Chapter 8: Questionnaire Survey
Fu Rangyi was extremely unwilling to work this overtime.
“Don’t worry. I already filled out my own copy in advance. I won’t waste too much of your time.”
He cleared his throat and solemnly held another questionnaire that was filled from top to bottom. Then he stood up and circled the dining table, pacing as he read the contents aloud to Fu Rangyi.
“First, food preferences and dietary restrictions. This is very important. Last time at dinner, we stumbled right here.” Zhu Zhixi was very serious. “For fruit, my favorite is strawberries…”
No wonder so many strawberries had suddenly appeared in the fridge that day.
Fu Rangyi still remembered that the day before yesterday, when he got home from work, he happened to run into Zhu Zhixi washing strawberries. There were so many that it made one suspect he was making jam.
At the time, Zhu Zhixi was standing behind the open kitchen island, wearing a loose, fluffy chick-yellow knit sweater, headphones on, humming as he washed them. His entire body swayed back and forth, completely unaware that most of one shoulder was exposed. The gold hoop on his ear was very dazzling.
When he noticed someone had come back, he suddenly lifted his head, grabbed a strawberry, and asked extremely loudly, “Do you want one?”
It was hard to imagine how loud his headphones had been.
When this person grew old, his ears would definitely go deaf very early.
He did not wash fruit very carefully either. Most of his movements looked perfunctory, and he was very slow. Fu Rangyi placed his cup under the water purifier to fill it, walked over, and only then discovered that Zhu Zhixi’s phone beside him was still playing a movie.
This person seemed completely unable to focus on doing one thing.
The water almost overflowed from the cup, because Fu Rangyi discovered something even more outrageous. Compared to before, the number of washed strawberries had simply decreased sharply. Zhu Zhixi had been washing while eating, and they were almost gone. Only a small plate was left.
After he asked again, “You really don’t want any?” and emphasized, “I picked them myself at the strawberry farm, you know,” Fu Rangyi still coldly refused.
“No wonder they’re so ugly,” he added.
Unexpectedly, the next morning, before heading to work, he found a sticky note on the dining table. It read: Please ask Fu Rangyi to open the fridge.
He really wanted to know what trick this was. Even though he knew he was almost late, he still spared an extremely precious half minute to open the fridge. At a glance, he saw a cartoon lunchbox that practically had Zhu Zhixi’s name written all over it.
After opening the lid, he spent several even more precious seconds in a daze.
Inside the box was actually a whole row of strawberry “snowmen.”
Every strawberry had been cut apart by him, the pointed tip turned into a hat, with a narrow cylindrical slice of banana sandwiched in the middle. Two black sesame seeds had been dotted onto the banana as eyes, everything skewered together with a toothpick, and a round blueberry was inserted at the very top.
There was another sticky note in the box.
[These aren’t ugly anymore, right? Work hard in class, husband~ Remember to get more vitamins ^-^]
Fu Rangyi knew he was deliberately trying to disgust him.
He peeled off the sticky note.
But fruit would go bad, and he hated wasting food, so he still packed it up and took it with him.
Because of this, he was extremely rarely one minute late to his specialized course and was secretly discussed by the students in the group chat.
“My second favorite is figs. But actually, compared to eating them, I like smelling them more.”
Zhu Zhixi suddenly stopped walking and asked Fu Rangyi, “Have you ever smelled figs? Don’t you think they have a milky scent? It smells really good.”
“No.” Fu Rangyi came back to himself. “I hate milky smells.”
Zhu Zhixi answered cheerfully, “AO people whose pheromones smell like milk are blessed. They’ve been hated by our Teacher Fu just like that.”
Fu Rangyi: “…”
Zhu Zhixi: “Anyway, I really like figs, and I prefer the fully ripe ones with purplish-red skin.”
In fact, Fu Rangyi already knew this.
Because ever since Zhu Zhixi moved in, there were always figs in the fridge, but he did not eat them often. He would leave them there until they were very ripe, so ripe that several times, Fu Rangyi had wanted to say, “Don’t let them rot in my fridge.”
Every time Zhu Zhixi opened the fridge, he would first take out a few and smell them, then put them back, as if some kind of fruit-ripeness detection device was actually hidden in his nose.
“As for other foods, there are too many things I like. I’m not very picky. But there are two things I don’t like eating. You learned one of them last time.” Zhu Zhixi knocked on the tabletop three times. “Celery—Professor Fu’s Waterloo vegetable.”
