People closely watching the live projection frequently looked over toward this side, their gazes shifting back and forth between him and the fallen omega.
Shi Yixing looked back. The omega’s head had strangely struck the circular marble-forged stone pier, and fresh blood gushed out along his temple, forming a small pool of bloody water. Shedding his arrogant demeanor, the omega clutched his head in fear, curled up with his knees tucked into the corner between the railing and the stone pier, and kept screaming and crying out, “Don’t come over!”
The crowd quickly surged forward and surrounded them. Most people pointed fingers at him and hurled vicious words. Someone helped the omega up and offered gentle, soothing words, while medical personnel holding medical kits pushed through the crowd to anxiously staunch the bleeding for the S-rank omega.
“What are you being so arrogant for? You passed the first round, and as soon as you come out, you start getting physical and hitting people?”
“What kind of person is he, hitting even an omega? How can an alpha have the nerve to do that? He’s worse than an animal.”
“A person like this has no right to enter the Alliance military, he doesn’t deserve it! Bullying the weak and disregarding rules and regulations, what gives him the right?!”
“His genes are poor and his character is poor too. There’s no saving someone like this a disgrace among alphas, low-grade is just low-grade, get lost, garbage genes.”
There were too many voices around him. It felt as though he had tinnitus and couldn’t hear very clearly; his heart was tired and his body was even more exhausted, and he couldn’t say a single word. His tightly clenched fingers repeatedly tightened and then loosened. He swept his peripheral vision around goodness, there was a blind spot with no surveillance cameras, and his hanging heart grew another half-inch colder.
The crowd abruptly fell silent. The surrounding circle broke with a gap, opening up a path. “Thud, thud” The sound of steady footsteps was heavy, and a towering figure standing two heads taller than the crowd was truly striking. Heling Zhou’s thick eyebrows and knife-chiseled facial bone structure with a grim expression like the King of Hell appeared in Shi Yixing’s field of vision.
Great, I can’t count on this double-crosser.
His heart turned completely cold.
“Major, he… it was him who hit me! I just accidentally bumped into him and apologized immediately, but instead he slandered me and wanted to… wanted to beat me.”
The omega’s voice was spoiled, sweet, and soft, crying and accusing through sobs. His face was covered in tear tracks, weeping like pear blossoms drenched in rain, pitiful and touching to the core the kind that would soften the heart of any alpha. He raised a trembling finger to point at Shi Yixing, still acting terrified.
Shi Yixing sighed silently.
Finished. Even if I jump into the Yellow River, I’ll never wash this clean.
Crowded by the throng, Heling Zhou stopped at a distance of three paces from him. The sunlight shone from the side, casting light on one half of his superior, well-defined facial contours while the other half remained in shadow. His thick eyebrows were furrowed, and his deep blue eyes gazed at him intently, his look as sharp as pointed rivets.
Camphor tree leaves rustled and drifted down to the soles of their feet, and the lush, fresh fragrance melted into the breeze, feeling somewhat chilly against his face.
Shi Yixing’s spine pressed tightly against the railing, the tips of his fluffy rabbit ears drooping into a curve. The fingers hanging on either side of his trouser seams half-curled to stroke the leather fabric, and his pursed pink lips tightened into a straight line.
Little rabbits were sensitive; once startled, they liked to curl themselves into a fluffy ball, and if they weren’t careful, they could suffer shock and sudden death, fragile as dodder flowers that shatter at a single touch. When nervous, chest tightness and a pounding, racing heartbeat were common occurrences.
Heling Zhou took another two steps forward, wearing the fierce and ruthless look of a beast dying to devour its prey whole. He reached out, grabbed Shi Yixing by the collar, and pulled him up, his gloomy voice as cold as ever:
“You again? Starting to get carried away just because you passed the first round? You’re nothing, Shi Yixing. If you don’t want to attend anymore, get the hell out of the military academy right now!”
