During class, Ji Xingjian was distracted and his body stiff, resembling a newly assembled robot.
Whenever he raised his head, he could always catch the probing gaze directed at him by the Alpha.
Clearly, the other party recognized him. Even though Ji Xingjian repeatedly ignored it, he could still feel the other’s gaze scraping constantly across his skin like a frozen feather, raising goosebumps while faintly breeding a trace of pain.
In the eyes of outsiders, Ji Xingjian was easygoing, gentle, handsome, and detached—a person with very stable emotions. But in reality, he was a little wild beast with an extremely sensitive inner heart, disguised very well on usual days and only willing to reveal anxiety, irritability, and other negative emotions in front of trusted people.
Hardly managing to endure until the end of class, Ji Xingjian hurriedly packed his things and prepared to bolt. Looking calm and breezy on the outside, his heart was actually nervous as hell, terrified that the Alpha would come looking for him. If it were not for the consideration of other people’s gazes, he definitely would have bolted straight out of the classroom.
In the back row, Huo Chengye raised his eyelids to look at Ji Xingjian, then took out his phone, sent a message to Lu Wei, and stood up to leave his seat.
By this time, Ji Xingjian had already walked to the entrance and, as if guided by some mysterious force, glanced in Huo Chengye’s direction.
Their eyes met once more.
“…” Ji Xingjian failed his facial expression management; his entire face turned completely red. He hurriedly pulled back his gaze and practically fled the classroom in a panic, almost crashing into the door.
Witnessing everything, Huo Chengye’s mood was extremely complicated. Clearly quite proactive that night, why was his courage today as small as a rabbit’s?
“Huo-ge, you don’t have a class next period, right? Let’s go play volleyball together?”
Huo Chengye hesitated for a moment and shook his head. “You go ahead. I’ll head over as soon as I finish some business.” Before leaving the classroom, he suddenly stopped in his tracks, turned his head, and asked, “Do you know where Professor Ji’s office is?”
“Eighth floor of this building, right next to the dean’s office, it seems.”
The elevators were congested, and Huo Chengye lacked the patience to wait, so he took the stairs.
Just as he reached the sixth floor, he was intercepted by a male student.
That was a delicate and soft Omega who, just like Huo Chengye, was also in the architectural design department, but two years junior to him. Due to the genetic differences between As and Os, he was more than a head shorter than Huo Chengye.
“Senior, what a coincidence running into you again. Thank you for helping me move my luggage this morning.” The Omega’s cheeks were flushed red as he quietly sized him up, inadvertently releasing a trace of perfume-like pheromone.
Huo Chengye could not help frowning, stepping back half a step without a trace to pull apart the distance between them. “You’re welcome.”
“Senior, do you have time tonight? I want to treat you to dinner.” The Omega leaned his body forward slightly, looking at Huo Chengye with hopeful anticipation.
The scent of the pheromones drilled into his nose even thicker; Huo Chengye wrinkled his nose, his voice cold. “No need.”
Seeing that he was about to leave, the Omega mustered up the courage to step forward and block his path, speaking with slight agitation. “Senior, do you… have a partner?”
“No.”
The Omega’s pheromones kept drilling into his nose; Huo Chengye felt uncomfortable all over, and his mood grew irritable.
As a top-tier Alpha, his perception capability toward Omega pheromones was much stronger than that of ordinary Alpha. Logically speaking, the low-concentration pheromones unconsciously released by Omegas could relax his nerves, but he was allergic to Omega pheromones.
On the day of his secondary gender manifestation at sixteen, Huo Chengye endured the discomfort to return home, only to witness his father and a young female Omega tangled together in limbs inside the study, with wretched sounds and rich pheromones drilling out from the crack of the door.
To someone undergoing manifestation, any pheromone would produce a strong stimulus to the body. What Huo Chengye experienced back then was not only physical pain but also psychological torture; no one knew how he managed to pull through it.
This incident left a very deep shadow on Huo Chengye, to the extent that afterward, as long as he smelled an Omega’s pheromone, he would experience physical discomfort, dizziness, nausea, and in severe cases, even fainting. Therefore, he never had intimate contact with Omegas, and his rut periods could only be tided over relying on medical suppressants.
Probably due to the side effects of the suppressants, Huo Chengye’s rut periods were somewhat unstable. He suddenly lost control the night before last, and fortunately, he bumped into Ji Xingjian; the whole night of madness temporarily freed him from being dominated by desire.
The Omega before his eyes did not know that Huo Chengye was allergic to pheromones and was just wondering what kind of Omega he liked, but before he had time to ask, Huo Chengye blocked him back. “I’m busy. If nothing else is going on, I’ll be leaving first.”
After speaking, Huo Chengye turned his side and brushed past the Omega while pressing against the wall, as if the other were a contagious virus.