There really was no need to emphasize it like that…
“I also dislike celery’s good brother, cilantro. Both of them have a strange smell.” As he spoke, he had already walked around to the end of the walnut dining table. “As for meat… I hate all-lean beef. It’s very hard to chew.”
Fu Rangyi inevitably thought of the way he looked while chewing, cheeks stuffed full, mouth closed, chewing very quickly.
Those teeth did indeed seem more suitable for eating vegetables.
Does he like carrots?
He suddenly had the urge to ask.
But in the end, he still did not ask. He felt there was no need. He would be able to observe it sooner or later.
“Oh, right. I really like eating fish, but I hate fish bones, because when I was little, one got stuck in my throat and I had to go to the hospital to have it taken out with tweezers.” As Zhu Zhixi spoke, he measured with his index finger and thumb. “This long. It got stuck right here in my throat.”
Fu Rangyi glanced at his neck.
“And it actually didn’t affect your ability to talk.”
Zhu Zhixi widened his eyes, seemingly very shocked by his cold-bloodedness.
But he still continued, and even sped up his speech in revenge.
Although Fu Rangyi looked like he did not want to listen at all and gave almost zero feedback, he also had absolutely no intention of leaving the dining table, as if he had forgotten that his two legs were actually capable of movement, and that he also had the free will to refuse.
“Ah, right. I forgot to write this one. I need to add it.” Zhu Zhixi stopped and added a line with his pen. “I’m allergic to cat fur.”
I know.
On the third day after Zhu Zhixi moved in, at seven in the evening, they coincidentally met for the first time at the elevator entrance in the underground garage, so they entered the same elevator.
After they went up to the first floor, a female Omega walked in. Zhu Zhixi seemed as if he had suddenly become able to smell pheromones and immediately leaned over.
But very quickly, Fu Rangyi discovered that he was going toward the fat cat in her arms.
It’s so pretty! Can I pet it? Will it be afraid of me?
After this three-hit combo, he gained brief petting rights and was extremely excited, even turning back from time to time to look at Fu Rangyi.
At the time, Fu Rangyi had raised an eyebrow.
Why are you looking at me? Am I not letting you pet it?
Back then, Zhu Zhixi was immersed in the happiness of petting the cat. His hand never stopped, and he could not suppress his desire to talk to the cat, as if they were the ones of the same species.
Until they arrived at their floor, he was still reluctant to part and waved goodbye to the cat, completely unaware that the cat owner’s face had turned red.
Someone unaware of the situation might have thought that betas nowadays could suddenly release pheromones too.
But not long after they got home, Zhu Zhixi began sneezing wildly, and rashes appeared on his face.
Of course Fu Rangyi knew it was an allergy.
But at the time, he had held a cup, walked over, and pretended to speak casually: Why did you paint your face so red this late at night? Are you going to perform opera?
This was merely his setup to hint that there was allergy medicine in the living room TV cabinet, but Zhu Zhixi was too stupid and actually started singing. However, he only sang two lines, because he was quickly interrupted by a new sneeze.
In the end, though, Fu Rangyi still took the medicine for him himself, because he did not want Zhu Zhixi rummaging through his medicine cabinet, nor did he want him to see the massive quantity of suppressants inside.
“I like listening to rock, but I also like symphonies…”
“And then, I have a bit of a collecting habit. I collect some useless little things, like postcards my friends send me from all over the world, pretty little stones I come across on the road, or some fallen leaves and things like that. There are a lot of strange things in my drawers.”
“I’ve done many, many jobs. My current profession is curator, and it’s also the most formal job I had before.”
“When I was studying abroad, I opened a handmade crafts shop and also a campus café. I like going to different places around the world to volunteer. I’ve also worked as a fashion buyer, occasionally did part-time modeling, directed short films, worked as a temporary band vocalist, a wildlife photographer, the head of a stray animal shelter…”
Fu Rangyi listened quietly, but somehow, because of every sentence Zhu Zhixi said, related scenes appeared in his mind. One scene after another was pieced together and built up between the words, emerging more and more clearly.
He could even imagine what Zhu Zhixi looked like in those places, doing those things.
This was the first time in his life that Fu Rangyi discovered he had such a powerful imagination, and he could not even control this ability.
The concentration of Zhu Zhixi’s life seemed several times higher than that of ordinary people, exactly opposite to Fu Rangyi’s dull, two-point-one-line existence.
