The afternoon in the laboratory seemed to freeze completely following Silas Shen's mention of "Lin's words."
The glare of the fluorescent lights reflected off the bench surfaces, which were clean to the point of clinical coldness. Silas turned his face away, his gaze landing on a distant row of test tube racks as if he were scrutinizing a highly complex experimental reaction—or as if he were trying his hardest to avoid the here and now.
"Lin's words?" Hunter repeated. He didn't withdraw from the posture that trapped Silas; instead, because of that phrase, his eyes darkened instantly. His mind flashed back to the conversation earlier that afternoon regarding Betas and Omegas. "You mean... about that? About that 'rational' love that isn't dictated by instinct?"
Silas didn't answer. He turned his face further away, his jawline tensed into an aloof, restrained arc, his lashes trembling behind his lenses.
In a world where compatibility is the absolute truth, admitting to caring about "love beyond instinct" was tantamount to confessing his greatest weakness to the boy named Hunter Huo. His silence was heavy and viscous, but to Hunter's ears, the silence itself was a deafening crack of thunder.
Hunter's heart suddenly began to race.
He remembered Silas's silhouette as he sat alone in the lab late at night; he remembered the temporary mark in Haicheng that smelled of blood and oranges; he remembered every time Silas said "Maintain your distance" only to cast a gaze full of complex struggle the moment Hunter turned to leave.
In that single second, all the fragments—like a sequence of precisely matched DNA—finally clicked together into a complete picture.
His Professor wasn't resisting him; he was resisting the idea of an "un-pure" version of himself—one "manipulated" by genes, pheromones, and the cruel whims of a Creator.
Silas was afraid his heart skipped a beat only because of that 99% compatibility. He was afraid all the tenderness was merely a biological scam.
"Silas Shen."
Hunter spoke suddenly. He no longer used the playful "Professor" of the past; he used Silas's full name, his voice deep and solemn.
Silas was stunned. Before he could recover from the change in address, he felt the intense pressure in front of him suddenly drop.
Hunter took half a step back and then, under Silas's shocked gaze, dropped to one knee without any warning.
The gesture was too humble, too profound—like an ancient knight offering a sacrifice to his deity. Hunter reached out and, without allowing any refusal, grasped Silas's cool fingers where they rested on his lap. He tilted his face up, his blonde hair slightly messy from the movement. In those deep, dark eyes, there was no longer any trace of roguishness—only a damp, almost stubborn sincerity.
"You think a Beta like Lin is great, don't you?" Hunter's voice was slightly raspy, his grip on Silas's hands tightening as he tried to warm them with his own body heat. "Because they aren't led by the nose by pheromones. Because they don't have the tug-of-war of heat cycles and ruts. You think when they are together, it's a soul choosing a soul, not a gland choosing a gland."
Silas's eyelashes fluttered violently. The embarrassment of having his long-hidden thoughts stripped naked made him want to pull his hands away, but Hunter held them fast.
"But Professor, have you ever thought—"
Hunter pressed Silas's palm against his own left chest.
There, through the thin fabric of the lab coat and shirt, a heart was thundering with a wild, powerful beat. Each throb struck Silas's fingertips with an alarming, scorching heat.
"I can love you like that, too."
Hunter looked up, a look of desperate resolve flickering in his eyes. "I don't just want to hold you when you're being tortured by instinct. I want to run across half the city to buy the dumplings you want when you have no appetite. I want to sit in the hallway like a fool until dawn while you're pulling an all-nighter with data. I want to force you to go back and rest when you're pale from a stomachache, regardless of whether you'll get angry with me."
"I don't just want to mark your gland, Silas. I want my name in the acknowledgments of every one of your dry research papers. I want to stamp 'Hunter Huo was here' on every single page of your life."
Hunter's hands were trembling, and his voice took on a nasal quality from the surge of emotion. "Pheromones were the red thread that let us meet, but that thread is just a catalyst. Every bit of the love that remains, every single inch, was earned by me, Hunter Huo, using this heart while following behind you. It wasn't a gift from God."
Silas looked down, his gaze colliding with that dark abyss.
The fluorescent lights hit Hunter from above, making his blonde hair look soft and fuzzy—like a large dog that had been wronged but was still desperately wagging its tail. There were tears shimmering in the boy's eyes; it was the kind of vulnerability a top-tier Alpha would normally despise showing, yet he laid it out bare before Silas.
"So, don't be afraid." Hunter's voice choked up for a second, yet every word remained crystal clear. "You aren't a prisoner hijacked by instinct. You are my Silas Shen—the person I must hold in the palm of my hand when you are at your most awake, your most rational, and your most whole."
In that moment, all the surrounding noise seemed to vanish.
Silas felt the wall of ice he had built over twenty-eight years—constructed of cold formulas and rigid dogmas—get smashed to pieces by this headstrong puppy. The fragments fell everywhere, yet surprisingly, it didn't hurt.
In the air, the scent of oranges, which had been suppressed by the blocker, finally erupted within the boy's scorching love. It no longer carried a sense of pressure; instead, like a warm firework, it enveloped him gently.
Silas looked at the boy kneeling before him, at the glint of tears about to overflow. His own fingertips curled slightly—an aftershock of the heartbeat he had felt.
It turned out that the "clarity" he had been searching for had been within his reach all along.