Edited by: Decembery

Duan Jiayan hadn’t expected that even after a night had passed, the forum thread would still be hanging out on the homepage, and it seemed to be getting even more popular. 

When waking up, he seemed to feel a little weak, his limbs somewhat numb. Song Yi took a serious sniff as he was getting out of bed and turned to him, “Xiao Duan, I seem to be able to smell your pheromones. Could it be…?”

Duan Jiayan gave a vague mumble in response.

According to his schedule, his heat should be around the corner. Even if he wasn’t exhibiting any symptoms yet, it is still better to err on the side of caution. Duan Jiayan gave himself a shot of the inhibitor.

After the shot, he started scrolling through his phone out of habit. Quite a few guys that he had a good relationship with sent him messages asking about the forum thread, including Shen Chilie. 

Shen Chilie, [Son! You actually really got together with Lu Xingci? Father is a little intimidated by this strong partner you have found.]

Duan Jiayan’s eyelid twitched. He was still a little groggy from sleep, and after seeing Shen Chilie wanting to be his father so early in the morning, he cleanly replied to him with a ‘Get lost.’

Shen Chilie, [I can get lost, but before that, Father needs to clarify, is Lu Xingci my daughter-in-law?]

Duan Jiayan, [He’s your godfather.]

Shen Chilie, [……]

Duan Jiayan, [Do you think that you and I will one day break through the barrier of friendship and walk hand in hand down a wedding aisle?]

Shen Chilie, [Turns out you actually have these kinds of wild thoughts about me.]

Duan Jiayan was about to be angered to the point of laughing by him. He snorted and replied, [The kind of relationship we have, is the kind of relationship I have with him.] 

After replying to the message, Duan Jiayan got off his bed.

After not getting a good night’s sleep, his whole being was unenergetic. Perhaps it was his misconception but on the way from his dormitory to the classroom, Duan Jiayan felt that quite a number of people were looking at him. This feeling peaked when he entered the classroom.

It was currently Chinese self-study lesson. The teacher was not around and it was up to the students to revise by themselves. When Duan Jiayan entered the classroom, he saw with his own eyes the female student sitting by the classroom door dropping her textbook after she noticed his presence.

The female student then tried to secretly jab her table buddy, speaking in a voice she thought was quiet, “Quickly look! It’s Duan Jiayan!” 

Duan Jiayan, “……”

Duan Jiayan thought, “Is this the first time you’re seeing me?”

He walked to his table and just as he sat down, a male student came running over to look for Lu Xingci to borrow his chemistry assignment.

“Lu-ge! Lu-baba!” The male student wailed like a ghost. “Where is your chemistry homework? Quickly save me, the next lesson is chemistry!” 

Their chemistry teacher was extremely temperamental. If their student was not done with their assignment, they might just punish them to stand outside the classroom for the entire lesson.

Duan Jiayan casually asked, “There’s chemistry homework yesterday? I want to copy it too.”

As he spoke, he turned to face Lu Xingci who sat behind him out of habit. The guy behind him was just throwing his assignment on the table and cocked his chin, indicating to the male student to take it.

After hearing Duan Jiayan’s words, Lu Xingci raised his eyes. 

That male student already had his hands outstretched towards Lu Xingci’s assignment but immediately swerved his hands forward after hearing Duan Jiayan’s words, “Then you can copy. You copy, I won’t steal this from you.”

He turned his head and said, “Chen Yue! Lend me your chemistry homework!”

Duan Jiayan, “……”

Duan Jiayan took the chemistry homework and quickly copied down the assignment. After he was done, Duan Jiayan placed the assignment back on Lu Xingci’s table, “Thanks.” 

Lu Xingci gave an ‘En’ in reply.

Duan Jiayan met his gaze and for a moment wanted to ask if he saw the forum thread last night. Before the words could get out, he suddenly felt a sour note enter his nose.

Duan Jiayan lazily gave a yawn in front of Lu Xingci.

Lu Xingci, “……” 

Chen Yue, “Hahahahahhaha!”

Duan Jiayan blinked his tear-filled eyes twice, wanting to disperse some of the tears that appeared after his yawn. As he blinked, he explained, “I didn’t sleep too well last night.”

