Chapter 1

"Little beauty, your brother is going to take such good care of you..."

"Huh? Not even a trace of pheromones, the gland hasn't differentiated yet! What the hell, they actually brought me an underage Omega!"

The Omega lying on the pure white bed was still unconscious. A portly middle-aged Alpha had already torn open two of the buttons on the Omega's shirt and pressed himself eagerly on top of him, leaning close to sniff at the back of his neck — only to come up with nothing.

The beautiful Omega's nape was pale and smooth, with no sign whatsoever of a gland.

The unconscious Omega heard the cursing drifting in and out, his head swimming with dizziness.

His stomach heaved and burned, stabbing at his exhausted nerves one jolt at a time. Yun Zhi felt something enormous crushing down on him, squeezing the breath out of him. His body felt damp and filthy. It was horrible.

Wasn't he supposed to be dead?

Could a ghost really be pinned down by another ghost?

Before he could think further, the back of his neck was suddenly seized. It was as if the most sensitive part of him had been touched — Yun Zhi snapped awake all at once.

His eyes flew open, and he found himself locked in a staring contest with the bloated, greasy-faced man looming over him.

AHHHHHH——!

Why is he so close!

"Oh, the little beauty's awake. That drug was completely useless — bunch of incompetent idiots!" The fat man muttered a low curse, then reached out a meaty hand to pinch the soft, pale cheeks of the person beneath him and let out a lewd laugh. "Actually, a conscious little beauty is way more fun."

Yun Zhi still hadn't fully grasped the situation. But hearing the man's words, combined with the fact that he was currently being pinned to a hotel bed by this man, how could he not know what was happening to him?

Was this the coercive casting couch, or had he simply been drugged and assaulted?

His rosy lips pressed into a hard, flat line, his beautiful amber irises contracting sharply. Yun Zhi stared fixedly at the man before him, his long, curling lashes trembling faintly, projecting a kind of fragile beauty.

An Omega — beautiful, delicate, easily broken.

The little beauty pinned beneath him was the most quintessential Omega, the most beautiful Omega the fat man had ever seen. What a pity he was underage, his gland not yet differentiated, let alone producing any pheromones.

If he'd been fully matured, he'd have already lost all reason under the influence of his Alpha pheromones by now, pliant and waiting to be taken.

The fat Alpha cursed his luck at not being able to mark the little beauty — no gland meant no mark — but he leaned down anyway, eager to enjoy that beautiful body regardless.

Yun Zhi's eyes fluttered with terror. Just as the man's disgusting mouth was about to make contact with him, he seized his moment, gathered every ounce of strength he had, and drove his foot straight into the man's groin.

Caught completely off guard, the man jackknifed in pain and toppled sideways, crashing to the floor. He clutched the ruin between his legs and let out an agonized groan. "Aaaghhh——"

Yun Zhi spared the man only a fleeting glance before shooting upright, hands trembling as he refastened the two undone buttons on his shirt.

Stay calm, stay calm!

Yun Zhi told himself.

Thank goodness he'd woken up before the man could do anything more.

The man appeared to be incapacitated for the moment, but Yun Zhi didn't feel the slightest bit safe. One look at the flashy watch on the man's wrist told him everything — this man was rich, and rich men usually had power.

This place wasn't safe. He had to get out now.

Yun Zhi tried to climb off the bed, but his legs buckled the instant his feet touched the floor and he stumbled, twisting his ankle. There was no time to dwell on it. He bit back the pain, crossed the room in quick steps, and gently eased the door open a crack, peeking his head out to scan left and right. No one.

He yanked the door open and bolted toward wherever there were people.

The fat man, still clutching himself, sucked in a ragged breath and looked up to find the bed empty. He snapped his gaze toward the door, catching only the tail end of a fleeing figure.

"He got away! Where the hell are all of you! Can't you go after him!" He bellowed at the top of his lungs, and only after a while remembered that his men weren't stationed outside. He'd sent them down to have fun as a reward for bringing him such a beautiful Omega.

He reached for his phone on the nightstand and accidentally jostled his injury again. The man nearly expired on the spot.

