The deepest level of the Sanyuan Research Institute is a restricted area with extremely high clearance, accessible only to a few of Yang Jiu’s trusted confidants.
At this moment, inside the spacious, cold confinement room, Yang Jiu knelt halfway on the metal floorboards. Electrified shackles bound his neck and limbs, and a three-meter polished steel chain limited his range of movement.
His usually aloof and ascetic three-piece suit had been torn to shreds, and his bare upper body was soaked in sweat, outlining the sturdy muscle lines of his chest.
He lowered his head; he had not moved for three full minutes.
The oppressive and dead silence felt like the prelude to a storm.
Outside the observation window, Tang Fan and several professors stared at him without blinking.
Tang Fan swallowed nervously. When the timer hit the five-minute mark, he spoke softly: “It has been five minutes. I suppose he has made it through.”
The professors were still hesitating when Yang Jiu suddenly burst up and lunged toward the monitoring room. The chains tightened instantly, emitting a harsh, grating friction sound.
Yang Jiu stared dead-eyed through the one-way observation window, his gaze fierce and savage, not human at all.
Startled, Tang Fan stepped back twice: “He is still not lucid! And he had special-effect suppressants injected just this morning!”
Several experienced veteran professors also wore expressions of utter horror.
Yang Jiu had developed Alpha separation anxiety in the very first month after Shen Hui’s departure three years ago, and it had quickly progressed into mania.
Even Yang Jiu himself refused to believe it, because this was a symptom that only appeared when a high-compatibility fixed partner was forcibly torn apart, yet Shen Hui had been a Beta until the day he died.
Everyone was baffled as to where the problem lay, so they could only prepare suppressants according to traditional methods to suppress it. However, over the past three years, Yang Jiu’s resistance to suppressants had grown stronger and stronger; what started as one dose every three months now began to wear off by the second day.
If a solution could not be found soon, the backlash from his completely erratic estrus cycle would eventually drive Yang Jiu into a manic madman.
Amidst their reaction, completely ignored by everyone, Yang Jiu went into a full frenzy. With a roar and bulging veins on his arms, he exerted a sudden surge of force and actually snapped one side of the solid steel chain directly.
The chain, embedded with high-voltage conductive devices, instantly sparked with crackles and flashes of electricity as Yang Jiu heavily whipped it against the glass of the observation room.
Tang Fan felt as though he had been struck in the face. Staggering back in panic, his heart leaped straight into his throat.
The young professor looked utterly incredulous: “He actually snapped the solid steel!”
This was simply not humanly possible.
Compared to the young man’s bewilderment, the veteran professor dashed straight to the control console. Just as Yang Jiu was about to pry apart the electric shock collar with his bare hands, the veteran slammed the shock button and turned the voltage up to its maximum.
Bzz.
Inside the confinement room, Yang Jiu let out a miserable, agonizing scream, his entire body convulsing and twitching continuously. Without a shred of mercy, the veteran professor then pressed the suppressant injection button, forcing a dose right at the edge of a lethal amount into Yang Jiu’s body.
When it was all over, he collapsed entirely into his chair, not even daring to check whether Yang Jiu was dead or alive in the confinement room.
With his liver and gallbladder chilled to the core, Tang Fan rushed to the observation glass, staring fixedly without daring to draw a full breath at Yang Jiu, whose clothes had been scorched to ashes by electricity.
Several seconds felt like several years. Lying on the metal floorboards, Yang Jiu weakly curled his finger and flashed a one at him.
“He is lucid, he is lucid! Quick, save him!” Tang Fan sprang like a coiled spring to open the confinement room door, shouting for the professors to rush him into the medical ward. After a flurry of chaos, Yang Jiu lay in a hospital bed in a deep sleep; aside from minor electrical burns, all other vitals were surprisingly normal.
Only then did Tang Fan let out a long breath, his legs turning to jelly as he collapsed straight onto the floor by the hospital bed. He then slumped unceremoniously on the ground. The veteran professor thought he was about to pass out too and immediately reached over to haul him up, only to be waved away.
“My legs are soft, I cannot stand up, let me recover for a second.” Tang Fan felt as though his boss had scared him until every bone in his body turned to mush.
The veteran professor’s hands were also shaking with lingering fear. Sadly, being too old to smoke, he wore the look of someone who had just cheated death: “Quickly go find a little Omega for our boss.”
