Chapter 3: Dark-Skinned Rugged Honest Man 3

Jiang Rang never imagined he would be allowed to stay.

Having made such a colossal fool of himself in front of the master of the house, even getting a single meal was an act of charity.

Yet the city truly was worlds apart from the village. Even the servants had their own dining hall, and the food was so lavish it left him stunned.

The beta hadn’t touched food all day, and with his robust build, he couldn’t hold back. He devoured three heaping bowls of rice one after another. Only when a sense of fullness finally settled in his stomach did he belatedly notice the astonished stares from the other servants.

Jiang Rang’s handsome, wheat-toned face flushed crimson in an instant, steam practically rising from the top of his head. He ducked his gaze and hurriedly cleared his bowl and chopsticks, scrubbing them clean with startling efficiency.

After washing the dishes, just as the young man prepared to tidy up and await the butler’s final judgment, he received the unexpected news that he was being retained.

In a daze, the beta asked the butler, “You mean… from now on, I can live here on my own?”

He pointed toward a somewhat cramped small room next to the master bedroom on the third floor.

The butler nodded, his polite smile deepening the wrinkles on his face. “Yes. Mr. Qi personally approved you. You’ll live here from now on, always at the ready for Mr. Qi’s instructions.”

Jiang Rang felt his breath catch in his throat. His face—already looking endearingly honest and guileless from the shock—turned an even deeper shade of red. He stammered his thanks over and over, like a gambler who’d just hit the jackpot and had no idea how to contain his gratitude.

The beta had never dreamed of having a room all to himself. Back in the countryside, poverty meant the whole family shared everything—eating, drinking, sleeping, even relieving themselves—in one cramped space. Jiang Rang was hardworking, and with his fiancé helping out around the house, things were barely tolerable.

This room had excellent natural light, thanks to a sun-facing window. It came fully furnished, its snow-white walls so impeccably clean they almost hurt the eyes to stare at for too long.

Unable to resist, Jiang Rang pressed a hand to the plush mattress. His wandering gaze landed on the bell sitting atop the nightstand.

It was an exquisite bell ornament. A closer look revealed a discreet transmitter at its top.

Coming from the countryside, the beta had no clue what it was, so the butler explained, “If Mr. needs you at night, he’ll activate the regulator. The bell here will ring. Oh, and there’s a transmitter at the top of the bell—any instructions from Mr. will come through it.”

Jiang Rang nodded to himself, thinking, Isn’t this just a weird-looking phone?

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the bedside bell chimed.

The sound was sharp and insistent, like an urgent prod.

Jiang Rang’s heart skipped a beat, and he shot to his feet on instinct. The butler checked the time on his wristwatch and said evenly, “It’s Mr.’s bath time.”

“Wait inside the master bedroom for his instructions. But remember: don’t do anything extraneous. And absolutely do not touch anything in the master bedroom. There are far more surveillance cameras in this villa than meet the eye.”

The beta nodded vigorously. He might not have any formal servant training, but he knew full well what was expected—and what wasn’t.

Country folk like him were already prone to disdain due to their status and poverty. Before he’d left the village, his dad had pulled him aside with a special warning: Poor we may be, but our spirits won’t break.

The young man was visibly tense. He rubbed his hands together out of habit before curling his fingers into a fist and rapping on the master bedroom’s dark wooden door.

A long silence followed from within. Jiang Rang pressed his lips together and waited patiently. With his head slightly bowed, his tall frame seemed imposing; the tight white shirt only accentuated his deepening tan, yet it radiated an undeniable, vibrant energy.

It was quite some time before the master bedroom door finally swung open.

A humid moss scent billowed out, evoking the damp growth of a jungle.

Faint wisps of steam clung to the omega’s form. The man’s sodden black hair hung over the bathrobe-clad chest, stray strands snaking along the pale curve of his neck—like a divide between head and body.

A subtle flush colored Qi Yu’s face, lending him a touch more vitality than before. He flicked a glance at the nervous beta servant, his voice hoarse and languid. “Come in.”

Jiang Rang scarcely dared to look. The towering beta stepped into his omega master’s domain with exquisite caution, as if treading on eggshells.

The master bedroom mirrored the hall’s palette: oppressive shades of red and black that rendered the refined, understated luxury chillingly somber. What drew the eye most were the photo frames of all sizes embedded in the walls.

