Title: 顶级掠食者 (Alpha Predator)

Author:水千丞 (ShuiQianCheng)

Translator: K (@kin0monogatari)

Protagonists :沈岱 (Shen Dai -MC), 瞿末予 (Qu Moyu -ML)

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Qu Moyu was busy cleaning up the mess outside and had no time to deal with Shen Dai. So he arranged for a bodyguard to watch over him.

Shen Dai was under house arrest in disguise. Although Qu Moyu didn’t really restrict his personal freedom, he couldn’t go to the company and he couldn’t go home, because he had the mark of Qu Moyu on his body. He would immediately be noticed by his acquaintances. He will be exposed. So he couldn’t go anywhere except stay at Qu’s house.

It took him half a day to drag his self-consciousness out of his extreme pain and shame to recognize the fact that he had fallen into a crisis. He had to calmly think about everything before and after, and how to solve the problems in front of him one by one.

Qu Moyu’s words are very hurtful, but they are based on misunderstanding and anger. Except for the malicious speculation about him because of the misunderstanding, Qu Moyu said long ago that he would not mark him. But now it’s just that he expressed it in harsher words. Thinking from the standpoint of Qu Moyu, these stress responses are in line with human nature. He was the victim, but Qu Moyu was not the perpetrator. The culprits were Qu Chengchen and Shen Qin.

Compared with sadness and self-pity, what he needs most now is his utmost calmness.

The most urgent task is to prove his innocence and dispel the misunderstanding between them.

Shen Dai bought a new mobile phone and the backup downloaded from the cloud storage was incomplete. He didn’t have time to check which work data he had lost. All kinds of information were enough for him to reply for a while.

There are only seven days of vacation during the estrus period and today is the eighth day. His teacher has returned from South Africa. He can only ask for a sick leave from the teacher and Cheng Zimei.

His grandmother has also sent messages to inquire about him these days. The reason why she didn’t worry about her grandson’s sudden disappearance for a week is because she also knew that Shen Dai was in estrus and this news must have been told to her by Shen Qin. In addition, in order to control Shen Qin’s problem of spending money indiscriminately, Shen Dai only transfers 1,000 yuan of daily necessities to Shen Qin a week while other expenses are calculated separately. Shen Qin did not find him even once this week. This is enough to prove that Shen Qin accepted Qu Chengchen’s money and premeditatedly took his mobile phone.

Shen Dai called her grandmother, made up some reasons to appease her and told her that he had to work overtime these days because he was in estrus. So he would not be able to go back to see her for a while. His grandmother expressed understanding and told him to pay attention to his body.

Shen Dai asked again, “What about him?” When it came to Shen Qin, he felt an indescribable sense of hatred in his heart. Facing the use and betrayal of his close relatives, he didn’t feel sad, only disgusted. This was repeatedly given to him and his family. The person who brought the disaster, his biological omega father, who was able to harm his parents for the so-called ‘love’ in the past, can now naturally betray his own son for the sake of profit. What made him despair the most was that there was an indelible blood tie between them. Shen Qin was like a blood-sucking tumour lying inside him and his grandmother. How to remove it without hurting the bones?

“Watching TV outside.” Grandma said with a smile, “He took good care of me. Everything is fine at home, you don’t have to worry.”

“…That’s good.” Shen Dai hadn’t figured out how to deal with Shen Qin. His only concern was his grandmother.

“Ah Dai.” His grandmother’s words sounded hesitant.

“What’s the matter?”

His grandmother lowered her voice and said, “Shen Qin has cried with me more than once, saying that you don’t call him father and you are very cold to him. Grandma knows that you can’t forgive him, but what has happened can’t be changed. And life will go on. People still have to look forward. He now knows his mistakes and corrected them. Can you… give him a chance to make up for it?”

Shen Dai gasped and clenched his hand into a fist. His grandmother would not know what this son who seemed to have ‘corrected his mistakes’ did to him. He couldn’t bear to tell her that he was under financial pressure in the past. Now, he is under mental pressure, that’s all it should be. It’s a reward for his grandmother, who raised him carefully. But how can the suffocation and resentment in his heart be resolved?! He said coldly: “I let him enter the house, I have already given him a chance. There is no more.”

After a moment of silence, his grandmother let out a long sigh.

Shen Dai originally wanted to restore himself to his senses as soon as possible through work. But he sat in front of the computer for several hours without reading a single page of the material.

The marked alpha and omega will have a deeper emotional interaction at the physiological level, which means that he cares more about Qu Moyu now. And Qu Moyu can also affect his emotions more. Being misunderstood, humiliated and reprimanded by his own alpha, what kind of taste is it? It makes people feel breathless depression for every second.

He tried to get Qu Chengchen’s phone number through You Baiyue but You Baiyue didn’t reply to his WeChat. He also thought about asking Shen Qin to confront him. But for Qu Moyu, they were a father and son with one heart. And what Shen Qin did before, how can outsiders not know that he and Shen Qin have no family affection at all?

He didn’t know how to prove himself for a while.

In the next few days, he hardly went out. He either slept or sat in front of the computer all day, but his work efficiency was extremely poor. When Uncle Heng or Aunt Lan came to bring him meals, their eyes became strange and indifferent. Sometimes the appearance of hesitating to speak made him even more reluctant to take half a step out of the door.

He really wanted to talk to Qu Moyu, but Qu Moyu went out early and returned late every day. Or he didn’t come back at all and he never found a chance.