Tang Fan looked completely listless: “Who? Me?”
The veteran professor gave him a look that said: Or me?
The two stared at each other in blank dismay, and a dead silence filled the medical room. In the year after Shen Hui died, anyone who dared bring up the subject met a miserable end.
The veteran professor took the lead in changing the subject: “I will go check the boss’s lab data first. Even for a top-tier Alpha, it is impossible to withstand such high voltage and come out almost unscathed like the boss did. Did he really undergo spontaneous differentiation back then?”
Yang Jiu shook his head: “I do not know. I only heard that something went wrong when the boss was differentiating, but only that person knows the details.”
The veteran professor was startled: “Shen Hui?”
Tang Fan looked toward the rapidly recovering Yang Jiu, his expression somewhat complex: “Word has it that back then, the Chen family plotted to make the boss differentiate into an Omega so they could swallow up the Yan family fair and square through a marriage alliance. Whatever that person did, somehow the boss ended up like this.”
Having spent a lifetime researching glands, the veteran professor immediately understood what he meant. The Chen family had interfered with Yang Jiu’s differentiation using drugs, and probably more than once.
An accident engineered through layers of interference could still produce such a formidable Alpha, meaning the Chen family’s research was very likely far darker than he had imagined, and both the boss and Shen Hui were clearly aware of it.
After a moment of silence, the veteran professor activated the research institute’s highest clearance level to encrypt and seal all medical examination data concerning Yang Jiu, not even sparing the most basic health check-ups.
Only after confirming that all data was fully encrypted did the veteran professor breathe a sigh of relief. He turned to look at Tang Fan, who had already picked himself up off the floor: “It does not matter whether the boss is at the institute or not, but the company will not do, right? I heard they are still working on the Zhongshi Village real estate project recently?”
“Ah.” The thought made Tang Fan feel even more despair: “The company’s next step is to rebuild the cooperative project to build a scientific research center. But isn’t the research institute big enough already?”
“Oh, the boss did mention expanding the institute. After all, gland research, much like AI, is the big trend for the future, isn’t it?” The veteran professor felt quite pleased inside; he had owned two properties in Zhongshi Village for years. Now, buying and selling them back and forth would net the company millions, and he might even get a promotion and a raise.
Then he looked at the unconscious boss on the bed, and his smile instantly vanished: No way, the boss absolutely cannot afford to happen to anything! Even if he drops dead, it has to be after the demolition payout is issued.
Shen Hui knew very well that he was dreaming. Before him, neon lights flashed across a dim dance floor, and the music was deafening.
With an expression of utter indifference, he walked through the crowded, swaying masses moving to the rhythm of the music. The air was thick with a pungent mixture of perfume, alcohol, and sweat.
Along the way, quite a few people tried to strike up a conversation, but he ignored them all. Among them, a few high-society scions who had drunk too much refused to give up, drunkenly stumbling forward to wrap an arm around his waist.
A trace of disgust flashed across the depths of Shen Hui’s eyes. He casually picked up a glass of ice water from a nearby table and dashed it straight into the man’s face.
The scion was instantly enraged, wiping his face while hurling foul curses as he prepared to teach him a lesson. But the moment he caught sight of Shen Hui’s face, his blood froze.
“Steward Shen?”
Shen Hui had long since grown accustomed to their involuntary fear and flattery after offending him. Fear, because his methods had long since earned a notorious reputation; flattery, because in Qinghai, no one dared offend the Chen family.
And he was universally acknowledged as Chen Shenzhi’s possession.
“Have a good time, Young Master Zhou. I have matters to attend to.” Shen Hui gave a polite, cold nod, then turned and walked toward the private rooms on the second floor, faintly hearing Young Master Zhou’s cold snort behind him.
“What is he putting on airs for? Is he not just a plaything of Young Master Chen? Does he really think he is somebody?”
“Tsk, with that face and figure, no wonder Young Master Chen treats him like a precious treasure.”
“Fascinating. When Young Master Chen gets tired of playing with him, I will snatch him over to play with properly. He will definitely feel amazing when he is crying.”
The group laughed lewdly as they stared at Shen Hui’s retreating back.
“What are you all chatting about, having so much fun?” Chen Shenzhi stood behind them, elegant and cultured, holding a glass of mixed drink.
