The Overworked Beta and the Paranoid Alpha 47

Chapter 47: Pheromone Exclusion

Xiaoli nodded. His strength was small, but fortunately, the two pit bulls were quick-witted and knew to help. The two dogs bit the fabric on Romeo’s shoulders and, with all their might, and with the combined efforts of the two people and two dogs, they finally managed to lift the unconscious Romeo onto the lifeboat.

Seeing Wen En nimbly flip onto the lifeboat, Xiaoli couldn’t help but ask, “What happened?”

The moment he finished speaking, another body floated up not far away.

“Is that Red Devil?” Xiaoli asked in surprise.

Red Devil was floating on the sea like a piece of an iceberg. His face was in the water, and the back of his head was facing the sky. His red hair was floating in the water like polluted moss. Xiaoli also saw that his neck was tightly bound by a circle of long, hairy seaweed. His neck and ears had turned a purplish-blue, which was a sign of death by suffocation.

Apparently, Red Devil had been strangled to death by this seaweed.

“Romeo did it,” Wen En pointed at Red Devil’s neck and said.

After falling into the water, Red Devil had been like a crab, reaching out to strangle Romeo. In the process of fighting back, Romeo had accidentally grabbed a floating piece of seaweed. He had tied a dead knot around Red Devil’s neck without any hesitation.

Unexpectedly, Red Devil was harder to kill than he had imagined. Romeo saw Red Devil sink motionless into the reef area at the bottom of the sea and thought he was dead. Just then, Romeo’s oxygen was almost depleted. Just as he was about to turn and swim to the surface, Red Devil suddenly grabbed Romeo’s hair and slammed it against the reef. Blood instantly flowed from the wound on Romeo’s forehead, dyeing the seawater red.

Fortunately, Wen En had already arrived by then. Wen En quickly dealt with the dying, struggling Red Devil and swam up with the unconscious Romeo.

“Is he still alive?” Xiaoli looked at Romeo with concern. Although he disliked this Alpha a little, the situation was special, and Xiaoli didn’t want Romeo to die just like that.

“Of course he’s alive,” Wen En pressed his ear to Romeo’s right chest, listening to the condition of his lungs. “There’s just a little water,” he said. Wen En performed the Heimlich maneuver on Romeo. He hugged Romeo from behind with his hands on his abdomen and squeezed hard. The effect was very good. Romeo immediately spat out a mouthful of water.

“I’m sorry,” Wen En apologized sincerely.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. It’s good that he’s okay,” Xiaoli said quickly.

Romeo’s eyes were tightly closed, and his face was pale. He didn’t look okay. Fortunately, the wound on his forehead was no longer bleeding, which meant that his blood clotting function was fine. “But his body temperature is too low,” Wen En’s fingers touched the artery on Romeo’s neck and said, “There’s a risk of hypothermia.”

“Then, what should we do?” Xiaoli was at a loss. As a resident of the lower district, his life was not peaceful. He had been robbed, and he had been harassed by passersby Alphas. But this was the first time he had experienced a rollercoaster of events like this. “Should we go ashore? Maybe there’s a medical room at the port on shore.” But this port had been abandoned for so many years, and he didn’t know if the emergency medical equipment was still usable.

“No,” Wen En thought for a moment and said, “There might be Red Devil’s reinforcements on shore. Our current situation is already at its limit. If we encounter a few more pursuers, we won’t be able to hold on.”

“We can only leave this place by water,” Wen En said. Wen En’s plan was to row the boat to a safe place and then go ashore.

“Alright, that’s the only way,” Xiaoli touched his stomach. Sigh, I’m so hungry. He had only eaten a little hard, crumbly rye bread in the past few days. That was basically the same as not eating, right? Sigh, I want to go home. Wait, home?! Xiaoli suddenly remembered something and said to Wen En, who was checking if Romeo’s mouth was blocked by any vomit:

“My home is right next to Sea Street.”

