The Omega Pretending to Be an Alpha Was Accidentally Marked by His Boss - Chapter 5

While keeping Qiu Nan company during his IV drip, Mi Zhu listened to him recount his tragic tale of blood and tears, laughing so hard his jaw practically unhinged.

Munching on an apple Mi Zhu had peeled for him, Qiu Nan viciously spat out a seed. “Pah! Talk about rotten luck!”

Mi Zhu slapped his thigh. “Our new Director is pretty sly, huh? Still, it’s just discovering you’re a fake Alpha, right? If he wanted to fire you, he could’ve just fired you. Was it really necessary to drop an ultimate skill like that? How massive is his grudge against you?”

Hearing it put that way, Qiu Nan also felt like something was off.

If it was a prank, it was far too beneath Xie Yunnian’s status. If it was meant as a punishment, it seemed excessive. Like Mi Zhu said, worst-case scenario was being fired—since when was a permanent mark considered a standard disciplinary action?

He scratched the two stubborn tufts of hair sticking up at the back of his head. “Maybe, it really wasn’t intentional. He did say he’d pay for me to get the mark surgically removed. As for the allergy, that was definitely an accident. No one outside a few people on our squad even knows I have this issue.”

Mi Zhu wasn’t buying it for a second. “Not intentional? How incredibly absentminded would he have to be?”

Qiu Nan racked his brain to recall the prior events, saying hesitantly, “The Director said he had no experience.”

“Pfft!” Mi Zhu spat out a laugh. “No experience? Wake up, bro! That’s a textbook lie. You actually believed that?”

Annoyed, Qiu Nan barked back, “You tell your Daddy right now: what’s wrong with that statement? Why shouldn’t I believe it?”

Mi Zhu shot him a look of utter exasperation. “Don’t tell me you don’t even know where Director Xie came from!”

Confused, Qiu Nan replied, “Headquarters. What about it?”

“Headquarters, man! The big leagues!” Mi Zhu looked at him like a disappointed mentor. “And you know exactly how insane Director Xie’s family background is. The number of young Omegas and Betas throwing themselves at him back there probably ranges from eight hundred to a thousand. No experience? Hahahahaha!”

Qiu Nan: “?”

Watching Mi Zhu practically die of laughter, he still couldn’t wrap his head around it. “Is there a logical connection there?”

“Forget it, I refuse to corrupt such an innocent baby!” Mi Zhu said with a face full of mock disgust.

Qiu Nan lowered his head, staring blankly at the wrinkles in his blanket for a moment before asking, “So, did the Director say anything about my, uh, about how the failed mission will be handled?”

“Not at all!” Mi Zhu recalled carefully. “He just put out a Bureau-wide notice stating you were hospitalized and might need to rest for a couple of days before returning to work. When I passed by the conference room, I even heard him telling Old Lan to log it as an on-the-job injury!”

Qiu Nan: “?”

Qiu Nan was speechless. He hadn’t expected that after screwing up so monumentally, he’d actually be granted official paid sick leave.

He thought about it and asked further, “Did Old Lan say anything?”

Old Lan had likely been urgently summoned to the hospital by Director Xie that day, and there was no telling how much of the situation he actually understood. Most importantly, did he finally know that Qiu Nan was an Omega?

If he had joined the Monster Control Bureau as an Omega from the start, he would have simply been assigned to the desk-bound internal affairs division at most. But doing it this way constituted fraud, which completely changed the nature of the offense.

Qiu Nan had always known the severity of the situation. However, from an income perspective, field agents made significantly more than internal staff—plus, his personality meant he was entirely unsuited for a desk job.

Consequently, he had found a way to fake his results during the entry medical exam. If his superiors found out, he could be kicked out of the Bureau immediately without a single cent of severance, completely unprotected by labor laws.

“Old Lan? He didn’t say a word about it; he’s been completely buried dealing with those two escaped monsters!”

The timing of the monsters’ escape was incredibly unfortunate. Because Xie Yunnian hadn’t officially assumed office yet, Old Lan, as the Head of Field Operations, had to bear the brunt of the firepower raining down from higher management. He had been chewed out so badly these past two days he was practically skin and bones.

Given his usual temper, the next barrage of artillery should have been dumped entirely on Qiu Nan—the root cause of the failure—and doubled for good measure, regardless of whether he was hospitalized with an allergy. Yet this time, he surprisingly hadn’t caused any trouble. He hadn’t even mentioned Qiu Nan’s name during the deployment briefing.

After thoroughly interrogating Mi Zhu on every detail, Qiu Nan finally let out a sigh of relief.

Just then, the IV drip finished. He casually yanked the needle out himself and leaped off the bed. “Let’s go, back to the Bureau!”

Mi Zhu was flabbergasted. “Bro! Daddy! You’re still on medical leave! There’s no need, there’s seriously no need for this!”

Qiu Nan raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong? Is it a crime to want to work?”

With that, he dashed out of the ward and headed straight for the doctor’s office to process his discharge papers.

Mi Zhu followed closely behind, muttering under his breath, “Too competitive, way too competitive! How am I supposed to ask Old Lan for an extended vacation next month after this?”

Complaints aside, Mi Zhu still drove Qiu Nan back to the Bureau as requested.

The Nandong City Monster Control Bureau was located inside an inconspicuous courtyard within the urban district. The sign outside read “Historical Archives Office”—an official historical research department. The small, main building in the center of the courtyard possessed an antique, classical charm, giving off a genuinely thick atmosphere of historical study.

