Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Neural link severed. Welcome back to the real world."

The Holo-Pod slowly opened, soft light flooding in. Wen Jueqian opened his eyes, sat up from the pod, and raised a hand to smooth his slightly disheveled ink-blue hair.

A message flashed across his optical computer.

W: Only four hours connected today. That's a good boy.

Wen Jueqian stared at the line for two seconds, the corner of his mouth curving involuntarily.

Anyone else would've been crushed under that kind of relentless, iron-fisted control.

But Wen Jueqian was used to it. More than that—he found it comforting.

Because only Wen Yanxu watched over him like this, cared about his every move. That forceful, even unreasonable possessiveness, when aimed at him, became a silent promise: I care about you. I want to know everything. You're mine. Only mine.

He picked up the optical computer, replied with "Don't get distracted at work," and set it aside.

But the smile at the corner of his mouth soon faded.

System 99 had told him that in another version of the story, he would leap into the sea and end his life because he lost Wen Yanxu's love.

Wen Jueqian had denied it at the time, certain that wasn't him.

He wasn't the type to kill himself over lost love.

He'd only go insane from losing it.

————

After a long day, it wasn't until 4 p.m. that Wen Jueqian finally felt ready to figure out where to start changing the so-called future.

In the book System 99 had shown him, the true starting point of the story was a temporary marking.

The 7th-Gen Inhibitor that Wen Yanxu headed up was one of Aegis's core projects. The inhibitor industry was the corporation's main revenue stream, and the seventh generation was rumored to be a game-changing breakthrough that would completely reshape the inhibitor industry.

Aegis poured massive amounts of money into it, from R&D to production. Since being appointed project lead a year ago, Wen Yanxu had personally made nearly every key decision.

The laboratory for the 7th-Gen Inhibitor was located in Aegis's Third Research Center, which was top-secret.

The center sat deep in the Cang Sea, a hundred nautical miles east of Federal Silver Pine State, on an isolated island—Jueying Island—cut off by natural sea fog and ring reefs.

It didn't appear on civilian maps. Aegis had turned it into a top-tier bio-research island, with only one heavily guarded route in and out.

To prevent core technology leaks, all research and production of the 7th-Gen Inhibitor's main components currently happened on Jueying Island.

Qiao Yuexun had come to the island as one of the celebrity testers for the 7th-Gen Omega Inhibitor, there for promotional shoots.

Since the product hadn't been publicly released yet, all talent were required to sign confidentiality agreements and remain at the research center for fifteen days of observation after trying the new product, to make sure no one could reverse-engineer the tech from their biological samples.

Such stringent requirements had led most celebrities to decline the invitation, which was how the opportunity fell to Qiao Yuexun, who was still a C-list celebrity at the time.

After the talent and staff had been on the island for ten days, trouble struck.

The mercenary group known as "Rustfire" launched an attack on Jueying Island. This notorious armed force operated along the border between the Federation and the Empire, its members mostly military veterans who took jobs attacking large corporations. They were heavily armed, ruthless, and experts at sowing chaos in closed-off spaces to extort ransoms or swipe classified data.

The research center's security went into emergency lockdown. The island's security team, made up of special forces vets with top-tier surveillance gear and weapons, could normally handle most threats. The two sides traded fire at the island's edge.

Meanwhile, Jueying Island's external communications were cut off. The island's ever-present thick fog blocked satellite feeds, leaving the outside world completely blind to what was happening.

In the middle of all this chaos, something even worse happened.

Wen Yanxu, the head of the research center, fell into a severe rut period for unknown reasons.

An S-class Alpha's pheromone surge exploded outward like a storm, hitting every Alpha and Omega within miles.

Some lost it on the spot, others crumpled in pain—the whole center plunged into chaos.

Qiao Yuexun got hit too.

But he had used the 7th-Gen Omega Inhibitor just days earlier. The drug's stabilizing effects were still active, and with sheer willpower, he barely kept his heat from exploding.

Bearing the pressure of the S-class Alpha's pheromones, he tried to escape the affected area, but in the confusion, he somehow collided with Wen Yanxu, who was deep in his rut.

The highly compatible Omega pheromones instantly snapped the instinct-driven Alpha's attention to him.

At that critical moment, Qiao Yuexun released his own pheromones, attempting to soothe Wen Yanxu. That cool tuberose scent tangled with the frenzied Datura, and somehow it actually brought Wen Yanxu back to his senses, just a little.

But an Alpha in rut couldn't be calmed by pheromones alone without inhibitors. With his body's instincts raging out of control, only a temporary marking could settle him.

Wen Yanxu and Qiao Yuexun quickly struck a deal.

Wen Yanxu would temporarily mark Qiao Yuexun, who would keep soothing him with pheromones to keep him lucid. Afterward, Wen Yanxu would pay him well.

That was how their fates became tangled.

An Omega who saved the day in a crisis left a permanent mark on the Alpha's heart.

————

Wen Jueqian closed his eyes and thought it through logically.

