After being moved to tears by the sworn enemy's pheromones - Chapter 80

The middle-aged man stood a few meters away, rare in his composure, not erupting in anger after being exposed. The wind in the cemetery was bleak, and he neither approached the tombstone nor answered Gu Yu’s question. Instead, he glanced at Shen Jin and asked, “You’re that Shen Jin, right?”

Shen Jin nodded, maintaining polite respect for an elder. “Hello, uncle.”

Gu’s father stared at him for two seconds, ignoring Gu Yu’s earlier confrontation and focusing on questioning Shen Jin. “What status or position do you think you have that qualifies you to come here to see my wife?”

Gu Yu immediately frowned and stepped forward, but Shen Jin grabbed his wrist, holding him back. He answered Gu’s father, “At the very least, Gu Yu and I have been sworn brothers for seven years. Don’t you think, uncle, that your nephew qualifies to visit Aunt Lu?”

Gu’s father’s expression darkened, his eyes narrowing as he scrutinized this unexpected young man in front of him. 

“Brothers?” A vein bulged slightly on his forehead as he coolly hit where it hurt. “Very well, as long as I’m still alive, don’t ever think he can marry you into this family.”

Shen Jin stared back at Gu’s father, his calmness and worldliness belying the fact that he was more than twenty years younger than this man. He acted like a much older, mature man, completely unfazed by the idea of negotiating with his younger boyfriend’s elder. And he didn’t consider it a sore point at all. “No problem. I can marry him into my family.”

Gu’s father couldn’t help but laugh coldly, instinctively retorting, “Marry him into your family? And then what? Have him live with you on your meager salary, renting an apartment and eating instant noodles?”

As always, he remained steadfast in his opinion, questioning Shen Jin with his own answer already in mind. “Do you know that one of his suits likely costs more than your parents’ annual income? How long do you think your passion will last?”

“Well, I’ll do my best,” Shen Jin frowned deeply, sounding serious. “I’ll try to love him for a few more years before abandoning him, and I won’t dislike him just because he’s spoiled and extravagant and refuses to honor my parents.”

Gu’s father was probably not used to someone daring to banter with him like this, tearing the polite facade without hesitation. He bluntly said, “You? Abandon my son? Look at yourself—what makes you think you’re even worthy of him? Even if you manage to finish college and get married, it’ll be him who leaves you, not the other way around.”

Gu Yu, furious, tried to step forward, but Shen Jin pulled him back, tilting his head and asking, “Divorce? Would I get half of the assets?”

Pulled back a few steps, Gu Yu had no choice but to nod. “Yes, you’d get it all.”

Since Gu’s father was already convinced that Shen Jin was after Gu Yu’s wealth, Shen Jin didn’t mind coveting more. “Do you inherit your father’s estate?”

Perhaps because Shen Jin’s words were too frank, Gu’s father visibly clenched his jaw, while Gu Yu hesitated for a moment before shaking his head.

Shen Jin sighed softly, looking genuinely disappointed. “Oh… that’s fine. I thought you were an only child. I guess I’ll have to settle for less.”

“You…” Gu’s father tightened his grip on the bouquet in his hand. For the first time, he was left speechless in front of a young man.

After a long, tense silence, he finally spoke again, offering a reluctant compliment. “You’re certainly not someone to be underestimated.”

Shen Jin smiled and replied, “When the medical university threatened to expel Song Yizhi last semester, uncle should’ve realized I wasn’t easy to deal with.”

“You’re more formidable than I expected,” Gu’s father’s wrinkled lips curled into a smile, though it lacked warmth. “But you’d better remember, Gu Yu is my son. Sons take after their fathers. Right now, he treats you well, but it’s no different from how I once treated his mother. One day, he’ll change.”

These words, once spoken, were a form of self-destruction.

The implication was that it was an inherent alpha nature. Bloodlines are passed down, and Gu Yu would be no exception—no matter how deep the love in their youth, no one could guarantee a happy ending in the end.

Just like when Gu’s father first crossed the line—he didn’t even have the conscious intention to cheat at the time. He had simply been too exhausted from a business trip, and when a group returned to the hotel, he was tipsy. An omega from the group entered his room, exuding a sweet scent, and leaned into him. Instinctively, he wrapped his arm around that slender waist, allowing the omega to linger in his embrace and share a kiss.

In the end, he held back the most primal urge and didn’t go any further like others did. Yet, his beloved Lu could never accept this, much less forgive him.

