The weather was fine today. Shen Qiuxun happily went to work wearing his bandages. On the way, he used pebbles to tell his fortune and discovered he would receive a very substantial sum of money today!
Didn’t this mean the month-end benefits would be extremely generous? This was super great news. As long as this money had nothing to do with that guy Xu Zhiyuan, he could accept it. He could definitely, definitely accept it.
The pharmacy’s layout hadn’t changed much, though there were a few new faces and a few familiar ones missing. Most of those missing had likely died in the war.
Shen Qiuxun felt a moment of melancholy. He bent down to enter and arrived at the basement.
Ellie was taking inventory. She’d cut a chunk off her long golden hair, leaving it just reaching her ears. There were still some not-fully-healed bruises on her face, her expression placid.
Hearing a noise, she looked up. “You’re not resting at home?”
“Mm, it’s month-end benefits day.” Shen Qiuxun dragged the wooden crate to the desk with one hand and picked up the checklist.
“Month-end benefits?” Ellie thought for a moment, her expression turning somewhat indescribable. She glanced at the person beside her but ultimately said nothing.
Two injured people couldn’t work as efficiently as usual. Luckily, there wasn’t much stock today. After working hard all morning, they finished the count.
“These goods look different from the usual ones.” Shen Qiuxun picked up a black jar. Emblazoned clearly on it was the logo of “Seville Biotech Group.” Before, even when smuggling, they wouldn’t dare be this blatant.
“The person backing this pharmacy has changed hands.”
“Changed?” Shen Qiuxun turned his head.
Ellie nodded, hesitating for a moment. Her brown eyes looked over. She asked, “You don’t know?”
“?” Shen Qiuxun glanced at the jar in his hand and put it back, joking, “We haven’t been officially absorbed by Seville, have we?”
Ellie didn’t speak. She lowered her head, struggling for a long time, finally gathering the courage to look up. “About that day… thank you. And do you remember the story I told you? About that Alpha and Beta?”
Actually, after Shen Qiuxun went back and thought about it, he had vaguely suspected as much.
“I thought I had escaped him, but every night I had nightmares. That love turned into daggers, stabbing into my chest one by one. I tried many ways to move on… until I saw him again. Then I realized some things can’t just be walked away from.”
“I hated him, but I forgot. That pus and rotten flesh can only be healed by cutting to the bone.” Ellie’s expression was much more open now. She wouldn’t have nightmares anymore.
“It’s okay, Sister Ellie. That wasn’t a story. It was just an accident, at best.”
Ellie paused, then smiled, but a hint of worry still tinged her brow. “Shen Qiuxun, don’t lose yourself for an Alpha.”
Shen Qiuxun understood her concern and nodded.
[She’s just like a mother, so gentle.]
‘I think so too.’
Suddenly, a familiar face appeared outside the door. He stood at the entrance and beckoned to Shen Qiuxun. “Hey, someone’s looking for you.”
“?” Shen Qiuxun put his things down and walked over. The person pointed him in a direction, then leaned close to his ear and whispered, “He’s waiting for you in the Manager’s Office.”
He? Which ‘he’?
Shen Qiuxun told Ellie and then turned to head towards the Manager’s Office. At a corner in the hallway, a familiar voice suddenly drifted over.
Xu Zhiyuan sounded somewhat impatient. “Of course I could never be with a Beta. Betas are mediocre and boring. They can’t soothe an Alpha with pheromones. Useless to me. You think I care that much about him? It’s just a casual fling. You think you can use him to threaten me? Don’t be so naive.”
“But he loves you so much,” Jace said.
“Love? How useless love is.” After finishing with a mocking tone, Xu Zhiyuan opened the door and left.
The office door was slammed shut rudely.
Shen Qiuxun hid at the hallway corner, only slowly poking his head out after there was no sound.
[Host…]
“?” Shen Qiuxun looked around, then stepped towards the office. ‘A cheap attempt at sowing discord. Who knows what play these people are acting out now.’
The door wasn’t locked. He pushed it open. Jace was inside waiting for him.
Still dressed in a suit and leather shoes, but his mental state was vastly different from before. His skin was pale, his hair messy, dark circles heavy under his eyes. He looked like someone so anxious they hadn’t slept a wink in days.
Seeing Shen Qiuxun enter, Jace’s eyes lit up. He strode forward as if to grab his hand but hesitated, his hand frozen awkwardly mid-air. “You came…” He was hoping Shen Qiuxun had heard that conversation just now.
“Yep.” Shen Qiuxun was a bit baffled by his attitude. Could it be the month-end benefits were handed out one-on-one?
“You… are injured?” Jace looked at the bandages on his hand, his voice trembling slightly.
Shen Qiuxun lifted his hand, looking it over front and back. “Yeah, someone tried to kidnap me yesterday.”
“Kidnap?!” Jace shifted his gaze away nervously, went to lock the door, then unlocked it again. He paced anxiously around the office like an ant on a hot pan. “Shen Qiuxun, come away with me.”
“?” Shen Qiuxun looked up, his mind full of questions.
The other mistook his confusion for hesitation. His face full of grief, he spoke. “An Alpha and a Beta can’t work. You have no future together. His interest in you is just a passing heat. After a while, you’ll definitely be discarded by him!”
“An Alpha’s pheromones are uncontrollable. No matter the process, in the end, they will only choose to be with an Omega. They need an Omega’s pheromones. It’s an unchangeable truth decided by genetics! When that time comes… what will you do then?”
“An arrogant tyrant like him won’t just let you go. He might even grind your bones to ash just to whitewash his past! Come with me… Only Betas won’t betray each other. Come with me, alright?” Jace’s hands were open, his eyes pleading, as if he would give everything if Shen Qiuxun just agreed.
“Uh…” Shen Qiuxun made a stopping gesture. “So… why do you need to leave?”
The man was a great shopkeeper like this, having money, leisure, and status. Why would he leave?
Connecting it to what Ellie just said about the “pharmacy’s backer changing,” maybe it could be inferred that the new owner didn’t get along with Jace, forcing him to the point of needing to flee. But what did this have to do with Xu Zhiyuan?
Don’t tell him Xu Zhiyuan, through his great war merits, had replaced Jace?
Don’t joke with him!
“He won’t let me go…” Jace started pacing anxiously again. “He’s keeping me alive just to torment me to death…! He wants to torture me!”
“Fine.” Shen Qiuxun pushed down his bad premonition. “So how do you plan to run?”
Jace snapped out of it. He pulled Shen Qiuxun to the desk. “I have Gene Modification Serum. If the liquid just touches an Alpha’s skin, it melts into their cells. Then we can leave…”
“I’ve prepared new identities at the spaceport. We can disguise ourselves and go live a new life on another planet. I have some savings, it can lift you out of your low-citizen status… We can be together forever, never abandoning each other.”
