Chapter 22.1

The atmosphere was suddenly filled with ambiguity.

Shu Minglan was dressed very beautifully today. The haze-blue long trench coat and Martin boots made her whole figure look slender and graceful. The bow-tied belt outlined a waist that seemed too delicate to grasp, and the black gauze skirt was dotted with specks of glitter, making the five fingers clutching the hem look exceptionally fair.

A long-absent heat came from her gland. The powerful instinct of Alpha pheromones broke through the obstruction of the suppressant and fully released, soaking into the mist sprayed by the air humidifier. The office became hazy and dim, as though a light rain had fallen.

The scent of cherry blossom jelly was sweet but not cloying. Its refreshing fragrance floated through every particle in the air, each bit stimulating He Lingxing’s hunting instinct.

The heat rising in her cheeks and body caused her impulse to rise as well. Although she believed she truly had no interest in women, at this moment, she seemed unable to resist the powerful temptation of pheromones.

Shu Minglan took a few steps back and leaned against the wall. The cold temperature pressed against the burning gland at the back of her neck, but it did not suppress her instinctive impulse in the slightest. The wall’s cold hardness reminded her even more of the absence she had carried for all these years. And once someone drew close, a certain emotion she had been suppressing would flood out uncontrollably.

The night-blooming cereus and rum fragrance did not carry an extremely strong aggression when facing her, but that familiar yet unfamiliar scent was still able to stir up the memories from that time, leaving Shu Minglan dizzy and entranced.

So…

The person who had saved her back then was He Lingxing.

He Lingxing had been pretending to be an Omega all along?

Before she could distinguish what exactly ​read the original at bailiantales.com​she was feeling, the powerful pheromones of a top-tier Alpha drove reason out of her mind. What remained was only instinct born from the depths of physiology.

The strange voice shouting in Shu Minglan’s mind was now completely inaudible. He Lingxing, who had originally been urgently contacting 520, could no longer catch the system’s voice either. Her heart beat wildly, driving her involuntarily toward the woman leaning against the wall. The scent in the air was so fragrant, and Shu Minglan was the source of that enchanting aroma.

The height difference between the two of them was made up for by Shu Minglan’s five-centimeter heels, allowing He Lingxing to grasp her shoulders without any effort. She found that bringing her lips closer was unexpectedly easy too.

The person nearly caged in her arms in a wall-pinning posture did not resist in the slightest. The orchid-like fragrance she exhaled was instead like a silent invitation.

Shu Minglan suddenly opened her arms and wrapped them around He Lingxing’s shoulders.

“One lick. One lick is okay.”

Before this, she had temporarily not wanted any Alpha to mark her.

But the heat constantly climbing inside her body was truly about to drain all her strength. Not everyone could resist temptation right before their eyes. The woman’s face so close to hers merged with the hazy figure from that time, along with the familiar night-blooming cereus and rum pheromone scent, hooking her heart into giving instinctive responses again and again.

For more than twenty years, Shu Minglan had relied on suppressants to get through every heat period. But what made a top-tier Omega different from an ordinary Omega was that…

The repeated accumulation of suppressants would only push instinct down to the deepest place, not truly eliminate it. As long as thunder and fire were once stirred together, the instincts previously suppressed would pour out to their heart’s content. Either one exploded in silence, or they perished entirely.

This was also why Shu Minglan was very afraid of being together with an Alpha. After realizing that suppressants could not be one hundred percent effective on her, she basically carried calming perfume and backup suppressants every time she went out.

Slender fingers moved gently, hooking the collar and tugging it down a little. Relying on the scattered read the original at bailiantales.comremaining effect of the suppressant to maintain the last trace of reason, He Lingxing said, “I’m sorry,” then leaned over and lightly licked the fair back of Shu Minglan’s neck.

The instant the tip of her tongue touched skin, an unfamiliar electric numbness different from before completely replaced the initial awkwardness. It was clearly only a tiny point of contact, yet it felt as though flames burned from the tip of her tongue all the way into her heart, even making her five fingers hot and numb. Their rich fragrances clashed endlessly in the air, and each collision was like a silent invitation.

