Chapter 3

Yun Zhi followed Jin Zeli home in a daze, his mind still somewhere far away.

In the spacious back seat of the Bentley, Jin Zeli frowned and measured the distance between himself and Yun Zhi by eye. His voice carried a slight chill. "Move closer."

"Oh, right." Yun Zhi snapped back to the present and scooted a little toward Jin Zeli.

There was still enough space between them for a full-grown adult to sit.

Jin Zeli noticed his distracted look and softened the severity of his expression, lowering his voice. "What's wrong?"

"Ah," Yun Zhi turned to look at him, long lashes trembling faintly, "It's nothing. Don't worry, brother. I'm just a little tired."

Jin Zeli loved Yun Zhi's eyes most of all — big and round, shining with a moist luster, like an obedient, docile doll. Dolls didn't defy him. Disobedient dolls could simply be destroyed.

Being looked at like that softened something in him, and the cold, hard lines of his face took on a trace of gentleness. He said, "Alright. Rest properly when we get home."

He reached out and pulled Yun Zhi effortlessly toward him, one hand settled at Yun Zhi's waist and the other pressing his head down onto his shoulder, coaxing him softly. "Sleep a while. I'll wake you when we arrive."

Startled by his sudden movement, Yun Zhi leaned stiffly against his brother's body.

Were the original host and his brother this close?

Even at this age, leaning on each other like this so naturally...

Yun Zhi kept his neck rigid the entire time, faking sleep against Jin Zeli for over half an hour. By the time they got out of the car, half of his body had gone numb and aching.

He was standing beside the car rubbing his neck when Jin Zeli, who had already come around to his side, simply scooped him up — completely off the ground.

Bridal carry. The full bridal carry.

Yun Zhi was utterly bewildered.

He turned his head slowly and looked at Jin Zeli, his almond eyes filled to the brim with shock.

Jin Zeli only glanced down and gave him a small smile, then continued carrying him into the villa as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

The housekeeper stood at the entrance with two rows of servants flanking him. They regarded the intimate posture of the two with practiced indifference and greeted them respectfully. "Young master. Young little master. Welcome home."

"Mm." Jin Zeli nodded at the housekeeper.

The housekeeper immediately fell into step beside them. "Young master, Dr. Zhou has already arrived. He's waiting in the young little master's room."

Jin Zeli carried Yun Zhi to the second floor, turned left, and entered a room with its door flung wide open.

Yun Zhi turned his fluffy little head this way and that, taking in his surroundings with curiosity. The villa was opulently retro in its decor, with more than a hint of medieval European style.

Oh. So it turns out he was the little young master of a wealthy household, with a housekeeper and servants and everything.

No more worrying about not having enough to eat, ever again.

"Yun Zhi, this is your room. I decorated it for you." Jin Zeli carefully set him on the soft sofa and habitually reached out to ruffle his hair. "My room is directly across the corridor. Come find me if you need anything — or even if you don't. Got it?"

"I've got it, brother." Yun Zhi sat up straight on the sofa and said, tilting his face upward.

Jin Zeli ruffled his hair once more, then gestured to the doctor standing nearby to come and give him an examination.

"Mr. Jin, besides the sprained ankle, the young little master was also given a sedative several hours ago. It was——" The doctor paused, only completing his sentence after carefully looking away from Jin Zeli's cold, piercing gaze, "——a drug intended to induce an Omega's heat. Fortunately, the young little master's gland has not yet differentiated, so the drug had no effect on him, and no one was able to do anything."

Yun Zhi also nodded, adding matter-of-factly, "I just felt a little dizzy when I woke up and had no strength. Brother, don't worry — I kicked him away before he could touch me."

Yun Zhi glossed over the whole incident precisely because he didn't want to upset Jin Zeli, yet Jin Zeli's frown only deepened further.

The doctor tended to the injury on Yun Zhi's foot, administered an antidote to neutralize the remaining drug in his system, and departed quickly.

Yun Zhi felt dirty and grabbed his pajamas to go shower first.

"Brother, aren't you going back to rest?" Yun Zhi hugged his pajamas to his chest and looked quizzically at Jin Zeli, who was still standing in his room.

"I'll wait for you to come out."

"Oh." Yun Zhi dropped his gaze and walked into the bathroom.

With someone waiting for him outside, he didn't dare linger too long in the shower. He rinsed off quickly, changed into his pajamas, and came back out. He had assumed Jin Zeli had something important to say to him.

But Jin Zeli, stationed at the bathroom door with both arms crossed, merely looked Yun Zhi up and down several times, his gaze finally settling on the pale, smooth inner thighs above the hem of Yun Zhi's shorts for a long moment before he withdrew it.

Not a single mark of violation anywhere.

An almost imperceptible curve lifted the corner of Jin Zeli's mouth.

The pajamas the housekeeper had prepared for Yun Zhi were short-sleeved shorts, and the round neckline was one careless movement away from revealing everything.

Yun Zhi wasn't particularly fond of them — especially with his brother scrutinizing him like this, it made him feel like he was completely exposed.

"Brother, did you have something to say to me?" Yun Zhi tugged at the waistband of his pajama shorts, pulling them down a fraction.

"Rest well. Get into bed and sleep."

Ah. Just... that?

