Chapter 3

Suffocating. Wet.

Body heat and mingled breaths wove into an impenetrable net, catching Song Xu’s drifting soul and dragging her down into a river called pleasure.

A burst of sweet-tasting fluid flooded her until she couldn’t breathe. Just as Song Xu thought she was about to drown, a flash of white suddenly crossed her vision—

“Beep—beep—”
“Sister Xiao Xu! Sister Xiao Xu, can you hear me?”

“Doctor Du! The patient in Bed Twenty-Six is awake!”
“Ms. Song, are you all right? How do you feel? Doctor Du! Please come and take a look—”

The noisy, chaotic sounds around her seemed muffled beneath a vacuum-sealed cover, making them sound distant and indistinct. Song Xu groggily cracked her eyes open and vaguely saw half a head. Her gaze struggled to focus before she finally recognized her assistant, Xiao Cen.

She instinctively tried to ask what had happened to her, only to discover that she couldn’t speak. After considerable effort, she finally managed to squeeze out a syllable, but it sounded unbearably hoarse and dry.

My precious voice… my poor throat…
Song Xu wanted to cry but had no tears. Her throat felt painfully tight.

Before long, she heard two sets of hurried footsteps. Two more people soon appeared in her field of vision. Judging from their clothing, they were the nurse on duty and the doctor the nurse had hurriedly summoned to examine her.

The machine beside her bed, which displayed all the patient’s vital signs, continued dutifully beeping away in a headache-inducing manner. The ceiling light shone glaringly overhead, and Song Xu guessed that she had been unconscious for at least a day.

“How… cough, cough… long did I sleep—” Song Xu asked ​bailiantales.com​feebly.
“Ms. Song, you were unconscious for three days,” the nurse corrected her wording.

“Who brought me here?”
“I don’t know. We only received the news afterward too,” Xiao Cen replied awkwardly.

Speaking of which, this truly had been a failure on her part.

She had waited foolishly in the nanny van for ages without seeing Song Xu. It wasn’t until someone called to tell her that Song Xu had been hospitalized that she realized something was wrong. By the time she arrived, Song Xu was already unconscious. Apart from waiting helplessly outside the hospital room, there was nothing she could do.

Song Xu rolled her eyes toward the doctor, attempting to ask what had happened through her gaze.

The doctor raised the back of a finger to adjust their glasses. Their voice was gentle yet carried a touch of maturity. “Ms. Song, according to the examination reports on your various bodily functions, you were affected by the pheromones of an S-grade Omega. The gland that had previously been unable to differentiate normally due to a blockage was stimulated, which caused you to lose consciousness…”

Song Xu was somewhat astonished by what she heard.

In this world, people were first divided into women and men, then further classified as Alphas, Betas, or Omegas. Betas constituted the overwhelming majority. Out of every ten people, there would be only one Alpha and one Omega, and Alphas and Omegas were further divided into grades according to their pheromone levels.

In theory, the offspring of an Alpha-Omega pairing would inherit the secondary gender of either parent, but Song Xu had been an exception to this rule. When she differentiated at eighteen, the doctor informed her that her gland was underdeveloped, and she was ultimately classified as a Beta.

Because of this, Song Xu had hidden her feelings for Lu Lingze, the Lu family’s heiress whom she had secretly loved for years. She knew perfectly well that an S-grade Alpha like Lu Lingze would never be interested in an ordinary Beta.

Although Lu Lingze had ultimately accepted her despite her being a Beta.

Song Xu instinctively raised a hand and touched the back of her neck—the place that bailiantales.com had made her feel inferior for so long and had taken her even longer to accept.

The skin that had once been smooth and flat now truly had a prominent bump that was impossible to ignore, confirming the changes in her body.

“…In other words, you have undergone secondary differentiation and become an Alpha.”

Song Xu felt as though something had exploded inside her muddled mind.

Secondary differentiation?

An Alpha?

Her?

The Beta identity she had spent three years accepting and adapting to collapsed into ruins at that moment. Something cool and damp seemed to slide down her face. Song Xu wiped it away with the back of her hand, guided only by sensation, and belatedly realized that it was her own tear.

The doctor, who was still explaining the cause of her condition, paused for several seconds at the sight of that tear but ultimately interpreted it as joy.

Although society’s blind worship of Alphas and Omegas had diminished considerably in recent years, with people advocating that everyone was born equal, the fact remained that Alphas and Omegas possessed greater physical strength, cognitive ability, and sexual appeal than Betas. Being able to join their ranks through secondary differentiation was no different from winning the grand prize.