Lu Xingci studied him for a while before asking, “Why didn’t you sleep well?”

“Had a dream.” Duan Jiayan mumbled. “Dreamt about some matters from before.” 

The bell signifying the end of class rang.

Zhou XingChen who had been lazing around for the entire lesson rushed up. Ever since Gu Li found out about the thread last night, she couldn’t stop talking about it for the entire night.

She was even nagging at him in the morning to get to the bottom of this. Zhou XingChen got brainwashed by her to the point where his mentality went from “Impossible, rubbish, who made this rumour?” to “F*ck, it can’t be, it shouldn’t be.”

After being tortured by these two clashing emotions for the whole night and day, Zhou XingChen was about ready to call it quits. 

“Lu-ge,” he stood in front of Lu XingCi.

As those dark eyes turned to look at him, Zhou XingChen gathered up the courage to ask what nobody dared to ask before—

“Last night I saw the thread regarding Duan JiaYan and you.”

Under Lu XingCi’s gaze, as Zhou XingChen spoke, his original script of “I read that you two are getting together” got changed to “One look and I could tell it was fake, hehe.” 

Cr rbbc jr atf kbgvr ifoa tlr wbeat, Oe WlcuJl gjlrfv jc fsfygbk jcv uijcmfv ja tlw.

Llr fzqgfrrlbc rffwfv ab yf jwerfv sfa cba ja atf rjwf alwf.

Itbe WlcuJtfc kjr rb rmjgfv tf lwwfvljafis rtea eq.

Oe Wlcuml rwlifv, “Qtja vlv la rjs? Kfii wf.” 

Ktf batfg qfgrbc tf kjr ajixlcu jybea tjv jirb aegcfv jgbecv, Gejc AljTjc kjr cbk rlifcais ibbxlcu ja tlw.

Even though Duan JiaYan was not speaking, Zhou XingChen still got a feeling that if he even dared to say anything, the campus bully would immediately spill his blood.

As he was stared at by the two of them, Zhou XingChen only felt like he could not retreat anywhere and so could only quickly spill out the words in his head, “It wrote about how the two of you are getting together and were even buying condoms together, wait no, not condoms. I meant buying scent blocker— Is that all true?”

He watched as Lu XingCi’s smile deepened, he even lazily gave an “Oh” in response. 

Zhou XingChen got so scared by his demeanour that he unconsciously took a step back. In a second, the words “What is it like to hide a knife in your smile?” flashed before his eyes.

It’s over.

He’s done for.

A laugh from behind caught him off guard. 

It was Duan JiaYan

“Stop blindly spreading around such rumours,” Duan JiaYan knocked him on the head lightly, before drawling. “Will you guys take responsibility for me not being able to get a girl?”

His tone sounded rather laidback, as if he had not taken this issue as anything serious at all.

Zhou Xingchen took his word for it and heaved a sigh of relief, “I knew it, geez that scared me to death, the original poster wrote it so convincingly. If you two do end up together, can it still be called a love story? More like a horror story.” 

Just as he was about to continue talking about the horror of not being able to fall asleep last night due to this incident, he was stopped by Chen Yue who noticed the smirk on Lu Xingci’s face, “You’ve been acting wild from morning till night, are you even done with your chemistry homework”

“Ah! I’ve really not done it!” Zhou Xingchen’s attention was diverted. “Hurry hurry hurry, who’s able to lend me their homework to copy.”

The homework given to Yi Zhong’s sophomore students are relatively relaxed, with students typically being able to rest over the weekends.

Recently, the temperature has dipped so Duan Jiayan wanted to take advantage of the weekends to head home and grab thicker clothes to bring back to his dorm. 

He dropped Fu Yuan a message, asking if his clothes were left in their original location. After hearing that he wanted to go home, Fu Yuan offered to fetch him home from school.

Song Yi saw Duan Jiayan staring at his phone. He thought about how it was about to be the weekends as well as the elusive Qiao Nan, and asked, “Xiao Duan, are you staying in the dorms over the weekends?”

Duan Jiayan sent a message back to Fu Yuan before putting down his phone, “I’ll be heading home this weekend.”

