Inside the banquet hall, the light reflected from the crystal chandeliers swayed gently within the champagne flutes. Following the master of ceremonies' spirited announcement, the atmosphere of the entire wedding reached its zenith—the tossing of the bouquet.
This was perhaps the only segment of the wedding with a "chaotic" attribute. A crowd of unmarried men and women gathered at the front, laughing and jostling one another. The air was saturated with various faint, fluttering pheromones, resembling a chaotic yet joyful chemical reaction.
Hunter Huo, relying on the physical advantage of a top-tier Alpha, had originally secured a steady central position. However, before he could settle, he was dragged and squeezed to the edge of the crowd by several senior students from the Life Sciences Department whom he usually got along with.
"Hey, hey, Student Huo! You're already 'spoken for,' so don't compete with us. Leave a path for us single dogs!" "Exactly! Look at the color of your tie today—your heart is obviously elsewhere. Why are you even trying to grab the flowers?"
Rarely did Hunter talk back; he simply allowed them to push him around with a smile, eventually taking the opportunity to retreat to a corner near the window.
Silas Shen stood to the side alone, holding a glass of pale gold champagne that was almost untouched. His charcoal-gray suit made him look like a cold arc falling on the edge of the festivities—chilly, noble, yet possessing a touch of heart-racing warmth due to his slightly relaxed brow.
"Why are you back?" Silas looked at the youth who had retreated to his side, his lips curling slightly upward as he took the rare initiative to tease. "From your posture just now, I thought you were determined to win."
"I don't need to fight for it."
Hunter casually adjusted his expensive suit, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning his back slightly against a velvet-covered pillar. He turned his head as sunlight poured in from the high glass window, framing his brilliant blonde hair with a holy and dazzling glow.
His tone carried its usual, slightly arrogant certainty.
Silas brushed his long fingertips against the rim of his glass, arching an eyebrow in amusement. "And why is that?"
"Because—"
Hunter elongated his tone, and in that instant, his gaze suddenly became extremely sharp and deep.
Right at that second, the bride on stage let out a cheer, turned her back, and tossed the bouquet—blooming in a riot of pink and white—forcefully into the air.
The bouquet traced a high arc through the sky. Instead of landing in the center of the crowd as everyone expected, it swerved—perhaps due to the wind or the force of the throw—and sailed straight past all the outstretched arms, flying directly toward Silas Shen.
Silas was stunned.
The bundle of flowers, carrying the unique sweet scent of a wedding, expanded in his field of vision. As an expert in neurophysiology, his brain reacted within those zero-point-something seconds—he instinctively raised his hand, wanting to catch this sudden "accident."
However, before his fingertips could touch a single petal, a dark shadow accompanied by an aggressive orange scent cut across his vision like lightning.
Thud.
The sound of a very slight physical collision.
Hunter had launched from his leaning position at an unknown speed. He was faster than the flowers, faster than every gaze in the room. An instant before the bouquet could crash into Silas's arms, Hunter intercepted it steadily in mid-air with a long, well-defined hand.
Time seemed to stand still for a second.
Hunter landed firmly, holding the pink-and-white bouquet in his hands. His blonde hair seemed to burn under the sunlight, and a bead of sweat from the sudden movement hung from the tip of his nose. He didn't look at the cheering guests; he stared directly at Silas, his smile as brilliant as if he had just won every medal in the world.
"—Because no matter where the bouquet flies, I will always reach your side before it does."
His voice wasn't loud, yet it carried the unique, ear-burning sincerity of a young man.
The surrounding area went silent for a second before erupting into a roar of cheers and whistles loud enough to lift the roof.
"Whoa! Student Huo is the man!" "This isn't catching flowers; it's a marriage proposal!" "Professor Shen, this 'status' you gave him was well worth it!"
Silas froze in place, the champagne in his glass swaying slightly due to his tightening grip. He looked at the boy before him—the one who had chased him from the lab to Haicheng and back to Beijing.
The "puppy" who was once always mischievous, testing, and crashing into Silas's world with a wild aura had, at some point, evolved into this dazzling, handsome "Plus-One" who could block every uncertainty for him.
The sun was good; the wind was good. Silas thought that perhaps the champagne in this hall was too intoxicating, for it made him feel that this boy—whose eyes were filled only with him—was perfect beyond measure.
He steadied his mind, suppressing the illusion of the frantic thumping in his chest, and extended a hand with feigned composure.
"Give it to me," Silas spoke in a low voice, his tone still cool but carrying an undetectable tremor.
Hunter blinked, seemingly caught off guard by Silas's initiative to ask for the flowers. He immediately broke into a look of pure ecstasy, hurriedly shoving the bouquet into Silas's arms.
During the hand-off, Hunter's fingertips intentionally lingered on Silas's cool hand for an extra second. The heat of that small patch of skin-to-skin contact felt like lighting a long fuse, burning its way up Silas's arm and straight into his heart.
Silas lowered his head, breathing in the scent of the pink-and-white roses now tinged with the smell of oranges. His mouth, usually as still as a deep pond, finally curved slowly into an extremely shallow but profoundly tender arc.
He turned around, ignoring the teasing looks from those around him, and looked at Hunter with a hint of doting reproach in his voice.
"Hunter Huo."
"Present!" Hunter stood tall and straight, like a recruit waiting for inspection by his commanding officer.
"I'm accepting the bouquet. But—"
Silas looked up, the boy's silhouette reflected in the eyes behind his rimless lenses—a play of light and shadow shattered into ten thousand stars. "Next time, if you want to give me flowers, go buy them yourself."
The subtext of his words was so blunt that even the usually thick-skinned Hunter stood dazed on the spot. He looked like a computer with an overloaded CPU, entering a state of total system crash.
"Professor, do you mean..."
Silas didn't give him another chance to ask. Holding the bouquet that symbolized happiness, he turned and walked toward their seats.
The wind swept through the hotel corridor, carrying away the last bit of restless heat.
What Silas didn't see was that behind him, Hunter stood there grinning like an idiot for a full thirty seconds. Then, he suddenly pumped his fist, silently mouthing a vow known only to himself.