After buying the scent blockers, both of them left the pharmacy.

An hour has already passed since night self-study started. There were not many people on the campus, it was only the third year building that was still lit up. 

Duan Jiayan was scrolling through his phone when he suddenly scrolled past a new update.

It was from Jiang Qinian.

The update stated how she might be leaving for another country for a period of time to prepare for her arts examination.

Duan Jiayan unconsciously gave a slight frown. 

Lu Xingci noticed the boy beside him was staring so attentively at his phone as he walked, that he nearly bumped into a girl beside him. He then raised his hand out to pull him back.

Duan Jiayan returned to his senses and was about to give a word of thanks. But just as he was about to do so, his words of thanks got stuck in his throat.

His gaze had shifted to the first floor of the dormitory.

And when he caught sight of just who it was standing there, Duan JiaYan’s gaze darkened. Lu Xingci had also noticed Qiao Nan, he took a few steps forward, blocking Duan Jiayan from view.

Qiao Nan seemed to not have thought they’d be caught walking together. After getting over his surprise and noticing that Lu Xingci seemed to be protecting Duan Jiayan, he laughed, “Class president.”

His gaze then moved back a little and his voice dropped as he said, “Duan Jiayan.”

Lu Xingci had no intention of returning his greeting, he coldly asked, “How did you get in here? You’re no longer a Yi Zhong student.”

“Yi Zhong is my alma mater, after all, I’m just coming back to pay it a visit.” Qiao Nan replied, his gaze moving from Lu Xingci to the boy behind him and licked his lips. “Since I’m here, I might as well see some old friends.” 

Duan Jiayan frowned under Qiao Nan’s heavy gaze and opened his mouth to say something only to feel a hand press itself against the back of his head.

The boy’s hand was slightly chilled and seemed to be comforting him as it gently rubbed his head.

Lu Xingci gently rubbed his head before very naturally looping an arm across his shoulders.

Seeing this, Qiao Nan’s face darkened. The corner of Lu Xingci’s lips hooked up as he slowly said, “Which friend? If I know him, why not bring me along?” 

His voice wasn’t loud and his eyebrows were raised, as if he was genuinely interested in Qiao Nan’s aforementioned friend.

Qiao Nan’s face continued to darken as he stared at the arm Lu Xingci had draped across Duan Jiayan’s shoulder. What irked him more was the fact that Duan Jiayan did not reject such an intimate action.

Such close interaction will definitely leave behind an alpha’s pheromone.

Qiao Nan’s face twisted at the thought of Duan Jiayan being tainted with the smell of another person. A bloodthirsty ** rose from within his heart but he pressed it down. 

Even if he did not want to admit it, he was indeed a little afraid of Lu Xingci.

This fear was not solely because of the mutual suppression between alphas, but also because of his impression of the boy from long ago.

He had always been a genius since young. Teachers relied on him and his fellow students were always happy to interact with him.

But ever since entering class 10, no matter how hard he worked and how much time he spent studying, Lu Xingci will always manage to be in front of him in every test. 

He can tell that Lu Xingci is even more well-liked than him. Teachers tend to just go along with what he does not only because of his good grades but because of his family background.

The kind of people that have it all is very terrifying to Qiao Nan.

He’s not afraid of Duan Jiayan. In his eyes, he’s just a kid that likes to act tough.

That’s right. 

He’s just a naughty little kid.

He pushed down the violence in his heart and bit out, “My friend’s a little shy, maybe he’s not too fond of meeting others.”

He’ll teach him a lesson. Once he’s done marking him, he’ll teach Duan Jiayan who he can speak with, smile with.

It wouldn’t be like this, with him standing so close to another alpha. 

After Qiao Nan was done speaking, Lu Xingci cocked his head at him.

Without warning, the smile on his lips vanished.

His gaze fell onto Qiao Nan, with his smile from earlier gone, it now felt incredibly chilling.

“That’s fine as well,” Lu Xingci said without much expression on his face. “I’m not free anyway.” 

His frigid tone sounded so different from the boy from before that Duan Jiayan was not sure how to react.

The hand that was on his shoulder slipped down and gently wrapped itself around his wrist.

Lu Xingci pulled him in the direction of the dormitory lifts. As they passed by Qiao Nan, Lu Xingci paused and coldly stated, “You seemed to forget that Yi Zhong closes at 10 o’clock. Even if you used to be a student at Yi Zhong, you’ll still get into trouble if you’re caught by security.”

