Chapter 14

Before Su Linye could do anything, that mischievous little boy suddenly rushed out and started pounding and kicking the elevator doors. His childish voice was filled with irritation. “Fuck your dad, what kind of broken elevator is this? Does your library take money and do nothing? Using this piece of junk?”

Seeing that he could not beat the doors open, he turned and aimed his anger at Su Linye, ordering her around arrogantly. “You. Hurry up and get it open, or watch out—my dad will kill you.”

A seven- or eight-year-old child with a mouth full of filthy curses, crude beyond belief. It was not hard to imagine what kind of family he came from.

Su Linye was very speechless, and the thought of soothing the child’s emotions disappeared completely. Instead, she turned to look at Lu Jiang.

The child was still not done. Seeing that someone dared ignore him, he came up and threw a tantrum, punching her repeatedly with both fists. “You actually dare ignore me?! Fuck your whole family! Fucking hell, you dare treat me like this! I’ll make my mom kill you!”

Su Linye’s brows furrowed. With one hand, she restrained him. With the other, she pinched his mouth shut. “Did your parents never teach you manners? Even orphans without parents are much more well-bred than you.”

The boy struggled wildly, flailing his hands and feet. He was surprisingly strong too.

A fair, white hand suddenly reached over out of nowhere, grabbed the child by the back of his collar, and threw him into the farthest corner. The voice that followed was cold and irritable. “Make any more noise and I’ll kill you first.”

Lu Jiang pressed the emergency button, braced one hand against the wall, and pressed her temple with the other. Her brows were tightly knitted, and her complexion looked more and more wrong.

“Lu Jiang?”

Seeing that something was off, Su Linye took two steps over and supported her arm, her heart leaping into her throat. “What’s wrong?”

Lu Jiang flung her hand away like she had been triggered. “Stay away from me.”

The elevator was very dark. Only when Su Linye got close could she barely make out her condition.

Lu Jiang’s forehead was covered in cold sweat. Her face was pale, her eyes tightly shut, as if she were desperately enduring something.

Su Linye could only judge based on her limited common sense. “Do you have claustrophobia?”

Lu Jiang seemed to be in terrible pain. The veins on the back of the hand gripping the railing stood out. She slowly crouched down and leaned against the wall, reaching one hand up in vain to cover the gland at the back of her neck. Her mind was in chaos.

Her susceptible periods had always been regular, and she had only just gotten a blocking shot a few days ago. Why was it suddenly erupting now? She had not come into contact with anything either. What exactly was going on?

Seeing her movement, Su Linye suddenly had an unbelievable guess.

Had the protagonist’s heat arrived?

Looking again at the sweat on Lu Jiang’s face, she became even more certain.

Novels often wrote that when an omega entered heat, it was as if their whole body had been fished out of water.

The elevator had been stopped for quite a while. In a space that was not especially large, the oxygen was being depleted.

They still did not know what was happening outside. Su Linye grew anxious. Other than giving a suppressant or finding an alpha for a temporary mark, she could not think of any other method. After brainstorming for ages, she decided to take the universal solution. She twisted open her water bottle and handed it over. “How about you drink some water first and calm down? Wait a little. Rescue will be here soon.”

Lu Jiang’s lashes had been trembling the entire time. Hearing this, she opened her eyes. Her deep-black pupils were slightly reddened as they fixed on Su Linye.

The protagonist like this had a fragile beauty, as if her outer shell had cracked open. But Su Linye was not that beastly. Her eyes were filled only with worry, and she anxiously pushed the water bottle forward again.

Lu Jiang’s gaze moved past her. In her gradually focusing pupils was the reflection of the boy in the corner, who had gone quiet at some point. The child seemed unable to bear the dark, enclosed elevator. He had curled up and was staring over in terror.

He had sensed an immense terror that could not be seen or touched.

Lu Jiang’s pupils contracted almost imperceptibly. The hand covering her gland tightened. She turned her face away as if escaping and snapped coldly, her breathing rushed, “Stay away from me!”

Su Linye thought she did not want anyone to know her secret, so she comforted her softly. “It’s okay. No one will know. I won’t tell anyone, so don’t worry.”

Lu Jiang only felt the pheromones inside her body surging and crashing violently, unable to find an outlet. Her gland hurt stolen content so badly it felt like it was about to split open.

Her susceptible period had not truly arrived yet. This was only a precursor, but it had already made the little alpha who could sense pheromones suffer. If it truly erupted in such a sealed space, this alpha’s gland might be damaged for life.

Even Su Linye, a beta, would be harmed.

No. She had to get out. She had to take a suppressant. She had to get to a safe room.

Only these few thoughts remained in Lu Jiang’s mind.

She forced herself to stand and pressed the emergency button again.

Until the button could no longer respond and was almost breaking down.

Su Linye grabbed her wrist. “Lu Jiang, it’s okay. Don’t worry.”

Lu Jiang, who was already close to losing reason, suddenly smelled a familiar faint floral fragrance. It was barely there, yet it instantly soothed the pheromones surging inside her like a storm before a downpour at sea.

Lu Jiang abruptly turned to look at Su Linye, her eyes full of astonishment.

Seeing Lu Jiang stop moving, Su Linye felt her persuasion must have worked. For who knew [unauthorized copy]how many times now, she wiped the sweat from her forehead—this place was ridiculously hot—and tried once again to promote her water. “This clears heat and detoxifies. How about you drink some?”

Maybe it could put out the burning heat consuming her body.

Lu Jiang was still in a complicated mental state, but she now had a little trust in Su Linye.

