Chapter 10

“Why on earth would they recognize me as their master?” Wen Yan slowly raised both arms, asking in astonishment.

It was a truly spectacular sight. Across the vast expanse of open grassland beneath a boundless sky, more than a dozen spotted deer circled him endlessly, as if welcoming back their long-lost owner.

“Figure it out yourself.” Liang Shijing stood off to the side, speaking indifferently.

Liang Wangyou marveled from the edge of the deer herd. Wen Yan beckoned him over, and the boy squeezed through the throng. Seizing a moment when the herd parted slightly, Wen Yan scooped him up and guided his hand to stroke the fluffy heads of the little deer.

Liang Wangyou pouted a little sulkily. “They never pay any attention to me usually.”

“They find you annoying,” Liang Shijing said.

“Hmph!”

Wen Yan glanced over with a smile. Liang Shijing met his gaze for half a second before turning his face away.

The clouds thinned, revealing the soft glow of early dawn. Wen Yan’s cheeks were pale, his clear, luminous eyes shimmering with flecks of light. His slender, fragile waist showed faintly through his nearly sheer white shirt, though a subtle golden tint clung to his brows and the tips of his hair. Cradling Liang Wangyou against his back, he let the boy reach out to touch the spotted deer’s ears as they flicked back and forth.

“Do you like them?” Wen Yan asked gently.

“I love them!” Liang Wangyou’s small hands burrowed back and forth through the soft fur. “Wen Yan, look! Their eyelashes are as long as yours!”

“Come down from there. Who’s going to hold you up that long when you’re so heavy?” Liang Shijing stepped forward.

With a great rustling, the deer herd wandered off.

“Wen Yan, how did you do that? Why do they listen to you like that?” As the three headed toward the botanical garden, Liang Wangyou’s questions bubbled nonstop from his little mouth. “Are you a beast tamer, Wen Yan? Do you speak little deer language?”

Wen Yan had no idea how to respond. As far as he could remember, he’d never set foot on the North Side. After that rainy night came a wild, absurd plunge into an abyss of desire, and once the dependency period ended, he’d lain in a coma for a full year. Only Liang Shijing might hold the answers, but the man clearly had no intention of sharing them—he looked too lazy to speak, with a hint of impatience besides. Wen Yan quietly looked away, wondering to himself if it had something to do with not wearing his neck ring today.

Maybe… that special neck ring really did release pheromones?

“Fix your barrier patch.” Liang Shijing spoke up abruptly.

Wen Yan’s hand flew to the back of his neck. Sure enough, one corner had peeled up. He pressed it down firmly and hesitated. “Can you smell it?”

“Wen Yan, what does your pheromone smell like? Why can’t I smell it?” Liang Wangyou peered curiously at the two of them.

“If you could smell it, that’d be the real mystery,” Liang Shijing said coolly.

ABOs without blood ties could distinguish pheromone flavors before differentiation but weren’t swayed by them. Blood-related ABOs, though? No matter their age, children simply couldn’t detect their parents’ scents.

To head off more questions from this curious little baby, Wen Yan changed the subject. “Little You, how much farther is the botanical garden?”

“It’s right up ahead!” Liang Wangyou pointed to a gentle slope on the right side of the grassy lawn. Following his finger, Wen Yan realized the botanical garden lay underground, its dome entirely concealed beneath the turf with no sign of any structure—only a modest path leading to the entrance.

They hadn’t even reached it when two staff members in gray work uniforms stood at attention by the door, hands glued to their seams as they bowed deeply. “Chief. Mr. Wen.”

Liang Wangyou waited patiently while the staff sprayed him with insect repellent. Eager as could be, he waved at Wen Yan before darting inside along the plant-lined corridor.

Once they’d received the same treatment, Wen Yan and Liang Shijing entered side by side.

