It took Su Heng hours to fall asleep that night.
The side effects of the rut-suppression function were unusually pronounced in his body. On only his second use, the effectiveness had already plummeted.
Even harder to endure was the sense of dependence that followed.
Su Heng couldn’t quite tell whether this dependence stemmed from using the function itself, or… from her.
He got out of bed and placed the object he’d been clutching all night into the bedside drawer for safekeeping.
Dawn had just broken.
A beastman’s biological clock was extremely stable. Aside from the strangely deep sleep he’d fallen into beside her the day before, he was used to waking up this early.
Jiang Ying hadn’t woken yet. He could hear the light, peaceful breathing from the next room.
Her sleep was shallow, as if the slightest noise might startle her awake.
Unconsciously, Su Heng lightened his movements.
He began tidying the bed, careful not to trigger any of those ambiguous functions. As he would in the barracks, he smoothed the sheets and folded the blanket into a crisp square, arranging it neatly beside the pillow.
But everything she had prepared for him was too soft. The steps he usually followed as naturally as breathing now felt faintly, bizarrely strange.
A tender spot seemed to bloom in the depths of his heart, as if basking in the warmth of a cozy fire on a harsh winter day—a soft, warm orange glow.
During the most brutal battles of wartime, they had slept on ice and snow, eaten balls of packed snow, and buried fallen comrades beneath an endless expanse of white. He had never encountered such gentleness.
It wasn’t unpleasant.
Yet, faintly, it made him afraid.
He shook off those chaotic thoughts and went to the kitchen to make breakfast.
After a few days together, he had figured out Jiang Ying’s habits.
A human raised in a greenhouse was naturally different from beastmen like him, who faced expulsion from the Safe Zones at any moment.
She didn’t really eat breakfast—not because she didn’t want to, but because she woke up too late and had to rush to work.
Even when she came home, she was too exhausted from the day to cook and usually just ordered takeout.
He managed to scavenge two eggs and a few tomatoes from the fridge, then unearthed an unopened bag of dried noodles from the storage cabinet.
Not spoiled. Not expired.
Su Heng simply boiled two bowls of noodles. Jiang Ying was roused by the aroma.
Disoriented, she shuffled to the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe for a long moment, as if still not used to having another living soul in the house. She stood dazed before finally speaking in a sluggish voice. “Su Heng? What are you doing?”
Well.
In her eyes, he was just a dog, and dogs didn’t make breakfast for their owners.
Perhaps to her, his current behavior was akin to the family dog suddenly running out the door one day and returning with her breakfast.
Carrying the bowls and chopsticks, he glanced down at her as he passed.
Mussed-up hair. Imprint lines on her cheek from the pillow. Rubbing her bleary, sleepy eyes.
She trusted the dangerous beastman beside her completely, utterly defenseless.
He wanted to stroke her head.
Both hands were full of bowls. He was grateful he had suppressed that impulse.
Su Heng set the bowls and chopsticks on the dining table and turned back toward the girl, who had a bit of toothpaste still smeared at the corner of her mouth and didn’t look fully awake. “Come eat.”
Jiang Ying obediently shuffled over and sat down beside him.
The smell of the noodles made her lick her lips, only to be jolted awake by the minty taste of toothpaste. Reaching out, she snatched a napkin and wiped her face.
So the hand he had raised, ready to wipe the toothpaste from her mouth with his fingertip, was interrupted before it could descend.
“You can cook?”
As Jiang Ying felt for the bowl on the table, Su Heng silently handed her the chopsticks.
She took them naturally, grabbed a mouthful of noodles, and wolfed it down. “So… mmph, so good. …My doggy is really amazing.”
Su Heng kept his eyes on her. “Slow down.”
He didn’t know if her various work interactions had conditioned her to praise people, or if she was just naturally expressive, lavishing such emotional validation even when speaking to a dog.
…She was like this with everyone.
He suppressed the inexplicable jealousy and resentment rising in his heart and started on his own portion.
“Oh right, I’m going to meet someone today,” Jiang Ying said, slurping another mouthful before swallowing. “I’ll put on some makeup later. Su Heng, you’ll help me check it, okay?”
