The Cannon Fodder Became the Empire's Beloved Omega - Chapter 42

“Of course, you don’t need to worry too much about it.”

As if sensing Yu Ruan’s mood, Ye Yizhou casually reassured him, “That guy is much tougher than you think, having grown up this way.”

Yu Ruan responded with a somewhat dejected “Mm.” Suddenly, he heard Ye Yizhou’s voice, tinged with laughter, from the other end of the line: “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. I’ll be attending the school dance next week too. See you then?”

Yu Ruan: “!”

Instantly, all his attention was captured by Ye Yizhou’s words.

“How come you suddenly?” he couldn’t help but ask. In his memory, the other had always been extremely busy. Even during their time at Conan, he was rarely seen. How did he suddenly have time to attend Stellaris’s dance?

“It’s a secret,” Ye Yizhou said. “Keep it under wraps for now. You’ll find out when the time comes.”

Hearing this, Yu Ruan had no choice but to suppress his confusion and agree.

After chatting idly about a few other matters, Ye Yizhou ended the call and bid Yu Ruan farewell. By now, Yu Ruan was completely free of the grogginess he had felt upon waking, his mind entirely occupied by Ye Yizhou’s earlier words.

Ye Yizhou was coming to Stellaris, and he was going to the dance!

Thinking of his own clumsy dancing skills, which could only be described as a crude imitation, Yu Ruan was suddenly overwhelmed with the shame of potentially making a fool of himself in public.

Forgoing any thought of going back to sleep, he hurried to the bathroom to freshen up and changed into fresh clothes. He decided to take advantage of the early hour and rush to the training room for some last-minute practice.

As he stepped out, he ran into Han Ran.

She was carrying a helmet, seemingly on her way out. Noticing Yu Ruan’s tense, battle-ready expression, she couldn’t help but ask curiously, “What’s going on? You look like you’re facing a crisis. Tell me about it, maybe I can help.”

Yu Ruan’s face flushed bright red with embarrassment. After stammering for a moment, he mumbled with little confidence, “It’s nothing. I just wanted to practice dancing.”

Among the students at Stellaris, he was probably the only one who had reached this age without learning how to dance socially.

If he ended up with an impatient dance partner, wouldn’t that be utterly humiliating?

Han Ran raised an eyebrow, as if struck by a thought. She let out a meaningful “Oh,” then added, “Don’t worry too much. Stellaris isn’t that strict. If you mess up, it’s fine at most, your dance partner will suffer a bit more.”

A mischievous smile curled at the corner of her lips, and a glint of schadenfreude flickered in her eyes. “Who knows, it might even be a good thing.”

Yu Ruan: “?” What did that mean?

Seeing his bewildered expression, Han Ran seemed about to say more when she suddenly caught sight of someone. Her smile vanished instantly, and she said, “Good luck,” before hurrying off with her helmet.

Yu Ruan was left utterly perplexed, staring blankly at her retreating figure for a few seconds. A moment later, he heard soft footsteps behind him. Then, a hand slowly reached past his face and retrieved something from the glass cabinet beside him.

It was only then that Yu Ruan understood the meaning behind Han Ran’s earlier words.

Dance partner = Gu Yu, messing up = stepping on his feet a few more times = a good thing.

Yu Ruan: “…”

It seemed everyone in the dorm now knew that Gu Yu was his dance instructor.

In an instant, an indescribable feeling whether it was embarrassment or something else swept over him. A faint blush spread across Yu Ruan’s face as he lowered his head, avoiding the gaze of the person beside him.

His sudden timid demeanor caught the newcomer’s attention. Gu Yu slightly furrowed his brows, recalling Han Ran’s expression earlier, and couldn’t help but ask, “Did she bully you?”

“No, not at all!” Yu Ruan hurriedly explained, still not daring to look at Gu Yu. Flustered, he bid a hasty farewell to the person in front of him and, with his head down, ran all the way to the training room.

By the time he came to his senses, he had already shut the door with a “thud,” completely isolating himself inside.

Thinking back to just a few dozen minutes ago, when he had confidently vowed to be gentler toward Gu Yu, Yu Ruan couldn’t help but feel a wave of despair, deeply reflecting on his own behavior.

For some reason, lately, whenever anything related to the other person came up, he seemed to easily become flustered.

Sighing with worry, he found a chair in the room and sat down, leaning over the backrest as he tried to analyze the reason behind his chaotic actions.

First, he ruled out sympathy.

In the past, he had always been good at empathizing with others, easily relating to their experiences through their words. But this current situation was the first time something like this had happened in so many years, it was truly strange.

Next, he ruled out the possibility that it was because Gu Yu had helped him so much, making him feel it was difficult to reciprocate.

To be honest, Yu Ruan felt that Gu Yu was surprisingly easy to understand. Though he appeared cold, had a bad temper, and was hard to please, deep down, he was actually quite easygoing. He was like a cat that needed to be petted in the right direction but once you got close, no matter how you rubbed its belly, it wouldn’t get angry with you.

So, when he interacted with Gu Yu, it was actually quite relaxed. It wouldn’t cause him to become flustered or panic-stricken.

Could it be?

Yu Ruan couldn’t help but glance at the date on the training room clock and fell into deep thought.

Could it be because his upcoming heat cycle was approaching and he was being affected by the pheromones around him?

