Su Ren held a thermos in one hand and tucked a textbook under his arm as he left the study room.
He walked slowly into the hot water room. Under the curious, prying gazes around him, he lowered his eyes and began filling his cup.
His calm and refined profile made him look distant, almost ethereal in his cool beauty.
“Did Teacher Su put on lemon perfume?”
“Could it be pheromones?”
“No way, lemon scent is obviously Omega, and both Teacher Xie and Teacher Su aren’t O.”
Listening to the idle chatter, Su Ren broke out in a cold sweat despite the freezing winter. His legs felt weak, his heart unsteady, and he stared irritably at the thermos as it filled up.
Su Ren knew that very few people had ever smelled Xie Chouqiu’s scent.
Because the smell on that man was always clean.
No sweat, no perfume, no suppressants, no laundry detergent, nothing at all, let alone pheromones.
Back when Xie Chouqiu was still in school, some classmates had even suspected whether his registered gender was fake. Xie Chouqiu, however, never bothered responding.
“Think whatever you want,” Xie Chouqiu had said with a breezy smile, “not letting any Omega smell my pheromones is the basic etiquette of an Enigma.”
His wording was precise.
Not letting Omegas who are prone to heat smell them.
But Su Ren, a Beta, was different.
When they first met as teenagers, Su Ren and his younger sister Su Shi had stayed at the Xie family home.
After Su Ren neatly made the bed and sprayed it with the lemon fragrance Su Shi had bought, Xie Chouqiu had wrinkled his nose at the cheap artificial scent. Then he released his own pheromones and proudly said,
“Come on, smell this, mine smells way better.”
Su Ren shot him a cold glance.
Then the twelve year old Xie Chouqiu, like a large dog that loved to cause chaos, leapt straight onto the soft, fragrant bed.
The immature lemon scent, like fizzy lemonade in summer, seeped into the soft bedding and spread completely.
“Get down,” Su Ren said coldly.
Xie Chouqiu looked aggrieved. “I smell so good, why do you always嫌 me?”
At fifteen, Su Ren was at that stubborn age. He put on an indifferent front, yet inwardly felt the humiliation of being physically weaker than others.
There was no way he could tell Xie Chouqiu that even as a Beta who would not go into heat, smelling Xie Chouqiu’s pheromones still made his legs go weak.
Su Ren was a Beta because both his parents were Betas.
His father had outstanding abilities and character, yet in the military he could never rise as high as Xie Chouqiu’s father. Even when he sacrificed his life for a mission, he only received a third class merit, simply because he was a Beta.
His mother was talented in writing and full of ambition, yet at work she was transferred from a department full of Alphas to a front desk position, not for any reason other than her gender. She became depressed and spent her life in mediocrity.
Su Ren had matured early. Growing up in such a repressive environment shaped his pessimistic and gloomy personality.
He hated gender based advantages.
Naturally, that included Xie Chouqiu, the favored child of heaven.
No burdens in his chest, stars in his eyes.
No need to struggle, he could even sleep through class.
At twelve years old, he still took it for granted that “everyone in the world likes me.”
Watching Xie Chouqiu act like a cheerful Samoyed, smiling, sleeping, and clinging to the pretty “Brother Su Ren,” rubbing against him all the time,
“Why are you so pretty?”
“Are you really not an Omega?”
“Why are all the Omegas I know combined not as pretty as you?”
These were Xie Chouqiu’s three soul searching questions.
“Appearance has nothing to do with gender,” the young Su Ren said with a cold, handsome face, “can you get off my bed?”
Realizing Su Ren truly disliked him, the smile on Xie Chouqiu’s face faded, while the lemon scent grew stronger. “I’m very clean, I’ve taken a shower, even washed my feet.”
Su Ren remained unmoved. “Get down.”
“But this is my bed to begin with. You and your sister are staying at my house, my mom insisted on giving you my big bed. You’re taking over someone else’s nest!”
Su Ren could not possibly tell him that a few days ago, when Xie Chouqiu’s pheromones lingered on the bed, after lying in the bedding soaked with that lemonade scent, his skin had flushed red, and he had even wanted to be touched.
Since it could not be explained, there was nothing more to say.
Already irritable, Su Ren finally lost his patience. He grabbed Xie Chouqiu by the ear, ignoring his cries of “Ow, ow, ow,” and threw him out of the room.
From then on, the two boys disliked each other on sight.
At some point, Xie Chouqiu discovered Su Ren’s secret, that smelling his pheromones made Su Ren’s legs go weak.
So whenever they were alone, this well mannered young master would deliberately release his lemon scent.
At first, he only asked, “Brother, does it smell good?”
When Su Ren rolled his eyes, it became, “Su Ren, do you like it?”
After Su Ren told him to “get lost,” Xie Chouqiu finally maxed out his mocking skill:
“Hey, do you think it’s possible you’re a soft Omega type among Betas?”
That year, Su Ren was in his final year of high school. Because of that one sentence, he casually smashed Xie Chouqiu’s head open.
Xie Chouqiu got hit, yet instead laughed.
As an Enigma, he had always felt embarrassed to fight back when Su Ren hit him a few times.
But drawing blood was different. He had been waiting for this day for a long time.
Grabbing Su Ren’s thin wrist, Xie Chouqiu pinned him against the wall.
He wiped the blood from his forehead.
His long middle finger, stained with lemon scented blood, brushed across Su Ren’s lips as he smiled like a dark, twisted madman.
His eyes were red. With one hand, he restrained both of Su Ren’s wrists above his head. With the other, he pressed that blood stained finger against Su Ren’s cheek.
The pheromones in the blood made Su Ren’s legs go weak and his stomach churn. His pale skin flushed red.
Xie Chouqiu spoke with disdain, “Still dare to do that again?”
“Get lost.”
Xie Chouqiu’s smile turned teasing as he continued provoking him, “Then call me ge.”
That was the last straw.
Pinned against the wall, hands restrained, legs pressed down, the only thing Su Ren could move was his head.
So he bit down on Xie Chouqiu’s neck.
His sharp canine teeth pressed against the moving Adam’s apple, and he inhaled the strong scent of lemon blood.
The next second, Xie Chouqiu said, “I’m not going easy on you anymore.”
He grabbed the back of Su Ren’s neck, lowered his head, and bit into Su Ren’s shoulder and neck. There was no gland there, only pale, tender skin, now marked with a bloody bite.
Because of that bite, Su Ren had to take a week off from physical education.
He would never forget how he looked then, like an Omega on their period, suffering from cramps, his face pale, body cold and trembling.
Others thought he just had a cold, that he was weak.
But in truth, only he and Xie Chouqiu knew, it was the Enigma’s pheromones that had left him so weak he could barely stand.
And now, in this second world, Su Ren…
With a loud bang, the door of the hot water room slammed shut.
Xie Chouqiu’s misty blue eyes gleamed with violent intensity, just like the night Su Ren had been marked.
“Classes are over,” he said. “The rest of your time belongs to me.”
A younger one who won’t call someone “ge” clearly has too many thoughts.
See you tomorrow.