The atmosphere plummeted to freezing point, and time seemed to stand still. The surrounding people instantly quieted down, and even their breathing became cautious.
The omega, who had been softly sobbing and accusing, shrank back as if frightened, losing his haughty momentum and instead guiltily glancing sideways at Shi Yixing.
The omega abruptly brushed away the medical personnel’s hands wrapping the bandage, terrified that Shi Yixing might speak up. Enduring the pressure, he wept and added fuel to the fire:
“Major, you must seek justice for me! Not only did Shi Yixing hit me, but he also cursed me, saying I’m a whore… and he even said you, said… he said you aren’t fit to sit on the judging panel, and said you rely on your family to”
“Is that so?” The voice squeezed out from between clenched teeth was filled with anger.
His heartbeat accelerated to an explosive speed, and a pink mark was chafed onto his fair, tender neck. Shi Yixing frowned, shrank his neck slightly, and choked out an explanation in his throat:
“I didn’t. He was the one blocking my way and refusing to let me pass. When I pushed him away, I didn’t use much force, and the direction wasn’t even toward the stone pier. He did it on purpose; I didn’t mean to hurt him.”
His pretty red eyes brimmed with moisture, and his muffled, soft voice held a bit of grievance and unwillingness:
“I’m not leaving. Why should I… leave? I managed to get in here with such difficulty, and I clearly didn’t do anything wrong.
Just because I’m low-grade, do I deserve to be bullied, cursed at, and humiliated?! What gives you the right to assume right off the bat that it’s my problem?! Just because he’s an S-rank omega and I’m just a half-crippled alpha?”
Shi Yixing grabbed Heling Zhou’s arm with both hands, but the disparity in their strength was too vast for him to struggle free at all. The moment he lifted his gaze, a crystal-clear droplet slid past the corner of his eye and vanished into his hairline.
He wasn’t someone fond of crying, let alone a delicate, pampered omega. Perhaps influenced by the high-matching pheromones, he instinctively exposed his softness to the alpha who had marked him, becoming fragile.
He hated this feeling and instinctively resisted it; he refused to rely on anyone.
Let alone when that person was Heling Zhou having the worst luck in eight lifetimes to run into a paranoid, arrogant bully you couldn’t even afford to provoke.
Shi Yixing’s flushed cheeks were pink and tender, his long, curled eyelashes trembled slightly, and the tip of his tongue swept across his back teeth as he muttered angrily and petulantly:
“I didn’t curse you either. If it were me, I’d only curse much worse.”
With his black-spotted tiger ears twitching, Heling Zhou released his grip on Shi Yixing’s collar, reached down to catch his wrist, and raised his arm.
On the porcelain-white, delicate wrist, the black detector wristband flashed a steady red light. Shi Yixing hadn’t had time to take it off before coming down, and looking at Heling Zhou in confusion, he muttered defensively:
“What are you doing? Want to chop off my hand to make amends for him?”
Without a word, Heling Zhou’s gaze swept lightly over the faint pink abrasion on Shi Yixing’s temple, then landed on the damp, red corners of his eyes. His tightly pinched brows furrowed even deeper, and an inexplicable sense of anomaly rose unbidden from the bottom of his heart, origin unknown. Although he remained silent, he reined in much of his aura.
As his rough fingertips rubbed against the edge of Shi Yixing’s delicate wrist, with a click, the wristband projected a light-green screen into the air, clearly exposing the synchronized audio-visual footage under the sunlight.
From the omega bumping into him, striking him, being pushed down by himself, the omega slamming into the stone pier on his own, down to their conversational dialogue and actions everything was completely displayed.
The murmurs and clamor of the onlookers exploded into a frenzy.
“Case solved. Total white lotus. Isn’t this that fake-modest someone from the medical academy? Millennium runner-up, the guy whose scores never compare to Xia Mingluo what’s his name again?”
“Shi Yixing at least has actual strength to back him up. What does this green tea have? Only an S-rank gland to show off.”
