“Xie Ren…”
Her voice still carried a hint of the fragility unique to an Omega who had just gone through a rut period, the tail end of her tone lifting slightly.
Xie Ren didn’t move, holding his breath.
A newly differentiated Omega, whose gland hadn’t even fully stabilized yet, had been pinned down by a top-tier Alpha at her most vulnerable point. Anyone else would have fainted long ago.
Xie Ren closed his eyes for a moment, his Adam’s apple bobbing slightly.
Hold back.
He could smell her scent.
When he marked her earlier, her pheromones had rushed into his senses clearly for the first time.
Creamy jasmine and peach—so intoxicatingly sweet.
“So…”
Sikong Sui’s voice came from behind him, “Have you already given me a temporary mark?”
Xie Ren’s eyes grew clearer and clearer.
The chaotic, primal, rationality-devouring impulse brought on by the rut period was gradually receding like a tide.
In its place was an increasingly sharp sense of guilt and remorse.
“Yes.”
He paused.
“I’m sorry.”
When these two words left his lips, even he felt how feeble and inadequate they sounded.
A top-tier Alpha losing control during his rut period and marking a newly differentiated, not yet fully mature Omega.
Even if it was just a temporary mark, even if it didn’t go all the way, the act itself was already reprehensible enough.
Especially since this Omega was the Second Highness of the Sikong family, the younger sister of his closest friend.
The person Sikong Nian had cherished and protected for over a decade.
“I’m sorry. I’ve dragged you into this,” he said.
Sikong Sui didn’t speak.
Her face was still pressed against his back, her breath brushing against his spine with each exhale.
After a few seconds, she slowly straightened up, and the arm wrapped around his waist loosened its grip.
Xie Ren felt the warmth behind him fading away.
Sikong Sui sat up.
“Can you help me keep this secret?”
Xie Ren’s back visibly stiffened.
He slowly turned to look at her, something in his mind clicking into place with a sudden clarity.
He recalled Sikong Nian’s various anomalies over the years.
Never participating in any pheromone confrontations among Alphas, always finding excuses to skip physical exams, avoiding all topics related to secondary gender characteristics.
He remembered the faint, almost imperceptible scent of pheromones on Sikong Nian, suppressed to an extreme by suppressants.
He had always assumed it was some unfamiliar Omega scent.
Looking back now, it was clearly the pheromones of an Alpha, forcibly suppressed by high-strength suppressants.
Because the suppression was so intense, it had become distorted.
Xie Ren’s voice was hoarse, “So, Sikong Nian is the top-tier Alpha, the true heir of the Sikong family.”
Sikong Sui lowered her eyes, her mind occupied with another matter.
The original host had indeed coveted that position—the status of the Sikong family heir, the identity of a top-tier Alpha, the authority over the entire family.
But she didn’t want it.
She only wanted to take her 100 million and return home smoothly.
Besides, she still had to protect her brother and Fu Yuan’s relationship arc.
But now? She had exposed her identity prematurely.
The identity of a top-tier Omega.
Xie Ren already knew.
Sikong Sui’s fingertips curled slightly.
She had exposed her identity ahead of time. Would this affect her brother?
Would it impact his relationship arc with Fu Yuan?
My brother has been pretending to be an Omega for love for so long. If Fu Yuan finds out he’s a top-tier Alpha, how badly would the plot collapse?
But she couldn’t say any of this to Xie Ren.
Xie Ren was too clever—clever enough that if she showed even the slightest flaw, he could trace the entire vine back to its roots.
And she carried too many secrets: her identity as a transmigrator, her foreknowledge of the plot, her understanding of this world’s true nature…
None of them could see the light of day.
Sikong Sui opened her mouth, about to say something.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret—except from Sikong Nian.”
Xie Ren’s voice suddenly came from ahead, cutting off her train of thought. “I won’t hide it from him.”
Sikong Sui looked up, meeting his gaze directly.
Of course he wouldn’t let the Omega he had just marked become someone else’s prey.
The thought flashed through Xie Ren’s mind, and even he was taken aback.
Sikong Sui watched him, her lips parting slightly, but before she could speak, hurried footsteps suddenly echoed from the end of the hallway.
The footsteps were fast and heavy, each step sounding as if it would shatter the floor.
Xie Ren instinctively tensed, while Sikong Sui reflexively shrank back into the bed.
Not out of fear, but because she smelled the overwhelming wave of pheromones crashing toward them.
It was Sikong Nian.
A top-tier Alpha’s pheromones were almost impossible to suppress when emotions ran out of control.
It was a deep, heavy scent—like the heart of a cedar split open by lightning, mixed with a metallic chill that made it hard to breathe.
Under the impact of these pheromones, the lights in the hallway flickered on and off, and even the walls seemed to tremble faintly.
The door was flung open.
Sikong Nian stood in the doorway, his school jacket nowhere to be seen.
