The extended break between morning classes was always the peak period for students visiting the infirmary. Duan Xiyan accompanied Yu Zhen and sat with him on a chair for a little while.
Yu Zhen’s condition looked a bit better now. He leaned against the back of the chair, half-closing his eyes to rest.
As the students lined up in front of them were diagnosed and left one by one, the school nurse finally noticed the two of them: “Hey, which student over there isn’t feeling well?”
With his head lowered, Yu Zhen looked groggy and listless. He did not seem to hear the nurse calling him and remained completely unresponsive.
Duan Xiyan turned sideways, wanting to wake him up, but was startled by Yu Zhen’s flushed face, which was burning with fever.
Usually a cold and stubborn youth, Yu Zhen looked exceptionally weak under the torture of his body’s high temperature. He was frowning, his pale, thin lips pressed into a straight line, and he looked thoroughly miserable.
Duan Xiyan could not bear to watch. He gave Yu Zhen a gentle nudge, but the already drowsy boy immediately lost his balance and tipped over toward him. Duan Xiyan hurriedly raised a hand to support Yu Zhen’s other shoulder. The moment the back of his hand brushed across Yu Zhen’s forehead, it was almost scalded by the other boy’s scorching breath.
The intense heat gave Duan Xiyan a jolt, and he quickly called out to the nurse: “Nurse, he is burning up. Could you come take a look?”
The nurse walked over and reached out to feel Yu Zhen’s forehead: “Oh my, he has a high fever. Help me support him into the back room.”
Duan Xiyan helped Yu Zhen to the sickbed in the back. By this point, Yu Zhen’s consciousness was truly blurred, and his entire weight was pressed against Duan Xiyan. It took quite a bit of effort for the pampered young master.
After Yu Zhen received a fever-reducing injection and had an ice pack applied, he still had not woken up. The nurse waved her hand at Duan Xiyan: “You go back to class first. Let him rest here, and you can come pick him up in a couple of periods.”
“Okay, thank you for your hard work, Nurse.” Duan Xiyan flashed her a smile and cast a worried glance at the person on the sickbed before heading out.
Normally, he was the one seeing the doctor; this was his very first time accompanying someone else to the infirmary, and it felt rather novel.
Under the combined effects of medication and physical cooling, Yu Zhen’s condition looked much more stable. The frown between his brows was not as severe as before, but his cheeks remained flushed, and the ice pack on his forehead added a touch of fragility to him.
It formed a sharp contrast with the fierce youth who had fought off a whole gang and struck with ruthless precision on the day Duan Xiyan had first arrived in this world.
For the first time, Duan Xiyan truly grasped the reality that Yu Zhen was a fragile Omega.
By now, the class bell had already rung, and all the other students in the infirmary had long since cleared out. Having some leisure time, the nurse relaxed and decided to chat with Duan Xiyan. Smiling warmly, she asked, “Are you two close friends? Don’t worry, I will take good care of your friend.”
Were they close? Let us just say she was right in spirit, Duan Xiyan thought.
Without refuting her, Duan Xiyan replied with a smile, “Thank you for the trouble, Nurse. I will head back first.”
Back in the classroom and back in his seat, Duan Xiyan finally had the leisure to take out his phone.
On the podium, the Chinese teacher was reciting the text with great emotion, almost burying his entire face inside the textbook.
Duan Xiyan’s seat was near the back of the middle column. While keeping an eye on the teacher, he covertly flipped through his phone hidden inside his desk.
To avoid being caught, his phone was set to vibrate. All the way to the infirmary with Yu Zhen, his phone had been buzzing nonstop in his pants pocket, and he had not checked it yet.
[Wu Hu]: Xi-ge, did you go back by yourself? We have a major problem, SOS.
[Wu Hu]: Zhang Yu says the two of us betrayed them and are not loyal, and they want to teach us a lesson. [Crying.jpg]
Judging by the timestamps, these two messages must have been sent after he and the trendsetter, namely Zhang Yu, finished their confrontation, when Wu Hu went back to the restroom and could not find him.
It was clear Wu Hu was extremely anxious. Seeing that Duan Xiyan had not replied, he had kept spamming a bunch of various crying emojis.
Actually, what Wu Hu feared was not really Zhang Yu and his gang.
Both Duan Xiyan’s and Wu Hu’s families were among the wealthiest and most powerful in Rinzishi. Backed by such influence, they were far more powerful than Zhang Yu’s crowd, who did not dare, and could not, actually do anything severe to them.
Yet while physical violence was off the table, Zhang Yu had psychological leverage: they held the evidence that Duan Xiyan and Wu Hu had hired people to corner Yu Zhen.
While the original owner and Wu Hu were reckless delinquents, they had not crossed any serious lines; their mischief was confined to playing the tyrant at school. Zhang Yu’s crowd, however, was different, as they were genuinely tied to street thugs. That was why, when the original owner wanted to deal with Yu Zhen, he had to borrow connections through Zhang Yu.
If this matter were leaked and their families found out, it would be all over.
They were only in their second year of high school and had just turned eighteen; their wings were not hardened yet. If their families found out they had crossed the line into bullying classmates with street hoodlums, they would probably be beaten half to death.
Just thinking about it made Wu Hu’s hair stand on end. He could not hear a single word of the lesson, his mind entirely filled with the bloody imagery of an impending double-team beating from their parents. Every two seconds, he tapped his phone to check if his Xi-ge had replied.
Yet for some reason, his Xi-ge was not replying after all this time.
