The Unlucky Alpha and Her Hard-to-Please Omega - Chapter 9

Song Yi walked to the laboratory, clutching the test forms Tang Di had given her. She had long since donned her mask and sunglasses, fully armed to the point where even her own mother wouldn’t recognize her. The young nurse at the lab window froze for a second when she saw her, then cross-referenced the items on the list one by one. When she reached the final entry, she flashed Song Yi an understanding, gentle smile.

“It’s alright. No need to be so nervous; everyone goes through this,” the nurse said.

As she organized the blood collection needles, she stood on her tiptoes to peer behind Song Yi. Finding the space behind her empty with no Alpha companion in sight, the nurse’s heart sank, and her voice grew even softer.

“Don’t be afraid, okay? It won’t hurt much. I’m just taking a little blood. You can close your eyes if you’re scared,” the nurse suggested.

Song Yi was bewildered. She hadn’t stepped foot in a hospital in years had medical “humanistic care” really reached this level of tenderness? She was even more puzzled as to how, in such a patient-centered environment, Tang Di managed to remain so cold and detached.

“It’s fine, I’m not afraid. Go ahead,” Song Yi told her.

She watched as the sharp needle pierced her skin. Crimson blood flowed through the tube until the nurse said, “All done.” She took the cotton swab and pressed it against the puncture site.

What is there to be afraid of?

Song Yi stood up to find the MRI suite. The nurse watched her receding figure, shaking her head with pity. A fragile Omega coming into this world already faced so many hardships. Clearly, this one’s existence wasn’t even anticipated by her family one look at the name on the form, “Zhang San,” proved that. People said that for an Omega, marriage and childbirth were like a second reincarnation, but this poor little Omega had come to the hospital alone. Her Alpha was nowhere to be seen, probably out carousing somewhere.

The nurse sighed, silently loathing every Alpha on the planet, before taking Song Yi’s sample into the lab.

Meanwhile, Song Yi lay on the MRI table. In the quiet room, the faint hum of the machine was the only sound. Escaping the frantic film set and the constant chatter of Shen Yu felt like pure bliss.

When the scan ended, Song Yi sat on a hallway bench, spacing out. She watched people walk past her aimlessly. This used to be an assignment for her; she would sit in a crowded place for an entire afternoon, observing the hurried pedestrians and trying to read their stories from their faces. Her acting coach had told her that to be an actor, one must have abundant emotions and delicate sensibilities. This was supposed to be an Omega’s forte, but in Song Yi, that ability seemed to be as stunted as her pheromones. She had to learn it through sheer practice, until observing strangers became a habit.

The consecutive days of filming and the underlying worry about her health had exerted immense invisible pressure. Once she finally pulled away, Song Yi quickly fell into a heavy, dazed dream, even on that hard hospital chair.

The dream was a chaotic blur of fragments. She saw the fifteen-year-old Shen Yu standing before her current self. In the dream, Song Yi easily took back her physical exam report. The young Shen Yu looked terrified. Then, the dream took a bizarre turn: she watched herself reach out and push the young Shen Yu down, pinning her wrists above her head and straddling her waist, looking down at her from above.

Song Yi snapped her eyes open, her heart racing.

A nightmare. An absolute nightmare!

“You’re awake?” a voice came from beside her.

Song Yi jumped, immediately reaching to check her face. Fortunately, her sunglasses were still in place.

“I saw your head leaning against the wall and thought you’d fallen asleep. I was debating whether to wake you, but it’s good you woke up on your own.” It was the nurse who had drawn her blood.

“The results are out. Congratulations, you’re going to have a baby.” The nurse, eyes full of warmth, placed the report solemnly in Song Yi’s hands.

Song Yi: “?”

She frantically unfolded the report. Under the nurse’s guidance, she saw that her blood markers were normal, except for the hCG column, which was hundreds of times over the standard.

“This… this means… I’m pregnant?” Song Yi asked in disbelief.

The nurse nodded. “If it were just a little over, it might be a false positive. But yours is up by hundreds of times. Don’t worry, there’s no mistake.”

Song Yi: “!”

She didn’t stay to chat. She stood up abruptly and charged back to Tang Di’s office like a whirlwind.

Inside the office, Tang Di was aggressively tapping away at her keyboard.

She had just finished reviewing a paper sent by a journal. It was about reproductive development. Cross-disciplinary reviews weren’t uncommon; though she was a neurosurgeon, it didn’t mean she lacked basic knowledge of reproductive science. Even to her, this article was sheer nonsense.

“She claims to have found a specific segment in the Omega sex-determination gene that can induce secondary development in adulthood. She calls it a ‘gift from the heavens.’ Absolute rubbish! Show me the evidence. The academic world really is going to the dogs if any random hack can get their paper sent for review!” Tang Di fumed.

