I looked to my left and Chen Yu's indifferent face came into view. His brow raised as he assessed my face in contemplation.
Once he seemed to have made his decision, he opened his mouth to speak.
"The chairman has been trying to reach you for the past six hours. I told him you were stuck in a meeting" I let out a groan, as the words 'six hours' resounded in my mind, forcing myself to sit upright.
Immediately, quick footsteps approached, before Yichen's perfectly stoic face came into view. "Experiencing pain?" His sentence was brief, as usual. His voice, evenly soothing.
I scratched the back of my head as I looked up at him. "No. Just, hearing my father's name first thing after I wake up isn't exactly what I would call a gift" Chen Yu's lip twitched in a slight smirk and he got up to make way for Yichen.
"Ruiqing?" I asked, to no one in particular.
"Gone home to his fiancé ." Yichen answered. "Long was also here for a while. He left with Ruiqing." He noticed my darkened expression at the mention of Long's name and added cooly with a shrug. "He was just bringing me lunch like always."
"I see." I replied softly, sharing a knowing look with Chen Yu. I didn't probe any further.
After about five minutes of poking and pulling and note taking, Yichen finally turned off his iPad, taking a seat beside my bed.
" What time is it?" I asked, when the words 'six hours' that Chen Yu uttered earlier resurfaced.
"Quarter to seven" Yichen answered after checking his watch.
"Quarter to seven" I repeated. "I was out for almost eight hours?" He nodded, his expression suddenly turning serious. Well, more serious than it was initially.
"I need to know everything that has happened since that night. Anything you've eaten, anywhere you've been. Leave nothing out."
My brows creased together as I obediently recalled everything from yesterday without question. There was no point arguing with Yichen. It was a fact we'd come to accept.
"I haven't eaten anything out of the ordinary. My chef prepared dinner yesterday. It was Italian. I didn't eat breakfast today, I woke up late and had to rush to the headquarters." He nodded along as I spoke.
"What about stepping out? Have you been anywhere worth mentioning? Like a strip club, pleasure house, anywhere that involved human interaction??"
"Okay first off, I'm ridiculously handsome and Insanely rich. I have no business going to any of those places you mentioned." He rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath which I didn't catch.
That caused me to raise a brow. My hearing was biologically advanced than the average person and I never missed words in a conversation because of that. I frowned in confusion.
"You were uncontrollably releasing toxic pheromones so I pumped you full with gallons of inhibitors" Yichen answered dismissively, when he noticed the look on my face.
I raised my brow at him, and he nodded. "You won't be able to take two steps without kissing the floor, so you'll have to rest here. You'll be fine in the morning—" his sentence broke off when his phone began to ring.
There was a moment of silence as he checked who the caller was, followed by the recognition on his face and a quick beep as he answered.
"Is he up?" I heard Ruiqing's voice before the front camera was thrust in my face. I waved my hand that wasn't attached to the needle. "Hey panic princess." Ruiqing purred when I came into the frame, causing me to scowl in response.
He was lazily sprawled on his living room couch, with his head on a woman's lap, from what I could see.
"Lang Gao!" I heard a female voice call my name, before Ruiqing's fiancé's pouty face appeared on the screen.
Zhen Minhui and Ruiqing had been together since he finally gathered enough courage to ask her out four years ago.We all loved and treated her like our little sister, since she was actually Zhen Long's biological sister. Good thing idiocy didn't run in the family.
"Hui Hui." I answered with a smile.
"Ruiqing Gao said you had a panic attack. How're you feeling now?" Her face displayed her worry.
"I'm fine, Hui Hui. No need to worry." I assured.
"Yes Baby, your Bad boy Lang Gao gao is just scared of the police." Ruiqing teased and I snapped.
"You don't deserve her. Minhui, dump him this instant." I barked into the phone, causing Ruiqing to burst into laughter.
"Yes, Lang Gao. I will."
"Oh, what did I do?" Served him right.
"You're mean." Minhui answered in the most adorable voice ever.
"Oh oh baby, forgive me. I promise I won't be mean again." I immediately cringed. Of someone told me this was going to be Ruiqing, four years ago…
"I don't believe you." … Exactly what I would've said.
"Mmm… Please… please… please…" At this point i was no longer following the couple's conversation. I just laid the phone on my chest, listening as they droned on.
"Okay okay. I believe you."
"Are you sure? mmm?"
"Yes."
"I don't believe you. Gimme kiss." Typical Ruiqing.
"mhm" Minhui turning him down.
"Aww baby, gimme kiss."