He Lingxing barely supported Shu Minglan, whose legs had gone weak. Her teeth pressed against the tip of her tongue as she slowly guided Shu Minglan toward the door, but her gaze could not help lowering to look at the fair, smooth nape of her neck. The place she had licked was faintly pink. With every step, that heavy impulse deepened bit by bit.

Shu Minglan walked forward in a daze.

Shu Minglan held the cold door handle, but she seemed like prey that had lost its way in a mist-covered forest, standing there blankly and helplessly.

The moment Shu Minglan finally pressed down on the door handle at an extremely slow speed, the pheromones that surged out again were like a fatal signal of attraction. He Lingxing, who could no longer endure it, could not help launching her attack!

It was reasonable, yet also unexpected. Shu Minglan did not resist in the slightest. She even moved closer and tossed her long hair aside, making it easier for He Lingxing to bite.

“Can I?”

After hearing a faint “Mm” suppressing a certain emotion, He Lingxing’s warm lips pressed against the gland at the back of the Omega’s neck. Her sharp little canine teeth pierced and cut, and the intense pain and pleasure tangled together, stimulating Shu Minglan’s mind.

Her whole body was pressed against the door. Behind her was the woman holding her waist. The Alpha’s powerful yet gentle pheromones were being transmitted through the wound, soothing her restless emotions. What continuously entered her was a warm current of fragrance, making even the originally clear pain no longer so obvious at this moment.

The first to blend together were the rich, elegant fragrances of cherry blossoms and night-blooming cereus. Then came jelly falling into rum, adding a peaceful note to the clear, sweet, slightly stimulating liquor. The marvelous feeling of the two sweet fragrances embracing each other was warm and fitting. It satisfied not only the body, but also the spirit.

In truth, the temporary marking should have ended here. He Lingxing, her face flushed, moved her mouth away from the back of Shu Minglan’s neck. She licked her lips and was just about to apologize when her soft read the original at bailiantales.com lips were suddenly blocked by the woman who had turned around.

The arm that had recovered a little strength hooked around her neck. Without any preparation, He Lingxing could only hold her waist and retreat step by step with Shu Minglan’s rhythm, a layer of confusion appearing in her eyes. Their similar height made this sudden kiss not difficult at all. Shu Minglan bit He Lingxing’s lips fiercely, as if in revenge, not stopping until she tasted a faint trace of blood.

Before He Lingxing could recover from her surprise, Shu Minglan turned and ran, violently opening the door and rushing out. She even forgot the bag she had dropped on the floor in her panic and the resignation letter she had placed on the desk.

The fragrant scent still lingered between her lips and teeth, but the strange emotion brought by the softness her lips had felt for the first time made He Lingxing even more unable to distinguish things clearly. When her fingers touched her lips, she even felt as though that sensation still remained in her memory.

She had been kissed by a woman.

More precisely, she had been kissed by Shu Minglan.

The feeling of a first kiss was very strange. Or rather, it was not a kiss. It was Shu Minglan one-sidedly kissing her as if in retaliation.

…

The blush on her jade-white earlobes had still not faded. He Lingxing pulled out a wet wipe and first wiped her face and mouth. Only after her constantly fluctuating emotions calmed down did she go pick up the bag Shu Minglan had dropped on the floor.

Everything inside had scattered all over the ground. Most of it was cosmetics women used, such as lipstick and eyeshadow. He Lingxing did not examine the items needed for work carefully. When she picked up a lipstick, she noticed something wrong with the cap. She twisted it open and saw that it had indeed broken into two pieces.

She swiped it on her wrist. The orange-red shade with an orange undertone should be the brand Shu Minglan had endorsed before. After secretly noting it down in her heart, He Lingxing then found two tubes of Omega suppressants on the floor. Only then did she abruptly remember that the fact she was pretending to be an Omega had been completely exposed.

Her identity had been revealed far too suddenly.

