I Married A Proud, Beautiful Omega First, Then Fell In Love - Chapter 1

Douglas stood at the entrance of the unfamiliar villa, staring blankly at the light-screen. He took a deep drag of his cigarette, his mind racing as he searched for a password.

Half a minute later, he realized that this was not Planet SK, nor was it some dilapidated rock on the edge of a galaxy. This was the Capital Star, a place of highly advanced technology.

That sort of outdated digital code lock had long since been melted away at high temperatures by the quantum steam of the era.

It should be a bio-signature lock… right?

Perhaps the villa’s AI brain truly couldn’t stand the stupidity of the “primitive man” before it, for it proactively emitted a ripple of blue light. The wave swept across Douglas’s face, pausing for a brief moment specifically on his deep green pupils.

The blue light hit Douglas’s unshaven, exhausted face, causing him to squint involuntarily.

“Visitor identified as Property Owner One: Douglas. Clearance: Level AAA.”

“Dear Mr. Douglas, welcome home.”

The electronic voice of the AI brain sounded as if it held a hint of hidden excitement.

Douglas pinched the bridge of his nose and stepped into this place that was entirely strange to him, yet could temporarily be called “home.”

Two months of continuous high-speed flight, standing guard in the pilot’s seat day and night without relaxation, living off nothing but nutritional supplements—it had left Douglas physically and mentally exhausted.

He needed a good sleep.

The further he walked inside, the more hesitant Douglas’s steps became.

The air in the living room was permeated with a faint, unfamiliar scent of pheromones, like mellow red wine, possessing an extremely strong presence.

Douglas took another deep breath of smoke, forcing himself to steady his mind and control his restless body—he remembered.

Three years ago, on the night he left the Capital Star for the edge of the galaxy, he was originally supposed to attend a wedding.

His own wedding.

Absurd as it was, that was the truth. The great new King of Tansan, the hope of the people, and leader of the Reformists—Mr. Contany—had arranged a mandatory marriage for his loyal follower according to old customs.

Douglas didn’t even know the name of his titular partner, let alone what they looked like.

Actually, he could probably guess their appearance; after all, those Conservative aristocrats raised on the people’s wealth all shared the same hypocritical look: blond hair and blue eyes.

But Douglas had no time for that now. He really, really needed to sleep.

The second before his backside touched the soft long sofa, a cold voice drifted down from above—

“Do not sit down.”

Douglas cut off a half-finished yawn, his expression instantly turning serious, making him look quite fierce.

He looked up and caught the source of the voice from the staircase.

A man with waist-length hair, wearing pajamas, walked down unhurriedly. The sound of his feet hitting the steps echoed rhythmically in the quiet living room.

Once he finished the descent, the two were at eye level, yet Elan did not step any closer. He simply rested his hand on the railing, gazing at Douglas from a distance.

“The bacterial index on your body currently exceeds that of any object in this living room. Even the vase at the door is cleaner than you are. Furthermore, your beard is too long; you look like a primitive savage. It is quite unseemly.”

“I will give you ten minutes. Clean yourself up immediately.”

“The blanket on the sofa was brought back from Planet SH3. Do not sit on it; you will get it dirty.”

There was no obvious expression on his face as he spoke, but every word carried a heavy tone of condescension. Douglas listened to the long-winded lecture seriously, then glanced at the wine-red blanket on the sofa.

The texture of the blanket was incredibly soft, shimmering with an expensive, elegant luster like a work of art that one wouldn’t dare desecrate.

Douglas nodded, and then he sat down with a thud.

Under the man’s furrowed gaze, Douglas crossed his legs and asked, “What was your name again?”

Watching the cigarette ash fall from Douglas’s fingers onto the carpet, the furrow between Elan’s brows deepened further. After a long pause, he said, “Elan.”

“Elan, is it? I believe this place is my home, and what I do…” Douglas let out a breath, trying to negotiate patiently.

But before he could finish, Elan interrupted him, his tone icy, “Put out the cigarette.”

The commanding tone was so natural and filled with such disgust that one might think Douglas was still on the battlefield, a lowly soldier who needed to follow orders.

Douglas’s body was simply too tired to keep bickering. He couldn’t find an ashtray—this place, filled with the atmosphere of advanced civilization, had no such backward items—so he simply pinched the ember between two fingers.

