“Mr. Wen has returned home. All security teams, stand down and clear the path.”
The guards snapped back to attention from their salute as the heavy, intricately carved gates slowly swung open. Security personnel along the route relayed the update through their earpieces layer by layer, while the swarm of drones patrolling the skies twenty-four hours a day peeled off first toward their cruising routes.
Oak Bay—named for the long rows of oak trees lining the road in front of the estate—was the grand private residence belonging to Liang Shijing. Its exact location wasn’t marked on any map, just like the countless supply points and border cabins that Wen Yan had used. These were all privileges crafted by successive Chiefs, designed with absolute secrecy and precision targeting in mind.
After crossing several miles of sprawling lawns, the Oak Corridor came into view, its new leaves casting fresh shadows. Wen Yan rolled down the car window, letting the crisp, moist breeze brush against his face.
At the end of the road stood a vast white private residence. To the right of the designated parking spot waited a refined middle-aged Beta man in a black uniform.
Ji Shu, Consul Ji, was the man in charge of daily life at Oak Bay.
The car pulled up at the parking spot in front of the residence. Before the bodyguards could open the door, Wen Yan eagerly scrambled out. Consul Ji stepped forward with a gentle smile. “Mr. Wen, welcome back.”
During his “brief” stay at Oak Bay, Wen Yan remembered Ji Shu as an easy person to get along with. The man had never shown any disgust toward his actions. Still, the word “back” didn’t quite fit, though Wen Yan wasn’t in the habit of correcting people. He nodded slightly. “Hello, Consul Ji.”
“The weather’s nice today, Mr. Wen. Would you like to head straight to your room, or take a stroll around first?”
The familiar tone made it sound as if Wen Yan had lived here as the master of the house for a long time. Without dwelling on it, Wen Yan cut to the chase.
“Is Liang Shijing here? I’m here to see him.”
“He’s in.”
“Is Little You home?”
“Not yet. School’s not out.” Consul Ji glanced at his watch. “It’s Monday math class right now.”
“When does he get back?” As they spoke, Wen Yan hurried up the winding white stone stairs leading to the residence. “It’s hard to say exactly,” Consul Ji explained carefully from three steps behind. “After regular classes, the Young Master usually joins some extracurricular activities.”
“Like skiing? Does he fall while skiing?”
“He did take a tumble yesterday,” Consul Ji replied. “But he was fine. The safety measures are top-notch, with a coach and medical staff on standby the whole time.”
“Has he been healthy, both physically and mentally, from childhood to now?”
“He’s doing great on both fronts.” Consul Ji looked puzzled. “Is there something you’re worried about?”
“It’s nothing.” Wen Yan let out a long breath, thinking to himself that Liang Shijing was truly despicable. Just as he was about to take the final step, Consul Ji suddenly straightened up and respectfully called out, “Chief Liang.”
Wen Yan turned to follow his gaze. The dark teak double doors at the center of the residence had swung inward, revealing a spacious, airy entryway beyond. Liang Shijing stood there by the door, dressed in a simple white shirt and casual slacks, hands in his pockets, his face dark with irritation.
Liar. A good-looking liar was his only redeeming quality. Wen Yan looked away.
“What do you want?” Liang Shijing asked coldly.
The lies were his invention, the outing his restriction, the bodyguards his arrangement. Now that it was all exposed, he wasn’t even blushing—instead, he loomed there with that superior attitude, asking a question he already knew the answer to.
Once inside the entryway, Consul Ji reminded him, “Mr. Wen, let me take your coat. I’ll have it pressed so it’s ready for you to wear again.”
“Thanks.” Wen Yan shrugged off his trench coat and handed it over. As he bent down to change shoes, a fleeting fragment flashed through the depths of his mind. He frowned. In the haze, a voice seemed to warn, “Not bending down…”
Why not bend down?
“Falling asleep while changing shoes?” Liang Shijing’s voice pressed down from above.
Wen Yan’s long lashes trembled as he kept changing shoes. The next second, a slight tug came at his scalp—Liang Shijing had yanked his hair. His tone grew heavier as he urged, “Speak.”
“You lied to me.” Wen Yan clutched his hair and dodged away.
“Pulling lies out of thin air.” Liang Shijing gave him a faint glance and headed inside.
In the main hall, sunlight and greenery filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, spilling onto the simple yet elegant furniture by the glass. The entire residence followed a clean, airy monochrome style, accented only by simple vases of flowers and tasteful art pieces.
Liang Shijing settled onto the long central sofa, several confidential documents stamped with top-secret seals scattered across the low table in front of him.