Sea Street? Wen En thought for a moment. He had some impression of this street. He had seen the name of this street when he was looking up information about the lower district. One side of this street was the sea, and the other side was a residential apartment building. This street was a little famous because a well-known commercial film had wanted to shoot a scene here. As a result, the camera crew had been robbed as soon as they arrived at Sea Street. Their expensive camera equipment was looted by a few homeless people. The name of Sea Street had thus made it to the morning news of the upper city.

Xiaoli paused, then said with some uncertainty, “But I have a sister at home, and the environment is a bit cramped. Sir, if you don’t mind, you can go to my house to rest for a while.”

“Of course I don’t mind,” Wen En patted Xiaoli’s shoulder and said with a smile, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sir. In fact, I should be the one to thank you. Without you, I would have died at the hands of Qiuyue or Red Devil long ago,” Xiaoli said quickly. Xiaoli glanced at Romeo again. He thought Romeo’s brain was not working properly, but he had to admit that it was a good thing that Romeo had managed to hold back the effects of his heat and had not done anything irreversible to him. Otherwise, he would not be safe here now.

“Let’s go,” Wen En grabbed the oar and said, “This boat is our means of transportation. We’ll row it to your house.”

“Okay,” Xiaoli nodded, his expression relaxing a lot.

The journey to Xiaoli’s home was not as smooth as they had imagined.

Perhaps having escaped the high-pressure environment of life and death, Xiaoli had relaxed completely. This also led to a problem: the previously suppressed physiological reactions of his heat all came back in a very short period of time.

Seeing the abnormal flush on Xiaoli’s face, Wen En quickly realized that something was wrong. He looked down at the unconscious Romeo. The face that had been pale due to low body temperature was now also flushed red. Wen En touched the back of Romeo’s ear and found that his body temperature had risen from low to high in a very short period of time.

Apparently, this was due to the influence of Xiaoli’s Omega pheromones.

But in this situation, Wen En couldn’t do anything. He could only have Xiaoli wash his face with cool seawater and say to him, “Hold on a little longer. We’ll be home soon.”

Xiaoli didn’t say anything, just nodded and curled up at the very edge of the lifeboat. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth, he would make a misleading sound.

But this was not the worst.

When Wen En rowed the lifeboat away from the port and arrived at Sea Street, a large group of people had gathered on the street on the shore. These people were basically Alphas who had been attracted by Xiaoli’s pheromones. Their eyes were filled with lust and contempt, and they released provocative pheromones, looking at Xiaoli on the lifeboat with ill intentions.

As an Omega, Xiaoli naturally understood what these Alphas were thinking. But he also knew that in his current state, he couldn’t fight back against them. He could only turn his head to the other side, look down at the seawater, and pretend not to care about the gazes of these Alphas.

Wen En did the same. He was not afraid of a conflict with these horny beasts, but he didn’t want Romeo and Xiaoli to be injured because of it. So he could only lower his head and row harder, trying to get away from these people.

“Yo, little darling, how much for a round with you?” an Alpha suddenly catcalled.

This sentence was like a spark, igniting a pillar of sin. The Alphas on the shore were in an uproar, and they threw even more sexually suggestive words at Xiaoli:

“Can a Beta and a half-dead Alpha satisfy you?”

“Want me to join you?”

“Hahahaha, I’ll join too.”

…

Xiaoli did not respond, just bit his lips and silently endured it all, just as he was enduring this damn heat.

Looking at this jeering mob, Wen En increased the force of his rowing, trying to get away from them. But he hadn’t expected that his “escape-like” behavior would make these people even more aggressive. It seemed that every step he took back would make these Alphas more excited.

Wen En looked down and touched the forehead of the unconscious Romeo. Romeo’s temperature was even hotter. His eyes were tightly closed, his brows were furrowed, and his fists were also clenched.

Wen En was a Beta, but based on what he had learned in his human physiology class, Wen En guessed that this was Romeo entering a state of “pheromone exclusion”: when an Alpha was in heat, if he came into contact with the scent of other Alphas, the Alpha would enter a state of “pheromone exclusion,” with symptoms including: emotional agitation and uncontrollable violent behavior.