What seemed like a trivial, common occurrence among second-generation alphas from factory-owning families—even a virtuous restraint—had become an insurmountable wall that slowly separated them.

As time went on, their lives became increasingly bitter, and at some point, he realized there was no turning back.

Now, standing in front of his adult son, he had no doubt that Gu Yu would eventually follow in his footsteps.

He knew how smart and composed his son was and could imagine that Gu Yu would be no worse than him in the business world. But in business, a chaste alpha was little more than a myth. Everyone had heard of one, but no one had actually seen one.

Gu Yu clenched his fists tightly, unsure if he had the right to refute his father’s words.

Maybe for naive omegas, even hoping for a happy ending with an alpha was a mistake in itself.

And he, being his father’s son, didn’t even know if he could call himself pure.

The tombstone stood quietly in the wind not far away, and the father and son fell into silence. Only Shen Jin frowned slightly and spoke up: “Can you alphas stop being so narcissistic?”

Gu Yu snapped out of it, confused. “What do you mean, senior?”

If this weren’t a cemetery, one could imagine Shen Jin already lighting a cigarette, annoyed and arrogant. He let go of Gu Yu’s hand. “What I mean is, the probability of me dumping you is way higher than you betraying me. If I didn’t find dating and boosting people’s rankings such a hassle, I would’ve started picking out candidates before you came to C University.”

Knowing Shen Jin was only saying this on purpose, Gu Yu didn’t question it too much. But his inner wolf, usually well-hidden, seemed ready to drop its tail. Shen Jin refrained from comforting him for now and instead continued speaking to Gu’s father: “Uncle, you should rest easy. If anything goes wrong between us during the week, we’ll just head to the civil registry and get a divorce. No big deal.”

Gu’s father probably hadn’t anticipated Shen Jin’s character. He silently tightened his grip on the purple bouquet, unsure whether he was mocking Shen Jin, himself, or the person lying beyond the tombstone.

He said, “You’re too naive. Don’t come crying to me when you can’t let go of my son.”

“It’s not me being naive,” Shen Jin looked at the middle-aged man in front of him and replied, “It’s that Aunt Lu loved you too much.”

From any outsider’s perspective, Gu Yu’s omega father could have divorced and walked away with money and shares, living a comfortable life. 

But only those involved knew how hard it was to let go of the pure, intense love that had been shared since childhood—it was more painful than cutting off a limb. One day, they could rehash all the memories, resolutely deciding to end things for good. The next day, they would toss and turn, unwilling to mention a single word.

Again and again, it becomes terminal, with no cure. Even when it’s rotting and emitting a foul odor, there’s still a lingering hope that maybe, just maybe, it could reignite.

That’s what young love often is.

Gu’s father was momentarily stunned. His aging throat trembled.

Looking at Gu Yu, who bore a striking resemblance to him, with similar eyebrows, facial features, and nose, Gu’s father seemed to see another moment from his past—a sunset at a train station.

Back then, he and Lu were in college together. They had a minor argument before the National Day holiday. In front of Lu, he had none of his usual calm, dominant demeanor. The next day, childishly, he left a brief note and stormed off to the train station by himself, determined to return to City C for the holiday.

In the early 2000s, train stations were chaotic and bustling.

At 19 years old, with little experience traveling by train, he had his phone and wallet stolen shortly after entering the station. With no means to call for help or report the theft, he was ignored by those he tried to approach. As a result, he spent the entire day at the hot, crowded station, with no place to sit and starving from morning till late afternoon, his vision nearly fading.

It was late September, but the sweltering heat of South China still rivaled the temperatures of July or August. He regretted not wearing his expensive watch, and he started planning a two-hour walk back to his university.

But the more he walked, the angrier

 he became. He circled the station a few times, unwilling to go back and see Lu.

It wasn’t until dusk that he finally saw a familiar figure. The person seemed to be anxiously searching for something, their white shirt drenched in sweat without noticing it.

He paused, unsure of what to do next. Then, suddenly, the person shouted his name and, fearing he would run away, pushed through the crowd and rushed toward him. “Why couldn’t I reach you on the phone?”

He was too embarrassed to explain, so the person handed him a bottle of water, saying, “I knew it—you must’ve had your phone and wallet stolen, right, Princess Gu?”

“…I’m out and about; don’t call me Princess,” he muttered as an alpha, stammering as he pushed the water back. “I won’t drink your water. Give it to that student council president you bought it for.”

But after saying this, he felt guilty. Normally, Lu was soft and gentle, but that didn’t mean Lu tolerated everything.