Lf qjerfr obg j wbwfca yfobgf rajalcu qblcafvis, “Coafg jii, sbe jgfc’a gfjiis jcsatlcu gluta cbk.” 

Gejc Aljsjc mbeiv mifjgis rff Hljb Rjc rlifcais mifcmtlcu tlr olra ja atbrf kbgvr.

Cr tf kjr qeiifv ys Oe Wlcuml abkjgvr atf iloar, Gejc Aljsjc mbeiv rff atf tjcv qeiilcu bc tlr kglra. Mffilcu j ilaaif agbeyifv, tf kjr pera jybea ab jrx ktfc Oe Wlcuml kjr ublcu ab gfifjrf tlw ktfc jc bwfuj kjixfv qjra.

The omega’s gaze inadvertently landed on the hand holding his wrist and they let out an excited squeal, “Holy shit, it’s true!”

They sprinted to the dormitory as they muttered to themselves, “Breaking news! I saw it with my own two eyes! …Handphone! Where is my handphone?!” 

There was a sound of a great commotion from afar, Lu Xingci let go of his hand. They had already made their way to the door of dorm 601. Duan Jiayan noticed that the dorm’s door was ajar and figured Song Yi must be home. As he pushed the door open, he could not help cocking his head back to ask, “Are you a two-faced person? Just a second ago you were laughing so happily and now you’re so expressionless, what a high-levelled face changing monster.”

Song Yi was originally playing with his phone. When he noticed the pair walking in, he revealed a somewhat awed expression, “Xiao Duan, class president.”

And then asked curiously, “What are you guys talking about?”

“Just come in, Song Yi and I usually also just come in like this, “ Duan Jiayan said while looking back. After hearing Song Yi’s question, he moved to stand a little to the side, “Let me introduce to you, standing behind me is the famous face-changing master, our classmate Lu Xingci. 

Song Yi had not realised what he meant by that when Lu Xingci opened his mouth to say, “Making fun of me?”

The boy’s eyes were curved and under the dormitory room’s light, it seemed to emit degrees of warmth, “Just who was I doing all that for? You still dare to make fun of me?”

Duan Jiayan laughed along, “How could I Lu-ge, I was just impressed with your superb ability to manage your expressions. At that moment, I was still thinking that I was witnessing some split personality happening.”

As he laughed, Duan Jiayan remembered what they came here for, “You can just take a look, the bathroom and toilet are both on the balcony.” 

Lu Xingci did not really want to take a look at the dormitory but he still walked around the balcony. Duan Jiayan casually asked him ‘how was it?’ and received an ‘en’, along with a short “Not bad.”

Duan Jiayan tried to purposefully stir things up, “How is it compared to your dog house?”

Lu Xingci was unfazed, “Both have their strengths.”

Alright then. 

Seeing him like this, Duan Jiayan was slowly convinced that he was really here to look for a dormitory to live in. As Lu Xingci was leaving, Song Yi waved to him by the door, “Class president, bye bye! Do drop by when you’re free!”

Duan Jiayan saw Song Yi being like this and was about to mock him when he saw Song Yi close the door and turn towards him with a complicated expression.

“Xiao Duan, have you seen the group chat?”

“Which chat?” 

“Holding up Yi Zhong’s sky.”

“No, let me take a look.” Duan Jiayan said as he brought up the group chat and entered—

Someone had sent a link.

The link was from an ABO forum jointly organised by the various universities in Ning City, the topic of the thread was [From enemies to lovers, 818 Yi Highschool’s campus hottie and campus bully’s love and hatred.] 

After the omega had thrown in the link, he followed it up with an excited, “Click in to enjoy an absolutely amazing love story.”

What followed was a series of animated and excited howls:

[I used to think that even if the campus hottie and campus bully lie on the same bed together, they’ll still have a pure student relationship with one another the next day. I was too blind, today let me apologise here: Duan Jiayan I’m sorry!]

[aaaaaaaaaaaa this thread is so sweet! It’s almost as if it is me that is dating Lu-ge!!] 

[aaaaaaaaaaaaa I do not agree to this relationship. I have a premonition that Lu lu will receive domestic violence wuuuuuu.]

Duan Jiayan, “……”

What on earth is this?

Duan Jiayan entered the thread in confusion. 

