Apex Predator - Chap 11
By the time the car reached the Qu residence, Shen Dai was already fast asleep.
The driver, Old Wu, opened the car door and quietly stood aside, awaiting Qu Moyu’s instructions.
Old Wu was the son of Qu Shen’s driver and was specially trained to work for Qu Moyu. Naturally, with such a close relationship, there was little he didn’t know.
But even though these two people were not actual husband and wife, and even though he was only a Beta, he didn’t dare to simply lay a finger on this person bearing the title of “Qu Moyu’s wife”.
Qu Moyu got down from the car and walked around to Shen Dai’s side. Looking down at him for a few seconds, he then bent down and carried him up.
Despite Shen Dai having a larger build compared to most male Omegas, he still felt relatively light when held in his arms.
In the midst of the swaying movements, Shen Dai opened his eyes for a brief moment. Dazedly, he looked at Qu Moyu before closing them again, as if only witnessing a dream.
Uncle Heng hurriedly came over to welcome them, “Young master, did Mr Shen have a lot to drink?”
“Mn, Auntie Lan, come help him get a change of clothes.”
Auntie Lan ran over: “Would you like me to boil some hangover tea?”
“He won’t be able to drink it now. Let him sleep.”
Qu Moyu carried Shen Dai up the stairs. Entering the guest room, he then set him down on the bed.
As he was getting up, he felt a bit of resistance. It was only then that he realised that sometime between now and then, Shen Dai had grabbed onto the hem of his jacket. The entirety of his force was concentrated between his thumb and forefinger, gently and carefully applying just enough pressure to hold onto it without letting go.
Qu Moyu furrowed his eyebrows. His eyes flickered. He reflected for a moment, before finally liberating the fabric without much effort.
“Take good care of him.”
As soon as Shen Dai woke up, he realised that he had overslept. Usually, he never needed an alarm to wake him up for work and would naturally wake up on his own, but he had never anticipated the accidental scenario of drinking too much.
Laying in bed, he replayed in his mind the events of the night before, and also recalled the things he said to Qu Moyu in the car, which upset him so much it made him want to punch a wall.
What exactly did he say? The motives behind that sort of talk were way too obvious. His way of trying his hardest to close himself off in front of Qu Moyu was really his fear of exposing some of the feelings that he should not be having.
What would Qu Moyu think from now on? Would he think that he, too, was coveting the mark of a top-tier Alpha?
Except it was too late now for regrets, he could not even remember what on earth he had said, nor how he had come back, nor who had brought him into the room, nor who had given him a change of clothes.
Then again, in fact, whichever way Qu Moyu viewed him had no bearing whatsoever on their relationship.
One should say that Qu Moyu had never seriously ‘looked’ at him, so all these entanglements in his heart were just him getting worked up over nothing. To console himself in this way could be counted as fighting poison with poison.
Shen Dai looked at the time, then calculated that even if he got up now and went to the laboratory, he would only be able to work for half the day. Also, his head was still aching, so he might as well send a message to Cheng Zimei and give himself the entire day off.
He got up to take a shower and made himself presentable, before heading downstairs to find something to eat. He had been so nauseated by You Xinghai the night before that he hadn’t been able to eat. On top of that he had drunk a belly full of alcohol, so his stomach was now growling.
When Uncle Heng saw him, he had a somewhat strange expression on his face, “Mr Shen, Good morning.”
Oblivious to his remark, Shen Dai replied, “Uncle Heng, I’m hungry. Is there something to eat?”
“There is still an hour until lunch. Would you prefer to wait, or have a little something first?”
“I’ll just eat something first, anything is fine.”
“How about if I send up a few pastries?”
“That’s great, thanks.”
Shortly after, Auntie Lan came to serve him a glass of milk and two pieces of mung bean cake: “Mr Shen, something to whet your appetite, there’s going to be a lot of delicious food for lunch.”
“Thank you, Auntie Lan. It’ll be better to make a bit less for lunch, after having these I won’t be able to eat so much.”
In fact, he was quite hungry, but right now his stomach didn’t feel great, so he just wanted to have something small to alleviate it.
“Eat a little more.” said Auntie Lan, laughing. “Yesterday I was helping you change into pyjamas – aiya, you’re too skinny.”
Shen Dai was a little embarrassed: “I’m really sorry to have troubled all of you.”
