Idiot
Qi Ying sprang right up from his chair. Like a nervous first-time nursing mom, he frantically searched across the array of surveillance screens.
Lu Mengzheng was standing very close to one of the cameras, almost speaking to him with his face pressed up to the lens. His condition was awful—even under the night-vision camera, the paleness of his lips was striking.
As expected.
The effect of the suppressant dropped drastically at night.
Qi Ying turned off the vibration function of the pheromone concentration monitor on his way, ducked into the storage room to search in a panic, and then rushed back in a hurry: “We can’t! You can only take one high-strength suppressant shot every 24 hours. You took your last shot this morning, so the time hasn’t passed yet!”
Suppressing his chaotic breathing, Lu Mengzheng briefly weighed his options, speaking rapidly: “What are the side effects?”
“Hallucinations or seizures, maybe some other things…”
“Just inject it,” Lu Mengzheng interrupted authoritatively. Outside the camera’s view, his fingernails dragged across the wall with a painful rasp that was captured by the audio, sounding chilling. “Inject it!”
Qi Ying opened the door to the containment cell for the second time.
From a medical standpoint, side effects weren’t 100% guaranteed to happen. It was merely a warning of a possibility that required attention.
So there was still a high probability that Lu Mengzheng would feel fine after the injection without any mishaps, allowing them to pass another 24 hours in peace.
He was a bit more familiar with the place than during his first entry. Although it was still pitch black, he roughly knew where the light switch was located.
Before he could flip it, someone suddenly grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t turn on the light.” Lu Mengzheng’s voice was very raspy. Qi Ying couldn’t see his face clearly, but he could hear a faint metallic friction as he spoke—he must have put on the bite guard. “I don’t want the enemy to see me in a weak state.”
Right now, he lacked dignity, his face contorted and muscles twitching. Driven by pheromones, he was unable to control his own actions.
Lu Mengzheng hated himself like this.
By this time, Qi Ying wasn’t as afraid as he was the first time—besides, with the bite guard on, there was nothing the Alpha could do to him. He began spouting wild talk: “Now I’m the ‘enemy’ again? Come on, stick your butt out, let the ‘enemy’ give you a shot…”
His provocative words came to an abrupt halt as Lu Mengzheng raised a hand and grabbed him by the throat.
The force was precisely controlled by the well-trained soldier—not enough to leave a bruise, but enough to subdue him in a single move, easily stripping him of his ability to speak or resist. Qi Ying swallowed, his Adam’s apple sliding against the palm pressing it with obvious resistance.
Forced by this powerful force, Qi Ying retreated step by step until his back was pressed flat against the wall. Soon, that familiar feeling returned—his feet spun, and like a pancake being flipped, he was pressed heavily face-first against the wall with his backside pointing outward. Qi Ying turned his head to look for a long while, but finding it impossible to see behind him, he started to panic again, worried his shriveled gland might end up as the Alpha’s snack.
“What is wrong with you? I can’t say ‘Omega,’ I can’t mention ‘pheromones,’ and you don’t like hearing ‘butt’ either?”
Lu Mengzheng didn’t bother listening to his garbage talk, seizing him by the shoulder to press him down. Qi Ying’s mouth was forced to pucker up again, and Lu Mengzheng’s belt buckle dug so hard into his tailbone that it throbbed with pain. Shifting his body, Qi Ying realized Lu Mengzheng’s thigh was wedged firmly between his legs; due to the subtle height difference, he was almost straddling it in a bizarre posture.
Second time now, Qi Ying thought helplessly. What kind of special fetish does this guy have for taking people from behind?
Suddenly, Lu Mengzheng slowly shifted his knee.
Qi Ying’s eyes rolled right back, and his entire body tightened up like a squeezed orange beginning to leak juice.
Didn’t he give himself an injection too? Why hadn’t it taken effect?
It couldn’t be that he actually wanted to be the bottom, could it?!
Qi Ying’s mind shattered. He had always believed he would spend his life with an Omega even prettier than himself.
Farewell, sweet and soft Omegas!
“Can you not move… dammit!” The more Qi Ying thought about it, the angrier he grew. Toward this Alpha who had triggered his unknown sexual orientation and left him hanging in limbo, he couldn’t maintain a pleasant demeanor: “You’re impotent, and I don’t have a gland. What are two eunuchs grinding against each other for? Let go of me as soon as possible. The sooner you get the shot, the sooner you can enjoy…”
Qi Ying threw his head back, and the back of his head collided with the bite guard, causing both of them to let out a muffled grunt. But very quickly, Lu Mengzheng pinned the back of his neck down again while sticking his other hand into Qi Ying’s pants pocket to search around.