The burning tip left a faint red mark on the tan skin of his fingers.

“There, happy? You sure are high-maintenance,” Douglas tutted.

The other man let out a cold snort. “Watch your attitude.”

His attitude? Douglas laughed from anger. How was he, an Imperial General, supposed to speak to him? Should he kneel, say he was wrong, and then kowtow?

Just because he was born into a higher class, did he really have to act so overbearing?

He stared at the haughty Elan for a while without speaking. It wasn’t out of courtesy; he was simply too lazy to open his mouth.

Elan ignored his piercing gaze entirely. He covered his nose with his hand, seemingly very sensitive to the lingering smell of smoke, and turned to walk back upstairs without a second glance.

Two seconds later, the sound of a door closing came from upstairs.

“What a character…”

Douglas’s face looked unpleasant for a moment. After a few deep breaths, his expression softened. He leaned back against the soft cushions of the sofa, his muscles relaxing, his eyes aimlessly watching the only amber-colored electronic lamp in the living room.

His spirit was exhausted to the limit, but there seemed to be a string pulled tight in his brain, stretching all the way from the battlefield to this room.

The cigarette he just extinguished was his last one. Such antiques were rare in this era; even the ones he had were obtained through personal connections.

Without his reliable sedative, Douglas felt an indescribable irritability. He raised his hand to rub his haggard face, then suddenly remembered something. He lifted himself up, turned halfway, and grabbed the red velvet blanket behind him. He flipped it over and over, touching it carefully to feel the texture.

After a long while, he muttered, “What is this? Just a piece of junk. Is it really worth being shipped from another planet? It’s just a bit softer than a normal blanket…”

Recalling Elan’s words from earlier, Douglas’s head hurt even more.

A total pain in the neck.

Thinking about having to live under the same roof as such a person in the future made Douglas feel a bit of a breakdown. He would have rather died on the battlefield.

The amber light flickered before his eyes, looking like golden hair gilded with the glow of the sunset. Douglas slowly closed his eyes.

But the tension from a long-term, high-pressure life did not let him sleep for long. As the sky began to brighten, he opened his eyes.

There wasn’t a single sound from upstairs; Elan seemed to have ignored his existence.

His body felt a post-relaxation ache, a sort of survivor’s soreness. Douglas sat up, clasped his hands together, his fingernails constantly scratching at his rough skin.

After staring at the floor for a moment, Douglas organized his thoughts, stood up, took one last look back, and strode away without lingering.

A minute later, the sound of footsteps came from the stairs. Elan stood still, staring in the direction Douglas had left for a while, then turned back.

Douglas boarded the starship and pulled an old, yellowed leather notebook from a hidden compartment. The notebook had a hole in the top left corner, with a white nano-material cord tying it to an equally ancient blue ink fountain pen.

Douglas stared at the blank pages in contemplation for a moment. Before the dawn fully rose, he wrote a line in messy handwriting:

A pretentious pain in the neck—I want a divorce!

…

At 6:32 AM, the diligent King of Tansan had already begun handling official business.

“Mr. Douglas, this is not the time for visitors.”

An abrupt electronic voice suddenly came from outside the private office. Contany closed the government processing system on the light-screen and rubbed his temples.

A burly brown figure burst in. A polite, professional smile instantly appeared on Contany’s wrinkled middle-aged face.

“You’ve just returned from the edge of the galaxy. Instead of resting at home, what brings you here to see me?”

Thud— the leather notebook was tossed onto the desk. Contany glanced down at it and pushed it back slightly with his hand.

He had no hobby of reading other people’s diaries.

Douglas sat down on the black leather sofa, crossed his legs, and clasped his hands over his knees, his fingernails constantly picking at the skin of his fingertips.

He looked up, and although he was trying his best to restrain himself, his expression was still anxious and his tone was somewhat blunt. “I want a divorce.”

Contany feigned surprise with a silent “ah,” his gaze inadvertently sweeping over Douglas’s clenched hands. He then said in a gentle tone, “Why do you want a divorce? Did something happen?”

“To my knowledge, your marriage partner, Elan Riemann, is a male Omega of upright character. During the three years you were away, he lived a quiet life and committed no transgressions.”

