Despite Having Many Disguises, I Failed to Impress the School Heartthrob - Chapter 1

The wind at the end of February was not as biting as in the depths of winter, yet it still carried a chill that felt like a blunt knife scraping against skin.

He Yu clutched the plastic bag protecting his savory pancake, stuffed it into his pocket, and continued deeper into the Xingfu Community. The cobblestone roads of the neighborhood had been ravaged by time, leaving the stones sparse and the ground riddled with pits. These holes were hidden beneath the snow like a series of small traps.

Dark clouds hung heavy in the sky as if a snowstorm were imminent. He Yu exhaled a puff of air into his palms with a huff of annoyance. The heating in this miserable complex had been broken for half a month with no repairs in sight. If it truly started snowing, he wouldn’t even need to go to school because the next day’s headline would surely be: “High School Sophomore Freezes to Death at Home: A Case of Twisted Humanity or Moral Decay?”

His thick, five-hundred-degree lenses fogged over from his breath. Through the blur, a figure suddenly lunged from the diagonal front, radiating an aggressive aura that screamed, “Anyone in my way can go to hell.” Even with his vision obscured, He Yu could see that the person was wearing nothing but a leather jacket in the sub-zero temperatures. The gaudy tattoos on the man’s neck looked like Peppa Pig—well, more like a “Boar Peppa”—thanks to the magic of the foggy glass.

Boar Peppa gripped a steel pipe in his hand, and his face, hidden behind sunglasses despite the gloomy day, tilted slightly toward him. He Yu lowered his head immediately. Street thugs like this rarely possessed human reason; they were more like animals who would beat anyone who dared to make eye contact.

He Yu waited until they were a safe distance apart before pretending to search for something as an excuse to glance back. The fog on his glasses had cleared, and in his peripheral vision, he saw a smear of red on the steel pipe. Someone had definitely bled.

Xingfu Community was anything but “happy” despite its name. Just a few days ago, a group of hoodlums had beaten the last remaining security guard into the ICU, officially turning the area into a notorious “brawl zone.” This was the reality of living so close to Tongyan High School. As the saying goes, wherever there are students, there is trouble.

The sky seemed to darken further as the north wind whistled past his ears with a bone-chilling intensity. He Yu reached into his pocket to touch his pancake and found it still held a lingering warmth. It would be stone-cold if he didn’t hurry home.

He broke into a light jog but froze the moment his foot was about to hit the first step of his building. The rusted door of the first floor was slightly ajar, and the hallway was pitch black because the lights had long since failed. In the gloom, he could just make out a foot wearing a black high-top Converse resting on the floor, its white laces stained with red.

Holy crap, is this a murder? Is someone dead?

As an Omega, his senses were sharp. He stopped reaching for his phone to call the police when a faint, nearly imperceptible scent of Alpha pheromones drifted through the air. The pheromones were too weak for him to describe accurately, but he felt the outdoor temperature drop another degree just from their presence.

That’s powerful, He Yu thought as he sniffed the air. If the owner weren’t in such a bad state, these pheromones probably would have knocked him off his feet. He wondered what kind of person was inside.

Guided by a philosophy of not meddling in others’ business unless a life was at stake, He Yu cautiously stepped inside. Now that he had calmed down, he could smell the metallic tang of blood in the air. The faint pheromones were likely spreading through the blood itself.

After quickly confirming no one else was around, his gaze landed on the owner of the Converse shoes. He knelt down to examine the injuries. The boy was tall and lean with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He wore black cargo pants stained with blood and dust, along with a simple black sweater. His eyes were closed, and his head leaned against the wall, his face and left hand covered in blood.

The atmosphere of an R-rated horror movie was somewhat diluted by the brand names of the boy’s clothes. He Yu muttered to himself that the outfit probably cost enough to buy countless pairs of Converse, making it a high-low fashion mix that transcended social classes.

Since the boy’s face was covered in blood, He Yu first checked his head. Aside from noticing the hair was very dark and looked quite soft, he couldn’t see any obvious wounds. He reached out to support the boy’s head to check the back while pulling out his phone to call an ambulance.

The boy, who had seemed completely unconscious, suddenly snapped his eyes open. Even through the blood, it was clear he had beautiful eyes. The curve of his eyelids was so striking that He Yu didn’t find him frightening. Instead, he felt that even if this person were a ghost, he would be the kind of ghost that could kill someone with his good looks.

Before He Yu could decide if the boy had phoenix or peach-blossom eyes, his hand was suddenly seized in a crushing grip.

“Aaaah! Dammit!” He Yu yelled, his eyes wide. He was half-scared and half-in-pain. The natural advantage of an Alpha was truly frustrating if he could still have this much strength while injured.

“Crap, I’m calling… calling an ambulance for you!” He Yu explained while trying to pry the hand off. “Let go! Let go of my hand! It hurts! It hurts!”

