Chapter 53: Come running to me

It had failed.

“Compatibility: 43.2%.”

Ji Jinxuan lowered his head, staring at the test report in his hands. The black text on white paper displayed a number he had never imagined.

Qin Yu stood to the side, not daring to speak.

Ji Jinxuan had been silently staring at this piece of paper for ten minutes.

Xu Lin had successfully differentiated into an Omega, just as Ji Jinxuan had hoped. His pheromones filled the entire room.

Ji Jinxuan had been happy at first. Xu Lin, having just differentiated into an Omega, had been forced into a heat and was not in his right mind. He needed an Alpha to soothe him.

Ji Jinxuan released his own pheromones, wrapping them around Xu Lin. Xu Lin did not seem to mind. He held onto the blanket and pillow that were saturated with Ji Jinxuan’s pheromones, unconsciously releasing his own as well.

Ji Jinxuan remained in that room filled with Xu Lin’s pheromones and felt no discomfort. So he had believed the experiment was a success. Their pheromones were compatible. Their compatibility was high.

But when he finally pierced Xu Lin’s gland, attempting to mark him, the pheromones that spilled from Xu Lin’s gland acted like sulfuric acid, corroding every part of Ji Jinxuan that came into contact with it, dissolving his very marrow and nerves.

Ji Jinxuan was accustomed to enduring pain, yet he could not withstand this shock. After biting through Xu Lin’s gland and failing to mark him, Ji Jinxuan could no longer tolerate Xu Lin’s pheromones. Even the faintest trace felt like being flayed alive.

He could not mark Xu Lin.

After all his scheming and effort, the result was even worse than the worst-case scenario he had imagined. Their compatibility was abysmally low. Only 43.2%.

Qin Yu said, “Yes. Two completely incompatible glands.”

Incompatible? Incompatible.

Ji Jinxuan was S-grade. His pheromones could suppress all Alphas and Omegas below S-grade, and under certain conditions, even other S-grade Alphas. But Xu Lin was now the exception. He was not sensitive to Ji Jinxuan’s pheromones. Even though he had differentiated into an Omega, Ji Jinxuan’s pheromones had no effect on him. Pheromone suppression simply did not work on him. To put it bluntly, Xu Lin’s Omega instincts were there. If another Alpha had entered the room instead of Ji Jinxuan, Xu Lin would not have rejected them either. Ji Jinxuan was not special to Xu Lin. He could never be special to Xu Lin again.

The situation had completely reversed. Because their compatibility was so low, Ji Jinxuan could not tolerate Xu Lin’s pheromones. But Xu Lin’s pheromones could easily suppress Ji Jinxuan.

Xu Lin tugged at the collar around his neck. He could not get it off. He did not understand why Ji Jinxuan had put this dog chain on him.

The back of his neck hurt.

The collar seemed to require a fingerprint to open. Xu Lin pulled at it a couple of times, and the red light on it kept flashing. When he could not get it off, he gasped in frustration and stopped moving.

He knew that only Omegas wore collars like this, but he was not an Omega. Even though a hospital examination in his childhood had shown that he had a withered gland, it was already useless. He had always believed he would remain a Beta forever.

The stinging pain on the back of his neck was probably from Ji Jinxuan biting him for so long. So he assumed the collar was just another way Ji Jinxuan was tormenting him. He did not think deeply about it.

His fever had subsided. He was no longer burning up. He was wearing clean pajamas, and the sheets had been changed. After suffering for so many days, now that he was awake, aside from the familiar aches and pains and the stinging on his neck from Ji Jinxuan’s excessive biting, he felt no other discomfort. It seemed he had finally recovered.

Some of his strength had returned, but the soreness in his waist and legs reminded him that Ji Jinxuan had taken advantage of his feverish state to do that to him. A wave of frustration and resentment washed over him.

He confronted Ji Jinxuan, “Was that fun?”

Ji Jinxuan sat quietly in the chair, watching him without a word. He sat there for a long time. No matter how much Xu Lin questioned him, he remained mute. After an hour, he got up and left.

Ji Jinxuan began to disappear, staying away for days at a time. Every now and then, he would suddenly show up, remove Xu Lin’s collar, and forcefully bite his neck. But every time, without exception, he would leave with a pale face. His complexion grew worse each time. He looked as if he were ill, his entire being shrouded in a sickly aura.

Occasionally, Xu Lin caught sight of the back of Ji Jinxuan’s neck, covered in dense, purple needle marks. They were multiplying.

Qin Yu remained at the villa to care for Xu Lin. He no longer fed him strange medicines, focusing instead on treating the scar on Xu Lin’s face.

The scar on Xu Lin’s face faded day by day, nearly gone. But the bite marks on his neck grew deeper.

