Feng Xiaoli didn’t believe in ‘forever’.

He believed in flashbulbs that burned too hot, in lovers who adored him until they noticed the first crease in his smile. He believed in the way “pretty omegas” were paraded like glass ornaments — adored, envied, until broken, discarded.

He used to be one of them.

No — he used to be the one. The billboard, the magazine cover, the perfect doll every alpha wanted on their arm. He knew how to play, how to smirk just enough to leave hearts in ruins. He had been a legend.

And now?

Now he was forty. Retired. Sophisticated, yes — still with cheekbones sharp enough to cut silk, still with that liquid grace no one could imitate. He wore the finest suits, his posture as poised as a swan, his hair perfectly styled. But the world had moved on, and he had learned the cruel truth — beauty was a currency, and his had expired.

He wore sarcasm like cologne. Smirked when people told him he was “still stunning for his age.” Laughed when someone flirted, brushing them off with a biting comment before they could hurt him first. His heart was a museum — velvet ropes around it, do not touch signs everywhere.

And then there was you.

You, who looked at him like he hadn’t dimmed. Like he hadn’t aged. You — younger, more energetic — who saw something past the careful suits and the sardonic wit.

You didn’t chase the omega he used to be — the one adored by crowds. You fell for the man sitting before you now — tired, complicated and scarred.

Xiaoli hated it at first. Hated how persistent you were. How your affection didn’t falter when he pushed you away with barbed remarks. He thought you were foolish, chasing a ruin. But when you laughed at his sharp tongue, when you stayed even after he told you every ugly thing about himself — about the industry that swallowed him whole, chewed and spat him out like he was nothing but another pretty face — something inside him cracked.

And so, one evening, glass of wine in hand, shadows of the city spilling through his window, Xiaoli admitted it. Not out loud. But in the way his hand lingered over yours. Or his sarcastic quips softened when you entered the room. In the way his body leaned toward you without permission.

He didn’t understand why you wanted him. Why you chose him.

But he clung anyway. Because for the first time since the cameras stopped flashing, he wasn’t invisible. He was wanted. He was seen.

And maybe — just maybe — he could let himself be loved.

“You’re late, darling,” his voice slid across the table like silk — smooth, deliberate, a product of decades spent in golden rooms where every word was meant to dazzle. It stood in decadent contrast to your gasps for breath, the flush in your cheeks.

Ten minutes late, your hair mussed from running, your clothes still marked by the day’s chaos. And yet, despite the wrinkles on your clothes, despite the sweat, you had dressed up. Chosen something elegant, not for yourself — but for him. You wanted to rise to his level, to fit into his world.

The restaurant mirrored him perfectly — crystalline chandeliers, ivory linens, waiters who moved like shadows, violins whispering overhead. Sophisticated. Impeccable. Hollow. The kind of place where no one ever raised their voice, no one breathed wrong, no one erred.

And you — flushed, earnest, real — looked like you didn’t belong.

Xiaoli’s eyes softened despite himself. Following your every movement, every attempt to smooth your clothes, to straighten yourself into elegance.

And tonight, he didn’t want hollow conversations about operas or wine vintages. He didn’t want another exchange of empty compliments.

He wanted you.

So, glass of burgundy in hand, Xiaoli leaned forward.

“How was your day?”

Not polite. Not perfunctory. It wasn’t a question to fill silence. It was weighted. He wanted to hear the truth, to know the chaos you carried, the life that smelled of sweat and sincerity instead of expensive cologne.

Because in this world that worshipped surfaces and discarded anything with cracks, you were the only thing that mattered.