Chapter 26: The So-Called Evolution
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Even if Gu Liyu doesn’t care about the expectations of others, but… whether they are classmates, friends, or family, isn’t the meaning of existence to let the other person know that, when they are striving and under pressure, even if they can’t fight side by side, at least someone cares about their outcome?
“I’ll wait for him here for a while. You can go and attend to your duties.” An Lan smiled.
“But… the director asked me to stay with you.” The nurse hesitated.
“What could happen to me?” An Lan patted the nurse’s shoulder, “It’s almost eight; aren’t you off duty? Or are there no other patients to take care of?”
“You, this student…”
“If you really care about me, practice your blood drawing skills?” An Lan approached with a mischievous smile.
“Hateful, I’ll hit you.” The nurse’s face turned red.
An Lan deliberately brought his face closer, “Hit me, hit me, I’ll let you hit me.”
The nurse helplessly said, “You insist on waiting for your classmate, then I’ll go get you something to eat. I still have some bread and milk. Would you like that?”
“Eat, eat! You’re truly the most beautiful angel!”
An Lan leaned against the wall, sat on his backpack, and, holding practice papers, solved problems while nibbling on the bread.
Not sure if it’s because this floor is too quiet, but An Lan was more focused than usual. In the blink of an eye, he has completed all three sets of practice papers assigned by the teacher, answered all the major questions, and quickly opened the WeChat group to exchange answers with other classmates.
Not knowing what was being discussed in Qiao Chuluo’s omega group, there were hundreds of unread messages.
An Lan opened them, starting from the beginning, and the messages in the group completely stunned him.
[Have you seen the big news this afternoon? The former chairman of the Gu Group, Gu Yunli, had a pheromone surge in the hospital, causing the entire hospital to evacuate urgently! Dozens of alpha patients were affected and need special treatment!]
A news link was thrown out.
[Isn’t Gu Yunli our school grass’s father? Didn’t this news say that Gu Yunli resigned from the chairman’s position over a decade ago due to an accident and went for recuperation? Rumor has it that he became a vegetable… I’m sorry, school grass, I didn’t mean to curse your dad…]
[Can’t you understand after reading this news? The higher the A-value, the closer to madness! Extreme, strong control, and no resistance allowed! Gu Yunli must be crazy, and he’s been crazy for a long time! So, the so-called recuperation is actually confinement! This is also to protect the school grass and the school grass’s mom. Alphas with excessive possessiveness will see even their own children as enemies competing for the spouse’s attention.]
[Oh my God… so scary.]
[No wonder the school grass took a leave today; he must be dealing with his dad’s affairs.]
[I really want to give the school grass a loving hug.]
[If you hug the school grass, you might get killed by his pheromone scent. The school grass’s pheromone concentration must be very high…]
In other words, there is a possibility that Gu Liyu might go mad as well.
Upon seeing this, An Lan could understand the classmates’ concerns, but Gu Liyu was a classmate they interacted with daily. The reason he kept a distance from other classmates might be to avoid hurting the people he cared about. Why couldn’t they trust and understand Gu Liyu a bit more?
An Lan, who always wanted to sleep, replied: [I trust the school grass’s self-control. Gu Yunli is Gu Yunli, and the school grass is the school grass. Since he became our classmate, I have never seen him harm anyone.]
After replying, An Lan decided not to look at the messages in the group anymore and focused on writing his exam paper.
With a creaking sound, the door next to An Lan opened, and someone walked out.
An Lan’s heart trembled, he turned his head and looked up, only to see Gu Liyu in a blue and white school uniform standing there, looking down at him.
“Why are you still here?”
There was a moment of surprise in his eyes, and his voice was very soft, as if afraid that An Lan would disappear if he spoke too loudly.
“Waiting for you. You helped me again today.” An Lan immediately smiled.
There were red marks on the sides of Gu Liyu’s neck, as if someone had pinched him hard.
