The story returns to the eve of graduation.
It is now 21:34 on December 30, 3795.
The time display on the resting screen of the last Skyrail train slides by in real time as crowds pass through the dazzling neon lights, descend the platform, and follow the three-dimensional holographic navigation out of Langria Skyrail Station No. 9.
Today is a power-restriction day, and the streets are noticeably emptier than usual. The surrounding buildings are pitch black, with only a few scattered patches of light breaking through the darkness.
Liang Qiao raised a hand to adjust the backpack strap on her shoulder as she walked alone into the dark alleyways. The night breeze lifted the hair at her forehead, and she casually tucked the stray strands behind her ear with a few slender fingers.
Her current residence was located in the North Third District of the academy, where most residents were professors or staff members, along with a handful of students whose exceptional abilities warranted special accommodation or financial aid. She belonged to both categories, so it was only natural that she had been assigned a place here.
Station No. 9 connected directly to the North Third District, about a ten-minute walk from the dormitory entrance. Just as she reached the bottom of the building, the security camera at the door keenly recognized her face. The door slid open silently as she stepped onto the stairs, and by the time she turned, the elevator beside the entrance was already open and waiting, carrying her precisely to the authorized floor.
The time had come to 21:55.
As she stepped out of the elevator, the emergency lights in the corridor flickered on one by one with her passing. The door at the end of the hallway detected her approach and opened automatically. She set down her backpack and walked in, instinctively reaching out to turn on the light.
The room remained pitch black.
Power-restriction day.
She realized, unbinding the Terminal from her wrist and placing it on the table. By the glow of the holographic screen, she changed her shoes, removed her clothes, and walked over to the sink to wash her hands.
The apartment in the North Third District wasn't large, and it couldn't compare to the student dormitories that cost ten thousand a month. There was a fully open kitchen, a bathroom, and a table in front of the sofa that served both as a desk and a dining table. Beyond a simple partition lay a modest single bed.
Liang Qiao walked over—the bed she had neatly made before leaving was now in complete disarray. Most of the blanket was piled at the foot of the bed, with two bare long legs sticking out from beneath it, strikingly conspicuous in the darkness.
No look of surprise crossed her face—or rather, she had long grown accustomed to finding an extra person in her home from time to time. Her gaze swept across the room and quickly spotted a set of pajamas carelessly discarded on the shelf by the headboard. She reached down, hooked them lightly with her fingers, and gathered them in her palm.
The blanket was pulled open a little.
She rolled up her sleeves and bent down to help dress the person, but the moment her fingertips barely brushed against his wrist, a gust of wind whistled past her ear. The person who had seemed sound asleep moments ago snapped his eyes open, bent his knee, and kicked hard at her. Liang Qiao reacted swiftly, stepping back half a pace and catching his ankle firmly in her grip.
With his body restrained, Chu Hui finally saw who was standing by the bed. The wariness in his eyes vanished, and he flopped back down bonelessly, his voice still carrying a trace of drowsy fatigue. "Why didn't you wake me when you got back?"
Liang Qiao said nothing, tossing the pajamas to him before walking over to the wardrobe to change. When she got down to her last piece of clothing, a pair of arms looped around her shoulders from behind, warm breath scattering against the side of her neck. "You just came back from the Old Third District?"
She hummed in acknowledgment, tossing her discarded clothes precisely into the laundry basket. She was about to undo her pants when a hand moved faster than hers, sliding down.
His tone carried no hint of seduction, as if he were doing something entirely natural. "Let me help you."
Liang Qiao: "…"
She instinctively reached out to stop him but failed. Chu Hui casually brushed her hand aside. In the dim light, neither could make out the other's expression clearly. When he drew closer, their gazes—one higher, one lower—finally met in a blur.
Liang Qiao looked at the person now pressed completely against her and found herself momentarily speechless. She tightened her grip on his wrist to keep him still. "I still have to go to school tomorrow."
"Ten minutes," Chu Hui said, his wrist restrained but still leaning in to kiss her, his words muffled. "Anything goes, please—we haven't seen each other in almost three months. I've been taking suppressants through this whole Heat cycle."