“He probably hates Xia Mingluo too much. But man, that’s vicious. If Shi Yixing had actually taken the blame for assaulting an omega, he really wouldn’t have been able to stay in school.”
“Hahahaha, didn’t you guys notice? Shi Yixing has such a venomous mouth and is so good at roasting: ‘taking too many shifts’, ‘liking big asses’, ‘go practice more’, I’m laughing to death.”
…
The exposed omega slumped limply on the ground, but no one went over to help him anymore.
“No!! Major, this isn’t true, I didn’t… it was all him! He must have tampered with it, this is fake, fake!”
“Article 237 of the Alliance School Regulations: Those who intentionally provoke disputes and gather crowds to cause trouble shall be stripped of their eligibility to enter the Alliance military, have their records revoked, and receive a disciplinary demerit.”
Xia Zetian appeared from somewhere right at the front of the crowd slightly behind and to the left of Shi Yixing, impartially pronouncing the punishment. He stepped forward a few paces to shield Shi Yixing behind him:
“Rank does not dictate nobility or inferiority; as long as you are strong enough, none of that matters. Gland rank is not an excuse for you to discriminate against your classmates. If you can’t stand it, defeat him, rather than using underhanded methods to follow the crowd, sneer, and sarcastically mock others.”
With that, he pulled Shi Yixing’s arm, preparing to leave. Shi Yixing lowered his head and offered no resistance. For one thing, he had no strength left, and for another, he also wanted to leave quickly.
The matter had been resolved, and he was more than eager to run away. Mentally exhausted, he didn’t want to bicker about anything else; he just wanted to go back and sleep as fast as possible.
Before he had moved even two steps, his other arm was grabbed. He turned his head suspiciously. For once, he caught a trace of shame on Heling Zhou’s face; his tightly pressed lips opened and closed, but no sound came out.
With the surrounding voices noisy and chaotic, Shi Yixing blinked his eyelashes lightly and slowly, looking back in suspicion. As his arm lost its anchoring force, he turned around and followed Xia Zetian away.
It wasn’t that he was petty; without the wristband this time, he would have directly kissed his dream of becoming a marshal goodbye. Everyone would have preemptively assumed he was the one at fault, and his future would have been completely buried.
A shrill scream sounded from behind.
Heling Zhou kicked the omega’s waist and abdomen, and his agave pheromones instantly enveloped the hundred-meter spectator stands. The surrounding air grew so thin it felt suppressed by an irrepressible, murderous fury.
“Ugh, ah… my head hurts so much.”
“It’s… S-rank pheromones. Damn it, I can’t stand.”
He lowered his body, glaring down at the listless, wailing omega on the ground, his voice heavy as a fierce deity and Shura: “You’re expelled. Pack your things and get out.”
Suppressing the urge to choke someone to death, he anxiously shook out his tiger ears, his mood gloomy and unpleasant to the extreme.
He admitted that at the moment he saw Shi Yixing, his emotions had outweighed his reason, letting insulting words slip out that was his fault…
His mind was in utter chaos, his thoughts turbid. Seeing Xia Zetian about to take Shi Yixing away, his hand had instinctively grabbed out, even before he himself could react.
It was the first time an emotional abnormality had erupted.
The pheromones of an S-rank top-tier alpha were a fatal chronic poison to other alphas and omegas. Over a dozen alphas standing close by collapsed to the ground; Heling Zhou releasing his pheromones was a warning.
“Don’t let me hear anyone utter words insulting or discriminating against anyone’s gland rank ever again. Dare to lay a hand on an ally and you’re getting kicked out directly.”
The last silver-white hound mecha of the holographic projection soared into the air, and the image automatically shut down. The first round of assessments concluded with an actual passing number of 2,214 people, eliminating nearly half.
Principal Qin Dongrong took the omega away to process his expulsion immediately. Walking far away, Shi Yixing caught a faint whiff of agave pheromones; far from feeling uncomfortable, he felt enveloped, caressed, and soothed by the pheromones instead.