“Don’t you dare… call an ambulance… try it…”

After delivering that arrogant threat, the boy promptly passed out again. He Yu stared for a few seconds and swallowed hard. His immediate thought wasn’t a defiance of the threat, but rather a realization that the boy’s voice was incredible. It sounded a bit like his failed online crush—deep and magnetic.

This time, the boy was out cold. He Yu checked him over thoroughly and found a knife wound on his left arm that didn’t look too serious, along with bruising on his shoulder near his neck. The blood on his face probably belonged to someone else, as there were no wounds on his head. He looked like he was in terrible shape, but he wasn’t in mortal danger; he would simply freeze to death if left there.

The boy had no ID in his pockets, but his wallet was stuffed with over a dozen bank cards and various memberships. He Yu snapped photos of two bank cards, figuring he could report the card numbers to the police if something went wrong later.

If the guy didn’t want to go to the hospital, then He Yu wouldn’t force it. He didn’t really want to call an ambulance anyway, since a single trip would cost several hundred yuan. He checked his own finances and realized that between his cash and the five-yuan pancake, he could barely scrape together fifty yuan. That wouldn’t even cover an X-ray, let alone an ambulance.

He looked at the boy and marveled at the irony of someone having so many cards but not a cent in cash. Despite his lean appearance, the boy was incredibly heavy when He Yu tried to hoist him up. He gritted his teeth and decided to consider this an act of charity to build up good karma.

The moment their bodies touched, a cold, fierce wave of pheromones surged over him. When he was outside, even a tiny whiff had caused the temperature to drop, but at zero distance, the aggressive power of a Super S-rank Alpha peaked. It felt like being in the middle of a polar night in Antarctica where all five senses were frozen solid.

Anyone else—Alpha or Omega—would have fainted instantly. He Yu felt something was wrong. Instead of passing out, his genetic instincts made his body flush with heat, his nose grew damp, and his legs began to shake.

He was doomed.

In the next second, he went down without any warning, his knees hitting the floor hard. He had just delivered a resounding kowtow right in front of this stranger.

“Holy… ugh!”

He didn’t have time to wonder why he was reacting so strongly to a stranger’s pheromones before the boy, now without support, collapsed directly on top of him. He Yu’s eyes nearly rolled back from the weight, and he almost kicked out in reflex. He pulled his foot back, wiped some blood from his nose, and felt a wave of heat at his collar. He had picked up a real handful this time.

In just those few seconds of contact, He Yu identified the person on his back as a Super S-rank Alpha. There were fewer than a hundred of them in the entire country, and their numbers were dwindling every year, making them rarer than giant pandas. If this were a gacha game, he would have just pulled a “Golden Legend” skin.

It was a good thing it was him; any other Omega would be lying on the ground with a massive nosebleed by now. The pheromones of these top-tier Alphas were simply that tyrannical and irrational. It didn’t matter if you were an Alpha or a Beta; they would make you kneel first.

In He Yu’s eyes, however, all ABOs were equal. Super S or not, he still had to get the guy inside to save him. He struggled to his feet and dragged the boy to his door. He fished out his keys and entered—fortunately, he lived on the first floor, so the boy had literally collapsed at his doorstep.

After laying the boy on the sofa, He Yu grabbed two towels from the bathroom and knelt down to wipe the blood off his face. Even from the underlying bone structure, he could tell the Alpha was handsome with deep, sharp features. It was a genetic advantage: the stronger the Alpha, the more perfect their genes tended to be. A strong physique was key to protecting an Omega, while a stunning appearance was the bait to attract one.

He Yu wasn’t interested in these top-tier Alphas. He had already committed to being a solo Omega for a year.

Once the face was clean, he stared at the boy and froze. Wait… is this Chu Yi?

Chu Yi was a sophomore at Tongyan High School and one of the few Super S-rank Alphas in the entire city. He was a legendary figure—the kind who once went into an accidental rut during freshman year and caused an entire floor of Alphas to be sent to the infirmary. His family was also obscenely wealthy. He was a mythic character that every school seemed to have, someone completely out of reach for a “ghost” student like He Yu.

He Yu frowned as he stared at Chu Yi’s face. In their school, this guy couldn’t even drink a sip of water without a crowd of Omegas trying to sneak photos. In other words, people were always watching him.

If Chu Yi just handed him five million yuan as a thank-you for saving his life, they could call it even. But if he so much as acknowledged He Yu at school—or even looked at him twice—He Yu would go from being an invisible student to a glaring spotlight. He was a busy “night owl” who spent his class time catching up on sleep. His old bones couldn’t handle that kind of drama.

He couldn’t help but poke Chu Yi’s forehead. He had really brought home a high-maintenance “ancestor.”

Should I just throw him back out? He Yu amused himself with the thought. Oh well, what am I going to do with you?