Chapter 23: Unexpected Part 2

Hot.

It started with her ears burning, then the heat spread outward—to her cheeks, her neck, and finally her entire body.

Pain.

Her skin prickled with pain, then her bones felt like they were being dislocated inside her. Even breathing hurt, like walking on knife blades, a silent torment.

When she finally forced her eyes open again, Yan Mian was in the throes of differentiation.

Bright lights shone before her.

It was a cramped room with only a bed and a table. The door was shut; she wasn’t sure if it was locked. Her back pressed against the cold door as she gasped for breath.

The room’s soundproofing wasn’t great. In the next moment, Yan Mian heard footsteps climbing the stairs, followed by the flirtatious laughter of a man and a woman. The door to the next room shut, and lewd gasps pierced through the wall straight to Yan Mian.

A chill ran down Yan Mian’s back. She caught a faint whiff of lily of the valley fragrance in the air—that was the scent of her pheromones.

If someone came in right now…

Yan Mian couldn’t even imagine the consequences.

She bit her lip, trying to use the pain to snap herself back to clarity, but it only intensified the torment already wracking her body.

The pain grew sharper, her strength ebbing away. She didn’t even know who to call for help.

All her emotions blurred into a hazy mess, her thoughts like thick sludge. Just before she slipped back into unconsciousness, the last text message on her phone flashed before her eyes.

【Go to Room 603. I’ve prepared something for you.】

Sender: Zhu Lexing

~~~

Lin Yang’s demand struck Zhu Lexing as the ravings of a madwoman on her deathbed.

Mark her? Now, of all times?

Would not being a hopeless romantic really kill her?

Zhu Lexing had no intention of wasting more words on Lin Yang. She turned to leave, but Lin Yang said calmly, “Go ahead if you want. But I can’t guarantee Yan Mian’s safety.”

A mocking curve tugged at Lin Yang’s lips, her eyes glinting with sarcasm. “Zhu Lexing, is being with me really such a hardship for you? What does Yan Mian have that I don’t? She just differentiated into an Omega. I could do that too.”

Lin Yang opened her mouth to say more, but suddenly her body was shoved hard. Her back slammed against the edge of the bar counter.

The music seemed to hush for a moment. The bartender in the distance stared in shock at the scene and hurried over.

Lin Yang felt the sharp pain in her back and snarled, “Zhu Lexing—”

Her words cut off abruptly.

Her pupils dilated as she stared at the shattered glass handle that Zhu Lexing had slammed down at some point. The jagged edge hovered just centimeters from her skin.

“Zhu Lexing.” Lin Yang’s throat tightened, her breathing ragged and frantic with fear. “You—”

“One last time.” Zhu Lexing’s voice was ice-cold. “Where is Yan Mian?”

The girl’s eyes brimmed with chilling menace, dark and predatory. Lin Yang had no doubt that if she didn’t answer, Zhu Lexing would drive that broken glass into her without a second thought.

Lin Yang didn’t dare imagine it. She forced her voice steady. “Room 403 at the hotel.”

Zhu Lexing pressed, “What did you mean earlier when you said you could make Yan Mian yours anytime? Did you set someone up outside the room?”

Lin Yang replied, “It’s a Beta hotel. No one will sense her pheromones.”

The System quickly pulled up the information. Just as Lin Yang said, it was indeed a Beta hotel.

Qiao Qiao arrived late. The chaos in the dance floor exceeded her expectations. She met Zhu Lexing’s gaze and said, “I’ve contacted Uncle Zhu and called the police. You—”

“Watch her,” Zhu Lexing ordered. “I’m going to find Yan Mian.”

“Li Nian,” Zhu Lexing added. “Come with me.”

Before leaving, Zhu Lexing glanced at Lin Yang, who was curled up in agony by the bar counter. She said calmly, “If anything happens to her, I will never let you go for the rest of my life.”

Lin Yang bit her lip.

~~~

Once they reached the hotel, Zhu Lexing queried the System. Just as Lin Yang had said, Yan Mian was there.

She went straight to the front desk and demanded the key to Room 403. The receptionist looked baffled and started to refuse, but Zhu Lexing pulled out her phone to scan the code. “My friend has a heart condition. She’s an Omega in the middle of her differentiation period. If anything goes wrong…”

The key was handed over.

Only when she tried the door did Zhu Lexing realize it was locked from the inside. She knocked, but there was no response from Room 403.

It was a wooden door. Zhu Lexing instructed Li Nian, “In a bit… Yan Mian’s inside. Go give her an inhibitor shot.”

Everyone had special reactions before differentiation, but Li Nian had never sensed pheromones before, so she’d long assumed she was most likely a Beta.

Zhu Lexing’s words revealed that she would differentiate into an Alpha, but this time, Li Nian didn’t feel the usual anxiety.

If Zhu Lexing meant Yan Mian harm, she never would have brought her here in the first place.

Zhu Lexing smashed the door open with a fire extinguisher, blow after blow. The noise was so loud that even the front desk staff came running up from downstairs in shock. “What’s going on? Weren’t you looking for a friend? This is vandalism—”

Other guests on the floor poked their heads out. A few were about to yell, but when they saw Zhu Lexing’s vicious expression and her relentless swings, they feared the extinguisher might come at them next and fell silent.

“Li Nian, use my phone to scan and pay,” Zhu Lexing said, giving her the payment password. “Transfer whatever it costs—”

With the final blow, the door splintered. The room inside was pitch black, and a wave of pheromones washed over Zhu Lexing’s face. Since she hadn’t differentiated yet, she didn’t register the scent at first—she only knew it was pheromones.

