A cloudy morning shrouded the world in gloom as a single leaf swirled through the air and slipped into the black car window.
The alpha slowly opened his eyes. The seat to his right was empty, save for a pair of neatly placed shoes. He froze for a long moment before leaning down to touch the inside of those shoes, his fingers meeting only chill.
The omega was gone. He had been gone for a very, very long time…
He pushed open the door and stepped out of the car. The alpha didn’t seem to have a solution yet. He stood beside the vehicle for a moment, then circled to the rear and popped open the trunk—which, of course, was just as empty.
It was a stupid method, really, but also brilliantly clever. Who would dare inspect the Chief’s car?
Five years ago, the omega had escaped using exactly this trick. But now he had found an even more convenient way, and once again, the alpha had let him slip away…
Footsteps approached from behind, and the alpha turned.
Cheng Zhu halted abruptly, cowed by the look on Liang Shijing’s face. He ducked his head quickly, but after only a few seconds’ hesitation, realization dawned. He rushed toward the car’s rear seat.
“Mr. Wen isn’t here?!”
This Chief Secretary-General, who could face down international crises at arm’s length without flinching and conduct press conferences for the Alliance of Eight Nations with flawless eloquence, was today shocked into silence—a stark break from his usual composure.
“Mr. Wen was here last night!”
“I know,” Liang Shijing said calmly. Then he did something utterly childish: he kicked away a tiny pebble at the roadside.
People only did things like that when they were bored. Such mechanical motions betrayed immersion in some deep emotion, the mind either hyper-focused or utterly adrift.
Cheng Zhu guessed it was both. But he soon reconsidered when he noticed Liang Shijing’s fingers trembling… Whatever had happened here last night was beyond his knowledge. He had no right to ask, no courage to pry. He could only wait quietly off to the side.
After a very, very long time, the alpha gave an order. “Bring Liang Wangyou here.”
Cheng Zhu didn’t move.
He had begun working for Liang Shijing ten years ago, fresh out of his early twenties and a graduate of one of the world’s most prestigious universities. Back then, he had set his sights on a career in Alliance politics—and he had succeeded. His family still carried some weight in the Capital, which got him a recommendation into a minor department there as a clerk. But a person’s energy was finite. If he hadn’t made it into the Chief’s Mansion or one of its direct affiliates by age thirty, that would be it for his life. So Cheng Zhu played to his strengths. Thanks to his photographic memory, he earned his superior’s trust after two years and was even taken to a discreet banquet.
The banquet hall had been unusually quiet that night. As an outsider with no real standing, Cheng Zhu had no business entering the center of power. He could only hover on the periphery. He had assumed the elegant beta giving orders was the host—until that beta directed the servants to serve the meal, and Cheng Zhu realized the true host had never appeared.
His exceptional memory served him well. He was quietly ushered into a study, where he met a young S-class alpha with a cool, detached air, silently handling work from behind the desk. Cheng Zhu knew his once-in-a-lifetime chance had arrived. He stepped forward to help organize the documents but, in the carelessness of youth, accidentally knocked one photo askew while stacking the files.
The photo was quite blurry: an omega standing under a tree, gazing into the distance.
Even from the omega’s back alone, it was easy to imagine how handsome his face must be. Cheng Zhu picked it up from the floor and studied it for far too long. He looked up abruptly to find the S-class alpha regarding him with a gaze sharp as a blade. Cheng Zhu realized his blunder and gently brushed nonexistent dust from the photo. Even as cold sweat trickled down his back, he managed to ask steadily, “Was this photo taken today, sir?”
The alpha’s face remained impassive as he gestured for Cheng Zhu to continue.
“There’s a thunderstorm in the Capital today, but this omega doesn’t seem to have an umbrella.”
A speck of cloud the size of a sesame seed lingered in one corner of the photo, and the omega stood empty-handed beneath it.
