A Heartless Omega Regrets It When I’m Dying - Chapter 5

The moment the elevator doors slid shut, Lin Wantang felt as though all her strength had been abruptly siphoned away. Her body gave way, and she began to collapse uncontrollably toward the floor.

A nearby waiter finally noticed her sinking to her knees and hurried over, frantically asking if she needed help.

Lin Wantang’s pheromones were now completely out of control. Her powerful S-class Alpha scent swept through the lobby like a tidal wave.

“I’m sorry,” Lin Wantang managed to stammer, even as her consciousness began to haze. “I think… I need to be isolated.”

Her pheromone rank was too high; it was easy to cause a sense of oppression or even physical distress to other Alphas and Omegas nearby.

The waiter, a Beta, was experiencing such a situation for the first time. She didn’t have time to think, but her instinct told her the weak Alpha in front of her needed a hospital. Since Betas are unaffected by pheromones, she leaned down to comfort her: “Ma’am, please hang on. I’ll call an ambulance for you right away.”

Lin Wantang was drowning in pain, but she remembered this was Qi Yishu’s welcome banquet—the one Wen Zhiqing had specifically instructed her to attend. She had to tell Wen Zhiqing she was going to the hospital.

“Please… tell President Wen for me,” Lin Wantang said, slowly standing up with the waiter’s help as the pain in her gland began to ebb. “Tell her I need to go to the hospital for a check-up. My name is Lin Wantang.”

The waiter’s mouth hung open in slight surprise at the name. Seeing that Lin’s pain had subsided, she helped her to a sofa and straightened up. “Alright, I will go inform Ms. Wen immediately.”

The waiter noticed that Lin Wantang’s gland seemed to be returning to normal. After getting Lin’s consent, she decided not to call for an ambulance but instead headed for the elevators. Her logic was simple: an ambulance would hurt the hotel’s reputation. It was better for the guest to go to the hospital on her own once she felt better.

Furthermore, the waiter naturally assumed that as a couple, Wen Zhiqing would want to accompany her wife. Upon reaching the top-floor revolving restaurant, she found Wen Zhiqing’s assistant: “Ms. Lin experienced sudden gland pain. Please tell President Wen to accompany her to the hospital.”

Downstairs, Lin Wantang held a cup of warm water, sipping slowly until she felt more grounded.

This wasn’t the first time; her gland had throbbed once before, but it had passed quickly. This time was similar—the pain was just more intense, yet the recovery was just as fast. It didn’t seem like a critical emergency, but one couldn’t be too careful with gland health. She really did need a specialist to look at it.

Lin Wantang thought it over and decided it was better to tell Wen Zhiqing in person about her condition. She set down the water cup and took the elevator back to the top floor.

Wen Zhiqing had booked the entire revolving restaurant. As soon as Lin Wantang stepped out, she caught the sound of her own name.

More insults to flatter Qi Yishu, probably, she thought. She had prepared herself for this, so she remained steady, continuing forward until the actual words became clear.

“President Wen, you really spoil that Lin Wantang too much. In a setting like this, she’s clearly just throwing a tantrum to fight for your attention.”

“She’s definitely faking it. Why else would she be perfectly fine when she arrived, only to ‘get sick’ the moment we got on the elevator?”

“She even had the nerve to have the waiter ask you to go to the hospital with her? The gall to make such an unreasonable request… she’s obviously trying to make Director Qi uncomfortable.”

Lin Wantang stood frozen, listening. She felt the blood in her body turn to ice, inch by inch, eventually hardening into a frozen mass in her chest. Despite her swaying balance, she stayed put.

She was waiting. Waiting for a single response from Wen Zhiqing.

But the person who spoke up against the crowd was Qi Yishu. Her voice lost its usual detached gentleness, turning sharp and cold: “I know my junior’s character; she wouldn’t do such a thing. You don’t have the courage to confront her to her face, yet you choose to slander her behind her back. Don’t you think that’s wretched behavior?”

The revolving restaurant fell deathly silent at Qi Yishu’s words. The laughter and clinking of glasses died away.

Lin Wantang closed her eyes. She had never imagined that when everyone was united in condemning her, it would be Qi Yishu who stood up for her.

But Qi Yishu and Wen Zhiqing have been friends for years, she thought. Wen Zhiqing must feel the same way.

This tiny spark of hope gave her the courage to remain there, waiting for Wen Zhiqing’s verdict like a sacrificial offering.

Finally, her wife’s answer came. Wen Zhiqing’s voice was thin and distant, like the coldest layer of snow on a mountain peak, devoid of all emotion.

“Yishu, you’re too naive. She has always been this kind of person. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Lin Wantang had received her sentence. She finally knew exactly how her wife saw her. She rubbed her eyes, expecting to cry, but her eyes were dry. Not a single tear fell.

After three years of marriage, in Wen Zhiqing’s eyes, she was still just a lowly liar.

Lin Wantang suddenly understood why Wen Zhiqing never stopped her friends from humiliating her. To Wen Zhiqing, her friends were simply stating the truth. In her eyes, Lin was playing for sympathy, faking an illness to ruin Qi Yishu’s night—a pathetic, shameless fraud.

