Evil Love Appears chapter 18
“Are you cold?” Xu Jiale asked Fu Xiaoyu, “Should we go back to the bar?”
Fu Xiaoyu shook his head, not sure if he meant he wasn’t cold or he didn’t want to go back.
Seeing him remain motionless, Xu Jiale could only sigh and go back to Bespoke to get their coats. He then put the down jacket on Fu Xiaoyu.
It was kind of amusing. Fu Xiaoyu, a tall and slender omega, could curl up into a small ball when he squatted down. He reminded Xu Jiale a bit of Xia And his cat, who usually looked like a fluffy mess but revealed his true self after a bath.
Thinking like this, Xu Jiale couldn’t help but smile. He then squatted down beside Fu Xiaoyu, and the two of them watched as the light snowflakes descended from the sky.
“Do omegas always have to be good at acting cute?” Fu Xiaoyu asked with a downcast expression.
He was a bit tipsy, but that seemed to make it easier for him to say things he couldn’t express when sober.
Xu Jiale chuckled, his voice deep and even pleasant when he laughed. “Fu Xiaoyu, do you think that omegas act cute just to please alphas? When you associate it with pleasing, you naturally feel that acting cute is embarrassing. It’s as if acting cute implies weakness, lack of independence, and that’s why you resist it, right?”
Fu Xiaoyu remained silent, not offering a rebuttal.
“Let’s look at it from a different perspective,” Xu Jiale continued. “If an omega wants a car but can’t afford it and resorts to acting cute to ask for it, then it might be considered pleasing in a sense, but there’s nothing wrong with that. However, what if an omega simply acts cute because they like the alpha and can’t help it? It’s like a cat showing its belly to be petted by a human. Does the cat think of getting better cat food in return? No, it just wants to be touched. Humans aren’t much more complex than cats, and acting cute is just a way to express the desire for closeness.”
“You have to understand that when an alpha is charmed by someone acting cute, it’s not because they think the omega is weak at that moment. It’s because the omega they like is using their body and language to say, ‘I like you, I want to be close to you.’ That’s incredibly sexy. It’s the deeper reason for being charmed.”
Fu Xiaoyu sighed deeply, and for a moment, he felt a bit melancholic. But then, he also felt a strange sense of relief.
Perhaps it was because only in Xu Jiale’s words could he catch a glimpse of another side of interpersonal relationships.
It wasn’t so heavy, so moralistic, so practical.
Love, as described by Xu Jiale, was sweet, intimate, and even playful—a kind of love that one would yearn for.
“As a perfectionist like you, there’s another characteristic you should be aware of—you internalize all your emotions. Why do you have such a prejudice against acting cute? Because it’s an external display of emotion, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Fu Xiaoyu, if you think about it carefully, you’re resisting the existence of many emotions. You rarely show obvious anger, and even when you’re genuinely angry, you suppress it.”
Xu Jiale’s expression gradually turned serious.
He looked at Fu Xiaoyu and said, “For example, when you argued with Han Jiangque just now, you must have been furious to the extreme, which is why you left Wen Ke’s house abruptly. But you refuse to let yourself completely lose control in front of others. Similarly, when I pressed you and guessed about you earlier, weren’t you angry? But you couldn’t express it. Emotions are like water, and people are containers. You keep all that water trapped inside you for too long, and it only leads to more pain and emotional impotence.”
“Fu Xiaoyu, you care about losing face and how others perceive you, so you tightly control yourself. But sometimes, you really need to say, ‘To hell with it.'”
“When you’re angry, don’t internalize it. Whether it’s with friends or family, when you’re genuinely angry, you should express it and not care about what others think. When you truly do that, you’ll find that interpersonal relationships are not as fragile as you might think.”
Fu Xiaoyu listened attentively and, after a moment, asked seriously, “Xu Jiale, when I filled out the questionnaire aimlessly earlier, you looked really angry. Were you deliberately showing your anger?”
He asked this earnestly, with round eyes that made him look even younger, like an eager student.
Xu Jiale couldn’t help but chuckle and admitted, “Yes.”
Fu Xiaoyu was actually smarter than he had imagined.
Fu Xiaoyu stared at him, his hazel pupils shining beautifully in the snowy night.
For a moment, Xu Jiale almost felt like he could hear the gears turning in Fu Xiaoyu’s mind, thinking about how to counterattack—
Fu Xiaoyu chose a counterattack that Xu Jiale least expected.
He extended his hand and pushed Xu Jiale forcefully.
Xu Jiale’s squatting posture wasn’t that stable to begin with, and being pushed so suddenly, he fell backward into the snow with a thud. His pants and coat were covered in snow, making him look disheveled.
At first, Xu Jiale was stunned, but then he glared at Fu Xiaoyu and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Externalizing anger,” Fu Xiaoyu replied with a hint of fierceness and playfulness in his expression.
Xu Jiale, who was sitting in the snow, originally wanted to stand up but instead lazily spread his legs and took out a lighter to try to light a cigarette.