Lu Mengzheng found the syringe.
“What’s the rush? I was gonna give it to you anyway…” Qi Ying panted heavily, half his face still intimately pressed against the wall, speaking with a pouted mouth: “Hey hey hey, don’t break the needle!”
Soon, he heard rustling behind him as Lu Mengzheng plunged the needle into his own arm.
The liquid was pushed in.
Fearing that further struggling might break the needle, Qi Ying could only remain still and wait. But after a moment, he suddenly noticed that all sound had vanished into thin air, leaving an eerie silence inside the cell.
Qi Ying shrugged his shoulders and found that the force pressing down on him had also disappeared without a trace. Strangely, however, Lu Mengzheng’s hand was still resting calmly on his shoulder.
He brushed off the heavy arm with a modest amount of force, but the tall figure behind him swayed right after, slumping down limply. He immediately turned around on instinct to support Lu Mengzheng’s chest.
“Mr. Lu?” he called out to him. Lu Mengzheng’s scorching breath landed by his ear, but there was no response.
Oh no.
Qi Ying helped the Alpha sit down, then turned to feel for the switch on the wall. With a click, the light turned on.
Leaning against the wall, Lu Mengzheng sat with one leg bent and his head hanging down. Strands of hair fell across his forehead, and his wrist rested on his raised knee. His white tank top was mostly soaked through with sweat, making his muscular build all the more prominent. From his lips to his jaw, a black cage covered his lower face, its leather straps disappearing into his hairline. The man looked so stylish he resembled a display window mannequin.
Most striking of all, due to the natural physiological reaction of his heat, an unignorable bulge protruded from the middle of his combat trousers.
Fuck. Why is this Major Lu sitting there striking a pose with his “downstairs buddy” up like that?
“Hey, wake up!”
Qi Ying leaned over and patted his face, but got no response.
So he summoned his courage to increase the force, giving him a few sharp slaps. Lu Mengzheng shifted his head uncomfortably. Qi Ying recoiled like a launched projectile, but Lu Mengzheng remained seated on the spot, unmoving.
Qi Ying waited from a distance for a while before cautiously approaching again. Up close, Lu Mengzheng was still completely quiet. Qi Ying cupped his chin to force him to lift his head, only to discover he wasn’t asleep; his eyelids drooped, revealing half of his heterochromatic pupils and the whites of his eyes in a completely unfocused state.
“What are you looking at?”
Lu Mengzheng answered in a completely flat tone: “An umbrella…”
“What umbrella?”
“A transparent umbrella.”
Whatever you fear comes to pass. A side effect of an overdose of high-strength suppressants was a direct impact on the nervous system—Lu Mengzheng was hallucinating.
However, Qi Ying found the current Lu Mengzheng rather amusing. Compared to a rabid dog pressing him down and grinding its teeth, Qi Ying much preferred an obedient, well-behaved dog.
He pulled up one of Lu Mengzheng’s eyelids: “Whose umbrella?”
Lu Mengzheng tilted his head slightly, knitting his brows in discontent: “It hurts.”
Qi Ying let go and asked again: “Whose umbrella is it?”
“His.”
His.
That’s what I thought! This Alpha didn’t speak a single word of truth while playing games that afternoon; Qi Ying didn’t believe for a second that he relied entirely on himself to resolve his heat periods.
Big fat liar.
“Is he the person you like?”
Lu Mengzheng drooped his eyelids blankly—signal reception failed once again.
“Your Omega?”
“No.”
“No?”
Lu Mengzheng murmured, “Not an Omega.”
So he had someone he liked who wasn’t an Omega. Qi Ying thought for a moment, his mind slowly connecting the dots. Given that Lu Mengzheng’s “downstairs buddy” worked exceptionally well, he definitely hadn’t come looking for aphrodisiacs. Then running off to Jasu all by himself… could he be caught in some taboo relationship unaccepted by the world, planning to elope with someone?
Qi Ying mentally authored a hundred thousand words of taboo romance in a frenzy, slapping his thigh: “An Alpha?!”
Lu Mengzheng still shook his head.
Qi Ying opened his mouth wide: “Huh?”
“A Beta,” Lu Mengzheng said. “An idiot Beta.”
“…”