Shi Xingzhou is awake?!
How long has it even been since he transmigrated? Has the butterfly effect already started flapping its wings? Xi Xiuran was so startled he nearly bolted upright, but he calmed down quickly once he spotted the medical pod across from the bed.
Right, there was a segment like this in the original plot. After Shi Xingzhou lost control and killed the maid, he regained consciousness shortly after. Knowing that the Emperor—his cousin—had arranged an Omega partner through the Matching Center to help treat him, he wanted to meet them. In this life’s original timeline, after hearing that the original owner had “died accidentally,” Shi Xingzhou had even sent his trusted adjutant to offer condolences. In the previous life, the Protagonist Shou had been so scared out of his wits by the maid’s death that he didn’t dare see Shi Xingzhou at all, pushing off their first meeting.
Xi Xiuran calculated the timing. He guessed that while he was out cold in the medical pod, Shi Xingzhou had already finished his “madness” phase.
It seemed the plot hadn’t veered off course yet. Don’t panic!
Xi Xiuran gave himself a little hug, cheering himself on.
No 996, no 007. Just one month, and you’ll be a wealthy, charming, young widow.
Xiuran, you can do this!
“Mr. Xi.” The maid banging on the door had no patience. She actually pushed the door wide open. Seeing Xi Xiuran sitting on the bed, she muttered, “If you’re awake, say something. Don’t play deaf.”
The maid had blonde hair and blue eyes. Though she wore the classic black-and-white maid uniform, the brooch pinned to her collar was inlaid with sapphires and looked quite expensive. Xi Xiuran glanced at his own cheap, ordinary men’s suit and tutted internally. His cheapskate scumbag father was truly stingy.
Xi Xiuran confirmed the memento ring was still in his pocket. He wanted to find a safe place for it. “Wait a moment, I—”
The maid, Emily, interrupted him with dissatisfaction. “Wait for what? Hurry up and follow me. You don’t expect His Excellency the Admiral to wait for you, do you?”
Xi Xiuran frowned. He had suddenly transmigrated into a cannon fodder role and arrived with a cracked-open head; his mood was far from wonderful. During the forced marriage scene with the protagonist group, he had endured it without losing his temper because he wanted to get the plot moving toward his “salted fish” life. But why should a random maid get to trample on him too?
Did I provoke you?
Xi Xiuran didn’t hold back. He lifted his gaze to Emily and asked, “Has the Empire abolished the Omega Protection Act?”
Emily didn’t know why he was asking that. She instinctively sneered, “Of course not. How could Mr. Xi not know such basic common sense?”
Xi Xiuran smiled. “So you know it’s common sense. Since I am Admiral Shi’s legal partner and not his slave, whether or not I want to see him is a private matter between us as a couple. What right do you have to bark at me?”
Emily’s expression froze. “Mr. Xi must be joking. I… I was only reminding you.”
Xi Xiuran’s expression went cold. “Do I look like I’m joking? Get out.”
Emily’s face turned incredibly ugly. She was a maid specifically sent by His Majesty to look after the Admiral. In the Admiral’s manor, aside from the Admiral’s three trusted adjutants, who didn’t treat her with total respect? Even those three adjutants—except for the taciturn Major Zhou—were usually quite pleasant toward her. Who did Xi Xiuran think he was? To put it nicely, he was the Admiral’s Consort; to put it bluntly, he was just a vase sent by the Matching Center to fulfill an obligation to His Majesty.
A country bumpkin raised on a remote planet… it was only his first day here, and he dared to give her attitude?
Seeing that Emily remained standing there with a dark face, Xi Xiuran tapped his terminal and lazily raised an eyebrow. “What? Do you need me to report this to the Omega Protection Association and apply for marital protection?”
Emily took a deep breath, suppressing her resentment. She lowered her eyes submissively and said respectfully, “Mr. Xi, I apologize. I was being reckless and impatient. It’s just that it isn’t easy for His Excellency to be conscious. I wanted to ask you to go see him as soon as possible. Most importantly, an Omega’s pheromone soothing is most effective when both parties are awake. I’m sure Mr. Xi wouldn’t want to miss this treatment opportunity and disappoint His Majesty and the Admiral.”
Most effective when awake?
Why don’t you just come out and tell us to go get a temporary mark? Wouldn’t that be even more “effective”?
Huh… wait, that might not be a bad idea. A temporary mark is just a bite on the neck, right? Consider it end-of-life care. But would it even help?
Xi Xiuran fell into deep thought.
“I get it.” Xi Xiuran knew Emily was only complying outwardly, but he didn’t press the issue. He waved his hand. “Go wait outside. I’ll be there after I change. This is my first time meeting His Excellency; I need to fix my appearance.”
