Chapter 52
The sound of heels clicking on the floor echoed from down the hallway, getting closer, followed by a crisp, sharp knock on the door.
“Infirmary, Yi Xing-shui.”
After Wen Yuan heard her state her employee number, she opened the door a crack.
The hem of a white lab coat swung into view. She let out a sigh of relief and stepped out. “Dr. Yi, how is it outside?”
“The affected area is small, and the concentration isn’t high. Don’t worry.”
By the time Yi Xing-shui arrived at the academic building, Wen Yuan had already activated the special access control. All the Alphas on the floor had been temporarily evacuated outside, so no one else was really affected.
“I mean… are any of the students talking?”
Usually, sudden incidents like this would be all over the internet, with Alphas from the building complaining.
Many arrogant Alphas would see it as proof that Omegas were just that fragile, needing to be accommodated and cared for, disrupting their daily lives. Then they would start calling for Omegas to return to the home, as if that were the only safe place for them.
But in reality, their actions weren’t about protection; they were about completely ousting Omegas from social life, turning them into entirely isolated accessories.
“It’s fine. At least no fights broke out,” Yi Xing-shui said, shaking her head as she recalled the difficulty of squeezing through the noisy crowd.
With both sides of the election campaign trying to win votes and gain the support of Omegas, any Alpha who stubbornly insisted on their own views and belittled Omegas at a time like this was probably a bit of an idiot.
She assessed the situation, took out a foldable hallway barrier, and expertly hung it up.
The faint scent of plum blossoms drifted past her nose, as if she were standing in the dead of winter.
“Is it a student who’s having the issue?”
“Yes,” Wen Yuan frowned. “It seems like a heat, but not quite. It feels like he was frightened. We were just talking, and his pheromones came out without him realizing it.”
Yi Xing-shui nodded.
“I understand. Could you please turn on the air purification? I’m going in to take a look.”
A University was one of the few schools that employed Omega faculty.
During the period when the status of Omegas had relatively improved, the Omega who was about to become the Chief Executive had graduated from this very school.
Therefore, all sorts of protective measures were well-established, including special doors and windows to prevent pheromone leakage, an emergency button connected directly to the infirmary, and detachable isolation barriers—everything was in place.
Once everything was set up, she pushed open the door and walked into Wen Yuan’s office.
Yi Xing-shui looked up and saw a figure curled up on the sofa. The sight of the familiar wine-red hair made her brow jump.
He actually survived.
She hurried forward, placed her medical kit on the table, and knelt to examine him. Shu Ci’s condition was quite similar to when she had first seen him in the hospital, except his face was a little paler this time, and one hand was clutching his necklace.
All his other vitals were normal. Only his glands were red and hot, and his pheromones were drifting out uncontrollably. The scent… was completely different from the honeysuckle last time.
She glanced at Wen Yuan, who understood and left the room, closing the door and waiting in the hallway.
Yi Xing-shui lowered her voice. “Is your Instability Syndrome acting up?”
Hearing the familiar, gentle voice, Shu Ci’s tension eased slightly. He managed to lift his head and glance at her. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Is it like this every time?”
“I never really notice when it changes. I can’t really explain it,” Shu Ci said, his eyelashes lowered, his gaze falling on the diffuser on Wen Yuan’s desk. “But the scent it changes to seems to be related to my surroundings.”
Yi Xing-shui looked at him, and they both thought of the medical room filled with the scent of honeysuckle last time.
“I haven’t studied Instability Syndrome,” Yi Xing-shui said, taking out a test tube. “But I still need to run a routine check on your blood and gland secretions.”
Shu Ci nodded and obediently held out his arm. “What are you doing here?” he asked out of boredom.
Yi Xing-shui: “…”
She had felt guilty and remorseful for a long time after their perilous parting at sea.
Although she knew he was probably fine when Gu Lanzhu’s police report was withdrawn, the image of him luring the black creatures and rushing headlong into the dangerous waters was seared into her mind.
As a companion who had shared hardships on the speedboat, why did his tone sound so disdainful?
She controlled her emotions to keep the needle from shaking in Shu Ci’s vein.
After drawing the blood, she handed him a mild sedative, her voice tinged with a hint of grievance as she explained, “I’m here because Gu Lanzhu fired me, my family backstabbed me, and I just found a random place to work.”
Shu Ci was taken aback.
In the original novel, Yi Xing-shui had indeed taken good care of the original owner. Because she had been so meticulous in caring for him during his pregnancy, Gu Lanzhu had suspected her of having ulterior motives.
But the two had never had a falling out so severe that it would lead to her being fired.
As Yi Xing-shui examined him, she cursed Gu Lanzhu. Shu Ci felt as if he were watching his own personal mouthpiece, letting loose a torrent of verbal abuse.
He listened carefully; the emotion didn’t seem fake. It was a genuine outpouring. She cursed everything from the dirty deeds Gu Lanzhu had done since they were children to his bullying and coercion.
So Gu Lanzhu had already lost half of his right-hand support!
Shu Ci was stunned. The anxiety that had gripped him due to the sudden advancement of the plot slowly subsided. He looked at Yi Xing-shui with a touch of gratitude in his eyes.
“I lent you a speedboat once, and I lost my job,” Yi Xing-shui pouted, pressing a hand to Shu Ci’s neck as she brought the scanner close to his glands.
Other than a high-temperature warning and suppressed energy fluctuations, there was nothing wrong.
“I looked for you a few times, but you were never around,” she grumbled under her breath, figuring Bai Yue wouldn’t have passed on her message to his love rival.
“Oh, I have been pretty busy lately.”
The original owner had taken a heavy course load in the first two years, so there weren’t many classes left for this semester. Shu Ci basically only came to campus two days a week, leaving as soon as his classes were over. The rest of the time, he was busy with his own affairs.