She couldn't speak between his kisses, and in the end, she could only spread her hands in surrender. "Five minutes."
Five minutes was enough. Liang Qiao wasn't particularly interested, so she simply washed her hands first to appease him. Chu Hui, for all his thunderous proclamations, always amounted to little rain. Before long, he was gripping her wrist tightly, unsure whether he wanted to pull her closer or push her away. She kindly supported his waist and reminded him calmly, "Two minutes left."
He was somewhat dissatisfied with her coolness, letting out two sticky whines before asking in a hoarse voice, "Did you get your fill outside?"
Liang Qiao showed no reaction, merely moving her wrist slightly by way of answer. Chu Hui had barely finished his sentence when her movement sent his voice pitching sharply, his taut foot rubbing hard against the bedsheet twice.
The tide of desire rose like water, floating and sinking with no anchor in sight. The Omega's body, rising and falling in repeated waves, was wetter and softer than water itself.
In bed, he was always willful and unrestrained, quickly growing louder and more wanton in his cries. Liang Qiao, who had shown little reaction from the start, finally moved—pulling her hand away to press against his lower back, pushing him face-first into the pillow with measured force.
Chu Hui twisted his waist, trying to break free, but the person behind him pressed his entire body down, capturing both his wrists as well. Even so, his mouth refused to stay idle, spilling out a stream of reckless, shameless words, practically begging her to put him in his place.
What he loved most was watching Liang Qiao reveal that restrained, controlled side of herself because of him. So he opened his mouth again, calling out wildly—wife, sister, captain, mas—
Before he could finish the next title, Liang Qiao reached out and covered his mouth. Her calm voice sounded right behind his ear: "Shut up, you little slut."
There was no trace of contempt in her tone—it was as if she were simply stating a fact. Chu Hui's easy composure hit a snag the moment those two syllables landed, and for a moment, he was stunned.
Liang Qiao rarely spoke in bed, let alone said anything flirtatious—Chu Hui was left utterly shattered by that single sentence. Before he could piece himself back together, her next words followed close behind: "You're turned on."
He tilted his head back and cursed, catching his breath before asking, "Who taught you that…"
"You." Liang Qiao admitted without hesitation.
Chu Hui burst out laughing, his chest vibrating with the sound. His hands, pinned behind his back, groped blindly until they found her firm waistline and the clearly tensed muscles beneath.
His damp, feverish fingertips were like hooks, teasing away at both their composure with each touch. Chu Hui turned his head to glance at her sideways, a smile curving at his lips, desire pooling at the corners of his eyes, his voice husky and half-unreal as he asked, "So do you like sluts?"
Well, Liang Qiao silently admitted to herself—the pent-up tension from months of closed-door training clearly couldn't be relieved in five minutes. Chu Hui caught the signal of loosening in her eyes, finally succeeding in seducing her, and sprawled out completely to wrap himself around her.
Both of their physical fitness reports had consistently scored above 97. On any normal day, it would be hard to say who would surrender first in bed. But this time, Chu Hui had to admit that an Alpha who had just finished closed-door training was not someone to be easily provoked. Before he could fully beg for mercy, he tried to salvage the last shreds of his dignity, asking between gasps and laughter, "So this is your five minutes?"
"Don't—" Not even a second later, the face he'd just managed to save crumbled again. He had no choice but to accept his fate and yield, his fingertips digging into the sheets to withstand the overwhelming sensory overload, dizzy and lightheaded as he said, "I really can't anymore… ah… can't you just go easy on me—"
Tears of physical overwhelm spilled out without warning, silently soaking into the pillow.
It was too dark.
The entire city had been switched to energy-saving mode, and even from the twentieth floor, not a single trace of the sparse streetlights below could be caught. Chu Hui couldn't see anything, reaching forward blindly until his hand met Liang Qiao's slightly damp face.
He applied a bit of force with his forearm, pulling her neck down toward him. Liang Qiao understood what he wanted, pausing briefly in her movements before leaning down to press her lips against his.