Dressed in casual slacks and a shirt with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the top three buttons undone, his smiling peach-blossom eyes were half-concealed behind gold-rimmed glasses. Clearly the picture of a refined, aristocratic young master, the group nevertheless froze as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over them, their faces pale with terror, lacking even the courage to turn around and look.
People who spoke ill of Shen Hui to his face might end up miserable, but they would not die. However, if anyone cursed Shen Hui in front of Chen Shenzhi, no one ever lived to tell the tale.
“Young Master Chen… um…” Young Master Zhou, at the head of the group, turned around trembling, still wanting to offer an excuse.
Chen Shenzhi smiled faintly, the lenses reflecting an eerie, chilling glint.
“Do you want to sleep with Shen Hui too?”
The deafening DJ music drowned out the shrill screams and pleas for mercy. A moment later, Chen Shenzhi meticulously wiped his fingers and lifted his foot to walk toward the private rooms on the second floor.
With a cold expression, Shen Hui stood at the far end of the second-floor hallway watching this scene. Chen Shenzhi stopped deliberately on the second-to-last step, looking up at him with a smile.
“They will not appear in front of you ever again.”
Yet Shen Hui remained completely tense. Others might not be able to tell, but Chen Shenzhi knew: he was already angry.
“Or perhaps, are you worried about someone else?”
Gritting his teeth, Shen Hui asked word for word: “Where did you hide Yang Jiu?”
Chen Shenzhi’s smile gradually twisted. In the next instant, both he and the background were torn apart and distorted, turning the field of vision into something bizarre, psychedelic, and dazzling.
Shen Hui heard Chen Shenzhi’s distant, eerie voice: “Take a guess?”
The dream shattered abruptly, and Shen Hui snapped his eyes wide open in the hospital bed.
The ward was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Turning his head with lingering fright, he saw Yang Bai sleeping soundly beside him, clutching a thick professional textbook.
The encroaching danger from the dream slowly dissipated. He could not even remember what he had dreamed about; he only remembered that it seemed related to Yang Jiu. But his current situation left him no room for overthinking.
Shen Hui, who was also lying in the hospital, was much calmer. At first, he had been somewhat worried about Yang Jiu’s condition, but he quickly ran out of time to dwell on it.
Because his own situation was looking far from optimistic. His high fever kept recurring, his lucid intervals grew shorter and shorter, and his body felt increasingly uncomfortable. That subtle, uncontrollable urge driven by the instinct to chase a certain kind of pleasure left him deeply irritated.
He was skilled at endurance, so he showed not the slightest trace of it in front of Yang Bai. Yet the look Yang Bai gave him grew more and more worried, resembling someone gazing at a piece of porcelain on the verge of shattering.
Take right now, for instance. He had just sneezed, and Yang Bai immediately looked at him with an expression full of nervous anxiety: “Is the IV drip a bit too cold? I will go get you a hot water bag.”
As he spoke, he made to stand up and fetch a hot water bag, completely missing Shen Hui’s words.
Ever since Shen Hui fell ill, Yang Bai had turned into a state of high tension and diligence. The young man who used to slip away to play the moment vacation started now stayed glued to Shen Hui’s side, and whenever Shen Hui fell asleep, he would bury himself in textbooks focused on gland repair.
Shen Hui originally wanted to offer a word of advice, but realizing it would benefit Yang Bai’s future anyway, he let it go. However, the kid seemed to have gone slightly mad from reading lately; the way he looked at Shen Hui grew increasingly bizarre, and he started acting very strangely. On one occasion when Shen Hui went to the restroom, Yang Bai had even wanted to help him urinate.
He had been kicked out by a cold-faced Shen Hui, only to wail outside the door: “Brother! Brother! Are you okay? Do not fall! I will get you some soft cotton wipes! The hospital tissues are too harsh!”
Consequently, when Yang Bai suddenly jumped up now, Shen Hui felt a slight conditioned reflex of trauma. However, before Yang Bai could run two steps, Gu Yu blocked his path, followed by a surging crowd of specialist consultants.
Shen Hui immediately sat up straight and locked eyes with Gu Yu.
Gu Yu’s attitude was very relaxed: “Rest assured, the ones I hauled over are all from my academic lineage. Their lips are tightly sealed.”
Shen Hui let out a sigh of relief: “Thank you.”
