Sunday night, the darkness was as deep as ink.
The apartment was filled with absolute stillness, broken only by the faint, muffled sound of a keyboard clicking away from the secondary bedroom. That over-caffeinated golden retriever, Hunter Huo, was currently being pinned dead-center before a multinational video conference by his older brother, thoroughly run ragged.
Inside the master bedroom, Silas Shen stepped out from his shower, having changed into a set of light-grey cotton pajamas. Because his hair hadn't dried completely, a few stray locks of black hair rested loosely across his forehead. The perennially freezing demeanor that kept people thousands of miles away dissolved by more than half under the lamplight, refracting a breathtakingly soft and gentle warmth instead.
Padding into the living room in his slippers, he prepared to organize a few experimental data prints and next week's teaching syllabus scattered across the coffee table.
The exact millisecond his fingertips brushed against a stack of printed paper, his line of sight unexpectedly locked onto a slightly worn, black hardcover notebook resting at the edge of the coffee table. That was Hunter's personal logbook; due to his rushed departure moments ago, it had been left behind entirely in the open.
Silas's fingers paused in mid-air for a brief second.
According to his perennially rigorous habits—which even carried a touch of psychological neat-freakiness—his original intent was merely to walk over, extend his long fingers to close the open notebook, and return it methodically to the neighboring bookshelf.
However, the exact millisecond his fingertips brushed against that slightly cool, black leather cover, his gaze inadvertently swept across the pale-yellow page left thoroughly exposed by its master's carelessness—
The very first line of that page, written with a black sign pen in a cursive yet incredibly stroke-by-stroke upright handwriting, resembled a steel nail bearing a massive magnet. Within a fraction of a second, it pinned Professor Shen's entire line of sight dead-center.
[Feasibility Study Regarding the Application to Become Professor Silas Shen's Lifelong Assistant]
The hand Silas was using to hold the notebook froze entirely in mid-air, neither closing it nor setting it down.
He told himself rationally in his mind that he shouldn't continue reading; this was someone else's privacy. Even if the other party was Hunter Huo—who was so clingy he wished he could grow straight onto his frame—he should still maintain the decorum a scientist ought to possess.
But... that absurd yet scalding-to-the-extreme title was simply too characteristic of Hunter's style. The youth's covert calculations were glaringly obvious; he clearly desired to propose, yet he stubbornly insisted on wrapping it inside the serious format of a project application, even utilizing rigorous academic vocabulary like "Feasibility Study."
The aroma diffuser on the coffee table still radiated a faint, warm light, leaving a trace of an exceptionally light lingering scent of the oranges and fir dropped in during the daytime.
Silas let out a light, helpless sigh, his phoenix eyes behind his lenses flashing slightly. He ultimately surrendered to that stroke of softness hooked within the deepest crevices of his heart. Failing to close the booklet, he rested his fingertips against the edge of the paper and continued scanning down along those lines of slightly flamboyant handwriting.
I. Basic Applicant Information
Name: Hunter Huo
Gender: Alpha
(Special Note: This gender possesses zero significance to the applicant. Before Professor Shen, the applicant voluntarily relinquishes all pheromone cheating rights, guaranteeing a competition based purely on personal charisma.)
Current Title: Professor Shen's Exclusive Laboratory Assistant
(Validity Period: Due to failing to secure an official institutional enrollment to date, this title is currently in a severely expired state. The applicant is aggressively applying for a renewal.)
Application Target: Lifelong tenure, permanent and irreversible.
Reading the words "voluntarily relinquishes all pheromone cheating rights," the corners of Silas's lips twitched imperceptibly. He shifted his frame slightly, simply leaning against the armrest of the sofa as his clear gaze drifted further down.
II. Rationale for the Application
The applicant has had the fortune of serving as Professor Silas Shen's laboratory assistant since the age of twenty. During the tenure, the applicant has been self-disciplined, dedicated, and public-spirited, completing the primary routine operational indicators as follows:
Every single morning, regardless of severe winter freeze or scorching summer heat, the applicant persists in traversing half of Beijing to stand in line to purchase the professor's favorite crab-roe soup dumplings. (This indicator has been sustained for one year and three months with a success rate as high as 90% or 10%. The remaining 10% was due to waking up late and being forced to stand as punishment by the professor.)
During periods where the professor pulls high-intensity all-nighters attempting to achieve immortality, the applicant timely delivers hot coffee alongside after-sales relaxation services encapsulated as "forcibly carrying him away to sleep."
When the professor faced bullying or verbal provocation from certain un-sighted scientific research hoodlums (such as a certain Julian Liang), the applicant stepped forward to serve as a temporary bodyguard, charging at the absolute front lines. (Note: Accompanied by one heroic blade scar on the left arm; to this day, every time it rains, the applicant still demands a 'blowing-air comfort' from the professor.)