“He’s not doing badly, right?” To avoid any awkwardness, Wen Yan stood far away.
“Come here.” Liang Shijing didn’t look up as he sorted the files.
“Answer me first, okay?”
“You come here first.”
“Answer if you lied to me first.” Wen Yan was insistent.
“You think you’re that easy to fool?” Liang Shijing stretched and flexed his hands on the table. His pale wrist bones bore a black Alpha Bracelet, and the lines of his forearms—alternately relaxing and tensing—were strikingly attractive. But that face he turned toward Wen Yan was still sour. “Last time. Come here.”
Afraid of provoking Liang Shijing’s disgust, Wen Yan chose the farthest corner of the sofa and sat down. Just like at their reunion, he buried his head deeply and said softly, “Don’t lie to me about things like that anymore.”
A servant brought two glasses of freshly squeezed prune juice, placing the darker one in front of Liang Shijing and the lighter one before Wen Yan. Liang Shijing took a sip and said with downcast eyes, “Depends on my mood.” Then he asked, “What do you want?”
“You know.” Wen Yan murmured in reply, sipping his prune juice as he pondered how to beg to see Little You, even from afar. But in that brief silence, Liang Shijing grew impatient. “Nothing to say? Then go back to the hotel. Don’t keep using hunger strikes and insomnia as threats.”
“I’m not threatening you.” Wen Yan peeked over the rim of his glass with wide, startled eyes. “Are you going to lock me up again?”
The question didn’t make much logical sense upon closer inspection—as if Wen Yan subconsciously believed that once he saw Liang Shijing, the man’s goal would be achieved, and he wouldn’t be confined anymore.
Ideals were plump; reality was skin and bones.
“Which eye of yours saw me locking you up?” Liang Shijing said.
“But I can’t leave the Capital.” Wen Yan shot back, a touch peevish.
His voice was soft and halting, and as he spoke with his head bowed, a stretch of his slender nape was exposed, covered by a flesh-toned Barrier Patch. To an Alpha’s eyes, the pitiful, aggrieved posture looked like nothing less than coquetry.
“Playing the victim? We confiscated one set of fake documents, and you had another. Can’t we punish a violator like you? Or do you think the hotel bed’s too big and you want to try prison instead?”
Li Li had mentioned before that identity checks in the Capital had been especially strict these past few years. To enter the SOP District, one first had to surrender their identification documents at the guard post. The one Liang Shijing had confiscated was precisely that, but Wen Yan actually had a whole stack of them—like a deck of playing cards. He didn’t dare refute and only buried his head even lower.
“No words? Then get out,” Liang Shijing said with a tsk.
“I don’t…” Wen Yan hesitated.
“Don’t what? Aren’t you doing everything you can to leave?”
“I do want to leave, but could you give me a front-facing photo of Little You?” He set the prune juice on the edge of the low table. “Just one is fine, even if it’s blurry…”
“Why should I?”
“I just want a photo.” If he had a picture of the child with him at the moment of death, dying wouldn’t seem quite so terrifying. Wen Yan rose to his feet, stammering.
“Isn’t that a little ridiculous?” He wasn’t sure which words had struck a nerve, but Liang Shijing suddenly turned aggressive. “If you want to see him so badly, why bring it up now? Why did you run away five years ago? Why come back now? And why are you in such a hurry to leave?”
The four sharp barbs left Wen Yan utterly speechless. What reason did he have not to leave Oak Bay? And what reason did he have to stay?
“I’m sorry. I promise I won’t come back. Please don’t restrict my movements.”
“You won’t come back?” Liang Shijing fixed him with a cold, piercing stare.
“Yes, I’ll leave right away.”
“Did I say you could go?”
“You… what do you mean…”
Just then, two doctors carrying medical kits entered from the long corridor connecting the Main Hall on the left to the lounge area on the right. They halted three meters away, hands pressed to their trouser seams, and bowed deeply to Liang Shijing. Liang Shijing undid the top button of his shirt collar. The doctors stepped forward and opened the metal case. Amid the billowing white mist of cryogenic vapor, Wen Yan glimpsed a slender metal syringe preserved inside, filled with an ambiguously pink liquid.
“Inject the gland,” Liang Shijing commanded.
The doctors hesitated for an instant but could not defy the order. They advanced, first disinfecting Liang Shijing’s posterior cervical gland with an alcohol swab. The gland was the most vulnerable spot for Alphas and Omegas alike. Dense with nerve endings, it produced intense euphoria from licking or caressing—but even the slightest external force caused excruciating pain. No one was more qualified to speak on enduring agony than him. The rapid-push injection technique hurt even more, yet Liang Shijing bore it all with a perfectly composed expression. Once finished, the doctors packed away the case, offered a half-bow, and quietly withdrew.
