He had pure white hair without a single strand of another color…
Late at night, the rural village after the rain was draped in a veil of moonlight. Silence reigned, broken only by the chirping of insects and the whisper of the wind. Shadows of trees swayed gently, while the ink-black mountain ranges stood in the distance like cold, colossal statues.
A slender figure walked along the path, carrying a bag. A gust of wind swept past, stirring up the damp, earthy scent. Shen Yue covered his mouth and coughed a few times. Just as he approached a wooden cabin and was about to push the door open, he suddenly stepped on something.
He crouched down slowly, reached out to touch the mud in front of the door, and furrowed his brows slightly as he examined the dirt on his fingertips under the moonlight. After a moment of thought, he was about to stand up when a suffocating, pungent, bitter odor suddenly surged from all around him.
Shen Yue’s entire body stiffened. A sharp pain shot through the back of his neck. Suddenly, a large black bag was thrown over his head from behind. The bag in his hand immediately fell to the ground. He struggled aimlessly for a moment but was brutally punched several times. Then, a gunshot rang out, striking the ground near his feet. He stopped moving and was forcibly dragged into a car.
Hidden within an abandoned farm at the foot of the mountain, a Jeep Wrangler came to a screeching halt, leaving deep tire tracks on the muddy, wet ground. Shen Yue’s hands were bound in shackles as he was dragged inside by his captors before being roughly shoved to the ground.
The black bag over his head was suddenly yanked off. Blinding headlights shone directly into his face, making it impossible for him to open his eyes. Instinctively, he raised his hand to block the light.
“Oh wow, I didn’t get a good look when we grabbed him, he’s a real beauty. Who would’ve thought a dump like this, where even birds don’t shit, could have such a pretty thing?”
“…Damn, another low-rank beta? We still can’t make up the damn quota.”
Quota?
Shen Yue narrowed his eyes, enduring the bright light as he looked up. In the corner, several plainly dressed people were crouching, trembling in fear, just like him, they were kidnapped villagers. Standing around them were three tall, fully armed men. The air was thick with the interwoven, intense pheromones of high-ranking alphas. Among them, the alpha with a coppery scent was the one who had used pheromones to subdue him right at his doorstep.
But even more overwhelming than their scents was the alpha sitting on a chair in the middle. He had an eyepatch over his right eye, muscles bulging like small mountains, arms covered in scars. His one exposed eye was fierce and venomous, and his entire body reeked of blood.
Three A-rank alphas and one S-rank alpha.
The alpha with the coppery scent had said he was just another low-rank beta… so, were they human traffickers roaming the border?
Shen Yue shrank back. The one-eyed alpha fired a shot right beside his hand. Screams of terror erupted from the others around him.
“Bang—” A bullet instantly tore through the skull of one of the beta villagers. Blood and brain matter splattered on the spot. The remaining villagers let out even more piercing, harrowing screams.
“Shut the hell up, all of you! Keep yapping and I’ll kill you!”
The one-eyed alpha licked his lips. The scent of blood in the air had clearly stirred something in him, and a bloodthirsty expression appeared on his face. The farm fell silent, fear instantly saturating the suffocating air.
His single eye then turned to Shen Yue. He remained frozen, not daring to move, his breathing barely perceptible.
“Boss, you’ve scared the little beauty senseless, hahaha—” The coppery-scented alpha laughed loudly, and the other alphas joined in with their jeers.
Shen Yue opened his mouth, trembling as he finally stammered out:
“D… don’t… don’t kill me…”
He collapsed to the ground. His white top was soaked through with muddy water, clinging to his figure and revealing a slender waist with prominent shoulder blades. But the most striking thing about him was his long, pure white hair, untainted by a single strand of any other color, cascading down his elongated waist to the ground. Even his eyebrows and eyelashes were white. His features seemed delicately painted by an artist, exuding the cool, elegant beauty of an ink wash painting. A tear mole beneath his right eye added a subtle, perfectly placed touch of charm to his refined appearance.
Even though his complexion was morbidly pale, drained of all color and lifeless, amid the filthy, chaotic, stinking farm, he looked like an angel fallen to earth. And this angel was begging for mercy. There wasn’t an alpha alive who would want to kill such an exquisite creature, least of all this group of violent, ruthless mercenaries, whose faces were already twisting into lecherous grins.
“B… big brother, please don’t kill me…” he pleaded pitifully, curling his body into itself.
The mercenaries laughed. “Hahaha, boss, the pretty one’s calling you ‘big brother,’ begging you not to kill him. Look how pitiful he is.”
“Are you really a beta? Not some mountain demon or something? Such an unusual appearance doesn’t seem like a useless low-rank beta.” The one-eyed alpha narrowed his eye and asked.
Shen Yue trembled as he replied, “I… I’m a beta.”
The one-eyed alpha stared at him for a few seconds, then reached out, grabbed him by the neck, and yanked him over. Pain shot through Shen Yue, and he instinctively grabbed the alpha’s arm. Tears instantly welled up in his eyes, making him look utterly pitiful. The overwhelming, blood-heavy pheromones pressed down on him. Shen Yue’s body convulsed, but the gland at the back of his neck remained ice-cold without the slightest reaction, unable to release even a trace of pheromones.
