Evil Love Appears chapter 59

After Murong Jingya left, Xu Jiale brought Fu Xiaoyu back to his place. It seemed that neither of them knew how to start the conversation at that moment.

Fu Xiaoyu looked up at him, as if he had something to say.

Fu Xiaoyu, don’t ask.

Xu Jiale prayed silently in his heart. Every time he met Murong Jingya, it left him mentally and physically exhausted, and he really didn’t want to discuss this matter now.

Just at this moment, Fu Xiaoyu’s Ding Ding calendar on his phone rang timely.

It was a reminder from Wang Xiaoshan, reminding him of a video conference with the Love app team half an hour later.

“Ah!” Fu Xiaoyu suddenly jolted as if from a dream, and said anxiously, “Xu Jiale, we only brought a laptop back home, and there are some documents still locked in the trunk of your car.”

“Oh, right, we have half an hour, don’t worry, I’ll go get them, there’s still time.”

He didn’t even have a sip of water. He grabbed the Tesla car card, turned around, and called a car to go to Junya Manor.

Fortunately, both of them lived in the North City area, so the back and forth didn’t take too long.

However, when he returned, time was really tight. Fu Xiaoyu quickly changed into a light beige shirt, but didn’t have time to change his lower half, so he was wearing Xu Jiale’s pajama pants, which looked mismatched.

He sat behind Xu Jiale’s work desk and took two deep breaths before quickly getting into work mode.

That day’s meeting was indeed important and significant.

Just last weekend, at the same time Fu Xiaoyu twisted his waist on the basketball court—

The Love app officially reached the goal of 4 million daily active users, far exceeding the Q2 target set by the entire team initially.

And this achievement was reached just two months after the Love app was launched, and words couldn’t describe the magnitude of this growth.

Therefore, today, not only the CEO of the publishing company, Blue Rain, Xia Xingzhi, joined the video conference, but even Wen Ke, who was in the late stage of pregnancy and had to stay at the Han’s home to rest, joined via phone.

Xu Jiale, on the other hand, took a leave and didn’t participate.

His work primarily involved the product’s internal aspects, and he was only an expert in the psychological assessment section of the collaboration with M Group. Therefore, even as a shareholder, he couldn’t be bothered to offer his opinions.

He wasn’t in a good mood, so after listening to the meeting for a while where the camera couldn’t see him, he left.

Xu Jiale’s apartment had a loft-style design concept, so apart from the master bedroom, all other areas, such as the living room and work area, were interconnected, making it possible for Fu Xiaoyu to watch what Xu Jiale was doing while having the meeting.

“Now, what’s in front of us is not a problem of performance but a question of how the company should rapidly expand to meet the demands of such a high-traffic, high daily active users product in terms of heavy operations.”

As Fu Xiaoyu spoke, his tone was calm and composed. He gestured for Wang Xiaoshan to adjust the PowerPoint presentation on the shared screen while casting a sidelong glance towards the living room.

Xu Jiale first cleaned up after Xia’an.

While he was scooping the cat’s litter, the cat sat neatly nearby, as if it was supervising.

For a moment, Fu Xiaoyu forgot that he was still in a video conference. A faint smile appeared on his face.

After cleaning up the cat’s litter, Xu Jiale went to the kitchen to prepare vegetables for the hotpot dinner they were having that night.

Fu Xiaoyu loved eating baby bok choy, so a few days earlier, Xu Jiale had bought two fresh stalks of it during a grocery run. Now he was in the kitchen, using a paring knife to prepare the bok choy.

Xu Jiale seemed a bit distracted. He had only prepared half of it, and then he put the bok choy on the cutting board, standing there in a daze.

“Um, I understand,” Fu Xiaoyu said, summarizing the strategic deployment of the next steps for everyone. “Yes, we need to focus on further market promotion, but it must be done with the condition that our backend is fully capable of keeping up. We definitely can’t spend money to buy traffic and not be able to handle it.”

While he was speaking, Xu Jiale, for some reason, had walked over to the cabinet in front of his desk. He bent down, opened the second drawer, took out a pack of cigarettes, and then walked silently towards the master bedroom.

With the closing of the door, Fu Xiaoyu became absent-minded for a moment.

The master bedroom was a separate space, cut off from the living room, and now he couldn’t see what Xu Jiale was doing. This sudden change made the previously ordinary meeting seem longer.

Xu Jiale must be going to the balcony to smoke, Fu Xiaoyu thought.

“Good, I’ll take care of the recruitment on my end. Yes, we’ll communicate anytime.”

Finally, the meeting concluded, and Fu Xiaoyu summarized the next steps in strategic deployment. Then he quickly ended the video conference.

He was in a hurry to get up and walk towards the master bedroom. As expected, Xu Jiale was standing on the balcony, smoking.

