Chapter 12: I bought two cameras and installed them inside the apartment.
Translator: DragonRider
Even for Rong Yi, this answer was quite unexpected.
Extremely surprised, he asked: “Except you?”
Liu Yuan’s attitude was subtle: “...Including me.”
Rong Yi was shocked.
“But that was a long time ago,” Liu Yuan said. “He’s just like this: he wants to hit on you if you look pleasing to the eye; but if you’re not interested in him, he’ll give up quickly. He’d never try to twist anyone’s arm. Plus, I’ve told him you’re an Omega, so he shouldn’t have taken a fancy to you...Or, have you fallen for him?”
“I haven’t!” Rong Yi denied it vehemently.
“Ah...But in this case, actually an Omega like you is quite a match for him? He likes your type of looks, and there’s no reason why it has to be an Alpha.” Liu Yuan suddenly became very enthusiastic. “Didn’t you happen to have had a break-up a little while ago? You might as well get into a new relationship quickly...”
“Get lost!” Rong Yi shouted at him. “I’m not a recycle bin!”
*
After hanging up the phone, Rong Yi was so upset.
What the hell is that: hitting on whoever pleases the eye? So he was dating me just because the way I looked tickled his fancy?
No wonder, then, that this guy just pulled away as soon as I said something wrong. And Chen Keyao and I were even interested in the same person.
Even though Rong Yi took no fancy to Liu Yuan at all nowadays, his stomach still turned at these thoughts.
‘How big-hearted is this fool of Liu Yuan indeed? No matter an Alpha or an Omega, how can he still treat them just like brothers after they have confessed their love for him? All these haven’t cast any shadow on his heart?’
Rong Yi was feeling a tightness in the chest for quite a while before he realised another even worse possibility.
‘If Chen Keyao asks Liu Yuan about their relationship, will he be so stupid as to tell Chen Keyao that I dated himself in the past? What will Chen Keyao think?’
Rong Yi was terrified by this thought, and immediately called Liu Yuan again, telling him not to mention anything about himself before Chen Keyao. Although Liu Yuan was not clear about the reason, he still agreed.
Liu Yuan then asked him a question: “I just heard that you and that baldy’s nephew clicked with each other?”
Zhou Li asked him to pretend to be his boyfriend, and Rong Yi agreed in the end.
Rong Yi didn’t think it would have any impact on his daily life, but he didn’t expect that the bald guy had broadcast this so quickly to the whole company. Fortunately, nobody in their company knew Rong Yi’s true gender except Liu Yuan.
“I can hardly imagine! That bald guy said his nephew was an Omega. Have you gone down that road as well?” Liu Yuan looked rather heavy-hearted. “I’ve received love confessions twice in my life, and both times it turned out...Is there something wrong with my body?”
Rong Yi actually thought that there was something wrong with his brain, but he didn’t have the heart to say it.
*
On his way home from work, Zhou Li called him to ask how he was doing.
After cutting off the phone in a hurry that day, Rong Yi found a time to explain to Zhou Li what had happened to him. Zhou Li was worried about him but, because he lived with his family, he could not take him in, so he had been watching out for a suitable rental place for him these days.
Zhou Li was very happy to hear that Rong Yi had found a temporary place, so he asked if he could come for a visit on a non-working day.
Rong Yi realised that he might have the Persecutory Type Delusional Disorder for thinking of Zhou Li’s friendliness towards him as abnormal. So he just told him that he needed to ask the landlord if it would be convenient, and thus couldn’t give him a definitive answer straightaway.
He happened to be passing by a big supermarket when he was hanging up the phone.
Originally Rong Yi had planned to go to the convenience store and just buy something simple for dinner, but he hesitated for a moment and then walked into the supermarket.
*
When he got home, he was carrying one bag in each of his hands, both full of fresh vegetables and meats.
Chen Keyao, just coming out of his room, was surprised at what he saw.
“What are you trying to do?” he asked.
Rong Yi took a look at him, “Cooking, of course.”
With that, he walked under Chen Keyao’s stare into the kitchen with his head high and chest out. The two big bags were piled up on the counter.
Chen Keyao followed him into the kitchen.
“You really want to use the kitchen?”
“I thought you said I could use it,” Rong Yi looked back at him, “No?”
Chen Keyao was about to say something, but then bit his tongue instead.
A few days ago Rong Yi sent a picture of the completely burnt kitchen to his Moments on WeChat. Chen Keyao saw it today and replied with a string of ellipsis.
His face was obviously showing a lingering fear.
He hesitated for a moment under Rong Yi’s displeased stare, then asked, “Do you mind if I stay aside and watch?”
Rong shrugged, “Sure, feel free.”
*
He was doing this deliberately.
Rong Yi did not have many hobbies, but he had spent a lot of time learning to cook. This was something that he really enjoyed doing and was very confident about. Chen Keyao questioned his cooking ability yesterday, which annoyed him immensely, so he wanted to prove himself today.
But he felt more or less nervous when being watched from behind by Chen Keyao.
Rong Yi wanted to show off his skills. He took a kitchen knife and shredded the dried tofu into hair-thin pieces deftly. When dishing up, Rong deliberately turned himself halfway so that Chen Keyao could see clearly.
“What are you cooking? Do you have to shred it so…” asked Chen Keyao.
‘It’s none of your business. I just love shredding. Do I need to report everything to you?’
Rong Yi glanced down at the bowl with the tofu shreds and hesitated for a moment, “...a cold mix dish.”
“Won’t the shreds get broken if you mix like this?” Chen Keyao asked again.