The S-class alpha first instructed him to unobtrusively place an umbrella in the omega’s hands, then asked his name…
From then on, Cheng Zhu worked at Liang Shijing’s side. Over five years, he earned a measure of the man’s trust. His daily task was to leverage his prodigious memory to track and recount the omega’s routines, relaying them verbally. At first, he didn’t know the omega’s true identity. Only during the Alliance’s leadership transition did it click. He had assumed Liang Shijing monitored Wen Yan’s movements out of a desire for revenge. But that rainy night, when Liang Shijing ordered him to wait at the gates for someone, he understood.
Some things couldn’t stay hidden forever.
The alpha’s care, concern, guilt, and regret toward the omega had been laid bare five years ago. Until the omega vanished. The alpha had remained calm then, too, saying simply to fetch Liang Wangyou—who had still been an infant and proved useless in the end. The omega left anyway. Or perhaps the alpha had simply never found him since. Cheng Zhu hoped Liang Wangyou wouldn’t come into play this time, either.
That way, things between the alpha and the omega would be finished for good…
Now Liang Shijing simply sat quietly in the back seat. He was angry—Cheng Zhu knew that much, and “angry” didn’t even begin to cover it. Beneath an eerie calm simmered profound fury. This time, the omega’s locator signal was still active. This time, events seemed to be spiraling out of control. For the first time, Cheng Zhu overstepped and tried to persuade.
Liang Shijing kept staring out the window and said nothing.
The black sedan sped north, racing through endless stretches of barren mountains without pause, on and on and on.
This was the second day of Wen Yan’s northward flight. From last night until now, he hadn’t dared to stop. When exhaustion hit hardest, he played some music. So far, he had passed three supply points, switching to three different models of car. His mind was too numb to decide which way to turn next, but his hands had already nudged the wheel slightly. Three kilometers from the gas station, he eased off the throttle and drifted into the rightmost slow lane.
A few minutes later, he pulled into the remote self-service gas station.
Withered grass slumped in the cracks of the concrete, tangled dead leaves concealing water stains swollen from soaking. The fuel pump was rusted over, but mercifully, this gas station was still in operation. Farther off, a dilapidated convenience store glowed with a feeble light. The clerk was propped against the counter, dozing off, when a sudden gust of cold wind jolted him awake. There, standing before him, was an omega in a face mask. He called him pretty because of those eyes—not the pallid face. Dressed in ordinary clothes, he still couldn’t hide that pure, pristine air about him. But he looked utterly worn out. Arriving at night like this, he resembled some lost wild ghost searching for its way home…
“Got any smokes?” the omega murmured.
The clerk hadn’t pegged him for a smoker and blinked in surprise. “How much you looking to spend?”
“The kind that wakes you up?”
“This one.” The clerk fished the store’s top-selling cheap cigarettes from the cabinet. Being bargain-bin stuff, they packed a wallop of tar; the smoke flooded your lungs with nicotine like a scorching blaze. The truckers who rumbled through here to cut costs were hooked on this lousy tobacco.
“Thanks.” The omega pulled out a high-denomination bill, set it on the counter, and turned to go.
“Hey!” the clerk called out hastily.
The omega paused under the desolate eaves amid the whistling autumn wind. The clerk hollered twice more. He didn’t whirl around right away, as if weighing whether to bother coming back, but eventually he did—politely adding, “Keep the change.”
“Uh…” The clerk’s eyes darted away. Truth be told, he hadn’t called him back for the money. He just wanted to ask if he needed a lighter. To dodge the awkwardness, he blurted it out. The omega froze for a second, then muttered to himself, Oh, right—a lighter. He dug out another high-denomination bill.
Back in the car, Wen Yan fumbled forever before peeling off the plastic wrap from the pack. He lit one up clumsily, stiffly. One tiny puff, and his mouth filled with swirling fog—too thick to swallow, too stubborn to spit. He choked up tears in an instant. Sleepiness? Vanished. He chucked the cigarette and hit the gas.
He drove on for a few more hours. Over eight hundred kilometers remained to the border destination—another seven or eight hours behind the wheel.
The mountains had likely entered snow season again. Were those towering peaks still wreathed in their perennial white haze? Venturing in now would be treacherous; he might well freeze to death out there.
