A Heartless Omega Regrets It When I’m Dying - Chapter 26

The sound of those three words was far too quiet; falling into the ward, they were like a withered leaf drifting into a deep pool, failing to stir even a single ripple.

Lin Wantang remained trapped in her own fear, hearing nothing. She kept her head lowered, crystalline droplets still clinging to her eyelashes, her entire body still trembling slightly.

Outside the window, the evening sun was sinking. The final rays of twilight spread across the few steps of distance between them, looking like a river flowing by—one that could never be crossed.

Wen Zhiqing had never encountered a situation like this. Clearly, over these past three years, Lin Wantang would listen intently to every word she said and never forget them.

Wen had always taken this for granted.

But now, Lin Wantang did not respond to her—not a single word.

Failing to receive any response, Wen Zhiqing’s first sensation was a flash of unaccustomed anger.

They were already divorced; they had no relationship left, emotionally or legally, yet she had come anyway. She had pushed open this door, stood in this shabby ward, and stood before this hospital bed, even carrying the news that she could arrange a transfer once Lin’s vital signs were stable. She believed she had done enough.

Given her status and their current relationship, her presence itself was a concession—a gesture of goodwill that disregarded past grievances.

Yet Lin Wantang wasn’t moved in the slightest. She had even maliciously speculated about Wen’s motives, and after Wen had explained herself, Lin simply remained silent, leaving her hanging there like an inconsequential person.

Her efforts had not yielded the expected return, a feeling that made Wen Zhiqing somewhat irritable.

But just as she was about to retort sharply, she saw Lin Wantang’s trembling, blinking eyelashes. They were clumped together in wet clusters like the wings of a butterfly drenched after a rain, shimmering with fragmented light in the sunset’s afterglow. With every blink, that crystalline light flickered, making Wen’s chest tighten with a dull ache.

The restless fire in her heart was extinguished bit by bit.

Wen thought, Forget it. She shouldn’t hold it against a confused patient.

Gazing at those wet lashes of Lin Wantang’s, Wen finally spoke.

Her voice was still somewhat stiff, as if she were unaccustomed to saying such things, but she slowed her speech and patiently explained once more: “I didn’t intend to do anything bad. I just came to visit you.”

Lin Wantang lifted her head and looked at Wen Zhiqing again. Wen Zhiqing was still standing there. Her face lacked its former indifference and her habitual mockery toward Lin; instead, it held a trace of awkward patience.

As someone in a superior position, Wen Zhiqing rarely explained anything to others. Lin Wantang could not understand Wen Zhiqing’s motive for suddenly visiting her ex-wife in the hospital and explaining herself so patiently.

Every thought in her mind was tangled into a mess. Lin Wantang suddenly thought of Lin Shen—the mother who had also come under the guise of a “visit” but was actually there to take. Staring at this Wen Zhiqing who had appeared just as unexpectedly, those tangled threads suddenly found a possible exit.

She finally found a logical explanation for her suspicions.

“I see.” Lin Wantang began to smile softly, though the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “President Wen must be here because of the acquisition case as well.”

She paused, deciding to lay everything out in the open: “It’s all the same. On the surface, you both talk about visiting, but you know your real intentions in your hearts.”

The time interval between Lin Shen leaving and Wen Zhiqing entering was short; Wen Zhiqing must have known that Lin Shen had visited.

“President Wen is probably afraid I’ll leak secrets, right?” Lin Wantang shook her head. “Even if I said I wouldn’t, President Wen certainly wouldn’t believe me.”

She gave a soft sigh, her voice dropping as if she had finally accepted something.

“It seems there’s no escape for me.”

The surgery’s success rate probably wouldn’t even reach 10% now; Wen Zhiqing was bound to pull up the roots to eliminate the problem.

The light from the last match, bought with the money she had struggled to scrape together, had burned for only a moment before being extinguished.

This journey had truly been too exhausting. Lin Wantang turned her head away and simply closed her eyes, refusing to say another word.

Wen Zhiqing stood there in a daze, looking at Lin Wantang’s profile. Her face was turned toward the window; Wen couldn’t see any expression. She indeed knew Lin Shen had been there, but she didn’t understand how Lin Wantang had made the leap from that fact to the idea that Wen would kill her because of it.

