Chapter 48 Part 1

The car screeched to a halt right in front of the alpha and Little Alpha after whipping around—Wen Yan stumbled out, flung his arms around Liang Wangyou, and ran his hands over him from head to toe, checking for injuries.

Wen Yan was in a full-blown panic, his lips quivering nonstop. Only after confirming that Liang Wangyou was completely unharmed did he come back to himself. He snatched the gun from the alpha’s hand and flung it into the rushing river below the bridge with every ounce of strength he had.

“Wen Yan… Wen Yan…” Liang Wangyou called his name in a timid whimper, his voice thick with tears.

Wen Yan pulled him into a frantic embrace, clutching him tightly as he gasped for breath… His gaze bored into Liang Shijing.

“Get in the car first and wait for me, okay…” Wen Yan struggled to string together a coherent sentence as he spoke to Liang Wangyou. “It’s freezing out here…”

“Don’t go.” Tears spilled from Liang Wangyou’s eyes. “Wen Yan, don’t go.” They flowed even faster; he wiped them away himself but still glanced back every step, terrified of not getting the answer he needed, before clambering into Wen Yan’s car. The SUV sat higher than a sedan, making it a struggle for him to climb in. Liang Shijing, who had stood motionless beside him the whole time, finally lifted him up and shut the door.

Liang Wangyou then scrambled from the back seat to the driver’s position, kneeling on it to peer at them through the glass.

The gunshot had faded long ago, yet it seemed to echo endlessly across the bridge surface. Wen Yan rose slowly, his chest heaving, and stepped right up to Liang Shijing before delivering a resounding slap across his face.

Liang Shijing didn’t dodge. The impact twisted his head to the side.

“If that gun had gone off, his head would’ve exploded—no saving him, no matter what!” Wen Yan’s body shook violently, as if he were enduring unbearable agony. He shoved Liang Shijing again and again until he slammed him back against the sedan’s hood with a thud. “How dare you point a gun at him? How dare you?!” The omega roared the final words, his usual gentle demeanor shattered. Fury reddened the corners of his eyes and left his voice raw and ragged as he demanded answers from the alpha.

“If you’d pointed it at me, would you have come rushing back?” Liang Shijing wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with his thumb, his tone laced with bitter self-mockery.

“Of course not. I’d wish you dead—I wouldn’t spare you a single glance if you dropped right here. Rot away for all I care. Hell, if I could, I’d run you over myself, but even then, I wouldn’t want to look at your face!”

Liang Shijing’s expression darkened as he lunged to grab his arm.

Wen Yan dodged with lightning reflexes, his face contorted in pure revulsion. “Get lost!” He shoved Liang Shijing hard, sending him stumbling back. “Stay the hell away from me.”

It was only today that the omega truly grasped the depths of the alpha’s cold-blooded nature. His cutting words in the past had always stemmed from a simple lack of regard for others’ feelings. But now? Pointing a gun at his own child. It didn’t matter if the barrel had been aimed squarely at Little Alpha’s head or if it might misfire—the nearest hospital was dozens of kilometers away in Hot Spring Town at the base of the mountain. An accident here meant no hope of survival.

The omega had lost all reason in his rage, his loathing for the alpha plain as day in his eyes. The alpha hadn’t flinched at the slap or the furious accusations, but that undisguised disgust finally pierced through.

Liang Shijing drew in a deep breath.

“Why do you stick to me like a damn leech? Why are you always following me? Why do you pop up everywhere I go? Can’t I just go abroad? Can’t you stay away—stay out of my sight forever?!” Wen Yan was hysterical now, at the absolute end of his rope. He couldn’t bear to even imagine the consequences if Liang Shijing had pulled the trigger on Liang Wangyou. That suffocating terror clung to him like a parasite in his bones. He even fantasized about ripping off his own skin and tossing it to Liang Shijing, if only it would make the man stop pursuing him and vanish from his life for good.

Liang Shijing looked ready to snap as well. He growled, “Then why do you keep running away? Oak Bay’s huge—why do you always have to leave?”

From childhood, social graces, elite schooling, and family expectations had molded them both into paragons of poise and restraint. Sure, they’d had their disagreements, but breeding and the child had always kept them cloaked in a veneer of civility. Today, though, that facade shattered. True colors laid bare, they hurled the ugliest barbs without mercy, stabbing at each other with the cruelest words, consequences be damned.

“Because I can’t stand the sight of you! Every look at you makes me sick to my stomach!” Wen Yan spat.