“Damn it. He really is a beta. Not even a D-rank beta.” The one-eyed alpha let go. Shen Yue collapsed to the ground, clutching his neck and coughing incessantly.
“Then what’s wrong with you?”
Shen Yue struggled to speak. “Cough… I have albinism.”
“No wonder you live in this godforsaken place. A sickly one too.”
“Boss, what do we do? The employer wants seven pieces of goods. If we can’t find the last one and have to make do with these low-rank betas, the employer won’t pay us the full balance,” said another alpha, who smelled of cypress wood.
The one-eyed alpha cursed, then furiously shot two more villagers. The shack became completely saturated with the stench of blood, and the dirt floor was soaked in streams of crimson.
To these ruthless, merciless mercenaries, the lives of these low-rank betas were as worthless as weeds, not even worth a single dollar bill.
Shen Yue watched the bright red blood spreading toward him, his eyelids lowering slightly.
The one-eyed alpha studied Shen Yue for a long moment, then smirked maliciously. “Let’s make him the seventh piece of goods. It’d be a shame to kill a face like that. I’ve been partying at Las Vegas nightclubs for years and have never seen anyone this beautiful. Even if he’s a low-rank beta, the employer will like him, unless he’s blind and has a limp dick. If not, we can sell him at an auction. There are buyers with that kind of taste. Betas are good, betas are tighter than omegas when you fuck them. And with albinism? That’s exotic enough. Someone’s bound to like him, haha.”
“At the very least, this much,” he said, holding up a number with his fingers.
The mercenaries erupted into raucous laughter.
“Boss, let’s have some fun with him first. It’d be a waste to sell him off without playing.”
“Yeah, boss. I’ve never had a beta before.”
The one-eyed alpha thought for a moment, then grinned lecherously. “We’re short on time, so let’s do it in the car. Perfect chance for me to teach you how to handle a beta.” He then leaned down and gave Shen Yue’s cheek a rather obscene pat.
“Take him away. Bring Second Brother along too. As for the rest, sell them off as laborers to Nepal, better than nothing.”
The cypress-scented alpha came over, yanked Shen Yue to his feet, and shoved him forward. But Shen Yue seemed to have collapsed from fear, stumbling heavily. After just a few steps, he fell to the ground.
“Damn it, boss. He’s lame too. Sick and crippled. We’ll have to cut the price in half.”
The one-eyed alpha grabbed Shen Yue by the collar and glanced at his leg. “No. The price will double. There are plenty of rich guys who get off on cripples like this. Drag him along.”
Shen Yue’s face went pale as he cried out, “Please, don’t do this. I’m begging you. Don’t sell me. Boss… Boss…”
His pleas carried helplessness and terror, soft and pitiful. And on top of that, he was breathtakingly beautiful. It perfectly satisfied these brutal mercenaries’ sadistic urges. The one-eyed alpha, now excited, patted his face again. “Haha, be a good boy, and we’ll take care of you. If you behave, maybe I’ll decide not to sell you. Got it?”
Shen Yue nodded frantically. “I… I’ll behave… Boss…”
That “Boss” stirred something deep in the one-eyed alpha. He was ready to tear Shen Yue’s clothes off right then and there. Just as he grabbed him and started slipping his hand under the hem of his shirt—
A deafening “BOOM—” erupted outside.
The moment the one-eyed alpha turned his head, Shen Yue twisted his joints violently, slipping his hands out of the shackles. In one fluid motion, he drew a short dagger from behind his back. The blade glinted with cold, deadly light as he drove it directly into the one-eyed alpha’s scent gland.
These high-ranking mercenaries had never imagined that a sick, crippled beta would suddenly turn on them.
The one-eyed alpha let out a bloodcurdling scream. Blood sprayed from the back of his neck. His gun flew from his hand. The other alphas spun around to shoot, but it was too late.
Shen Yue grabbed the falling gun with his left hand and fired at the cypress-scented alpha.
The Austrian-made Glock 18 was devastating. A bloody hole burst clean through the cypress alpha’s forehead. Shen Yue then drove his knee into the one-eyed alpha, kicking his body into the other two A-rank alphas. Their bullets tore into the S-rank alpha instead. One round grazed Shen Yue’s arm, but he didn’t even flinch. He raised the gun and shot another alpha in the shoulder. As the man’s head emerged in pain, one bullet, one explosion. Headshot.
The copper-scented alpha shoved the one-eyed alpha’s corpse off himself. Shen Yue immediately aimed and fired.
But the bullet struck the man’s forehead with a metallic clang, as if hitting solid iron. The bullet lodged itself in a dent in his brow, but no blood flowed.
Shen Yue’s eyes narrowed slightly, his jaw abruptly tightening.
The alpha reached for his gun, but a faint, dreamy, intoxicating floral scent shot toward him like a sharp, piercing arrow, straight into the alpha’s gland. Instantly, the alpha’s limbs stiffened, his eyes bulged, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
The floral fragrance was cool and refreshing, like the coldest, most biting wine, poured out under the breathtakingly beautiful moonlight upon the grandest place of the night.
It was the scent of roseleaf raspberry flowers.
The coppery-scented alpha’s eyes burst open. He couldn’t believe it.
“You’re not a beta…”
“You’re also… an Awakened…”