Chapter 39: Dark-Skinned Rugged Honest Man 39

Jiang Rang felt bone-weary exhaustion through his entire body.

The young man hung his head low, sitting quietly in the car. He looked like a patch of wilted tree shade, its tangled branches gradually withering into decay.

The beta offered no explanation for his deception or his escape. He simply sank into his own world, as if nothing mattered to him anymore.

The partition in the vehicle had long since risen, trapping the two estranged men in a cramped space that pressed in on them.

The Male Master suppressed a rage that burned at his heart. He tilted his head slightly, his porcelain-pale face flushing an eye-searing red. Just moments ago, no matter what he said to Jiang Rang, the other man had remained silent and aloof, as if he couldn’t hear a word.

In truth, if the youth had offered even a few words of comfort, the man might have relented. But that indifferent attitude cut too deep—like a deliberate act of revenge.

He knew full well how sensitive the omega was, how prone to anxiety and triggers and anger. He knew exactly how to soothe him. And yet he chose to ignore it all, prodding at him with stony silence.

After the crash and clatter of smashing things, the man panted with uneven breaths. His long hair draped over his shoulders and sharp, pale collarbones like a layer of black crow feathers.

Qi Yu’s slender fingers trembled as he pointed at the beta. His cheeks, pale as if soaked in alcohol, twisted with extreme gloom and bitterness. His bloodshot eyes bored into the youth. His throat choked with fluid, and he coughed for a long moment before snarling venomously, “Jiang Rang, I’m telling you to speak!”

His voice shook as he continued, “You disregard the fact that I’m pregnant and run off without a word. Don’t you have even that much sense of responsibility?”

Jiang Rang remained utterly silent, like a sea without a ripple—no hurricane could stir so much as a wave in him.

That indifference bordered on hateful.

Qi Yu’s face drained white with fury. He lunged forward, seizing the youth’s collar, his lips parting to sink his teeth into the beta’s tightly pressed mouth.

But the youth, who had shown no emotion until then, suddenly turned his head aside with a frown, dodging the bite.

Stripped of his feigned affection, his attitude toward the man was colder than that of a mere stranger.

Jiang Rang’s lips parted slightly. His wheat-toned face remained calm and remote. Slowly, he raised his eyes and spoke words as sharp as a blade.

“Mr. Qi,” he said, “you always demand that I take responsibility. But isn’t this your child with your late husband, Li Xian?”

The youth gave a faint smile. Beneath the omega’s gaze of utter disbelief, his face gone pale as a ghost, he continued, “I’ve never been the child’s father. I’ve never needed to feel any responsibility toward him. If you insist on putting it that way—setting aside the power you truly crave—he’s nothing more than the bastard spawn of our sordid hookup…”

The words weren’t even finished before tears spilled endlessly from the man’s reddened eyes, like summer rain. His throat swelled repeatedly, but he couldn’t force out a single word. His face was the ghastly white of a corpse left to rot on a grave.

The look he fixed on Jiang Rang held a profound emptiness and despair.

The omega murmured in a dazed whisper, as if out of his mind, “So that’s what you really think.”

“So in your eyes… we were just a sordid hookup.”

His hand drifted gently to his rounded belly. He let out a strange, sickly laugh. “Bastard spawn…”

In the softest of voices, he added, “If it’s bastard spawn… then it shouldn’t be kept.”

With those words, he snatched up a shard of broken porcelain from nearby. His face contorted in vicious rage as he drove it toward his own abdomen.

It was as if all his previous tenderness and care had been nothing but a mirage. The real man didn’t give a damn about the child—in fact, right now, he hated it.

He hated it for failing to bind its father. He hated it for being the youth’s “bastard spawn.” He hated it for being so utterly useless.

Blood gushed in an instant.

But that crimson flood poured from Jiang Rang’s tightly clenched fist.

One vivid red drop after another fell like some bizarre nutrient solution. The omega’s swollen belly drank it all in, as if the child inside were greedily suckling at its mother’s milk.

Qi Yu’s hand jerked open, releasing the glass shard that had pierced the youth’s hand. He reached instinctively for the youth’s injury—but then a stabbing pain, sharp as ice, exploded in his abdomen.

The agony crashed over the omega like a tidal wave. His pupils contracted to pinpoints. His whole body shuddered uncontrollably. Beads of sweat rolled down his deathly pale forehead, thick and dense as condensation on a winter car window.

For an instant, Qi Yu felt as if he’d been plunged underwater. He convulsed and collapsed into the youth’s arms. Clear fluid began trickling steadily from between his legs.

“Jiang Rang… Jiang Rang…”

The omega gasped like a man on his last breath, his pale lips mumbling the beta’s name in delirious confusion.

Jiang Rang simply couldn’t bear to watch the man suffer right in front of him. He hurriedly pressed the partition button in the car and shouted in a panic for the driver to get to the hospital as fast as possible.

The driver was just as frightened by the situation and slammed his foot on the accelerator, speeding off to the nearest Qi Family Hospital.

When Qi Yu was wheeled away on the stretcher, he was completely out of it, barely conscious.

