Zhu Lexing wanted to argue back but held her tongue. All she could manage was a quiet, “I’ve finished the medicine.”
Yan Mian said, “You… lie down.”
Sitting up like that, the towel was bound to slip off.
But Zhu Lexing kept her head tilted up, stubborn as ever. “Just like this.”
Yan Mian could only carefully press the towel to her forehead.
The towel’s warmth did ease the pain a little. But as Yan Mian’s hand drew near Zhu Lexing’s face—her fingers threading delicately through the strands of hair—and their skin made contact, Zhu Lexing instinctively seized her hand.
Their eyes met in midair. Zhu Lexing clearly saw the flicker of fear in Yan Mian’s gaze. Deep down, she knew Yan Mian was still scared of her.
Zhu Lexing said, “I’m differentiating.”
“…Stay away from me.”
Who knew if an Alpha fresh out of differentiation might just mark an Omega on the spot?
She’d racked up enough sins already! She didn’t want to spend eternity atoning for more.
That single admission of impending differentiation melted away every last bit of confusion in Yan Mian’s tender heart.
She looked at Zhu Lexing—face pale as a ghost yet pretending all was well—and in a flash, she remembered herself in that cramped room under the dim yellow light, her breaths coming in ragged gasps.
She raised her eyes, staring as if it weren’t the current Zhu Lexing before her, but the girl from that night outside the room, injecting herself with inhibitor.
After a long moment, she asked softly, “Does it hurt?”
“…How could it,” Zhu Lexing replied coldly. “In your eyes, am I that—”
The next second, the words died in her throat. The Differentiation Period spared no tough talkers, Alpha or Omega alike.
But Zhu Lexing seemed even less able to tolerate the pain than usual. By all rights, after injecting the inhibitor last time, she should have developed some resistance to it by now. Yet she reacted with heightened sensitivity, her pupils—which still clung to a sliver of clarity—beginning to glaze over after just a few words.
Yan Mian recalled something from biology class: if an Omega provided pheromone soothing to an Alpha during their differentiation period, the suffering would be greatly alleviated.
It had been the same last time. Even though Zhu Lexing hadn’t differentiated yet back then, the moment she touched her, that lingering pain had eased considerably.
She stared at Zhu Lexing’s face.
In that instant, a dark impulse stirred within her. Yan Mian wondered—if she simply ignored Zhu Lexing, or even stimulated her with pheromones from another Alpha, the surveillance footage would make it look like Zhu Lexing had simply failed to endure the agonies of differentiation.
Would it all be over just like that?
A few months ago, alone with just the two of them, Yan Mian would have seized the opportunity without hesitation, ending the life of this repulsive Alpha once and for all.
Zhu Lexing clearly understood that getting close to her would ease her pain a great deal; otherwise, she wouldn’t have asked to rest on the sofa of her own accord. And yet, from start to finish, she hadn’t forced Yan Mian to do a thing.
Gazing at that face, Yan Mian thought coldly.
Zhu Lexing, what are you really thinking?
“Does it hurt a lot?”
Yan Mian spoke softly, her fingertip brushing ever so lightly against Zhu Lexing’s cheek.
Zhu Lexing instinctively recoiled a fraction, but the Omega’s slender, bony hand slid up to her jawline and trailed downward to her neck.
No ordinary Alpha would let anyone touch their neck.
It was the most vulnerable spot for these self-proclaimed powerhouses, the universally acknowledged reverse scale. Yan Mian hadn’t grasped why it was called that until now, feeling it for herself.
Because it was no different from an Omega’s.
Not just Omegas—even Betas were identical in this regard.
Equally fragile. Equally crushable with a single grip.
Zhu Lexing had no inkling of Yan Mian’s thoughts.
She sensed the hand encircling her neck was testing something, but she didn’t believe Yan Mian meant to kill her. It was only after several seconds that she heard Yan Mian say, “Zhu Lexing, did you know? Some Alphas die outright from the pain of differentiation because they can’t endure it.”
“If I ignore you… will you be one of them?”
She stood right there before her, forcing Zhu Lexing to crane her neck upward to meet her gaze. In the past—even just minutes earlier—it had always been Yan Mian looking up like this.
Zhu Lexing replied, “…Would you?”
It was probably karmic retribution. The original host’s body had never been resilient to pain, and after last time, the torment had only intensified.
“I can help you,” Yan Mian said. “No conditions.”
Zhu Lexing stared blankly for several seconds before murmuring, “How?”
“By soothing you with my pheromones,” Yan Mian replied.
Zhu Lexing continued to gaze at her in a daze, mist gathering in her eyes like clouds veiling a serene lake.
As long as the pheromones were purely for soothing the heat and not deliberate seduction, Zhu Lexing would be fine. But if Zhu Lexing tried to turn the tables and seduce her with pheromones, Yan Mian would enter her own heat period.
She knew the risks all too well—and the better she understood them, the more determined she was to shoulder the burden herself.
It was just one round of pheromone soothing.
Trivial compared to the possibility of Zhu Lexing dying.
Zhu Lexing no longer had the energy to think straight, yet she still managed to ask, “You’re this close… aren’t you afraid I’ll mark you once I differentiate?”
