Chapter 90: You’ll Stop Loving Me

Chapter 90

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There was nowhere left for Jiang Li to go.

The moment Jiang Ze’s grip tightened around him, Jiang Li realized that there was no door within reach, no person nearby who could hear him, and no strength left in his body that could guarantee he would be able to escape. His heart was pounding violently against his ribs, but beneath the fear was something even more frightening.

Numbness.

It came without warning.

For a brief moment, it felt as though his soul had simply stepped outside of his body and left him behind. He could still feel the Alpha’s hands holding him, could still hear the sound of his own uneven breathing, but everything suddenly seemed distant, muffled, as though he were watching the scene happen to someone else.

He had felt this before.

When he was young and his father’s temper turned the house into a place of shouting and broken things, Jiang Li had learned to stare at the ceiling until the noise became something he could endure. He would lie there silently, tears sliding into his hair, trying not to move because moving seemed to make everything worse. He had discovered very early that sometimes the only way to survive something frightening was to disappear inside himself.

The same thing had happened at school.

He remembered walking through the corridors while people whispered behind their hands and pointed at him. Some looked at him with pity, others with disgust, and some simply watched with the fascination people reserved for scandals that did not belong to them. His senior had been richer, more influential, and better connected, and when the truth threatened to become inconvenient, the story had been twisted until Jiang Li became the villain.

He had seduced his senior.

He had released his pheromones intentionally.

He had wanted what happened.

Those words had followed him everywhere.

Jiang Li had endured the whispers while pretending not to hear them, even when they followed him into classrooms and lingered behind him in the corridors. At home, things were no better. His mother would cry quietly at night, believing he was asleep, and Jiang Li would lie in bed listening to her sobs through the wall.

He had hated those nights.

Not because he blamed her, but because every tear made him believe he had failed her again.

He had always been told that his pheromones were dangerous. That his existence brought trouble. That he needed to be careful because one mistake could ruin someone else’s life.

His father had never wanted him from the beginning. Before Jiang Li had even been old enough to understand what rejection meant, he had heard that his father already had a son and had no reason to want another child, especially one from Xiao Ye.

Then Jiang Li manifested as an omega.

Not merely an omega, but a rare siren omega whose pheromones could affect Alphas far more strongly than normal.

And eventually, his gland broke.

After that, even the word abnormal no longer seemed enough.

His entire life had been built around the belief that something about him was wrong.

As those memories rushed through his mind, only a few seconds passed in reality. Ten seconds, perhaps less. But inside Jiang Li’s mind, time stretched unnaturally, turning those seconds into something that felt like ten endless minutes.

He saw his childhood.

His father.

His mother.

The school corridors.

The staring eyes.

The accusations.

The hospital.

The day everything inside him had finally broken.

And then, somehow, among all those painful memories, another memory appeared.

Shen Yu.

Jiang Li remembered the first time he had realized that being close to someone did not always have to feel frightening. He remembered the warmth of Shen Yu’s hands, the quiet safety he felt whenever the Alpha stood beside him, and the strange comfort of knowing that Shen Yu did not look at him as though he were something dangerous.

With Shen Yu, Jiang Li had experienced something he had never believed he could have.

Love.

Not the kind of love he had for his mother, which had always been tangled with guilt and fear, but something different. Something romantic and warm and terrifyingly precious.

He had been able to be close to another person without feeling like he was destroying them.

He had been able to trust someone.

He had been able to feel wanted.

And now there was Beanie.

Their little child.

The thought appeared suddenly, cutting through everything else.

Why should I lose this?

Jiang Li’s breathing stopped for a moment.

Why should he?

Hadn’t he suffered enough already?

Hadn’t he spent enough years being punished for something he had never chosen?

Why should he lose Beanie?

Why should he lose Shen Yu?

The questions repeated themselves inside his head until something in him began to change.

For most of his life, Jiang Li had never truly felt as though he belonged anywhere.

He loved his mother deeply, but even being with her could hurt because she reminded him of everything he believed he had failed to protect her from. He saw the exhaustion in her eyes and remembered every time she had cried because of him. Home had never felt like home after that.

He had spent years believing that perhaps there simply wasn’t a place meant for him.

Then Shen Yu had appeared.

The Alpha had taken his hand and, without treating him like something fragile or broken, had told him that he wanted him. He wanted Jiang Li in his future. He wanted him beside him.

For the first time, Jiang Li had begun to understand what it meant to feel like someone had made room for him in their life.

Shen Yu’s presence felt like warmth.

It felt like somewhere he could finally rest.

He couldn’t lose that.

He couldn’t.

Something inside Jiang Li finally snapped.

The emotional dam he had spent years building collapsed all at once, and a scream tore out of his throat.

It was raw and desperate, carrying years of fear, humiliation, loneliness, and grief inside it.

Jiang Ze flinched violently.

