The Activation War had embroiled the entire world. It was not a war between nations or peoples; it was a war between two genders—a war between alphas and omegas.
As for betas, their population at the time was less than ten percent of the total. Swept up by the tide, they were forced to serve as logistical support for the war.
War. A war between parents, between friends, between teachers and students. Between the powerful and the powerless, victors and vanquished. Driven by fear and ambition, the world was torn asunder by conflict.
The aftereffects of the war were not limited to the regression from democracy to an imperial system; there was also the loss of civilization.
Although societal technology had reached a considerably advanced level by the time of the Activation War, with many documents and records stored in archives, the war had descended into a madness where even automatic washing machines were repurposed into machine guns.
In that era, culture became worthless. Preserved books became kindling for the fires of the energy crisis, libraries became battlegrounds, and universities were reduced to ruins.
Nothing was spared.
When the war finally ended, people looked back and realized the devastating losses their culture had suffered.
Only the most widely circulated literary classics remained unscathed. Newspapers, magazines, journals, historical fragments, ancient texts, and most obscure books had all been consumed by the flames of war. The loss of historical records was the most lamentable. Unlike the hard sciences like physics and chemistry, or the humanities like philosophy and ethics, which could always be resurrected by human intellect, the study of history depended on archaeology, verification, and a vast collection of historical materials—the very things that were most thoroughly destroyed in the war.
The history of the Federation was in better shape; enough remnants survived to support research. But the history before the Federation, and the history even further back, was reduced to a crude outline. The further one went back, the sparser the branches and details became.
At the same time, a practical problem arose: no one felt any regret. Everyone was caught up in the new reality, and the history of the past offered no guidance. So, people naturally busied themselves with establishing the rules and social norms of the ABO era.
Only now were declarations like “we must reclaim our history as human beings” beginning to emerge. Chu Yuexi was a practitioner of this very declaration.
So was Yun Cheng, and by extension, so was the original Yun Chuji.
And the current Yun Chuji—she had no choice but to be one as well.
Fate’s cruel joke had forced her to study her own past life as history. She was utterly baffled. What was there worth studying?
A woman’s chastity—that was a self-evident truth, was it not?
Yun Chuji had originally thought she could get more information about the Great Liang Dynasty from Teacher Chu, which might in turn lead to more information about the Yun family. But to her surprise, Chu Yuexi told her nothing, instead giving her a long reading list, some video materials, and an incomprehensible topic.
“Teacher Chu, I don’t think this question is worth researching,” Yun Chuji said, looking up.
“Oh?” Chu Yuexi was already engrossed in a book. Hearing her, he looked at his future student with great interest. “Then what is worth researching?”
“The way of the gentleman, the principles of Confucius and Mencius.”
It was a good thing Chu Yuexi was so knowledgeable and well-read; someone else might not have understood what Yun Chuji was saying. Chu Yuexi didn’t delve deeper into the gentleman or Confucius and Mencius, as he wasn’t an expert in that area. He simply asked, “Do you know what a woman’s chastity represents? Besides virtue.”
“To what extent was it influenced by history? And what impact did it have on later generations?”
“Why was it the Great Liang Dynasty, specifically, that was so strict about female chastity?”
“Do you know the answers?”
Yun Chuji clenched her jaw. After a moment, she relaxed it and said, “I don’t know.”
“That is what we scholars of ancient culture study. We don’t excessively debate value; the most important thing is to find the facts.”
As he spoke, a torrent of knowledge began to flood Yun Chuji’s mind: ancient Western culture, ancient Eastern culture, modern philosophy, an abstract of the ABO era, Federation history—it was the original owner’s academic foundation.
It crashed against her thoughts like a waterfall, yet left nothing behind but a chilling sensation, like clothes soaked through.
This chill prompted her to reply, “Yes, Teacher.”
This chill drove her to throw herself into her studies with even greater fervor. She had to study the Four Books and Five Classics, the histories and canonical texts, but she also had to keep up with the original owner’s schoolwork.
Ah, and that True Alpha Training Class.
She was still attending. The second session taught alphas how to dress to appeal to omegas.
With her button-up shirt fastened to the very top, Yun Chuji’s prim and proper look stood out among a sea of chest-baring alphas, earning her the top spot. After being recognized as an alpha whose physique gave omegas a sense of security, she was now promoted to an alpha whose fashion sense satisfied omegas.
Perhaps because he had been paid by Sponsor Tang, Gu Qing praised her with effusive enthusiasm. “Look at Miss Yun, all of you! Look at her long skirt, her long sleeves! Now look at yourselves. I told you omegas don’t like too many muscles, but you still insist on showing them off. Your buttons are practically undone to your navels.”
Gu Qing paused, then blurted out, “This is what you call not upholding A-Virtue.”
Yun Chuji, who had been studying like mad these past few days, immediately widened her eyes. “Do alphas practice chastity?”
Chastity?
What kind of word was that?
Faced with Gu Qing’s confused expression, Yun Chuji was equally bewildered.
Under Chu Yuexi’s influence, she had assumed it was a fairly common word. How else could it form the title of a research paper?
“What does ‘chastity’ mean?” Feng Ling, who was sitting beside her, asked in a low voice.