She rarely wore makeup after losing her sight.
She couldn’t see her own makeup and had to rely on a phone AI to describe its general appearance.
In the beginning, she had messed up countless times and provided plenty of comic relief. Fortunately, her colleagues were kind enough.
Later, she found it bothersome and stopped bothering when she wasn’t seeing anyone, just casually putting on some lipstick when she was in a good mood.
The saying “Makeup is for meeting people; colleagues don’t count” applied just as much before her transmigration as after.
But today she was meeting a potential business partner—the ones who would decide the fate of her project. Basic grooming was a matter of courtesy and respect for a formal setting.
That was what she thought. Su Heng did not.
He hesitated, forcing out a few words. “What kind of person?”
“A very important person.” Jiang Ying reached out and patted his head as if coaxing a little dog. “Little Dog doesn’t need to know.”
“…”
Su Heng looked at the last mouthful of noodles left in his bowl and suddenly lost his appetite.
Who was this person that required such attention?
He felt a surge of sourness flooding his chest. It didn’t stop there—it rose into his throat, shot up to his nose. Even the noodles he’d just eaten seemed to have gone sour in his stomach.
Only after Jiang Ying finished did he eat that final, now-cold mouthful.
Sitting before her vanity mirror, he still couldn’t stop dwelling on who she was going to meet and why she seemed in such high spirits.
Jiang Ying applied skincare, foundation, and set her makeup.
She wasn’t skilled at it to begin with, and being blind meant she just went with whatever was simplest.
Forgot to shave her eyebrows, wasn’t great at drawing them—so she covered them with her bangs. Skipped any eye makeup, put on lipstick, dusted on some light blush. Done.
“How is it?”
She turned to face her doggy.
Su Heng didn’t understand these things. He just thought she was cute with or without makeup. No difference. He couldn’t bring himself to say such an embarrassing compliment, so he simply gave a bland “Mm” and said, “It’s fine.”
She burst out laughing. “You sound just like those dismissive husbands. No matter what you ask, they just say ‘it’s fine’.”
The word “husband” made Su Heng’s brow twitch. But if not for that less-than-flattering modifier beforehand, perhaps his agitation would have been even greater.
He faced her, up close. Too close. He could even make out the fine fuzz on her face, her pores.
His gaze involuntarily drifted downward. Slightly reddened nose tip. Her lipsticked mouth opening and closing, the fine lines of her lips disrupting his train of thought. He unconsciously held his breath, locking onto that small, reddened tongue tip.
He wanted to bite it, wanted to…
His Adam’s apple bobbed dryly. Su Heng forced himself to look away.
“Very… very cute.” Everywhere.
He spoke the words with difficulty.
But Jiang Ying was determined to tease him, feigning grievance and disappointment. “Ah… so I’m not pretty enough, and that’s why you say I’m cute?”
He found his gaze drawn back to her deliberately crafted expression again, the eyes he had just managed to tear away glued back in place. “That’s not what I… meant.”
“Just teasing you.”
She spread her arms, offering him an embrace. “Good Dog, come here.”
Jiang Ying didn’t really know how to train a dog. She just did it on instinct.
When he obeyed, she gave a reward. If he came over, she would hug him, kiss him, and praise him as an obedient doggy.
Su Heng hesitated for a moment before pushing aside his chair and kneeling before her.
Silently, reservedly, with restraint, he leaned forward and buried his face in her embrace, letting her rub his beast ears and hair.
His restless thoughts were instantly soothed. He needed continuous physical contact with her to ease his rut cycle.
He let out courtship sounds without reservation in her arms. Purr, purr.
Don’t go see anyone else.
Purr, purr.
Please hug me. Please pet me. So comfortable. Please kiss me.
The little dog made coquettish noises, contentedly nibbling his owner’s fingertips.
All movement suddenly stopped.
Jiang Ying looked down in confusion, trying to figure out what her little dog meant. But just as she was wondering, Su Heng nuzzled her neck hollow again, instinctively bumping his head against her collarbone.
Why did he bite her? Did he not like it?
And why was he nuzzling and bumping her? Did he want her to keep petting him?
