” He walked to the door, took two chestnut candies from Zheng Tingyang’s coat, and tossed one to Yu Yan. “You, it is better for you to keep living in the fairy tale Zheng Tingyang wrote for you.”

Before leaving, Jing Chen leaned toward Yu Yan with a mysterious smile and asked, “Do you know why Zheng Tingyang can be friends with me?”

Yu Yan shook his head.

“Because only I understand the pain of being unable to mark the one you love,” he sighed. “It truly drives one to madness.”

Zheng Tingyang frowned, annoyed at his big mouth, and packed a bowl of sweet soup for him to take away.

After he left, Yu Yan realized that they had never made sweet soup at home. Zheng Tingyang said Xiao Kai had asked him to help make it, a dessert Jing Chen loved most, just as Yu Yan loved creme brulee.

Yu Yan felt a lingering fear. It was a good thing he and Zheng Tingyang were not a resentful couple.

“Was it very hard in the past?”

Zheng Tingyang kissed his lips. The sweet soup was very sweet. “If the hardship was for this day, then it was not bitter.”

The day before yesterday, Yu Yan was left with marks all over his body. When Xiang Qian made a video call that evening, he nearly screamed: “Zheng Tingyang dared to treat you like that?”

His skin was fair. A little pressure would leave red marks that did not fade for days, let alone at a time like that. Yu Yan thought, I have not even shown him my thighs, waist, or chest. Just the exposed neck and collarbone made Xiang Qian think Zheng Tingyang had resorted to domestic violence. Xiang Qian firmly believed that Zheng Tingyang had caught Yu Yan trying to run away and, in his rage, dragged him back for some dark twisted play.

In fact, he did.

Zheng Tingyang was terrified and did not go to work for several days, blaming himself for days for using marital coercion. He knelt by the bed for half the night, and with the wound on his neck, Yu Yan told him he would not leave again. Yet Zheng Tingyang still seemed uneasy. Finally, he was pressed by the company. Yu Yan obediently wore the electronic lock and told him to drive slowly.

Before leaving, Yu Yan was kissed by him on the bed until he was dazed, his brain seemingly unable to function. Since taking over the Haicheng branch, Zheng Tingyang had never experienced such a tormenting time. He looked forward to going home and would occasionally open the surveillance to see if the little person on the bed had woken up.

Everyone in the company said President Zheng had been in a good mood lately. Even in online meetings, he was exceptionally kind. Projects went smoothly, and bonuses were doubled. Everyone was baffled, thinking President Zheng had come into a fortune somewhere.

It was not until a video conference one morning a week later that the reason for President Zheng’s good mood became slightly clearer. The project they were handling was international cultural tourism. Due to the time difference, the meeting was held at 7:30 AM.

“Vice President Xiao has verified most of the construction materials. The design department has been tasked with producing samples for the new peripheral products of the tourism project.”

In the study, Zheng Tingyang twirled an electronic pen, occasionally syncing new rectification plans on his tablet.

“President Zheng, Haoyang Group is better suited for traditional industry. If we develop digital virtual positioning in the future, the estimated stock value will also fluctuate relatively. President Pei’s side…”

“President Pei has said that President Zheng is in full charge of domestic headquarters coordination for the short term. It is just that the Beijing headquarters has not moved yet. Haicheng has been changed to the headquarters, so there is no need to notify President Pei’s side,” Xiao Kai interrupted the previous vice manager’s question.

For a moment, there was a hush in the meeting. Everyone realized President Zheng’s immense capability. In just one year, he had been promoted two levels and secured a high position.

“Tingyang…”

Before anyone could lament that this President Zheng was lonely at the top, perhaps a work machine and as rumors suggested President Pei’s lapdog who must be an unhappy, sinister, and crafty person, a voice that did not belong to the meeting appeared.

Yu Yan was wearing only his pajama top. His pajama pants had long been discarded in his sleep because his growing belly made the waistband uncomfortable. He was so sleepy he could not open his eyes, his collar was open, and there were red marks of affection on his collarbone. His frame was thin and swaying, but his protruding belly was prominent. He was as fair as a peeled lychee stained with red, his whole body exuding a sweet warmth.

Zheng Tingyang tilted the computer screen down and reached out to him. “Why did you wake up so early?”

Yu Yan slowly moved into his arms. Being held by him, he still frowned uncomfortably. “My waist hurts so much. The baby kicked me. I want to throw up.”

The child was bigger now and increasingly restless. Yu Yan had begun to sleep poorly. Zheng Tingyang held him like a child, wrapped him in a blanket, and gently patted his back. “I will massage your waist.”

“Sister Zhou said you cannot be reckless during the next heat; you will hurt the baby. What else did she say? How did she tell you to help me? Why was I not allowed to hear it?” He was still murmuring about the conversation before sleep last night.

Yu Yan felt a persistent heat at the back of his neck. It was estimated that this month’s heat would arrive soon. However, his body could not handle such severe physical exertion, so Zhou Jiangru told Zheng Tingyang not to toss him around. But Zheng Tingyang was afraid Yu Yan would be uncomfortable and asked for other methods. Yu Yan did not hear exactly how he would help. He asked, but Zheng Tingyang would not say, only kissing him and telling him he would find out in a few days.

He huddled dazed in Zheng Tingyang’s arms, his lower abdomen bumping against him. “This little one is already a troublemaker before being born. Probably takes after you, very fierce.”

Zheng Tingyang chuckled. “That is not good. If the baby takes after me, they will always want to monopolize you, and it will be over for me.”

Yu Yan laughed muffledly, burying his face in the man’s neck and breathing slowly. A moment later, he fell asleep. He suffered from severe sleepiness; he could fall asleep with a few pats on the back.

Everyone in the meeting remained silent. After a while, when Zheng Tingyang straightened the camera, his arms held a little person wrapped in a blanket. Zheng Tingyang was still patting his back rhythmically as if coaxing a child.

“Continue speaking.”

Everyone thought: How are we supposed to speak? If anyone wakes him up, will the year-end bonus still exist? One by one, they reduced the frequency of their speeches, each with their own hidden thoughts. With someone in his arms, Zheng Tingyang stopped losing his temper, only uttering simple words before lightly adjourning the meeting.

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