99% Match, But He Smells Like My Ex-Boss - Chapter 5
Chapter 5
It was the first time I had ever seen Lu Zhiheng lose control.
He had always been calm.
When projects collapsed, financing fell through, or competitors poached his people, he could sit in the conference room and break the problem down into a three-line spreadsheet.
But now, his pheromones pressed down on the entire conference room like falling snow.
Several Beta legal staff had gone pale.
My scent gland was starting to burn too.
Not from heat.
It was being pulled by his emotions.
A 99% match was terrifying.
When he was angry, my chest tightened with him.
I gritted my teeth and said, “Lu Zhiheng, pull it back.”
He froze for a moment.
The fir scent quickly receded.
Han Che’s expression was ugly, but he was still smiling.
“Looks like the match is real.”
I snapped my gaze to him.
“You knew?”
Han Che shrugged.
“Every year, the company’s executive physicals include a pheromone profile database. You two were abnormally close. Who couldn’t tell?”
My head buzzed.
I had never authorized Qingyao to use my pheromone data for matching.
Lu Zhiheng’s voice was low and heavy.
“So you knew two years ago.”
Han Che said, “What good did my knowing do? Didn’t President Lu know too?”
I looked at Lu Zhiheng.
“You knew?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“I knew.”
“When?”
“After your onboarding physical.”
I laughed.
“So three years ago, you already knew you and I had high compatibility?”
He said quietly, “There wasn’t an exact number then.”
“But you knew we were highly compatible.”
“Mm.”
All at once, it felt absurd.
For three years, I had desperately treated myself like an ordinary employee.
Writing proposals, staying up all night, getting scolded, revising requirements.
But Lu Zhiheng had known from the very beginning that I could smell him, and he could smell me.
I asked, “Then why did you pretend you didn’t know?”
He didn’t answer right away.
Han Che answered for him. “Obviously because he was afraid of trouble. A founder and a subordinate with a high match rate-how bad would that look if it got out?”
Lu Zhiheng closed his eyes for a moment.
“No.”
I said coldly, “Don’t use that phrasing.”
He stopped short.
“I was afraid you would be marked.”
The conference room fell silent.
Lu Zhiheng said that back then, Qingyao had been competing with Hengyuan Capital for financing.
Hengyuan had an Alpha partner who specialized in using high-match Omegas for pheromone-binding transactions.
After that partner discovered the anomaly in my physical report, he made a demand of Qingyao.
He wanted me to be a “long-term accompanying consultant.”
Everyone knew what that so-called accompanying meant.
Lu Zhiheng refused.
After that, he began transferring me away from every occasion that required meeting external investors.
I thought he was suppressing me.
And in fact, he was suppressing me.
In the most detestable way, he hid me from those people.
As I listened, my chest felt clogged.
“Then what about the Yunqi Project?”
Lu Zhiheng looked at me.
“That night was my susceptible period.”
“Your heat was also induced early.”
“Someone wanted us to lose control in the project team, then use it to prove I was exploiting a subordinate and that you had leaked permissions.”
My voice turned hoarse.
“So you fired me?”
“If you had stayed at Qingyao, they would have kept coming after you.”
He said quietly, “Back then, I couldn’t find out who it was.”
“I could only make you leave first.”
I looked at him.
“Lu Zhiheng, you’re so noble.”
His face paled a little.
I said, “But did it ever occur to you that after I was fired, life was hard for me too?”