But there was no time to figure that out today.
She cupped his face and kissed his forehead. “Good boy, get up now. We need to head out.”
The “very important person” Jiang Ying mentioned wasn’t some romantic interest. It referred to project investors, potential investors, business partners, and all the various contacts involved in the development, launch, and operation processes.
A producer didn’t just sit in the office every day. She needed to network and secure essential resources.
Once she lost her sight, external communication became exceptionally difficult.
Not everyone could accept working with a blind producer. Convincing people she could make a good game was already hard enough. Even if the project was now showing results, not everyone had the patience to converse with someone who couldn’t even see them.
But now, she had a guide dog.
He could be her eyes.
Most of Jiang Ying’s good mood that morning stemmed from this.
She arrived at the Banquet Hall with Su Heng, but as they were about to enter, a security guard to the side stopped them.
“Sorry, beastmen are not allowed inside.”
A decidedly unfriendly tone.
Su Heng narrowed his eyes and looked down from his towering height.
The man flinched under that aura, his face full of fear and tension. But relying on the fact that the organizer had the backing of the Federal Government, he straightened his back and glared back, vigilantly eyeing the tall beastman while speaking to Jiang Ying. “You may enter, but the beastman beside you needs to leave immediately!”
Su Heng stood still, unmoving.
This was the first time since returning to the Federation, infiltrating the Beastman Occupation Reception Center, and being taken in by Jiang Ying that he had felt an ordinary human’s malice toward beastmen.
All that talk of being Beastman-friendly was just a temporary facade.
The Federation was indeed the same Federation it had always been.
Beneath this land, every rotten root burrowed deep into the soil was saturated with rejection of the beastman race.
He didn’t care about the malice of a single human stranger. He just looked down at the girl beside him.
Jiang Ying hadn’t expected this. The color drained from her face, her good mood evaporating in an instant.
At a loss, she tightened her grip on Su Heng’s hand, wanting to say something, but he quietly and imperceptibly pulled free.
“Go on in.”
The tall beastman silently stepped back. His brow was cold and stern, his eyes like frosted over.
Yet his tone remained as steady and calm as always, betraying no change. Not even she, who couldn’t see, could detect his true emotions.
He didn’t belong here.
This place would never be his homeland.
And her.
Once he achieved his goal and left the Federation, a day would come when the line between them would be as starkly drawn as it was now, and they would face each other as enemies.
Su Heng clenched his hands at his sides, where her body heat still lingered on them.
He turned around. “I’ll wait for you outside.”
Jiang Ying lifted her face in confusion, but she couldn’t see his back.
Without her blind cane, and now having lost her doggy, she was left helplessly standing there. A feeling suddenly washed over her—the same sensation she’d had when she first went blind.
Just as she was about to call out and stop him, she heard someone say her name.
“Jiang Ying?”
A familiar voice. Gentle, kind, carrying a trace of a faint smile.
She recognized it immediately. “Doctor Jin?”
Jin Chuyun brushed past Su Heng, casting an almost imperceptible glance his way.
Su Heng stopped in his tracks and spun around abruptly. The man from just now had already reached Jiang Ying’s side.
“That beastman. Someone you know?”
Jiang Ying couldn’t see Jin Chuyun’s expression. She only heard his mellow, even voice. “Mm, interacting more with beastmen might help your condition. But in any case, don’t push yourself too hard to accept things.”
He paused, then added, “I assume they were concerned that some guests might not understand beastmen, or that extremists opposed to them might cause trouble, so they temporarily decided to exclude beastmen from the banquet. Nothing more to it. Don’t worry, just let him wait outside for you. If you don’t mind, I can guide you in.”
His words were perfectly measured, showing no malice toward beastmen and no unfavorable attitude toward her.
He appeared to be nothing more than someone friendly to her, yet not close.
A few steps away, Su Heng furrowed his brow.
The two hadn’t shown excessive familiarity, yet he still felt his heart blocked by something.
Watching the man in the suit extend his arm to the young woman, a sour, bitter thought immediately surfaced in his mind.
Could it be… that she had put on makeup today to see him?