Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Who the hell do you think you are?!"

A furious roar plunged the classroom into instant pandemonium.

The air grew thick with pheromones, so dense they felt on the verge of explosion.

Dominating the chaos was the Alpha whose shout had unleashed the torrent, his pheromones so potent that many around him winced, their faces contorted in pain.

In the far corner, a young man sat, head bowed, diligently writing on his test paper, utterly unfazed.

In a classroom where school uniforms were largely ignored, his light-blue attire stood out conspicuously.

Li Yang held a thermos in his left hand, his right idly twirling a pen. Noticing the commotion, he briefly lifted his gaze, then, finding nothing of interest, returned to his test.

Only when the pungent, overwhelming scent of pheromones invaded his nostrils did he freeze. His fair face twisted slightly as he immediately pulled a mask from his desk drawer and put it on.

He could breathe again.

Li Yang exhaled, set down his thermos, and flipped his test paper over.

"Get lost." The tall Alpha forcefully pushed away those crowding him. "You, an Omega, picking a fight with me? Are you looking to die?"

His icy glare fixed on the person beside him, pheromones radiating from his body, suffocating those nearby.

The Omega, who had initially not intended to fight, grimaced in disgust, then suddenly punched the Alpha in the face.

The brief lull in chaos shattered, and the situation escalated further.

Li Yang was utterly desensitized to it all.

Three days had passed since he transmigrated into this ABO novel, and in that short time, the classroom had witnessed over a dozen fights.

An Alpha's pheromones could suppress an Omega's, but an Omega's pheromones could also suppress an Alpha's—a dynamic unique to these top-tier AOs, unlike ordinary ones.

Li Yang was the only variant Beta in the entire class.

He shouldn't have been able to smell pheromones at all, remaining completely unaffected. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, he could detect everyone's scent.

As the sole Beta and class monitor, these three days had worn down all his patience.

He’d hoped he wouldn't need the mask today, but barely a class had ended before the commotion began anew.

A bunch of lunatics.

Even with the mask on, faint traces of pheromones seeped through—over twenty different scents mingling into something akin to a toxic waste dump.

Li Yang was convinced he must have committed murder and arson in his past life to deserve transmigrating into this novel as a Beta with such a peculiar trait.

"Stop fighting," the Vice Monitor interjected perfunctorily, going through the motions of mediation. "Haven’t you had enough?"

"Who gave you the right to speak?" The Alpha shot him a disdainful glance, his mockery blatant.

The Vice Monitor, an Omega with a soft temperament, genuinely disliked arguments and was terrible at them. He turned to Li Yang with a pleading look.

Li Yang, who had been trying to remain aloof, immediately felt the pressure.

He pulled his mask down just enough and cast a dispassionate stare at the group. "This is the seventh time this week. If you drag this to the principal’s office again, graduation won’t be so easy."

"Damn, are you threatening me?" The rowdy Alpha, Jiang Su, glared at him viciously.

Li Yang swiftly pulled his mask back up, blocking out the pungent, irritating pheromones.

"Just a friendly warning," he said softly, then, ignoring whether they stopped or not, buried himself back in his test.

Let the world explode.

Li Yang thought coldly. Maybe if this world exploded, he’d get blasted back to his original one.

As long as he could escape these childish lunatics, anything would be better.

"Whatever. Not worth my time." Jiang Su reined in his pheromones, picked up his jacket from the floor, dusted it off, and returned to his seat.

The rest of the class collectively sighed in relief.

The Omega who had confronted him, He Shi, also sat back down.

The world was quiet again, the air noticeably fresher.

Li Yang had never read this novel; he only knew the setting of his own character.

His deskmate had finished reading it and wouldn’t stop gushing about how great this cannon-fodder Beta’s personality was—how calm and collected he was, how he should’ve been the protagonist.

So, aside from his own character’s traits, he knew nothing else—not even who the main characters were.

The only other piece of information he had was that this was a danmei ABO novel.

He should be grateful his deskmate had at least explained the ABO system rules to him.

When AOs experienced extreme emotional fluctuations, they released pheromones—and top-tier AOs could make people tremble with fear with theirs alone.

Li Yang wished he could go back and listen to his deskmate explain more about the novel’s setting.

Who could’ve guessed that a high school student cramming for the gaokao would wake up having transmigrated into a book?

His mood turned even worse, and he grabbed his thermos to fill it up.

"Hey, get me some too." Jiang Su, the instigator from earlier, sat diagonally across from him. Seeing Li Yang stand, he arrogantly shoved his thermos at him, clearly looking for trouble.

Li Yang said nothing, took it, and left to refill both.

Three minutes later, he placed Jiang Su’s thermos on his desk and returned to his seat.

"This class should’ve been mine to rule. Ying Xi isn't shit, just because his family’s a little better?" Jiang Su popped the lid open and took a sip—only to be scalded into spitting it out.

"Li Yang! Why the hell did you get me boiling water?!"

He slammed the thermos down, only for hot water to splash onto his hand. Hopping and shaking his burnt hand, he glared furiously at Li Yang.

The whole scene was as ridiculous as a circus act.

Li Yang took a sip from his own thermos, fighting a grin as he said calmly, "You told me to get water. How was I supposed to know what temperature you wanted?"

He Shi, the Omega who had clashed with Jiang Su earlier, burst out laughing. "He did you a favor by even filling it for you. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

War was imminent—Jiang Su, who had been cursing at Li Yang, now launched himself at He Shi.

