I’ll Give You a Ride
Ying Zhu’s expression was ice-cold as he glared death at him.
Cen Xie sighed, deciding to be indulgent toward this fussy, high-maintenance Omega. “I can hold it for thirty more minutes, tops.”
“Don’t you dare!” Ying Zhu hissed.
Cen Xie maintained his cavalier attitude. “You really can’t stop me. Do you have some kind of power over my bladder?”
Ying Zhu had a severe case of mysophobia. He was genuinely panicking now, resorting to threats: “If you pee on me, I will kill you the second we get out of here!”
Cen Xie pretended to think it over seriously. “Well, that’s still better than dying from a ruptured bladder.”
“Cen Xie!”
“Think about it,” Cen Xie reasoned. “If word got out that I died because I held my pee too long, that would be way too pathetic.”
“And getting beaten to death by me isn’t pathetic?”
Cen Xie looked at him, motionless, a smirk playing on his lips.
Ying Zhu’s scalp tingled. “What?”
“If you dare hit me after we get out, I’ll tell everyone I slept with you and that you’re chasing me down demanding a formal commitment.”
Ying Zhu stared at him, speechless for a long time, before his lip curled. “You? Sleep with me?”
Cen Xie hummed. “I usually do Omegas, but I’ll do an Alpha every now and then.”
Ying Zhu recalled the rumors he’d heard about Cen Xie back in school; it seemed they weren’t unfounded. This man’s private life was truly a mess.
Seeing his expression, Cen Xie assumed he was skeptical. “Don’t believe me? I can get it up right now and give you an eye-opener.”
“Get lost!”
“Hahahahaha!”
Cen Xie didn’t stop there. He leaned in further. “And, did you know?”
Ying Zhu raised an eyelid. “What?”
“An Omega’s sensitive spot is in the reproductive chamber. Stimulating the front doesn’t make it easy to finish, so my stamina is actually better than a lot of Alphas.”
Ying Zhu looked at him and suddenly asked, “Have you ever been fucked by an Omega?”
Cen Xie scoffed. “The Omega capable of fucking me hasn’t been born yet.”
Ying Zhu’s expression turned subtle and complex, but he said nothing more.
The emergency bunker was designed for one person; with two inside, it was beyond cramped. After another silence, Cen Xie spoke again: “Keep talking to distract me. I really have to go.”
To avoid being “baptized,” Ying Zhu forced himself to find a topic. “Are you the only one left in your family?”
“I’ve still got an old man who won’t die, rotting away in prison.”
Ying Zhu froze, turning to look at him. “Usher Prison?”
“Prison No. 1.”
Prison No. 1 held criminals who were incarcerated before the war. Those caught during the post-war reconstruction were sent to Usher. You could tell how long someone had been serving just by the name of the facility.
“That’s a long sentence,” Ying Zhu noted. “What was he in for?”
“Intentional assault. He had a violent temper and was a drunk. He’d hit people whenever he was wasted—I took plenty of beatings from him. Being a bully at home was one thing, but one night he got drunk and offended some young master from a high-ranking family. A real ‘golden child.’ He broke several of the kid’s bones. The family pulled strings to make sure he got a heavy sentence.”
Ying Zhu grew curious. “Which family?”
Cen Xie shook his head. “No idea. They had serious backing, though. I guess they didn’t want the kid to have a trauma-filled reputation, so they kept it quiet. I was only ten or so at the time. They probably saw I was just a kid and didn’t bother retaliating against me.”
“Honestly, it’s a good thing he went in. Otherwise, I think he would have eventually beaten me to death.”
Ying Zhu remained silent.
Back in school, Cen Xie had been an outlier because he was poor. Ever since humanity split into Alpha, Beta, and Omega, psychic abilities awakened accordingly. These powers stem from the glands; Betas, who lack glands, also lack powers.
Researchers believed Alphas and Omegas represented human evolution and found that “good genes” were hereditary. High-rank parents were more likely to produce high-rank offspring. Because high-ranks had natural priority in choosing partners, they seeked out other high-ranks. Consequently, these people naturally controlled most of society’s resources, standing at the top of the pyramid.
It wasn’t that high-rank Alphas and Omegas were inherently richer—it was that the upper class was more likely to produce them. For this reason, most students at their special school came from wealthy backgrounds. But even among that crowd, Ying Zhu’s lineage was transcendent. If Cen Xie was famous for being poor, Ying Zhu was famous for his powerful family background.
…..
The sounds of explosions outside gradually faded. They waited a few more moments in silence to ensure the attack was over before finally emerging from the bunker.
The first thing Cen Xie did was bolt for the bathroom.
Ying Zhu walked out of the courtyard alone. The car he’d driven there—parked by the curb—was now a mangled pile of scrap metal. Including the incident on the bridge, he had now lost two cars because of Cen Xie.
He pulled out his phone to call for a pickup.
Cen Xie came out shortly after, pointing nearby. “There’s an e-car right there. Just scan the code and drive.”
Ying Zhu knew about shared e-cars but had never used one. They were tiny, two-seater new energy vehicles with rounded frames—parked there, they looked like little green peas.