Regular communication with the island management company, planning the jewelry designs with Shen Ti, investing in film scripts, studying and practicing with the materials Marshal He had given him at night—not to mention keeping an eye out for news about Lu Wanqing. He wished there were another twenty-four hours in a day.
Shu Ci propped himself up, took the medicine with some water, and rested for a moment. “How about I get you a new job?”
His mood gradually calmed. His perception of his newly changed pheromones returned, and he quietly regained control, gathering them in, bit by bit.
“No thanks,” Yi Xing-shui said, a flicker of surprise in her eyes as she saw him start to heal on his own.
“You still haven’t made good on your promise to have Senior Brother treat me to a meal.”
Shu Ci gathered the last wisp of his pheromones, his expression darkening slightly. “Just wait. I haven’t even had a meal with him in a long time.”
He casually scrolled through the news. Still nothing.
His eyes dimmed.
“General? General Lu?”
Lu Wanqing frowned. He vaguely heard someone calling him. He struggled to sit up and looked down to see a pile of mutated creature corpses around him.
The silver-white creature that had shot out from the swarm had exploded in front of him. He had used a pheromone barrier to shield his comrades on the ship from the blast, but he himself had been blown into the sea.
The people on the ship hadn’t dared to attack recklessly. After entering the water, the silver-white creature had latched onto him and dragged him away from the fleet at high speed.
Before he fell into the water, Lu Wanqing had quickly set himself as a tracking target. His personal small vessel had switched to autopilot and pursued him at top speed.
He had been dragged a long way through the water by this silver-white creature.
After a long and entangled struggle, when the small vessel caught up to him, Lu Wanqing managed to haul them both onto the ship. He took two energy shots and finished it off, then passed out.
He closed his eyes, then opened them again.
He stood up numbly, kicked the corpse away with his long boot in disgust, and pressed the communication button.
“Report,” he said, his voice extremely hoarse.
“It’s good that you’re alright, sir!” the communications captain said joyfully. “The sea in Area Three has been cleared. There’s no sign of the mutated creatures. Please confirm your location is accurate—”
We’ll send someone to meet you.
Before he could finish, the connection was abruptly cut off. General Lu’s personal vessel’s location also vanished from the map.
When Cui You arrived, he saw the ashen-faced communications officer. After learning the situation, his eyes darkened. “Don’t say anything for now. Continue with the disaster relief and patrol missions.”
Someone in the Central District had long wanted to use the disaster relief as a pretext to sabotage the Seventh and Eighth Districts of the Far Territory. Although he didn’t know if these mutated creatures were connected to them, they couldn’t launch a high-profile search for Lu Wanqing right now.
Especially not with all the media gathered here.
“Go gather everyone who was at sea today. They should know what to say and what not to say,” Cui You said, turning to calmly begin deploying his men.
Lu Wanqing stared at the dark screen, numb for a moment.
He went back to the control room and saw that all the buttons and screens were covered with the silver-white creatures. Their sharp beaks were brutally embedded deep into the instrument components.
He couldn’t see his own location, couldn’t contact his team, and couldn’t reach the command center. Even the autopilot had reverted to manual mode, with no destination set.
“…”
Cunning fish that slipped through the net.
Lu Wanqing’s dark blue eyes seemed to be filled with an ink so dark it couldn’t be diluted. His pheromones erupted, wiping them all out.
The silver-white creatures were more fluid than the black ones, slithering like eels between his killing blows. Their fatal points were small, and even after stabbing them all over with his mimicked pheromones, he couldn’t kill them completely.
He didn’t know how many creatures he had dealt with. When Lu Wanqing dragged his exhausted body out of the cabin, the sea breeze outside sent a shiver through him.
It seemed that while he was fighting the silver-white creatures in the cabin, the vessel had drifted north with the ocean current.
Lu Wanqing looked up at the starry sky, roughly determined his position, went back into the cabin, and adjusted the autopilot’s course, trying to head toward the mainland.
After dealing with the corpses in the cabin and taking a nutrient shot, Lu Wanqing climbed onto the roof of the cabin.
All was quiet. He could hear his own faint sigh.
This was no different from those days when he was helplessly controlled by fate. Others didn’t seem to hear his voice, and he couldn’t stop their actions.
At that time, he had wondered countless times if he was truly still alive.
Why was he living as if he were dead?
And this time, it seemed he had truly been brought to the edge of the world, cut off from all human and physical connections, exiled to the ocean to fend for himself.
When the silver-white creature rushed toward him, he was absolutely certain he had heard Shu Ci’s voice.
That voice was ethereal and distant.
It seemed to have crossed mountains and seas, pierced his eardrums, and reached his heart.
This feeling was just like that cold night during the Seventh District’s internal strife.
Lu Wanqing’s fingertips twitched. He took his phone out from an inner pocket.
No signal.
He pointed it at the starry sky, pressed the shutter, and sent the picture to Shu Ci.
It was the beautiful star cluster between the tail of Scorpio and the spout of Sagittarius’s teapot.
Naturally, he couldn’t send anything.
But it didn’t matter.
The vessel’s power system could be maintained. As soon as his phone received a signal from a base station near land, Shu Ci would receive the picture and could contact the Marshal for him.
He locked his phone. The black screen reflected his own face.
The moments when Shu Ci’s fingertips and lips had touched his photo flashed through his mind, making his heart tremble.
Lu Wanqing raised his hand to his own throat.
He had never, in his life, longed so desperately for Shu Ci to pick up his photo, whether to point at it or to poke and touch it.
Anywhere would be fine.
He didn’t know why they had this strange connection, but he suddenly realized that only this connection could make him feel his own existence so clearly.
He and another person existed together in this world.
He was the proof that he was alive.
Recommended Reads