"No, Lang Gao is watching." Trust me sweetheart, there's no universe in which I'd ever be watching.
"Lang Gao has done worse, baby." I snorted at Ruiqing's desperate reply.
"No!"
My brow quirked at the sound of a phone drop, followed by small shuffling, then light hurried footsteps moving away.
Second of more shuffling later, Ruiqing's distraught face appeared on the screen and I couldn't hold back my snort.
"Now that thats over…" Yichen started , sending Ruiqing a disapproving look. "I have to clarify that what happened to you this morning was not a panic attack."
I frowned. " It wasn't?" I asked, and he shook his head, turning on his iPad.
He turned the screen to me, flipping through endless pages of graphs, his eyes looking like he just read the 'world's perfect men' list and his name wasn't at number one.
My eyes flitted between him and the iPad screen, unable to make sense of anything he was showing me. "So…Are you waiting for me to ask for an explanation?" Ruiqing snorted at my question and Yichen sighed.
"I ran some tests while you were out and noticed some rather confusing, dare I say, impossible discrepancies."
"Okay?" I urged for more context.
"Heart rate spiked. Higher than it should for someone who was passed out. Oxygen levels dropped. Glucose and ATP markers surged. Every system was working harder than necessary." He paused to stare me dead in the eye. "You were asleep, but still… working."
"Huh?" Ruiqing and I said simultaneously.
"I tested your blood for any signs of toxins or parasites, but there was nothing. Red blood cells flowed normally. White blood cells, Mitochondria. Everything should have balanced. But it didn't." He began to pace around the room, scratching the back of his neck, something he did when he didn't have the answers he wanted.
"Okay Yichen. Calm down." I stated, and he eventually did so enough to continue.
"Now, it could be a Z-Gen Alpha mutation we're just discovering, since your class is very rare and still under study. Or it could be… an aftermath of your incident from that night."
"Huh?!" Ruiqing voiced out what I had in mind. A thousand curses ran through my head as to how I let this happen.
I turned to Yichen, unable to keep the anger out of my voice."So what? I'm being sucked dry by some fucker?" That sentence would've been golden in another context, which was proven by Ruiqing's sudden snort. "This is hardly the time detective." I scolded.
"That's the part I'm curious about. If that's the case, then the parasite doesn't seem to be active much. See here," He pointed to a chart. "The spikes, although they are there, are very minimal. Whatever it is is either very dormant, or too weak to pull much from you."
"So we have some good news. I guess." Ruiqing voice rang through the phone.
" Sure, let's call it that. Good thing is, as a Z-gen, you're very strong."
"And a perfect powerhouse apparently." I barked, and Yichen shrugged. "So what? blackouts are going to be a constant thing now?"
He shook his head, another cause for confusion . "The blackout was just your body's response to the new changes in your system. For now, just keep yourself healthy. Get lots of rest, you should be up an running in no time."
'Just keep yourself healthy', he said. I scoffed, averting my gaze.
I was Feng Lang. A fucking Z-Gen alpha. The strongest in our group, and possibly the entire country. I never got sick, never a cold. And now what? Someone was using me as a power bank.
This was all funny at first, but now, it was starting to get very insulting. I couldn't wait to get my hands on that fucker.
Although Yichen tried to hide it behind his aloof exterior, I still saw it. Ruiqing could mask it with jokes all he wanted, but it was clear as day. They were all scared. Heck! Even I was scared.
"Do you want me to stay behind with you?" I jumped at Chen Yu's voice suddenly interrupting my thoughts. I had forgotten he was still around. Yichen excused himself woth his phone to allow us to talk.
I shook my head. "No need. It's already past your working hours."
He grinned, not meeting his eyes. "So far as I'm getting my overtime."
Even Chen Yu, my robotic assistant was cracking jokes. I was the one to pity now, I guess. My gaze hardened.
"Go home, Chen Yu. Yichen will stay with me." I turned to my friend who gave me a stiff nod of reassurance. "No one in my family hears about this. Especially my father" I stated.
"No need to tell me, sir." Chen Yu replied. With one final nod, he exited the room.
"Bye" I heard Ruiqing's voice over the phone before the line went dead.
Yichen came to sit by me, taking my hand in his. "Trust me Lang, you're fine."
"I know" I mumbled arrogantly.
I didn't know.
In fact, Yichen's hand in mine offered the comfort I didn't realize I needed. It was the only thing keeping me from having another panic attack.
He knew that.
Neither of us said a word when I tightened my hold, letting my mind wander as I listened to the beep of the monitors I was connected to.