Even someone like Wen Yan, raised amid the lap of luxury, stood stunned. Beyond the verdant corridor stretched a cliffside overlook, opening onto an endless kingdom of flora. Flocks of birds winged over a waterfall that gleamed like a silver dragon. Simulated sunlight bathed the varied treetops, while splashes from mossy outcrops at his feet scattered rainbows of light. Far below, in the green ocean, Liang Wangyou’s tiny figure darted about.

A sightseeing elevator was embedded in the jagged rock wall to the right of the cliff. Wen Yan followed Liang Shijing inside. Amid the faint sense of weightlessness, he asked curiously, “When was this built? For Little You?”

He asked because the place felt strangely familiar.

“No.” Liang Shijing leaned against the compartment wall with his eyes closed, resting. “Five years ago.”

Wen Yan did the mental math, recalling Consul Ji’s mention of a mix-up last time. So this botanical garden must have been built for “that chip-crunching guy”?

With Liang Shijing’s eyes shut, Wen Yan stole a closer look. The exhaustion on his face made it obvious he’d pulled an all-nighter at the Chief’s Mansion, yet here he was, accompanying Liang Wangyou on an outing. He was actually quite good to the boy.

“You should head back and rest. I’ll keep him company here,” Wen Yan said softly.

The doors slid open, letting in a haze of mist and the crisp, forest-fresh air. Liang Shijing’s eyes opened, and in their deep black depths, Wen Yan glimpsed a tangle of complicated emotions.

Their gazes locked, and that eerie sense of familiarity washed over him once more.

“I’m not tired,” Liang Shijing said curtly.

Wen Yan paused for several seconds before stepping out after him.

A sign at the trail’s fork pointed to the Tropical Ecological Botanical Garden and the Temperate Ecological Botanical Garden. They were in the latter now, its layered vegetation suited to the warm, humid spring air. Shrubs and deciduous woods dominated the area.

Tiny mushrooms poked from the leaf-littered soil. Delicate flowers bloomed on fallen logs in the woods. Overhead, birds nested in the branches.

Liang Shijing led the way, with Wen Yan following.

The gurgle of streams grew louder the farther they went. Through gaps in the dense trees, they spotted Liang Wangyou standing ankle-deep in crystal-clear water, pants rolled to his knees. Hearing them approach, he turned with a woebegone expression.

“Can’t catch any,” he whined first to Liang Shijing.

“Figure it out yourself,” Liang Shijing replied from the bank, towering over him.

Liang Wangyou turned pleading eyes to Wen Yan. “Wen Yan… I can’t catch them.”

A school of finger-length fish darted through the brook, congregating teasingly around the boy’s legs before flashing silver and vanishing.

“I’ll help you,” Wen Yan said, bending to remove his shoes.

“Why wade into water that cold?” Liang Shijing blocked his path. He stepped onto the narrow log bridge spanning the stream and drove his toe into the water. A massive splash drenched Liang Wangyou from head to toe. Wen Yan stared in shock. “What are you—”

That rotten log bobbed in the water a few times before bumping right into the narrow mouth of the stream. It perfectly blocked the fish school’s path while enclosing a pool roughly one square meter in size.

“Thanks, Father.” Liang Wangyou peered closely and shouted in delight. He hurriedly snatched up his little net and scooped vigorously. But the fish school had been outsmarting him for two or three years now and wasn’t about to go down without a fight. He came up empty-handed once more…

Liang Shijing tsked.

Wen Yan held back his impulse to help. Liang Shijing’s words were always harsh, but this pool was plenty big enough for Liang Wangyou to net some small fish. Clearly, Liang Shijing wanted to train the boy’s hand-eye coordination.

After yet another miss, though, Liang Wangyou started to look upset.

“It’s okay. Keep at it,” Wen Yan said with an encouraging smile.

“Okay.” Liang Wangyou turned back around, looking thoroughly put out.

“Were you this clumsy as a kid?” Liang Shijing asked flatly.

“…What does he even want with the fish?” Wen Yan wondered aloud, curious.