Lin Shen’s expression upon leaving had been visibly defeated; it seemed she hadn’t reached an agreement with Lin Wantang.

Besides, there were surveillance cameras in the ward, and Wen could easily obtain permission to view the footage and get the content of their conversation.

Everything was within her control; how could she possibly blame Lin Wantang for this while she was recovering?

But Lin Wantang hadn’t listened to her explanation at all. This little liar was convinced that everyone else was a liar just like her.

For a moment, Wen Zhiqing really wanted to slam the door and walk away, leaving this liar to think things through alone. But as she reached the door to leave, she remembered the doctor mentioning that sick people are psychologically fragile and in great need of companionship.

She looked back once more. Lin Wantang had her head turned away and her eyes closed, curled up on that oversized hospital bed like a leaf blown down by the wind, lonely and shivering.

Wen Zhiqing slowly released the doorknob.

She told herself she only pitied such a weak patient. Compassion was something everyone had; it was only human nature.

Wen Zhiqing turned back toward the bed.

The sound of footsteps neared the corner of the quilt; her knuckles turned slightly white.

She heard the footsteps getting closer, finally stopping near her.

Lin Wantang’s fingertips tightened on the edge of the quilt, clutching it until creases appeared. A voice drifted from right above her: “Rest well, and don’t overthink things.”

Lin Wantang did not answer. She kept her eyes closed, only wishing Wen Zhiqing would leave this place as soon as possible.

“The surgery will go smoothly. Don’t worry.”

Wen Zhiqing paused, reaching out to tuck the corner of the quilt for Lin Wantang, but her fingertips stopped just as they touched the edge.

This gesture seemed a bit too intimate. She was only comforting Lin Wantang out of pity; this was already the limit of what she could give.

Wen Zhiqing withdrew her hand.

She had originally intended to tell Lin Wantang that once her vital signs were stable, she would be transferred to the world’s top gland hospital for treatment. But the words stopped at the tip of her tongue.

Given Lin Wantang’s current mental state, she would surely misinterpret her meaning again, thinking it was to make it easier for Wen to “finish the job.”

“After you finish the surgery, if you truly have nowhere to go, you can move back and stay for a while to get back on your feet.”

This was already generous enough, Wen thought. It both showed that she would ensure the surgery went smoothly and gave Lin Wantang a place to go when she was at her wit’s end.

Given their current relationship, this was the greatest kindness she could offer.

“Thank you, but I don’t need it.”

Although Lin Wantang didn’t quite understand why Wen Zhiqing hadn’t berated her over Lin Shen’s visit, she didn’t want to ask. She only needed Wen Zhiqing to leave quickly.

Whether it was sincere or false, she didn’t care anymore. She only hoped not to be entangled by these people in these final days.

A lying hypocrite, Wen thought. Just earlier, she had been tearfully recounting her plight of having no roles and having nothing left, but as soon as Wen offered a way out, she used a “retreat to advance” tactic to refuse.

Another move to play hard to get.

Wen Zhiqing finally turned and left. But she didn’t feel her usual disdain for Lin Wantang; instead, she felt a long-lost peace of mind, as if nothing had changed.

She softened her movements, gripped the doorknob, and closed the door bit by bit.

The crack in the door grew narrower and narrower, but the figure on the bed never moved. Lin Wantang still had her back to her, her ink-black hair scattered across the white pillow like a stroke of thick ink slowly spreading on rice paper.

At the final moment, that strand of hair flickered slightly in her field of vision before being completely blocked by the doorframe.

Wen Zhiqing stood at the door for two seconds, then left hurriedly. She had a pile of backlogged work to handle tonight; she would likely have to stay up very late again today.

But that was fine. Even without the work piled up from this period, she would probably have lain in bed with insomnia for a long time.

But Wen Zhiqing, who had experienced too many changes recently, hadn’t realized that her heat was almost here.

Just as Wen Zhiqing finished her last email and prepared to close her laptop, the back of her neck began to feel a vague heat. As she moved her fingertips away from the keyboard, the heat from her neck spread bit by bit toward her gland.

Her breathing became somewhat rapid. The small patch of skin near the gland began to throb, and the scent of galbanum dissipated along with it. At first, it was just a trace of astringency, but it grew stronger and stronger until the entire study was filled with that cold galbanum scent.