He lowered his head, prepared to be scolded. But this time, even though Lu was shy, he stood on his tiptoes and gave him a quick hug, saying, “Alright, I was wrong. I was really just talking about business with the president. I guessed you got your phone stolen, so I rushed out to find you. Could you forgive me?”

Though they were the same age, Lu often gently referred to himself as the “older brother,” like a little animal flapping its wings, determined not to lose to him.

Hearing each word, he was gradually filled with guilt and sweetness.

“Mm.” In order not to show his feelings, he raised his hand to cover his ears, which tended to turn red easily, and said, “Sorry, I guess I made a little mistake too.”

After saying that, he emphasized, “Really, really tiny—so small you’d need a microscope to see it.”

The other person chuckled at his joke and pulled out two bottles of herbal medicine, gently chiding him in a weak but soft voice: “You’ve never suffered even a little since childhood. If you were really going back, you should’ve gone to the airport. How could you survive a twenty-hour train ride?”

“I… I wanted to save some money to buy you that watch from last time…” Thinking about his stolen wallet, he felt a surge of grievance again. After hearing this, the other couldn’t help but lightly tap his shoulder, “How is it that even when you’re upset, you’re still thinking about buying a watch for me? I don’t need such an expensive one.”

But he muttered under his breath, “You don’t like that watch anymore? Then does that mean you don’t like me anymore either? You said you really liked that watch last time, so if you don’t like it now, that must mean you don’t like me anymore…”

The other was both amused and exasperated. Meanwhile, he pulled him into a car, serious and stubborn: “Hmph, we’re buying it right now. Even if I starve to death, you’re going to wear that watch on your wrist, and when people ask, you must tearfully tell them it’s from your dead boyfriend.”

In the distance, the evening sky blazed with hues of crimson, and the other’s rare, unrestrained laughter echoed in the air.

On that particular evening, he had been exhausted, hot, and hungry, feeling as though he were living through the first calamity of his life. But his youthful lover would always push through the crowd to run toward him, no matter what, making sure to reach his side.

Countless times, he ran toward him, just like in so many novels and movies, where as long as two people loved each other, they would never miss their chance, no matter how many mountains and rivers separated them. They would always reunite.

Unfortunately, reality was far less beautiful. When people drift apart, it often happens in such ordinary, unnoticed moments that when one finally looks back, they find there’s no longer any chance for a do-over.

A breeze stirred in the cemetery as Father Gu’s voice softened, unusually gentle: “In October 2011, the old green trains from my university back to City C were discontinued for good.”

Gu Yu listened quietly and asked, “Chairman Gu, are you trying to talk about the story of how he went to the train station to find you?”

Father Gu snapped back to the present and frowned slightly, “…How does a child like you know about that?”

But soon he understood, “It must have been Aunt Lin or Uncle Ouyang who told you.”

Those were his two closest friends from middle school, and if he remembered correctly, they had often visited each other in the hospital. What he didn’t expect was for his own son to ask, “But isn’t Chairman Gu curious about the second half of the story?”

Father Gu’s gaze froze for a moment. “The second half?”

Gu Yu replied, “Aunt Lin told me too—he had a frail body, and just being under the sun for too long would make him uncomfortable from heatstroke, but he never let you see that.”

As Father Gu stood there, slightly stunned, Gu Yu continued recounting the story he’d overheard in the hospital corridor.

In fact, what Father Gu didn’t know seemed to go far beyond just this.

“In the first two years after college, when you were both working hard outside, you couldn’t hold your liquor, and every time you passed out early at the drinking table, he would stay behind, going through round after round with those alphas, all for contracts worth just a few thousand or ten thousand yuan at most.”

“When he was expecting a child, the factory had just started to stabilize but immediately ran into financial problems. If anything had gone wrong, all your hard work would have been for nothing. So he visited the scoundrels who owed you money several times, practically threatening them with his life before they agreed to hand over the funds.”

“When you were studying out of town, you couldn’t get used to the food there at all, especially breakfast, which you found hard to swallow. Back then, within a hundred kilometers, there was only one small shop that sold authentic City C snacks. He was worried that skipping breakfast would hurt your stomach, so he would get up over an hour early every day to wait in line to buy it.”

“There wasn’t much, and most of it went to you. He would just take a few bites on the bike ride back, never really developing a habit of eating properly himself.”

As a younger generation, Gu Yu didn’t originally intend to bring up these matters in front of his mother’s grave while speaking to his father.