In the entire hospital, the only person who could do such a thing, aside from Gu Yunli taken away by the Alpha Control Committee, is no one.
That person was Gu Liyu’s father, who chose to hurt him on his birthday.
An Lan lowered his head, pretending not to know anything. He moved the test paper aside, and his other hand was about to support himself on the ground, but Gu Liyu bent down and held An Lan’s hand, whispering, “Don’t touch the ground in the hospital.”
After saying that, he easily pulled An Lan up.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Gu Liyu took An Lan’s school bag with one hand and stuffed his mock exam papers into the bag with the other.
“Yes.” An Lan’s stomach cooperatively made a growling sound.
“Why not go eat?” Gu Liyu asked again.
“….I want to invite you to dinner.”
“It’s too late; it doesn’t have to be today.” Gu Liyu carried his own school bag, hung An Lan’s bag on his shoulder, and An Lan resisted not saying that his bag had been placed on the not-so-clean hospital floor.
“I just thought you would be hungry when you came out. Treating someone to a meal should be done when the other person is hungry.”
But at this moment, it was already eleven o’clock at night.
“Or do you want to go home? It’s quite late now, and your mom might be worried,” An Lan asked.
In reality, An Lan only needed to see Gu Liyu safely come out; treating him to a meal could wait for any day.
“My mom isn’t here.”
“Ah?” An Lan was stunned. Wasn’t it Gu Liyu’s birthday today? How could his mom not be here?
Gu Liyu seemed to understand what surprised An Lan. He calmly said, “Her absence is also a form of protection for me. If she were here, it would cause even more trouble.”
“Oh.”
“What do you want to treat me to? At this hour, we only have fast food or Nandeng Street,” Gu Liyu turned to look at An Lan.
Whether it was an illusion or not, there was a warm smile in his eyes, making An Lan subconsciously try to capture it, but it flashed away.
“Let’s go to my place. My parents are not home, my sister is in college dorms, and tonight, I’ll be alone… kinda scared,” An Lan touched his nose.
Actually, he wasn’t scared; he enjoyed having the house to himself and could do whatever he wanted.
“What are you scared of?”
“I watched a horror movie with Little Qiao, and it left an impression. Also, my mom braised some meat during the day, and it happens to be perfect for making noodles. Let’s have it together, and you can taste my mom’s cooking?”
“Sure.”
An Lan was overjoyed upon hearing this. This felt even more delightful than making progress in a monthly exam.
Gu Liyu was much more generous than An Lan. While An Lan was still looking around for a shared bike at the hospital entrance, Gu Liyu directly hailed a taxi.
This was the first time An Lan and Gu Liyu sat in the same car. Their school bags were between them. Gu Liyu kept looking out the window, and the night breeze blew in, lifting and dropping his strands of hair. The collar of his school uniform moved with the wind, and the cold light of the street lamps passed by, making the marks on his neck more noticeable.
An Lan wouldn’t speculate on Gu Liyu’s current state of mind. After all, he had experienced a lot over the years, and he might have become accustomed to it. Emotions like sympathy seemed more like an insult to Gu Liyu. There’s a saying, “If the heart is fluctuating, smile lightly and stay calm.”
If Gu Liyu’s inner state was calm, An Lan wouldn’t disturb him randomly.
“Master, we’ve arrived,” Gu Liyu’s voice rang out.
It was only then that An Lan realized they were already home. An Lan had intended to scan the QR code for payment, but Gu Liyu said only one thing, “Has your pocket money increased recently?”
“No.”
Then, Gu Liyu scanned the code for payment, carried An Lan’s and his own backpack, and got out of the taxi.
An Lan took Gu Liyu in the elevator and opened the door to see the lights in the hallway flickering.
An Lan suddenly turned around, rolled his eyes at Gu Liyu, and stuck out his tongue.
“Uh…”
Gu Liyu paused, “Is something wrong with your brain?”