Peeling oranges. The cumulative volume of peeled oranges has not been statistically aggregated due to the massive baseline, but every single time the peel and white pith are cleanly removed and delivered to his mouth, the professor eats very happily. This technique has achieved perfection.
III. Future Operational Blueprint (A Lifetime)
Continue to unconditionally and under high standards provide all the aforementioned foundational services, unilaterally expanding the validity period of the service scope to "a lifetime."
Strive to learn cooking. Currently, the applicant has successfully mastered two core technologies—tomato scrambled eggs and pork rib soup. Subsequent進修 will target a full imperial banquet, striving to nurture the professor until he is a fraction plumper.
Legally manifest within the acknowledgments of every single core paper the professor publishes in the future. The applicant demands zero authorship or co-authorship rights, but aggressively requests the preservation of the exclusive moniker "Assistant H."
Utter "I like you" every single morning, afternoon, and night until Professor Shen's ears develop calluses.
Silas read up to this point, and his thin lips—which were customarily pressed deathly tight out of habit—could no longer restrain themselves completely in this exact millisecond.
It was as if an entire sea of starlight had dropped into his perennially icy phoenix eyes, amusement spilling out finely along the corners of his eyes and brows. He could practically visualize the exact vivid expression of immense pride mixed with head-scratching frustration that must have occupied Hunter's handsome face when he penned this passage.
However, when his long, soft fingertips lightly turned that page, landing his line of sight across the absolute final page of the entire report, his gaze came to an abrupt halt.
The handwriting on that page was distinctly more restrained compared to the front, stripped of a fraction of playful bantering, the intervals between the characters leaking a near-pious persistence and trembling.
IV. Risk Assessment & Contingency Outlines
Risk 1: The professor feels it is too rapid or deems it non-compliant with protocol, resulting in an on-the-spot rejection.
Contingency Outline: The applicant will absolutely not be dispirited. He will retract the report, revise it overnight, and resubmit the application the following day. This outline supports an infinite loop until the application secures approval.
Risk 2: The professor might push his glasses up and say coldly, "I'll consider it further."
Contingency Outline: Wait in original position. The applicant possesses sufficient patience, because... the duration the applicant has loved Silas Shen has actually long since surpassed the days spent not loving him. As long as I can remain by your side, even serving as an un-enrolled personnel for a lifetime is perfectly fine.
Risk 3: After finishing this report, or after listening to my proposal, the professor lowers his head and utters a single character: "Okay."
Contingency Outline: Cry. The applicant might cry for a very long duration right inside the Life Sciences building or before the professor's person due to extreme happiness. At that time, Professor Shen must absolutely stay his hand and never despise me for being embarrassing.
The warm orange lamplight of the side parlor spilled down from overhead, blurring the edges of the paper into a fuzzy rim of light.
Silas stared fixatedly at that line on the final page—"the duration the applicant has loved Silas Shen has long since surpassed the days spent not loving him"—for a very, very long duration.
The room was quiet; only the indistinct cadence of Hunter's voice from the secondary bedroom continued to drift over intermittently. That top-tier Alpha who was utterly invincible to the outside world, and who had been as ruthless as a wolf before Julian Liang, had actually lowered his posture to the absolute dust when facing every single unknown variable concerning "Silas Shen." He had lowered it into the dust, yet within that dust, he stubbornly bloomed a wholehearted, tiny flower.
"Idiot."
Silas murmured in a low whisper. Removing his gold-rimmed glasses, he lifted his hand to rub his slightly aching eyes with a touch of exhaustion yet extreme tenderness.
Subsequently, his long fingers moved marginally. Utilizing an extreme care that mirrored handling a top-secret national document, he closed the black hardcover notebook along its original crease, aligning the edges perfectly as he returned it to its exact original position on the white porcelain coffee table, down to the identical placement angle.
Slowly leaning back against the sofa, he lifted his head slightly, staring at the geometric chandelier on the ceiling radiating a warm yellow light.
Sunshine, the ancestral estate, the banquet, research papers... and now, this youth covertly writing a proposal report.
Silas had walked through darkness and cold rationality for too long; only at this exact moment did he truly feel that those "nurtured bonds"—which he had once viewed as torrential beasts—had already pulled his entire person into a sun-drenched day overflowing with the sweetness of oranges.
After approximately ten minutes, the door to the secondary bedroom still showed zero indications of opening.
Silas appeared to have suddenly finalized a certain resolution. Straightening his spine, he put his glasses back on and reached out to grab the phone resting on the coffee table.
His fingers swiped rapidly across the screen, tapping open the dialogue box directly beneath his pinned contacts. Lin's avatar was currently lit up.
Pressing his lips together, his fingertips somewhat unpracticed yet extremely certain tapped out a line of characters on the keyboard, clicking send:
[Send me the address of that private, old heritage shop specializing in high-end custom rings you mentioned last time.]
Following the successful transmission, he rapidly flipped the phone screen face-down onto his knee, his heartbeat missing a frantic, completely illogical beat in this exact millisecond.