The grand banquet on the Imperial Capital Star of the Galactic Empire finally came to an end at eleven o’clock at night.

At the end of the banquet, Yun Xunlan accompanied Yun Xunguang to have a small cup of cypress leaf wine. After that, Yun Xunguang had Ni Chun and the guards send Yun Xunlan back to the North Imperial Palace first.

As the guard who adapted best to Yun Xunlan’s pheromone pressure, Yu Chen was undoubtedly chosen as the lucky one to share a vehicle with Yun Xunlan. Under the envious and jealous gaze of Fu Yanxi, who had already been through four rounds of emotions, he got into the car and, at Yun Xunlan’s command, sat beside him.

Once again, the two were so close.

Close enough for Yu Chen to catch the faint scent of cypress leaf wine on Yun Xunlan’s breath.

In reality, Yu Chen was undergoing pressure resistance training every day, feeling the simulated youth pheromone pressure as if it were right in front of him, resisting the powerful suppression it brought.

Again and again…

Over and over…

It was as if he had never maintained a sufficient distance from Yun Xunlan.

He could face each pressure resistance training calmly, yet at this moment, sitting beside Yun Xunlan without the suppression of pheromone pressure, he felt a bit awkward.

Clearly, during their previous two close encounters, he had never felt this way.

Yu Chen thought it might be because the space in the car was too small compared to the spacious living room of the North Imperial Palace.

What he didn’t expect was that Yun Xunlan could compress this already cramped space even further—he raised the partition between the back seat and the front seat. Then he called out his name: “Yu Chen.”

Yun Xunlan’s voice wasn’t clear; it was a rich, magnetic huskiness, slow and soft, much like a low, breathy whisper caught in desire. So when he called out his name without any title, Yu Chen felt as if Yun Xunlan was speaking to him in bed.

He guessed that Yun Xunlan might be drunk to call him like that.

Yu Chen kept his gaze straight ahead, staring at the partition that blocked the figures of Luoti and Ni Chun, and replied, “Your Highness?”

“When it’s just the two of us, you don’t have to call me ‘Your Highness,’ just like I won’t call you ‘Major Yu Chen,'” Yun Xunlan told Yu Chen, clearly aware of what he was saying. “Wen Xi will call me ‘Yun Xunlan,’ and you can call me that too.”

This was the third time.

Yu Chen thought that Pei Xingtian and he both believed that Yun Xunlan chose him because of his perfect score in “War Psychology,” but so far, Yun Xunlan had met him alone three times and had never mentioned anything about tutoring.

Every time Yun Xunlan met him, he only spoke in vague, incomprehensible terms.

Yu Chen had many questions he wanted to ask Yun Xunlan: For example, why did you look at me when naming the mecha? Were you looking at me?

And why could Jian Wenxi call you “Yun Xunlan”? What is your relationship with him? What is my relationship with you? Why can I also call you “Yun Xunlan”? Did you raise the partition just to create a space for just the two of us, then call me “Yu Chen,” and let me call you by your name?

However, Yu Chen couldn’t ask these questions.

His identity wasn’t appropriate.

He also shouldn’t refuse Yun Xunlan’s request, even though calling each other by their full names was also inappropriate.

Because he had already done too many inappropriate things.

For example, he became Yun Xunlan’s guard to get close to the 3S mecha, but just now, in front of the 3S mecha projection, his gaze had unhesitatingly followed Yun Xunlan’s back.

So Yu Chen replied, “Okay.”

But he didn’t say the three words “Yun Xunlan.”

Little did he know that this short “Okay” was like a quick guide to mind-reading, and as the sound reached the silver-haired alpha’s ears, it also delivered the guide to him.

Thus, Yun Xunlan understood that silent heart voice and gently smiled as he began to explain the first question that puzzled Yu Chen—why did you look at me when naming the mecha? Were you looking at me?

“Yu Chen, I’m sorry. When I named the mecha, I used the ‘Chen’ character from your name.”

Upon hearing this, Yu Chen immediately turned to look at the young man beside him, and then met a pair of golden eyes that were also gazing at him.

Those were beautiful phoenix eyes, long and slender, with a slight upward tilt at the outer corners. Above the double eyelid folds, there was a small blood-colored mole hidden, and every time the long lashes fluttered, it carried an indescribable charm.

At this moment, the only reflection in those eyes was his own, as if he were the anchor point of Yun Xunlan’s gaze, and every glance directed at him seemed to say: Yes, I am looking at you.

However, what Yu Chen truly heard was another apology.

“I’m sorry.”

The silver-haired alpha apologized again: “I used another character from your name without your consent. Would you mind?”

The pair of eyes staring at him had golden irises arranged in a radiating pattern, like high-energy light particles emitted by a star, pure and passionate.

Yu Chen looked back at the young man’s face, favored by the creator, unable to tear his gaze away like a solitary figure in deep winter yearning for the warmth of the sun’s grace: “No, the ‘Chen’ character is not exclusive to me; anyone in the world can use it.”

The silver-haired alpha smiled lightly: “Yes, it’s not exclusive to you, but when I was naming the mecha, I only thought of you.”

“I felt this way the first time I saw you.”

Yun Xunlan said: “You are like the last meteor falling in the night, telling me that dawn is near.”

After tonight, the entire galaxy would know that the 3S mecha of the third prince of the Galactic Empire was called “Jian Xing Chen,” but no one would know that the “Chen” in the mecha’s name came from the other half of his name.