“Aren’t you scared at all?” An Lan asked disappointedly.
Every time Qiao Chuluo came to their house, An Lan would pat him on the shoulder in the corridor. When Qiao Chuluo turned around, An Lan would roll his eyes and stick out his tongue, scaring Qiao Chuluo in place every time.
“Not scared. If it weren’t for you, I would have ripped that guy’s tongue out.”
An Lan: “…”
Are all high-quality alphas this brutal?
Opening the door, An Lan fetched slippers for Gu Liyu and said, “Sit anywhere; put your backpack on the sofa. I’ll go cook noodles! Do you have any dietary restrictions?”
“None,” Gu Liyu said.
An Lan boiled water, added the noodles, and threw in braised meat and vegetables, and cracked an egg into it.
When he brought the noodles out, he saw Gu Liyu sitting quietly on the sofa, scrolling through his phone.
If An Lan guessed correctly, he was probably reading news related to Gu Yunli.
“Eat your noodles; come quickly, or they’ll get lumpy.”
“Okay.” Gu Liyu immediately put down his phone, unlike An Lan’s sister, who would take a long time to respond when called for a meal and be found absorbed in her phone.
Gu Liyu washed his hands, took the chopsticks An Lan handed over, blew on the noodles, and then brought them to his mouth.
An Lan sat across from him, and the steam from the noodle soup softened Gu Liyu’s features, even his damp eyelashes looked delicate.
“Why have you been staring at me?” Gu Liyu slowly raised his eyes.
“Staring at you? That’s because you look good.” An Lan smiled, lowered his head to take a bite of the noodles, and Gu Liyu’s chopsticks suddenly reached out, blocking him.
“You’ll burn your tongue,” Gu Liyu said.
“Oh, thanks for the reminder.” An Lan’s heart skipped a beat.
He only knew that Class Monitor Xu Xingran was a very careful person, but it seemed that Gu Liyu was too.
“My mom’s braised meat is delicious, right? It’s tender and flavorful.” An Lan asked.
“Yeah, the noodles are good too.”
Gu Liyu picked up the noodles and slowly sipped the soup. By giving face like this, An Lan felt really happy.
An Lan checked the time; it was 11:55 at night.
“Why have you been looking at the time?” Gu Liyu asked.
“I haven’t.”
“When you entered, when you brought out the noodles, and when I was drinking the soup, you looked at it again.”
An Lan hesitated for a moment, not expecting Gu Liyu to be so observant. Or was he just too obvious?
“Is it because it’s too late, and you want to sleep? I’ll wash the bowl for you and leave; you can sleep first,” Gu Liyu said.
“No, it’s not. Because today is your birthday, but I heard you don’t celebrate it, so I didn’t order a cake for you. For birthdays, don’t you eat longevity noodles? Although what I cooked is just ordinary instant noodles, I still hope you finish them today and live a long and healthy life in the future.”
An Lan said all of this in one breath, anyway, he had no malicious intent, and he wasn’t afraid of Gu Liyu finding out.
“No wonder,” Gu Liyu lowered his head to continue drinking the noodle soup.
“Ah? Why ‘no wonder’?”
I know you speak very little, but can’t you say the whole sentence each time?
“No wonder it tastes especially good.”
An Lan’s heart suddenly warmed, feeling so good that his good intentions were accepted and respected by the other party.
If someone dares to say Gu Liyu x indifferent again, he’ll get mad.
This person has a cold and distant exterior, but his heart is warm and clear.
“I’ll go find pajamas for you. I’ll come to clean the bowl later; you can go wash up first?” An Lan got up and asked.
However, Gu Liyu tilted his head back, his gaze deepening, “An Lan, you should have the most basic awareness of defense.”
“Defense? Defense against what?”
I’m not an omega. Even if there’s a slight trend toward omega differentiation, I’m really not an omega. And does Gu Liyu need to be defended against?