But long ago, it hadn’t been like this. In university, when Lin’s monthly allowance was only 500 yuan, Wen Zhiqing had found out and actively sponsored her. She had never looked down on her for her lack of money. The wealthy daughter of the Wen family had been happy to share a cheap “Malaxiangguo” from a street stall outside the school.

That changed when Wen Zhiqing’s company secrets were stolen. The investigation revealed that Lin Wantang’s mother, Lin Shen, and her stepmother, Shi Cen, were executives at a rival firm. Ultimately, their subordinates were imprisoned for financial crimes, but everyone suspected Lin Shen and Shi Cen were the true masterminds who used their subordinates as scapegoats.

Everything seemed clear then: how could the stepdaughter of top executives have only 500 yuan a month? Everyone assumed Lin Wantang was a plant—a pawn sent to get close to Wen Zhiqing to steal information. And she had nearly succeeded, because Wen Zhiqing had almost fallen in love with her.

Knowing nothing of this, Lin Wantang had been sentenced in Wen Zhiqing’s heart without ever being given a chance to explain.

Their next meeting was three years ago, when she accidentally saved a drugged and incoherent Wen Zhiqing in that tasting room.

Lin Wantang sighed. She used to believe that if she could just find the person who drugged Wen Zhiqing, she could prove her innocence. Now she realized it was a futile effort. No matter what she did, it would always be seen as a “clumsy trick.”

With Wen Zhiqing’s final word, the silence ended. The others quickly resumed their chatter.

“Exactly, Director Qi, you’re just too pure-hearted. You always think the best of people.”

“Yishu isn’t just pure; she’s incredibly generous. She can even tolerate the wretched thoughts of someone like that.”

“It’s a difference in class. That’s why Yishu is an international director, and Lin Wantang is just an eighteenth-tier actress.”

Lin Wantang felt nothing. Her heart was a dead sea, unable to be stirred by these expected insults. She smoothed her hair, which was damp with cold sweat from the pain, and stepped into the restaurant.

Inside, she saw Wen Zhiqing immediately. Wen was sitting by a panoramic window, framed by the brilliant lights of the city stretching to the horizon. The rivers of traffic below looked like golden veins. Her profile was sharp and detached, like an emotionless deity perched atop the peak of prosperity.

But Lin Wantang no longer wanted to be her most loyal devotee.

“I am going to the hospital for a gland check-up, so I won’t be able to accompany you all,” Lin Wantang said with a smile into the sudden silence. She poured a glass of wine and downed it in one go. “Please, enjoy yourselves.”

The glass hit the table with a sharp clink.

Whispers broke out, hushed as if they were afraid to speak loudly while she was there, but Lin Wantang didn’t care. She fought the urge to look at Wen Zhiqing’s face, kept her back straight, and walked out of the restaurant.

As she left, she thought she heard the sound of someone standing up, followed by a rustle of people discouraging them, and finally, silence.

Just as she expected, no one followed her.

It wasn’t until she was safely registered at the hospital’s gland department that Lin Wantang finally began to detach from the night’s emotions. Every other patient had family with them. Sitting alone outside the examination room, she felt a wave of exhaustion so heavy it felt as if three years of fatigue and grievances had all come to a head tonight.

She didn’t know if she could coax herself back into loving Wen Zhiqing as if nothing had happened.

Closing her eyes, Lin Wantang drifted off to sleep on the hard bench in the unfamiliar hospital corridor.

She dreamed of Wen Zhiqing in university again. In the dream, Wen was as gentle as she remembered. She frowned slightly at Lin, her eyes clear and full of sorrow: “Tangtang, what’s wrong?”

Lin Wantang looked down at their intertwined fingers. Huge tears finally fell, splashing onto Wen Zhiqing’s fair hand.

“Tangtang, what is it? Who bullied you?”

Lin Wantang was pulled into a warm embrace, held tightly as if in a protective circle. Wen Zhiqing’s voice was full of concern: “It’s okay, tell me. Whoever bullied you, I’ll stand up for you.”

Lin Wantang couldn’t answer, because the person bullying her was the one right in front of her. The tears that wouldn’t fall in reality broke through in the dream, soaking the expensive fabric of Wen Zhiqing’s sleeve.

She finally understood: the current Wen Zhiqing and the senior who loved her in university were two completely different people.

She was “carving a mark on the boat to find the sword”—searching in vain for something that was already lost. No matter how hard she tried, she could never find that version of Wen Zhiqing again.

In the dream, Wen Zhiqing gently wiped away her tears with a tissue, her voice full of bias: “Wantang, don’t be sad. Let’s get married, okay? I won’t let anyone look down on you, and I certainly won’t let anyone bully you. We’ll live happily ever after.”

As if worried Lin wouldn’t believe her, she repeated it with absolute sincerity: “We will be the happiest couple in the world.”

“No… No, Senior.”

In the dream, Lin Wantang finally spoke her first words. Tears continued to stream down her face, but she shook her head and gave a smile of release: “We won’t be happy together. Senior, you should go find someone you actually like and marry them instead.”

Senior, maybe we should never have married. If only neither of us had gone to that tasting room three years ago… our lives would never have crossed again.