Xia Wennan didn’t know where he was heading yet, but he didn’t want to stay at Ming Yan no matter what.

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He grabbed the letter and made his way to the entrance of the lab, but right as he opened the door, he ran into someone, which caused the letter in his hands to fall to the ground.

Furthermore, the impact this time was so powerful that Xia Wennan, whose head had been slightly lowered, knocked his nose against the other man’s shoulder, and he immediately felt it twinge with pain.

When he raised his head, he discovered that the man was, yet again, Ming Luchuan.

Ming Luchuan looked back at him. Brows suddenly furrowing, he said, “Your nose is bleeding.”

Xia Wennan jolted with shock. Sure enough, when he lifted a hand to feel his nose, it came away stained with blood. He promptly cocked his head back and pinched the bridge of his nose to stop the bleeding.

Ming Luchuan handed him a tissue.

Xia Wennan took the proffered tissue and wiped at his bloody nose and lips, but the blood was sticky, and cleaning it up with just a tissue was impossible. He thus turned around to make his way to the toilet and wash his face.

“Wait.” Ming Luchuan knelt down and picked up Xia Wennan’s resignation letter. He gave the envelope a brief look, then handed it to Xia Wennan after a brief pause.

Xia Wennan accepted the letter with his clean hand. Thinking that he was going to resign anyhow, he directly turned and departed without so much as a thank you.

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Xia Wennan entered the toilet and made sure that his nosebleed had stopped entirely before washing his face and hands with water. The resignation letter had been folded and tucked into his pants pocket, and after drying his hands, he took it out again, glanced down at it, and made his way outside.

Ming Luchuan happened to be at Xu Zong’s office at this time. Xia Wennan could vaguely hear them talking through the door. After a moment’s hesitation, Xia Wennan decided against stepping inside. He slipped his resignation letter back into his pocket, hoping to try again once Ming Luchuan had left.

And yet the outcome of his waiting was Xu Zong leaving the laboratory with Ming Luchuan.

Xia Wennan sat down on his seat and stuffed the envelope back inside his drawer, planning to return tomorrow morning and hand it in. He’d been dragging his feet anyway, and the resignation process usually took more than a day or two.

When office hours ended, Xia Wennan walked out of the red-brick building housing the labs wearing a short white T-shirt, loose, light grey cotton pants, and a pair of not-so-clean sneakers.

His T-shirt had the words “Promising Young Man” printed on the chest, but Xia Wennan’s listless gaze made him look more like an idle and unmotivated university student as he walked down the path of the research institute with a crossbody bag over his shoulder.

When he arrived at the gates, he noticed a black SUV parked on the side of the road, with Ming Luchuan standing next to it. Dressed in a suit and tie at the entrance of the institute, his look of an elite was particularly conspicuous.

Ming Luchuan was the first to call out to Xia Wennan, after which he said, “I wanted to apologise.”

“Hm?” Xia Wennan had no idea what he was referring to.

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“May I invite you to dinner?” said Ming Luchuan.

“You want to invite me to dinner? Why?” Xia Wennan was perplexed as to what Ming Luchuan was after.

“To apologise for yesterday and earlier today,” said Ming Luchuan. He then paused before continuing, “I was in a bit of a hurry that day, at the headquarters. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, that’s all right. You don’t have to invite me to dinner either,” said Xia Wennan. Since he’d already made up his mind to resign, he suddenly no longer considered himself Ming Luchuan’s subordinate, and he couldn’t be bothered to carefully refer to the other man as “Manager Ming” either.

Ming Luchuan didn’t budge an inch from where he was standing. He only said, “May I?” He was plainly inviting someone to dinner, and yet his tone was a little harsh.

Xia Wennan hesitated for a beat before declining once more. “Thank you, but you really don’t have to do that.”

“It won’t take up too much of your time—it’s just dinner, nothing else,” said Ming Luchuan. He spoke quickly, and his gaze was trained at the words on Xia Wennan’s chest, never once meeting Xia Wennan’s eyes directly.