She took the water and drank a mouthful. Throughout the process, her eyes stared unblinkingly at Su Linye.

But the instant she swallowed the water, the pheromones she had barely suppressed swept back like a violent gale, even more surging than before. They rushed straight toward her gland, only to be blocked at the final barrier, unable to release even the slightest bit.

It drove the alpha to the brink of violence.

Lu Jiang let out a muffled groan. The water bottle fell to the floor, tea spilling out and gradually evaporating in the high heat.

She bent at the waist, her hands clenched tightly into fists. She tried to use pain to maintain reason, to use willpower to fight her instincts, desperately restraining the violent urge in her heart to destroy everything.

Su Linye looked blankly at her, even forgetting to pick up the bottle.

She had been all right just now. Why had she suddenly worsened again? It was only one mouthful of water…

Was there something wrong with the water?!

The little boy in the corner let out a short scream and fainted, his body unconsciously curling up and twitching nonstop.

As if scorched by that sound, Lu Jiang crouched down along the wall and instinctively sealed herself away. An invisible ripple lingered around her, spreading in every direction.

The air inside the elevator grew thinner and thinner. It was so hot and stuffy it was like an inescapable steamer. Su Linye’s entire body was drenched.

On one side was the little boy who had fainted from lack of oxygen. On the other was the protagonist in heat.

She anxiously looked toward the elevator doors and once again took out her phone, staring at the empty signal bars. Sweat flowed down her cheeks.

Su Linye was like an ant on a hot pan. In the midst of her dizziness, she faintly caught a very clear bamboo fragrance. It was like the first bite of ice cream on a scorching summer day, instantly smoothing away the fog in her mind while also igniting a restless adolescent agitation in her heart.

Contradictory and tempting, addictive as poppy.

That fragrance swept away some of Su Linye’s anxiety, and her brain began to process the situation.

First, she crouched down, took out tissues, and wiped the sweat from Lu Jiang’s face. Then she forcefully pried open Lu Jiang’s hand and stuffed clean tissues into it to prevent her from hurting herself.

While Su Linye lowered her head and busied herself, Lu Jiang lifted her head. With each breath, the floral fragrance seemed even clearer. Following the scent, she looked over in a loss [read the original at bailiantales.com]of reason, her gaze landing on the pale neck before her.

That spot was clean and bare.

No mark, and no gland.

In her hazy state, Lu Jiang thought, Isn’t she an omega? I smelled pheromones. Why doesn’t she have a gland?

Su Linye happened to lift her head.

Lu Jiang’s lips brushed across that piece of skin.

A tingling sensation. She felt the blood flowing beneath it, as well as the fragrant floral scent inside that blood.

Lu Jiang licked the tip of her canine tooth and raised a hand to press down on Su Linye’s neck.

Caught off guard, Su Linye’s head was forcefully pressed down, her vision forcibly taken from her. Her first reaction was that something had happened to Lu Jiang. “Lu Jiang? What’s wrong? Are you feeling bad again?”

The force on her neck was very strong. To maintain her posture, both of her hands were braced against the floor, and she could not stop the other girl’s actions.

Hearing her own name, a struggle flashed through Lu Jiang’s unfocused eyes.

In the corner, the little boy who had been unconscious for a long time let out a whimper in his sleep, like his body already knew its ending and had sent out a premature cry of mourning.

A face begging for help suddenly surfaced in Lu Jiang’s mind.

The gland at the back of that person’s neck had ruptured, blood flowing everywhere. In so much pain that they rolled across the floor, they crawled over to beg her, begging her to take back her pheromones.

Lu Jiang’s heart was tightly seized and twisted.

Bite down. If she bit down, she could save her. If she bit down, that kind of thing would not happen.

There would be a way. It would be solved.

Bite down.

Bite down!

Su Linye suddenly had a bad feeling. Her fingers moved, but before she could make a sound—

Lu Jiang pulled her into her arms, lowered her head, and pierced her skin with her canine teeth.

Su Linye’s eyes widened.

A tiny pain, an electric numbness, and an indescribable satisfaction all drowned her at once, like a tide, like a swamp, like quicksand.

Once she sank in, there was no saving her.

Clear pheromones fell like a spring rain. A seed buried inside the beta’s body broke through its shell and began to sprout and grow vigorously.

Lu Jiang narrowed her eyes slightly.

The restlessness at the bottom of her heart, the itch in the seams of her bones—all of it disappeared.

She released her mouth and gently licked that small wound.

In the final moment before Su Linye passed out, all kinds of thoughts were still spinning through her mind.

Was the protagonist unable to find an outlet and ended up biting her neck? Pretty exciting, actually. She had not expected her neck to be her sensitive spot. If she had known, she would have offered her arm instead.

Then she remembered that novels wrote omegas in heat as being very lacking in security.

Su Linye struggled to gather her strength, hugged Lu Jiang, patted her back, and completely fell into darkness.

The elevator doors suddenly opened. Cool air and light instantly poured in, along with the clamor of voices.

Qin Yu, who was at the very front, had no time to speak before staring wide-eyed at the scene before her.

Inside the elevator was a complete mess. Spilled water, the little boy at the innermost side whose life or death was unclear, and the two people near the door in an intimate posture.

When the only conscious one, Lu Jiang, lifted her eyes and looked over, the red in her gaze had not yet faded, and the dark possessiveness in her eyes had not diminished at all.

Holding the unconscious Su Linye in her arms, she licked the blood from the corner of her lips as if in provocation.