Spring passed so quickly it felt like it had never arrived at all, and early summer was upon them before they knew it.
In the late stages of his pregnancy, Wen Yan grew lazier and lazier, spending his days lounging in bed and refusing to budge. Liang Shijing converted one of the rooms on the first floor into a miniature theater, inviting orchestras and national treasure-level stage performers to put on shows.
Only then would Wen Yan lazily drag himself out of bed, willing to set foot on the carpet and stir a little. His body remained perfectly healthy, as did the baby. His legs had merely swollen up, and for all the meticulous care lavished on him, he hadn’t gained a single ounce—his back and arms stayed as slender as ever. Every evening before bed, Liang Shijing massaged his legs. Wen Yan would recline against the pillows, blissfully reading, as the early summer breeze wafted gently through the white gauze curtains. The bedroom held only the rustle of turning pages and Liang Shijing’s soft murmurs.
The first few days of those massages stayed relatively proper, but one thing led to another, and soon their gazes locked…
The day of the surgery dawned exceptionally clear and bright. Wen Yan felt no anxiety at all—he simply had to go downstairs to the operating room prepared just for him. Liang Shijing, on the other hand, broke out in a light sweat as he clasped Wen Yan’s hand. Wen Yan found it endlessly amusing. It was just a straightforward C-section, after all…
What would Liang Shijing do if they ever faced a crisis that even the Chief Medical Team couldn’t resolve?
Ahead stretched the cold, silent expanse of the sterile operating area. Two teams of medical personnel in full protective suits waited at the door. During the procedure, they could not be exposed to even the slightest trace of omega pheromones; the operating room’s ventilation system itself had to cycle through inactivating filters. The potential disaster of any leak didn’t bear imagining, which was why alphas were barred from entry too.
“You’re starting to scare me a little,” Wen Yan said, feigning concern.
“Why?” Liang Shijing asked instinctively.
Wen Yan burst into laughter, patting the back of his hand. “You can watch me from behind that glass, and I’ll be able to see you. Hu Li said I’d be out in ten minutes.”
In reality, the surgery wrapped up a minute and a half ahead of schedule.
It was a little alpha, who let out his first cry only after a firm flick to the sole of his foot, his tiny cheeks all wrinkled up like a little old man’s…
Wen Yan entered with a healthy flush to his cheeks and was wheeled out pale as a ghost—though Liang Shijing looked even whiter…
The baby’s arrival didn’t disrupt their daily rhythm much. Liang Shijing simply couldn’t hold Wen Yan to sleep anymore, so he pulled up a chair beside the bed to keep vigil. He tended to every need personally, his face betraying none of a new father’s joy—only a mask of stoic blankness…
“Don’t stare at me like that, okay? I’m not going to fly away.” With the anesthesia still lingering in his system, Wen Yan could manage a smile and a quip or two. By the next day, though, once it had worn off and he had to get up and move around, fear set in. His body had always been hypersensitive, to pleasure as much as to pain.
No one knew how Liang Shijing, Chief of the Command Nation of the Alliance of Eight Nations, juggled his duties. Whatever the case, he never strayed more than three meters from Wen Yan’s side. When the medical personnel helped him take those first steps, Wen Yan sucked in a sharp breath.
“Take it slow—no rush,” they reminded him gently.
They waited a few minutes, but the instant Wen Yan stepped forward, pain twisted his features. Liang Shijing tensed, positioning himself protectively in front—though there was nothing he could do but guard the empty space ahead.
“Breathe evenly…” The medical personnel dabbed at his sweat.
“O-okay—” Wen Yan’s lips quivered, and tears spilled before he could finish. “It hurts so much, Liang Shijing…”
“Step aside.” Liang Shijing took over from the medical personnel, wrapping a steady arm around his back. “We’re done walking.”
They helped Wen Yan back into bed. Liang Shijing asked Hu Li if they could delay by a day, but Hu Li delivered a resounding “No.”
…And so, amid pain and amusement, Wen Yan watched Liang Shijing compromise his principles yet again for his sake. “Not even a few hours?”
Hu Li responded with a doctor’s careful precision: “Not recommended.”
The standoff dragged on. Liang Shijing finally turned back, hesitating. Wen Yan hated seeing him so conflicted and reached out to rise again. Walking was excruciatingly hard, but he was astonished to discover how professional Liang Shijing’s supporting grip and guiding words were.