Yang Bai’s eyes locked instantly onto the oldest, baldest, and whitest-haired professor behind Gu Yu—he had only ever seen him on the school’s honor wall! A titan of gland science!
Yet his excitement was quickly drowned by a wave of immense terror: Shen Hui’s condition must be far more serious than he had imagined; otherwise, why would they invite such an incredible professor? Swallowing nervously, he stammered: “Dr. Gu, what on earth is wrong with my brother? Did you not say it was just a normal gland infection?”
Gu Yu’s fellow apprentices, seniors, and master stared him down in unison, almost piercing him through with their gazes.
Gu Yu spoke up: “Uh… well…”
At the right moment, Shen Hui bailed him out: “Xiaobai, I want to eat those small wontons from downstairs. Could you go buy me a portion?”
No matter how foolish Yang Bai was, he knew Shen Hui was trying to dispatch him, and he felt both annoyed and frustrated: “Brother, I am already grown up!”
Taken aback for a second, Shen Hui couldn’t help laughing: “Mm, so the grown-up Xiaobai does not want to buy wontons for me anymore?”
“I—” Yang Bai originally wanted to say he was grown up and could help carry the burden instead of letting Shen Hui shoulder it alone, but he was completely disarmed by Shen Hui’s smile. Obediently, he turned and went to buy the wontons.
Gu Yu shot him a sideways glance: “You are getting smoother and smoother at using your looks to get your way.”
Shen Hui smiled noncommittally: “Is the treatment plan out?”
Gu Yu also put aside his casual demeanor and let out a heavy sigh: “Yeah.”
He glanced at his teacher before continuing: “Currently, there are only two methods. One is to find that wild—cough, that high-compatibility Alpha of yours, and use his pheromones combined with medication for treatment. We cannot say your glands will make a one-hundred-percent recovery, but on the surface, you will be a normal Omega.”
“On the surface?”
Gu Yu nodded: “Because you cannot be thoroughly marked. No matter how many pheromones are injected, they just vanish along with your body’s metabolism. Remember that swimming pool in the elementary school math textbook where Xiao Ming was filling and draining it at the same time? It is pretty much like that.”
Shen Hui was not amused by his joke; his expression grew gradually heavier: “What about the other method?”
The expressions of Gu Yu’s academic circle were not looking too good. After a moment, he spoke: “The other option is surgical removal of the glands.”
Shen Hui silently waited for the second half of the sentence.
Struggling and hesitating for a long time, Gu Yu finally said: “However, this surgery carries massive sequelae. Post-surgery, you will need to take accompanying glandular hormones for life to maintain internal hormonal balance. And the surgical risks are very high.”
Gu Yu knew what Shen Hui wanted, which was why he and his academic circle had spent the last few days scouring every experimental record and train of thought related to gland repair. They had even alerted their teacher, but the ultimate conclusion was that Shen Hui could no longer turn back into a Beta. His glands had been decimated and destroyed during those three surgeries back then—especially the last one arranged by Chen Shenzhi, which was practically designed to deal a fatal blow. If he could not become an Omega, he was meant to die on the operating table.
After half a minute of silence, Shen Hui asked: “If I have the surgery, how many more years can I live?”
Unable to bear it, Gu Yu replied: “The longest recorded case is three years.”
Shen Hui remained silent without a word. If it were three years ago, he would have chosen surgery without a second thought. But now, he hesitated slightly; if he knew he only had three years left, what would Uncle Yang and Xiaobai do?
“Can we not use conservative treatment?”
Shen Hui’s inquiry took Gu Yu somewhat by surprise. Having never even considered that answer, Gu Yu looked at his teacher with a somewhat bewildered expression.
The veteran professor let out a regretful sigh: “Your glands are extremely fragile right now. The slightest stimulation will cause a total collapse. You must make a choice within a week at the latest.”
The third path he had once stumbled upon by luck had finally reached its end. After a brief silence, Shen Hui thanked everyone and stated that he would give his reply within a week.
Fortunately, not everything Gu Yu brought was bad news; at least he could be discharged from the hospital now. In Dr. Gu’s original words: Staying in the hospital is just waiting to die anyway, you might as well go back and eat some good food.
Thus, Shen Hui and Yang Bai returned to the repair shop that very night.
The moment Shen Hui and Yang Bai stepped back onto the street, they felt that the atmosphere throughout the entire village was strange.