Yun Chuji suppressed her embarrassment and explained quietly, “Chastity… chastity means staying with only one person for your entire life, and only being physically intimate with that one person.”
Feng Ling scratched his head. “Isn’t that something only omegas have? After they’re permanently marked, they can only be with one alpha.”
An alpha next to them sighed. “It’s not that simple. Markings can be removed.”
Feng Ling sighed along with him. “That’s why it’s so hard to find an omega now. And even if you do, it’s not guaranteed.”
Another female alpha, however, encouraged them optimistically. “Permanent markings are very difficult to remove. An omega wouldn’t go that far unless they were pushed to the brink. As long as we learn how to be true alphas, treat our wives well after we find them, don’t abuse them, and stay with them during their heats, it’s not hard to spend a lifetime together.”
A male alpha shook his head in disagreement. “That was our parents’ generation. The omegas these days are a handful. My cousin’s omega removed his mark just because he cheated, and with my cousin’s money, no less! Tell me, when did that ever happen in the past? Isn’t it common for an alpha to relax a little on the side? As long as you don’t permanently mark someone else, it’s fine.”
His words sparked a lively discussion, with several other alphas chiming in sympathetically. But Yun Chuji, who had started the topic, remained silent. In truth, she was a little confused. The scene felt familiar, though she couldn’t quite place why.
It wasn’t until after the class ended, after she had declined Feng Ling’s dinner invitation to “pick her brain,” that Yun Chuji finally understood the source of this familiarity as she stood alone beneath the training center building.
It was half a month after her sister-in-law had married into the family. Her elder brother had taken three concubines, and her sister-in-law was so furious she threatened to return to her maternal home. Her mother had asked her to bring the sister-in-law for tea and pastries.
Her mother had said something like, “What man isn’t like this? If you still remember the Seven Grounds for Divorce, you shouldn’t be so presumptuous.”
Her sister-in-law had been wiping away tears, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe. “But we’ve only been married for half a month. This is a great humiliation to me.”
“If you want face, you should have given birth to a legitimate son sooner. Everything else is an illusion.”
“But… but I thought Brother Xuan at least liked me.”
Hearing this, her mother’s lips twitched. Then she said softly, “Sister Yun, you must remember, in a marriage, everything is more important than love.”
Fourteen-year-old Yun Chuji had only half-understood. What she remembered more clearly was that neither of them had touched the tea or pastries.
But now, caught in the collision of two eras, the present-day Yun Chuji grasped a strange thread: Is there no love in marriage?
There wasn’t in the past, so there needn’t be in the present either?
So husbands could cheat and wives would tolerate it; husbands could take concubines shortly after the wedding and wives would continue to exhaust themselves trying to produce a legitimate son.
But she had always believed there was love. Not because she had read some romance novel about young masters and ladies, but because… if not for love, how could one possibly follow all the rules in the Lessons for Women?
To care for one’s parents-in-law, to educate the children, to manage all household affairs big and small, to look after the husband’s siblings, and to attend to the husband’s every need in meticulous detail.
Yun Chuji had once thought that the woman who wrote the Lessons for Women must have had a husband she loved very deeply; otherwise, she couldn’t have been so devoted to him and his family.
That was why, when her mother had said those words, Yun Chuji had dismissed them, more concerned with the pastries and tea. After all, her mother was not someone who abided by the Lessons for Women. At least with her father, she did not attend to his every need. His daily life was mostly arranged by the concubines.
She had thought her mother didn’t understand.
And yet, why did these people now think the same way?
It was as if having an omega was enough; whether you loved them or not didn’t matter.
The evening wind blew across her face. In the dead of winter, it was a sobering chill. Yun Chuji looked up. The sky was filled with hover cars, a dense, teeming mass. The small gaps were filled in by holographic advertisements.
Why aren’t there any birds? she thought with a pang of regret.
Tang Jianxi didn’t come to pick her up this time. Even more disappointed than Yun Chuji was the crowd of waiting alphas—they had truly never seen such a beautiful omega.
But as they watched the lucky alpha get into a car of the same series as the omega’s from last time and speed away, another kind of jealousy surged within them.
That car cost enough to buy a villa in the third ring, and this kept man got it. These days… these days, life was hard if you weren’t a “true alpha.”
Rich omegas were just too willing to spend their money.
Tang Jianxi had not yet returned from her business trip, so Yun Chuji went straight home.
Yun Cheng and Qin Wan hadn’t left yet. When Yun Chuji returned, Qin Wan was just placing dishes on the dining table.
Qin Wan was about to call her daughter to eat, but the dejected girl just waved a hand and said, “Mom, I’m going to read first.”
The answer had to be in the books.
Yun Chuji read for nearly two hours, until her hunger became a form of torture. Finally, she put down the Biographies of Exemplary Women in defeat.
Nothing. There was nothing. Not a single answer.
In her extreme disappointment, she thought of Tang Jianxi.
Miss Tang would surely know, right?
Miss Tang knew everything!
“Miss Tang, is it possible to get married without being in love?” Yun Chuji sent the message on her optical computer.
Tang Jianxi must have been very busy. She only replied after Yun Chuji had finished dinner: “Some people don’t need it, some do. I’m one of the ones who does.”
Yun Chuji was immediately delighted.
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