Captured By The Cold Detective (BL)-Chapter 404: Manifestation Period
He Juan instantly shot up to his feet, catching Chen Youzhi off guard.
"Calm down, Little Miss Ye," he tried to reassure the girl when he heard her struggling to catch a breath as if she was on the verge of a panic attack, just like Mu Yuze was once before. He used the firmest and most steady tone to talk to her, "Calm down, take a deep breath and slowly tell me what happened. Are you hurt? Did someone get to you?"
As soon as the question came out of his mouth, He Juan immediately denied it himself. It should not be the case. He had made sure to get rid of the pests around her, and even if one or two escaped, she would have been able to deal with them easily like how she did with Blue Lotus’ men.
And sure enough, Ye Qiu choked out, "No, nothing happens to me but..." she took a ragged, shaky breath. "I can’t explain it through the phone. P–Please come here as soon as possible!" She blurted out an address and before He Juan could say anything in response, the call was hung up with a click.
"Damn it!" He Juan cursed under his breath. He raked his fingers through his hair to relieve his frustration, and then he went to grab his car key and jacket, walking toward the door in huge strides.
"Boss, should I come with you?" Chen Youzhi asked worriedly.
He Juan paused for a second in front of the door, and said without turning around, "No, there’s no need. You can just continue to search for Mo Feng. I expect nothing but good news next time, Chen’er."
Now that he had put it like that, what could Chen Youzhi do but to comply? "...Roger, Boss. Please be careful on the road."
***
Forty five minutes later, He Juan’s car sharply braked in front of an old four-story building in a neighborhood district, the tires making wild screeches against the asphalt and drawing a dozen eyes to him. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚
But He Juan could not afford to care about it right now, because as soon as he got down from the car, his nose picked up the familiar scent of pheromones in the air. It belonged to none other than Ye Qiu!
Goddamnit, exactly what had happened inside that caused her to release her pheromones? Did she not realize what the consequences would be if the Alphas and Omegas nearby were affected by it?!
With his jaws clenched tight, He Juan made his way into the building, his sleeve jacket fluttering behind him. He rushed up the creaky stairs toward the floor where the source of the pheromones came from.
In the early evening, only one or two businesses in this building were still open, and He Juan bumped into a handful of people along the way who seemed to be Betas as they were not affected by the pheromones – much to his relief. Even then, he could hear them complaining about how the air felt unusually stuffy today, making it difficult for them to breathe.
He Juan was not an exception to it. Moreover, because he was a superior Alpha, the effect those pheromones had on him was worse. His lips pulled back into a silent snarl, and his pupils dilated in the preparation to fight, but he clenched his fists tightly and used the pain to sober himself up. Focus, He Juan! Now was not the time to be controlled by instinct, he had to find out what happened to Ye Qiu as soon as possible!
The closer he was to their room, the more perturbed he was. The touch of the pheromones on his skin felt like the slither of a cold-blooded snake, sending a wave of icy repulsion down his spine. He knew that mutated Alphas were powerful due to the high concentration of AX–03 in their body, but it was not until now that he truly learned how formidable they were. He bit down on the inside of his cheek, hard enough to draw blood. In no time at all, his breathing started to turn uneven as if he had just run a marathon.
Arriving in front of the room Ye Qiu had informed him about, he banged on the door with his fist and his voice was terrifyingly flat, a stark contrast to his features that began to distort. "Pull back your pheromones first, Little Missy. Or else don’t blame me for taking action."
In this precarious state, all of He Juan’s senses were heightened and thus he could faintly hear the hushed voices inside that seemed to have come from more than three people, followed by the quiet shuffle of footsteps coming toward the door. He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax when the pheromones became even thicker, almost choking the air out of his lungs.
"Little Miss Ye..." a growl formed on the base of his throat, his voice edging toward a threat. When he thought of how there was only a thin door separating the two of them, the visceral urge to break it down and grab the girl by her throat dominated his mind, almost making him see red. "I told you," his voice dipped into a dangerous low, his tone clipped. "Pull back. Now."
"X–XIU, are you alone?" Ye Qiu’s flustered voice came from within. "Are you certain that nobody is following you when you come here?!"
He Juan couldn’t help but bark out a mirthless laugh when he heard that. At a time like this, it was the first thing she was concerned about? "If you are still not taking back your pheromones, the one you have to deal with first is me. It will not bode well for either of us, Little Miss Ye."
"I–I can’t!" Without a warning, the door swung open and a wave of turbulent pheromones blasted him right on the face. The only thing that prevented him from going berserk was the miserable sight of Ye Qiu in front of him. The girl had discarded her oversized thick jacket and was only clad in an old sweater whose color had faded due to being washed too many times. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face haggard in exhaustion. She had gotten thinner since the last time He Juan saw her, and she looked almost... fragile, vulnerable in a way that did not suit the pheromones she was emitting. Her voice was shaking when she said, "If I stop, then Xiao Gu... he will be in danger..."
"What are you—"
He Juan’s eyes went past her head to look into the room behind her, and the sight he saw immediately caused his expression to sink.
Aside from Ye Qiu, there were five other people in the room, all young children below the age of fifteen and there was even one toddler. They huddled together like a pack of scrawny kittens in search of warmth and comfort after being abandoned under the heavy rain, and the gaze they directed toward He Juan was full of distrust, caution and hostility.
But it was not the thing that broke He Juan’s heart to pieces.
It was the horrible state they were in. They looked thin and emaciated as if they had not eaten for days, their eyes sunken with a tinge of blue on their lips as the heating in their room was not turned on amidst such chilling weather. They wore clothes that were too loose for them, making them look even smaller and pitiful.
Now that the door was opened for him, he began to sense the presence of another kind of pheromones that were previously subdued under Ye Qiu’s. It was like a barely formed thread, light but still visible nonetheless.
And when his eyes landed on the little boy with his eyes painfully shut and breathing ragged, being cradled in another’s embrace, He Juan instantly knew what was going on, for he had once gone through the exact same thing.
It was the manifestation period...
Another mutated Alpha was in the process of manifesting!