Yan Mian thought, Zhu Lexing must have handed back every biology lesson to her teacher.
All AOs were exceptionally vulnerable right after differentiation. Did she really have the strength for marking?
Yan Mian reached back to the nape of her neck, where the pheromone suppression patch clung. She peeled it away, unleashing her pheromones with nothing left to conceal them, laying herself bare before Zhu Lexing.
The next second, she leaned slowly toward her.
Zhu Lexing’s body went rigid. Then she felt a gentle arm encircle her waist. Lily of the valley pheromones flooded the cramped space like a tidal wave. She wanted to push her away—
But every one of her senses registered only the Yan Mian before her. She smelled divine, like an exquisitely plated dish waiting to be devoured whenever the urge struck.
Her waist was encircled so lightly.
“Thank you for yesterday,” Yan Mian whispered.
Held like this, Zhu Lexing’s gland tantalizingly close, she felt her instincts pulling her toward those pheromones. She lifted her hand on impulse, reaching tentatively for Yan Mian’s nape, drawing her nearer—
Just a little closer.
If she could sink her teeth in there, the differentiation would end.
But it would also mean marking Yan Mian.
In that contact, Yan Mian finally sensed the thickening gardenia scent. Her legs turned to jelly without warning, and she realized abruptly that this was a terrible idea.
Warm breaths ghosted over her neck, making Yan Mian squint reflexively. She let out a breath and pressed a hand to Zhu Lexing’s shoulder. “You—finished yet?”
“You smell so good,” Zhu Lexing whispered. “Yan Mian—”
A blush crept from her earlobes downward. Yan Mian instinctively reached around to Zhu Lexing’s nape, intending to push her away, but her fingertip brushed the heated gland beneath the strands of hair. The body in her arms jolted as if a switch had flipped, flipping their positions to pin her down instead.
Just centimeters apart, Zhu Lexing looked down at her. The narrow sofa felt like a tiny boat adrift, bearing only the two of them. Her hand braced beside Yan Mian’s face as she stared, then leaned in—
Yan Mian closed her eyes on instinct.
“Zhu Lexing!”
“Xingxing—love you! Keep walking the flower road!”
In the haze, Zhu Lexing heard many voices, all too familiar. One even came from her agent, who had been by her side the whole time.
“Zhu Lexing,” the agent said. “If you don’t start managing your public image properly, we’ll both end up starving on the streets.”
If memory served, this was shortly after Zhu Lexing had come of age. Three days earlier, her agent had strong-armed her into appearing on a variety show. There, she had to share her “secrets” for staying slim alongside a bunch of celebrities who looked like walking skeletons.
Zhu Lexing figured whoever dreamed up the show—and anyone who watched it—couldn’t have been too bright. But once she was on camera herself, all she could do was flash an awkward grin and say, “Um, my trick for keeping in shape is cutting back on sugar and oil!”
The day the episode aired, paparazzi snapped photos of her buying ice cream downstairs from her apartment building. Netizens were appalled that a celebrity would dare pile three scoops onto a single cone. Accusations flew that she lived extravagantly, her wholesome image in tatters.
Zhu Lexing: “…”
What the hell was this? A dying montage? She couldn’t actually be dead, could she?
The thought jolted her mind into sharp focus.
She opened her eyes to a shaft of light—not the harsh glare of fluorescent bulbs, but soft, diffused daylight.
It was the same familiar room, all stark black decor. Unusually, the curtains had been pulled back.
Zhu Lexing lay on the bed in her unchanged clothes. An IV stand stood beside it, a nearly empty bag of fluid dangling from the hook. A needle was taped into the back of her hand.
A faint lemon pheromone scent lingered in the air. Zhu Lexing wrinkled her nose, instinctively recoiling from it.
Just as the drip ran dry and she reached to pull the needle, her phone buzzed on the pillow. She fumbled for it instead.
Overnight, her messages had ballooned to 99+ from everyone. Clearly, word of her differentiation had spread. Hours earlier, Qiao Qiao had sent a video: a group of people dancing up a storm, hips swaying as they waved huge red-and-green fans and belted out a jaunty folk tune. “Today you differentiate—here’s to you!”
The melody was all too familiar.
Haidilao’s birthday song. What was it doing here? Had they licensed it or something?
Zhu Lexing gritted her teeth through the secondhand embarrassment and kept watching. The more she saw, the more it made her cringe—like her joints were seizing up from the sheer trendiness.
She pinched the bridge of her nose as the video looped automatically, the ditty repeating on endless blast. That was when the door swung open.
Yan Mian stepped in, a fresh IV bag in hand. Their eyes met the instant she crossed the threshold.
A few seconds of silence passed before Yan Mian spoke. “You’re awake?”
Zhu Lexing: “…”
Yan Mian approached the IV stand at her bedside, plainly meaning to swap in the new bag. The stand was tall; she had to rise on her toes.
Zhu Lexing reached out on instinct to help. Their hands brushed in midair, overlapping.
The omega’s gaze settled on her face. Zhu Lexing couldn’t tell if it was mockery or something else entirely.
“Well?” Yan Mian said evenly. “Wasn’t last night enough chaos for you?”