How come it never dawned on him before that this guy was so annoying? Rong Yi was not happy. He thumped the bowl down on the counter, “They won’t if I’m the one doing the mixing.”
He picked up the celery he had washed, put it on the chopping board, turned around to Chen Keyao and asked, “Do you want to keep watching?”
“...Actually I have something to say to you,” Chen Keyao said.
“Go ahead then?”
“I’m afraid it might affect your mood if I say it now,” Chen pointed to the chopping board, “Finish your chopping first.”
Rong Yi lifted up the knife and shot a look at him, then turned and chopped the celery with all his strength.
“Pow,” the celery was cut into halves.
He was now regretting that he had bought pork mince. If he had known that this guy was really going to watch the entire cooking process, he should have bought a whole piece of pork and chopped it into mince right in front of him. freewebn(o)vel
Chen Keyao was still leaning against the doorframe after he had finished chopping.
“How much longer are you going to watch?” Rong Yi asked.
“You’re amazing,” he said in a very sincere tone. “Did Liu Yuan mention to you that I wanted to find a partner to board with?”
This was quite unexpected. Rong Yi’s face burned slightly, feeling nonplussed for a moment. The light in his eyes flickered a bit, and then he turned around.
“…yes, he did.”
“Look, you won’t be able to eat it all up by yourself as you cook so much,” Chen Keyao continued, “So how about, I pay for the costs and you provide the labour work, and we have meals together in future?”
“...we’ll see.” Rong Yi turned his back on him, “What were you going to say to me earlier?”
Chen Keyao cleared his throat for no reason.
“We’ve had quite a few burglary cases here recently,” he said.
“...Oh,” Rong Yi kept mixing the vegetables without lifting up his head, “So?”
“I felt a little unsafe, so I bought two cameras and installed them inside the apartment.”
Rong Yi was taken aback, “Ah?”
“Don’t worry. No cameras in your room or the bathroom,” Chen Keyao stepped back out of the kitchen and pointed to a corner of the living room ceiling. “One is at the door, and the other one is over there.”
Rong Yi was astounded.
“I had a meeting last night,” Chen Keyao said. “So I’m sorry I forgot to tell you about this.”
“...”
“You’ll be videoed coming in and out of the living room at night. Just be aware of that.”
Rong Yi almost died instantly right there.
So that meant, Chen Keyao had seen him open the door to look around at midnight last night and listen in on his door sneakily this morning, completely.
‘No wonder this guy said he’d better tell me that until after I finished chopping!’
Seeing that even Rong Yi’s ears were starting to burn, Chen Keyao again cleared his throat, “I saw you’ve bought so much food...Can I have a share? If yes, then I will wait outside and won’t bother to call for a takeaway?”
“...just get out of here.” Rong Yi gave a feeble reply with his head still bowed.
*
The cold tofu didn’t need to be shredded so finely indeed.
But Chen Keyao didn’t raise questions against this slightly delicate dish any more. He was probably so fed up with eating takeaways that he just really wanted to find someone to board with, and he was totally impressed with a table of delicious dishes.
Rong Yi tried to keep his cool but he couldn’t help feeling quite smug in his heart.
Halfway through the meal, he received another message from Zhou Li asking if he had mentioned to the landlord whether he could come over and be a guest this weekend.
Rong Yi, though still somewhat concerned about Zhou Li’s enthusiasm, still asked the question straightaway.
“Can I invite my friends over?”
Chen Keyao, who was chewing the ribs, looked astonished. He swallowed the food down his throat and had a mouthful of soup before he asked with a frown, “Overnight?”
Of course not.
But seeing the expression on his face, Rong Yi somehow let a positive reply come out of his mouth, “...Maybe.”
Chen Keyao paused for a little while, “Better not.”
Rong Yi didn’t say a word, so he looked up again, then looked down for a while.
“It’s OK if you make sure not to affect me.”
Rong Yi once again became all upset.
He really started to feel that he had got a twisted mind now. Obviously he had no illusions about Chen Keyao anymore, but whatever this Alpha said or did still frustrated him so much.
He was not happy when Chen Keyao said he’d better not bring anyone back for overnight stays. He was even more upset when Chen Keyao changed to say that he could bring people back as long as they didn’t disturb him.
Maybe it was Chen Keyao himself that just really annoyed him.
The second night in this strange bed, Rong Yi was tossing and turning even more than the day before.
Because of the camera in the living room, he couldn’t sneak out to have a look at what was happening in the other room either.
The night was quiet. Wrapped in a duvet, the more Rong Yi thought about the fact that Chen Keyao saw him sneaking up in the morning to his door and listening in on him in the surveillance video, the more ashamed and indignant he felt and he wanted to kill himself right there right then.
Rong Yi was tossing and turning himself in bed like a pancake for a long while before he finally managed to fall asleep, but he still woke up several times because of the excessively complex thinking going through his mind.
He didn’t know how long he had been half asleep, when he suddenly realized that someone was in the room.
When he first heard the noise, he was still quite muddle-headed, only vaguely aware that his door was opened and then closed. As the fog in his head slowly cleared away, he opened his eyes and saw a figure in the hazy moonlight cast through the window.
The man was standing by the bed, leaning slightly forward, and his eyes clearly fell on Rong Yi.
Rong Yi suddenly became wide awake.
Who else was in this home, apart from him, that Alpha?
The writer’s voiceover:
Rong Yi who could work the knife with such deft moves in the kitchen: Why can’t a perfect wife and motherly Omega like me get any appreciation?
The source of this c𝓸ntent is fr𝒆e(w)𝒆bnovel