[Everybody knows that, with Yi Zhong being a prestigious school in Ning City, it has always had a large population of handsome guys and pretty girls.

This year’s sophomore class ten has the highest number of pretty faces. Not only is the campus hottie in that class, but the campus bully is also in that class.

Introducing Yi Zhong’s widely accepted campus hottie, both the Alpha and Omega forum boards often mention his name. How should we introduce his family background… his surname is Lu, that’s right, it is the Lu family you are thinking of.

This person, from freshman year to sophomore year, has always been the top scorer in the city. 

In short, a perfect person.

I’m not too sure about the campus bully. I once witnessed him getting into a fight with an alpha. That alpha’s mouth wasn’t all that clean and the words he retorted with was spread throughout the whole school.

He asked the fellow, ‘Do I look like I deserve a beating?‘

Back then this poster felt like he was such a top, I even wanted to call him Father. 

Originally this poster heard that the little lady the campus bully is interested in, is into the campus hottie. This will make both of them love rivals.

Who would have thought that tonight, this poster was at the pharmacy buying a scent blocker, when he saw the both of them beside him also shopping for omega scent blockers.

Shopping together!

Scent blockers! 

They were even discussing the flavour!

How is this all that different from couples picking condoms together???]

Duan Jiayan fell into silence upon reading the original poster’s passionate speech.

He scrolled a little lower: 

[Adding on some new info, the campus hottie is an A and the campus bully is an O! Also the campus hottie’s tone back then was particularly threatening, the kind that makes a person want to call the police!]

[Didn’t this pair have signs of being sweet together since a while ago?]

[I was there when the campus bully was fighting the alpha! The campus hottie was there to help him out, it was super sweet!]

[He even helped to play basketball!] 

[The hug during the sports festival!]

[Holy shit, is there any dada that writes fanfictions? The original poster talking about picking condoms together made me think of a three thousand word fanfic.]

[Breaking news sisters! They’ve held hands! They held hands beneath the dormitory!]

Song Yi watched as Duan Jiayan quietly scrolled through the thread. 

For a long time.

He snorted as he returned the phone and stood up.

Song Yi was frightened, “Xiao Duan, what are you planning to do?”

“Climb through the internet to find the person who wants to write the sex scene with me bawling my eyes out, and kill them.” 

Duan Jiayan saw Song Yi’s dumbfounded expression and couldn’t resist laughing, “What else can I do? I’m going to go shower. Can these rubbish even be taken seriously?”

Song Yi thought in his heart, “When you both walked in one in front of the other, I almost believed it.”

But in the face of Duan Jiayan who was lackadaisically heading towards the washroom with his shower essentials, he really did not dare voice his thoughts out.

Registering to the ABO forum requires one to confirm their gender designation, and the forum board with the highest traffic was one that allowed all genders to enter. 

Before he fell asleep, Song Yi stared at the thread that was still hanging on the homepage of the forum. It seemed like it would stay there for a long while.

Across from him, Duan Jiayan was already fast asleep.

One can tell with a look that he took this whole thing as a novel joke, nothing to think too much about.

As he was falling asleep, he felt like Duan Jiayan was not sleeping too well. He seemed to hear Duan Jiayan turning around quite a few times. 

Duan Jiayan was dreaming.

Maybe it is because he saw Qiao Nan twice today, but the boy was even haunting him in his dreams.

He dreamt of his freshman year.

Back then, Qiao Nan and him were standing in the teacher’s office. One one side was Zhao Minjun, on the other was another class’ teacher. 

That teacher seemed to have some issues with Zhao Minjun. A long time has passed and Duan Jiayan no longer remembered what it was but it seemed like that teacher had always been partial to Qiao Nan.

More precisely, most teachers back then seemed to like good students like Qiao Nan. Aside from Lu Xingci, the next best scorer was him.

He had fought with Qiao Nan and the boy was beaten up by him till his arm was covered in blood. Though he too was covered in scrapes, compared to him, Qiao Nan looked much more beaten up.

Qiao Nan looked at him, his expression tinged with some fear. On closer look, one will be able to find flashes of irritation in his eyes, “I only said some words and he suddenly came up and punched me. Duan Jiayan was the one who initiated the fight, I was just defending myself.” 

The him in his dream only coldly looked at Qiao Nan and did not say anything.

Zhao Minjun asked once again, “Duan Jiayan, you should also explain yourself. You can’t just have beaten up your classmate for no rhyme nor reason right?”