“What else? His stubborn streak,” Liang Shijing replied without a flicker of expression.

…

Liang Wangyou swung his net and came up empty yet again. Inevitably frustrated, he let out a loud yell. Far from intimidating the fish school, the shout startled it into a frenzy. The log couldn’t fully block the narrow mouth, so the fish darted through the gaps between the wood and the stream rocks. Liang Wangyou chased after them in the water and nearly slipped and fell.

His constant back-and-forth churned up waves that widened the gap even further. Most of the fish school slipped away… Liang Wangyou scratched his head in a panic and glanced back over his shoulder. Resentful as he looked, he still wasn’t ready to give up.

“Think with your brain. Brute force isn’t working,” Liang Shijing reminded him.

Once the pool had settled back into glassy stillness, Liang Wangyou clambered onto a protruding stream rock. Net at the ready, he crouched down quietly to wait and see what happened.

Wen Yan let out a long breath of relief. “He’s actually very smart.”

“Took sixteen tries to get smart,” Liang Shijing said.

“I think he’s doing great.”

“You must have some weird idea of what ‘great’ means.”

Wen Yan turned his face away in silence. Liang Wangyou’s patience was holding up just fine by now. Cautiously, he eased his little net into the narrow mouth. The fish school naturally followed the current right into it, and just like that, he netted them without breaking a sweat.

“Look, quick!” Liang Wangyou shouted happily.

Only then did Wen Yan realize what he was up to. Liang Wangyou dashed over to a tree, dripping net in hand. He pulled out the small fish and placed them in a tiny nest perched on a branch. Curled up inside was an injured bluebird, brooding a clutch of unhatched oval eggs beneath its belly.

“Eat up, eat up. That way your babies won’t die,” Liang Wangyou said solemnly, his little face set in a serious expression. “And don’t fly into the tropical rainforest anymore, okay? You can’t beat the birds in there!”

A massive barrier separated the different ecosystems in the Botanical Garden, but a few days ago, a mischievous monkey from the rainforest section had torn a huge hole in it. The bluebird had wandered in while foraging and gotten badly mauled by the fiercer carnivorous birds.

The staff had rescued it, of course, but Liang Wangyou was even more enthusiastic about it. All the animals here were his pets, and he felt responsible for looking out for every one of them—even if he couldn’t always manage it…

“Clumsy and soft-hearted. Your spitting image,” Liang Shijing remarked dryly.

“You’re the soft-hearted one,” Wen Yan said, calling it like he saw it. After all, it was Liang Shijing who’d kicked the log into the stream to block the fish school—and him who’d reminded Liang Wangyou to use his head. He’d guided the boy every step of the way, but in the most roundabout fashion…

“You’re pretty perceptive,” Liang Shijing said lazily as he leaned back against a tree trunk. “I’ve got a business trip tomorrow. About seven days.”

He said it as casually as if he were just reporting his schedule. Wen Yan blinked up at him and ventured, “Stay safe?”

“Why not ‘safe travels’? Or send me off with flowers and a note wishing I’d never come back.”

“Then… I hope you come back soon,” Wen Yan said, a little awkwardly.

“When did I say I was going alone?” Liang Shijing countered.

“Am I going too?”

“Obviously. Don’t forget your neck ring.”

“Got it. When do we leave? I’ll get up early,” Wen Yan said. Truth be told, he would have preferred to stay in Oak Bay with Liang Wangyou—after all, every glance was one fewer from here on out. But if Liang Shijing needed his pheromones, even if it hurt, that was fine. Liang Shijing was actually a good person. As long as he was okay, that was what mattered.

“After you wake up,” Liang Shijing said, giving him a faint glance. “Don’t make it look like I’m abusing you. You’ll just end up throwing a tantrum later.”

Wen Yan blinked in surprise.

When had he ever thrown a tantrum at Liang Shijing over something like sleep?