The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up to his forearms, his collar wide open, his chest heaving violently.
His gaze first fell on Sikong Sui, scanning her from head to toe to confirm she hadn’t suffered any serious injuries.
Then his eyes locked onto the bite mark on her neck, still tinged with a faint pink and radiating the scent of Bloody Mary.
Time seemed to freeze for a second.
The next moment, Sikong Nian’s pheromones exploded completely.
The pressure was no longer just powerful—it felt as if the entire building had been seized by an invisible hand.
Xie Ren, sitting by the bed, felt the force bearing down on him like a wall, and he involuntarily took half a step back.
This was the instinctive reaction of one top-tier Alpha to another.
Like two beasts facing off, the weaker one would instinctively create distance.
But Xie Ren didn’t retreat a second step.
He clenched his teeth, and his pheromones surged out in response.
The scent of Bloody Mary clashed with the cold, metallic aroma of cedar in the air, producing an almost audible hum.
The space between the two seemed to warp.
“Xie Ren!”
Sikong Nian’s voice sounded as if it had been forced through gritted teeth. “You bastard!”
He took a step forward, but Sikong Sui blocked his path.
Barefoot on the floor, she spread her arms wide, standing between the two top-tier Alphas.
Like a mother cat protecting her kitten between two lions, reckless to the point of madness.
“Brother!”
Her voice was not loud, but it was clear as a knife, cutting through the thick air. “Don’t blame Xie Ren, I did it willingly.”
Sikong Nian’s footsteps halted.
He lowered his head to look at his sister before him.
Her eyes were bright, soft and gentle—damn that Xie Ren!
[System Notification: Xie Ren’s Favorability +10, Current Favorability: 50]
Xie Ren stared at Sikong Sui’s back as she shielded Sikong Nian, his heart suddenly pounding.
The feeling was strange, as if something surged up from deep within his chest—warm and sour.
It was stuck in his throat, impossible to voice.
She had just been marked; she should have been the one most in need of protection.
Sikong Sui tilted her head slightly and smiled at Sikong Nian. “Brother, don’t fight for my sake.”
Sikong Nian clenched his fists, his knuckles cracking audibly.
His gaze fixed on Xie Ren as if he wanted to tear him apart.
But with Sikong Sui standing between them, he couldn’t raise his hand, and he couldn’t retract his pheromones. He stood there rigidly.
Like a volcano on the verge of eruption, suppressed by something.
“Xie Ren!”
Sikong Nian gritted his teeth, his voice grinding out from deep in his throat. “Don’t think just because you’re my good friend I won’t beat you up!”
Xie Ren also flared up.
He sprang to his feet, his pheromones clashing with Sikong Nian’s, crackling in the air.
He was half a head taller than Sikong Nian, glaring down at him. “Sikong Nian, you freak! You’re really something, pretending to be an Omega for so long?”
“You—”
“Brother did it for me.”
Sikong Sui’s voice cut in, silencing both men.
She tugged at Sikong Nian’s hand—large, hard, with rough knuckles, a stark contrast to her own pale, slender fingers.
She lowered her head, looking at the fingers she couldn’t fully grasp, her voice soft. “I was too willful before, always wanting to differentiate into an Alpha to become the heir. Brother just didn’t want me to be hurt…”
Sikong Nian’s body stiffened.
He looked down at his sister’s hand holding his fingers, at her lowered lashes, at the glaring temporary mark on her neck.
All his anger, all his murderous intent, all his resentment and heartache were suddenly overshadowed by something deeper and heavier.
Guilt.
He had kept it from her for so many years.
He had watched her desperately trying to differentiate into an Alpha, watched her disappointment time and again.
He saw everything but could say nothing.
Because he knew his sister too well.
If she learned he was a top-tier Alpha, that the position of heir had never been hers, she would feel all her years of effort were a joke.
Sikong Nian closed his eyes, his eye sockets red as if about to bleed.
Xie Ren stood opposite, watching Sikong Sui hold Sikong Nian’s fingers, her obedient profile, her slightly pursed lips.
Her pheromones still carried his scent.
She was his Omega.
At least for the next seventy-two hours, until the temporary mark faded, she would always bear his imprint.
Xie Ren took a deep breath, and most of his anger suddenly dissipated.
He looked at the sweet, soft Omega before him, then at his red-eyed good friend, and suddenly felt the whole situation was absurd, like a joke.
He had known Sikong Nian for so long, yet he had never once doubted his secondary gender.
He had never imagined that this person, who appeared as gentle and refined as jade, could be a top-tier Alpha.
And he certainly never expected that he would pretend to be an Omega for his sister for so long.
“Alright, but Your Highness Suisui, you must protect yourself,” Xie Ren said.
“An SSS top-tier Omega shouldn’t wander around recklessly.”
“Especially at night.”