Song Yi paused, “By yourself?” 

Duan Jiayan smiled, “My mom’s coming to pick me up.”

After school, Duan Jiayan stood by the gates to wait for Fu Yuan. As she was busy with work, Fu Yuan rarely had time to pick him up from school. Since staying in school, it had been almost a month since he last saw her. At the thought of finally getting to see her again in a bit, his eyes curved in a smile.

But after waiting for quite some time, he still could not see a trace of Fu Yuan.

After some time had passed, the school gate was relatively empty as most students had already been picked up by their parents. Just as he was getting listless waiting, a black car drove past him. 

In the car, Lu Xingci spotted Duan Jiayan waiting by the gates. The boy who was so rarely well-behaved was wearing his uniform neatly with a school bag slung across his back.

He recalled hearing Duan Jiayan mentioning that he was going home for the weekends and turned back for a second look.

Duan Jiayan seemed to be waiting for someone. He would periodically look up from his smartphone to look around the gates, as if afraid of missing whoever it was he’s waiting for.

But at this time, almost everyone had already left the school. Standing there all by himself… 

Picking up his ringing phone, Lu Xingci heard Jiang Yao’s gentle voice, “You’re already in the car?”

Lu Xingci settled back into his seat and gave a positive response.

“That’s good then, it’ll take about an hour to get here from Yi Zhong. Your grandmother insisted on waiting for you before we can start dinner,” Jiang Yao chuckled. “A lot of uncles and aunties are waiting for you. Yi Zhong’s dismissal time is really too late, if I knew about it before this I’d have gotten you to take the day off. Yuan Yuan’s school let them off so early…”

The faint sounds of people talking could be heard over the phone. Lu Xingci laughed too as he said, “Tell grandma to start eating first, don’t let them all wait for me. If the chauffeur gets anxious and speeds up, that won’t be safe.” 

“That’s true.” Jiang Yao agreed and conveyed his message to the old lady. Lu Xingci could hear her voice filled with smiles.

“So troublesome, he shouldn’t have gone to school today…”

Someone had interjected, his grandmother carried on the train of thought, “He’s already the top scorer, getting half a day off from school should be possible no? Is there some darling in that school?”

The old lady’s voice was vigorous with hints of pride shining through. 

“Your grandmother really misses you a lot.” Jiang Yao returned to her phone. “You let the chauffeur drive slowly, we’ll just start dinner first. If you are hungry, the car has some snacks for you to eat first.”

Lu Xingci hummed in agreement and hung up the call.

Suddenly, a drop of rain fell on the car’s windowsill.

He turned around and saw drops of rain falling from the sky one after another. The originally bright evening had been cloaked in darkness. Lu Xingci frowned subtly. 

He suddenly recalled that Duan Jiayan’s heat was right around the corner. He thought back to seeing the boy waiting by the school gates. After hesitating for a moment, Lu Xingci opened his phone to look for Duan Jiayan’s contact.

After thinking about it, he dropped him a message, asking if he was already home.

Duan JIayan waited at his school gate for half a day and still could not see Fu Yuan. With nothing to do at the moment, he suddenly got a phone call.

“Ah Ye, I have a last-minute meeting that I need to attend,” Fu Yuan’s voice over the phone sounded guilty. “Sorry, I probably won’t be able to fetch you from school.” 

“……” Duan Jiayan remained silent for a while before softly giving an ‘en’ in response. “It’s fine, I’ll get home myself.”

Hearing him say that, the sense of guilt in Fu Yuan’s heart doubled but with her superiors breathing down her neck hard, she could only say a few more words to her son before hanging up.

After hanging up on Fu Yuan’s call, Duan Jiayan heaved a sigh and checked the time.

The area Fu Yuan was staying in was close to Yi Zhong and it’ll take only about half an hour to walk home. When she was choosing a house, she purposely chose one that was close to his school. 

Since he had nothing to do, Duan Jiayan figured he might as well walk home.

There was a period of time where he used to walk to and from school daily with Shen Chilie hence he was familiar with the route. As he passed the internet cafe behind the school, Duan Jiayan raised his eyes to look out of habit.

