Monday Morning. Jingcheng University, School of Life Sciences.
The air in the faculty wing was perpetually crisp, smelling of old paper and ozone, but today, it felt suffocating to Silas Shen.
Silas had performed a ritual of armor that morning. He had chosen a high-collared, deep charcoal turtleneck made of thick cashmere, layering it under his stiff, starch-white laboratory coat. Even though the spring sun was pushing the temperature toward a balmy twenty degrees Celsius, Silas had wrapped himself as tightly as a Victorian relic. He moved with a rigid, calculated grace, desperately hoping that the multiple layers of premium fabric could act as a physical barrier against the ghost of the previous night's absurdity.
But the laws of biology were indifferent to the shields of man. He could hide the skin, but he could not fully extinguish the residue of a top-tier Alpha's claim.
"Good morning, Professor Shen."
Xiao Lin, a young junior research assistant, approached the desk to hand over the weekly culturing reports. The moment he stepped within a two-meter radius of Silas, his nose twitched instinctively. His eyes clouded with a flash of genuine confusion. "Did you… change your cologne today, Professor? There's a scent… a very distinct, heavy citrus note? Like sun-ripened oranges?"
Silas's fingers, poised over the mechanical keyboard, seized up with a sharp, metallic clack. The sound of the accidental keystroke echoed in the quiet lab like a gunshot.
"…I spilled some juice at home." Silas didn't turn his head. His voice was a frigid rasp, dropping several degrees into sub-zero territory. He fought to suppress the maddening, electric itch blooming at the nape of his neck—a psychosomatic reaction triggered by the mere mention of the word 'orange.'
"Oh, I see. Wow, that must have been some concentrated juice. It's incredibly… assertive," Xiao Lin muttered, scratching his head as he wandered back to his workstation, completely unaware that he had just stepped onto a landmine.
Silas squeezed his eyes shut, a bitter, self-derisive smile ghosting over his lips. Assertive? That was a clinical understatement. It was a primal brand, a territorial stamp that Hunter Huo—that golden-haired lunatic—had ground into his very marrow the night before. Even with three layers of high-potency medical grade scent-blockers plastered over his gland, the phantom heat of that Alpha's "lava" continued to roar beneath the surface.
At that moment, the heavy pneumatic doors of the laboratory hissed open.
"Reporting—Sophomore Hunter Huo, here to submit the lab results I missed last week."
The voice was vibrant, echoing through the hall with a resonance that made Silas's teeth ache.
Silas took a deep, stabilizing breath, centering his composure before slowly turning his chair. Hunter was standing there, framed by the laboratory's sterile lighting. He was dressed in a blue-and-white varsity bomber jacket, a heavy designer gym bag slung over one shoulder. He radiated the boundless, sun-drenched energy of a star athlete fresh from the court. He was grinning, his eyes bright and clear, looking for all the world as if he had completely forgotten the image of the shivering, desperate creature who had crawled into Silas's bed just hours prior.
But the moment Hunter's eyes locked onto Silas's, the facade of the "innocent student" flickered.
A dark, predatory light surged into the boy's amber pupils—the unmistakable look of a predator sighting a prey it had already tasted and marked. Ignoring the dozen or so other students and assistants buzzing around the room, Hunter walked directly to Silas's desk. With a deliberate, heavy thud, he dropped a crumpled, slightly damp lab report onto the mahogany surface.
"Professor," Hunter rumbled, leaning down until his shadow completely swallowed Silas's desk. "Help me check this. I think my data on 'Receptor Binding' is… problematic."
He braced his hands on the edge of the desk, a posture of pure, unadulterated dominance. He was close—far too close. Silas could smell the fresh, clean scent of Hunter's shampoo, but beneath it, like a shark circling in deep water, was that relentless orange pheromone, surging out in waves to tempt and provoke Silas's hidden gland.
"Classmate Huo, wait in line like everyone else." Silas didn't dare meet his eyes. He stared fixedly at the scrawled handwriting on the report, his fountain pen digging a deep, permanent groove into the paper.
"I'm in no rush, Professor. You can take your time. After all…" Hunter lowered his voice, dropping it to a frequency that only Silas's ears could capture—a velvet, wicked murmur. "I learned significantly more in last night's 'Practical Application' session than anything written on these pages."
Silas's head snapped up, his eyes flashing with a cold, desperate fury. "Hunter Huo! Watch your conduct!"
"I am being very attentive," Hunter replied, spreading his hands with an air of wounded innocence. His voice returned to a normal volume, carrying a hint of feigned concern. "Professor, why are you wearing so much today? That collar is done up so tight… aren't you overheating? Do you want me to help you loosen it?"
He made a casual, mocking gesture as if to reach for Silas's throat.
Silas recoiled as if he had been pricked by a needle, his chair screeching harshly against the linoleum floor. In an instant, every head in the laboratory turned. The silence became absolute, a dozen pairs of eyes focusing on the tension radiating between the cold-blooded professor and the billionaire heir.
"Hunter Huo… leave. Now!" Silas's voice was thin, vibrating with a level of humiliation he had never experienced in his academic career.
"Professor, why is your face so flushed?" Hunter didn't leave. Instead, he tilted his head, his gaze sweeping slowly, hungrily over Silas's high collar. His tone was laced with a dark, private amusement. "Is the AC in here broken? Or… are you remembering a certain 'experimental process' you weren't supposed to memorize?"
He placed a heavy, lingering emphasis on the words experimental process.
Silas's fingertips were trembling with a rage he couldn't contain. He knew exactly what this "puppy" was doing. Hunter was testing the fences, provocatively stripping away the last of Silas's dignity in a room full of subordinates. The sheer dissonance of being privately claimed and publicly flirted with by an Alpha half his age was pushing the composed professor toward a total breakdown.
"Assistant Lin, please escort Classmate Huo out." Silas forced himself to turn away, his spine as stiff and unforgiving as a stone pillar. "If he continues to interfere with the curriculum, deduct all his participation credits for the semester immediately."
Hunter watched the slight, rhythmic tremor in Silas's shoulders. The playful smirk on his face gradually faded, replaced by a gaze of terrifying, possessive tenderness. He hiked his bag over his shoulder, but before he turned to go, he leaned down one last time, his lips inches from Silas's ear.
"Sensei," he whispered, his breath a scorching contrast to the lab's chill. "Those inhibitor patches have an expiration time. 4:00 PM. Your office. I'll be there to… change your dressing. If you aren't waiting for me, I'll just have to peel that collar back right here in front of your students."
Hunter's footsteps, arrogant and rhythmic, faded into the distance as the lab doors hissed shut once more. Silas didn't move for a long time, his hands gripping the edge of the desk so hard he thought the wood might splinter.
Eventually, his eyes drifted down to the lab report Hunter had left behind. There, in the white margin next to the data tables, Hunter had used a bold, black marker to draw a childish, yet chillingly possessive doodle of a puppy's head. Next to it, in jagged, sprawling letters that looked more like a decree than a note, was a single word:
MINE.