He Yu didn’t get angry; instead, he laughed. “If I die, what will you do?”
The Alpha, thick-skinned and shameless, clung tightly to Lian Xu, pressing against his face and stealing a kiss.
“If I die, my beautiful baby will have to marry that bastard. I can’t bear the thought of that.”
Lian Xu’s expression was a whirlwind of complexity. No matter how he pushed, he couldn’t dislodge him.
An Alpha in the middle of a rut—his mind was a haze. Who knew how much of what he said was true and how much was just delirium?
“Baby…”
Lian Xu took a deep breath. If these words came from the current He Yu, they weren’t worth a penny of sincerity. The boy from his memories had seemed far more earnest than this, yet in the end, he had still forgotten him—forgotten every promise.
“Get up.”
“One kiss, and I’ll get up.”
Lian Xu expressionlessly pecked He Yu on the cheek.
Yu immediately turned his head to catch Lian Xu’s lips, sucking on them briefly.
“He Yu, actually… we do know each other.” After saying this, Lian Xu looked at He Yu, only to find the man had actually fallen asleep.
Lian Xu: “…”
He had finally summoned the courage to admit it, and He Yu hadn’t even heard him.
Even in sleep, He Yu held Lian Xu in a death grip. Pressed beneath the Alpha, Lian Xu spent a long, stiff night in a state of physical and mental exhaustion.
…
When dawn broke, He Yu’s memory seemed to have skipped over the part where Lian Xu denied knowing him. Instead, a batch of nonsensical, surreal memories had taken root.
Whenever he recalled those fragments—dreamlike, half-true, half-false—his face burned with heat.
I called Lian Xu “wife,” and he didn’t resist. He even blushed and hummed in agreement.
Did Lian Xu acknowledge his identity?
But he and Yin Zhuo hadn’t broken off their engagement yet.
No matter. Since Lian Xu had accepted him, once they returned to the Empire, he would surely break the engagement and give He Yu an official title.
Yu rubbed his face with a silly grin and jumped off the aircraft.
“Wife!”
The three people under the tree froze simultaneously.
He Yu hadn’t noticed the atmosphere. He rushed over to hug Lian Xu, nuzzling his shoulder. “Wife…”
“Did the fever from the rut fry your brain?” Lian Xu pushed his forehead away with deep disdain.
Lian Xu remembered clearly that he had given He Yu the last scent-blocking patch on the aircraft. He couldn’t smell any leaking pheromones; there was no reason for the Alpha to be acting crazy.
To ensure his own memory wasn’t being warped by the Alpha’s influence, Lian Xu glanced at He Yu’s nape.
The patch was there. Correct.
Yu grabbed Lian Xu’s hand. “Why so fierce? Didn’t we have a very pleasant time last night?”
Lian Xu smiled—a dark, ominous smile.
“Pleasant? Are you sure your brain hasn’t undergone a zombie transformation?”
He Yu: “…”
He did feel a bit abnormal—flushed, heart racing—like a lingering side effect of the rut. But he felt it was more likely a result of the excitement from seeing Lian Xu.
Yu pressed Lian Xu’s hand to his own face. “I think I am a bit sick. Help me check.”
Lian Xu agreed, and then promptly delivered a sharp slap.
“Why did you hit me?” Yu was stunned for a moment, his face growing even hotter.
Lian Xu slapped the other side, leaving symmetrical palm prints on both cheeks.
“To wake you up,” Lian Xu said, drawing his dagger and pressing the blade against the Alpha’s lips. “Say that word again and I’ll cut your tongue out.”
He Yu shuddered involuntarily. It was last night… unharmonious?
Right, the space in the aircraft was cramped. It was hard to move; perhaps he had accidentally hurt the “fragile” Omega. He Yu’s gaze drifted down, fixing on Lian Xu’s lower abdomen. After a few seconds, Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Where are you looking?” Lian Xu couldn’t figure out how an Alpha could wake up with a completely different personality and a plummeting IQ.
This didn’t look like rut symptoms; it looked like evolutionary regression.
“Are you… okay?” He Yu asked, his brow furrowing with concern.
“Did I… hurt you?”
Lian Xu: “…”
Seeing Lian Xu’s look of total bewilderment, He Yu wondered if he was being too subtle.
So, he changed his approach. Ignoring the two “outsiders” present, he pulled Lian Xu by the waist into a tight embrace. His fingertips tapped Lian Xu’s stomach as he whispered, “Don’t be angry. It was my first time, I have no experience. It’ll be better next time.”
Lian Xu’s brain whirled until he finally decoded the meaning behind the Alpha’s burning gaze.
“I see your brain really is broken. Nothing happened last night. You fell asleep before you could finish two sentences.” Lian Xu’s expression suddenly softened, explaining with a gentle, slow tone.
He Yu’s lips twitched. So… nothing happened?
Lian Xu watched as the Alpha’s mood crashed from joy to utter disappointment. He attributed He Yu’s state to pheromone turbulence, causing him to mistake a dream for reality.
Just like how, during his own heat, he would often hallucinate being held by He Yu to soothe the pain. The more one depended on another’s pheromones, the more likely these delusions occurred.
Their history of being trapped in a closed space together had caused Lian Xu to differentiate early due to He Yu’s influence. Their pheromones could fuse through the air with a staggering 100% compatibility.
This resulted in Lian Xu being unable to accept any Alpha other than He Yu. Theoretically, this should be mutual—Lian Xu should be repelled by others, and others by him.
Yet, this hadn’t happened with Yin Zhuo.
