Coming out of the pharmacy, Lin Xi was silent all the way. Zhong Xiu guessed she felt guilty.
“It’s okay, let’s go back,” Zhong Xiu smiled. The doctor had applied something to her eyes earlier, and they didn’t look as swollen now.
“It’s so late, I’ll walk you home.”
“It’s fine, my place isn’t far anyway, I’ll be there soon.”
Their homes were on the same route, with Zhong Xiu’s being a little further, just two streets away. Besides, the Alpha must be exhausted after releasing pheromones back at school today.
“What if someone is following you?” Lin Xi insisted.
“How would you know that?” Zhong Xiu and You Tian had never mentioned this to her.
“Just guessing,” the Alpha said casually.
So many students who got close to her met with “misfortune.” How could Zhong Xiu, her fiancée, be exempt?
“Okay.” If she hadn’t mentioned it, Zhong Xiu might not have worried, but now she was genuinely scared. Although Zhang Mingming was under the “surveillance” of Gao Lan and the others, it would be even more terrifying if the person following her wasn’t Zhang Mingming.
As they passed Lin Xi’s house, Zhong Xiu noticed a black sedan parked on the roadside; it looked familiar.
The car door opened, and it was indeed Shen Zhi Qiu.
“Lin Xi.” The Omega looked at the two of them, slightly surprised. “Where were you? Why are you back so late?”
“Eating,” Lin Xi’s words were still sparse.
With an extra Omega there, Zhong Xiu felt very awkward. Perhaps thinking of what happened behind the school, she felt a little inferior; after all, Shen Zhi Qiu was a true Omega.
“Eating?” Shen Zhi Qiu scrutinized the two of them. Their school uniforms were wrinkled, covered in dust, and smelled of cooking oil. They looked less like they had been out for a meal and more like they had been begging.
The Omega, dressed in a plaid skirt and small leather shoes, exuded an air of delicate nobility, making her stand out uncomfortably next to them.
“Did you need something?” Lin Xi seemed oblivious to her suspicion.
“Do you have time now?” Clearly, the Omega wanted to speak to her alone.
“No, I have to walk her home,” the Alpha was like a block of wood, speaking plainly and lacking tact.
“Then I’ll make it quick,” Shen Zhi Qiu bit her lower lip. There was no way she, an Omega, would wait there for Lin Xi to walk the Beta home.
“Alright,” Lin Xi even raised her hand to check the time.
Zhong Xiu, standing beside them, felt embarrassed for the Omega.
“I’ll have someone shut down the forum issue. Don’t worry about it too much.”
This was a simple matter for the Omega. Zhong Xiu quietly gripped her backpack strap.
If only Shen Zhi Qiu could have been a step earlier. Why couldn’t she have been earlier?
If she had been earlier, she could have stopped what shouldn’t have happened. Lin Xi wouldn’t have been hurt, and she wouldn’t have…
“If it’s shut down, will people stop talking?” Lin Xi’s tone was calm.
Whether people talked or not wasn’t that important. Those frightened looks, the attitude of avoidance, the feeling of being a virus in a crowd—that wouldn’t disappear.
Moreover, the Shen family’s attitude toward her was no different from anyone else’s.
Why come to her privately?
“I’m sorry,” Shen Zhi Qiu could only say that much.
Having grown up together, she understood Lin Xi to some extent, and Lin Xi understood her.
The Shen family came from a business background, and to a businessman, the most important thing was profit. Lin Xi’s parents’ car accident and the resulting vegetative state were a fixed outcome. Lin Ke Qin was the current head of the Lin family, so naturally, her parents had new demands for her. Shen Zhi Qiu had been busy dealing with Lin Yu Cheng lately.
The incident was caused by Lin Yu Cheng, and the target was Lin Xi. Caught between two Alphas, she really had no other choice. She didn’t have the ability or the authority to protect Lin Xi.
“It’s not your fault. You don’t need to apologize to me.”
It was easily predictable that a top-tier Alpha who had lost her parents’ protection would become a target.
“You know I have my difficulties,” a hint of fatigue showed on the Omega’s delicate face. “Could you avoid Lin Yu Cheng for a while? Try not to confront him directly.”
Clearly, she knew about what happened in the cafeteria that day, but couldn’t she see that Lin Yu Cheng was doing it on purpose?
Their conversation was too familiar. Zhong Xiu felt like an outsider.
“Mhm.”
After the car drove away, Zhong Xiu could sense that Lin Xi was somewhat dejected.
“I’m home now, you should go back quickly.”
Across the crosswalk, Zhong Xiu pointed to the house opposite. It was only one road, so the Alpha didn’t need to cross back and forth.
“Okay, you go on.” Lin Xi stood under the streetlamp next to the traffic light, her shadow stretched long.
Zhong Xiu crossed the road without looking back.
She was afraid Lin Xi might not be standing there anymore, and she would feel disappointed.
Even more, she was afraid Lin Xi was still standing there.
She would fall.