“How do you know how to do this?” Wen Yan hissed through gritted teeth.
“I learned,” Liang Shijing replied, eyes locked on the floor ahead.
The omega froze for a long moment, his heart and lungs swelling with an emotion too profound to name. In a quiet voice, he asked, “Why on earth did you learn this?”
Two teams of elite doctors had stood ready that day, equipment triple-checked, the medical department running three hundred simulations just for prep work. What need was there for an alpha to master this? Liang Shijing feeding him water, wiping him down, spooning food into his mouth over the past weeks—that wasn’t so extraordinary. But to study this trivial detail he might never use? How long had he practiced? It must have been countless times, or his movements wouldn’t be so fluid. Wen Yan wondered: if he hadn’t needed the support today, would he ever have learned of all the quiet preparations Liang Shijing had made behind the scenes?
Wen Yan could scarcely fathom it—and the realization filled him with uncontainable joy.
“What’s wrong?” Liang Shijing brushed his cheek.
Snapping back, Wen Yan blinked and realized tears were streaming down his face.
During the recovery period—not too long, not too short—Liang Shijing fumbled at certain tasks. His technique for holding the baby was clumsy, and soothing the child was even worse. He paid little mind to most things, yet obsessed over the precise temperature of the omega’s drinking cup…
Once the incision had mostly healed, the childcare workers brought the baby that afternoon. The tiny infant, sated from a full meal, lay between his “parents,” big dark eyes darting this way and that.
Mm-hmm, the father on the left looks handsome. Nice.
Mm-hmm, the daddy on the right seems gentle. Perfect.
“He’s already half a month old. Shouldn’t we give him a name?” Wen Yan propped himself up on one elbow, feigning gravity.
“Mm. Got any ideas?” Liang Shijing mirrored him, gazing over.
“You pick. My brain’s been foggy lately.”
“How about Liang Wangyou?”
“I knew it.” Wen Yan’s lips curved.
“Knew what?”
“You had it ready ages ago.”
With the omega and child nestled on the alpha’s right side, their profiles bore an uncanny resemblance, large and small alike. The alpha needed do nothing but glance right, and there the omega would always be.
“Which characters?” Wen Yan asked. “It has a nice ring. Why that name?”
Harboring his private motive, Liang Shijing gave another succinct reason.
“Good name.” Wen Yan stuck out his tongue. “I came up with one too, actually—but I’ve gotten so dim-witted lately, I forgot what it was.”
After a long while, Liang Shijing lowered his gaze and clasped his hand. “It’s all right. It’s not your fault.”
Once the side effects of the psychiatric drugs took hold, it meant the medication had to be stopped immediately. The omega was happily entertaining himself with the child, oblivious to the fact that the alpha’s carefully orchestrated dream—a mere illusion—was on the verge of shattering.
In truth, that dream was nothing more than a polite euphemism. This year-long reverie had been a trap, seized through cunning deception and brute force.
“Chief, it’s time to stop the drugs,” Hu Li said pointedly in the dead of night.
The silent study was filled with the faint scent of tobacco. A slender wisp of blue smoke rose lazily from the alpha’s fingertip for the first time in ages, while the pale moonlight bathed his shoulder.
“You were pretty busy today, huh?” This was the first time Wen Yan had soaked in the bathtub since his surgery. He let out a contented hum through his nose—he’d slept too much during the day and now found himself wide awake. Tilting his head back with his eyes open, he asked Liang Shijing.
“Not busy at all. I was just discussing your condition with Hu Li.”
“All right, then. I have another question for you.”
“Hm?” Liang Shijing’s fingertips paused amid the foam in his hair.
“How did we meet? Was it at the orphanage?”
“No.”
“Oh. Then why didn’t you answer my first question?” Wen Yan tilted his head. “Was it not a very happy memory?”
Liang Shijing looked down at him with lowered eyes. “I met you when I was sixteen. You didn’t know me back then.”
“Tell me about it. I want to hear.” It had been ages since Wen Yan felt this excited.
“Nothing special about it. The first time I saw your photo, I thought you were just a pretty little airhead. I didn’t feel much. Then you grew up, little by little. Once you came of age, I did a few things, and you came looking for me.”
“I didn’t even know you. Why would I come find you? And why wait until I was an adult? What did you do?”
“Eighteen’s the legal age, isn’t it?” Liang Shijing replied evenly.