Lian Xu repelled Yin Zhuo’s scent, but Yin Zhuo was the only Alpha besides He Yu who wasn’t repelled by Lian Xu. Lian Xu suspected it was because Yin Zhuo couldn’t smell pheromones at all, making him immune to the effect.
Fate had used pheromones to tie the three of them into a tangled knot.
…
Despite his disappointment, He Yu quickly rallied. If the mountain won’t come to me, I must go to the mountain.
His bad mood evaporated. He smiled and squeezed Lian Xu’s fingertips. Just because nothing happened yet didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen later.
Lian Xu shook off his hand and opened his optical computer to pull up a map of the Desolate Planet.
The two ignored bystanders were finally remembered.
“Where should we go?” Lian Xu asked.
Bonnie glanced at He Yu first, then nervously pointed to a small hill on the map.
Yu’s attention shifted. Amidst his identity crisis with Lian Xu, he had only just noticed someone was missing.
“Where’s the Chief?”
Bonnie scrambled behind Lian Xu, terrified.
Yu grabbed his collar and pulled him out. “Why are you hiding?” Hiding behind Lian Xu? Does he think I’m invisible?
“The Ch-ch-ch-chief is dead!” Hami stammered loudly. The boss can’t be dead! If the boss is dead, my assassin’s fee is gone!
“Dead?”
He Yu didn’t believe it. The man was fine yesterday, and now he was suddenly gone?
Lian Xu touched He Yu’s hand, signaling him to let go. Yu licked his back teeth and released Bonnie.
The moment he was free, Bonnie bolted for distance. “The Chief is dead. I killed him.”
He Yu: “…” “Oh. Then… never mind.”
“Anything else you want to ask?”
Yu shook his head. Lian Xu wouldn’t act without reason. If he killed the Chief, it was a calculated move.
Seeing he had no more questions, Lian Xu beckoned Hami over to study the map. He needed to find the new leader’s hideout and plan the return trip.
When Lian Xu focused, he treated everything within a hundred miles as thin air.
He Yu didn’t dare interrupt. He looked at Bonnie and spoke in the local tongue: “Am I… bad?”
Bonnie shook his head.
A military officer trained by the Empire, agile, physically imposing, able to take on a crowd alone, capable of stealing guns without a sound, and fluent in the local language? Who would dare call such a man “bad”?
“You are the most powerful diplomat I have ever seen.”
Yu stared at Bonnie’s flattering face, self-reflected for a few seconds, and then turned to Hami, who was staring wide-eyed at Lian Xu’s map.
He asked the same question: “Am I bad?”
Hami’s neck stiffened as he turned. “You are the most powerful diplomat I have ever seen.”
Same question, same answer.
“Are you bored?” Lian Xu asked, looking at the Alpha who was idle enough to ask people if he was “bad.”
He was more used to the cold, combative, disdainful He Yu. This current version… was too silly, and a bit of a nuisance.
“I’m not bored,” He Yu said solemnly. “I have to watch these two to prevent an ambush, and I have to watch you to make sure you don’t get hurt.”
“I’m very busy. Busy to death!”
He Yu saw the disdain in Lian Xu’s eyes. But he couldn’t help it. Once the excitement surfaced, he couldn’t suppress it. Before, he had restrained himself because of their status and his uncertainty about their past. Now that he was certain Lian Xu was the boy from the waste-planet, his world had brightened. He was in full “peacocking” mode.
Lian Xu assumed He Yu was just suffering from “rut-brain” and didn’t press the issue, continuing to plan the route.
Yu pursed his lips and suddenly tapped his optical computer to send a message back home.
The feeling from last night was familiar down to his bones, but to be absolutely sure, he decided to test the waters. He moved closer to Lian Xu, his gaze following the Omega’s eyes to the map.
“If there were world peace, what would you want to do most?”
Lian Xu’s finger paused.
“I don’t know.”
He Yu’s expression turned pensive. That wasn’t what Lian Xu had said before.
“He Yu…” Lian Xu turned to look at him. “Do you not know how to hide your intentions at all?”
“Hide what?” He Yu pressed. “I’m asking honestly. On the other hand, why won’t you admit it?”
Is he really being honest? Lian Xu wondered.
“I told you, I don’t know you. You have the wrong person.”
“Lian Xu, stop lying to me. Except for your pupils, there isn’t a single part of you that is different from him.”
“Mhm,” Lian Xu followed his logic. “The pupils are different.”
“You know as well as I do that a person’s face can change, their gender can change, but the pupils… it’s very hard for them to change without leaving a trace.”
Lian Xu leaned in close to He Yu, almost touching him, and placed a hand on his head.
“Look closely. Is there something wrong with my eyes?”
Lian Xu’s eyes were flawless. Exquisite amber orbs with no sign of modification. Even the Empire’s most advanced ocular membranes would reveal an edge from certain angles. But Lian Xu’s eyes were perfect from every direction, as if he were born with them.
“You can’t see a problem, can you?” Lian Xu stepped back. “I just happen to look like him and have the same pheromones, but that doesn’t mean I am him. If you don’t believe me, go ask Yin Zhuo.”
“Ask what?” Yu grabbed Lian Xu’s wrist. Why bring up Yin Zhuo?
“The person he loves… looks just like me.”
A nearly identical appearance.
Yin Zhuo had been stunned at first, too, mistaking him for that loved one. But once he realized Lian Xu wasn’t the one he was looking for, he developed an extreme loathing for this face.
Lian Xu curled his fingers and said calmly: “Perhaps the person you are looking for… is also him.”