The omega remained unmoved—or rather, she forced herself to remain unmoved. Staring coldly at the wall covered in papers, she said, “That’s only temporary. They’ll eventually go back to being like that.”
Like rabid beasts, they destroy and devour everything. No matter how civilized a veneer they wear, the moment they get a chance, the moment they encounter a fragrant piece of prey, their bestial nature is completely unleashed, showing no mercy to themselves or anyone else.
Tang Jianxi frowned, studying her closely before stating with certainty, “You’ve been assaulted.”
The words struck at the omega’s deepest nightmare. She almost subconsciously began to fumble for something by her pillow.
But her knife was gone.
In that instant, she realized her predicament. She had no leverage to negotiate, nothing to rely on but the kindness of these elites.
The omega stretched her lips into what could only be described as an ugly smile. Her emerald eyes looked like the bottom of a wine bottle just fished out of a sewer. She stated her identity frankly, “My name is Winona.”
“I’m a prostitute.”
“Don’t look so surprised, as if this profession doesn’t exist where you’re from.” Then, she let out a snort of laughter, perhaps at her own foolishness, because she immediately contradicted herself. “Ah, that’s right. How could you inner-ring people ever sink to becoming prostitutes? The trash you drop from on high is something we’d collect as a family heirloom.”
Xie Xiaoxiao swallowed. The situation was apparently more complicated than she had imagined. She had originally assumed this omega was one of the recent runaway brides from the outer ring, and had been shocked by her resolve in cutting off her own gland.
But a prostitute… As Winona herself had just pointed out, in Xie Xiaoxiao’s world, that was a profession buried in the annals of history. Perhaps some betas might engage in it, but an alpha or an omega?
As a gland scientist who had achieved fame at a young age, she was well aware of the crucial role pheromones played between alphas and omegas. It was a physiological imperative that dictated a one-to-one relationship, at least for the omega.
After all, even during the Activation War, when some alphas were kept as sex slaves, there had never been reports of omegas being forced into prostitution.
“That’s impossible!” Xie Xiaoxiao exclaimed. “An omega can’t be marked multiple times!”
She added, as if trying to convince Winona, “Multiple markings would destroy an omega’s gland with conflicting alpha pheromones.”
Winona gave her a strange look. “You don’t know about David’s Drug?”
“What’s that?” Xie Xiaoxiao sensed a conspiracy, and her arms began to tremble uncontrollably.
“It’s one of the ‘fine things’ you inner-ring people created. A fine thing that lets an omega rapidly metabolize an alpha’s mark and remain in a perpetual state of heat.” Winona’s tone was mocking, yet her bloodshot eyes and humiliated expression lent her sarcasm a weight that was painful to contemplate.
“Impossible! That’s illegal!” Xie Xiaoxiao said frantically. Everything about that drug violated Imperial law. If it existed, the damage it would inflict on an omega’s body was unimaginable—perhaps even worse than surgically removing the gland. Imperial law strictly forbade any action that harmed an omega’s glands. But then Xie Xiaoxiao’s mind flashed to the terrible state of the gland of the omega right in front of her. She collapsed onto a small nearby sofa, feeling as if a vast shadow was closing in on her.
Tang Jianxi had fallen silent long ago. Now, she looked deeply at the omega and said, “You’re from the last three rings.”
It was a statement, not a question.
Xie Xiaoxiao whipped her head around in shock, staring at Tang Jianxi. “You knew?”
“Yes, I knew.”
“Then how could you do nothing about it!”
Tang Jianxi closed her eyes. “I wasn’t doing nothing,” she said. “I just… couldn’t do anything.”
“The Empire tacitly allows it.”
“Because there are thirty percent more alphas than omegas.”
So, the last three rings of every district are tacitly acknowledged as guilt-free red-light districts for alphas.
Upon hearing this, Winona began to laugh, a harsh, wheezing sound like a broken bellows. She had finally found the reason for her tragic fate: they had been abandoned.
Abandoned. Thrown to the alphas like bones.
The sounds in the room finally woke Yun Chuji. She rubbed her eyes, and upon spotting a familiar figure, she happily walked over.
“Miss Tang!” she called out, her voice clear and bright, without a hint of shadow.
It wasn’t Tang Jianxi who answered, but a furious Xie Xiaoxiao, who spat the same words Winona had that night: “Get out, alpha!”
Yun Chuji stood frozen in place as if she’d been struck, completely baffled as to what she had done wrong.
Tang Jianxi said helplessly, “It’s not her fault.”
But whose fault was it? Tang Jianxi no longer knew. The whole affair was undeniably sickening. When she had first learned of it, she had vomited until the world spun. The person who told her had merely watched with cold eyes, as if he had anticipated her reaction all along.
After she had finally managed to straighten up, he had still been smiling gently at her as he calmly stated a fact: “We’re about to be locked in a cage.”
Tang Jianxi could understand Xie Xiaoxiao’s reaction. Her childhood friend had always been an idealist, believing problems could be solved with a single vial of medicine. But the current reality was that many vials of medicine were causing the problem.
She left the room and went to Yun Chuji’s side. Looking up at her, she asked, “Are you hungry? I’ll take you to get something to eat.”
As for the two inside, they both needed time to process this reality.
Yun Chuji still hadn’t recovered.
She turned her head in a daze. “Miss Xie… why did she say that to me?”
Had she done something awful without realizing it?
Tang Jianxi sighed, stepped forward, and took Yun Chuji’s hand. “I’ll tell you after we’ve eaten.”