“No worries, it was no trouble for us.” Auntie Lan’s laugh had some ambiguity in it, “Though it was a little troublesome for the young master, last night it was the young master who —”
Uncle Heng, who was standing to one side, gave a small cough.
Auntie Lan ignored him: “— last night it was the young master who carried you from the car to your room.”
Shen Dai was slightly startled. He concealed this by casting his eyes downwards and taking a bite of the gooey mung bean cake, feeling only that the sweetness had permeated his heart in a split second. Just a moment ago he had been wishing that he could forget the embarrassment of the previous evening, and now all he wanted was to commit to memory every step that Qu Moyu had taken while carrying him.
“A-lan, you’re not going to the kitchen to supervise?”, urged Uncle Heng, as if fearful that she might say more.
“I’m not a chef, what is there for me to supervise?”
Both Uncle Heng and Auntie Lan had started out at the residence of the Qu family, serving Qu Moyu from the time that he was young. After Qu Moyu became independent, he brought them over to his house.
Although Uncle Heng was the housekeeper, among all the servants in this household there was only Auntie Lan who dared disobey him.
“Look at the time. The traffic is heavy today, we’ll need to send over the young master’s lunch a little earlier,” replied Uncle Heng stonily.
Auntie Lan looked at her watch: “We have time. Mr Shen, would you like to go to the kitchen and have a look? You still haven’t told us what you like to eat and always say anything is fine. This way you can just tell the chef directly.”
“There’s no need, this afternoon I’m…”
“Come on, come on.” Auntie Lan pulled him over with enthusiasm. “It’s been so long since you’ve moved in, and you’ve never been anywhere else apart from the living room, dining room and your own bedroom.”
The kitchen of the Qu residence was frighteningly big. It was split between a hot kitchen and a garde-manger. There was an entire wall dedicated to storage as well as a walk-in refrigerator. It had a chef along with two apprentices. At present, a meticulously selected spread of ingredients was laid out across the kitchen counter.
After Auntie Lan had introduced the chef, she started to explain the dishes of the day. “Recently the young master has been tired of workplace meals, so we started to prepare lunch and send it to him. The young master prefers dishes that are light on the palate, but he eats a lot – otherwise, he wouldn’t have grown up to be so tall.”
Shen Dai laughed, “President Qu’s workplace meals must come from the company’s cafeteria. Actually, the food in the cafeteria is pretty good, but if you eat it for a long time you’d definitely get sick of it.”
“True, nothing beats home-cooked food.” Auntie Lan said to the chef, “Xiao Wang, be mindful of the time, Uncle Heng said that there is a traffic jam today, so it needs to be ready earlier.”
“Ok, I’ll hurry.”
Shen Dai picked up a sheet of paper from the counter, written on it were the dishes to be prepared that day.
Chef Wang explained, “I’ve only written these down so that the apprentices can prepare the ingredients for them, I won’t necessarily serve all of them”
“Mr Shen, do you know how to cook?”, asked Auntie Lan.
“I used to cook often at home, but living at the company dormitory I don’t have the means to anymore.”
Beaming at him, Auntie Lan suggested, “Why not make something for the young master? Let him have something different for a change. It could save a bit of time as well.”
Uncle Heng who had followed them into the kitchen immediately objected, “A-Lan, how can you allow Mr Shen to make something by himself? Don’t bother Chef Wang any longer.”
Auntie Lan gave Uncle Heng a look: “What harm could making a dish do, Mr Shen?”
Shen Dai’s heart burst with irrepressible excitement: “Let me try then.” Right now his whole mind was filled with thoughts of how…Qu Moyu might actually eat a dish made by him.
“Here, take a look at these ingredients, you can use whatever you like.”
“I’ll make a shrimp tofu pot then, it’s faster.” Shen Dai could not help smiling. “My family says that mine is pretty tasty.”
Auntie Lan came over to help. She whispered behind Uncle Heng’s back, “Add a little less salt. When the young master gets back tonight, I’ll ask him if he ate it or not.”
Shen Dai couldn’t be sure of what Auntie Lan’s intentions were, nor did he dare to guess, but he could sense that they were out of pure goodwill.
“You’re both already married. No matter the reason, isn’t it good to pass the days happily together? I notice that the young master also treats you well. You should both find a way to nurture your feelings for one another.”