Calling it a kiss was generous—it was more like a mere press of lips. Liang Qiao was never good at kissing. Even after countless times, the most she'd learned was to gently lap at his tongue. Chu Hui, by contrast, was far less polite. The moment their lips met, he delivered a fiercely aggressive kiss, as if locked in a battle of wills with another force, yet in the end, it was he who ended up disheveled from head to toe.
"Ha…" After a long kiss, he finally gave up trying to match her, tilting his head back to catch his breath, his tongue half-protruding, warm breath brushing over the top of Liang Qiao's head.
The person in his arms was barely affected. After a moment, she lowered her head again to kiss his chin and neck, idly toying with his thin earlobe.
At 00:36, Liang Qiao walked out of the bathroom. Chu Hui, whom she'd just fished out of the shower, had recovered a bit of energy and was now sitting naked on the bed, looking at his Personal Terminal.
His hair had grown a little longer, casually pushed back as he stretched his arms behind him, listlessly browsing through various webpages. His delicate features looked pale and soft under the cold glow of the screen, but the moment he opened his mouth, the illusion shattered. Seeing her approach, he curved his lips into a gentle smile and asked, "Did you enjoy that just now?"
Liang Qiao didn't respond. She walked over to the sofa, picked up the pajamas she'd tossed there, and threw them at him.
When the last glimmer of light in the room went out, Chu Hui finally put on his pajamas obediently. He'd slept through the afternoon, so he wasn't the least bit tired now, and Liang Qiao didn't feel sleepy either. The two lay in bed, chatting in fits and starts—though most of the talking was done by Chu Hui, who, with his controlling nature, went through every detail of her past three months from start to finish.
Liang Qiao's current training was the Federal Citizen Security Agency's induction intensive, which also served as an examination. A total of 109 people from Langria Federal Academy had participated, with only 25 to be selected based on merit. Yesterday was the final day of the training. After submitting her report, she would still need to wait about a month before receiving the results.
—And there wasn't much to say about the food, lodging, and daily routine over those three months. Her 24 hours each day were precisely divided into training blocks, leaving her almost no personal time except for sleep. It was so monotonous that it felt like the exact same day had been looped 92 times. When Chu Hui asked what she'd been eating, she simply recalled briefly and recited the weekly rotating menu.
Chu Hui listened patiently to the end, then asked her, "Didn't make any new friends?"
Liang Qiao said, "No."
She wasn't the type to actively seek friendships. If others didn't approach her first, she could go an entire day without speaking. If not for her overwhelming strength, she might not even have been able to gather enough people to form a team.
This answer was clearly within Chu Hui's expectations, but he still put on airs and said, "You need to make more friends, you know?"
Liang Qiao was silent for two seconds, then said, "That's not what you said last time."
Last time, Liang Qiao had merely added an Omega she'd been randomly paired with during the graduation assessment to her contacts, and he'd asked her if she was trying to drive him to death.
Chu Hui knew exactly which "last time" she was referring to, but he showed not the slightest embarrassment or guilt at being caught pretending to be magnanimous. Instead, he said matter-of-factly, "Omegas are off the table."
Seeing that the person beside him had fallen into her familiar silence again, Chu Hui refused to let her off the hook—whether she was silently acquiescing or simply didn't care, he insisted on getting a response. He pressed, "Did you hear me?"
Liang Qiao didn't answer right away. Instead, expressionless, she said flatly, "Wow."
Chu Hui laughed at her response. In the darkness, he reached out both hands to rub her face, then pounced forward until their noses touched, asking, "Did you hear me?"
"Oh." Liang Qiao answered slowly.
The single bed was far too narrow—with the slightest movement, the two of them were pressed together. Chu Hui simply settled into that position, lying on top of her, and reached down to hook the throw pillow that had been kicked to the foot of the bed, pulling it up and placing it against the wall.
He asked a few more questions about things he wanted to know, and finally, satisfied, prepared to sleep. As a last act, he tilted his head up to claim a goodnight kiss, then expertly wedged himself into the gap between Liang Qiao and the pillow, and closed his eyes.