Chapter Text
The gala stretched long into the night.
By the time Shen Wenlang stepped out of the ballroom, the corridors of the hotel were quiet except for the hum of air-conditioning and the faint clack of his shoes. He loosened his tie, eyes half-lidded from exhaustion and the dull ache of champagne.
He only wanted to sleep.
Room 806. That was what the receptionist had told him. Yet, when he swiped the keycard, the light blinked green, and the door clicked open with a soft chime.
Inside, the curtains were drawn. A faint scent hung in the air — something heady, thick, and disorienting. It crawled beneath his skin before he could name it.
“Strange… someone left the lights off.”
He took a step in. Another. The scent grew stronger, heavy enough to cloud his thoughts. He hesitated. It wasn’t just cologne. It was pheromones. Powerful, unrestrained.
Then he heard it — a sharp breath, a low sound of someone trying, and failing, to suppress a groan.
His pulse skipped.
On the bed lay Hua Yong.
The man’s usually composed features were pale and flushed, the sheet half-twisted around his waist. His breathing came ragged, desperate, the unmistakable tremor of an Enigma in rut.
Wenlang froze.
He shouldn’t be here.
He needed to leave.
He turned toward the door — but Hua Yong stirred, eyes half-open, unfocused, filled with pain and heat.
“Shaoyou…?”
The whisper was soft, broken.
Wenlang’s hand stilled on the door handle.
He shouldn’t answer. He should walk away and forget this. But instinct tugged at something deeper, older — that strange pull between high-ranked Alphas, the urge to steady another when they lost control.
“It’s okay,” Wenlang murmured, almost to himself. “You’re overheated.”
He found a damp towel and pressed it against Hua Yong’s forehead. The man shivered violently, breath catching.
“Shaoyou,” Hua Yong gasped again, blindly reaching.
Wenlang’s chest ached. The name cut through him sharper than any blade.
“I’m not him,” he whispered. “But I’ll stay until it passes.”
The night blurred. Between the scent of heat and the weight of unspoken things, time lost its edges. Hua Yong’s hand found his wrist and held on as if drowning. Wenlang stayed because leaving would have meant watching him suffer alone.
He didn’t remember when exhaustion finally claimed him — only the slow easing of Hua Yong’s trembling and the silence that followed.
When dawn crept through the curtains, Wenlang woke first.
Hua Yong slept peacefully now, the fever gone, his expression unguarded. For the first time, Wenlang saw him without the armor of the Country P’s uncrowned king — just a man, breathing softly in the pale light.
Wenlang’s throat tightened.
He brushed a stray hair from Hua Yong’s face, fingers trembling.
“You won’t remember,” he murmured. “It’s better that way.”
He gathered his jacket, straightened the bedcovers, and left the room before the sun fully rose.
In the hallway, the air felt cold and clean, but his body carried the ghost of that scent — the impossible warmth that didn’t belong to him.
Back in his own room — Room 906 — he realized the mistake when he saw his untouched luggage by the door.
“Of course,” he whispered bitterly. “I went into the wrong room.”
He laughed once, without humor, then sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. His hands were shaking.
It wasn’t supposed to happen.
None of it was.
Morning sunlight spilled across his face, dragging Hua Yong from uneasy dreams. His head pounded faintly. The faint scent of suppressant lingered in the air, proof of a rut that must have passed while he was unconscious.
He frowned, trying to recall the night before — the gala, the wine, the dizziness that came too suddenly. And then … nothing.
He sat up slowly. The towel on the bedside table was damp; the sheets were neatly folded, as if someone had tidied the room.
“Did Shaoyou … stop by?”
He shook his head, pushing the thought away. Shaoyou had gone home early — he remembered that clearly. Everything else was haze.
When he caught his reflection in the mirror, a faint mark at the base of his neck made him pause. Not quite a bruise, not quite a bite. His stomach twisted.
“It must have been the fever,” he muttered to himself. “Just a dream.”
He called for housekeeping, ordered black coffee, and buried the unease under the practiced calm of the CEO everyone admired.
By the time he left for the morning meeting, the night before had already been folded, sealed, and tucked away in the corner of his mind.
For days afterward, Wenlang avoided him.
He kept his distance at work, replying to messages with clipped professionalism. Each time Hua Yong entered the room, Wenlang’s body tensed with memories he wished he could forget.
It had been a mistake.
An accident.
One that Hua Yong clearly didn’t remember.
Better that way.
Still, late at night, the memory surfaced — the sound of Hua Yong’s unsteady breathing, the warmth of his skin, the way he’d whispered another man’s name.
Wenlang pressed a hand to his chest as if he could quiet the echo inside.
“It meant nothing,” he told himself. “It has to mean nothing.”
But fate was already shifting beneath his feet, quietly rearranging the paths they thought they knew.