This was a biological instinct, similar to the behavior of male animals fighting for mating rights with females during the breeding season. But Romeo was unconscious now, and the chaotic hormones could not be released outwards, so they could only attack inwards. The pheromones were in a fierce battle with Romeo’s immune system.

This was not a good thing. Wen En tore a piece of cloth from his clothes, wet it with water, and placed it on Romeo’s forehead, hoping to cool him down.

“Let me do it,” Xiaoli quickly took the wet, cool cloth and said. He just hoped that Wen En would not stop rowing and would take him away from here quickly.

Things were not as simple as Xiaoli had imagined. The moment Xiaoli touched Romeo’s forehead with the cloth, the Alphas on the shore suddenly rioted. Xiaoli’s action had triggered their dissatisfaction—although they didn’t even know Xiaoli’s name, they still instinctively had a certain possessiveness towards him. The culprit of all this was the damn pheromones, but these Alphas would not think so much. They would only act on instinct.

“Woof woof woof!” The two pit bulls bared their fangs. This time, they actually chose to stand in front of Xiaoli and let out a threatening growl.

Wen En also knew that these Alphas were not going to let them go. He looked at the shore with sharp eyes. It seemed that he had to kill a few Alphas to intimidate the others.

A few of the closest Alphas jumped into the water first. His red eyes were filled with desire for the Omega. He held his breath and swam towards Xiaoli with all his might. Xiaoli’s eyes were filled with fear. “Wen En, he’s coming!”

“Then let him go to hell,” Wen En said coldly.

Wen En picked up the oar. The moment the closest Alpha’s hand touched the edge of the lifeboat, Wen En, without hesitation, slammed the oar down like a fishing spear. The Alpha’s hand loosened, and then, the Alpha’s body floated on the water like a log.

The other Alphas were not smart, but they were not stupid enough to be headless flies. They saw that Wen En was a Beta, but he was not an easy person to mess with. In fact, he was ruthless and deadly. They immediately turned and swam back.

“Leaving already?” Wen En sneered. He had no intention of letting them go so quickly.

He picked up a lifebuoy and threw it. The lifebuoy landed squarely around the neck of an Alpha who was swimming towards the shore. The Alpha screamed and struggled like a seal caught in a fishing net, but he was still dragged onto the lifeboat by Wen En.

“Oh, heavens, I was just talking. Please, please let me go!” the Alpha even used honorifics. The Alpha begged for mercy, “Please rest assured, I actually have no thoughts about your Omega… Ah— my arm!”

Wen En couldn’t be bothered with his pleas and directly dislocated his arm.

“Ugh… please let me go. I haven’t done any harm to you or your companion… Ah— my leg!”

After dislocating the Alpha’s leg, the Alpha could only flop on the lifeboat like a fish without feet. Wen En stepped on the Alpha’s cervical spine. “Do you feel it?” Wen En’s tone was calm, but it was chilling. “This is your second cervical vertebra.”

“No… please…” before he could finish begging for mercy, the Alpha screamed again. He only felt a heavy blow to his neck. The pain in his joint made him cry. What made him want to cry even more was that he found that his body below the neck had lost all sensation. He seemed to be paralyzed.

The Alpha gave up struggling, although he was still whimpering and crying. Most of the Alphas on the shore had long since scattered. No one wanted to end up paralyzed for an Omega.

The smell of pheromones in the air had dissipated a lot. Xiaoli sat in the lifeboat, his face looking a little better. Wen En checked Romeo’s temperature again, and sure enough, it had dropped a little.

“How much longer until we get to your house?” Wen En asked.

“Just another kilometer along this road,” Xiaoli said.

Wen En nodded and said, “Let’s go ashore.”

“Are you sure?” Xiaoli asked doubtfully.

“Yes,” Wen En said. “Too many people have seen us. We have to take a different path.”

Xiaoli hesitated. “But, the pheromones…”

“The combat power of these ordinary Alphas can be ignored,” Wen En said. “As long as they don’t gather in a crowd, everything is fine.”

Xiaoli nodded. Mainly because he couldn’t think of any other way, so he could only listen to Wen En. “Alright, after we go ashore, please follow me.”