Everything started with two accidents: the Rustfire attack, and Wen Yanxu's mysterious severe rut.

He couldn't stop the Rustfire attack, and he couldn't warn Wen Yanxu ahead of time. Everything System 99 had shown him—all those glimpses of the future—couldn't be told to anyone.

That day, Wen Jueqian had tried to drop a hint to Wen Yanxu, but the second he opened his mouth, a violent sense of danger slammed into him, like saying it out loud would bring something horrific.

Wen Jueqian had to deal with this on his own.

But looking at it differently, Rustfire hadn't done serious damage in the book's version of events. Once he recovered, Wen Yanxu quickly got things under control and launched a counterstrike. The attack even won Aegis public sympathy and free PR for the 7th-Gen Inhibitor.

Wen Yanxu came out of it with more power and prestige. Rustfire's attack had been a total waste—they'd done all the heavy lifting for someone else's gain.

The real problem was Wen Yanxu's state.

If he stayed in a severe rut, his counterattack against Rustfire wouldn't be so timely or effective. Jueying Island would take heavy losses, and everything would spiral out of control.

He decided to target Wen Yanxu's condition. As long as Wen Yanxu didn't hit a severe rut, the crisis wouldn't be a crisis—it'd be an opportunity.

And that temporary marking would never come to pass.

Wen Jueqian bit the knuckle of his index finger.

As for Qiao Yuexun...

In the book, the story began on the day the crisis erupted—and now, that day was less than a week away.

Wen Jueqian reached out directly to Wen Yanxu's assistant, Chen Suye.

Chen Suye was a Beta woman in her thirties who had been by Wen Yanxu's side since before he formally entered Aegis. Over the years, she'd handled countless matters for him, including some extremely thorny ones, and was one of the very few people he trusted completely. Naturally, she knew how much Wen Jueqian meant to Wen Yanxu.

"Chen Suye, could you send me the recent promotional plan for the 7th-Gen Inhibitor?" Wen Jueqian's message was blunt: "I'd like to see the list of participants."

Chen Suye didn't pry. Half an hour later, an encrypted file appeared in Wen Jueqian's inbox.

The holographic display showed dozens of names.

"Qiao Yuexun" stood out among them.

Wen Jueqian stared at the name for a few seconds, then dismissed the display.

At this point, Qiao Yuexun was already on Jueying Island.

He lowered his gaze, his knuckles pale from being bitten.

If only System 99 had arrived even one day earlier, he could have found a way to stop Qiao Yuexun from setting foot on the island.

But there was no room for "what ifs."

One of the key players in this fated meeting was already in position.

He had to find a way—before that day came—to keep Wen Yanxu from falling into his severe susceptibility period.

As long as one of them didn't follow the script, there would be no fated meeting.

After sending the file, Chen Suye didn't go straight back to work.

She sat at her desk, thinking about the expressionless look on Wen Yanxu's face when he entered the office earlier. Having followed him for so many years, she knew her boss too well—that wasn't anger, it was barely contained frustration, like something was stuck and he couldn't move forward or backward.

She hesitated, then texted Wen Jueqian again:

"The boss has been going nonstop all day and barely touched his lunch. If you have time, could you talk him into eating something? You know, aside from you, no one else's words get through to him."

Wen Jueqian read the message and paused.

He replied, "Does he have dinner plans?"

Chen Suye answered quickly: "He was supposed to have dinner with officials from the review board, but they canceled at the last minute. The production license for the 7th-Gen Inhibitor is held up at a critical stage, so the boss is in a bad mood today."

Wen Jueqian stared at the words "bad mood" and went quiet for a moment.

Wen Yanxu rarely showed work-related emotions. Raised as an heir from childhood, never showing his feelings was the most basic requirement. But if Chen Suye was saying it, it must be really bad.

"Make a reservation for me," he replied. "Somewhere close to Aegis."

Seeing the message, Chen Suye silently breathed a sigh of relief. Her fingers moved swiftly across the holographic screen, sorting through suitable restaurant options.

Hopefully the boss can relax a little, she thought.

Even if Chen Suye hadn't said anything, Wen Jueqian would have gone home to see Wen Yanxu today anyway.

Everything System 99 had implanted in Wen Jueqian was told from Qiao Yuexun's perspective—only his thoughts, his actions, and the world as he saw it.

How was Wen Yanxu manipulated into his severe susceptibility period? Who was the mastermind? How did he investigate and handle it afterward?

The book never mentioned these key details, only vaguely blaming "unknown causes."

And now, Wen Jueqian couldn't defuse the crisis on Jueying Island, hundreds of miles away. He didn't know the situation there, didn't know who might be approaching Wen Yanxu, didn't know which steps could be compromised. All he could do was stay by Wen Yanxu's side as much as possible when that day came.

So he planned to accompany Wen Yanxu back to Jueying Island this time and remain by his side every moment. With proper precautions in place, he believed Wen Yanxu wouldn't walk into the trap so easily.