And so, Yun Chuji let herself be led to the car. S-District was in the north temperate zone, but thanks to the city’s climate-controlled architecture, snow never lingered, even in the depths of winter. Only the occasional biting wind that grazed one’s cheek offered a faint reminder of the natural world.
Yun Chuji opened the window, letting the wind whip past her again and again. Tang Jianxi watched without stopping her. After ten minutes, she finally said, “Please close the window. It’s making it difficult to drive.”
“Am I that unlikable?” Yun Chuji asked instead, turning her head. Her eyes were red.
Tang Jianxi wanted to touch her eyes. She twitched her fingers, then let her hand fall.
“No, you’re wonderful. They just hate alphas.”
“But I’m an alpha too!”
“But you weren’t originally an alpha.”
“What difference does that make?”
Tang Jianxi rubbed her temples, forced to take an unconventional approach. “You… okay, but after I say this, you can’t call me a pervert.”
“Every time you get aroused when I’m ‘soothing’ you, you act as if it’s your fault.”
“Besides, except for the first time, I’ve always been the one forcing you.”
“Of course, I know this isn’t a normal reaction. It’s just as twisted as the self-indulgence of a typical alpha. But with you, I actually feel safe.”
As Tang Jianxi expected, Yun Chuji’s face flushed red again. But the words had their intended effect. Mumbling, she closed the window. “How… how can you say… things like that!”
Then, raising her voice as if in rebuttal, she added, “And you said my reading the Four Books and Five Classics was useless, but now you’re praising me for this. So you see, they are useful.”
Tang Jianxi hadn’t expected her to still remember that. Faced with this comical little feudal antique, the oppressive weight from moments ago seemed to dissipate like an illusion.
She tapped her own temple with her index finger and slowly corrected her, “The Four Books and Five Classics don’t teach you to guard your chastity like jade. What you’re following is the Admonitions for Women.”
Yun Chuji’s eyes widened. “You know of the Admonitions for Women?”
“Are you from the Great Liang Dynasty, too?!”
Tang Jianxi couldn’t help but laugh. “I read about it on the StarNet.”
“Oh.” Yun Chuji lowered her head in disappointment, her long lashes veiling her soft eyes. Watching her from the side, Tang Jianxi was suddenly overcome with the urge to touch her again. This time, she raised her hand and pinched Yun Chuji’s cheek.
Yun Chuji started in surprise, her gaze meeting a pair of weary eyes. A beauty was still a beauty, even when exhausted. The slight, unconscious furrow of Tang Jianxi’s brow inspired an urge to serve her hand and foot. Yun Chuji felt that urge now. She didn’t pull away, instead tilting her soft face upward to accommodate the other woman’s touch.
A laugh escaped Tang Jianxi’s throat. “So obedient. Why no talk of your virtue now?”
With her face held in the other’s hand, her facial muscles wouldn’t move properly. Yun Chuji mumbled, “Miss Tang is different.”
“Hm?” Tang Jianxi’s hand continued its slow, methodical kneading, as if she were stroking the scruff of a cat’s neck, or perhaps a perfectly mixed ball of dough. So relaxing, she thought.
“Miss Tang is a woman.”
Yun Chuji was being serious. To her, Tang Jianxi was a girl, no question about it. Even if Tang Jianxi had done more to prove her now-changed secondary gender than all the other omegas in the world combined, Yun Chuji still stubbornly believed that Tang Jianxi was a girl, not an omega.
Yun Chuji couldn’t tell if this was intuition or prejudice, or perhaps just a sign that she had never truly adapted to this world.
But in truth, in the unsorted depths of her own heart, her motive was simply to frame the only person she felt a connection to with a term she understood.
It meant, more or less, that she had a companion—half real, half imagined—in this lonely world.
Tang Jianxi couldn’t read minds, so she simply wore an expression that said, Ah, so that’s just how she is. She gave Yun Chuji’s cheek a few more gentle pinches before finally letting go. “What do you want to eat?”
Yun Chuji had no preference and couldn’t answer for a long time.
So Tang Jianxi took her for barbecue.
It was heavy on the oil and spice, covered in fragrant cumin that tickled the nose. Paired with an iced soda, it was impossible to stop after just one bite.
A young lady like Yun Chuji, born and raised in the delicate culinary traditions of Jiangnan, had never experienced anything like it. The intensely pungent and aromatic food was a perfect match for her less-than-sensitive palate. To her credit, however, Yun Chuji maintained her ladylike composure from start to finish, not at all like the alpha and beta at the next table, whose mouths were slick with grease. She ate in small, delicate bites, her eyes shining like a beautiful little hamster’s.
Tang Jianxi sat beside her, slowly sipping a cup of coffee and glancing at her with a smile from time to time.
When she was finished, Tang Jianxi handed her a napkin. “Was it good?”
Miss Yun nodded with great decorum.
“Feeling happier now?”
“I wasn’t…” Yun Chuji stammered, about to say that she hadn’t been unhappy to begin with. But then she looked up into Tang Jianxi’s face, her heart gave a strange leap, and she couldn’t utter another false word. “…I am.”
“You’re not happy?”
“That’s not it at all!”
How could she deliberately misunderstand me!
“Want to go have some fun, then?” Tang Jianxi suggested, setting down her coffee cup with a leisurely air.
Yun Chuji’s brow twitched. She desperately told herself that this was against the precepts for women. If her mother knew she was out enjoying herself, she would surely make her copy the admonitions hundreds of times and administer family punishment.
“Yes!”
Besides, Mother isn’t here, is she!
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