The Parched Land — Chapter 42
Just as Min Zhi had said, the caregiver never mentioned what he had seen to Fu Baiqi.
Only when Fang Fengzhi found his expression unchanged did he relax a little.
Perhaps the man knew Min Zhi.
The Fu family owned a small villa in the town. Fu Baiqi’s grandparents had lived there alone. Since his grandmother’s death, the family returned every New Year to celebrate with his grandfather.
This year, Fu Baiqi and Fang Fengzhi arrived first. There were only a few people in the house.
Fortunately, Fang Fengzhi was close to the old man, so the situation was not unbearably awkward.
As in the city, Fu Baiqi rarely spoke, whether to family or to Fang Fengzhi. He spent his days occupied with his own affairs.
Yet Fang Fengzhi could clearly sense their relationship softening.
Fu Baiqi occasionally initiated conversation. Sometimes he even considered Fang Fengzhi’s feelings.
Fang Fengzhi did not understand the change.
Since waking after the accident, Fu Baiqi seemed less interested in maintaining his former coldness than in easing the tension between them.
Fang Fengzhi knew this was probably the greatest show of goodwill the man could offer.
It made him uneasy.
The better Fu Baiqi treated him, the greater his guilt became. It felt as though he were betraying two people at once.
He found the feeling difficult to endure and wanted this period to pass quickly.
“Grandfather seems very fond of you.”
Fu Baiqi spoke unexpectedly from the sofa.
Fang Fengzhi glanced over.
The man’s eyes remained on his laptop, as though the remark were incidental.
After living with him for over a year, Fang Fengzhi knew this meant he wanted to talk.
But he only gave a quiet acknowledgment.
“Mm.”
Fu Baiqi’s brow briefly tightened at the perfunctory response.
He had always been difficult that way.
Perhaps it came from being indulged throughout his life. Fang Fengzhi knew nothing of his behavior at work, but with him, Fu Baiqi always waited for the other person to take the initiative.
Fang Fengzhi could read his moods from his expression and guess the meaning beneath his words.
He was always the one to start conversations, to please him, to explain.
But a relationship became exhausting when only one person ever reached out.
Especially when the marriage had already broken down to an empty shell.
Fu Baiqi still did not know.
He had not realized their marriage in name was nearing its end.
Fang Fengzhi looked away, expecting the conversation to stop there.
Instead, Fu Baiqi asked, “Do you visit him often?”
Fang Fengzhi paused.
Normally, such an indifferent response would have ended Fu Baiqi’s interest.
He looked up in confusion and met the man’s eyes.
They were still cool.
Yet something in them unsettled him.
A longing.
Not physical desire, but a wish to draw closer to another person.
Something Fang Fengzhi had never seen in Fu Baiqi before.
He felt an unfamiliar alarm.
He no longer wanted that closeness.
“No,” he explained quickly. “Before we moved, my grandmother and I lived across from him.”
Apparently surprised, Fu Baiqi watched him.
“Then have we met before?”
“Yes. When we were very young.”
Fang Fengzhi did not want to continue.
Taking his things, he pretended to have something to put away and left the living room.
Watching his hurried departure, Fu Baiqi frowned.
He remembered nothing.
That evening, Fang Fengzhi did not stay at the villa.
He returned to the old house where his father lived.
They were not close, but it was his only reason to leave.
If he stayed at the villa, he would have to share a room with Fu Baiqi.
He did not know what feelings the man now held for him. With Fu Baiqi almost recovered, he could not be certain their pheromones would not lead to something else.
He had called his father beforehand.
Even so, he waited outside for a while before the man returned.
“Have you been waiting long?”
Fang Fengzhi shook his head.
“I had dinner with some coworkers,” his father explained. “That’s why I’m late.”
“It’s all right.”
Fang Fengzhi had never been close to either parent.
Since his mother’s death, his father had lived alone. Fang Fengzhi occasionally came to visit, but never stayed long.
“How has your health been lately?”
His father led him inside.
Not long after Fang Fengzhi was born, he and his wife had left to work in the city, leaving their son with his grandparents.
The grandparents died before Fang Fengzhi reached adulthood.
The couple returned to the town with their savings. After only a few peaceful days, his wife was diagnosed with an illness.
He had barely cared for Fang Fengzhi himself. Yet upon returning, he had needed his son’s help caring for his sick wife.
Fang Fengzhi had never complained.
Still, he felt guilty.