Yet he clung tightly to the young man’s sleeve the whole time. His eyes were squeezed shut, but his eyeballs rolled restlessly beneath the lids as he murmured, “Can’t have it… can’t have this bastard child…”

“Jiang Rang doesn’t like it… abort it, abort it… have another one… another one, and it won’t be a bastard…”

The mounting labor pains sharpened his already strained voice to a piercing edge. The omega looked like he’d just been fished out of the water—deathly pale, weak, and sickly.

Someone nearby shot the beta a strange look, laced with surprised accusation.

But Jiang Rang had no attention to spare. The sheer intensity of it all had him rattled to his core. His eyes could hold nothing but the man on the verge of giving birth.

Qi Yu was quickly wheeled into the delivery room. Jiang Rang instinctively moved to follow, only to be blocked by a doctor in a white mask.

“Mr. Jiang, your omega took an overdose of labor-inducing drugs, cutting the normal gestation period by nearly half. Now, with all this extra stress triggering premature labor, you need to think this through—the child has a high chance of serious health issues.”

Jiang Rang froze on the spot, a faint redness welling up in his eyes. He licked his parched lips and rasped, “Overdose of labor-inducing drugs?”

The doctor got the implication right away, but he’d been given strict instructions by Mr. Qi before administering the shots. Anxious that the young man might get the wrong idea, he let it slip casually, “Mr. Qi mentioned before the injection that he wanted you to meet the child sooner… and maybe, for the child’s sake…”

Jiang Rang clenched his fists until his knuckles whitened, cutting the doctor off in a fluster. “I get it. Go take care of him. I’ll wait right here.”

The doctor gave a slight nod, casting the young man a glance tinged with pity.

He had been involved with the two of them ever since Mr. Qi got pregnant and knew bits and pieces of the story—like how the young man hadn’t stayed by the man’s side willingly.

But judging by the beta’s earnest, worried expression now, the moment that child was born, the two would be bound together for life.

Mr. Qi wielded immense power and schemed with ruthless depth. How could a green young beta like this slip free from his web of traps?

It was just tragic for the child, reduced entirely to a tool for chaining down its father.

~~~

It was nearly seven in the evening when Jiang Rang finally saw the delivery room door swing open.

An exhausted nurse in blue sterile scrubs emerged, cradling a tiny cloth bundle. She asked if he was the father. Jiang Rang nodded numbly, and she passed the bundle to him.

Flustered and unsure, the young man accepted it and, with her guidance, figured out how to hold it properly. Only then did he get a clear look at the baby’s face.

It was a pale, sweet little face—wrinkled here and there, but endearingly delicate all the same. The fetal hair crowning its head was thick and lovely, damp and fluffy. Its eyes were puffy, still sealed shut, like a fawn fresh from the womb in some deep jungle.

Jiang Rang couldn’t put that instant’s feeling into words, but he knew his heart had been softly, profoundly struck—warm enough to brim with tears.

Blood ties were a marvel, indeed. In no time at all, he found himself helplessly adoring this child who shared his blood.

A faint voice seemed to whisper in his heart: This is one of the only two true blood relatives I have in the whole world.

Jiang Rang couldn’t stop touching the baby, gently stroking its downy cheek with his fingertip. His voice soft with affection, he asked, “Can we tell the gender yet?”

As a new father, he brimmed with curiosity about every little thing concerning the child.

The nurse nodded. “It’s confirmed. The baby’s primary sex is male, secondary sex is alpha.”

“But…” She hesitated. “As a premie with underdeveloped organs, Baobao needs to go straight to the neonatal incubator for monitoring.”

Jiang Rang tensed right up. “Will this affect Baobao’s health down the line?”

The nurse nodded. “That’s exactly why we put premies in the incubator—to monitor them closely and head off any problems.”

Jiang Rang got the picture and didn’t dare ask any more questions, afraid of wasting the nurse’s time. The young man even wanted to follow her to the neonatal ward, but the nurse blocked his way.

“Your omega madam just gave birth to your child, sir,” the nurse said pointedly. “His body and mind are both in an extremely weakened state right now. I suggest you go comfort Madam first.”

Only then did Jiang Rang seem to remember something. His expression grew somber, and in the end, he relented and entered the delivery room.

The moment the beta stepped inside, he was hit by the overwhelming stench of blood.

Even after the nurses and doctors had cleaned up, Jiang Rang could still make out the glaring red stains beside the operating table.

Lying in the center of the stark white table was the omega, completely naked save for a thin sheet draped over his lower body.

Qi Yu’s skin was so pale it nearly glowed, overlaid with an eerie, unnatural pink tint. His long hair soaked into the white pillow beneath him, and his face was a ghostly shade of white. He lay there half-lidded, his thick lashes quivering faintly.

The instant he spotted Jiang Rang, the man’s eyes reddened at the rims.

He parted his lips and asked in a soft voice, “Jiang Rang, will you like him?”

The omega’s question was strange—like he was asking about the child, or maybe about whether he’d won the other’s favor.

Jiang Rang’s emotions churned in that moment. He wasn’t made of stone, after all.

The young man pressed his lips together gently and murmured, “I like him.”