“You coming to play ball tomorrow, brother You?”
Qin You lifted his eyes and looked out the window. Wei Juncheng was standing outside the classroom, holding a basketball in his hands. When he saw Qin You looking over, he waved at him excitedly.
“I asked Old Zhang, the school’s not locking the doors tomorrow. How about it, wanna play a few rounds?”
“Not going.”
Qin You ignored him and lowered his head, stuffing a bundle of test papers messily into his bag, zipping it up, and heading for the door.
“Come on, brother You, God You! God You! I really don’t want to stay at home listening to my mom’s nagging. Show a little mercy—rescue your brother from the depths of misery, will you?”
Wei Juncheng was anxious, he hooked his right hand around Qin You’s neck, and tried hard to stop him from leaving. He had just played basketball, and his body was all sticky with sweat. As he leaned close, Qin You could feel his neck sticking to him, which made him a little irritated.
“Don’t play this trick on me, I’m going back to my hometown tomorrow, and I don’t have time to play with you. You can find Haozi, he’s free the whole winter break.” Qin You said, trying to push Wei Juncheng away.
“Your Majesty, you are so cruel, your concubine, your concubine–”
Qin You really couldn’t stand his dramatic act. He lowered his head to slip out of Wei Juncheng’s arm, then gave him a sidestep. Don’t play that trick, you’re so annoying.”
“Also, the smell of your sweat mixed with your pheromones is just…just simply standing there, you’re like a walking crowd dispersant spray.”
Wei Juncheng had only recently gone through his secondary gender differentiation. Usually, Alpha begins to show signs of differentiation in middle school. People like him who differentiate in high school are considered rare.
Moreover, he was unlucky to differentiate into the smell of durian.
“Don’t mention this to me, it hurts my heart to mention it.” Wei Juncheng pouted.
“You know, I differentiated late, and all the good-looking omegas are already taken. Now I differentiated into this smell, I guess I’ll have to die alone holding a stinky durian.”
“By the way, brother You, I really envy you. Your scent smells so nice, sandalwood! Like the smell of a bodhisattva!”
Wei Juncheng leaned in to sniff, but of course, didn’t smell anything.
“It’s just a bit too strong. I remember the first time I smelled it at your house, I almost kneeled down on the spot. But now that I think about it, I’ve never smelled your pheromones here at school.”
“Stop making small talk. Are you bored?”
Qin You glanced at him coldly, clearly not wanting to discuss it.
“Okay, okay, I won’t talk about it.”
Wei Juncheng tried to talk to him again but to no avail, so he had to make a zipper gesture with his mouth.
“Qin You.”
Qin You turned around to see his desk mate, Lian Yi, who had just transferred to the school this year. It was said that he had been sick for a while and had mostly stayed at home recovering, with private tutoring.
Lian Yi was a very pretty omega, shorter than Qin You by half a head. At this moment, he had to look up slightly to meet Qin You’s gaze.
His pupils were light in color, a soft brown that almost looked like amber in the sunset. At this moment, he looked at Qin You intently, a small reflection of a person can be seen in his eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
Qin You wasn’t good at dealing with omegas. Many Alphas, from middle school to high school, would try to be overly nice to omegas because there were so few of them, but Qin You didn’t care about that.
He thinks that this is a difficult creature to serve, and even though he was an Alpha himself, he wasn’t interested in them. He had already decided he would marry a Beta.
However, Qin You knew about Lian Yi’s illness, and before head the teacher assigned them to sit together, he had specifically reminded him to take care of Lian Yi. Qin You is the class monitor, so he pays attention and tries to help him whenever possible.
“You forgot your workbook.”
Lian Yi stretched out his hand, offering a new math workbook with the name “Qin You” written on the cover in a flowing, elegant script. His fingers were very fair, with pinkish-red nails, lightly brushing over the two characters.
“Thanks, desk mate.”
Qin You smiled and was about to shove the workbook into his bag.
“Wait.” Lian Yi called out to him. “I can’t find my workbook either, could you check if I mistakenly took it?”
Lian Yi’s voice was a bit soft. Qin You couldn’t hear him clearly, so he leaned closer to listen.
The Alpha’s body suddenly drew near, and Lian Yi could almost feel his breath on him.
He was so close, yet not a single trace of Alpha pheromone leaked out.
Qin You’s pheromone level was very high, but he had never released it in school, either intentionally or unintentionally.
There are many young and energetic Alphas in the school. They liked to release their pheromones to show off their strength and prove their dominance, but no one knew that Lian Yi often suffered from smelling their scents.
His gland was naturally defective, underdeveloped, and his late onset of estrus period caused his glands to build up an excessive defensive mechanism that instinctively repelled all Alpha pheromones.
Every time he smelled them, it was like being tortured.
He hated Alpha pheromones, yet his instincts needed them. The conflicting needs tore at him day and night, but it also made him curious about the pheromones of the Alpha closest to him.
In order to protect this classmate with weaker pheromones and prevent the pheromone leakage from affecting the Omega’s estrus periods, Qin You was always cautious and wore four to five pheromone-blocking patches to school.
Lian Yi hated Qin You’s caution and consideration at this moment. Otherwise, at this distance, he would be able to smell the scent of Alpha’s pheromones to soothe his thirsty glands.
Lian Yi repeated his words again, and this time Qin You heard him clearly. He threw his bag in front of him, rummaged through it, and pulled out a workbook. The handwriting on the cover was neat, and the small “Lian Yi” written on it clearly wasn’t his.
