“Oh right, what about that thing I mentioned to you last time? How is your consideration going?” Gu Nansong asked Dai Li.
“Sure, just do as you say. Thanks for your hard work, Brother Nansong.” With the last few words, Dai Li spoke in a deliberately sweet, affected tone.
“Ew, get lost, you’re disgusting,” Gu Nansong said with a look of utter disdain. “Then I’ll take him to see Dr. Hu. Um… what about Xiaoguo…” Gu Nansong hesitated for a moment, asking for Dai Li’s opinion.
“Bring him along too. He’s not an outsider anyway, so we can tell them,” Dai Li waved a hand. “Go on, go on.”
“Alright then.” Gu Nansong turned to Xu Changxing and said, “Classmate Xu, would you mind coming with me to see Dr. Hu? There is something related to Dai Li that I’d like to consult you about.” Then he added to Lin Guo, “Xiaoguo can come with us too.”
“Huh? Sure.” Xu Changxing felt a bit puzzled, but decided to go along and see what it was about.
Gu Nansong led the two of them to Dr. Hu’s office and knocked on the door.
“Hello, please come in,” a male voice called from behind the door.
“Dr. Hu, this is the person I mentioned to you earlier who might be that special factor,” Gu Nansong said, gesturing toward Xu Changxing.
Hu Yu adjusted his glasses. “Hello, please take a seat. I’m Dai Li’s attending physician, Hu Yu. Just call me Dr. Hu. What’s your name?”
“Xu Changxing.”
“Gender?” Hu Yu jotted down the basic information on a piece of paper.
“Male Beta.”
“A Beta? That makes it even more strange. Interesting.” Hu Yu looked at the high school student before him, whose features were slightly more delicate than an Alpha’s.
“What do you mean?” Xu Changxing was filled with question marks.
“Have you ever been checked for secondary differentiation?” Hu Yu asked.
“Yes.” Xu Changxing’s parents had desperately wanted him to be an Alpha, so they had taken him for checkups at an early age.
“And the result?”
“I won’t undergo secondary differentiation,” Xu Changxing replied honestly.
“The two of you really are miracles of medical history.”
“Huh? What miracle?” Xu Changxing became even more confused.
“This involves patient privacy, and without the patient’s permission, it’s not convenient for us to disclose it.”
“Dr. Hu, Dai Li said that for the sake of your treatment, you can tell them the situation,” Gu Nansong chimed in from the side.
“Oh, is that so?” Hu Yu adjusted his glasses again. “That’s wonderful.”
Dr. Hu continued, “Although Dai Li is an Alpha, he suffers from congenital pheromone disorder. Because of this, ever since he differentiated, he has never had pheromones or a rut period.”
Hu Yu looked back at Xu Changxing. “Classmate Xu, the scent you smelled on Dai Li last Saturday was likely his pheromones. Because they had been suppressed and unreleased for so long, this rut period came on fiercely and lasted for over a week.”
“Pheromones? But I’m a Beta?” Xu Changxing tilted his head, looking at the doctor who was speaking so eloquently in front of him.
“That is precisely what astonishes me. I thought you would be an Omega or an Alpha.” Hu Yu adjusted his glasses, wearing a genuinely puzzled expression.
“If I may ask, does your family have any genetic history, or has anyone else ever been known to have a Beta who can smell pheromones?”
“Not that I know of.” Xu Changxing shook his head.
“Can you describe the scent you smelled last time?” Hu Yu asked.
Xu Changxing tried hard to recall. “A very sweet, fresh scent, a bit like sea salt. Can’t any of you smell it?”
“To be honest, no one here, including Alphas and Omegas, can detect any pheromones on Dai Li whatsoever. Even pheromone detectors can’t pick them up,” Hu Yu said with a hint of regret.
“Hmm.” Xu Changxing stared at the corner of the desk. Then why on earth had he been able to smell Dai Li’s pheromones?
“Still, it probably isn’t a bad thing, so don’t worry. We just wanted to understand the situation to help with Dai Li’s treatment, and maybe even make a small contribution to the medical field,” Hu Yu calmly and earnestly reassured the dazed student sitting before him.
“Dr. Hu, when can Dai Li be discharged?” Gu Nansong asked.
“Once we finish the last few tests, well, he should be able to leave the isolation room tomorrow afternoon,” Hu Yu said, calculating how many tests remained and estimating the discharge time.
“Alright, thank you for your hard work, Dr. Hu,” Gu Nansong said politely.
“It’s my job.”
Afterward, the three of them walked outside. The moment they stepped out of the office, Lin Guo finally lost his composure, but constrained by the fact that they were in a hospital, he kept his voice down while emitting a silent, high-pitched shriek, “Ahhh! So Big Brother Dai had so many secrets all along, oh my god!”
Lin Guo used wild gestures to express his shock. “Did you guys know? I didn’t even dare breathe inside just now. I felt like I shouldn’t have been in there at all.”
“It’s fine, Guoguo. Big Brother Dai already gave the word, you count as one of our own,” Gu Nansong said, reaching out to ruffle Lin Guo’s hair.
Lin Guo jumped up and waved his hands, his voice still hushed, “I told you not to touch it, stop touching it!”
Watching the two of them sprint off ahead, Xu Changxing paced back and forth until he returned to Dai Li’s isolation room. He stopped about a step away from the intercom, gazing at the person inside through the thick glass.
The glass reflected Xu Changxing’s breathtakingly gorgeous face. The person inside seemed to sense his gaze, sliding his swivel chair over and looking up to meet Xu Changxing’s eyes.
“Back?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are those two?”
“Who knows.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“Um, they asked me what your pheromones smelled like.”
“Oh? What do they smell like?” Dai Li looked at Xu Changxing with an expectant expression, which caught him somewhat off guard.
“Sea salt.”
“Not cool at all.” Dai Li curled his lip, looking away with a disappointed expression, though a hint of hidden excitement lingered beneath the surface.
“What were you hoping for?”
“As the school bully, it should naturally be the explosive scent of gunpowder, dazzling bloodshed, or at the very least, noble cedarwood.”
“You have quite an imagination.” Xu Changxing teased without mercy, and the next second, a soft laugh slipped past his lips.
The chuckle was so light that if Dai Li hadn’t been sitting right next to the intercom, he might not have heard it at all. That voice, carrying a trace of magnetic static, scratched at Dai Li’s heart like a cat’s paw.
“Why are you smiling so pretty.” Dai Li muttered, looking away awkwardly to dodge Xu Changxing’s gaze.
“What?” Xu Changxing genuinely didn’t catch that, hearing only a muffled static buzz.
“Nothing.” Dai Li turned back to face him, the tips of his ears faintly tinged with red.
“Right, Dr. Hu said you can be discharged tomorrow afternoon,” Xu Changxing told him the good news.
“Great, wait for me, deskmate.” Dai Li tilted his head slightly, his eyes curving into a smile as he looked like a loyal Samoyed.
The glass of the isolation room was very thick. As Xu Changxing looked down and Dai Li looked up, their lines of sight intersected. There was no wind inside the hospital, yet it stirred a gentle breeze deep within the hearts of the two youths, sweeping across every hidden corner.