So now that he was forced to stay with Fu Rangyi, trapped in some apartment in S City, would he find life utterly boring?
“That’s about it.” Zhu Zhixi smiled and finished reading. He pulled out the chair closest to Fu Rangyi and sat down, pushing the filled-out questionnaire in front of him. “Can you remember it?”
Fu Rangyi did not answer his question. After being quiet for two seconds, he reached out and, like a real mentor, pointed at one of the lines.
It was a part Zhu Zhixi had written and then crossed out completely. It was very conspicuous.
Fu Rangyi compared it with his own blank form, swept a glance over it, and asked, “‘What would make me cry’—why didn’t you write this line?”
Zhu Zhixi lay on the table and stayed silent for a few seconds. Then he looked at him. “I don’t think there’s any need to write it. After becoming an adult, I’ve almost never cried, so this kind of situation probably won’t appear.”
“You don’t need to write it either,” he added, cutting off the possibility of Fu Rangyi asking further.
Very soon, Zhu Zhixi sat up straight again and handed over the pen. “Your turn.”
But Fu Rangyi was like a rich, powerful bastard with a lawyer. He had committed a crime, yet leaned back against the chair with an attitude of refusing to cooperate.
“I don’t want to write.”
Zhu Zhixi would never admit defeat. He directly took the pen back and picked up the blank form as if he were taking a statement.
“Then you talk, I’ll write.”
But he still underestimated how difficult Fu Rangyi was to deal with. No matter what question he asked, Fu Rangyi could give an extremely vague answer.
“What do you like eating?”
“Nothing in particular.”
“Then is there anything that makes you want to throw up the moment you eat it?”
“That’s a lot.” As if deliberately making things hard for him, Fu Rangyi listed a whole string. “Fatty meat, not even a tiny bit; scallions, especially spring onions; offal, especially liver; durian…”
“Say it slower. I can’t write all of that down.”
How could there be such a troublesome person?
He could not help sighing. “So picky with food. Raising a kid like you must have been so much trouble.”
For some reason, perhaps one of those words had provoked him. Afterward, no matter what question Zhu Zhixi asked, Fu Rangyi refused to answer.
Did he have a favorite singer? He did not listen to music. A movie he hated? All bad movies. What book did he like the most? None in particular…
He was simply like a cat that hated being touched and hugged by humans the most! He refused all interaction, refused any connection.
He resisted opening his heart.
Zhu Zhixi was not doing all of this entirely for the sake of playing a perfect partner with Fu Rangyi in front of others.
Those things were useless. He knew very well that once they returned to this home where only the two of them lived, Fu Rangyi would keep his distance from him, and would not even stay in the same room.
So the countdown still kept ticking, even though its speed had slowed down.
[49 days, 19 hours, 23 minutes, 09 seconds]
He wanted to become Fu Rangyi’s friend, or at least a roommate who was not that distant from him. Even a little emotional connection would do. At least then they could sit on the sofa together and watch some TV program, touch arms, put an arm around the other’s shoulder.
These absolutely could not be called harassment.
“Then can you talk to me about your field?” he tried again.
“You don’t need to know.”
“How do I not need to?” Zhu Zhixi said. “What if I run into your colleagues? I can’t act like an idiot and know absolutely nothing about your work, right? People very easily develop good feelings toward someone because of their work. People who work seriously are the most charming. Tell me.”
In truth, Zhu Zhixi simply wanted to use this to pry open this person’s mouth.
He had looked into it before, from the information Zhu Zeran had sent him—although that had been after they got their marriage certificate.
Fu Rangyi was the Fu family’s only top-tier Alpha. Alphas were already rare, and top-tier Alphas were rarer still. The Fu family did not have that kind of genetic background. For them to produce one like him was practically worth burning incense for.
Zhu Zeran had also complained about this point before.
[They’re willing to let their precious SA son marry a beta and not continue the SA genes. There’s obviously something wrong.]
Maybe he couldn’t perform? Or maybe he had azoospermia?
Zhu Zhixi did not care. He knew Fu Rangyi was not a bad person.
Although this person spoke unpleasantly and had a rather solitary personality, his lifestyle was so clean it did not resemble an Alpha’s at all. After work, he was either exercising at the gym or going home to read papers.
Zhu Zhixi had seen all kinds of people. Because of the face his parents had given him, he had also experienced plenty of harassment. But living under the same roof, Fu Rangyi had never once behaved improperly toward him.
