Your Wife? Mine! - Chapter 1

Shen Xi was dreaming again.

In the dream, she felt trapped inside a violently shuddering giant egg, surrounded by a swirling, chaotic yellow mist. The sky was collapsing; the earth was heaving. The deafening roar of artillery tore through the horizon, and thick smoke, choked with the metallic scent of blood, permeated every corner of the battlefield.

Amidst the tectonic shifts of the earth, Shen Xi stayed low, gripping a stretcher as she darted through the jagged ruins. A stray bullet whistled past her ear, leaving a trail of searing heat in its wake.

“Heh… wheeze…”

The wounded soldier on the stretcher let out a low, agonizing groan. The sound melded with the frantic rhythm of Shen Xi’s own heart, piercing through the thunderous explosions and echoing inside her skull.

Stumbling toward cover, Shen Xi leaned down and whispered to the casualty, “Hang on… we’re almost safe…”

Just as they were about to break through the chaos and reach the shelter, a sharp, piercing shriek cut through the air.

A stray round.

“Watch out!”

Shen Xi’s pupils contracted. She cried out and, driven by pure instinct, threw herself over the patient—

Thwack!

The sound of lead tearing into flesh was dull and heavy. It hit her dead center in the chest.

A flare of white-hot agony turned her vision black. Blood erupted instantly, soaking into her grimy white lab coat. Suffocation rushed in like a tide; her lungs struggled to pump, sounding like a pair of rusted, broken bellows.

The cacophony of war faded away. At that moment, there was only the sound of a heartbeat…

Thump-thump… Thump-thump…

One after another, the beats rang out, deafeningly loud. Shen Xi’s body slipped from the stretcher, tumbling uncontrollably toward the blood-slicked earth.

Vaguely, she thought she heard someone calling her name: “Shen Xi… Shen Xi…”

Her vision was a hazy gloom, but she could feel the heavy impact as her body hit the ground. The moment her cheek brushed the dirt, she felt a foul, wet warmth.

The taste of blood.

Time seemed to stretch thin, making every sensation excruciatingly vivid. Lying in the gore, she could feel her life force pulsing out from her pierced heart in steady, hot waves. The rapid blood loss sent her adrenaline into a frantic spike. Her heart raced faster, the pounding rhythm nearly bursting her eardrums.

The air tasted of grit and iron. The artillery fire was receding into a dull hum, and her eyelids grew heavy.

Ah… so this is what death feels like?

Since joining the organization and choosing the life of a Médecins Sans Frontières doctor, Shen Xi knew this day would eventually come.

But… was it really going to end like this? Dying on a battlefield in a foreign land, ending this brief life so abruptly?

Why… why does it have to be…

As blood washed over her face, Shen Xi’s gaze drifted toward the distance. Through the haze, she heard that voice again: “Shen Xi… Shen Xi…”

It was a familiar voice, one that seemed to travel through years of time like a shot of adrenaline delivered straight to her heart.

With an immense effort, Shen Xi forced her eyes open and looked toward the sound.

In the heart of the crossfire, amidst the flying shrapnel, a woman in a white dress was running toward her with reckless abandon. The world was falling apart, yet this woman, dressed in pure white and barefoot, stepped over jagged debris and sprinted through the flames, calling her name over and over.

“Shen Xi… Shen Xi!”

As she ran, the gale whipped her long hair back, revealing a face that was as beautiful as it was fragile.

The sepia-toned world seemed to freeze into a piece of amber. And the woman running through it became the most exquisite fossilized specimen in Shen Xi’s memory.

Upon seeing that familiar, yearning face, Shen Xi’s eyes flew wide.

That’s… that’s…

“Meng Xiyao!”

Shen Xi screamed the name and bolted upright, jolting awake from the dream. Her heart thrashed against her ribs like a trapped animal, and cold sweat beaded on her brow.

She gasped for air, her eyes darting around in a daze. This wasn’t a battlefield; it was a makeshift ward heavy with the scent of disinfectant. Dim lighting, a metal bed frame—everything grounded her in reality.

She was in the camp’s underground hospital.

Sitting on the army cot, she could still hear the distant thud of artillery from outside. It was muffled, sounding as if it were filtered through a thick layer of cotton.

Shen Xi instinctively reached up, pressing her hand against the thick gauze wrapped over the left side of her chest. Beneath her fingertips, a rhythmic, throbbing ache confirmed the fact that she was still alive.

A wave of dizzying relief washed over her.

Just then, a voice came from the doorway: “¡Dios mío! ¡Estás despierta!” (My God! You’re awake!)

The words were a bit blurry; Shen Xi couldn’t quite catch them clearly. She looked up and saw Leo, the nurse, carrying a medical tray. Upon seeing her, Leo let out a startled cry of joy before spinning around to summon the doctor.

Moments later, hurried footsteps approached. A tall, blonde, blue-eyed woman in a white coat strode in.

It was Alice—an Alpha, and Shen Xi’s colleague and friend.

The moment Alice entered, she let out an exaggerated exclamation: “Wow, you are one lucky son of a gun!”

She stepped up to Shen Xi, performing a quick check of her pupils and heart rate before looking down at her. “You have no idea how lucky you are.”

“If that bullet had been two centimeters further to the right, it would have shredded your aorta. If that had happened, God himself could have performed the surgery and you still wouldn’t have made it back.”

She went on for quite a while, but Shen Xi found it difficult to follow. She tilted her head and covered her ear, frowning.

Seeing this, Alice leaned in with concern. “What is it? Head pain?”

Shen Xi struggled to raise her hand, pointing to her ear. “I… I can’t hear very well.”