Later, he figured that Qu Moyu might be avoiding him on purpose, perhaps because he was afraid that he would release pheromones. With the marked connection, an alpha would naturally want to protect his omega. And the pheromone could become a means of emotional kidnapping.

But he was so anxious that he couldn’t wait any longer. He didn’t want to be in this state all the time and he couldn’t keep pretending to be sick and not going out. So that night, he sat in the living room and waited for Qu Moyu. No matter how late he would be back.

Uncle Heng and Aunt Lan each came to persuade him three times, and the last time Uncle Heng’s tone was a little rude: “You should know that the young master doesn’t want to see you at all now. So don’t provoke him in the young master’s anger.”

Shen Dai said calmly: “What’s the point of procrastinating? If there is a problem, we should solve it. Besides, I can’t stay out of the house all the time. I have a family, I have a job, and I have my own life.”

“Master can’t let you go to the company.” Uncle Heng said with a sullen face, “He won’t let others know that he marked you.”

Shen Dai pursed his lips. He knew that in the hearts of Uncle Heng and others, he had been convicted of being an ‘inferior omega’ who deliberately deceived Qu Moyu to get his mark. He said solemnly, “That’s why I want to talk to him.”

“If you want to talk, you have to wait for the young master to calm down. Do you know how much damage you have caused him? He is busy every day now…”

Just in time, Qu Moyu came back.

Shen Dai thought he was mentally prepared, but when he came into contact with Qu Moyu’s cold eyes, his heart couldn’t stop falling. He forced himself to take two steps forward and said softly, “Mo Yu, can we talk?”

Qu Moyu’s eyes only stayed on Shen Dai’s face for a very short time and he walked past him without slowing down.

“You have to give me a chance to defend myself.” Shen Dai turned around, looked at Qu Moyu’s back and raised the volume of his voice.

Qu Moyu left a sentence without looking back: “Go to the study.”

Shen Dai gritted his teeth and followed him upstairs.

Qu Moyu took off his suit jacket and threw it on the table. He then sat in the chair, closed his eyes, and rubbed his slender fingers between his eyebrows.

Shen Dai looked at Qu Moyu’s tired appearance and felt uncontrollably distressed. Even though he was filled with resentment, he still couldn’t help but want to care about his alpha.

“Hurry up.” Qu Moyu said impatiently.

Shen Dai slightly sorted out his thoughts and said succinctly, “I didn’t do this. I didn’t know any of it.”

Qu Moyu slowly opened his eyes, looking at Shen Dai with some undisguised contempt.

“I know you don’t believe it. I need a few minutes to explain the ins and outs.”

“Who will benefit from this?” Qu Moyu’s tone was full of sarcasm.

“…”

“You’ve always wanted my mark, yes?”

Shen Dai lowered his eyes: “Yes. Every omega longs to be marked when they are in estrus. This is instinct.”

“What about when you’re not in estrus?”

Shen Dai opened his mouth but the words were stuck in his throat. At any time, he longed to be marked by Qu Moyu. He longed to be liked by Qu Moyu. He longed to be recognized as the only one in this life by Qu Moyu. What was wrong with liking someone? And why did this feeling come? At this moment, it has become something that he can’t even talk about.

Shen Dai’s silence made Qu Moyu’s eyes turn darker.

“I… also want it.” Shen Dai felt that something in his body was screaming to break through the invisible bondage. It had been suppressed for too long and had to be expressed to his heart’s content. So he knew that now was not a good time to say that sentence but he still blurted it out, “Because I like you.” At this moment, a huge wave was set off from his heart.

Shen Dai mustered all his strength to confess, but Qu Moyu sneered. He stared blankly at Qu Moyu, suddenly feeling at a loss.

“You ‘like’ me.” Qu Moyu sneered, “Is it anything new?”

A sharp pain came from Shen Dai’s heart.

“Which omega that is close to me that doesn’t ‘like’ me.” Qu Moyu’s frowning eyebrows showed disgust, “‘Like’ is nothing amazing. It’s just an ethereal emotion and it’s just a delusional idea to use it to coerce me. In exchange for real money, you’ve become stupid and greedy.”

Shen Dai’s body trembled lightly: “You, you already knew…”

“From the moment you asked me for my WeChat.” Qu Moyu supported his face with one of his hands. His face indifferent, “I have seen those eyes on countless omegas. Do you think you are well hidden?”

It turned out that Qu Moyu had long known the secrets he thought he was keeping carefully. The tangle of wanting to get close and forcing him to distance himself, the emotions he tried to cover up when he was sad and jealous…, in Qu Moyu’s eyes, they were worthless.

So, what kind of mentality does Qu Moyu hold? He beats him inside and out not to have unrealistic delusions about himself. He has expressed more than once that his future wife must be an S-class omega and also he regretted not being able to marry You Baiyue. The date of the two which turned into a dinner party with You Baiyue.

Even if Qu Moyu knew his feelings for a long time, he didn’t care if he would be sad or embarrassed. Because Qu Moyu didn’t care about him in the first place.

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Next update: 2022.05.30

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*Translator’s note: I survived translating through this chapter too! T.T!! How am I supposed to survive translating the chapters to come??? Send help!! I hate QMY! I hate grandma! I hate Shen Qin! I hate everyone! Arghhh!!! By the way, I didn’t proofread this chapter since I can’t bear reading through SD’s sadness again. Please ignore any mistakes. -K