“However, since you have only just differentiated and your pheromones remain unstable, I suggest returning in a month if you wish to test your grade. There are also some precautions you’ll need to observe afterward. Would you like—”

“You can tell me,” Xiao Cen interjected, simultaneously pulling out her phone and stolen contentactivating the recorder.

“All right. Let’s discuss them outside and allow the patient to rest properly,” Doctor Du said before taking Xiao Cen out of the room.

The nurse beside the bed helped Song Xu sit up and thoughtfully placed a pillow behind her lower back for support. She poured half a glass of warm water for Song Xu, and after confirming that there was nothing seriously wrong with her, she also left the room.

Song Xu was now alone in the spacious VIP hospital room, which felt frighteningly empty. She lay back down and stared at the ceiling for a long time in boredom, suddenly feeling somewhat lost.

It wasn’t only because she had abruptly changed from a Beta into an Alpha. More than anything, she didn’t know how she should face Lu Lingze.

Although Lu Lingze had countless fleeting affairs outside, she still had her principles:

No men. No one who demanded an official status. No one who wasn’t an Omega.

No, that last rule seemed to have been broken for Song Xu.

And only for Song Xu.

.

Song Xu’s relationship with Lu Lingze was unusual—not unusual in the sense of a patron and her kept canary, because in Song Xu’s opinion, the way they interacted was nothing like outsiders imagined.

Although Lu Lingze gave her money and resources, brought her back to the ancestral residence to meet the family, and even bought her a home, the two of them didn’t meet very often.

One was the heiress of a wealthy family who had countless affairs to handle each day, while the other was a popular celebrity who traveled all over the country for engagements. Seeing each other three or four times a month was already quite good.

Every so often, they would eat and shop together. When the mood struck, one of them would pick the other up after work, and they would go home together. But they had never shared the kind of…

More intimate and less wholesome relationship that a patron and her kept canary usually had.

Though it was somewhat embarrassing to admit, it was the truth. Song Xu had been with Lu Lingze for five years, yet they had never slept in the same bed. The most intimate thing they had probably done was hold hands, and even the number of times they had embraced could be counted on one hand. The greatest boundary they had ever crossed was probably the time Lu Lingze got drunk and pressed a tipsy kiss to Song Xu’s forehead.

Even now, Song Xu still remembered how that kiss had felt—soft and weightless, carrying the tart yet delicate taste of wine.

Beyond that, there had been nothing more.

If Song Xu hadn’t caught her entangled with another Omega that day, followed by countless rumors afterward, she might have thought Lu Lingze preferred Platonic relationships.

She knew that a Beta held far less attraction for an Alpha than an Omega did, so it was understandable that Lu Lingze had always been unwilling to take things further with her. Lu Lingze was probably willing to keep her only because of their past affection and because she pitied her.

But now, she had become an Alpha…

At this thought, Song Xu gave up on herself and pulled the thick blanket over her body. Like an ostrich, she buried herself in the white fluff, unwilling to face reality.

Suddenly, the phone on the bedside rack began [stolen content]to ring, startling Song Xu out of her own little world.

She habitually kept her phone on silent. After Lu Lingze found out, she changed every account associated with her to a special notification setting right in front of Song Xu.

Song Xu retrieved her phone and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when she saw “AAA HIGHEST PRIORITY” displayed on the screen.

Speak of the devil.

Her slender, fair finger pressed the answer button. Song Xu brought the phone to her ear and waited for Lu Lingze to speak first.

“I heard from Xiao Cen that you’re awake. How do you feel? Are you uncomfortable anywhere?”

Lu Lingze’s cool voice came through the receiver, sounding somewhat distorted across the distance separating them.

Song Xu was startled. She had no idea whether Xiao Cen had told Lu Lingze about her secondary differentiation.

After taking a few seconds to react, she slowed her speech and answered one word at a time, “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? Your voice doesn’t sound quite right.” Even though they weren’t face-to-face, Song Xu could imagine Lu Lingze frowning as she said this.

She was always like this, precisely detecting any change in another person and noticing the smallest details.

Song Xu’s expression shifted slightly. “I’m really fine.”

“All right. As long as you’re fine. Tell Xiao Cen if you need anything, and she’ll take care of it for you.” After saying this, Lu Lingze added, “I’ve been rather busy these past few days, so I probably won’t have time to visit you.”