While she was cleaning up the mess on the floor, 520 finally slowly came out and responded, its reaction as sluggish as an old turtle from a thousand years ago.

There had never been such a huge mistake in their previous cooperation. Recalling how she had desperately called for 520 earlier but received no response, He Lingxing was slightly angry and questioned it:

“What was going on with you? Why did you not come out after I called you for so long? How could such a huge mistake happen all at once?”

【Sister Xing, don’t be angry!】

The system sounded a little aggrieved after being scolded by her, but seeing that He Lingxing was genuinely displeased, it could only quickly explain in a pleasing voice:

【What you and the heroine did just now was automatically classified as “indescribable.” When a mission agent is doing something “indescribable,” the Heavenly Secrets Bureau’s rules say we cannot watch or make a sound. So my line was cut off all at once at that time.】

Seeing that she did not speak, 520 hurriedly added:

【This rule came from a previous mission agent who was suddenly interrupted by the system while doing something “indescribable” with the target of a capture mission, resulting in extremely serious psychological trauma. Therefore, for the sake of your threefold health—life, mind, and body—the system is not allowed to interrupt.】

He Lingxing: “…”

【However, aside from that, I also made a new discovery just now.】

520 put away its joking tone and began speaking seriously: 【When a mission agent is doing something “indescribable,” the system automatically detects abnormal factors nearby that may have an effect. At the time, no ​bailiantales.com​one was coming this way, and there was no one else on the entire floor. But I still caught a trace of something wrong.】

Afterward, it discovered that the source of that wrongness came from inside Shu Minglan’s body.

**

【Detected numerical deviation. Replanning in progress…】

【Detected a major error in the heroine’s script!】

【The current marriage fate value between the male and female leads is 0!】

Three bright red subtitles rolled before Shu Minglan’s eyes. She was sitting in the car, but her head felt as though it had exploded. It was now completely out of her control. Dizziness surged and struck her nerves again and again like unstable waves in the sea. Shu Minglan’s legs were weak, and she only maintained her composure by biting the tip of her tongue until it bled.

【Detected an error in the heroine’s script.】 Ignoring Shu Minglan’s splitting headache, that voice continued chattering endlessly. 【Adjustments will be made to the male and female leads’ script—main storyline altered.】

【Please proceed to the hospital, Heroine. Meet the male lead at the hospital, have the male lead erase the mark that should not have appeared, and undergo a new long-term marking.】

In this ABO world setting, there were three kinds of marking: temporary marking, long-term marking, and lifelong marking.

Among them, temporary marking was merely biting through the gland. Long-term marking required having sex once. Lifelong marking required even more time and was determined according to each Alpha and Omega’s constitution, so it varied. It could be as short as three days, or as long as ten days.

What He Lingxing had done to Shu Minglan today was only a temporary marking. If another Alpha of equal or greater strength came, they could erase the Omega’s mark. Murong Feng’s pheromones were obviously not as powerful as He Lingxing’s, so he [stolen content]could only cover it again with a long-term marking that belonged to him.

If the timing and opportunity had not been inappropriate, perhaps this fellow controlling the worldline might even have wanted her to be lifelong marked.

“Miss Shu.” The private driver in front turned his head while waiting at a traffic light. Seeing Shu Minglan’s face full of pain, he could not help asking worriedly, “You seem very unwell. Should I take you to the hospital?”

Shu Minglan had just wanted to shake her head and say “No,” but her mouth suddenly seemed to be gripped by an invisible hand. At that instant, she could not even speak. She could only lower her eyes and give no answer, looking as if she were suffering to the extreme.

Seeing this, the driver did not dare delay. He hurriedly used voice control to change the navigation to the hospital’s location, then turned in a different direction at the intersection.

…

Inside the general Alpha ward, Le Jiaxuan was looking nervously at Murong Feng before her.

He had spoken to her earlier, but everything he talked about had been dull and boring topics. Le Jiaxuan, worried about the injuries on her body, had been somewhat distracted. She had originally been thinking about how she could participate in the roadshow, or whether it might be all right for her to simply sit there and sing. She only did not know whether the higher-ups would allow it.