He would even leave a light on when Zhu Zhixi came home late. When Zhu Zhixi got hungry in the middle of the night and wanted to go downstairs to the convenience store, Fu Rangyi would inexplicably appear in the living room, saying he had trash to throw out and would go “along the way.”
Before this, Zhu Zhixi indeed had some prejudice against Alphas.
Because he had seen too many stories of Alphas going mad because of pheromone disorders, and also because of the inexplicable preferential treatment they received. None of it was fair.
But compared with Fu Rangyi as a very high-quality top-tier Alpha, Zhu Zhixi wanted more to know what kind of work Fu Rangyi did, and what kind of life he lived, as a “person.”
Fu Rangyi’s work was his life, and most of his life was also work.
Because they lived together, even without asking, Zhu Zhixi could observe many details.
Even little quirks.
For example, Fu Rangyi liked reading papers while standing. He would place his laptop on the island counter in the open kitchen and pour himself a full glass of wine, drinking while reading.
Pairing academic papers with wine was truly too strange. Even stranger was that he seemed to be the type who became more sober the more he drank. No wonder there were so many bottles of wine in his cabinet. This probably counted as his only bad habit.
Sometimes, when Zhu Zhixi passed by the kitchen and smelled the heavy scent of red wine, he thought Fu Rangyi was drunk. But when he looked up, the other person’s expression had not changed in the slightest. His speaking speed was normal, and he was still just as sharp-tongued.
Aside from observing him, Zhu Zhixi also found other ways to understand Fu Rangyi.
He downloaded many papers Fu Rangyi had published and learned that Fu Rangyi had attended a very good boarding school. At seventeen, he entered university, getting in with a score far above the cutoff for archaeology. Then he went to the best university for a combined master’s and doctoral program. He had produced abundant academic results, and his citation count was astonishingly high. He graduated at twenty-five, joined S University, and within just a few years, became the youngest professor in the faculty. He had even published a bestselling popular science book.
His life was practically moving forward with the fast-forward button held down.
For someone like this to be forced into a fake marriage, Zhu Zhixi truly could not figure out the reason. But Fu Rangyi would never mention it, and Zhu Zhixi did not want to take on that unnecessary hell-level mission either.
He only wanted to use these conversations to draw closer to this iceberg.
As expected, using work as the entry point was extremely correct. Fu Rangyi began introducing his research field to him, although very briefly and only touching on the surface.
“What I mainly do now is Neolithic archaeology. I won’t talk about the specific topic. You don’t need to understand it in that much detail.”
Fu Rangyi then said, “When I was studying before, I also followed a team doing underwater archaeology for a while. But my eyesight wasn’t good enough, so I switched to West Asian archaeology. Later, I focused on domestic archaeology. It’s enough for you to know roughly that much.”
Zhu Zhixi was a little excited. “West Asia? Then have you done fieldwork in Saudi Arabia and Turkey? Can you speak Arabic and Turkish?”
“A little.”
“I know a little too!”
Zhu Zhixi slowly said in Turkish, “Hello, I’m Chinese. I like puppies and cats. What about you?”
Fu Rangyi stared at his lips and deliberately said, “I don’t understand.”
“Fine.” Zhu Zhixi shrugged. “Good that you don’t. I secretly cursed you twice just now.”
Hearing this, the corner of Fu Rangyi’s mouth lifted slightly, though he himself was completely unaware.
After finally prying a bit of information out of him, Zhu Zhixi carefully recorded it while asking more questions. This method really did work quite well. Fu Rangyi was not as resistant and even took the initiative to mention a site their team had once excavated.
He also showed Zhu Zhixi photos with great interest.
It was very different from what one might imagine a magnificent, astonishing site full of rare ancient relics should look like. It looked more like a dug-up field. Anyone else would probably say in disappointment: Huh? Why does it look like a dirt pit?
Fu Rangyi was already used to it.
But Zhu Zhixi always seemed different from everyone else.
His eyes lit up. He leaned closer and zoomed in on the photo. “That’s so cool. You can even discover it like this… A historical site, wow. Just thinking that so many ancient artifacts and civilizations could be discovered from here feels so magical. If I had dug this up, I’d definitely be so happy I couldn’t sleep. You’re really amazing.”
His tone was utterly sincere. If this was what he called “acting,” Fu Rangyi thought, perhaps Zhu Zhixi really could win a Silver Bear.
“This is the success of the whole team, not mine alone.”