Wen Zhiqing looked down. The skin beneath her collar had begun to turn red, a faint flush spreading down from the side of her neck, like something was burning outward from beneath the skin. She could even feel a slight itchiness when the fabric brushed against that reddened area.

She knew very well what would happen next. Soon, the heat would spread from her neck to her entire body, her skin would become more sensitive than usual, and her breathing would grow more erratic. She would start to crave being touched, crave having that person’s scent completely envelop her; her body’s reactions would completely override her consciousness.

Wen Zhiqing stood up. Her movement was a bit rushed, and her knee hit the corner of the table with a dull thud, but she couldn’t even feel the pain. She just stumbled toward the safe to find that person’s pheromones.

Although suppressants could also solve the problem, she hated injections; she hated the sharp pain of the needle piercing the skin.

Wen Zhiqing leaned against the wall as she moved forward, her fingertips grazing the wall’s surface. The cool touch of the wall made her skin shrink back.

Lin Wantang’s pheromones were in the safe. Usually, she wouldn’t open it, but now, just thinking that the bottle of pheromones was a few steps away made her body go soft uncontrollably.

Finally, her fingers touched the combination lock, but they were shaking too much to press the numbers correctly. After entering the code several times before getting it right, Wen Zhiqing finally saw the neatly arranged pheromones. She hurriedly gripped a bottle in her palm, her fingertips turning almost white from the pressure.

She leaned her forehead against the edge of the safe, her breathing rapid and messy. She pressed the glass bottle against the flushed skin below her collarbone; as the cool glass touched her burning skin, she let out a long sigh.

Her scorching breath hit the bottle, condensing into a thin white mist.

But this was far from enough.

Wen Zhiqing opened the glass bottle. Her fingertips were still trembling. The moment the rubber stopper was twisted off, the scent of tangerine wafted out—a very clear sweetness that smelled like it had been basked in sunlight.

She pressed the mouth of the bottle against that small patch of skin on her gland. The moment the cool glass touched that burning area, her entire body shuddered. The tangerine scent overflowed from the bottle, splashing onto her gland and seeping into that reddened skin.

Those were Lin Wantang’s pheromones, but Lin Wantang was not by her side right now.

Wen Zhiqing closed her eyes.

She could smell Lin Wantang’s pheromones, but she couldn’t feel Lin Wantang’s body heat.

That sweet tangerine scent enveloped her, entangled her, and burrowed into her skin, but no matter how intense it was, it was only pheromones. There was no breath falling by her ear, no palm pressed against the back of her neck, no one to pull her into their embrace when her breath was scorching. She couldn’t feel the warmth that person brought with them every time they approached her.

What she possessed were merely the pheromones that person had left behind, which would sooner or later run out.

Her body finally began to settle into a calm. Wen Zhiqing lay on the floor, her chest still rising and falling gently, her palm still clutching the half-empty glass bottle.

In her daze, she thought of Lin Wantang in the hospital again.

How had this Alpha spent so many ruts over these past three years?

Just thinking of this question made her chest tighten again.

Wen Zhiqing forced herself up, put the rubber stopper back on the bottle, and placed it in the safe.

The note Lin Wantang had left was still placed in the deepest part of the safe. Wen Zhiqing hurriedly closed the safe and didn’t look again.

She thought of that overly pale face on the hospital bed during the day.

At that time, Lin Wantang’s pale face was sunken into the pillow like a piece of snow about to die. She could see Lin Wantang’s thin collarbones and skin so thin that pale blue veins were visible.

She hadn’t paid much attention then. It was only now, deep in the night, that those ignored details surfaced bit by bit.

On the hospital bed, Lin Wantang said she already had nothing left and begged Wen to let her go.

She had indeed listened to those words at the time. But until this moment, her heart began to ache again. It wasn’t just a single throb; it was as if a nail had been driven in and was being ground down bit by bit, a continuous, lingering pain blooming in her heart.

She shouldn’t feel unhappy because Lin Wantang had a terminal illness. Although she utterly loathed this liar who had entangled her for three years, she had never thought of wanting this liar to die.

If they hadn’t divorced then, she would definitely have chosen a suitable drama for Lin Wantang to star in.

Wen Zhiqing was finally certain: this heartache was not caused by excitement.

She regretted it a little—why hadn’t she tucked in the corner of the quilt for Lin Wantang back then? She had looked so cold at the time.