But Wen Yan didn’t want to go like that…
He’d once watched a documentary about it: prolonged exposure to the cold stiffened the skin, peripheral blood vessels contracting to shunt blood inward, safeguarding the vital organs. Then those vessels would snap open, hot blood surging back to the surface in a cruel illusion of warmth. Victims stripped off their clothes, and as the snow melted their flesh, it peeled away in mottled patches. Out in those mountains, his body wouldn’t even fully rot before the next blizzard buried it.
Omegas like him had always been praised for their looks—he’d never been ugly. If Liang Wangyou grew up, learned the truth, and somehow tracked him down here… Wen Yan didn’t want the boy seeing him like that. And if Liang Shijing came too…
So he pressed on, clinging to the hope he had a few days left. There were things he still needed to do.
In his final moments, he’d gather every scrap of food from the supply points and stash it where the little squirrels could find it. He’d check if their tree-hollow nest was warm enough, sweep the snow from the little cabin’s front eaves, take a bath back in the room, trim his nails, fold his clothes neatly. Then he could lie down in bed and pull out the photo album chronicling Liang Wangyou’s childhood, turning the pages one by one.
Liang Shijing had once promised he could visit his room every night to pore over those pictures. Wen Yan’s heart had ached with longing; on countless dull evenings, he’d fantasized about slipping in unseen. But Oak Bay was vast, and it wasn’t his home—he couldn’t just sneak into the master’s quarters uninvited.
Liang Shijing was fickle. He treated Wen Yan kindly most days, but cross him, and he turned vicious…
Wen Yan dreaded being cast out.
Wen Zecheng’s death had left him homeless. These scattered little cabins—tucked away in cities, rural towns, seaside nooks, bustling districts, remote mountains—were all he had left. Here, he could gaze at the photos in safety, lights blazing bright. He could laugh aloud or weep without anyone calling him a fool.
At Oak Bay, if Liang Shijing told him to leave, he’d have no choice…
But viewing them alone felt so lonely…
If only Liang Shijing could share the stories behind each shot…
No matter. Wen Yan was content enough.
He gripped the wheel, eyes fixed on the road ahead. Almost there. They’d said this time of year wasn’t too brutal yet. Right at the border, nestled in a mountain valley, lay a town famed for its natural hot springs. Tourists flocked there in droves. Wen Yan had lived in the area for five years but never dared wander its streets.
A few more hours, and the road grew slick, the air from the vents turning icy. Past that big bridge lay the final supply point. The off-roader’s tires bit into the pavement as it hugged the cliffside curve. The bridge loomed into view—but where it should have been deserted, a black sedan sat parked on the span.
The alpha who belonged in the Capital, and Little Alpha, stood side by side before the car—one tall, one short—not knowing how long they’d been waiting.
Wen Yan couldn’t process what he was seeing. As his vehicle drew nearer, their faces sharpened into focus. If it was a hallucination, why were Liang Wangyou’s eyes and nose so red? If it was a hallucination, why was Liang Shijing’s shirt so rumpled? Just as the three were about to meet, those two faces—large and small—locked onto him through the windshield. Time stretched to an agonizing crawl, like a film in slow motion, dragging on forever. The dark-green mountains and the bridge’s steel skeleton blurred into hazy shadows. Only the alpha’s piercing stare and Little Alpha’s tear-filled eyes stood out in stark relief.
It lasted mere seconds before they passed each other by.
Wen Yan gasped raggedly, panic surging. He had no idea why Liang Shijing and Liang Wangyou were here. Pull over or keep going? The thoughts clashed wildly in his mind—until a gunshot cracked behind him. The echoing report roused the birds resting in the valley; they shot into the sky like arrows, wheeling in a vast, roiling flock.
Through the rearview mirror, the omega watched as the alpha slowly lowered the hand that had fired the warning shot. As a wisp of gunsmoke faded away, he kept the barrel steadily trained on the back of Little Alpha’s head.
The alpha stared back at the omega from the narrow confines of the mirror, his face utterly expressionless. He hadn’t woven an inescapable dragnet like he had the night before. He hadn’t unleashed a crushing encirclement.
He had come alone with Little Alpha. No words were needed. No further action required. That one simple gesture had been enough to make the omega turn back without hesitation.