“It’s my fault, isn’t it? Because of my pheromones?” Wen Yan had fully pieced it together, his throat dry as he spoke.
In the past, his medical team had reported that his pheromones seemed to carry some kind of pathogenic element. But before they could investigate further, Wen Zecheng had been thrown in prison. The team that had helped cover up his dirty deeds was suspended and probed. Liang Shijing had wielded his authority like thunder; nearly all the medical team’s leadership received life sentences. Only Li Li, positioned on the team’s fringes and ignorant of the secrets, had escaped unscathed.
“Thanks to you,” Liang Shijing said, his collar still open as he leaned back into the sofa. “Seeing your enemy suffer firsthand—doesn’t that bring you some satisfaction?”
What satisfaction could there be? Overwhelming guilt swelled boundlessly within Wen Yan, slithering through his veins like tiny snakes in a frenzied crawl. “I’m sorry. I’m really, truly sorry.”
The root of that first apology traced back to that year of tangled roots and knots—when Wen Yan had just turned eighteen and his gland began secreting pheromones for the first time. During his medical examination, the team discovered that his pheromones possessed dual properties: indulgent and hallucinogenic. In small doses, they could plunge an Alpha into illusions, stripping away self-awareness and compelling obedience. In larger amounts, they acted like a banned narcotic, directly triggering an immediate Susceptibility Period.
When every breath became a snare and lucidity a distant dream, an Omega’s pheromones turned into a cunning tool for manipulating an Alpha’s actions and mind.
That same year, Wen Yan’s father, Wen Zecheng, had vied with Liang Shijing’s father, Liang Yili, for the position of Chief Executive Officer on Sailes Star. Wen Zecheng had trailed far behind in the polls at first, but during the crucial phase of the election, Liang Yili and his wife met with a car accident. With his greatest rival dead under unexpected circumstances, Wen Zecheng naturally claimed the Chief’s seat.
Years later, when Liang Shijing ascended to Chief, Wen Zecheng’s true colors were finally exposed.
Wen Yan refused to believe that the father who loved and cherished him had murdered Liang Shijing’s parents for the sake of that position. Yet the blood debt was irredeemable. He held no hope that Liang Shijing would spare Wen Zecheng. Upon learning that his father was being secretly held captive somewhere by Liang Shijing, he only wished for permission to see him once—and, more than anything, to apologize on his behalf.
That rainy night, Wen Yan had easily gained entry through the gates of Oak Bay. Led by Consul Ji to Liang Shijing’s study, he had begged desperately, but to no avail. In desperation, Wen Yan tore off his Barrier Patch. He had sorely underestimated the potency of his pheromones. Not even 0.01 milligrams of their fresh, alluring scent had been released before Liang Shijing seized his throat—only to abruptly release him. In the next instant, they tumbled together into the abyss of desire.
Their entangled bodies sent the Alpha Wristband and Omega Neck Ring clattering to the floor one after another, producing a muffled thud. At the same moment, Wen Yan knocked over the prune juice perched on the edge of the tea table.
The purple liquid seeped slowly into the carpet, much like their first encounter—bearing the uncontrollable passion that had mired them both in quicksand. From that erroneous union, life had mistakenly been conceived, and both the cause and the consequence were like spilt water: impossible to reclaim.
“I’m sorry.” Wen Yan wasn’t sure if he was atoning for the past or the present, but his eyes brimmed as though the slightest reproach would send tears spilling over. “What illness is it? Is there anything I can do for you?”
Eyes like those always summoned memories of their fateful mistakes. Eyes like those were impossible to forgive—and impossible to resist.
“Provide your pheromones,” Liang Shijing said, eyes downcast.
“So that’s why you won’t let me leave the Capital?”
“What else? You think I miss you?”
“No, no…” Wen Yan stammered in explanation. Ever since his gland had been sutured and entered the Degeneration Period, rendering it incapable of secreting pheromones, the only way to provide them was by forcibly drawing blood from near the gland. The process would be excruciatingly long and painful, likely accelerating his death. Yet that suffering paled beside the sheer repugnance of Liang Shijing relying on his enemy’s pheromones to treat his ailment.
“Do you want it now?” Wen Yan asked without a moment’s pause.
“What do you mean, now? Stay by my side constantly and provide it,” Liang Shijing replied evenly.
“Then… will it be needed for a long time?” Wen Yan twisted his fingers in unease. “I might—”
“Providing pheromones won’t kill you,” Liang Shijing coldly cut him off. “Don’t you feel like you owe me?”