At that moment, Qin You felt a bit embarrassed to return the workbook to Lian Yi. Earlier, Wei Juncheng had rushed him, and he had stuffed everything into his bag in a hurry, throwing test papers and workbooks all together. Now, as he took the workbook out, its cover was folded in several places and a little damaged, not to mention the pages inside.
Compared with the brand new workbook in Lian Yi’s hand, this workbook looked pitiful.
“Sorry, Lian Yi. How about you just use mine? Just cross my name out. You… you don’t mind, right?” Qin You usually had thick skin, but at this moment, he felt a little awkward.
He took someone else’s workbook by mistake and ruined it like a pile of pickles. As a result, he was a little hesitant to make this suggestion to Lian Yi.
“It’s fine. A mistake’s a mistake. I’ll use yours then.” Lian Yi smiled, his eyes crescent-shaped, like little moons, and his lips curved into a happy smile. Qin You even felt that there was a bit of a playful, mischievous glint in that smile.
“Alright, it’s fine. Actually, it was all because of that grandson Wei Juncheng’s fault, he kept bugging me to play basketball, like it was a life-or-death matter. I had to escape from his clutches—”
“Qin You, you’re the grandson. I am your uncle!¹” Wei Juncheng jumped up from behind, and pretended to choke Qin You.
Lian Yi watched their antics.
Wei Juncheng’s right hand hooked around Qin You’s neck, and the palm of the Alpha he dreamed of tightly clasped Wei Juncheng’s elbow. The neck of the Alpha he had touched countless times in his dreams was now under the control of another Alpha, but he had no intention of pulling away.
Lian Yi’s gaze lingered on Wei Juncheng’s hand, and he pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth to suppress the bloody thoughts in his heart.
He had to admit he was jealous.
Crazy with jealousy.
He should be mine alone.
Qin You once again exerted all his strength to push the “stinky durian” off him. Noticing that Lian Yi was still standing there, he smiled and waved goodbye to his desk mate.
“See you later, Lian Yi. Have a great winter break.”
“Yeah, you too. Happy winter break.”
The earlier coldness seemed like an illusion, as the Omega smiled at Qin You with his familiar crescent-shaped eyes.
“Happy winter break—seatmate—see you—” On the way back, Wei Juncheng mimicked Qin You’s tone.
“Stop being so disgusting. I wasn’t like that just now.”
“Still not? Oh, oh, oh, you are as ruthless to me as a leaf in the autumn wind, heartless, but you treat your Omega deskmate like a spring breeze. What, you have some feelings for him?”
Wei Juncheng leaned over, grinning wickedly. Qin You immediately felt irritated at the sight, and he shoved his face away with his palm.
“Don’t make wild guesses. It’s not good for him if this gets out. Old Zhang specifically reminded me—he’s a patient, you know? So I’m being extra careful with him, what’s wrong with that?”
“Ah, you’re protecting him now! Alright, you’re really something.”
“Go away, get lost. Don’t want to deal with your nonsense. I shouldn’t even be discussing this stupid thing with you.”
Qin You dismissed Wei Juncheng and took a different route home.
At home, it was quiet. His mom was working overtime at the company and hadn’t come back.
Qin You opened the fridge, and unsurprisingly, it was empty.
Actually, Qin You knew full well that compared to her company, he didn’t hold much weight in his mom’s heart. Since he was young, he’d heard countless times that his birth had made her career more difficult.
He often felt like he was the villain in her life, the cause of all her troubles, and that she deliberately blamed him for everything.
After showering and doing some homework, Qin You suddenly felt really tired, his eyelids heavy. He tossed his phone on the bedside table to charge, tidied up his desk, and went to bed.
Before falling asleep, he suddenly remembered Lian Yi’s smile.
The Omega’s eyes curved into crescent moons when he smiled; it was strangely nice to look at.
Qin You thought it was a rather odd thought, but he never dwelled on it. Closing his eyes, he relaxed, and soon, he fell asleep.
When he woke up again, he was in a hospital.
A strange hospital. Qin You was startled, thinking he had suddenly fallen ill in the middle of the night and was brought here by someone.
He gradually regained consciousness and began to look at himself. Only then did he realize that something seemed to be wrong.
His hands had obviously grown bigger and rougher.
The body beneath his palms was solid muscle, sleek and toned, clearly different from the thin layer of muscle he had built from playing basketball in high school.
His legs were suspended in the air, in thick plaster casts. He tried to feel them but had no sensation. His arms and elbows were wrapped in bandages, and his face seemed to have a dressing on it.
What felt even stranger to Qin You was the person sitting by the bed. The person was curled up on a chair, with his head buried next to Qin You’s palm.
It was an Omega.
The Omega’s head was lowered, and Qin You couldn’t see his face clearly, but he could make out soft, light brown curly hair. Qin You raised his hand and touched it, and it felt soft.
This Omega is very well-behaved—he thought to himself for some reason.
But in Qin You’s seventeen-year-old memory, he had never had any close contact with an Omega. His strict Alpha mother’s upbringing and his own preference for choosing a Beta partner had kept him at a distance from other Omegas.
He was puzzled. It seemed as if he had gone through some disaster to end up hospitalized, yet the Omega by his side was someone he had no memory of.
But this Omega’s presence didn’t make him feel repulsed—because this Omega smelled like his own sandalwood pheromenes.
——-
Onee-chan’s Note:
¹Qin You, you’re the grandson. I am your uncle! – If you’re new to reading Chinese novels, you might be confused by this phrase. In Chinese culture, there is a deep respect for seniority. In this context though, family terms like “uncle” and “grandson” are often used playfully between friends to assert a joking hierarchy.