But the cold wind was harsh, and his eyes grew dry again: “You see, he always thought you were delicate, the eldest son of the deputy director of the tobacco factory, so he dealt with the lowly, humbling tasks, the drinking, but he forgot how fragile his own body was. Otherwise, why do you think the illness that took his life started in his stomach?”

Father Gu’s mouth opened slightly, and for the first time, a trace of panic appeared in his eyes. He said, “I didn’t know…”

“Of course you didn’t.” Gu Yu cut him off calmly. “Chairman Gu, why do you think Aunt Lin, Uncle Ouyang, and your own son never told you these things before?”

Silence lingered between them as the cold wind blew. Father Gu didn’t want to answer, so Gu Yu spoke for him: “Back then, he didn’t want you to know because he didn’t want you to worry. Later, he didn’t want you to know because… he thought it didn’t matter anymore.”

After saying this, Gu Yu took Shen Jin’s hand and prepared to leave. “Actually… there’s something I don’t want you to know either.”

He continued, “For example, the reason he didn’t want you to visit him wasn’t that he hated you. When he was writing his will, he still couldn’t let go—he hoped you’d move on and stop looking back.”

They passed by his father’s shoulder, but Father Gu seemed to have heard something unbelievable: “How could he want me to move on from him…?”

Gu Yu paused for half a second but quickly walked away hand-in-hand with Shen Jin, without answering.

The wind moved in silence, and Father Gu did not turn around to look at his son. Instead, he took a few steps closer to the gravestone he had never dared approach, feeling a desperate urge to dig through the concrete and earth to ask the man buried beneath.

“Lu Lin, how dare you not hate me?”

“You should have hated me all along, even after crossing the Bridge of Forgetfulness. You should have waited there for me—waited for me to find you just to tell me that you still hated me, at the very least.”

“Brother Lu… tell me why?”

He remembered how strict his family was when he was young, how he often couldn’t go out during summer breaks because of his studies. Lin Rui and Ouyang, a mischievous duo, would frequently drag Lu Lin to his house to knock on the door and run away. His mother, still alive back then, would open the door, exasperated, and ask who the unruly kids were.

He would laugh inside while they giggled from around the corner of the staircase. It was as if they were all still playing together every day.

The scorching sun of that sixteen-year-old summer felt like it could burn the world to the ground, brilliant as if it marked the end of everything.

That year, his naive lover, his playful best friends, and his still-healthy mother were all by his side.

But, now past forty, he had finally woken from the dream, realizing that he had lost it all. Even the one person left on his household registry had distanced himself, calling him “Chairman Gu” rather than anything more intimate.

Or perhaps, he had long since woken up and gone numb, but his stubborn pride wouldn’t let him admit it.

He wanted an answer, but the gravestone remained silent.

The only reply came from the wind, and the wind had long since become free.

*

As they left the cemetery, Gu Yu didn’t bring up his father again. Instead, he asked, “Did your uncle call earlier, asking you to visit your parents…?”

After all, they were elders. Though Gu Yu wasn’t keen on the matter, he still wanted to respect Shen Jin’s wishes.

“Yeah, but I refused. I don’t want to see them.” Shen Jin snapped out of his thoughts and smiled. “I’m afraid they’d sell me off to get some money for their precious alpha. I still want to live a few more years.”

After a brief pause, Shen Jin added, “But I do hope you’ll come back to the countryside with me to visit a relative.”

Gu Yu nodded and agreed. They bought some joss paper and incense and drove for about forty minutes, followed by a ten-minute walk, finally arriving at a forest behind an old house in the countryside.

Deep in the woods, there was a grave, recently built within the last two years.

The grave wasn’t large, but it was clean and well-maintained. Gu Yu looked at the name of the person who had erected the tombstone and murmured, “Great-grandnephew… Shen Jin?”

“Yeah, that’s my great-grandfather’s younger brother. We just call him Little Great-grand

1. 1. He had it rough—his life was too bitter.”

For some reason, Gu Yu suddenly felt a wave of sadness welling up from the bottom of his heart. “Little Great-grandpa never had children, but he helped raise all his siblings and great-grandnephews. Why is his grave here, though?”

Shen Jin paused for a while before answering softly, “He didn’t want to live anymore. He ended his own life.”

Gu Yu was slightly stunned. After a moment of silence, he lit the incense and bowed deeply.

Shen Jin had explained before that his extended family all lived in the countryside, and their living conditions were less than ideal. Shen Jin himself had been abandoned as a child, and it was this old man who had taken him in.