Emily bit her lip, gave Xi Xiuran a sinister look, and closed the door.
Silence returned to the room. With the nuisance gone, Xi Xiuran looked around and finally found a suitable place to hide the ruby ring.
Once the ring was tucked away, he did a quick wash and tidied himself in the mirror. He opened the door and, sure enough, found Emily waiting with a dark expression. “Let’s go.”
The Admiral’s manor covered a vast area, roughly the size of a sprawling estate. The distance from the annex guest room where Xi Xiuran was staying to the Admiral’s bedroom in the main building was quite a trek; it took them about twenty minutes to arrive.
Emily led him to the second floor. Before they even reached the bedroom door, Xi Xiuran’s nose twitched as he caught a faint, crisp fragrance in the air.
“Mr. Xi, I wish you a pleasant meeting with His Excellency,” Emily said, stopping at the door. Her tone was somewhat cryptic.
Xi Xiuran nodded slightly to acknowledge her. Recalling the descriptions of Shi Xingzhou’s violent episodes in the original novel, he took a deep breath, his hands trembling slightly as he pushed open the door.
The moment the door opened, the crisp scent intensified. Xi Xiuran sniffed, finding the smell quite pleasant and strangely familiar, though he couldn’t quite place the name of it. As if enchanted, he subconsciously took a few steps inside. Just as he entered the room, a sharp cracking sound echoed in his ears.
Xi Xiuran followed the sound and saw a crack appearing on a vase sitting on a partition shelf.
He froze for a second. Suddenly, the description from the original novel of the scene right before Shi Xingzhou lost control flashed through his mind: the faint, crisp scent of pheromones, glass cups shattering, wooden boards creaking…
Oh no!
Xi Xiuran immediately turned to flee, only to find that the door had been locked at some point. No matter how hard he twisted the handle, it wouldn’t budge. From outside, he heard Emily’s triumphant laughter and her retreating footsteps.
F**k! Shi Xingzhou probably wasn’t awake—he was about to lose control! That woman had lured him here to his death on purpose!
The crisp scent in the room grew denser. The color drained from Xi Xiuran’s face by the passing second. He frantically searched for an exit, but the doors and windows in the outer room were all sealed shut. There was nowhere to run. As the cracking sounds multiplied, the vase on the shelf exploded with a “bang,” sending shards flying everywhere. Xi Xiuran scurried away with his head in his hands, only one thought in his mind.
It’s over. My dream of being a young, charming wealthy widow is shattered. I’m dead.
In his blind panic, Xi Xiuran accidentally stumbled into the inner bedroom. A large bed came into view, and when he finally saw the man lying on it, he froze in his tracks.
The man on the bed had handsome features, a lean, tall build, and skin as pale as paper—yet his lips were a vivid, striking red. His pure black silk robe made him look cold and sharp. Even while lying down with his eyes closed, his presence remained undiminished; he was like a blade tempered in ice and snow, radiating a murderous aura that felt almost tangible.
The man’s identity was obvious: the Pride of the Empire, Commander of the First Legion, Shi Xingzhou.
The only SS-rank Alpha in the entire galaxy.
Xi Xiuran stared blankly, speechless.
This is the Pride of the Empire—the “pity” who went mad, Shi Xingzhou?
F***k. For a guy this handsome, the crappy author actually brushed it off with “extraordinary looks.” This is clearly a god-tier face! He’s dancing all over my aesthetic preferences (XP).
What the frozen Xi Xiuran didn’t see was the slight twitch of Shi Xingzhou’s pale fingertips. With a “thud,” an oil painting hanging on the wall fell, landing right at Xi Xiuran’s feet.
A second later, the silver bracelet on Shi Xingzhou’s wrist vibrated. His fingertips paused, and he withdrew the Mental Power that had been coiled around the crystal chandelier.
Xi Xiuran finally snapped out of it. He looked at the painting at his feet, glanced at the shattered vase on the shelf, and then realized he was completely unharmed. He blinked, bewildered.
What’s going on?
In the original novel, that powerful Mental Power could blow a person’s head apart like a vase—so why didn’t it have any effect on him?
As for that crisp pheromone scent that made the Protagonist Shou cry about headaches and discomfort just from a whiff… not only did it not bother him, but he actually liked it. It smelled exactly like his favorite woody men’s cologne.
With a “crack,” the glass water cup on the nightstand also began to fracture.
Seeing this, Xi Xiuran actually rushed forward without thinking. He grabbed the cup, tossed it into the trash can, and quickly backed away to avoid the splashing shards. He wiped his sweat in relief: “Thank god I made it. If that had exploded up close, the shards would have hit the Admiral…”
I like that face way too much. It’d be such a waste if he got disfigured.
