On the outskirts of the city, outside an abandoned building, barbed wire twisted around broken timber, and vines crawled all over the walls. Waist-high weeds grew wild, interweaving decay with lush greenery, giving off a eerie, desolate atmosphere everywhere.
In an old hospital room filled with the smell of mildew, a man’s body was strapped down by the bed’s built-in restraint belts. His body was covered in electrode patches, and a complex network of wires wove an airtight web over him. His expression was tormented and hideous.
A fierce, overbearing drug was crazily destroying his sanity. Two or three people stood around him, silently staring at the instrument screen to record his body’s vital signs.
“Who are you… Who on earth are you?! Why are you kidnapping me?!”
The only answer to his question was dead silence.
Around the corner of the hallway, Bai Yu tremblingly threw the remaining few pills into the trash can. He took deep breaths repeatedly, trying to calm his emotions, until a sharp, throbbing pain began in his lower abdomen again. This was the baby in his belly reminding him that right now, he needed his Alpha’s comfort. But his Alpha, the baby’s other father, had been sent into hell by his own hands.
The Omega covered his face and leaned against the corner of the wall, his breathing so quiet it was pitiful. Tears fell one after another, crashing down, and his crying turned from quiet sobs at first into suppressed, fragmented whimpers. He helplessly curled himself into a ball, his shoulders trembling violently.
nearby corridor light flickered on and off with the distant sounds. Harsh white light and thick darkness constantly intertwined. If one listened closely, they could even hear the sizzling sound of an electric current caused by the aging of the dilapidated, old light tube.
Da,
Da,
The sound of leather shoes approached from far to near. The owner of that sound walked extremely steadily and extremely slowly with every step. In the interval between the light turning off and on countlessly, the corridor suddenly fell silent, and the world instantly sank into a boundless, dead quiet.
The newcomer was an Alpha. Perhaps because he had just gone through emotional turmoil, the pheromones on his body overflowed to the point of spilling out. A marked Omega instinctively resisted outside scents, but that person’s pheromones were simply too dominant, pressing down on the Omega’s gland until it throbbed with pain, making his legs so weak he could barely refrain from kneeling down.
The fluorescent light turned on once again, and the Omega raised his head abruptly, the Alpha was already standing quietly in front of him at some unknown moment, with more than half of his body hidden in the dark where the light could not reach.
Lin Xun lowered his eyes. The moment he met the Omega’s gaze, he was also staring at him expressionlessly and quietly.
Bai Yu’s pupils shrank dramatically. He bent his body slightly, no longer daring to look at the Alpha. His tone was respectful while carrying a few bits of fear as he said in a trembling voice: “Sir…”
Lin Xun raised two fingers and bent them backward slightly. Bai Yu immediately understood, bowed his body, and stepped back.
The door opened. Lin Zhaoning vaguely heard a few sounds coming from the doorway. He tried his best to restrain his dizziness, yet he was still unable to clearly see who had come in. However, the pheromones on that person were very familiar, he had smelled this scent on Li You before; it was almost identical, and it hadn’t been just once or twice.
“Who… on earth… are… you…”
Lin Xun paced to the bedside, drew open the heavy curtains, scraped his fingertips along the edge of the tray, and casually picked out a scalpel. Aiming at the palm of the man on the hospital bed, he stabbed it in ruthlessly.
Lin Zhaoning let out a miserable scream, in so much pain that his clothes were soaked through with sweat. By the moonlight, he froze completely after seeing the person clearly, so bewildered that he even ignored the sharp pain coming from his palm for a moment, and his brain cleared up quite a bit as a result. “It’s you?”
The arrogant pheromones on the Alpha’s body and the hickeys on his neck were highlighting that he had just spent a beautiful and happy time not long ago. Unfortunately, the other protagonist was his wife in name.
Lin Xun folded his hands in front of himself and leaned his body forward, appearing extremely polite as he asked back as a matter of course: “Are you very disappointed?”
Lin Zhaoning was consumed with uncontrollable rage, his breathing beginning to turn rapid and violent: “You, you and Li You… You guys!”
Lin Xun hummed an “Oh”: “We got together.”
“You… You two actually went behind my back to hook up together. You, you and Li You… that bitch joined hands to harm me…”
“As expected of a mistress’s son, what good good can you possibly be…” Lin Zhaoning spat, cursing weakly: “If I had known earlier, I should have let him die in that car accident…”
Hearing this, Lin Xun laughed out loud without any scruples. He applied a little force, driving the scalpel all the way through, and even stirred it inside with great interest, feeling pity yet disdain: “You’ve gotten too deep into your role; no one here is watching you perform deep affection.”
Lin Xun crossed his arms, casually admiring his older brother’s painful expression, looking more pitiful than a stray dog on the side of the road. The superior person not only lacked compassion, but instead acted like a bystander to whom none of this mattered. He leaned close to Lin Zhaoning, his black-and-white eyes devoid of any emotion, and spoke coldly in a voice so low that almost only the two of them could hear: “Those nonsensical words are fine to fool Li You.”
“That car accident, who was the person that deserved to die? We both know it clearly in our hearts, don’t we?”
Lin Zhaoning’s fingers gripping the railing suddenly loosened. The whites of his eyes rolled upward, and a “he-he” sound came out continuously from his throat.
“Why… did… you…”
Lin Xun slowly and methodically wiped his hands clean. “You have no right, nor any opportunity, to know.”
The medication took effect again, and the person in the hospital bed soon began to groan in agony, nearly breaking free from the restraint belts. The vision before Lin Zhaoning’s eyes grew darker and darker, and his consciousness gradually sank into blurriness.
Lin Xun was truly crazy; he wanted him to stay here forever.
This was horrifying.