After seeing that she was not very interested, Murong Feng suddenly began asking directly whether she knew Shu Minglan.

Of course she knew the senior from the company. It was just that the areas they worked in were completely different, and their status differed by heaven and earth, so naturally they were not familiar. Thinking of the recent black material about Shu Minglan, whose truth was unknown, Le Jiaxuan shook her head out of a desire to protect her colleague.

Who knew what Murong Feng wanted to learn from her? Besides, she truly knew nothing about Shu Minglan.

The man’s injuries had improved somewhat, and at this time, he could barely support himself out of bed. Holding onto the IV stand, he stood there and looked down from above at ​Read on BaiLianTales​Le Jiaxuan lying on the bed. The young girl’s appearance was youthful and bright, a completely different style from Shu Minglan, but both made his eyes greedy and his heart hot.

If possible, he really did hope to have some connection with this girl too.

But now was not the time to target Le Jiaxuan.

The man, dressed in a hospital gown yet still unable to hide his tall, upright figure, lowered his eyes and glanced at the watch on his wrist. The hour and minute hands clearly formed a small obtuse angle. It was the time when the “plot” should happen. It was just that, in his current state, he truly had some difficulty holding himself up, so it seemed he would have to end things quickly.

Seeing Murong Feng stop paying attention to her after asking that one question, then nod gently at her before walking out, Le Jiaxuan let out a breath of relief.

Perhaps it came from a woman’s sixth sense toward danger, but she always felt that this seemingly gentle man was actually highly aggressive. Being with him felt like a lamb beside a wolf. His invasive gaze always made her uncomfortable.

She had to find a way to contact someone from the company later and ask them to help change her room.

Nearly twenty minutes passed, and Murong Feng still had not returned.

The hospital ward had a private bathroom. Even if he did not want to use the bathroom in the room, he could reach the public restroom by walking only a few steps outside. Twenty minutes should absolutely not be something as simple as using the toilet.

Le Jiaxuan did not actually care much about Murong Feng’s affairs. She even hoped he would not come back. But after hearing that inexplicable question from him earlier, she could not help becoming suspicious. For some reason, she always had a faint intuition that Murong Feng’s purpose was not as simple as it seemed on the surface.

Just a few days ago, Murong Feng had indirectly asked whether she urgently needed money. If she did, he could make a deal with her, such as having Le Jiaxuan tell him the theme and name of her group’s upcoming performance.

Le Jiaxuan had decisively refused on the spot, her gaze toward Murong Feng filled with contempt and wariness. No matter how short of money she was, no matter how desperate, she could not possibly do something that harmed unauthorized copy her teammates by selling her team’s information to a rival. Even if it could make her rich, she would still be uneasy.

Not to mention, there was someone in that team she cared about very much.

Murong Feng had not continued afterward, but the next day, she received a call from her family saying her grandmother’s first surgery fee had been gathered through donations from a kind person, allowing her to be hospitalized for now. At the time, Le Jiaxuan had suspected something, until Murong Feng calmly told her that he had done it.

He was helping her, even though this kind of help made Le Jiaxuan extremely terrified and required a certain repayment. This man’s terrifying nature far exceeded her imagination.

Uneasy, Le Jiaxuan opened Weibo. She had only intended to roughly glance at it to ease her nerves, but unexpectedly, she saw that Shu Minglan’s “black material” had once again been pushed up.

The uneasy feeling in her heart expanded more and more. Even though the room temperature was suitable, Le Jiaxuan still felt a dry heat, as if all the false fire in her body had surged up at once. In the end, more and more doubts made her support herself up from the hospital bed. She sat in a lightweight wheelchair and slowly rolled outside.

**

When she regained consciousness again, her whole body was burning hot like fire.

Her burning forehead was like a lump of coal. This was clearly an adverse reaction that would only occur shortly after differentiation, and Shu Minglan did not know why it would suddenly appear at this time.