The actual “Bureau” lay underground beneath this small building, consisting of a magnificent, multi-layered subterranean fortification. On the surface, the Bureau’s personnel maintained a public identity as historical researchers and archaeologists. To the average citizen, the Monster Control Bureau was a mythical institution that left no trace of its existence.

The moment Mi Zhu drove into the courtyard, over a dozen people came rushing out of the main building—it was Squad Three.

Qiu Nan leaned his head out of the car window and shouted, “Captain Wu, where are you headed?”

Squad Three’s Captain, Wu Jiada, had already run past, but he jogged backward upon hearing the voice, looking at him with an expression of sheer novelty. “Captain Qiu? Weren’t you hospitalized? Is your old self perfectly fine already?”

“Is it a crime to love my job?” Hearing Wu Jiada’s tone, Qiu Nan couldn’t resist sniping back. “Wasn’t your target captured? Why are you guys still rushing out?”

Wu Jiada laughed heartily. “To clean up your old self’s mess, of course!”

“No need!” Qiu Nan’s temper flared. “Our Squad Four can handle our own business!”

“Yes, yes, yes, now that you’re back to personally take the field, I’m sure you can handle it!” Wu Jiada accepted a gel-based soft armor vest handed over by his subordinate, unbuttoning his uniform to secure it over his abdomen. “But Old Lan won’t allow it!”

Seeing him skillfully strap on the protective gear, Qiu Nan lost the desire to bicker.

“What’s the situation, Captain Wu? Have you located the target?”

“Yeah. No time to talk, we’re off! You can go apply to join the fight with Old Lan yourself!”

Wu Jiada waved his hand and ran toward a black van that had already started its engine. The moment he slid the door shut, the vehicle roared to life and surged out of the courtyard.

Qiu Nan looked at Mi Zhu. “I feel like I’ve been sidelined.”

Mi Zhu nodded solemnly, cutting the car’s engine.

Qiu Nan adopted a look of profound heartbreak. “Does the Bureau no longer need me?”

Mi Zhu unbuckled his seatbelt. “To be completely honest, Qiu’er, the Bureau won’t collapse without any single individual. What’s that saying again. Ah, right, the sun also rises!”

Qiu Nan: “That was beautifully put. Never say it again.”

Having completely failed to find any emotional support, Captain Qiu marched straight into the antique building, offering a casual greeting to the elderly security guard on the way.

Murals hung on both sides of the relatively narrow corridor. They were quite old, and to preserve them, the lighting in the hallway was kept incredibly dim, making it feel exactly like walking through a real history museum.

At the corner at the end of the hall sat several elevators. Qiu Nan stepped into one of them, but instead of turning around, he stood in place and pressed an emergency button on the side panel.

As the elevator doors closed behind him, the wall of the elevator cab directly ahead slid open to both sides, revealing another corridor flooded with soft, snowy white light. Unlike the rustic exterior of the building, this place was hyper-advanced; even the decorative trim between the seams of the metallic walls oozed high technology.

This was the true Monster Control Bureau.

After traversing a section of the corridor, Qiu Nan boarded another elevator. This time, the floor buttons ranged from B1 to B7.

Qiu Nan headed straight for B2—the Field Operations floor—to find Lan Mingliang.

Along the way, every colleague who crossed his path greeted him with an incredibly bizarre look in their eyes.

“Hey there, Captain Qiu! Fully recovered?”

“Captain Qiu, you’ve gone viral! Any thoughts on your newfound fame?”

“Captain Qiu, how on earth did you cross paths with the Director yesterday? Man, the Director really went all out to protect your drop-dead gorgeous face!”

“Are you heading to report to the Director, Captain Qiu? He’s currently reviewing case files with Chief Lan in the Director’s office!”

Initially, he replied enthusiastically, but after a while, the continuous stream of “Captain Qiu” began to sound like a swarm of annoying flies, causing his entire head to buzz with the title.

He had originally intended to find Lan Mingliang, but upon hearing that Lan Mingliang was currently with Xie Yunnian, he suddenly lost his nerve.

If he marched over right now, wouldn’t it be akin to walking straight into a trap?

Although based on Mi Zhu’s recount, the Director didn’t seem to want to pursue the matter of his Omega status, it was still incredibly awkward, wasn’t it?

That was a permanent mark, for crying out loud!

From the perspective of the strict laws designed to protect Omegas, the two of them practically ought to be registering a marriage certificate right about now!

Although there were plenty of people in society who played fast and loose with relationships, and no one would truly force themselves to marry someone they felt nothing for just because of a permanent mark—having that kind of connection with your boss was still incredibly bizarre, okay?

Wait a minute, why didn’t Xie Yunnian seem to find it weird at all? He had even casually told him to “return to active duty promptly” as if nothing had happened.

Was the man’s skin just exceptionally thick?

Maybe it really was as Mi Zhu had suggested. To a wealthy young master like that, a mere permanent mark probably amounted to absolutely nothing at all.

Reflecting on this, Qiu Nan finally felt a slight sense of relief.

He decided to head over to Lan Mingliang’s office to wait for him to finish up and return.

However, not only did Lan Mingliang not show up, but he also dispatched a clerk to track Qiu Nan down, instructing him to head straight over to the Director’s office.

Left with no other choice, he could only steel his nerves and make his way up to B1.