She opened the review page and mercilessly typed out her comments: Utter nonsense. Science is not a fantasy. I recommend immediate rejection and suggest blacklisting this author’s account to prevent further submissions!

Send.

Knock, knock..

There was a knock at the door. Before Tang Di could say “Come in,” Song Yi had already pushed her way inside, her face a mix of anger and confusion.

“Ah, the results are back? Let me see.” Tang Di felt a bit guilty. After all, it was her intern who had poked at an old wound. To teach without strictness is the teacher’s laziness.

Tang Di quickly opened the system to pull up the results. The first thing she checked was the cranial MRI. Finding no obvious lesions, her heart returned to its place. Then, she clicked the next tab.

“What does ‘elevated hCG’ mean?” Song Yi asked.

Tang Di’s right eyelid twitched violently. She stood up instinctively. The bolded arrows on the report felt like a massive cosmic joke played on her.

“The nurse said I’m pregnant. But that’s impossible,” Song Yi said.

“Yes… yes, it’s impossible,” Tang Di muttered. “Perhaps there’s a misdiagnosis.”

But with hormones elevated by hundreds of times, there was no room for a misdiagnosis—unless Song Yi had picked up the wrong report. But the report clearly read “Zhang San,” and no living person shared a name with that placeholder.

“The nurse might have mixed up the samples. Were there other patients there when you went?” Tang Di asked.

Song Yi shook her head.

Tang Di slumped back into her chair. She suddenly remembered the paper she had just reviewed. She had only skimmed the title and abstract, but the bolded words began to dance in her mind. She felt a wave of vertigo.

Tang Di stared at Song Yi’s face, then slowly lowered her gaze until it rested on Song Yi’s lower abdomen.

Omega secondary development. A gift from the heavens.

Tang Di closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and asked, “In the last six months, have you… have you had sexual intercourse?”

Song Yi’s face turned deathly pale. She recalled that absurd night with Shen Yu, and the bitten gland on the back of her neck began to throb with a phantom pain.

Her lips trembled. Facing her and Shen Yu’s mutual friend, she didn’t know what to say. Finally, she managed only one sentence: “I can’t possibly be pregnant.”

Tang Di lowered her eyes. In a clinical setting, that sentence was an admission: The patient has had a sex life.

“Go get an ultrasound,” Tang Di said.

Tang Di walked out from behind her desk and personally led Song Yi to the ultrasound room. On the way, she asked in a low voice, “After that incident at fifteen… did you ever go back to recheck your pheromones?”

“No. But I’ve never sensed them, either.”

Song Yi stopped mid-step. She recalled the “accident” after getting drunk. Was that really just the alcohol?

She knew her tolerance. She thought she had been in control, but the intoxication had hit her so suddenly. What if she hadn’t been that drunk? She had felt her whole body burning, but she had assumed it was a normal reaction to alcohol. But if it were a heat cycle, she would have burned like that too…

Was she… in heat?

How was that possible?

“Go in. The doctor inside is a friend of mine,” Tang Di said, calling her at the door of the ultrasound room.

Chief Tang’s influence in the hospital was significant. She greeted her colleague and watched as a dazed Song Yi climbed onto the examination bed. The cold coupling gel was applied to her stomach, and the probe moved from one spot to another. Song Yi’s skin tightened instinctively, her fingers gripping the bedsheet.

On the screen, in the middle of a dark void, a small cluster of light flickered. The ultrasound technician turned the screen toward Song Yi and pointed. “There. A gestational sac.”

“What does that mean?” Song Yi’s voice trembled.

“It means you’re going to be a mother,” the doctor said with a smile.

“Chief Tang, take a look. Correct, right?” The doctor shifted to let Tang Di squeeze in. Tang Di squinted at the screen, her brow tightly furrowed.

“Yes. A gestational sac,” Tang Di said.

But it wasn’t just a gestational sac. Tang Di also saw it: Song Yi’s malformed, tiny, and frail reproductive cavity.

“Chief Tang, come here for a moment,” the technician whispered.

Behind the door, the technician said to Tang Di, “The patient’s condition is complicated. Carrying this child to term might be very difficult.”

Tang Di nodded. “I saw it. You don’t have to be so tactful. In her condition, it’s impossible to give birth normally.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” the technician said pessimistically. “Perhaps no one has ever seen a case like this.”

Tang Di didn’t respond. She felt that perhaps, there was one person who had seen it.

While Tang Di and the technician talked, Song Yi lay on the bed inside, staring blankly at the flickering signal on the screen.

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