Perhaps that system claiming to maintain the stability of the worldline had forcibly stuffed this adverse reaction into her, specifically to make her lose all resistance to the outside world so that from now on, she would become the “male lead’s” accessory.

In truth, after being marked by one Alpha, if another Alpha wanted to erase the mark and mark her again, they could not do it without strength one level higher. But Murong Feng was the “chosen one” of this world. If the world wanted to help him, how could she alone resist such power?

Her slightly sharp teeth pressed hard against her lip, grinding down. The pain of flesh being pierced made Shu Minglan recover a bit of clarity. She remembered [stolen content]now. At the time, the driver had taken her to the hospital, helped her sit on a chair, then gone to register, also telling Shu Minglan not to move around.

At that time, she had not had even the slightest strength to move around. But for some reason, her footsteps had slowly moved forward, supporting her exhausted body toward an unfamiliar place. The scorching heat had caused Shu Minglan to temporarily lose consciousness. When she woke up, all she saw was darkness.

The faint scent of disinfectant spread through flying dust. This should still be the hospital, but it was probably a storage room for all kinds of medical supplies. Choked by the dust, Shu Minglan could not help covering her mouth and sneezing. Then she heard footsteps outside getting closer and closer to this place.

Her heart trembled, almost stopping.

Shu Minglan hurriedly tried to move as lightly as possible and fumbled for the phone in her pocket, only to find that the 25% battery left before had now dropped to only 1%. It might not be enough to support even a single emergency call.

Moreover, if the person outside heard movement and came over, according to the advancement of this damned plot, perhaps by the time the police rescued her, the rice would already have been cooked.

A deep hatred flashed across the woman’s beautiful, delicate brows and eyes.

Amid the low-battery warning that the phone was about to shut down, when she opened her contact list, the first thing to enter her sight was He Lingxing’s avatar. With no time to recall the awkwardness from before, Shu Minglan tapped the plus sign and sent her location at the fastest speed of her life. But before she could finish typing the words, the screen flickered and shut off.

“…”

For the first time in her life, she wanted to curse.

Yet that person was getting closer and closer to this place. The “thump, thump, thump” of footsteps seemed to carry a little stagger, making it obvious that it was undoubtedly Murong Feng. Shu Minglan pulled open a cardboard box. Ignoring the dust covering it, she reached her hand inside. After touching a syringe, she slowly moved forward.

She could not just sit and wait for death.

Under the dim light, she could barely make out that the label on it said it was an Alpha suppressant. As long as the suppressant took effect, Murong Feng wanting to mark her would become a fool’s dream.

The footsteps stopped outside.

Shu Minglan’s heart nearly jumped into her throat.

“Is someone inside?”

That person’s voice did not even bother hiding itself. He knocked on the door again and again. Although the old door would not shatter under a man’s strength, the creaking sounds it made frightened people even more. A strange feeling urged Shu Minglan to answer quickly, but she bit the tip of her tongue and forcibly suppressed it.

Just in case, Shu Minglan even pressed her whole body against the door, using her own weight to stop Murong Feng from coming in.

“Bang, bang, bang!”

“Minglan, are you inside?”

The continuous sound of him slamming into the door was not exactly quiet. But for some reason, even though this place was clearly inside the hospital, no one discovered anything. No one knew there was a desperate, helpless woman trapped inside. Shu Minglan only felt as though the strength in her body was about to be drained away, and her head ached as if it would split.

“Minglan, I need to go in and look for something. Get ready. Three, two…”

Before the word “one” was spoken, the dim area was suddenly lit by a flashlight. In that instant, the beam landing in front of his eyes stung so much that Murong Feng instinctively covered his eyes and let out a short, sharp cry of pain.

Frightened by his terrifying appearance of extreme pain, Le Jiaxuan, who had originally planned to shine the light and then run, trembled in the hands. With uncertainty and alarm, she pushed the wheelchair slightly closer while also dimming the flashlight a little. Murong Feng was still covering his eyes and leaning against the wall. Just as Le Jiaxuan was about to say something, she saw the man pounce toward her like a gust of wind!

“Mmph!”