For some reason, every time Fu Xiaoyu saw Xu Jiale standing on the balcony from inside the house, he felt a little sad.

Behind the glass partition that separated the master bedroom from the balcony, the balcony looked like a huge aquarium.

The alpha stood on the balcony, looking up at the sky inside the “fish tank,” and the screen of his phone was faintly flashing, apparently playing something.

Fu Xiaoyu was silent for a while, and without a sound, he pushed open the glass door.

In the evening, a faint scent of gardenia flowers wafted in the spring breeze, as if it had come from the street.

“Daddy!” As soon as he entered the balcony, Fu Xiaoyu immediately heard the voice of the adorable Xu Nanyi coming from Xu Jiale’s phone, “This is the Easter candy egg we made at the candy workshop! I put a lot of maple syrup in it, so it’s going to be sticky on your teeth!”

“Aiden says it’s super sweet, and I really want you to try it!”

“Daddy, I miss you. You—”

Xu Jiale turned his head and saw Fu Xiaoyu walking in, and he silently turned off the video with the cigarette still in his mouth.

Apart from the sound of the wind, there was silence on the balcony.

“Xu Jiale…” Fu Xiaoyu couldn’t quite express the feeling in his heart.

“I’m fine,” the alpha seemed to know what he wanted to ask without needing him to say it and spoke first.

“Your father… ” Fu Xiaoyu hesitated for a moment but couldn’t help asking, “What happened between your father and you?”

“Nothing,” Xu Jiale shrugged and said lightly, “It’s just a common and terrible parent-child relationship.”

Xu Jiale’s attitude was so clear, seemingly puffing out smoke rings casually, but in fact, he was completely avoiding any further conversation.

During this period, they had rarely had such a distant conversation.

For a brief moment, Fu Xiaoyu didn’t know if he should continue asking. He was so unfamiliar with managing interpersonal relationships that he became more clumsy when faced with deliberate coldness from the person he loved the most.

Dusk was transitioning into night, and the sky was gradually changing from orange-red to a melancholic deep blue.

If this were a fish tank, it would probably be a surreal one, and perhaps to an outsider looking in, it might seem that two strange fish were standing inside and having a conversation.

Fu Xiaoyu finally spoke softly, “Xu Jiale, that time… on New Year’s Eve, you guessed all my family problems. Do you still remember?”

“…I remember.”

“Then let me guess yours?” Fu Xiaoyu turned to look at Xu Jiale.

Fu Xiaoyu’s gaze was serious.

Xu Jiale’s lips with the cigarette quivered slightly. In principle, he couldn’t refuse, which was unfair and even despicable.

But he…

“Don’t guess, Fu Xiaoyu.”

A spark flew up, and Xu Jiale suddenly smiled. But it was probably a very bitter smile, tinged with a hint of helplessness.

“You’d better ask me directly,” he said.

“You said… Mr. Murong made your alpha dad unhappy. What happened?”

Fu Xiaoyu always hit the mark.

He seemed to have this sharpness at all times, even in moments where they should be getting closer and connecting more slowly, there was no gentleness.

He came at you like a sword, hitting right in the most painful spot.

Xu Jiale stood in the wind for a while, then finally said hoarsely, “My alpha dad is called Xu Lang, and he’s a B-level alpha.”

His opening was a bit strange, and Fu Xiaoyu subconsciously said “yeah,” but immediately looked up, realizing that there was something abrupt in between.

A B-level alpha, and an S-level omega, two levels apart.

This was an extremely rare combination.

“Actually, alphas being of a lower rank than their omega is a rare thing, but it’s not unheard of. It’s just that in this world, S-level omegas are so rare that few people know that when an omega at this level is marked by an alpha two levels lower than themselves, they can even break free from the constraints of that marking.”

Xu Jiale said, pausing for a while before saying in a low voice, “It doesn’t sound so bad, does it?”

Fu Xiaoyu didn’t respond. Instead, he looked at the alpha next to him with concern. “And then?”

“In a way, my father, Murong Jingya, was successful in freeing himself. Not only did he free himself from his original background through marriage, but he also, within the AO’s two-sex relationship, completely liberated his desires as well.”

Xu Jiale said casually. “He’s not entirely under Xu Lang’s pheromone control. Therefore, even though he’s marked as an omega, he can… have feelings for another alpha.”

“In that year, I was 14, probably during winter, right around New Year’s. Murong Jingya was busy and rarely at home for a while. Xu Lang missed him terribly, so he couldn’t resist and took me, along with his violin, to surprise Murong Jingya. He had been practicing ‘Fantasy’ for a while and wanted to give his omega a surprise. So, at the company’s front gate… he accidentally saw it. When Murong Jingya got out of the car, he was holding the hand of another alpha.”

“He cheated,” Xu Jiale said bitterly, blowing a smoke ring toward the sky. “My father, a marked omega, cheated.”