He glanced at it. “I don’t know how to drive that thing.”
“I’ll drop you off,” Cen Xie offered. “You can have your people meet you at the bridge.”
The East District was never safe, and after a terrorist attack, it was a prime time for looters. Although Ying Zhu was S-rank, it paid to be cautious.
Before Ying Zhu could object, Cen Xie had already scanned the code.
Though both were Omegas, neither was small. While they couldn’t match the natural bulk of an Alpha, they both stood taller than most male Betas. Sitting together in the tiny car was a tight fit—elbows touching elbows, legs pressing against legs.
Ying Zhu couldn’t help but recall the scenes from those memories. Feeling awkward, he pulled his legs in to stay as far from Cen Xie as possible.
Cen Xie glanced at him and smirked. “You got a germ thing?”
Ying Zhu hummed in response.
“No wonder you’re sitting like a huddled quail.” Cen Xie started the vehicle, and the “Little Pea” wobbled unsteadily onto the road.
Ying Zhu felt every bump. To him, this car looked like a child’s toy; he didn’t trust it at all. “Are you sure this thing is roadworthy?”
Cen Xie frowned impatiently. “Why are you so fussy? It’s moving, isn’t it?”
Ying Zhu took a deep breath and stayed silent. How is this man still so annoying? He was the polar opposite of the person in the memory card. Was that clingy, tearful, submissive Omega who endured pain just to please him really Cen Xie?
He was starting to wonder if it was just someone with a similar-sounding name. But that was unlikely; “Cen” was a rare surname, and the character for “Xie” in his name didn’t have many common homophones with good meanings.
Xie (Harmony), Xie (Evil), Xie (Shoe)?
He let out a mental scoff. “Who gave you your name?”
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Ying Zhu said, his tone biting. “It’s a great name. Truly inspired.”
Cen Xie knew immediately he was being sarcastic and responded with a sharp “Tch.”
Ying Zhu turned his head to look out the window. The roadside was a graveyard of scorched vehicles and crumbled buildings, yet there were surprisingly few injured civilians to be seen.
“The East District has plenty of air-raid shelters and safety rooms,” Cen Xie noted. “People head underground the moment they hear the sirens.”
“Built by the government?” Ying Zhu asked.
Cen Xie’s lip curled into a dry smirk, but he didn’t answer.
They drove onto a secluded road where the silence felt heavy and desolate. Suddenly, a strange scuffling noise echoed from a narrow alleyway ahead. They traded a quick look, and Cen Xie steered the “Little Pea” toward the mouth of the alley.
The moment the car stopped, Cen Xie leaped out, but he froze as he took in the scene.
“What is it?” Ying Zhu followed close behind. His face instantly darkened, a cold, sharp fury igniting in his eyes.
In the dim, cramped alley, a male Omega lay on the ground soaked in blood, his chest no longer rising. Standing over him was a burly Alpha, calmly adjusting his belt.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Cen Xie’s voice was low and dangerous.
The Alpha spun around. Recognizing Cen Xie instantly, his face paled, and his voice began to tremble with primal fear. “Cen… Chairman Cen.”
Cen Xie ruled with an iron fist; if any of his men committed murder or senseless assault, he personally “sent them on their way.” Furthermore, as an Omega himself, he harbored a visceral hatred for those who preyed on his own kind.
Ignoring the Alpha, Cen Xie knelt by the fallen man and checked for a pulse. He was gone.
“I… I only grabbed his neck a little,” the Alpha stammered.
Most Omegas were physically fragile, especially low-rank ones. The biological disparity was a cruel reality; an Alpha could crush an Omega’s life with their bare hands as easily as stepping on an ant.
Cen Xie stared at the corpse in silence. Even from behind, he radiated a suffocating pressure that seemed to shrink the very walls of the alley.
“I really just gripped his throat,” the Alpha continued to plead. “I didn’t think he’d actually die.”
Ying Zhu, who had been standing by silently, finally spoke. “Did you ever think you would die?”
The Alpha looked up, confused. “What?”
Ying Zhu tilted his head slightly toward Cen Xie. “Turn off your artificial hippocampus.”
Cen Xie understood the intent immediately. He held Ying Zhu’s gaze for two seconds before complying. “It’s off.”
Ying Zhu turned his icy stare back to the Alpha. “You keep yours on.”
He drew a silver handgun from the small of his back and pressed the muzzle against the Alpha’s forehead. He looked like a god of death—arrogant, detached, and final. “Once the brain is dead, the data in the artificial hippocampus zeroes out instantly.”
The Alpha realized what was coming and panicked. “You can’t kill me! It was an accident! I’ll turn myself in!”
“If you turn yourself in and go to prison, I have to spend 50,000 credits a year to keep you fed and housed,” Ying Zhu said, his lip twitching in a mirthless smile. “In your case, I’d have to support you for at least twenty years. Tell me… are you worth it?”
Before the Alpha could let out another breath, Ying Zhu pulled the trigger without a flicker of hesitation. Bang.
The powerful recoil made his hand jerk slightly, but the bullet found its mark with surgical precision, right between the Alpha’s eyes.