“Everything’s fine.”
One asked; the other answered.
They seemed less like father and son than strangers.
This was the house where his grandparents had lived.
Nothing inside had changed. Nothing added, nothing missing.
After a few questions about each other’s lives, they had little more to say.
Neither found it strange.
It had been this way for years.
Being home nevertheless helped Fang Fengzhi relax.
Once in his bedroom, he quietly called Min Zhi.
“Hello.”
The man’s resonant voice sounded lower than usual.
Warmth spread through Fang Fengzhi’s chest.
“Mr. Min.”
Min Zhi acknowledged him.
“What are you doing?”
“Lying in bed…”
Fang Fengzhi pulled the covers over himself and told him everything that had happened that day.
Min Zhi listened quietly, occasionally responding.
“What are you doing tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. Probably staying at his family’s villa.”
They now avoided Fu Baiqi’s name by unspoken agreement.
“And at night?”
Fang Fengzhi considered.
“I’ll find an excuse to leave.”
There was a silence.
He could hear Min Zhi breathing somewhat heavily.
“Are you ill?”
“No.”
“I was exercising.”
Fang Fengzhi did not question it and continued talking.
He was not naturally talkative.
But since moving to the city, he had rarely had anyone to speak with. Now that someone genuinely listened, he found it difficult to stop.
Min Zhi did not find it tiresome.
On the contrary, he liked hearing Fang Fengzhi talk.
Especially when they could not meet.
“Are you sleepy?”
Min Zhi sounded tired.
“I’m all right.”
Afraid he was only staying awake to avoid disappointing him, Fang Fengzhi changed course.
“Actually, I’m a little sleepy.”
“Go to sleep.”
He pressed the phone against his cheek.
“Then I’ll hang up.”
“Don’t.”
Min Zhi’s voice remained low.
“I want to hear you.”
At first, Fang Fengzhi felt reluctant, worried he might make some embarrassing sound.
But after placing the phone beside him, he quickly grew drowsy—whether from talking so much or something else—and drifted to sleep.
Listening to his breathing, Min Zhi looked at the person opposite him.
He had not just finished exercising.
In fact, he was not even at home.
He was at the research institute.
The doctor picked up his pen.
“How do you feel now?”
“No different.”
A researcher took a blood sample from his fingertip and carried it outside.
A few minutes later, the researcher returned.
“Down five percent.”
The doctor frowned, then eased his expression.
“That’s already a good result.”
He remained serious.
“You’re in a dangerous condition, Min Zhi.”
Min Zhi said nothing.
In truth, his pheromones had begun slipping out of control half a month earlier, when Fang Fengzhi left the villa.
Affected by his emotions, they seemed to boil inside him, building pressure until his body felt ready to burst.
They constantly escaped his body. Every extraction left him exhausted and covered in cold sweat.
But the present problem was their concentration.
It had risen too high.
Removing the excess was no longer enough.
If this continued, the concentration would impair his control. A sudden outbreak could cause widespread panic.
“Where is he now?”
The doctor asked while making notes.
Min Zhi needed to be with his partner as soon as possible.
Without his partner’s soothing pheromones, his current condition would eventually lead to trouble.
But the Enigma’s expression did not change.
“With his husband.”
The younger researcher beside them stared.
Even the doctor paused.
Learning that Min Zhi was involved with a class-A Omega had been surprising enough.
Now he discovered that the Omega was still married.
He doubted he would encounter anything more extraordinary in his lifetime.
His brows drew together.
“Min Zhi, you need to understand what you’re doing.”
He knew it was not his place to condemn him.
On moral matters, Min Zhi probably understood the situation better than he did.
But—
“He is only a class-A Omega.”
What did that mean?
It meant his body might be unable to withstand Min Zhi’s pheromones.
The consequences could be fatal.
One reason many Enigmas chose Alpha partners was that Alphas had far greater tolerance than Omegas.
Under the rules of their secondary sexes, the pheromonal effect was also less severe.
A class-S Omega could barely withstand an Enigma. Since both possessed high-grade pheromones, the difference was less likely to endanger them.
Lower-grade Omegas were different.
Their own pheromones could not adequately protect them.
If an Enigma’s pheromones invaded, those defenses would quickly be overwhelmed, leaving the body dangerously overstimulated and out of control.
“I know what I’m doing.”
The Enigma spoke without seeming shaken by the warning.
“I won’t let anything happen to him.”
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