Yun Zhi was rather bewildered, but he obediently climbed into bed and pulled the covers up.

His body buried beneath the soft blanket, only his head peeked out, his big round almond eyes darting about as he watched Jin Zeli. Because he had just showered, those amber eyes looked even lighter and more translucent than usual, veiled with a layer of clear, misty steam.

An inadvertent allure he was entirely unaware of.

Jin Zeli lowered his gaze and walked over, unnecessarily tucking the blanket around him. "Sleep."

Yun Zhi closed his eyes. "Okay. Good night, brother."

Jin Zeli sat down on the edge of his bed. "Good night."

Yun Zhi waited a long time and never heard his brother leave.

He had no choice but to force himself to fall asleep.

He didn't know how much time passed. His consciousness gradually blurred at the edges.

Yun Zhi had a dream. Some instinct in him was desperate to escape, but every nerve was bound tight and he couldn't wake himself up.

In the dream, he saw a story — vivid and impossibly clear.

Fang Yixing was an Omega of striking beauty and cool, distant bearing. He had grown up poor and alone in the world, yet still nursed beautiful dreams for the future.

If his childhood could be called unfortunate, then his later life could only be described as tragic — a darkness with no end in sight.

His dream was to debut as an idol. And it was precisely that dream that pushed him into the abyss.

By chance, before his debut, he encountered Jin Zeli — handsome, wealthy CEO of a publicly listed company. The domineering executive, who never gave anything a second glance, was sent into a frenzy by the beautiful Omega's cold-scented pheromones. When his pursuit went nowhere, he simply forced his way through and claimed the mark.

Subjected to all manner of things for a full week, the fragile Omega finally seized an opportunity and escaped from the CEO's clutches. But that was only escaping one pit to fall into another. A scion with a gentle outward demeanor who was rotten to the core; a film emperor who made a game of everyone; a refined professor who was a wolf in sheep's clothing — each and every one wanted to possess him entirely.

Escape after escape, capture after capture.

He felt he was no longer treated as a person. To those Alphas, he was nothing but an Omega to be used for gratification — with no dignity to speak of.

At last, the deranged Alphas grew tired of their cat-and-mouse games and joined forces to imprison him in a lightless cage. When their heat struck they sought him out to satisfy themselves, until he passed out from it all.

Later, even when he was unconscious, they still...

One day when he came around, Fang Yixing decided there was no reason to go on living. With a blank expression and hollow eyes fixed on the sky outside the high-rise window, he pressed his fingers against his own gland and dug it out.

Blood poured from the back of his neck without stopping. He felt an unprecedented sense of release — he was no longer an Omega.

The Alphas flew into a rage. They flung open the cage and beat the broken Omega with their fists and feet.

Fang Yixing laughed. He gathered every last scrap of his strength and hurled himself toward the open window of the high-rise, plunging straight down from the twenty-fifth floor.

The beautiful Omega was thus freed from his brief and wretched life.

Yun Zhi seemed to be a wandering spirit of this world, witnessing all of Fang Yixing's history, every suffering he had ever endured.

The anguish, the struggle, the torment, the despair — even feeling only a thousandth of what Fang Yixing felt, Yun Zhi wept with grief.

In the final moment, he rushed forward wanting to stop Fang Yixing from jumping, but he couldn't stop anything.

He could only float in the void, staring down at that mangled heap on the ground, crying until he couldn't make a sound.

He didn't know how long it was before the entire scene crumbled to dust and dispersed from before his eyes. Yun Zhi sank into the darkness, his heart still clenching and aching.

He knew he was dreaming. He also knew that the story in his dream was the content of a danmei novel he had once read — The Utmost Submission: How a Deranged Alpha Falls Hard — and that he had transmigrated into this very book.

Fang Yixing was the kind-hearted Omega who had saved him. Jin Zeli was his gentle older brother.

No longer characters, but living, breathing people in the world Yun Zhi now inhabited.

People with warmth and feeling — family and friends.

Yun Zhi couldn't stand idly by and let the plot unfold the way the book had written it. A beautiful, kind Omega like that deserved better than to be trampled at will. And his brother — his brother couldn't be allowed to lose his humanity to his pheromones and become a slave to his own desires.

Since the protagonist shou's pheromones had an almost supernatural power of temptation, wasn't the solution as simple as making sure none of the Alphas in the book ever got to smell those pheromones? That would avert the crisis.

Or better yet — simply prevent those Alphas from ever crossing paths with the protagonist shou.

Yun Zhi turned the problem over and over in his small head, and gradually drifted down into deep sleep.

In the darkness, the Alpha who had remained seated at Yun Zhi's bedside the entire time lowered his shadowed eyes. In his right hand he held a syringe, idly tracing the label printed on its surface — "Omega Differentiation Catalyst," written in a foreign script.

He considered it for a moment, and in the end returned the syringe to his pocket.

His long fingers reached forward to the nape of the sleeping little Omega, and lightly touched that patch of smooth, soft skin.

His dark pupils flickered with the deep crimson glow of Alpha pheromone fluctuation — like a spirit-flame burning in the depths of a forest. "Differentiate slowly. Brother won't rush you this time."

His voice was so soft it was as if he feared startling a beloved pet. He murmured, "Just don't run away again."