Back in Konan, whether they were Alphas or Omegas, they were surprisingly few in number. So, whenever such situations arose, he could usually handle them alone with suppressants. But ever since he came to the Capital Star, the concentration of Alphas around him had skyrocketed, especially after entering Nebula Academy.

Being in such an environment every day, it made sense that his body might be affected by the occasional uncontrolled pheromones from Alphas, right?

Yu Ruan felt he might have stumbled upon the truth.

Having figured this out, he finally let out a sigh of relief. He couldn’t help but think: Indeed, I can’t let my guard down. After all, this is a place teeming with Alphas, I really need to be more careful.

With the weight off his mind, Yu Ruan opened his light screen and typed a message to Gu Yu: “I’m really sorry about earlier. I think I might have been a bit affected by the pheromones. I didn’t mean to act that way toward you, I’m truly sorry.”

He pressed send.

A soft “beep” sounded. Gu Yu glanced at his lightly flashing light screen, opened the interface, and quickly scanned the message. His gaze gradually deepened.

He lowered his eyes in silence for a moment, then raised his hand to type.

Soon, Gu Yu’s reply popped up.

Yu Ruan lowered his head and saw a line of small text: “If you need help, you can come to me.”

He froze for a moment, instinctively replying with a “Thank you.” After a brief pause, he felt the response seemed too perfunctory and quickly sent another message.

Pressing the send button, he watched as the message showed “sent successfully.” Yu Ruan let out a soft sigh of relief and smiled.

“Thank you.”

The light brain vibrated slightly. Gu Yu glanced at the content and was about to close the screen when another message immediately followed, making him pause: “If I need it, I will.”

Need!

The sweet scent he had once caught seemed to linger at the tip of his nose in an instant, and his pheromones began to stir restlessly. Gu Yu stiffened slightly, his breath catching for a moment before he lowered his gaze and shut off the light screen.

He stood up from his chair, ready to begin the day’s training. Suddenly, he recalled that something about the earlier message exchange felt off.

Wait.

If it were two Omegas, they would help each other with suppressant injections. But for an Omega to seek help from an Alpha, wouldn’t that be.

Finally realizing the implication, Yu Ruan’s face flushed bright red with embarrassment.

Hehe,what had he said to Gu Yu?!

Ahhhhh, no way!!! QAQ

Fumbling frantically for his light brain, Yu Ruan wished he could find a hole to crawl into, desperately trying to salvage the situation: “N-No! I’m really sorry, that’s not what I meant! I… I meant help with suppressant injections. If I caused you any trouble, I’m truly sorry!!!”

Trembling, he sent the message and anxiously waited for Gu Yu’s reply. But the message seemed to vanish without a trace his light brain remained eerily silent, making him wonder if he had sent it to the wrong person.

With no other choice, Yu Ruan distractedly activated the training robot and began the day’s drills.

Perhaps due to his scattered focus, the training went particularly poorly. Error alerts rang out one after another, echoing sharply through the training room.

Noticing the robot’s tragically scuffed surface from his missteps, Yu Ruan hesitated for a moment before dejectedly shutting it off, deciding to take a short break.

As if Gu Yu had finally heard his silent plea, a moment later, the notification for a message chimed briefly.

Yu Ruan hurriedly opened it, only to find a simple, unemotional reply: “Mm.”

Very much in Gu Yu’s style neither awkward nor open to misinterpretation.

Thank goodness there was no misunderstanding.

Yu Ruan breathed a soft sigh of relief and instinctively patted his chest. He carefully closed the message and, after a moment of thought, felt an inexplicable and subtle emotion rise in his heart something he couldn’t quite define, whether it was disappointment or something else.

After turning it over in his mind, Yu Ruan could only attribute it to pre-heat symptoms and thought to himself sincerely: Hormonal imbalances really are no joke.

Because of this incident, Yu Ruan felt too embarrassed to face Gu Yu for the next several days.

Asking an unrelated Alpha to help suppress his heat felt almost like an indirect way of begging for intimacy. Yu Ruan felt his face wasn’t thick-skinned enough to calmly share a space with someone after doing something like that.

It was just too embarrassing.

Fortunately, Gu Yu seemed to understand his awkwardness and didn’t approach him proactively. When they met in passing, they simply exchanged nods, returning their relationship to how it had been during their time on Kenan Star.

Soon, the day of the ball arrived.

To be honest, because of the earlier misunderstanding, Yu Ruan really wanted to suggest to Gu Yu, “Maybe we should just disband the team.” But saying that would only make it seem like he was overcompensating. After wrestling with his embarrassment, Yu Ruan swallowed his words and pretended nothing had happened.

Changing into the formal attire that Yi Tu had sent over earlier, Yu Ruan adjusted his mask and followed the others into the grand hall.

He still remembered that Ye Yizhou was supposed to come, and his thoughts drifted restlessly. The people around him chattered incessantly until suddenly, someone exclaimed, “Hey, isn’t that Ye Yizhou?!”

This immediately piqued everyone’s curiosity. The group fell silent, turning to look in the direction the person pointed, murmuring in disbelief: “It really is Ye Yizhou!” “Why would he suddenly come to Xingyun?” “And he’s actually attending the ball?!”

Just then, someone else cried out as if discovering something new, “Hey! Check out the new notification the school just sent!”

“What now?” another person muttered, opening the email. Instantly, their eyes widened in shock.

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