He would be repeatedly tortured in this place that never saw the light of day, tortured until he went mentally insane, and finally die a miserable death.
How could this be okay?
His child had not been born yet, and his Omega could not survive without his Alpha…
Bai Yu, that beautiful Omega, was afraid of the dark and loved to cry. Those eyes were irresistibly pitiful when crying, in a trance, they actually overlapped with Li You’s eyes: that cowardly and ordinary Beta, his wife in name.
No… it wasn’t like that. That Beta wasn’t qualified to become his wife at all; he didn’t deserve it.
Was he going to die? Do people think of the most important person in their life before they pass away? But why did that person happen to be Li You? It clearly shouldn’t be him…
“A-Ning!”
“A-Ning, it’s me, wake up!”
Who is calling me?
This voice… is it him?
The pitch-black ceiling suddenly lit up. Lin Zhaoning moved his eyeballs unconsciously; he seemed to be able to open his eyes again. What met his eyes was no longer that dark, quiet, mildew-scented hellhole. Everywhere his eyes could reach was blue-green; the willow trees were sprouting, a green carpet of grass spread out over the lakeside lawn, and even the wind carried a faint fragrance of plants and trees.
Lin Zhaoning walked forward blankly. How could he have returned here?
“A-Ning, ”
That clear, bright voice came from behind him. Lin Zhaoning turned around and was caught in a full embrace by that person.
That person held his hand, looked up, and said with a smile: “Our Calligraphy Club’s work won the national award! The president declared that we’re having a dinner gathering tonight, why don’t you come along too?”
“You…” Lin Zhaoning looked at that face, not knowing what action to make, his raised hand freezing in mid-air just like that.
“Aiya, what ‘you’ this and ‘you’ that? I already said we can bring family members! What’s wrong with going as my boyfriend?” The boy had an impatient and lively personality. “I still have class, I’m leaving first, see you tonight!”
He let go of the Alpha, squeezed into the crowd, and vanished in the blink of an eye. Lin Zhaoning stumbled to search for him, pulling over every passerby to look at them carefully, yet he still could not find the boy from just now.
“Wait a moment!”
“Don’t go! Wait for me…”
The scorching sun hung high in the sky, and the golden sunlight was intense and burning hot. On a midsummer night, the cicadas chirped continuously one after another. When a warm wind blew, it caused the branches to sway wildly, swaying until they gradually lost their color. The lush green was exhausted, the tree leaves turned withered and yellow, and the autumn atmosphere grew thicker. Moisture condensed into droplets hanging on the classroom glass windows, gathering more and more, finally forming a thin layer of mist. Soon, that thin layer of mist was carved by the low temperature into delicate frost flowers. Snow piled white outside the window, and on a winter day in the campus, everything was clad in silver.
Lin Zhaoning walked through all four seasons, but could never find that boy’s figure again.
It was autumn of another year. New students were entering the school, and clubs were recruiting members. Large and small booths formed a circle, packing the square so tightly that not a gust of wind could pass through.
“Calligraphy Club recruitment, junior brothers and sisters, take a look! Joining the club won’t be a loss!”
“Hey, look, there’s a handsome guy over there, he seems to be an Alpha?”
“Which club is he from?”
“Calligraphy Club? If it’s the Calligraphy Club, then forget about it…”
A leaf fell down, covering Lin Zhaoning’s eyes without missing a beat. He tilted his head and took that leaf off.
Precisely because of this, through the casual movement caused by the leaf, his gaze locked onto the Beta standing opposite him, or to be more precise, locked onto that face.
“Calligraphy Club recruitment. Does junior brother want to learn more about it?”
For the first time since sitting here today, Lin Zhaoning took the initiative to speak, asking that boy who looked timid and timid-looking.
Li You said embarrassedly: “Ah? Me? I… am not very good at it…”
“It doesn’t matter, I’ll teach you. Give it a try, alright?”
Everyone else in the club froze, their faces filled with shock.
“Holy shit?!”
“Holy shit, he…?!”
“Shut up, stop talking!”
…
Lin Zhaoning unconsciously gripped the bedsheet tightly, as if wanting to catch hold of someone, shouting that person’s name illegibly and persistently.
“Xiao You…”
“Xiao You…”
Lin Xun furrowed his eyebrows in displeasure. He studied Lin Zhaoning carefully, unable to figure out how this hypocritical Alpha managed to denounce his wife one second, and start expressing longing and reluctance with deep affection the next.
Sick.
He got too deep into his role, and even infected Li You along with him.
Truly detestable.
However, Li You would definitely feel heartache upon seeing this appearance that resembled a drenched dog, right?
Lin Xun thought self-mockingly. He casually picked up the scalpel from the tray and slashed a cut across his own wrist; fresh blood instantly soaked through the cuff of his shirt.
As if he couldn’t feel the pain, Lin Xun stared at the continuously flowing fresh blood, furrowing his brows as he pondered a question whose answer he had long known: If Li You saw this, would he feel heartache for him?
Probably not, because Li You loathed him.
Lin Xun stood up and said faintly: “Increase the drug dosage.”
The several people guarding around began to continuously inject drugs into the mumbling Alpha on the hospital bed once again.
“Qi… You…”
Hearing an unexpected name, Lin Xun paused in his tracks. After walking a few steps, he turned back around again.
Qi You?
This time, the Alpha finally paid a bit more attention, sizing Lin Zhaoning up from top to bottom once more in an incomparably serious manner.
How very interesting.
Lin Xun waved his hand, dismissing those people.
He raised his head, gently letting out a breath. His neck issued a “crack” sound along with the motion of raising it up, and an indescribable excitement and frenzy surged in the depths of the Alpha’s eyes.
Li You, oh Li You, you really are… utterly pitiful.