Yun Zhi had just stepped briskly into the corridor when he heard the man's shouts from inside the room, and he broke into a run.

The entire floor was lined with rooms. Yun Zhi could faintly hear club music thumping from somewhere below and decided to go down.

He stepped into the elevator and hunched himself into a corner, head bowed, terrified that the doors might stop at some floor and a group of hulking men would drag him back out.

Fortunately, no one got on all the way down.

The ground floor elevator opened directly into the bar. The moment the doors parted, a wave of pounding bass hit him in the face.

Yun Zhi hesitated a moment, then walked out. Turning and passing a mirrored wall in the corridor, he stopped dead.

He turned slowly and stared at his own reflection.

It was a boy — beautiful and cute as a doll. Skin like a peeled egg, pale and smooth. Big eyes, long curling lashes, irises a light, warm amber. A neat, delicate nose, and lips the color of red jelly. With that head of golden curls, the overall impression was soft and impossibly sweet.

But this was not his original face.

What had happened to him?

It suddenly hit him — the fat man's mention of "pheromones" and "Omega." Yun Zhi's heart lurched.

He'd transmigrated into an ABO world? In his previous life, he'd been too busy scraping by to read much, but whenever he had a spare moment, he'd dip into novels. The last one he'd been reading had been an ABO story — readers in the comments had raved about how good it was, but Yun Zhi had nearly choked in fury at what the author put the main character through. Such a beautiful protagonist shou, tormented in every way imaginable, toyed with by one Alpha after another, and dying a miserable death in the end.

The beautiful Omega, treated as a plaything. He'd felt so sorry for him.

And now he was an Omega himself, and had nearly become someone's plaything. Yun Zhi was both frightened and shaken.

He reached back apprehensively to touch the nape of his own neck, head still bowed, when he heard a man's voice nearby: "That Omega escaped? Don't worry, boss. We'll find him and bring him back so you can vent your anger!"

Yun Zhi went rigid and didn't dare move. Only after the footsteps had faded away did he dare look up again, and finding that the ground floor was a labyrinthine maze with no exit in sight, he had no choice but to slip into the bar's main floor and disappear into the crowd.

If he'd been a fully differentiated Omega, he'd have been able to smell the various pheromones mingling in the air of the bar right now.

Huaguo law mandated that citizens in public spaces must wear pheromone blockers or apply pheromone-blocking patches. Deliberately releasing pheromones to induce pheromone disruption in others was classified as disturbing public order — punishable by fines at minimum, imprisonment at worst.

But this bar was the exception.

It was a bar operating in the gray zone. Entering here was an implicit consent to hunting and thrills; if something happened to an Omega inside, the bar bore no responsibility whatsoever.

The music inside was deafening, voices a constant din. Yun Zhi saw men and women in various states of provocation, and even more pairs of eyes brimming with hunger. He kept his head bowed and moved quickly through the crowd, unnerved.

He lifted his gaze just briefly, just long enough to check where he was going.

A bright overhead sign showed the direction of the exit. Yun Zhi's eyes lit up and he quickened his pace.

"Boss, there's the Omega who ran off! Over there!"

A booming voice nearby startled Yun Zhi so badly he nearly jumped out of his skin. He half-turned and saw a group of men in black suits, built like walls, bearing down on him with menacing intent. Panic flooded through him.

If they caught him, they would absolutely make him suffer. He could not let himself be caught.

"Hsss——" A searing pain shot through his ankle again.

The men were moving faster now, shoving their way through the crowd. Yun Zhi could barely walk straight, and his heart hammered wildly as he pressed deeper into the thickest part of the crowd.

He collided with someone without warning. His delicate nose connected hard with the man's chest — solid as a wall, and painful.

Yun Zhi looked up in a panic. He hadn't even gotten a clear look at the man's face when he heard the rapid, chaotic footsteps closing in behind him. On instinct, he grabbed a fistful of the man's collar and took a step forward, curling himself against the man's trench coat and tucking himself out of sight.