Carrying bags big and small behind Shen Hui, Yang Bai looked puzzled: “Huh, it is only ten o’clock, why are there so many fewer stalls on the street?” Even the fruit stand lady they liked best had not set up shop.
Walking briskly back to the repair shop, the two discovered that Uncle Yang had not opened the door either, nor was he at home.
While Yang Bai was shining his phone light and groping around the welcome mat for the spare key, Uncle Yang drove his little three-wheeler back. Seeing two shady-looking figures, he initially thought a thief had broken into the house, but upon realizing it was his two big boys, he finally relaxed: “Xiaohua, why are you out of the hospital? Is your body better?”
Yang Bai, whose butt had been sticking up in the air while he felt for the key, was completely ignored.
He frequently suspected that he was the one picked off the street.
In front of Uncle Yang, Shen Hui displayed a rare docility. He shook his head: “It is nothing major. Where did Uncle Yang go?”
Uncle Yang’s joyful expression turned somewhat bitter: “I went to check if there are any suitable storefronts.”
This time it was Shen Hui and Yang Bai’s turn to be shocked: “We are moving?”
Half an hour later, Yang Bai returned from next door carrying some cold-cut braised snacks and beer. Uncle Yang went into the kitchen to cook a few child-sized mushroom-stuffed dumplings for Shen Hui and steamed a bowl of egg custard, refusing to let the patient make do with whatever he and his son ate.
The three of them sat around the dining table in the second-floor small living room, eating and chatting.
The bowl of egg custard in front of Shen Hui was a golden, appetizing yellow, drizzled with sesame oil and chopped scallions, looking extremely tempting. Yang Bai glanced at it over and over, until Shen Hui scooped a spoonful into his bowl and then asked Uncle Yang about moving.
Uncle Yang was certainly unwilling to move; he had been here for decades, his customer base was stable, the rent was cheap, and he had saved up a bit of money. But an arm could not twist a thigh. This area had been zoned as a demolition district at the beginning of the year. Initially, the landlords kept negotiating due to dissatisfaction with the demolition compensation, but last month, a generous developer suddenly swooped in and settled things with the landlords directly, and the demolition was scheduled to start this month.
Shen Hui frowned: “Which developer?”
Zhongshi Village was Qinghai’s third-largest urban village. Across the entire city of Qinghai—let alone the whole country—there were very few groups capable of swallowing this entire tract of land in one gulp.
Tenants did not get a payout for demolition anyway, so Uncle Yang had not paid much attention: “It seemed to be… the Yan Group?”
Swallowing a mouthful of egg custard, Yang Bai scalded his tongue so badly it flew about wildly: “The Yan Group? Senior Yan’s Yan Group?”
There was no second Yan Group in Qinghai, yet Shen Hui still felt this did not quite sound like Yang Jiu’s style. While Zhongshi Village did have development advantages geographically, with the economic downturn in recent years, an investment of this scale was an extremely risky venture.
Unconsciously tapping his fingers on the table, Shen Hui murmured: “Unless there is some sort of force majeure…”
Watching him slip into work mode, Uncle Yang and Yang Bai—father and son with one heart—neatly scooted their chairs backward in unison, because Shen Hui’s intense aura of deep thought made everyone feel that speaking loudly in front of him was a crime punishable by execution.
Sneakily leaning close to his old man, Yang Bai whispered: “My brother is not going to grab a knife and murder the person in charge, is he?”
Feeling that made sense, Uncle Yang replied: “You go hide the knife in the kitchen first.”
Unaware of the father-son duo’s little scheme, Shen Hui was lost in thought over Yang Jiu’s motives.
However, his clear train of thought was disrupted by Yang Jiu’s feverish, intoxicated face: that scorching kiss back then, that plea for satisfaction pushed to the absolute extreme.
That uncontrollable bodily craving quietly spread, making even his fingertips tingle slightly.
It was time for him to make a decisive choice.
At the exact moment Shen Hui reached his decision, Yang Jiu opened his eyes at the research institute, rolled over, and sat up.
Just as Tang Fan was about to step forward with expressions of concern, he was scared into silence by Yang Jiu’s manic gaze.
Yang Jiu smiled, a smile resembling a demon crawling out of an imprisoned hell: “Shen Hui is still alive.”