He continued staying silent.

The other teacher could not watch on any longer, “Teacher Zhao, you can’t be biased towards Duan Jiayan just because you are friends with his mother.” 

As the teacher spoke, there was a hint of disdain in his eyes, “He isn’t talking because he is guilty. These two students fought, and Qiao Nan is evidently so badly hurt, anyone will be able to tell what went on. It’s fine if he does not like to study, but to maliciously beat up other students, I’ve seen many of these kinds of degenerates. They just rely on their family’s money and do not bother with studying…”

Qiao Nan’s family background was average, to be able to enter class ten was entirely based on his results.

A scholar from an ordinary family, and a second-generation young master like him.

The second best scorer in the level, and a problematic student. 

Even though the other teachers in the office did not talk, the accusatory gazes all fell onto him.

Zhao Minjun frowned and turned her stare towards the teacher, “This incident has nothing to do with grades.”

Turning back to Duan Jiayan, she let out a sigh, “You will be punished if you do not explain yourself. You can’t tell teacher what exactly you guys were fighting about?”

Till the end, he did not speak. 

The dreamscape became fragmented, the location in his dream changing.

Both Qiao Nan and him got punished in the end for the fight. Before leaving school, Qiao Nan had to return to the classroom to collect his items.

It was all seen by others.

Qiao Nan had gone back into the classroom while still covered in blood to collect his assessment books. When concerned classmates asked him what was wrong, he only quietly answered that he had a conflict with Duan Jiayan. 

Back then Qiao Nan and Zhou Xingchen were table buddies. Seeing Qiao Nan being beaten up to such a sorry state by Duan Jiayan, Zhou Xingchen’s gaze towards the latter would always hold undisguised anger.

After a week had passed, Qiao Nan transferred schools.

In that period of time, even though on the surface nothing seemed to have changed, Duan Jiayan could tell that some of his classmates were avoiding him.

Things were a little better with guys that he got along with, they only took it as him being arrogant. It was mostly the female classmates that did not dare talk to him. 

Rumours of him started spreading during the new school year.

Rumours of him beating someone up and using his family’s authority to force the student to transfer schools.

The second part was not entirely inaccurate.

When he got home, under Fu Yuan’s incessant questioning, he caved and told the truth. 

He was shut in the toilet by an Alpha and was nearly pressed against the wall and r*ped.

Fu Yuan was both distressed and upset. After busying around for the whole day, she managed to find someone that’ll make Qiao Nan leave Yi Zhong.

The dreamscape changed again and stopped at the day Qiao Nan was finalising his school transfer documents.

Inside the office, Fu Yuan and Qiao Nan’s mother were going at it. He did not want to hear how the other party was talking about him and so first left with Fu Yuan’s permission. 

Duan Jiayan left the office, with someone following close behind.

In the empty corridor, one is able to hear the sound of books turning from the classrooms. The footsteps behind him were slow, and the person’s voice sounded amused.

“Just now, your mother called you ‘Ah Ye’ right? Qiao Nan paused for a moment. “Is that your nickname?”

Duan Jiayan’s footsteps paused. 

He turned around, his face emotionless but his eyes were frosty and dark.

Duan Jiayan suppressed the anger in his heart and bit out, “Get lost.”

After that fight, no matter how Qiao Nan tried to strike up a conversation with him, he never spoke another word to the boy.

Qiao Nan evidently never thought the name would elicit such a reaction and smiled before saying one more time, “Ah Ye.” 

Duan Jiayan heard him repeating the nickname and only felt disgusted beyond belief.

“I will come back to find you, you should be glad that you are only a Beta.”

“Do you know what happens to Omegas after they are marked by an Alpha? Not every Omega will be able to wash their mark off. For most Omegas, once they are bitten it will be more life. Once they lose their Alpha, they will slowly die.”

As he spoke, Qiao Nan could not stop a smile from blooming on his face. 

His expression was too horrifying. His crazy gaze filled with possession fell onto Duan Jiayan’s body.

Just like a snake, his eyes slithered up Duan Jiayan’s body.

“If you are an Omega, even if one day I get beaten to death by you, I will still mark you. That way…”

“Even if I’m dead, you won’t be able to live on by yourself anymore.” 

*

T/N： I really like this novel so have decided to pick it up so more of you can read it too. Hope you guys like my translations!