“Then you’re still amazing.” Zhu Zhixi wanted to see the details, but accidentally touched the screen. That photo slipped out and became one among a large grid of thumbnails.
Only then did he discover that among the full screen of thumbnails, most of them were actually a hazy earthy color. They all seemed to be archaeological sites.
He suddenly thought of something and asked again a question Fu Rangyi had previously mocked as meaningless.
“Then your favorite color couldn’t possibly be the color of soil, right? Like the color of the earth and dust in these site photos.”
He had thought Fu Rangyi would brush him off, but Fu Rangyi actually pondered for a moment.
“Maybe.”
Zhu Zhixi’s question had prompted him to think. He had not even realized this himself.
“Maybe many people think the color of earth lacks vitality and is dirty, making people dusty and gray-faced. But I don’t think so. Sometimes, soil has more vitality than living things do. And it’s a kind of inclusive, vast vitality.”
After Fu Rangyi finished speaking, he felt a little regretful. These views did not seem very necessary for their current relationship.
But in the next second, Zhu Zhixi suddenly slapped his arm. “I know what you mean!”
“The feeling that land gives people has always been heavy and silent, but it hides many human civilizations that once existed and once shone very brightly. And even up until now, it is still continuously nurturing new life. It’s very magical, very full of life.”
Fu Rangyi quietly gazed at him.
“And I’ve seen colorful soil before. Red, and also purple. It was very beautiful, in a small village in Mauritius. When I went there, an old lady there smeared purple soil on my face, right here.”
As he spoke, Zhu Zhixi leaned very close and pointed at his own cheek. Under the light, his skin was especially fair, and even the tiny fine hairs were clearly visible.
But his fairness was not the thin, paper-like kind of white. Especially when he had just come out after showering, wearing home clothes and sitting at the dining table hugging his knees, with warm light falling on his cheeks, Fu Rangyi would always think of freshly steamed water-milled rice cakes, still giving off hot steam.
He could even imagine what purple soil would look like smeared on that face.
His thoughts drifted far away for a moment. By the time he came back to himself, Zhu Zhixi had already crossed out the line about color and filled in a new answer.
With his head lowered, he wrote seriously. The back of his ear was red, very close to the redness pressed into the fingers gripping his pen.
“Okay, next.”
Zhu Zhixi had originally planned to continue to the next line in order. Suddenly, he heard a crisp sound, one he had heard many times over the past few days and had grown familiar with.
When he turned his head, he saw the suppressor bracelet on Fu Rangyi’s wrist, giving off a cold metallic sheen under the light.
So the order of all the questions was instantly cleared.
He asked in a daze, “Fu Rangyi, what does your pheromone smell like?”
Author’s Note:
Today’s chapter is very long!
Also, don’t be too harsh on Teacher Fu’s stubborn mouth and his strange ways of showing concern. Although I know most of the paragraph comments are just teasing, there are reasons for these things. Xiao Zhu can be considered the first person he has had deep contact with and spent a long time with. Li Qiao: Yes, he has already surpassed me. And it is purely as two “people,” not as an alpha, beta, or omega, so he is a little unfamiliar with it, even at a loss.
This young couple is very suited to becoming stand-up comedians, because later on, they’ll both be calling back like crazy.
—Mini Theater: Student Group Chat—
[Teacher Fu was actually late today?!!]
[Was traffic really bad today??]
[Holy crap, I almost came late too, and then I ran into Teacher Fu. He was walking behind me so fast. His legs are so long, one step of his equals three of mine. I felt like the Grim Reaper was chasing me from behind…]
[Only Teacher Fu would apologize for being late. It was only one minute.]
[Maybe married life has worn down Teacher Fu’s motivation to get up early, hahaha.]
[Teacher Fu really got married??]
[Really. I went to see Old Wang and saw that their table was full of wedding candy. The card had Teacher Fu’s name on it. His wife’s name also sounds so nice, Zhu Zhixi.]
[Such a matching pair of names, sob sob sob. Just looking at the name, you can tell this person must be beautiful, graceful, and intellectual.]
[I know why Teacher Fu was late. He brought an adorable little lunchbox and went to the office to put it down first before coming over, so he was late. Reliable source.]
[Love bento!!!]
[Oh my god, getting married really is different! Wishing them 99 forever. If this gets screenshotted, I’ll delete it.]
[Teacher will no longer emit Alpha pheromones. Not that he did before. He’ll only emit a thick married-man aura.]
[Teacher Fu, don’t want class. Want to see Teacher’s wife.]