As he was wondering if he’d spot any familiar faces, he suddenly felt like someone was watching him from behind.

An awfully familiar feeling of nausea seemed to emanate from behind him. As he whipped his head back to look, someone reached out towards him and pulled hard— 

Pulling him into a small alley behind the internet cafe.

As the rain got heavier, Lu Xingci still did not get any response from Duan Jiayan.

He closed his eyes and called Duan Jiayan.

Nobody answered. 

He tried calling two more times and though the call could get through, nobody answered. Putting down his phone, he called out to the chauffeur.

“I’ll trouble you to turn back.”

The chauffeur froze, “But the missus has instructed me to bring you back home after school. Today is the old missus’ birthday…”

He had already driven for quite a distance and it’ll take up even more time if he drove back. It was old grandma Lu’s eightieth grand birthday, there were a lot of big names attending and it’ll definitely be inappropriate for Lu Xingci to be late to it. 

“Drive back to school first,” Lu Xingci said as he tried to find a way to contact Song Yi on his phone. “I have something to settle there.”

The chauffeur was still hesitant, Lu Xingci calmly repeated, “Turn back, it’s urgent. I’ll explain this to grandma later.”

Hearing him say that, the chauffeur nodded and turned back around.

Though one couldn’t hear much emotions from the boy’s speech, the words he spoke still carried flavours of urgency. 

“Please hurry a little if you can.”

Rain just kept falling from the sky.

Caught off guard, Duan Jiayan was pulled into an alleyway. Someone hugged him from behind and started sniffing around his nape.

Qiao Nan’s arms are locked around him, as he sniffed his glands he quietly gave a deep laugh by his ear. 

“Ah Ye, you smell so good.”

Duan Jiayan’s pupils shrank, bending his elbows, he gave a hard shove backwards.

Qiao Nan was harshly knocked back like this and moved to wrap his hands around his own torso instead. Without turning back, Duan Jiayan swiftly grabbed his arm and threw him over his shoulder.

Qiao Nan’s whole body was hurled against the wall. 

Duan Jiayan cocked his head while shaking off the ache in his arm.

Due to the close contact just now, his body is now contaminated with Qiao Nan’s pheromones, his fingers have already started to tingle with pain.

Duan JIayan glanced at Qiao Nan who was leaning against the wall with his arms around his torso with a blank expression, “What did you just say? I didn’t catch that, I think you said something about you being sick? It’s not often that our thoughts align, you—”

As he spoke, he pointed towards his own head, “indeed are sick.” 

Qiao Nan looked at him before suddenly letting out a soft whisper.

Thick and large waves of pheromones started emanating from Qiao Nan’s body. The Alpha’s pheromones resembled the bloody smell of rust and because of his excitement and violent tendencies, the smell of fresh blood got even thicker and more cloying.

Duan Jiayan silently took a step back.

Were it any other day, he would not be threatened by Qiao Nan’s pheromones. But today was different. As he got enveloped within the thick pheromones, Duan Jiayan could feel sharp jolts of pain coming from his exposed skin, he was even starting to feel light-headed. 

Noticing his discomfort, Qiao Nan pushed himself up from the wall. Due to Duan Jiayan’s heavy-handed actions, he was still trembling a little as he walked.

“You seem to have become a lot more docile after turning into an Omega,” Qiao Nan muttered to himself with a smile, as if unaware of how his words sounded like he was talking about a pet. “If you were still a Beta, you wouldn’t be so afraid of an Alpha’s pheromones.”

Qiao Nan raised a hand to grab his shoulder, only for Duan Jiayan to dodge it and swat it away with his own hand.

What a surprise. 

This time Duan Jiayan’s strength was nowhere nearly as strong as before, it could even be described as soft.

Realising why this was the case, Qiao Nan tightly grabbed onto his shoulder, wild excitement visible in his eyes, “You’re in heat now, aren’t you?”

The blood-like pheromone seemed to have found an opening and repeatedly assaulted Duan JIayan’s glands.

Duan JIayan’s head felt excruciatingly painful. 

Not only because of Qiao Nan’s behaviour, but also because of his stress disorder. Every cell in his body was rejecting Qiao Nan’s pheromones, it hurt so much he felt like he was dying. Realising that the other party is aware of this, Duan Jiayan’s body involuntarily tensed up.