Alice shoved her hands into her pockets and shrugged. “Perforated eardrum. We’ll have to keep you under observation for a while.”

Shen Xi nodded understandingly. She licked her parched, cracked lips, her voice trembling with the effort. “Thank you, Alice.”

“Don’t thank me,” Alice said, her expression turning uncharacteristically solemn. “Thank your own insanely powerful mental strength.”

“According to the soldiers on the scene, the moment you were hit and went down, your mental shield underwent a spontaneous flare. It literally forced the bullet’s trajectory to shift and stemmed the major hemorrhaging.”

“That is what saved your life.”

Shen Xi nodded in silence. As a top-tier Alpha, her mental strength far exceeded that of an ordinary person. It was a natural-born gift, but it also carried a heavy burden.

At this, Alice’s expression grew even more serious. She pulled over a chair and sat down, looking Shen Xi in the eye. “Listen, Shen.”

“I have good news and bad news.”

Shen Xi looked up at her. “Good news first.”

Alice scrutinized her with her golden eyes for a long moment before speaking. “The good news is, while your injury looks terrifying, it missed the vital spots. With your constitution and self-healing abilities, you’ll recover after a period of rest.”

“Mm,” Shen Xi grunted, not particularly surprised. “And the bad news?”

Alice took a deep breath, her tone turning heavy. “The bad news is that this near-death experience caused a violent eruption of your mental energy. It has completely shattered your already unstable glandular balance.”

“Your Pheromone Disorder… it’s spiraled out of control.”

Shen Xi’s expression tightened instantly.

Alice continued, “The data shows your gland activity is spiking. It’s already surged far beyond the safety threshold. If you don’t bond with a highly compatible Omega soon, using their pheromones to soothe and redirect your own. Your glands are a lost cause.”

“The end result? You won’t be able to contain your rampaging mental energy and pheromones. You’ll lose your mind entirely, or worse… you’ll die.”

Shen Xi wasn’t surprised.

As a top-tier Alpha, she was supposed to have marked and bonded with several Omegas after her presentation to stabilize her volatile pheromones. But for reasons she kept close to her chest, Shen Xi had always been repulsed by contact with Omegas. Consequently, in the twelve years since she presented, she had never marked a single one.

Except for Meng Xiyao.

As the name flickered through her mind, Shen Xi lowered her gaze, her eyes darkening.

Alice crossed her arms over her chest, watching her with a clinical, yet stern intensity. “Shen, your body can no longer support you staying here to do such dangerous work. I strongly suggest you return home immediately and find a suitable Omega. Otherwise, you really are going to lose your mind.”

A flicker of annoyance crossed Shen Xi’s face. She looked away, her voice icy. “You know my situation. I’ll think about it.”

Alice studied her for a moment, humming thoughtfully. “Your ‘Omega Pheromone Allergy’ is psychological, not physiological. There is an Omega you can tolerate, isn’t there? For instance…”

Alice paused slyly before dropping three words: “Meng Xiyao.”

Shen Xi’s head snapped up, her eyes wide with shock.

How? How did she know? She was certain she had never mentioned Meng Xiyao to anyone here.

“Whoa, easy there!” Alice raised her hands in mock surrender. “Don’t look at me like that. I feel like I just walked in on a crime scene.”

Shen Xi stared her down, biting her lower lip in a hard, silent line.

To Alice, the reaction was fascinating. She lowered her hands and leaned back, crossing her legs with a faint smirk. “You were calling out that name the entire time you were unconscious. So, when I called your family to request your medical files, I asked a few… casual questions.”

Shen Xi’s gaze turned freezing. “How much do you know?”

“Not much.” Alice tilted her head and shrugged. “Just that she looked after you when you were young, that she’s the only Omega you aren’t allergic to, things like that…”

Shen Xi’s expression softened slightly, until Alice’s smirk widened.

“Oh, and the fact that you marked her when you presented. And that she is currently… your cousin’s wife.”

At that last sentence, Shen Xi shot Alice a murderous glare.

“Wow,” Alice exhaled, looking genuinely intrigued. “So our ‘Goody-Two-Shoes Doctor’ can make a face like that after all. It seems that Ms. Meng Xiyao is indeed your true love… or as you people say in Xia, she’s your ‘reverse scale’, the one spot no one is allowed to touch.”

Shen Xi remained silent.

The Alpha sat with her head bowed, the harsh fluorescent light spilling over her ink-black hair, highlighting her utter desolation. She looked like a puppy abandoned on the side of the road with no one to claim her.

Miserable. Bitter.

In the many years they had worked together, in the quiet moments after surgery or before sleep, Alice had seen this look often. Shen Xi was always shrouded in a profound loneliness; desolate, helpless, and devoid of any will to truly live.

Despite being a doctor who had saved countless lives, she held her own life in total disregard. It was as if she were waiting for a single bullet to the heart to finally take it all away.

She’s someone just waiting to die, Alice had often thought.

And yet, when death finally came knocking, she had fought her way back, calling for “Meng Xiyao” over and over until she clawed her way back to life.

Alice gazed at the gaunt, weary woman before her, and her eyes suddenly softened. “Shen…”

She called her name again. Shen Xi looked up, meeting Alice’s gentle golden eyes.

“Go home,” Alice said. “Go to her. Snatch her back from that bastard’s hands. And then…” She smiled with a warm, all-encompassing grace. “Allow yourself to live.”

Alice’s words acted like a key, turning the lock on a long-sealed Pandora’s box.

In that moment, Shen Xi felt her heart that was still and silent for so many years, begin to beat with a violent, frantic energy. Fresh blood surged through her veins to the tips of her fingers. For the first time in a decade, she felt the raw, sharp joy of being alive.

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