“Fine. Perfect.” Liang Shijing nodded with a cold sneer. “If you wanted out so bad, then why’d you do what you did in the car last night? Why say all those things?”

“Wen Yan, just tell me—what the hell are you dancing around?”

“Because I didn’t want to put your men in a tough spot or have you call out the cavalry. And above all, I didn’t want Little You getting hurt! I don’t want to stay in Oak Bay. I don’t want to be anywhere near you. My days in the Chief’s Mansion with you were pure hell—not knowing when you’d blow up over nothing. Being around you drains me, it hurts, always tiptoeing around your moods, second-guessing your every feeling.”

“As for the kiss? If I’d had a gun to hold you at gunpoint back then, that’s what I’d have done.” Wen Yan backed away several steps, desperate to put distance between them. “Kissing you was my rock-bottom option, and it still turns my stomach.”

“Don’t talk like that out of anger!” Liang Shijing snapped.

“It’s not anger. It’s the God’s honest truth.” Wen Yan met his eyes with fierce conviction. “Liang Shijing, you disgust me. If I could, I’d slice off my lips and chuck them at you. You gonna pick ’em up?”

The alpha and omega had shared blissful moments once—even after the amnesia, the omega’s worst outburst had been chucking a towel at the alpha’s face. But these repeated declarations of revulsion finally broke him. Liang Shijing surged forward. “Shut your mouth! Not another word!”

The omega glared daggers at him. “Back in the Capital, you used Little You to drag me to you. You made me settle debts, claimed I owed you, forced me to give you my pheromones. Well, I’ve paid up now. I don’t owe you a damn thing. I don’t want to be anywhere near you. Do you get it?”

Liang Shijing shook his head. “Wen Yan, don’t push me.”

“Who’s forcing who?” Wen Yan laid bare their rift without holding back. “You’ve been using my guilt toward you to bind me, but those things were done by my father, not me! It was you who stripped away my right to choose, you who fed me the drugs, and you who locked me up whenever you felt like it!”

Liang Shijing’s eyes blazed with fury as he stepped forward and seized his arm again. Wen Yan flung him off once more. “If time could turn back, if there was a chance, I would have taken part in what happened to your parents!”

Liang Shijing yanked him forcefully right up to his face, their noses almost touching. Through gritted teeth, he hissed the words in a voice thick with restraint. “That has nothing to do with you.”

Cold winds whipped relentlessly across the bridge deck, howling through the narrow gap between them and stealing away every last bit of warmth. After a moment, Wen Yan let out a soft laugh, as gentle as ever.

“Liang Shijing, you like me, don’t you?” he said quietly.

“Do you think I wanted to?” Liang Shijing shot back coldly.

Wen Yan broke free and backed Liang Shijing step by step until he was pinned against the car hood with nowhere left to go. Towering over him, Wen Yan looked down with disdain. “So even a cold-blooded man like you has feelings. I’m shocked.”

“Shocked?” Liang Shijing lifted his gaze to meet his.

“What else?” Wen Yan retorted. “Does that mean I have to like you just because you like me?”

Once the shouting match had died down, their hatred for each other truly emerged without restraint, distilled into a calm, piercing agony.

“Do you even know what you’re saying?” Liang Shijing asked, his face expressionless.

“I know.” Wen Yan was no longer furious like before; he spoke with utter calm. “I hate you. I hate you so much. That’s why I left—why I couldn’t stand staying in Oak Bay.”

Liang Shijing bowed his head and suddenly laughed. “Then why give me the cufflinks? Didn’t you spend the whole afternoon shopping just to buy them for me?”

“It wasn’t the whole afternoon. It wasn’t special. I just bought them on a whim. They’re not expensive,” Wen Yan said.

He remembered how the alpha had kept a stony face and stayed silent back then, but when the omega handed over the gift, his expression had softened. He’d cradled the small pair of cufflinks in his palm like something precious. But that day felt like ancient history now… so long ago that the dusk had blurred from memory…

“You don’t like me? Then why didn’t you push me away that night on the Island?” the alpha pressed relentlessly.

That night, after they’d tended to the child until the very end, the alpha had rested his head on the omega’s shoulder. The omega hadn’t shoved him off. The little family had dozed off leaning against each other on the sofa all night long—a picture of ordinary domestic warmth. But even that seemed like ages ago…

“Because I was exhausted. I didn’t have the energy to push you away,” the omega replied.

“Why buy two cakes? Wasn’t one of them for me?” The alpha, desperate, dredged up even the tiniest details for answers.