Irreversible - Chapter 36

Chapter 36: A Pitiful Scoundrel (Part 1)

Gu Xizhou was quickly sent to the nearest military hospital. By the time Gu Jing received the notification and arrived, the doctor had already finished the examination.

The young Alpha had been injected with sedatives and was currently lying on the bed in a deep sleep. The fever of her presentation burned like a wildfire, raging across her body. Under the catalysis of pheromones, old cells were dying while new ones grew.

Gu Jing entered the ward and saw her daughter lying there wi  th a flushed face and rapid breathing, looking as if she were on the verge of death. Her heart twisted with anxiety. “Doctor, what exactly is going on with my child? Why is she burning up like this?”

Could she have been poisoned by Su Nanfeng at the military base? she wondered. Even if she’s sick, it shouldn’t reach this level.

The doctor calmed her anxiety promptly. “It’s a secondary presentation.”

“She is quite young. Her physical condition wasn’t optimal during her initial presentation, and she didn’t fully develop. It seems she encountered some recent stimulation that triggered a re-presentation.”

Gu Jing’s eyes widened. “Then… isn’t that extremely dangerous?”

An Alpha’s presentation is a complex and treacherous process involving the restructuring of physiological systems. In the past, there were even cases where Alphas failed to survive the presentation period. A secondary presentation is an Alpha’s “re-differentiation”, the fever and agony are manifold compared to the first time.

Gu Jing looked at Gu Xizhou’s small, curled-up figure on the bed, and her own breath felt hitched. Her daughter was so frail—how could she endure this?

The doctor consoled her, “The base instructors handled her before sending her here, so there shouldn’t be any major issues. Once she gets through these two days of high heat, she’ll be fine.”

Gu Jing agreed repeatedly. After some thought, she requested leave from her superiors to stay at the hospital and look after little Xizhou.

 Hot… so hot…

Little Gu Xizhou felt like a piece of meat placed on a grill, her body sizzling and dripping with sweat. The high temperature distorted all her surroundings. she was like a flaming meteorite, running naked through a pitch-black wilderness, desperately needing to find a harbor that could hold her.

She ran and ran, her breath short and her heart pounding. In that parched, desolate world, the faint tick-tock of a clock began to echo.

Tick-tock, tick-tock… tick-tock, tick-tock…

The mechanical sound was so clear in the dark, silent wilderness, sounding like the death knell of one’s final moments. Within the blackness ahead, a woman’s gentle whisper arrived, synchronized with the rhythm of the clock: “Xizhou… Xizhou…”

“Come this way, come here…”

Little Gu Xizhou glanced sideways and looked back, seeing a firefly-like light appear in the darkness. The light was extremely weak, not even enough to illuminate the path ahead, yet it was her only guide in the darkness. “Come over, it’s alright.”

Without hesitation, little Gu Xizhou chased the firefly figure, sprinting all the way. After running for an unknown amount of time, a familiar scent of cherries drifted from the night ahead.

Gu Xizhou sniffed. The instant the cherry fragrance became clear, she felt as if she had plunged through a wall of air, escaping that pitch-black world.

“Open your eyes and look…”

Light seemed to fall upon her eyelids. Little Gu Xizhou struggled to open her eyes. In her blurred vision, she seemed to see undulating water. She felt her entire body soaked in water, which was filled with cherries floating in the current; the rich fragrance was everywhere.

So fragrant… so fragrant… It was that familiar scent, yet somewhat strange.

Little Gu Xizhou instinctively reached forward. She scooped up a handful of cherries and took a deep breath at the tip of her nose. The sweet fruit scent rushed to her brain, stimulating an unspeakable place on her body that began to ache even more.

I want more… a little more…

Little Gu Xizhou frantically gathered the cherries at her side. She moved against the current, crawling along with the fruit in her hands. The sound of water splashed loudly as a large cluster of cherries was washed onto the ground by the current. She stumbled and plunged headlong into the water.

The moment the icy water submerged her nose and mouth, the noisy tick of the clock in her ear stopped abruptly. Silence fell. Little Gu Xizhou felt her vision go black as she fell back into the darkness.

“Xizhou… Gu Xizhou…”

All sounds were receding, including that firefly-like light, which drifted further and further away. Her body and soul were retreating incessantly; she was pushed back into her original world by the heavy darkness, locked once again in the hopeless, pitch-black scorching pain.

Drifting and sinking, without relief.

After another unknown amount of time, she woke up from the darkness again. Once more, she felt the call of that voice. Amidst the ticking clock, she broke through the black wall, following the light to its source, and opened her eyes again.

The moment she opened them, amidst the high heat, she saw everything clearly.

