One Hour Before Rejecting the Marriage - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I have been reborn in a dressing room.

My gown is on.

My hair and makeup are done.

Someone is at the door, urging me along, saying the Gu Family has arrived, the media is here, and Gu Xubai is already in the front hall.

My first reaction isn’t to look in the mirror.

It’s to touch the back of my neck.

No teeth marks.

No Blocking Patch.

None of that burning sensation from being bitten by him in my previous life.

But my body remembers.

It remembers the fire at the harbor.

It remembers being injected with a Catalyst, my Pheromones spiraling completely out of control.

It remembers Gu Xubai pinning me behind a barricade, lowering his head to bite the back of my neck, his cedar scent flooding in violently.

I called him crazy then.

He said, “Shut up.”

The next second, the warehouse exploded.

We died together.

My phone screen lights up.

19:00.

One hour remains until the engagement ceremony.

I stare at the time for two seconds, then call Gu Xubai directly.

He picks up quickly.

As if he’s been waiting.

“Gu Xubai,” I say, getting straight to the point. “Are you back too?”

Silence lingers on the other end for two seconds.

He lets out a short laugh.

“It seems you remember as well.”

My heart sinks.

As I thought.

He has also been reborn.

“West terrace,” he says. “Five minutes. Don’t bring anyone.”

“Who are you giving orders to?”

“To the person I bit in our last life who’s still acting tough.”

The call ends.

I grip my phone, the back of my neck feeling an inexplicable heat.

That bite was no hallucination.

The wind on the terrace is strong.

Gu Xubai stands by the railing in a black suit, his shoulders and back ramrod straight.

He turns to see me, his gaze landing first on my face, then shifting to the back of my neck.

It’s too direct.

I instinctively frost over. “What are you looking at?”

“Seeing if you’ve truly come back to life.”

“You’re certainly composed.”

“Better than you.”

I can’t be bothered to play word games with him, so I ask directly, “What did you find out?”

Gu Xubai hands me a USB drive.

“The raw data from the Matching Center.”

I take it. “And the conclusion?”

“The report was altered.”

“To what?”

“The public announcement was a Double S-level Alpha marriage report.”

“And the original conclusion?”

Gu Xubai looks at me, his voice dropping low.

“Abnormal Match.”

I frown.

Those two words are strange.

The ABO database is highly sophisticated; it almost never produces such a vague result.

Unless the differentiation data for one of us was fake from the very beginning.

“What do you mean?”

“It means that for at least one of us, our Secondary Gender was tampered with.”

A gust of wind rushes in.

My back turns cold.

No wonder something happened the moment we refused the marriage in our previous life.

They weren’t afraid of the alliance failing.

They were afraid we would keep investigating.

I stare at him. “What else?”

Gu Xubai suddenly takes a step forward.

His cedar scent is faint.

Clearly, he used a Blocking Agent in advance.

Yet, my spine still stiffens instinctively.

“Back at the harbor in our last life,” he asks, “what did you smell?”

“Gunpowder.”

“And?”

“Your Pheromones.”

“Be more specific.”

I look at him and speak slowly. “Mixed in with the cedar was a faint sweetness. Like honey frozen in ice.”

Gu Xubai’s eyes darken instantly.

“That wasn’t my normal state.”

“What do you mean?”

“That is my Associated Scent, which only emerges when I’m on the verge of losing control.”

My breath hitches.

An Alpha’s Associated Scent only appears under extreme emotions or intense desire.

Which means…

At the harbor in our previous life, his actions toward me weren’t just about saving my life.

Before I can respond, Gu Xubai moves closer.

“Shao Jianxing.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Can you smell it now?”

The distance is too small.

Close enough that I can see the oppressive intensity in his eyes.

The cedar scent entangles me, and my heart skips a beat.

I take half a step back, my waist hitting the railing.

“Stay back.”

“What are you hiding from?”

“I’m afraid I’ll kick you over the edge.”

Gu Xubai looks at me and suddenly smiles.

“But your eyes don’t look like you want to kick me.”

He grabs my wrist.

It’s only for an instant.

But the back of my neck goes numb.

He also stiffens for a moment.

That sense of resonance is something only a High-Match Partner would have.

It shouldn’t exist between two Alphas who are supposed to repel each other.