In the next second, her senses began to dull.

Zhu Lexing bit her tongue and flicked on the light. It was a two-bedroom suite. No one in the master. The side room door was shut but unlocked.

She pushed it open. A single bed dominated the room, and someone was huddled under the sheets, desperately stifling any sound.

Zhu Lexing approached slowly. “Yan Mian?”

Just before her hand touched the girl’s face, Zhu Lexing caught the scent of the pheromones.

It was cold and faint—not the pheromones she remembered from Yan Mian.

This wasn’t Yan Mian.

The girl turned her face, revealing delicate features. Her cheeks were flushed, her expression one of excruciating pain. Her fingers dug into her palms, blood already seeping out unconsciously.

The System said: 【This is Shi Ruofeng.】

At a time like this, Zhu Lexing didn’t care if it was Shi Ruofeng or not. With her last shred of reason, she told Li Nian to tend to the girl in the room and inject her with an inhibitor.

Lin Yang had clearly done this on purpose, forcing both Omegas to arrive here at the same time and undergo forced differentiation.

If Shi Ruofeng had already differentiated, then what about Yan Mian?

Yan Mian was already frail and sickly—she couldn’t withstand pain. Forcing her differentiation period ahead of schedule would only bring her hundreds or even thousands of times the suffering.

How could Lin Yang do this?

How could she?

Zhu Lexing didn’t dare miss a single floor. She started searching from the second and came up empty even by the fifth.

By the time she reached the sixth floor, Zhu Lexing had gone numb.

Her thoughts grew sluggish. Clearly, she too was being affected by Shi Ruofeng’s pheromones and was on the verge of entering her own differentiation period.

Pushing herself to keep moving and resist the overwhelming drowsiness was the limit of what Zhu Lexing could manage.

But this floor was different from all the ones before.

A faint scent of pheromones lingered in the air—the first one she’d ever smelled, the most familiar, the one that appeared in her occasional dreams. It belonged to Yan Mian.

Lily of the Valley.

Zhu Lexing couldn’t put her current feelings into words.

This time, she didn’t need to check room by room. The place where the pheromones were most concentrated was exactly where Yan Mian was.

As she drew closer, absorbing more and more of Yan Mian’s pheromones, Zhu Lexing’s breathing quickened.

Her throat felt parched. She realized this stemmed from the deepest instincts of an Alpha—and her greatest flaw.

The desire to possess an Omega.

Zhu Lexing lowered her head and pulled two syringes from her pocket. Both contained inhibitors, but one was formulated for Alphas and the other for Omegas. The Alpha version had weak effects—better than nothing, at least—and the upside was that it didn’t hurt much.

The Omega version was far more potent, but its downside was the excruciating pain it caused.

Inhibitors for Alphas and Omegas could not be mixed. An Alpha’s body violently rejected the Omega version, amplifying the agony and potentially causing side effects.

Without hesitation, Zhu Lexing injected herself with the potent Omega inhibitor.

The bond between Alphas and Omegas was subtle yet profound. Even with the inhibitor, there was no one-hundred-percent guarantee she wouldn’t be overwhelmed by Yan Mian’s sudden surge, causing the drug to fail and triggering her own premature differentiation.

If she crossed that line, she’d have free rein either way—she could always justify it.

But Yan Mian couldn’t. She mustn’t.

A chill pierced her neck as the blood flowed, and Zhu Lexing finally felt her mind clear. But in exchange, her body went limp.

She knocked on the door.

At this point, she no longer had the strength in her heart to smash it open.

“…Yan Mian.”

“Can you hear me?”

In her haze, everything fell silent. Her senses sharpened endlessly as Yan Mian exhaled softly, her lashes trembling.

She felt like she was dreaming. To actually hear Zhu Lexing’s voice here.

Had Zhu Lexing come to mark her?

After putting on such a long act, pretending to care.

All for this moment?

Why?

Yan Mian’s heart ached.

She hadn’t placed much trust in Zhu Lexing, yet the betrayal still brought immense sadness and humiliation. It was as if some unseen force was watching her, mocking her: This is your fate.

Toyed with in the palm of a hand, her sincerity met with contempt.

No one would ever care about her.

Until she heard the murmur from beyond the door.

“I’ve already injected the inhibitor. I haven’t differentiated. Don’t be afraid.”

“I’ll come in soon… and give you yours. Yan Mian, don’t fight it. I mean you no harm.”

“Trust me, okay?”

With that, Zhu Lexing gritted her teeth and grasped the door handle.

The door wasn’t locked. She saw Yan Mian curled against the wall, head buried in her knees—just like the day she’d first transmigrated here.

The lights blazed bright. The girl’s cheeks were flushed, and the blood at the corner of her mouth stood out starkly.

Zhu Lexing didn’t know what to say or do to preserve the last shreds of Yan Mian’s dignity.

In the silence, the only thing she did was reach up and turn off the light.

Dim yellow light filtered in from the hallway, accompanied by faint footsteps.

“It’s okay now,” she said softly.

Zhu Lexing’s fingers brushed Yan Mian, but the girl flinched away violently. In the next instant, she spotted the syringe in Zhu Lexing’s hand.

Yan Mian didn’t resist. Meekly, she let Zhu Lexing inject the inhibitor.

“…Zhu Lexing.”

Yan Mian’s voice was faint, but Zhu Lexing heard it.

The pheromones in the room had faded. She asked quietly, “What is it?”

As she leaned in to check on Yan Mian, the girl’s feverish body collapsed straight into her arms.

Zhu Lexing froze. Cautiously, she placed a hand on Yan Mian’s forehead. It was scorching hot.

She had a fever.