Chapter 241: PHEROMONE PERFUME.

Back in the car, Haiyan waited until they’d merged onto the main road before glancing at him in the mirror. "Welcome back. Did the meeting go as planned?"

"Better than planned, actually." Guiying let his head fall back against the seat, exhaling.

Five hundred thousand for two days wasn’t nothing, and the terms had been fair, better than fair, honestly.

Still, one brand down, one more to go, and his legs already ached like he’d run a marathon but in reality he had walked in a straight line for two hours.

"You’ve got one more today, right?" Haiyan checked the mirror again before merging lanes.

"Yuèxin." Guiying pulled the folder onto his lap, flipping it open without much enthusiasm.

Pheromone perfume wasn’t something he’d ever thought about representing, not before this week, but the pitch alone would tell him whether it was worth the time. "Should be a shorter one. I hope."

"Want me to wait out front, or find parking nearby?"

"Out front’s fine. I don’t think this one will take long." Guiying scanned the brief again, the words blurring slightly with fatigue. He’d ask the hard questions regardless of how tired he was.

A tired mind made careless decisions, and careless decisions were exactly the kind of thing that came back to bite a person’s reputation later.

The car merged smoothly onto the next street, and Guiying let his eyes close for just a moment, only a moment, before the meeting demanded his full attention again.

Haiyan’s voice pulled him back before he’d even properly drifted off. "We’re here. With five minutes to spare."

Guiying straightened, smoothing down his sleeve, the ache in his legs making itself known again the moment he shifted forward in his seat.

"Wait out front, this shouldn’t take long." He stepped out of the car, the folder tucked under his arm,making his way toward the entrance.

The lobby smelled faintly floral the moment he stepped through the door, clean and unobtrusive, nothing like the heavier perfumes he’d smelled at other brand meeting.

A receptionist led him toward a private meeting room where Xu Ruolan waited, rising to greet him with a warm handshake.

"Thank you for coming in person." Xu Ruolan gestured him toward a low table, a single sample bottle already sitting at its center. "I know your schedule’s tight this week."

"I wanted to hear the pitch properly before deciding anything." Guiying settled into the chair across from her, folding his hands over his knee. "Tell me about the product."

"Our formula responds to a recessive’s own baseline scent instead of masking it." Xu Ruolan slid the bottle toward him, along with a small printed card. "Most products on the market try to make recessives smell more dominant, more alpha-adjacent, as if that’s the only way to feel safe in public. We took the opposite approach. This enhances what’s already there. It’s meant to help someone feel secure being exactly who they are, not like they’re wearing a costume."

Guiying picked up the bottle, turning it slowly, studying the card beside it.

It sounded good, almost too good, the kind of pitch built to sound progressive whether or not it actually was.

He’d learned that lesson already, more than once.

"That’s a different message than most companies in this space send." He set it down carefully. "But I have questions before we go any further."

"Of course." Xu Ruolan folded her hands, giving him her full attention.

"Has this been tested for safety across all secondary genders, not just recessives?" Guiying kept his tone even, businesslike. "I don’t want to advertise something that could potentially cause a reaction in an alpha, Omega or beta who happens to be standing near someone wearing it."

"Extensively." Xu Ruolan reached for a second folder, sliding it across the table. "Three rounds of clinical trials, all documented here. No adverse reactions reported across any secondary gender, including prolonged close contact scenarios. We were especially careful given how sensitive pheromone products can be."

Guiying opened the folder, scanning the summary pages slowly, pausing at the section detailing trial demographics.

Numbers didn’t lie, not usually, but numbers could still be selectively presented.

He’d verify every line of this himself before signing anything.

"Who authorized production?" He looked up. "I want to know if this isn’t some backroom operation cutting corners to get to the market faster."

Xu Roulan offered a tight smile.

"The formula was developed under license from the National Institute for Secondary Gender Health, and production is authorized through their standard approval process." Xu Ruolan met his gaze steadily, clearly prepared for the question. "I can have the full authorization documents sent to you directly if you’d like to verify independently. I’d actually encourage it. I don’t want you taking my word alone on something like this."

"I will verify it." Guiying’s voice stayed level, though something in his posture eased slightly at her willingness to be checked rather than simply trusted. "I hope you understand why I’m being careful. If this backfires, if there’s a single case of it doing what it claims not to do, it’s my name attached to it. Not just yours."

"I understand completely." Xu Ruolan nodded, no defensiveness in her expression. "If I were in your position, I’d ask the same questions, probably more of them."

Guiying studied her for a moment, then set the folder down, some of his earlier caution giving way to more genuine consideration.

She hadn’t flinched once, hadn’t tried to rush him past a single question. That counted for something.

"Send me the full brief, the trial data, and the authorization paperwork." He picked the bottle back up, turning it once more in his hand. "I want to sit with all of it before I commit to representing this. Not just the pitch. The whole picture."

"Take all the time you need." Xu Ruolan smiled, clearly pleased despite the delay. "We’d rather have you fully convinced than rushed into something you’re uncertain about."

Guiying nodded, setting the bottle down one final time before rising to leave, the weight of the folder now tucked securely under his arm.

Haiyan was waiting by the car when he stepped outside, glancing up from his phone as Guiying approached.

"That took longer than the last one." Haiyan pushed off the car door, opening it for him. "How was the meeting?"

"Long." Guiying slid into the back seat, setting the folder down beside him. "I wasn’t ready to sign anything yet. I want to look through their trial data properly before I decide."

They were dealing with people’s life here, if it blew up it could cause a huge scandal.

"Smart." Haiyan pulled the door shut and rounded the car to the driver’s seat. "Better to be careful than to rush into something you can’t take back."

"Exactly." Guiying leaned his head back against the seat, exhaling slowly. "Let’s head home, I’m exhausted."

"Home, it is." Haiyan pulled away from the curb, the city thinning out into quieter streets as evening settled in around them.