Shi Xingzhou was momentarily stunned. Within his mental perception, the youth’s rush toward him was swift, and the concern and tension in those bright green eyes weren’t an act. He was genuinely worried the cup would explode and hurt him.
Concern and tension?
This eldest young master of the Xi family, who was forced into a marriage swap… isn’t afraid of him at all?
Shi Xingzhou’s fingertips moved slightly.
After a long moment, Shi Xingzhou completely retracted his pheromones and Mental Power. He pretended to be disturbed in his sleep and unconsciously rolled over, revealing the silver bracelet on his wrist.
Xi Xiuran’s attention was indeed drawn to the silver band. He observed it cautiously and then, surprisingly, grew bold enough to lean in. He even poked the bracelet with his finger, mumbling, “Is this the energy-suppressor ring? The indicator light shows everything is normal. Looks like that was just a false alarm after all.”
Combining what he knew from the original novel, Xi Xiuran had two theories about what just happened. One: he was a special case. Since he was a transmigrated outsider, he might be immune to the pheromones and Mental Power of this world. Two: Shi Xingzhou had woken up and then fallen back asleep. In that state, the pheromones and Mental Power he leaked unconsciously were harmless.
Looking at the normal status on the suppressor ring, he felt the second theory was more likely. After all, the original novel stated clearly that while this ring couldn’t fully restrict Shi Xingzhou’s abilities, it could weaken them by at least 50%. As long as one didn’t stupidly provoke him, he was perfectly safe and harmless while asleep. Even if there were signs of him losing control, the ring would sound a timely alarm to warn people to get away.
Once he confirmed that Shi Xingzhou couldn’t hurt him, Xi Xiuran breathed a sigh of relief. He looked around but couldn’t find a chair or anything similar.
Finally, he simply sat down on the edge of Shi Xingzhou’s bed, pondering how to kill time before the door was opened.
The original owner’s terminal was something brought back from that remote planet. In Earth terms, it was a “senior’s phone” that could only make calls; it couldn’t handle games or videos. Thinking of this, Xi Xiuran couldn’t help but curse in his heart again: “Tch, what a piece of junk. That cheapskate scumbag father is a total deadbeat!”
The youth was sitting right beside him, quite close—so close that Shi Xingzhou could smell the sweet, refreshing scent of the boy’s pheromones. It was very, very faint.
He really isn’t afraid of me; he actually dares to sit on my bed. And… this pheromone scent, I don’t hate it.
Looking at the mess all over the floor, Xi Xiuran finally thought of something he could do to kill time. He circled the room and realized there were no cleaning tools at all, only then remembering that in the Interstellar era, there were all sorts of domestic robots that came with their own cleaning equipment. However, this didn’t stump him. Xi Xiuran went into the bathroom, grabbed a relatively new bath towel, rolled it into a bundle to use as a tool, and began “shush-shushing” away, sweeping up the fragments of the vase and glass.
Two minutes later, Xi Xiuran suddenly stopped, feeling as though he had forgotten something.
He turned and saw Shi Xingzhou on the bed. Only then did he react; he ran to the bedside, crouched in front of Shi Xingzhou, and began negotiating with him in a sweet, gentle tone: “Admiral Shi? Your Excellency? How about I use my terminal to play the news for you? That way, you won’t get annoyed by the noise of me cleaning, and I won’t feel awkward because it’s too quiet.”
“I’ll count down from five. If you don’t object, I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.”
“Five, two, one!” Xi Xiuran finished the countdown at lightning speed and happily tapped his terminal to start the news. “Since you didn’t object, I’m going to get back to work with the news on!”
Shi Xingzhou: “…”
What happened to four and three?
Using the news read by a mechanical electronic voice as background music, Xi Xiuran happily cleaned the room. When he heard something interesting, he would chime in with a few roasts or complaints, thoroughly entertaining himself. Because he was deliberately keeping his volume low, his voice was soft and light. Combined with his casual tone, he sounded like a cat that would “meow” from time to time to get its owner’s attention; it wasn’t annoying in the least, but rather quite amusing.
Shi Xingzhou’s fingertip tapped lightly against the bedding just as the mechanical electronic voice read the latest social news: “A nurse diligently cared for a solitary elderly man for years, only to inherit his entire estate after his death. The man’s children suspect the nurse of tampering with the will and have filed a lawsuit in the Imperial Court…”
It was a very ordinary piece of social news, but Xi Xiuran suddenly let out an “Aha!” and laughed, realization dawning on him. “Oh, right! I have to provide diligent care—end-of-life comfort, you know? Can’t take the inheritance for nothing.”
Shi Xingzhou: “…”
End-of-life comfort?
T/n: You can support the original author here. Happy Reading 💅