In a vast bathroom, she sat naked in a bathtub filled with water. Countless cherries surrounded her like petals, warmly besieging her.

Little Gu Xizhou’s eyes widened instantly as a thought rose in her mind: I have been to this place.

During those week-long nightmares, she had been here. This was the place where the “future” Gu Xizhou spent her ruts. It was the location where the Su Zhiyi in her dreams accompanied her through her rut for the first time. It was her gentle haven, and the source of all the pain that followed.

Her tears fell uncontrollably, instantly blurring everything before her. Little Gu Xizhou’s consciousness remained clear for only a moment before the ticking in her head stopped once more. Her body went limp, and she fell into the darkness again.

As her consciousness drifted away, she seemed to hear a few knocks on the bathroom door: “Boss… Boss, are you alright?”

Boss.

Little Gu Xizhou wanted to spare some energy to hear what that voice was saying, but her reason was quickly evaporated by the high heat, casting her back into the pitch-black cage.

In the world of 0820—the thirty-six-year-old Gu Xizhou—Lin Shi stood outside the bathroom door of Gu Xizhou’s room, holding a syringe made from Su Zhiyi’s pheromones and knocking nervously.

“Boss… Boss… are you still conscious?”

“Boss… Boss?”

After several failed inquiries, Lin Shi pressed her ear to the door. Hearing only the rushing sound of the shower, she decisively broke in.

Zzzzt…

The electronic lock opened, and the bathroom door slid inward automatically.

The moment the door opened, a thick rosemary scent from the Alpha, laced with the fragrance of cherries, slammed into Lin Shi’s face. Scattered cherries on the floor rolled toward her feet through the wetness. Lin Shi looked up at the Alpha slumped in the bathtub—pale, emaciated, and skeletal, shouted in shock: “BOSS!”

Clutching the Omega pheromone agent and stepping over the cherries, Lin Shi rushed forward without hesitation. She plunged the syringe into the Alpha’s slender arm. Feeling the scorching skin under her touch, a chill ran down her spine. “A fever, such a severe fever, and she’s soaking in water? Is she trying to kill herself?”

“Your wife isn’t even dead yet, how can you trash yourself like this!”

Lin Shi felt the blood rush to her head as she looked at her boss’s pale, haggard face. She tossed the empty syringe aside, decisively hauled her out of the bathtub, threw her onto the bed, and wrapped her in a blanket. The frantic researcher pressed Gu Xizhou into the bed with the covers and wiped her down from head to toe, disturbing her peace entirely.

The appropriate pheromone supplement allowed Gu Xizhou to temporarily regain consciousness. She poked her fuzzy head out from the blanket, opening her eyes to see Lin Shi’s overly anxious face.

Gu Xizhou’s uncleared brain was instantly filled with rage. She didn’t speak, but stared fixedly at Lin Shi, who was pressing down on her. Lin Shi, who had been wiping her down, belatedly realized something was wrong. She stopped her hands, looked up, and met a pair of cold eyes. A chill went straight down her back.

Thinking of this person’s temper, Lin Shi quickly jumped off the bed and raised her hands in surrender. “Boss, I didn’t do anything! I just carried you out of the bathroom! You have a fever so bad you’re nearly dying.”

The high fever and the rut were devouring Gu Xizhou’s reason. Even after enduring this for six years, she never felt it got any easier. She took a deep breath. Before the next wave of heat arrived, she said in a hoarse voice, “Fever medicine. Clean up the room.”

At this moment, she had no strength left to interrogate Lin Shi’s actions. This was the final day of the rut; she had to endure it as quickly as possible.

Lin Shi moved fast. Without unnecessary words, she quickly had people come in to clean the room, fed Gu Xizhou the fever medicine, settled her into the warm bed, and tactfully withdrew.

Not long after, Gu Xizhou’s fever spiked again. Even though she had been injected with Su Zhiyi’s pheromones, for an Alpha who had been “widowed” for years and was in the middle of a rut, it was nothing more than drinking poison to quench thirst.

Sadness and gloom shrouded her once more, accompanied by an unventable desire. Gu Xizhou clutched Su Zhiyi’s old clothes under the covers, wrapping herself entirely within them. Burying her head to sniff the scent that had long since vanished, her tears poured out like a dam breaking.

“Waaaaah… Zhiyi… my little mermaid…”

Love me, please love me.

Do not disappear before dawn. Do not turn into bubbles and vanish into the sunlight.

She cried until her eyes were blurry and her heart was breaking, unable to find relief amidst the physical agony and the spiritual despair. The past flickered by like scenes in a movie; she was like a boat sailing against the current, dreaming back through the torture to the sweet scent she tasted during their first touch many years ago.