High-Strength Suppressant
Qi Ying felt he was a bit hard.
Although Betas weren’t like Omegas, who easily succumbed to the influence of pheromones and flooded with desire, they could still react to other genders.
Lu Mengzheng was the person who triggered that reaction in him—a stranger of an Alpha he had known for merely two days. Qi Ying felt nothing but a deep sense of absurdity.
Out of sheer necessity, he decided to go to the bathroom to pull one off.
Since he had never developed feelings for any member of the opposite sex, he realized that while doing this, there was one person and one person only in his head: Lu Mengzheng, a New Asia Republic soldier of unknown origin but with huge chest muscles.
The firmness of his skin when they made contact just now, his scorching breath crashing around inside his ears, the freshly grown stubble on his chin scraping up his neck section by section—
Fuck.
Qi Ying closed his eyes and began to shudder, gritting his teeth, huffing and puffing.
He tilted his head back, and the ceiling light turned blurry, leaving behind only a hazy halo of light.
“Thank you.”
“Qi Ying.”
He heard someone call his name again, but the voice was entirely different from the one in his dream just now—deep and ethereal. He smelled the metallic tang of rainwater.
He shuddered heavily.
His consciousness dispersed along with that voice, like smoke blown away by the wind, impossible to trace.
Splish-splash. He turned on the faucet, washing his hands in silence.
When he returned to the monitoring room, Qi Ying resembled a beaten dog with drooping ears, completely drained of energy.
Meanwhile, in the monitor, Lu Mengzheng sat leaning against the wall. His forearm was buried in the blanket, while the remaining half rested over his hips. The quilt rose and fell rhythmically; Qi Ying naturally knew what he was doing. Except Lu Mengzheng didn’t have an Omega, so Qi Ying didn’t know whose face was in his head while doing it.
Qi Ying observed him curiously for a while. At a certain moment, he even had the bizarre thought that if he were an Omega who could smell the top-tier pheromones Lu Mengzheng was releasing right now, he’d probably be rolling his eyes back in sheer bliss by now.
Pity he couldn’t smell a thing.
Embarrassed, Qi Ying shut off the display.
……
Early in the morning, the second lieutenant delivered the high-strength suppressants along with breakfast.
Qi Ying was brushing his teeth and ran out to greet him with his toothbrush still in his mouth. He had never wanted to see the second lieutenant more than at this exact moment, even giving him an excited hug.
The baby face turned red, pressing a hand onto his gun holster: “…What are you doing?”
Qi Ying accidentally blew a toothpaste bubble as he spoke: “Oh, sorry. I was mostly hugging the suppressants.”
The second lieutenant looked at him rather displeased, making Qi Ying feel as if saying he just wanted to hug him instead might have been better.
“You have no idea what I went through last night.” Qi Ying walked back to the sink, spat out the foam, and gargled noisily. “I gave him a shot of ordinary suppressant, and it had almost zero effect.” He deliberately concealed those embarrassing details from the process, wiped his face dry, walked back, and picked up a high-strength vial to look at it. “Huh? This one is manufactured by the military?”
Having delivered food for three days, the second lieutenant finally grew a bit more talkative: “Yeah. Unlike the ones on the market, you can only inject this once a day. If you administer more, it might cause hallucinations, seizures, and a series of severe adverse reactions. But this one shows instant results; no matter how much an Alpha wants to vent, they’ll immediately become chaste and desireless.”
At the mention of “chaste and desireless,” an idea suddenly popped into Qi Ying’s head.
“Hey? Tell me… if a Beta gave himself a shot of this, would it work?”
The second lieutenant looked at him as if he were a lunatic: “Why would a Beta need a suppressant?”
Qi Ying said, “Maybe he’s just… prone to…”
The second lieutenant kept staring at him: “Prone to…?”
Qi Ying shifted his gaze away, looking toward the fish tank: “Just wanting to do you know… that kind of activity.”
Comprehension dawned on the second lieutenant: “Oh, you mean sex addiction?”
Unwilling to admit it, Qi Ying could only bite a hair tie while combing his braid with his fingers, blinking at him as a tacit admission.
The second lieutenant’s face reddened again, and he cleared his throat: “If it’s sex addiction, this suppressant suppresses internal hormones while suppressing pheromones, so it will have a certain effect. Though specifically, it depends on whether he wants to be done or wants to do people. If he wants to do people, a shot should be effective; but if he wants to be done, it might not work.”
How bizarre.
It’s like an aphrodisiac—Alphas take it wanting to do people, Omegas take it wanting to be done; the exact same drug can produce different effects.
The second lieutenant stared at Qi Ying’s expression, which looked like he was facing a formidable enemy: “…It couldn’t be you, right…”
“I know someone,” Qi Ying said immediately. To add credibility, he emphasized, “A cousin rather.”
“Alright.” The second lieutenant wore a suspicious expression. “Though it’s best to find a matching partner—no side effects that way.”
Qi Ying squeezed out a smile: “I’ll pass the message along.”
Watching the second lieutenant’s departing back, Qi Ying twirled the vial of medication in his hand, still deciding to give himself a shot.
He couldn’t keep getting aroused every time he saw the prisoner; he had to be a cold, competent “warehouse manager.” Besides, after mulling it over for a bit, he firmly believed he was rock-solid, wanted to do people, and was absolutely applying the right remedy for the disease.
After slamming a shot into himself, he didn’t notice any discomfort. Picking up breakfast and another syringe, he walked over to the conveyor belt and switched on the intercom.
“Good morning, Mr. Lu. Breakfast is here, along with the high-strength suppressant.”
“Put it on the conveyor belt. I’ll inject it myself.”
Flattering myself for nothing. Qi Ying rolled his eyes internally; he hadn’t intended to give him the shot anyway.
Around four in the morning, Lu Mengzheng had slept for a bit. After waking up, his condition was much better—at least judging from the monitors. That being the case, Qi Ying didn’t plan on risking his neck again.
He loaded everything onto the tray, as practiced as an attending physician: “Leave me two temperature readings—one before the shot, one after.”
To prevent a series of adverse symptoms caused by prolonged living underground, the artificial sky light overhead simulated outdoor sunlight based on daily sunrise and sunset times. Supplying light and UV rays, it gave Qi Ying the warm sensation of basking in natural sunshine.
Qi Ying stretched lazily, recording two values—38.8°C and 37.5°C—into the log. After receiving the high-strength suppressant shot, although Lu Mengzheng still had a fever, his body temperature had dropped somewhat. Qi Ying didn’t know much about the duration of this new injectable’s effectiveness, but he knew full well that an Alpha’s heat lasted an entire month—far from something a single shot could resolve. Still, this temporary calm allowed him to breathe a slight sigh of relief.
Qi Ying propped his feet up and looked toward the monitor. Right now was Lu Mengzheng’s reading time.
According to the second lieutenant, Lu Mengzheng had originally asked for newspapers. However, not wanting him to learn too much about the outside situation, they only provided him with a few poetry collections and literary classics for entertainment. The book Lu Mengzheng was currently reading was The Count of Monte Cristo.
—Only those who have experienced supreme misfortune can taste supreme happiness. Only those who have resolved to die know how good it is to live.
—All human wisdom is contained in these two words: Wait and Hope.
Qi Ying didn’t know what drew him to this book. If he had to say, Lu Mengzheng’s current situation was somewhat similar to Edmond Dantès at the beginning of the novel. Did he long for freedom? Or was he fully aware of what awaited him in a month?
In truth, not even Qi Ying quite understood what being sent to the capital, Jilong, for trial actually implied. He only knew it marked the end of everything, carrying an ominous undertone.