Wu Hu was so restless he felt like he had nails stuck in his chair. Could his Xi-ge possibly be paying serious attention to class right now?
Separated from Wu Hu by just a floor, Duan Xiyan was indeed paying close attention, as he was intently clicking to save the goofy stickers Wu Hu had sent one by one.
These monochrome panda-head stickers gave him a delightfully chaotic aesthetic experience; in short, they were hideous yet addictive.
Dragging the progress bar to the very end, right as he finished saving the last one, a new message popped up.
[Wu Hu]: If Zhang Yu leaks the fact that we hired people to corner Yu Zhen, we are done for. Next time we meet, we might have a completely new relationship.
[Wu Hu]: Xi-ge, what do we do? [Aggrieved.jpg]
Duan Xiyan paused, feeling rather curious, and asked: [What kind of new relationship?]
[Wu Hu]: Hospital roommates, the kind where our legs get broken. [Smoking a cigarette.jpg]
Duan Xiyan: “…”
[D]: Don’t worry, I do not really want to develop that kind of relationship with you anytime soon. Let us just stay ordinary brothers. [Looking sincere.jpg]
In truth, Duan Xiyan was not entirely calm either; Wu Hu’s panic had infected him to some extent. But once he learned what Wu Hu was worried about, his urgency instantly evaporated.
He recalled the day he first met Yu Zhen, when he had blundered into a narrow alley and caught Yu Zhen being cornered by several bulky men.
Sure enough, those thugs had been sent by the original owner.
Though he felt ashamed of the original owner’s actions, the security footage from the video game arcade was ironclad proof, not to mention the police station statements. All of this could serve as false alibis for Duan Xiyan.
After all, who on earth would hire thugs to corner someone, only to charge right into the encirclement themselves?
Meanwhile, at the school infirmary.
Yu Zhen lay on the sickbed with his eyes half-closed. Deep within his body, it felt as though a pile of glowing red coals was smoldering, burning his consciousness into a haze. The sound of Duan Xiyan’s departing footsteps drifted to him, feeling as if they were shrouded in fog.
After a long while, the trace of coolness from the ice pack on his forehead finally helped him regain a shred of clarity.
Recovering slightly, he removed the ice pack and sat up.
There were no other students in the infirmary right now, and the nurse was enjoying her leisure time, sitting behind the medicine cabinet scrolling through short videos with her phone on speaker. Cheerful background music and bustling voices flowed through the entire room like a stream.
The nurse was so engrossed that she only reacted after the glass counter in front of her was tapped twice.
Yu Zhen placed the ice pack on the counter: “Thank you.”
“Your fever broke? It has only been a few minutes… Wait, no, your face is still really red.” The nurse stood up and felt Yu Zhen’s forehead, which was scalding.
“Mm, please give me a tube of soothing agent,” Yu Zhen lowered his gaze.
He did not offer a lengthy explanation, but the nurse immediately understood what he meant. Her lips parted slightly in surprise, and her brows knitted together.
Soothing agents were universal for both Alphas and Omegas, helping them alleviate physical discomfort during ruts or heats. However, they only offered relief and had no suppressing effects.
Initially, medical researchers developed soothing agents merely to satisfy individuals whose physiological reactions were overly intense. Yet after entering clinical trials, they unexpectedly discovered it was also a blessing for another group of people.
AO gender-dysphoria patients could not use suppressants, and their physiological cycles were typically much harder to endure, meaning they could only survive them using soothing agents.
The youth standing before her was tall and straight. The stark, pale fluorescent light from overhead cast a shallow shadow on the glass counter. With his lips tightly pressed together, his expression revealed a hint of anxiety.
Filled with pity, the nurse softened her voice: “You have to sign for soothing agents in the infirmary. Right here, in this logbook.”
Yu Zhen neatly signed his name, took the soothing agent, and was about to leave when the nurse called out to him.
“Student, your condition looks pretty rough. Class is almost over anyway, why don’t you rest a bit longer before leaving? Wait for that student from earlier to come pick you up.”
Wait for Duan Xiyan to pick him up?
Yu Zhen’s wrist holding the soothing agent paused slightly, then he calmly replied, “No need.”
When he left the infirmary, there were only a few minutes left before the end of the class, after which the next period would lead straight into the lunch break.
Instead of returning to his classroom, Yu Zhen headed to the science building next to the infirmary.
Although the science building was an essential facility for every school, during the test-oriented high school stage, science laboratory classes were exceedingly scarce, and all the lab classes across three years could be counted on one hand. Consequently, the science building was empty most of the time.
Familiar with the route, Yu Zhen walked to an empty laboratory on the top floor and climbed in through a loose window.
A reassuring darkness and silence enveloped him. Only then did he finally relax, using his teeth to tear open the packaging of the soothing agent and slowly injecting it into his body.
The internal turbulence was gradually soothed. Yu Zhen raised a hand to cover his eyes and fell into an exhausted sleep under the influence of the medication.
Just as the school rumors went, he was indeed an Omega without pheromones.
In fact, he was not even sure if he could truly be counted as an Omega; it was just that hospital checkup reports showed his gland differentiation tended more toward the Omega spectrum.
Although modern society no longer categorized people by pheromone concentration, for any Alpha or Omega, lacking pheromones was like a cow unable to produce milk or a hen unable to lay eggs, making one an outlier and a disgrace.
And Yu Zhen, afflicted with rare AO gender dysphoria, would never possess pheromones in this lifetime.