At this point, Xia Wennan could not refuse a third time, so he nodded with some reluctance.

Ming Luchuan was the one who decided on the restaurant. He took Xia Wennan to an elegant Chinese restaurant that was very generous with their air-conditioning. Here, Ming Luchuan’s suit and tie was no longer out of place—it was Xia Wennan’s student-like attire that looked ill-suited to the ambience.

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Ming Luchuan sat down and ordered some dishes, then picked up his cup of tea and slowly drank. “Thank you for sending me home that day,” he said to Xia Wennan after some time, when their food was almost ready.

Xia Wennan suddenly recalled Ming Luchuan’s appearance the day he injected himself with a suppressant. His mind flitted back to Ming Luchuan’s buff shoulders, how his white shirt hung off his arm, and the sharp bobbing of his Adam’s apple—the scene was straight out of a movie. His pheromones flooded the air, and there was a hint of sensuality about it.

It was a subtle thing, Xia Wennan came to realise. In his memories, the image of Ming Luchuan trying his best to repress his rut perfectly synchronised with the scent of his pheromones, which in turn made Ming Luchuan’s pheromones all the more sensual, as if it were a perfume laced with innuendo…

“What’s the matter?” Registering Xia Wennan’s absent-minded expression, Ming Luchuan spoke up and interrupted his line of thought.

Xia Wennan returned to his senses and looked in Ming Luchuan’s direction. “Oh. It’s nothing,” he said. He was simply associating the thought with the pheromone perfume in his original plans, but because he planned to resign, he had no intention of telling Ming Luchuan.

He picked up his teacup and took a sip, then said, “About that night—there’s no need to go out of your way to thank me.”

Ming Luchuan then said, “I’m sorry about what happened yesterday.”

Xia Wennan hurriedly waved his hands around. “Didn’t I already say that it’s no big deal?”

After delivering those two statements, Ming Luchuan fell silent and didn’t utter another word, as if his goal of inviting Xia Wennan to dinner today had been accomplished.

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Xia Wennan tilted his head back to drink his tea and took the opportunity to steal a look at Ming Luchuan, only to discover that, while not speaking, Ming Luchuan was staring right at Xia Wennan the entire time. The arcs of his eyebrows were slightly bunched, and his gaze was cloudy—there was nothing gentle about his temperament.

Despite the fact that Xia Wennan had only recently joined Ming Yan, he’d already heard a lot about this man. Aside from Ming Luchuan’s gloomy nature and unfriendly personality, there was also the widely circulated matter of his birth. His alpha father was allegedly a famous movie star, and Ming Luchuan was his illegitimate offspring.

Perhaps because he disliked Ming Luchuan’s alpha father, Ming Luchuan’s omega father—Ming Yan’s founder, Ming Qin—wasn’t particularly fond of Ming Luchuan as well. By comparison, Ming Siyan, who also served as Ming Yan’s vice president, was visibly more pleasing to Ming Qin’s eye.

As a result, despite Ming Siyan being an omega and Ming Luchuan being an alpha, Ming Yan as a whole preferred Ming Siyan.

Xia Wennan didn’t favour one over the other. He was just a measly researcher from the labs, and the only individuals he had regular contact with at work were his coworkers and his immediate superior, Xu Zong, who was the main reason he wanted to quit.

The waiters delivered their dishes in turn. There weren’t many, but they all appeared exquisite.

Xia Wennan picked up his chopsticks and dug in, finding some inconsequential topics to discuss with Ming Luchuan in passing. At present, he no longer had any inclination to curry favour with Ming Luchuan, and he only kept up a steady stream of chatter because he despised awkward silences.

Later on, when Xia Wennan’s moving chopsticks had slowed, Ming Luchuan abruptly asked, “Why are you resigning?”

Xia Wennan looked up, and with an indifferent tone, answered, “No reason, I just want a change of scenery.”

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