Most frames captured backs or shadowy profiles. Only the largest held a stark, icy frontal portrait.

The man in the photo frame was still clad in a black changshan robe, his pitch-black hair draping over half his face. His eerily pale cheeks held no trace of blood, and his nearly crimson lips seemed poised to disgorge a shattered heart, lungs, and spleen at any moment.

Jiang Rang averted his eyes, unable to bear looking any longer.

If he stared much more, he would start wondering whether the man before him was some ghostly apparition from the tale rather than a human being.

“Jiang Rang, come stand before me.”

The man’s voice carried a commanding lilt, drifting lightly like toxic smoke infiltrating his nerves. In that instant, Jiang Rang felt a prickling numbness across his scalp, and his body moved of its own accord, coming to a halt before the man seated on the edge of the sofa.

Qi Yu lifted his gaze halfway to regard the beta. There was perhaps no meaning in that look, or maybe it was a peculiar inspection, as if appraising merchandise. It was a long moment before Jiang Rang heard the man’s second order.

“Help me change into my pajamas.”

The beta had never experienced anything like this. Even with his fiancé, they had only ever held hands, and they had kissed no more than a couple of times.

Over that year, the most bare skin Jiang Rang had seen belonged to the beta laborers sweating shirtless in the fields. He had scarcely examined his own body in detail.

Society brimmed with doctrines safeguarding omegas these days. To suddenly be tasked with undressing a pampered omega made the young man feel as though he would be hauled off to jail at any second.

Seeing Jiang Rang rooted to the spot, the man’s eyes—with their whites showing ominously below—shifted slowly to the beta’s face, flushed with awkward uncertainty. The dense red veins threading those whites lent his stare an added bloody intensity.

Under that pressure, the young man faltered. “Sorry, Mister,” he stammered. “I… I don’t know the customs in the city, but back home, omegas and betas are different. What I’m doing right now… it’s terribly wrong.” To glimpse the pure body of an omega who wasn’t his wife was graver than any charge of indecent assault.

Qi Yu’s cold, ink-black eyes swept once more over the beta’s excessively handsome and sturdy frame. Gradually, that serene, pallid face split into a smile.

It was a chill smile, wholly indifferent, echoing the man’s lofty, restrained tone.

“You are merely a beta servant,” he said slowly. “In times past, servants were slaves bereft of independent thought. Slaves were not regarded as people.”

“So what does it matter?”

Jiang Rang’s face drained of color for a heartbeat, as if he had been slapped hard across the cheek. Qi Yu spoke the truth. To those in power, gender meant nothing. What did it matter that he was a beta, or that he was strong? Poverty had still forced him to sell his freedom and labor.

Servants were, after all, mere possessions of the master of the house.

The beta was ever practical. With scant education and a simple, unassuming nature, he accepted his lot far more readily than those burdened by pride.

Jiang Rang bowed his head in apology without protest, then retrieved the black silk pajamas he had ironed earlier and stepped to the omega’s side.

He went about the task with earnest care, clumsy though he was. He gently gathered the omega’s damp locks to one side before reaching to loosen the bathrobe’s sash.

All the while, Jiang Rang sensed the other’s frigid gaze fixed unwaveringly on his face.

His wrists quivered faintly; he was utterly unaccustomed to the situation. Vast expanses of the omega’s pale, exquisite skin lay exposed before him. His mind remained a blank slate, free of impure thoughts, yet a strange, intimate tension wormed its way into the air regardless.

Head bowed, Jiang Rang fulfilled his duties as a servant with meticulous attention, helping his master into the garments. Yet some things lay beyond his control.

Take his hands, for instance—roughened and cracked from years of farm labor. Even without fieldwork these past few days, they remained coarse and unrefined. Despite his utmost caution to avoid contact with Qi Yu, inadvertent brushes occurred.

And the instant his fingers grazed that skin, the pale expanse flushed with rosy tint.

Such fragile tenderness stirred an involuntary pity in Jiang Rang. No matter how ill-tempered, peculiar, or imperious this omega might be, he was still an omega deserving of protection.

What was more, he was a grieving widower, freshly bereaved of his husband. The beta chided himself; he should not have thought so harshly of him before, likening him to some specter.

After all, he had just lost the husband he so deeply loved. It was only natural for him to be plunged into such profound grief and sorrow.