“Nervous? Are you afraid?” This is an Omega’s weakest period, every Alpha is aware of this. Knowing that he has finally gotten hold of Duan JIayan’s weakness, Qiao Nan inched closer, “How pitiful. Even if you are afraid, I will still mark you.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Qiao Nan raised a fist to punch Duan Jiayan in the stomach. He then wrapped his hands around Duan Jiayan’s neck and jerked him up, forcing him to raise his head, “You were beating me so happily just now right?”

Duan Jiayan’s mouth filled up with the tang of iron, he sneered, “It was alright. I could have done better and beaten you to a pulp.” 

Those amber eyes filled with disgust and contempt locked onto Qiao Nan’s.

It was as if he was looking at some unmentionable piece of trash.

Aggravated by the look in Duan Jiayan’s eyes, Qiao Nan started mumbling, as if he was talking to Duan Jiayan while also as if he was just talking to himself, “I’ll mark you right here.”

“In this damp and grimy alleyway, though it does not seem to match such a pretty Omega like yourself,” Qiao Nan grabbed onto his chin and forced him to raise his head. “What about you? Do you like such a place?” 

It was like this in the past.

When freshman year just started, Duan Jiayan would still smile as he asked him for his homework to copy. This happened till they swapped seats and he watched as Duan Jiayan went to look for other classmates with the same bright smile.

He was not special.

Duan JIayan never seriously looked at him before. 

“It was you who spoke to me first, you were the one who seduced me first.”

“It‘s okay if you want to look at me now, I can wait. Five, ten, twenty years… After I mark you, you can only look at me forever.”

“I don’t like kids,” He said, as if picturing a scenario in his head. “But if you give birth to any kids, I will try to accept them.”

He reached out a hand and fondly pinched the tip of Duan Jiayan’s nose, “You are kind of like a kid yourself.” 

A hand suddenly reached out to grab at his wrist.

“Are you done?”

Under the slightly dishevelled-looking hair, Qiao Nan could clearly see Duan Jiayan’s eyes.

Cold and full of violence. 

The pair of eyes were dark and heavy, watching him unblinkingly, making one feel chills from being stared at.

This was not a gaze an Omega should be showing in these circumstances.

Seeing him in shock, Duan Jiayan reached out his arm.

It was full of red spots from the allergic reaction and before Qiao Nan could react, Duan Jiayan pulled at his hair, shoving him into the wall, “I couldn’t tell that you had such a vivid imagination. Even MLM scammers can’t talk as well as you.” 

He was too fast, just as Qiao Nan wanted to push himself up, Duan Jiayan once again grabbed him and slammed him against the wall.

The rain was getting heavier, lights from outside shone into the small alleyway.

A black car honked as it parked outside the alley.

As Lu Xingci ran in, he happened to see Duan Jiayan slamming someone against a wall. He was both fast and forceful, continuously slamming as if afraid that something would happen if he stopped. 

With his hands still gripping Qiao Nan’s head, he saw Qiao Nan’s face full of blood and laughed.

“Qiao Nan,” he paused, his smile looking both lazy and carefree. “You won’t be happy if I don’t look at you? Let me tell you something.”

Duan Jiayan released his hand and kicked Qiao Nan’s knee, forcing the latter to stagger and hit the wall hard, “We normal folks don’t like looking at rabid dogs.”

Lu Xingci paused when he saw what was happening. 

He watched as Duan Jiayan dipped his head towards Qiao Nan who was curled up on the ground.

As if he had thought of something funny, the look of amusement in Duan Jiayan’s grew deeper though it remained chilling enough to cut through bones, “You like me? You want to top me?”

Duan Jiayan did not notice Lu Xingci’s presence and continued talking to Qiao Nan.

“Look at you, your brain is not all there yet your courage is pretty big,” He licked his lips, as if not acknowledging that the person in front of him was a raging Alpha. He walked up and bent over, “Do I look like someone you can top?” 

Hearing him say that, Lu Xingci’s pupils shrank.

The author has something to say: What is classmate Lu Xingci thinking?