The restaurant opposite was already closed. Lin Xi guessed it must be Zhong Xiu’s house. The lights were on in every apartment building nearby, meaning someone must be waiting for Zhong Xiu to come home.
That’s nice. She recalled that she sometimes left the lights on when she left home, and the housekeeper would always ask her why. She would say she forgot, and the housekeeper would just laugh, call her wasteful, and turn the lights off.
But the housekeeper didn’t know that leaving them on made it seem like her parents would be home waiting for her after school, making the empty house feel a little warmer.
…
“Why so late? Did you eat yet?” Zhong Rui Lin was sitting in the living room watching TV, holding Sherlock, who was dozing off.
Hearing the noise, Sherlock was even more alert than he was, leaping with a cat-like stride to Zhong Xiu’s side.
“I ate. Today… I asked Lin Xi a few difficult questions, so it took a long time,” Zhong Xiu disarmed him with a smile first.
“Is that so? Shuwen said you left the classroom quite early,” when she smiled like that, Zhong Rui Lin knew she was guilty, but he couldn’t help it; he fell for it every time.
“No, I asked on the way,” Zhong Xiu was exasperated. Ye Shu Wen lived in the same neighborhood. They saw each other all the time, and her dad knew her. It was very easy to get caught.
“Asking on the way? You two have a lot of free time,” Zhong Rui Lin glared at her, then noticed something wasn’t right.
Like her mother, Zhong Xiu’s hair reached her shoulders. She usually wore it in a ponytail when outside, rarely letting it down. But girls like to look pretty, so having her hair down was normal. What was abnormal was that her uniform, especially the back, was covered in dust, which was strange for his meticulously clean daughter.
“I accidentally tripped and the hair tie broke,” Zhong Xiu opened her palm to show him the broken hair tie she had snapped on the way upstairs.
“Does it hurt? Did you fall anywhere? It’s so late, you should have called Dad to pick you up,” Zhong Rui Lin touched the top of her head and didn’t say anything more.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Zhong Xiu’s smile worked its charm on him. “I know, I’ll definitely do that next time.”
“You’re just humoring your dad,” Zhong Rui Lin handed Sherlock a fish jerky, but Sherlock was clinging to Zhong Xiu’s pants, ignoring him. He muttered softly, “How is that possible? Has my homemade fish jerky gotten worse?”
“She’s been sticking to me lately,” Zhong Xiu complained to him.
“Don’t you like her sticking to you? Usually, you can’t even catch her. This is great,” Zhong Rui Lin teased her by moving the small fish jerky away.
With the delicious treat moving away, Sherlock couldn’t resist reaching out a paw to hook the fish jerky, while the other paw still held Zhong Xiu tightly, wanting both.
“You can’t have the fish and Xiu Xiu,” Zhong Rui Lin said, smiling.
In the end, it followed Zhong Xiu into her room.
“Why are you following me?” Zhong Xiu crouched down, stroking its smooth black fur.
Sherlock stared back at her.
“You’re so mean to me, hot and cold,” Zhong Xiu poked its nose.
Perhaps feeling wronged, Sherlock opened its mouth towards her.
“You’re trying to bite me now!”
After saying this, Zhong Xiu realized something and placed her hand on the back of her neck, where a plaster was stuck, just like an Alpha and Omega’s scent patch.
This plaster was the reason her hair tie “broke.”
Before entering the door, Zhong Xiu had flipped her uniform collar up and let down her ponytail, which perfectly covered the plaster on the back of her neck. If her dad found out Lin Xi had bitten her…
“Meow~”
While she was distracted, Sherlock quietly climbed onto her shoulder from behind, its nose lingering near the back of her neck.
After a while, the little coal ball curled up, looking drunk, and tumbled down roundly from Zhong Xiu’s body. Fortunately, Zhong Xiu caught it quickly, preventing a face-plant.
“What’s wrong with you?” Zhong Xiu was startled by its appearance. Could it be food poisoning?
Just as she was holding it and running to the door to call her dad to see if they should take it to the vet, Zhong Xiu suddenly remembered the last time it was squatting on her uniform and behaved like this too.
Could it be…
It was too much of a coincidence. Every time she had contact with Lin Xi, this creature would act unusually clingy to her.
She lowered her head and sniffed her collar. Other than the familiar scent of her own body, Zhong Xiu couldn’t smell anything else. For a moment, she really envied Sherlock.
“Can you sense her pheromones?”
…
After showering, Sherlock was still sprawled softly by Zhong Xiu’s bed, its paws resting on its belly, looking quite pleased and blissful.
“Can you tell me what her pheromones smell like, hmm?”
How could Sherlock understand human words? Its drooping eyelids opened for a moment, then lazily closed again.
Zhong Xiu let out a light sigh and fell backward onto the bed. The wound on the back of her neck throbbed faintly, reminding her of what had happened this afternoon.
If she hadn’t encountered Shen Zhi Qiu, she should have been excitedly rolling around in bed right now.
They had agreed it was just an act, so how could she fall for it?
Lin Xi was a top-tier Alpha; her pheromones were destined to belong to an Omega.
“No, don’t dream.”