Tears streamed down Jiang Li’s cheeks as he screamed, his entire body trembling beneath the force of his emotions.

There was only one thought burning through his mind now.

I will not lose them.

His pheromones erupted.

The soft scent of winter air and roses that usually surrounded him suddenly changed. The sweetness became heavier, sharper, almost metallic, filling the room with an overwhelming intensity that seemed to press against the walls themselves.

Jiang Ze gasped.

His eyes immediately became bloodshot as the pheromones struck him. His grip on Jiang Li weakened, and he staggered backward, one hand flying toward his head.

The pressure inside his skull became unbearable.

Blood began to trickle from his nose and the corner of his ear.

Jiang Li continued screaming.

He barely understood what was happening.

All he knew was that he wanted to get away.

He wanted to escape before anyone could look at him with that same expression again.

The expression that said he was dangerous.

The expression that said he was a monster.

Jiang Ze’s knees finally gave out, and his body collapsed heavily onto the floor.

For one terrible second, Jiang Li stared at him.

The sight dragged him straight back into the past.

He was eighteen again.

His father’s voice filled his head.

"You’re a monster!"

"You see what you’ve done to your brother? I told you he was a curse!"

The memory was so vivid that Jiang Li’s body began trembling violently.

He remembered his mother’s face.

The shock in her honey-brown eyes.

The way she had stared at him as though she no longer recognized the child she had raised.

That was the moment Jiang Li had run away.

He had never returned.

Not even for her.

The other Alpha in the room began moving, apparently trying to recover from the sudden assault of pheromones, but Jiang Li could barely see him through the tears blurring his vision.

He only knew that he had to leave.

Now.

He stumbled toward the door.

His bare feet struck the cold floor as he rushed outside, and the moment the door opened, the rain struck him.

He didn’t care.

The water soaked through his clothes almost immediately, flattening his blond hair against his forehead and running down his face alongside his tears.

He kept walking.

His shoulders shook with every breath, and his hands moved instinctively into his hair, fingers digging into the wet strands as the words from his father’s voice continued to echo inside his head.

You’re a monster.

No one could ever love something like you.

Jiang Li tried to fight the thoughts.

Shen Yu wouldn’t think that.

He wouldn’t.

But another voice inside him answered cruelly.

He will when he realizes what you are.

Jiang Li’s legs weakened.

He stumbled before finally collapsing onto the wet pavement.

The rain continued falling heavily around him, but he barely noticed it. He curled inward, sobbing so hard that his chest hurt.

If Shen Yu stopped loving him after seeing what he could do, what would he have left?

His mother was gone.

His family had never truly accepted him.

He had spent years believing he was dangerous.

Shen Yu had been the first person who made him feel as though he could belong somewhere.

If even that disappeared, what reason would he have to continue?

"If Shen Yu..." Jiang Li whispered through his sobs, his voice nearly drowned out by the rain. "If he doesn’t love me anymore..."

His fingers tightened against his hair.

"Why should I continue living?"

Then he smelled something.

At first, it was faint beneath the rain.

But Jiang Li knew it immediately.

Whiskey.

Rosewood.

Warmth.

Home.

His entire body went still.

He lifted his head.

Through the rain, he heard footsteps approaching rapidly, shoes striking the pavement with urgency. Someone was running toward him.

Jiang Li’s heart clenched.

He knew that scent.

He knew those footsteps.

"Shen Yu..."

The name escaped him like a broken whisper.

The footsteps came closer.

Jiang Li’s shoulders began trembling again, but this time it wasn’t only fear. It was the overwhelming realization that the person he had been terrified of losing had actually come looking for him.

"Jiang Li..."

Shen Yu’s voice reached him through the rain.

Jiang Li’s eyes widened.

For a brief moment, he wanted to run toward him.

He wanted to throw himself into Shen Yu’s arms and never let go.

But fear won.

"Don’t!"

His scream echoed through the rain.

The approaching footsteps immediately slowed.

"Jiang Li..."

"Don’t come any closer!"

His voice cracked as another sob escaped him.

He wrapped his arms around himself, trembling beneath the cold rain.

Because if Shen Yu came closer, Jiang Li was terrified that the Alpha would finally see him clearly.

He was afraid Shen Yu would look at him and see the same monster everyone else had seen.

He was afraid that the warmth in Shen Yu’s eyes would disappear.

He was afraid that the man who had finally become his home would decide that Jiang Li was too broken, too dangerous, too abnormal to love.

His tears continued falling as he lowered his head.

"Please..."

The word came out so quietly that Shen Yu almost couldn’t hear it.

Jiang Li swallowed painfully, his voice shaking as he forced himself to say what he had been too afraid to admit.

"If you come any closer..."

His breath broke.

"You’ll stop loving me."

The words were barely audible beneath the rain.

Jiang Li closed his eyes tightly, his face crumpling as another sob escaped him.

"And I really can’t live without your love anymore."