Of course. Eighteen was when you could get married. Sex with an eighteen-year-old omega was legal. Everyone else his age was still in college…
“I…” Wen Yan’s cheeks gradually flushed pink. “Everyone else was still studying, but I…”
He’d been pregnant at eighteen…
“You can go back to it later if you want,” Liang Shijing said. “What made you ask all of a sudden?”
“Oh, yesterday I was in the piano room jotting down some sheet music. I’d figured out the ending, but by the time I wrote it on the wall, I’d forgotten it. And there are so many other things like that. Consul Ji said I’d already read that book, but I don’t remember it at all. My memories have been all jumbled up lately. Is it because of the head injury from before?” Wen Yan said, puzzled.
Liang Shijing dabbed a bit of foam on his forehead.
“Are you trying to kiss me?” Wen Yan asked, his eyes curving into happy crescents.
A faint smile tugged at Liang Shijing’s lips as he leaned down and brushed his mouth lightly over the foamy spot. “Yes.”
“Next time I get in the tub, I’ll be extra, extra careful.” Wen Yan vowed solemnly, only to grow wistful again moments later. “Will the memory issues get worse? What if I forget you all over again someday?”
The foam had lingered in his hair too long. Liang Shijing gently rinsed it out, blow-dried his hair, dried his body, and helped him back into bed. Exhaustion finally overtook Wen Yan, and he burrowed sleepily under the covers.
“I’ll help you remember,” Liang Shijing said at last.
“What?” Wen Yan blinked groggily.
“Wen Yan.” Liang Shijing rarely used his full name.
“Hm?”
“Do you like your life right now?”
“I do.” Wen Yan gave a soft smile.
“Would you be willing to live like this forever? With me?” Liang Shijing asked.
“Yes.” Wen Yan’s eyes drifted shut. Then, as if remembering something, he half-sat up. “I haven’t taken my medicine yet today.”
“No more medicine. Not ever again.” Liang Shijing gazed at him intently and murmured softly after a pause.
Wen Yan slept for a full two days straight. Just like a year ago, he lay on the right side of the grand bed, staring blankly out the window. Outside, the oak tree had transformed overnight from early autumn splendor to midsummer green. Cooing sounds reached his ears. He turned his head and saw an adorable infant sucking on its tiny fist beside him. The S-level Alpha sat on the sofa across the room.
Wen Yan’s own abdomen bore a fresh, healed scar.
Long-buried memories came flooding back like a tidal wave. Why was there suddenly a child? Why the new scar?
How had it all begun? How had things come to this?
He remembered.
Yes.
His father, Wen Zecheng, had been the executioner, slaughtering the alpha’s parents for the sake of power.
Yes.
On that stormy night of thunder and lightning, he’d knocked on the door of Oak Bay, intending to use hallucinatory pheromones to trick the alpha into letting him see his father.
Yes.
But everything had gone wrong. That very night, he’d been lifelong marked, plunging straight into dependency period. He and the alpha had mated ceaselessly, day and night, and then he’d gotten pregnant.
Yes.
He was an accomplice too.
“You’re insane…”
“Liang Shijing, you’re insane! How could we have a child in a relationship like ours?”
The omega had been so happy before falling asleep. Now, after this “single night,” there was suddenly a child. It was only natural for him to feel anger, terror, and agony. Nothing could be worse.
Yet that irretrievable stretch of time felt like a parallel world, observed by a clear-eyed spectator with a god’s-eye view. The voice sneered mockingly right in the alpha’s ear:
“You had every chance to stop it that rainy night. All you had to do was press the emergency button on your wristband before losing control. The security guards stationed downstairs would have burst in within three seconds. Everything could have been salvaged then… but you and the omega would never have crossed paths again.”
“But in truth, when the omega was crying and begging you, you didn’t even hear what he was saying, did you?”
“Some people are better off meeting just once. But you went and removed the wristband yourself.”
“Even after the omega got pregnant, you still could have stopped it. Sure, it would have been a tough call, but it was just an omega’s reproductive cavity. Compared to the grudge you’ve carried for decades, wasn’t the choice obvious?”
“But once your heart stirred, how could something so beautiful be weighed against hatred?”
“How long did you think that little pill could keep its power going?”
“You’re on your own now.”
“So no matter if you were wrong or how you chose to act, you deserved every bit of it~”
“No going back now. That whole year was something you stole, after all…”