—Except for the two of them.

Yu Chen’s steady breathing and heartbeat hadn’t yet disordered from this ambiguous statement when he heard the young man speak again: “Yu Chen, may I ask what the ‘Chen’ in your name means?”

“It means ‘to indulge.'”

Yu Chen took a barely noticeable deep breath and said softly: “My… father loved my mother very much. He said my mother had eyes like the sea, and he wanted to be forever indulged in that sea.”

“Indulge” is a short term in Chinese, meaning to indulge or indulge excessively, falling into a certain state and unable to extricate oneself.

After hearing this, Yun Xunlan gazed into Yu Chen’s deep blue eyes and softly expressed his feelings in a voice tinged with alcohol: “I think your eyes are also like a sea.”

“Even more so than your pheromones.”

—Too ambiguous.

Whether it was this latter sentence or every word Yun Xunlan had said before, it was too ambiguous, Yu Chen thought.

If their conversation were happening between an alpha and an omega who could smell each other’s pheromones, or even between an alpha and a beta who couldn’t perceive pheromones, it could already be called flirting.

Yet the reason they could still maintain a distance from the term “flirting,” as if separated by a thin membrane that blocked all ambiguous atmosphere, was that they were both alphas.

Even though they could perceive and smell the pheromone scent emitted from each other’s glands, their physiological instincts and nature destined them to exist only in a competitive, repulsive, and suppressive relationship.

Yu Chen didn’t understand whether Yun Xunlan could realize this point.

He felt that Yun Xunlan probably didn’t realize it.

The prince completely didn’t understand how to maintain an appropriate social distance with others.

Because the silver-haired alpha asked him: “What do you think my pheromones smell like?”

After hearing Yun Xunlan’s question, Yu Chen felt that perhaps he himself also didn’t realize, or rather, deliberately didn’t want to acknowledge how ambiguous their conversation was.

After all, he could have given the most boring, ordinary, and closest to the correct answer: “Like lychee rose.”

But in the end, he flicked his tongue and personally broke through that thin membrane, letting the ambiguous atmosphere fill every corner of the car, saying: “… like the new ice cream from Ailianxia.”

The silver-haired alpha was momentarily stunned, surprised: “Have you tried it?”

Yu Chen’s voice was very hoarse: “Yes.”

The silver-haired alpha asked him again: “Do you think its taste is like my pheromones?”

Yu Chen said: “In my imagination, it is.”

He was very familiar with Yun Xunlan’s pheromones.

Its scent, its pressure, had become more familiar day by day since he stepped into the North Imperial Palace.

However, he had never truly smelled the pheromone scent emitted from Yun Xunlan’s glands beneath the skin at the back of his neck.

Yun Xunlan also said: “Yes, you probably haven’t truly smelled my pheromones.”

The 200 star coins red envelope that he had sent to Yu Chen in a private message on the star network, Yu Chen hadn’t claimed it and hadn’t replied to him afterward. Yun Xunlan thought Yu Chen hadn’t gone to Ailianxia to buy and taste the new dessert.

Thinking of this, Yun Xunlan raised his hand to gently touch the strong suppression patch on the back of his neck, then looked up at Yu Chen.

Those blue eyes seemed to be shrouded in the night, like a cold sea surface, surging with waves under the tidal force of gravity, and without being submerged in the sea, Yun Xunlan could only see the shallowest layer of desire.

He followed the desire he read and asked Yu Chen: “Do you want to smell it?”

Want to?

Yu Chen asked himself.

The answer was clear: he undoubtedly wanted to; otherwise, he wouldn’t have deliberately guided Yun Xunlan to ask him this question.

However, at this moment, Yu Chen wanted to confirm one thing—his purpose for approaching Yun Xunlan was very clear, but he still couldn’t understand Yun Xunlan’s purpose for summoning him alone.

If Yun Xunlan wasn’t looking for him for tutoring, then what was it for?

Yu Chen’s gaze was fixed on the silver-haired alpha’s fingertips resting on the suppression patch on the back of his neck, both an answer and a test: “I want to.”

—He wanted to, would Yun Xunlan give it to him?

As soon as the words fell, Yu Chen saw Yun Xunlan move his fingers away.

It felt like a refusal.

But then Yun Xunlan moved his fingertip to a small blue sapphire collar pin at the collar, which had been deliberately mixed up by the young man to exchange for a chance to speak with him alone.

Yu Chen saw Yun Xunlan take it off and raise his hand to pin it to his ear bone.

During this action, the silver-haired alpha made almost no sound, even the rustle of his sleeves was barely audible, but Yu Chen felt as if a silent explosion had occurred in the car.

It was like a supernova explosion at the brink of a star’s death, intense, shocking, yet silent.

The intertwined scent of white lychee flesh and pink rose pheromones domineeredly spread around him, like stardust thrown out, and as they were inhaled into his lungs, they didn’t condense into a new star but continued to collapse, ultimately evolving into a dark body from which even light could not escape.

Yu Chen was also captured by its gravity, directly entering a sensitive period at that moment.

His body seemed to be ignited by the lychee rose that burst forth from Yun Xunlan’s body, every nerve trembling and burning, even his thoughts became hot and feverish, eagerly waiting for the pheromones that were supposed to be released into his partner’s body to boil in his glands and blood, all thanks to the military-grade strong suppression patch that kept him from being exposed.

The instigator, however, self-righteously said: “This way, there won’t be any pressure; you shouldn’t feel too uncomfortable.”