Jiang Rang rarely saw the Male Master in such a near-deranged state.
In the young man’s mind, Qi Yu’s image had always been one of aloof detachment, gloom, and unpredictable moods. If he had to describe it, the other man was more like the mist that suddenly rose after a rainy night—an incomprehensible, forbidden haze that no one dared approach.
Those noisy, grating sounds were like a brief downpour. Once the sturdy door locked them out, they dwindled into silence, ultimately swallowed whole by the vortex of dead quiet.
The room fell utterly still in an instant.
No one spoke. No one moved.
The beta remained half-seated on the edge of the bed, his head bowed low. Strands of disheveled hair draped over half his face, shrouded in shadow. His athletic frame showed only the faint rise and fall of his chest with each breath, while the glaring red marks on his neck stood out like some shameful tattoo, pinning him in place, unable to stir.
“Mr. Qi,” the young man said, slowly retying the bathrobe that had loosened around his hips.
“I’m sorry you had to see something so ugly.”
The beta continued speaking to himself: “You don’t need to worry about me, really. I went along with it willingly…”
“Shut up.”
A cold voice, thick with suppressed fury, brutally cut off the youth’s trembling words. An icy hand seized the beta’s newly sharpened jaw with bone-chilling force.
Jiang Rang was forced to lift his head, meeting the omega’s stunning yet frigid face—delicate features half-veiled by sleek black hair.
Qi Yu was still breathtakingly beautiful, strikingly vivid. Yet Jiang Rang clearly saw the deep red around his eyes, the taut line of his jaw, and the skin twitching in near-distorted spasms.
With a sudden yank, Qi Yu pulled the beta closer. His blood-red lips pressed against the young man’s earlobe in a kiss.
A lingering, almost blood-scented whisper slithered out like a serpent’s hiss: “Jiang Rang, could you really stomach sleeping with him?”
Qi Yu’s lips curled back. He slowly released his icy grip, letting out exaggerated, giggling laughs. His fingertips circled lazily, kneading from the youth’s cheek down to his pale lips.
“Hearing his voice makes you want to puke, doesn’t it?”
“How many times have you fantasized about shoving him away? Or stomping him underfoot, slashing that face to ribbons, hacking that repulsive head to pieces?”
The increasingly manic voice poured down like damp rain, only to vanish into ash in the next instant.
Qi Yu caught sight of the youth’s pallid, panicked, terrified expression—that strange, incredulous stare, as if gazing upon some eerie demon ghost.
He staggered back two steps. A sharp pain lanced through his mind, igniting like a sea of fire. He recalled Chen Yanyu’s final curse, spat as he was dragged away like a dead dog.
“Qi Yu, you think you’re any different from me in his heart?”
The omega burst into low, muffled laughter. He clapped a hand over his mouth, his body trembling lightly. Long black strands clung to his cheeks and the hollow of his neck, like chain after chain of dark iron.
Jiang Rang fell silent again. He watched quietly for a long moment before his pale lips parted slightly. “So, Mr. Qi,” he asked softly, “what exactly did you come here for today?”
The beta had never shared his whereabouts with the other man, nor communicated with anyone else in the villa.
The question landed like a bizarre, fracturing signal—a sliver of icy silver needle, stabbing mercilessly into both their hearts.
Qi Yu’s gaunt face turned ashen as wall dust. His crimson lips twisted into a grotesque smile.
“Don’t you already know?”
He stared coldly at the beta on the bed, speaking amid the dying embers flickering out in the young man’s eyes: “I want you, Jiang Rang.”
“You have no choice but me.”
A suffocating chill crept through the room. After a long pause, the beta drew a deep breath and rasped out in resignation: “Fine.”
The man said nothing. He had gotten the answer he wanted, yet his ashen face grew even paler, more pitiable. Even those pitch-black, lifeless eyes turned misty and damp, as if a single squeeze would force out a flood of salty tears.
But the youth showed him no mercy.
The beta’s calm, indifferent voice sliced like a blade: “Mr. Qi, once you give birth to the child, I can leave, right? So when do we start? Right here, right now?”
Qi Yu had never found the young man’s voice so grating before.
It echoed the chattering gossip of the maids outside his window during those childhood confinements under the pale daylight; the alphas’ cold sneers at school; every voice that had ever opposed him, declaring him unworthy.
The tragedy was, against others, the omega still had the strength to fight back. But against Jiang Rang? He could only let the other wield the knife, carving him into a thousand bleeding wounds.
Qi Yu’s wrists trembled violently, droplets of water tracing a path from his jaw down the hollow of his neck. He wanted to say something, but extreme emotions choked his throat.
For a fleeting moment, the omega truly believed he might die right then and there.
Just as the shadow of death began to drag him into oblivion, he felt a gentle kiss land on his lips, soft as snowflakes in winter.
Qi Yu’s eyes snapped open.
The young man’s face filled his vision, enlarged and close. Long, thick lashes trembled lightly against closed lids, a faint blush dusting his honey-colored skin.
