The lab was quiet except for the low hum of equipment and the soft, even breathing of his sons.
Beiyu weighed almost nothing in his lap, a warm, trusting bundle of ozone and milk. Beiyan snuffled in Lu Rin's arms across the room, thumb in mouth, cowlick defying gravity.
Gu Xun sat frozen on the cold floor, statue-still as ordered, but inside he was shattering all over again.
The scent of his family wrapped around him like a drug. For the first time in five years, he let the memory come unchecked, no suppressants, no distractions, just the raw, bleeding truth of that night.
Flashback: Five years ago
The rain hammered the estate windows like gunfire.
Lu Rin was gone, swallowed by the storm, blood already blooming between his legs for all Gu Xun knew.
Gu Xun's knees hit the marble foyer hard enough to crack a bone. He didn't feel it.
Chairman Gu stood over him, ozone scent thick and victorious.
"You did well, son," the old man said, voice smooth as poisoned silk. "The weakness is excised."
Gu Xun's head snapped up. Pine smoke exploded from him, feral and uncontrolled, slamming against his father's dominance hard enough to rattle the crystal chandelier.
"I did nothing," he snarled. "You forced my hand."
The Chairman didn't flinch. He reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a thin black folder.
Gu Xun knew what it was before it opened.
Five years earlier, before Lu Rin, before the mark, before love had rewritten his DNA:
A covert scent-weapons trial. Government black budget. Gu Xun, twenty-four and eager to prove himself, had green-lit a volatile compound.
It destabilised.
Three low-rank Omegas are dead. Twelve are permanently scarred. The facility was reduced to slag.
The Chairman had buried it. Paid blood money. Rewrote records. Threatened witnesses into silence.
All to protect the Gu name.
Now he laid the folder on the foyer table like a winning poker hand.
"Full confession," he said calmly. "Signed by you under oath. Witnessed. Notarized. Copies in three separate dead-man trusts."
Gu Xun's voice cracked. "You're blackmailing your own son."
"I'm protecting twenty-three thousand pack members," the Chairman corrected. "The logistics network alone employs twelve thousand. Defence contracts sustain the rest. One leak of this document and the government seizes everything. Assets frozen. Territories revoked. Every Gu wolf is branded a rogue. Homeless. Hunted."
He let that sink in.
"Your little florist Omega is brilliant. S-class. Fertile. But he is one life. The pack is twenty-three thousand. Choose."
Gu Xun swayed. The room tilted.
He saw it clearly: riots in the streets, pups starving, elders executed for treason, the Gu legacy reduced to ash because one heir refused an arranged match.
He saw Lu Rin: proud, unbreakable, carrying their child alone in the rain.
He saw himself trying to explain: I let you bleed out to save strangers.
There was no good choice. Only degrees of ruin.
"I'll marry Lin Yu'an," he heard himself say, the words tasting like rust. "I'll secure the contracts. But the document burns in five years. You give me your word."
The Chairman smiled, thin and cold. "When the pack is stable and the Lin alliance is ironclad, you may chase your toy. Five years is nothing to an Alpha with your lifespan."
Gu Xun believed him.
He believed he could endure five years of hell, then crawl to Lu Rin on broken glass and beg.
He believed Lu Rin would wait.
Or at least understand.
He was wrong on every count.
The next morning Lu Rin was gone. Apartment empty. Phone dead. Bank accounts drained into untraceable offshore shells.
Gu Xun searched for months.
Slept on the floor outside the empty apartment until neighbours called security.
Drank until his liver begged.
Wore suppressants until his scent atrophied.
He married Lin Yu'an in a ceremony that felt like a funeral.
She was kind. She knew it was a duty. She never asked him to pretend.
Every night, he dreamed of the blue lotus turning to ice.
Present
Gu Xun's eyes burned. Tears slid silently into Beiyu's hair.
He could never tell Lu Rin the full truth.
If he did, Lu Rin would see calculation. Sacrifice.
He would see a man who weighed lives on a scale and found his Omega wanting.
Better to let Lu Rin believe the lie: that Gu Xun chose ambition. Power. A clean name.
Better to be hated purely.
Only then was the grovel clean.
Only then did the suffering mean something.
Beiyu stirred, whimpered at the salt-scent of tears.
Gu Xun pressed his lips to the boy's temple, soothing him back to sleep with slow strokes.
Across the lab Lu Rin stood, silk robe shifting.
For one heartbeat the fabric parted, revealing the thin silver scar low on his abdomen: a permanent brand of that night.
Gu Xun's chest caved in.
The shame was a living thing, claws in his throat.
He needed to bleed more.
"Rin-rin," he whispered, voice raw.
Lu Rin's head turned. Ice pheromones snapped across the room like a whip.
"I said no speaking."
"I know. I'm sorry. I just: Wednesday afternoon is free on your calendar. I booked the entire main lecture hall for deep cleaning. All 480 seat covers. By hand. I'll start at dawn."
It was insane. Fourteen hours of back-breaking, pointless labour.
Lu Rin's eyes narrowed, calculating.
He sees the self-punishment and approves, Gu Xun thought. Good.
"Wear the navy shirt," Lu Rin said coolly. "The one that reads I AM THE REASON OMEGAS NEED THERAPY."
Gu Xun's smile was small, broken, radiant. "Yes, Rin-rin. Navy shirt. And I'll scrub the vents in the solvent room after. Unpaid. No thanks needed."
Lu Rin turned away, but not before Gu Xun caught the flicker: something almost soft in those lavender eyes.
The ice was still thick.
But beneath it, pressure was building.
Gu Xun settled back against the cold floor, Beiyu's weight anchoring him to the present.
He would keep the secret.
He would keep the shame.
He would keep grovelling until the lotus forgave him or killed him.
Either way, he was finally home.
Gu Xun silently vows to carry the full burden of the truth alone, believing it purifies his atonement. The real reason for the abandonment remains buried, for now.
Lu Rin's suppressants begin to fail under stress and proximity. The first warning signs of an approaching heat appear, setting up the explosive Library Heat scene where years of restraint finally snap.