“Thank you Auntie Lan.” responded Shen Dai, with sincerity.
After carefully preparing the dish, he sprinkled it with some chopped fresh spring onions. Using his mobile phone he took photos from several angles. Even though it was only a home made dish, it was fragrant and delicious, looking at it would make you hungry.
He used to have a wide range of interests, one of which was photography, but after taking on the debt, all there was to life was work. Now it seemed that he didn’t lose too much of his skill, at least the first dish that he ever made for Qu Moyu looked appetising in photographs.
The dish was transferred into a thermal lunchbox By the time it had gone through a bumpy car journey and arrived in Qu Moyu’s hands, there was no way it would look and taste as good as it did before. If, someday, somehow, he had the chance to talk to Qu Moyu about how it tasted, he would take out this photograph and let him see it in its most perfect state.
It was almost ten o’clock in the evening when Shen Dai finally heard the sound of Qu Moyu’s car. Having spent the entire afternoon analysing data, his back was aching. He had already been working on this thesis for half a year, but there was still some significant experimental data that did not support his argument.
He got up from his laptop and walked towards the window, stretching his back while at the same time looking through the gap in the curtains to spy on Qu Moyu.
Hearing the sound of Qu Moyu entering the house, he hesitated for a moment before resolving to go downstairs in order to apologise and express his gratitude for the night before.
As soon as he opened the door he heard Qu Moyu reprimanding someone in a low voice, “Don’t let him cook again. What were you thinking?”
Shen Dai immediately froze. He could only hear Auntie Lan saying something in a hushed voice. He couldn’t hear it clearly, but the tone clearly had a bit of grievance in it.
That was followed by the sound of footsteps.
Shen Dai stealthily retreated and closed the door shut.
Truth be told, he wasn’t really disappointed, after all, this was only the logical conclusion. At least Qu Moyu had eaten the dish that he made. That was already pretty good. What else was he asking for? A five-star rating?
The only thing he could not understand was why Qu Moyu had to go so far as to reprimand Auntie Lan. It made him feel really sorry for causing her trouble.
The very next morning he had his breakfast as usual, put on his backpack, then went to fetch his bicycle from the basement as he got ready to go to work.
When he got out the door he bumped into Auntie Lan. She seemed to be avoiding his gaze. Since she did not bring up what happened yesterday, he pretended as if nothing had happened either.
As he was pushing his bicycle through the courtyard, Uncle Heng, who was in the middle of watering the plants, saw him and immediately walked over. “Mr Shen, Good morning.”
“Good morning Uncle Heng. I’ll let you go about your business. I’m leaving.”
“Mr Shen”, Uncle Heng spoke up. “May I have a word with you?”
Shen Dai had a feeling that this was something he did not want to hear. But there was nowhere to hide, so he had no choice but to bring his bicycle to a halt and calmly look back at him.
“Yesterday evening when the young master returned, A-Lan informed him that it was you who prepared his lunch for him. The young master was not too pleased and had a word with her. A-lan has brought him up since he was a child and very seldom does he raise his voice at her.”
Shen Dai looked down and waited for him to continue.
In a gentle tone, Uncle Heng said, “A-lan never had much of an education, and has always worked at the old house, so she is a little unsophisticated. She has looked after the young master for over twenty years, and while she is familiar with his daily routine, she doesn’t realise that she and the young master are of two different worlds. It’s not possible to apply her way of thinking to discern the young master’s thoughts. If not for me telling her, she wouldn’t even have known why the young master was upset.”
“What are you trying to say?”, asked Shen Dai, impassively.
“You’re so highly educated and so intelligent, so surely someone like you must understand everything. If the young master treats you well, it is due to his good upbringing, but he would not wish for you to have unnecessary ideas. He would find it a bother.”
Shen Dai felt his cheeks burning. Subconsciously his hands searched for the pockets of his lab coat but found none on the sweater he was wearing, making him feel particularly helpless.
Uncle Heng sighed, “Please don’t think that I am being unkind. After knowing you for this period of time, I can tell that you’re good-hearted and sincere. I have a lot of respect for you, which is why I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“The world of a top-tier Alpha is not something us ordinary people can understand. There are really too many people that hanker after the young master, but what the young master really needs isn’t a specific person. In the future, he can only seek the one who would be the most beneficial ally for himself.”