“It’s fine. Your work is more important.”

After she said this, the other end remained silent for a long time. If Song Xu couldn’t hear Lu Lingze breathing, she might have thought the call had already disconnected.

But she patiently continued waiting for that powerful, high-ranking woman to issue her orders—she wouldn’t dare casually hang up on Lu Lingze.

After an unknown amount of time, Lu Lingze’s emotionless voice came through the phone:

“Song Xu.”
“I’m here.”

“Don’t you have anything else you want to say to me?”

Song Xu thought about it, then tentatively supplied what seemed like the standard answer. “Good night?”

After all, it was almost eleven. Going to bed early and waking up early was good for one’s health.

“Wouldn’t you ask me to come and see you?”

“Huh?”

Song Xu froze, almost thinking she had misheard. Nevertheless, she readily complied. “Then… I’m asking you to come and see me?”

“Too late. I don’t want to go anymore.” Lu Lingze’s lips twitched.

“Oh,” Song Xu replied, genuinely unable to understand how Lu Lingze’s mood had changed so quickly.

Could someone else have upset her, causing her to come and pick faults with Song Xu…?

Both sides fell silent again. Lu Lingze began searching for something to say. “Your work won an award at the VB Gala. Congratulations.” Unfortunately, Song Xu hadn’t been able to accept it in person.

Song Xu didn’t react very strongly.

They were merely handing awards out to everyone. Even if someone brought an ox onto the stage, it could return with a trophy. What was there to celebrate?

The event merely provided a platform for celebrities from every corner of the industry to compete for attention, trend online, and show their faces. Finally, the winner would purchase a press release proclaiming that they had “outshone everyone,” and that would be the end of it.

The person on the other end probably found the conversation boring as well. After exchanging a few perfunctory words with Song Xu, Lu Lingze hung up. The hospital room once again fell silent. Song Xu sat blankly for a moment before opening VB out of sheer boredom to check the trending topics.

According to the original plan, she should have dominated VB’s number-one trending spot three days ago.

Song Xu opened the notifications page and checked the trending topics related to her. Sure enough, the ​read the original at bailiantales.com​history showed that she had reached number one three days ago.

Except…

The woman’s thick lashes trembled, her lead-gray pupils reflecting the words on the screen.

#Chi Yue and Song Xu Absent from Awards Ceremony

Who was Chi Yue? Why had she never heard of her?

It was one thing for them to share the same trending topic, but why was Chi Yue’s name listed before hers? Song Xu didn’t remember trending topics being arranged alphabetically by name.

Confused, Song Xu typed Chi Yue’s name into the search bar. Sure enough, an account with the same name and a yellow verification badge appeared. It didn’t have more followers than Song Xu, but it still had nearly twenty million. Strangely, however, the account had never posted any content.

Its only post was an automatically generated birthday greeting published by the system on January 17 that year. Song Xu’s gaze settled on the profile picture in the center, which depicted a gray cartoon rabbit wearing a pointed party hat.

“…”

Song Xu remembered that the animal persona her fans had assigned her was also a gray rabbit.

It seemed she and this person named Chi Yue were rather fated.

Before she could think any further, two knocks suddenly sounded from outside the hospital room. She instinctively looked toward the door and saw her assistant, Xiao Cen, quietly opening it and slipping inside. It appeared that she had finished recording the doctor’s instructions.

In front of Song Xu, Xiao Cen locked the door from the inside. After making sure no one else was around, she took a kraft-paper envelope from the purple backpack she had been carrying.

“What is that?”

When Xiao Cen approached, Song Xu sat up in bed and accepted it. It had some weight to it, and she genuinely couldn’t guess what was inside.

“Did Lu Lingze ask you to bring this?” Song Xu raised an eyebrow and asked.

Xiao Cen awkwardly fidgeted with her fingers, unsure how to answer. Only after a long moment did she say hesitantly, “Why don’t… you open it and see for yourself?”

Song Xu broke the wax seal securing the kraft-paper envelope and opened a narrow gap. Before she could see what was inside, the familiar scent of gin drifted out first.

The woman’s hands abruptly froze as countless fragmented images flashed through her muddled mind.

Peach-blossom eyes stained with desire, a flushed face, and one suggestive moan after another beside her ear.

And on the skin exposed above the plunging neckline of an evening gown, the red mole that had burned so brightly Song Xu hadn’t known where to look.