Fu Xiaoyu suddenly felt a bit happier.
He didn’t expect that a little prank like this would improve his mood so much. The alcohol that had made him vomit earlier now seemed to have become kinder, and he felt light as a feather.
“Xu Jiale, why do you always smoke?” he asked seriously, a question about a very private matter that he rarely asked. Perhaps it was because of the push earlier; he suddenly felt like he could ask.
“As a divorced bachelor, no one’s around to stop me from smoking,” Xu Jiale replied, still smiling but with a hint of sadness in his eyes.
“It’s unhealthy,” Fu Xiaoyu commented. “And drinking cola is unhealthy too. One can of cola has sugar, 38 calories. Sugar not only makes you gain weight but also affects your skin—”
He stopped halfway, maybe because they were so close now that he suddenly noticed a small ear piercing on Xu Jiale’s right ear.
“You…” He stared blankly for a while, then turned his head and said, “You still have an earring.”
“Do you care about that too, Mr. Fu?” Xu Jiale made an exaggerated expression. “I got it when I was 14, after my first heartbreak. I used to wear it to school, and as long as I didn’t wear exaggerated earrings, the teachers didn’t bother me.”
Fu Xiaoyu suddenly felt a bit nervous. He hesitated for a moment and then asked in a soft voice, “So why aren’t you wearing it now?”
“After having Nanyi, I didn’t wear it much,” Xu Jiale said. “When you have a baby, you can’t wear any jewelry that might scratch them accidentally. Later, when he grew up, I got used to not wearing it. So, gradually, it became like this.”
“Oh,” Fu Xiaoyu nodded.
He couldn’t help but glance at Xu Jiale’s ear again. Suddenly, he remembered that night when they stayed overnight at Wen Ke’s house. During their conversation the next morning, Han Jiangque had said that Xu Jiale was the “love expert of Beisan High School.” Once, an omega from the next class had broken up with him and came to their class, crying at the door. Xu Jiale didn’t want to see him, so he hid in the bathroom.
Xu Jiale—
Not only did he have early relationships and get his ears pierced, but he probably also smoked even in highschool.
They were two completely different types of people.
He had een the teacher’s pet, a model class monitor who stayed in the classroom during breaks to help teachers grade papers.
In contrast, Xu Jiale was probably the kind of alpha who was surrounded by classmates. When he played basketball, many omegas would bring him water and cheer on the sidelines.
“What about you?” Xu Jiale suddenly asked, “Fu Xiaoyu, have you ever smoked?”
Fu Xiaoyu shook his head.
“How about trying it?” Xu Jiale teased him.
Fu Xiaoyu was surprised that Xu Jiale was even suggesting this, but he didn’t expect himself to say, “Okay.”
This time, it was Xu Jiale’s turn to be stunned for a moment. But then he handed the unlit cigarette in his hand to Fu Xiaoyu.
Fu Xiaoyu took it clumsily and, after putting it in his mouth, looked over at Xu Jiale.
Xu Jiale squatted back down, and as there was a breeze at night, he used one hand to shield Fu Xiaoyu’s face from the wind while using the other to light the cigarette.
They were very close now, close enough to see the faint snowflakes on Fu Xiaoyu’s long eyelashes, as if a snowflake had just melted on them, leaving them slightly wet.
A beautiful omega held the cigarette and looked somewhat lost, gazing at him with uncertainty.
Xu Jiale suddenly felt a bit nervous, and he cleared his throat before speaking softly, “Just give it a try. Don’t inhale it into your lungs; if it gets into your mouth, just blow it out. Inhaling it into your lungs is bad for your health and your skin. Understand?”
He found himself babbling again.
But Fu Xiaoyu was obedient. After listening to Xu Jiale’s instructions, he closed his eyes and took a shallow puff, but the taste of nicotine was not pleasant; it was even a bit bitter.
He didn’t know what Xu Jiale was thinking at that moment, but he couldn’t help but feel like this was the first time he had been so rebellious at such a late age.
At a delayed stage in his life, he became a bad boy for once.
“Hey,” Xu Jiale whispered, “Fu Xiaoyu, give me your phone.”
Fu Xiaoyu didn’t know what Xu Jiale was up to, but he unlocked his phone and handed it over.
After a few seconds, he suddenly heard a “click.”
He opened his eyes in surprise, and Xu Jiale handed his phone back. On the screen was a photo just taken—a picture of Fu Xiaoyu, but in a completely different image from usual.
In the photo, Fu Xiaoyu was a completely different person.
He was standing in the light snow, exhaling a smoke ring toward the camera.
The hazy smoke ring covered his large eyes, but it highlighted his astonishingly beautiful features—
A smooth forehead, a straight nose, and a petite, prominent Adam’s apple.
That part looked like a bare sexual metaphor, implying the perfect shape of a gland behind the neck.
It was Fu Xiaoyu himself, but a kind of beauty he had never seen before.
The cunning fox has led the innocent puppet astray.