“I just came out of the isolation room. Although the pheromones have temporarily stabilized, they might go out of control. What if I suppress you with my pheromones?” Gu Liyu lifted his face, speaking in a calm tone.
He was just stating a fact.
“…Why would you go out of control? There are no other alphas here to threaten you.”
“Did you not read the news?” Gu Liyu asked indifferently.
“I wanted to, but I haven’t found it yet since you came out.” An Lan honestly replied.
“Gu Yunli is my father. He used to be the alpha with the highest A-value in the province, known for his intelligence and decisiveness. Then eighteen years ago, when my mother gave birth, he went insane. He’s been insane ever since.”
“Wasn’t he… monitored by the management committee?” An Lan asked cautiously.
He didn’t expect Gu Liyu to bring up his father voluntarily. For a moment, An Lan didn’t know how to react.
“I mean, I have his genes. I’ll lose control sooner or later.”
Gu Liyu stood up and looked at An Lan.
It wasn’t a gaze filled with oppression; he seemed to be lost and searching for answers himself.
“If one day, maybe even tonight, I turn into a lunatic like Gu Yunli, you won’t even have time to run.”
“Did your father… used to be quiet?” An Lan asked.
“I don’t know. My mom said he used to be humorous and witty,” Gu Liyu replied.
“So, he talked a lot. Did he have many friends?” An Lan showed a relaxed expression.
“He probably had quite a few friends; they still take care of our family now,” Gu Liyu mechanically answered.
“Was he good at basketball?” An Lan asked.
“He didn’t play basketball; he played a lot of golf.”
“Oh, so you see, your personalities, social relationships, and hobbies are all different.” An Lan shrugged. “Your dad releases pheromones to assert dominance, and if you ever go crazy, you’ll probably be a quiet lunatic. No one would even know you’ve gone crazy. If someone copied your homework, you wouldn’t even react, unlike your dad who crushes others with his pheromones.”
Gu Liyu lowered his head and chuckled lightly. “You’re comforting me.”
An Lan lowered his head, thought for a moment, and looked at him seriously. “I’m not comforting you; I just… I just think you’re so smart, why can’t you understand?”
“Understand what?”
“The so-called evolution is about continuously repairing and perfecting our parents’ genes from generation to generation to adapt to this world. High-quality alphas are a part of human evolution. Your father displayed a part of this genetic advantage—intelligence, extraordinary judgment, and I believe he had super learning abilities. But the disadvantage is the emotional instability. That’s probably the thin line between genius and madness.”
“Are you saying I’ll fix the flaws in my father’s genes?” Gu Liyu asked.
“Of course, isn’t that our purpose of existence? Not just the inheritance of bloodline but also evolution. Look at me; what do you think?” An Lan asked.
“You…” Gu Liyu looked down.
“Stop, stop, I know you’re thinking about my strengths. You don’t have to think; I don’t have as many strengths as you.” An Lan gently poked him. “What I mean is, my parents are both betas. Their physical abilities aren’t as strong as alphas, and they both graduated from ordinary universities. Their learning abilities are average. But my sister An Yuan got into a prestigious university. Isn’t that an evolution in intelligence? And me, unexpectedly differentiating towards alpha, my learning abilities have improved a lot since the second year of high school, my physical abilities have become more abundant, and even my five senses, I can hear and see details clearly now that I couldn’t before.”
Gu Liyu looked up at An Lan.
“We’re different from our parents, Gu Liyu. You’ll definitely be more perfect than your father.”
An Lan tilted his head; he didn’t know how to explain his thoughts. He was afraid Gu Liyu would get caught up in details. But in An Lan’s eyes, Gu Liyu was really good, and he didn’t know how to make this person understand that.
The atmosphere at the dining table was quiet, making An Lan feel a bit awkward. Apparently, his inspirational speech wasn’t very successful.
After a while, Gu Liyu spoke, “An Lan, I wasn’t looking for your strengths; you have many. I just didn’t know which one to say first.”
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