Li Yang, with a blank expression, pulled up his mask, picked up his test paper, and stood to leave this chaotic scene.

He pushed in his chair and turned around, only to crash into someone's chest—as solid as a boulder, leaving his head spinning.

Looking up, he saw a face he rarely saw, one he'd only noticed once during roll call. He couldn't even remember the name, only that this person was an Alpha.

The young Alpha, a head taller than him, stared down with a cold gaze, his face devoid of any emotion. He didn’t move, simply watching Li Yang without blinking.

"Sorry." Li Yang rubbed his head and sidestepped the Alpha, leaving the classroom without looking back. He headed to the teachers' office like he'd done many times before.

"Li Yang again?" The teachers had gotten used to seeing him over the past couple of days and greeted him with a smile when he appeared.

Li Yang smiled back. "Hello, teachers. Sorry to disturb."

He sat down beside his homeroom teacher’s desk and kept his head down and worked on the test.

At last, some peace. The air felt fresher too.

All the teachers at this school were specifically hired as Betas.

When the homeroom teacher returned from a meeting and saw Li Yang, he immediately knew chaos had erupted in the class again.

"I can’t do this anymore," the homeroom teacher moaned, holding his head as if about to lose it. "I need to resign, or I’ll die from sheer frustration."

"If you leave, this class will have gone through seven teachers already," another teacher sighed.

"Even a hundred wouldn’t make a difference," the homeroom teacher waved a hand. "They’re all a bunch of unmanageable demons."

Li Yang couldn’t agree more.

On his first day here, he’d been delighted to find that this story's school setup had only three classes in the morning, with half-hour breaks in between.

But that joy didn’t last long. He soon came to loathe the long breaks.

Thirty minutes was enough time for his class to start three all-out brawls—enough to destroy a whole classroom's worth of desks and chairs.

"Li Yang, you've got it rough," the homeroom teacher patted his shoulder with pity. "I can’t take it anymore. Hang in there."

The teacher acted swiftly—by afternoon, he was gone.

Another person Li Yang could talk to was gone.

He tilted his head back, gazing up at the ceiling while shrill laughter rang in his ears.

"You Omegas should learn how to serve people properly instead of picking fights all the time."

"Serve you trash? You don’t deserve it. Trash belongs in the garbage."

"You’re the trash here."

"Shut up," Li Yang muttered to the ceiling, his voice too soft to be heard.

Only the boy sprawled across his desk at the far left stirred, slowly sitting up to glance in his direction.

"Shut up." Li Yang stood and slammed his palm down on the desk.

The impact stung his palm, making his face contort in pain, but he resisted the urge to blow on it. His gaze swept over the room as he said in a commanding voice, "Quiet. Study time."

"Oh, Class Monitor, now that the homeroom teacher’s gone, you’re acting like you're in charge?"

"Monitor, you should tell those Alphas to shut up. They’re insufferable."

"You Omegas are worse."

Li Yang had had enough. The moment he turned away, he furiously blew on his stinging palm.

The pain too much to bear, he massaged his hand and made a beeline for the principal’s office.

"Not again," the principal muttered, backing away like Li Yang was contagious. "You can’t transfer classes right now. Every class has a set number of students, and the others won’t accept you."

Li Yang swallowed back the words "I want to transfer schools."

His family—no, the original owner’s family—was a mess. Poor, with parents who didn’t care, leaving the original owner a pushover with no real authority as class monitor.

Transferring schools was impossible. Transferring classes was his only hope.

"Principal, I’ll kneel for you," Li Yang said.

"I’ll kneel for you—you really can’t transfer," the principal shot back, stepping forward as if to kneel himself.

Li Yang turned and hurried away, unwilling to let an elder bow to him.

This school was insane. This world was insane.

Li Yang tugged at his hair in frustration.

Second period arrived, and with it, a new homeroom teacher.

Every new teacher started off bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, only to wilt after a single class.

This one was no exception.

At first, he tried to establish authority. But once he realized the class was nothing but troublemakers, he gave up entirely.

By the end of the lesson, this teacher was out the door—making history for the shortest tenure.

The school day finally ended.

The one thing Li Yang was grateful for in this novel’s setting was the school schedule.

Classes started at 9 a.m., with each lesson lasting half an hour and half-hour breaks in between. Three classes by noon, then a two-hour lunch break. Classes resumed at 2 p.m. and ended at 5 p.m.

No evening self-study, weekends off, minimal homework—leaving school was the best part of Li Yang’s day.

The moment he stepped off campus, he tore off his mask and tossed it into the trash, his dead-eyed look finally coming alive.

His classmates were all rich kids with chauffeurs. Li Yang was the exception—he took the bus.

This fancy private school didn’t even have a bus stop at its gates. For the past three days, Li Yang had walked ten minutes to the nearest stop, then endured the 30-minute bus ride home.

Today wasn't any different.

The bus stop, where he was usually the only one waiting, now had an additional person.

Li Yang didn’t notice at first until his peripheral vision caught a somewhat familiar face.

It was that Alpha classmate whose rock-hard chest he'd bumped into earlier.

Having never seen anyone else wait at this bus stop in the past two days, Li Yang couldn’t help but steal a glance—just one look, yet the other immediately noticed.

"Sorry," the boy said, looking at him.

Li Yang paused, unsure what he meant.

The boy’s gaze dropped to his forehead. "I hurt you when we collided in class today. Sorry about that."