Terrified of being shoved away, he held on tight.

The instant Yun Zhi crashed into him, the man reached up and caught him by the collar — but then did nothing more, simply maintaining his standing posture. Only his head seemed to tilt slightly downward, as if looking at Yun Zhi.

"Shit, the little brat got away again! You go that way, I'll check over here! If we don't bring him back, the boss is going to take it out on us!"

The footsteps scattered hastily in all directions.

The heart suspended in Yun Zhi's chest settled back into place, and he let out a long, shaky breath.

He loosened his grip and looked up, meaning to thank this stranger who had helped him.

"Th— thank you," he said.

There was a tiny pause between the two syllables, purely because he had gone momentarily blank the instant he saw the man's face.

Before he'd transmigrated, Yun Zhi had been a small-time figure in the entertainment industry. He hadn't made much of a name for himself, but he'd seen plenty of beautiful people, and didn't usually lose his head over a pretty face.

But the person in front of him was exceptionally handsome — Yun Zhi felt he looked even better than his own current appearance.

Narrow, deep-set features. Irises so dark they were nearly black. Lashes long and straight, yet when his gaze landed on you, they gave no impression of tenderness at all. The cold, bloodless pallor of his skin, combined with the sharp lines of his face, gave him a frost-edged, imperious aura that was almost physically striking.

How could anyone be this beautiful.

Was he an Omega or an Alpha?

"Are you alright?"

He gave a small nod in response to Yun Zhi's thanks, then asked.

His voice was low and deep, carrying a thread of cold, and it made Yun Zhi's ears feel like they were melting.

Yun Zhi was just about to nod when his peripheral vision caught one of the burly men circling back toward this area. He shook his head instead, darted a lightning-fast look around, and immediately doubled over, diving into the narrow space behind the bar counter beneath the barstools.

The man was standing right beside the barstools, apparently having just been about to leave.

Hidden behind the bar counter, Yun Zhi was dangerously exposed at the front where no one blocked him. On instinct, he reached out and caught the hem of the man's trousers.

The man looked down at the hand gripping his trouser leg — small and pale, soft knuckles gone white from the effort.

Yun Zhi also became aware that it was inappropriate for a stranger to keep imposing on this person again and again. If he annoyed him and got exposed, things would be far worse. He thought about it, then let go.

The man's feet didn't move.

A few seconds later, he sat down on the barstool beside him.

His two long, straight legs settled on the floor in a seemingly casual posture — just enough to shield Yun Zhi from view. Yun Zhi crouched in the cramped space, arms wrapped around his knees, gaze fixed on nothing, and felt his eyes grow wet.

He had suddenly been thrown into a strange world, and nearly assaulted on top of that. It would be a lie to say he wasn't frightened. But the stranger he had reached out to on a desperate impulse had actually been willing to shelter him, and that small act of kindness warmed some part of him.

Out of his sight, the thickly built man in gangster black was methodically searching the area — checking under every table and chair, leaving no possible hiding spot unexamined.

He strode toward the bar counter, but when his eyes landed on the bracelet on the wrist of the man seated at the barstool, he stopped in his tracks. After a few seconds' hesitation, he turned and walked the other way.

His boss might have considerable sway within the bar, but that man held the highest authority of all. Touching him wouldn't end well for anyone.

Yun Zhi crouched under the bar counter in a state of fearful vigilance for ten or so minutes. Hearing no great commotion, he judged that the men looking for him had probably left, and quietly poked his head out.

One hand braced against the floor, he gently tugged again at the hem of the man's trouser leg.

The man felt the movement and looked down at him. His dark eyes held no warmth whatsoever — and yet Yun Zhi found them strangely reassuring.

Yun Zhi tilted his face upward, curved the corners of his mouth, and said quietly, "Thank you for helping me."

His voice was soft and sweet, a young man's voice, saturated with gratitude and trust.

He didn't know that his nose and the rims of his eyes were flushed pink, and that his curling lashes were still strung with tiny drops of water, and that his amber almond eyes shone bright — looking pure and innocent enough to make any adult Alpha lose control.