Douglas felt his head throbbing even harder, Elan’s words from his return earlier that morning swirling in his mind. He said impatiently, “He’s a pain in the neck. His way of doing things is just as picky and pretentious as those old fossils. I can’t live with someone like that.”

“But getting a divorce now would lower the Reformists’ credibility with the public. An Imperial General returning in glory, only to abandon the partner who waited for him for three years as his first act—is that appropriate?”

“Furthermore, your marriage involves the interests between the two factions. Regarding the Conservatives, our goal is not to eradicate them, but to transform them into a force that does not hinder, or even supports us. Your marriage is precisely that bridge…”

Political jargon kept pouring out of Contany’s mouth as if he were giving a campaign speech.

Douglas felt as if there were a bee buzzing in his brain, constantly stabbing his nerves with its stinger.

He waved his hand dismissively. “Stop, stop lecturing. I told you back then I didn’t want to get married, but you insisted…”

Douglas frustratedly ruffled his already messy brown hair. After a long while, he said weakly, “Forget it.”

Watching Douglas get up and walk to the door, looking at his travel-worn back, Contany suddenly spoke:

“Doug, perhaps you should go see Qin. He is waiting for you in the Medical Department of the Research Institute.”

Douglas’s footsteps paused. He didn’t turn around, but instead waved his hand behind him. “Got it. Going now.”

Research Institute, Medical Department, Department of Psychology and Psychiatry.

A male Beta in a white lab coat was rapidly inputting new drug research data onto a light-screen, simulated by a humanoid neural network.

The door behind him was kicked open rudely, followed by a long-lost voice: “Why is the security system here still as fragile as the one on Planet SK?”

Qin pushed up his black-rimmed glasses without looking up. “Get out.”

Douglas automatically ignored the remark and walked straight to the sofa to sit down.

Qin frowned slightly, feeling somewhat dissatisfied as he operated the light-screen to engage the AI’s management system. He turned around and sized Douglas up.

“How have you been… lately?”

He picked up a cup and took a sip of cold coffee, asking casually, though his eyes drifted distractedly toward the scrolling data on the light-screen.

“Do I look like I’m okay?” Douglas asked back, taking a deep breath and pointing to the dark circles under his eyes.

Hearing this, Qin finally shifted his full attention to Douglas.

He set down his cup and walked toward Douglas. The next second, he leaned over to peel back Douglas’s eyelids while his other hand quickly pulled a small light-pen from his chest pocket and shone it in.

The deep green circular pupils instantly contracted into sharp ovals at both ends—

Qin withdrew the light-pen and said calmly, “You Alphas really have good physical constitutions. You didn’t even go blind after that.”

Douglas rubbed his eyes with his left hand, saying speechlessly, “It was still pretty uncomfortable.”

“Physically, there shouldn’t be any major issues. To be safe, go get a check-up later.”

“As for your psychological state… have you been following the doctor’s orders lately?”

“Doctor’s orders?” Douglas was momentarily confused, but the next second he remembered what Qin had said three years ago. “Oh, yeah. The diary. I write in it every day.”

Douglas turned sideways and felt around in his leather jacket pocket, coming up empty. He realized he had left the diary on Contany’s desk.

Under Qin’s serious gaze, Douglas said guiltily, “I forgot to bring it. I’ll show it to you next time.”

Qin was somewhat helpless, but he still urged, “This is very important. You must take it seriously.”

In the interstellar era, the way humans recorded information had long since been digitized. Tapping a light-screen or sharing biological information directly with an AI brain could yield a perfect record—quick and convenient.

But this method was too easy; instead, it caused the recorder to lose their true feelings regarding the information. Massive amounts of data became as ethereal as passing clouds, giving people a sense of losing control.

Writing by hand was different. Stroke by stroke, the tip of the pen created friction against the rough paper, dragging out traces of ink.

Having Douglas write a diary in the traditional way could help him analyze his thoughts, gain control over them, and increase his confidence in his own decisions.

This was Qin’s approach to treating Douglas’s post-war traumatic psychological disorder.

Combined with medication, this method had shown some results. Douglas looked much better now than he did in his “mad dog” state three years ago.

He’s just a bit irritable now, Qin thought optimistically.

But an hour later, he wasn’t feeling very optimistic anymore.

“Tell me, what did you do? How did this happen?”