Time itself seemed to halt in that instant.
A strange thought bubbled up in Qi Yu’s chest: they looked like lovers sharing their first kiss.
No coercion. No seduction. No fevered haze of lust.
Just a simple kiss between two people in love.
Qi Yu knew it was nothing more than his own self-deluding fantasy. Yet in that moment, shamefully, he wanted to crown the young man’s gesture with the mantle of love.
Perhaps his gaze burned too intensely. Jiang Rang’s eyes fluttered open instinctively.
Their eyes met.
Somehow, in that exchange, an intimate tension bloomed unbidden.
The young man’s face flushed deeper, like overripe fruit. Overwhelmed by the odd emotion, he instinctively tried to pull back—but a pair of pale, slender hands clamped firmly around his waist.
Jiang Rang’s waist was exquisitely shaped, slim even with tensed muscles, complete with two alluring dimples at the small of his back. Now, they were pinned precisely by the man’s grip.
A rouge-like pink crept over Qi Yu’s pale face. His dark eyes locked onto the youth, his tongue tip probing gently, like a tender sprout in spring.
The beta offered no resistance, but made no move either.
Emboldened, as if granted permission, the man began to kiss him with exquisite care.
Qi Yu’s kisses differed from Chen Yanyu’s or Chen Jingxu’s. Even in the throes of passion, the omega always exercised infinite restraint.
His desire surged like a torrent, laced with boundless longing and affection.
Sucking, licking, deep kisses, tongues entwining in fervent dance.
The breaths coming faster than his own were the beta’s stifled groans by his ear.
Qi Yu drew back just a fraction, his dark, brooding eyes shimmering with unshed tears. He gently caressed the youth’s flushed cheek and murmured lowly, “Let’s continue at home.”
Jiang Rang steadied his own breathing. Only after a long moment did he give a soft hum of agreement.
~~~
The beta had assumed, given the Male Master’s nature, they would head to the soft, comfortable Master Bedroom.
To his surprise, Qi Yu clasped his hand and led him instead to the comparatively cramped Servants’ Room.
The glass window stood open, night breezes billowing the gauze curtains. Under the dim yellow lamplight, the scene took on an oddly warm, almost sacred glow.
Jiang Rang moved to close the window, but cool fingers gently caught his wrist.
It was like a damp, ambiguous signal. Both their bodies went rigid.
A moist, sticky moss scent began to coil through the narrow space, thick enough to seem on the verge of spilling over.
The cold wind lifted the curtains once more. By now, the young beta sat on the blindingly white bed, neck arched back, yielding to the omega’s worshipful, tender kisses.
Light, humid breaths tangled between their noses, warm as a summer night’s breeze.
Qi Yu’s eyes were downcast, his sockets and the tip of his nose misted over as if from some subtle irritation, flecked with a dewy blush.
His voice came out hoarse as he whispered, “Jiang Rang, will you regret this?”
Jiang Rang said nothing. His lowered lashes cast faint gray shadows under the light.
Suddenly, Qi Yu didn’t want to hear the answer. He poured all his strength into sealing the beta’s lips with his own, kissing with the desperation of a man facing the apocalypse.
The moonlight vanished behind roiling clouds. Outside, tree shadows blurred into darkness, flowers quivering faintly. Only the harsh glare of the indoor light stung the eyes.
Jiang Rang’s eyes quivered. Abruptly, he pressed down on the protruding knuckles of Qi Yu’s hand and rasped, “Mister, you’re an omega. Doing this… could you get pregnant?”
Qi Yu made no reply—or rather, all that remained in his throat were ragged gasps.
The man’s face burned crimson. His long hair spilled like water across skin so white it nearly blinded, trailing down over the honey-toned youth’s abdomen below.
Jiang Rang no longer had the strength to press the question. His vision blurred and shattered. Every sense drowned in overwhelming heat and slick wetness.
Moonlight returned. Dazed, the youth clutched at the omega’s swaying, cascading locks. A watery halo flooded his sight. The beta’s honeyed skin had been scorched by fire into deep crimson, nowhere more so than his swollen chest—swelled even further from excessive attention, now grotesquely exaggerated.
Staring blankly at the ceiling light, Jiang Rang wondered hazily why the omegas in the city were so different from what everyone else said.
Countless snippets of information about omegas that he’d once heard on the radio strangely bubbled up in his ears, only to crumble entirely the moment his gaze fell on Qi Yu above him.
Gentle and virtuous?
Born to be the receptive partner?
Jiang Rang couldn’t hold himself back again. He bit down hard on the omega’s satin-smooth black hair, his eyes brimming with a surging tide of tears that trailed down those strikingly vivid corners.
Even as his scalp stung from the yank, the man showed no anger. Instead, he gently stroked the beta to soothe him, murmuring soft words to coax the young man.
No surprise there—these so-called news reports were just as full of hot air as the clickbait posts on social media, the dazed beta thought.
So why had no one ever mentioned that omegas in the city could top people?