Qin Yu was a Beta. Perhaps because of his treatment duties, in addition to Ji Jinxuan’s fingerprint, Qin Yu’s fingerprint was also registered to the collar. From time to time, he would clean and apply medicine to the bite marks on Xu Lin’s neck.

When applying the medicine, Qin Yu would wear a mask and gloves, practically donning a hazmat suit, as if Xu Lin carried a deadly disease.

“Is there any discomfort?” Qin Yu asked as he applied the ointment.

Xu Lin replied, “No.” The bite marks on his neck were Ji Jinxuan’s handiwork. They only hurt when Ji Jinxuan’s teeth first sank in. After that, he felt nothing.

Xu Lin tilted his head back and suddenly sniffed the air.

“What is it?” Qin Yu asked.

“Do you smell that?” Xu Lin said.

Qin Yu’s voice was muffled behind his mask. “What?”

“A floral scent.” Xu Lin blinked and added, “Very faint.”

Qin Yu looked away and shook his head. He smelled nothing.

But Xu Lin trusted his own nose. He had lived in this villa for six years and had never smelled this scent before. It had only appeared recently. Had they changed the air freshener?

One day, Xu Lin sat by the bay window, staring down at the lawn below. Two Alpha bodyguards were chatting. One of them seemed to be showing off, disassembling and reassembling the pistol at his waist. They had not noticed Xu Lin watching them and were having a great time.

Xu Lin watched intently, equally unaware of Ji Jinxuan’s entrance. When Ji Jinxuan’s shadow fell over him, Xu Lin suddenly looked up, and Ji Jinxuan was right there in his line of sight.

Ji Jinxuan followed his gaze downward but said nothing.

“Interested?”

He sat down in front of Xu Lin and produced a pistol from somewhere. He disassembled it neatly and pushed the parts in front of Xu Lin. “I’ll teach you.”

Xu Lin did not speak. He glanced at Ji Jinxuan, then silently reached out and took the parts. Ji Jinxuan thought he was just fiddling around, exploring on his own. But Xu Lin was fast. In forty seconds, he reassembled the disassembled pistol.

Then he raised the muzzle and pointed it at Ji Jinxuan’s forehead. His finger rested on the trigger.

Facing the dark barrel, Ji Jinxuan remained unruffled. “You’ve done this before?”

“No,” Xu Lin said. He had learned just by watching.

Ji Jinxuan gazed quietly at Xu Lin. Yes, Xu Lin was smart, sharp enough to rise from District Thirteen and make it to the capital. He was talented, exceptional, the brightest star. He should have been shining in the vast sky. But Ji Jinxuan had tethered him, dragged him down with heavy chains, and buried him in the abyss for years. Xu Lin had always been outstanding, in every way.

The muzzle was pressed firmly against Ji Jinxuan’s forehead. Their eyes met. After a moment, Xu Lin squeezed his index finger.

Click.

An empty sound. No bullet.

Ji Jinxuan let him have his fun, then lowered his hand and took the gun from him.

“Too bad there’s no bullet,” Xu Lin said softly.

Ji Jinxuan paused. “If there were, would you have pulled the trigger?”

Xu Lin did not answer.

Ji Jinxuan smiled. He raised his hand and tossed something to Xu Lin. Xu Lin caught it. In his palm was a brass bullet.

Ji Jinxuan handed the gun back to Xu Lin. Xu Lin did not move.

Ji Jinxuan walked over to him, took the bullet from his palm, loaded it into the magazine in front of him, and placed the gun back in Xu Lin’s hand. He wrapped his fingers around Xu Lin’s hand, guided the muzzle to his own forehead, and then let go.

He left Xu Lin holding the gun against him.

This was different from before. Ji Jinxuan did not move, did not dodge. Xu Lin stared at him. They seemed locked in a silent standoff.

After a long moment, Xu Lin moved the gun away, aimed at the window, and fired. The glass shattered. The Alphas downstairs looked up in alarm. Xu Lin tossed the gun out the window, jumped down from the bay window, and did not look at Ji Jinxuan again.

Ji Jinxuan was about to inject himself in the back of his neck again when the door was kicked open with a crash. Zong Xi burst in and grabbed his wrist.

“What are you doing!”

Ji Jinxuan had started running to the lab on the outskirts of the city again. Zong Xi had only recently noticed Ji Jinxuan’s strange behavior and rushed over. The moment he saw the back of Ji Jinxuan’s neck, his hair stood on end. The gland area was completely swollen and congested, the dense needle marks showing that he had been extracting pheromones at an alarmingly high frequency.

“You can’t keep doing this.”

Even for an S-grade Alpha, extracting pheromones this frequently and stimulating the gland like this would cause problems eventually. Besides, Ji Jinxuan had been taking suppressants since childhood—his gland was already fragile. It had only just recovered. If he continued this reckless behavior, his old condition would almost certainly relapse. And this time, he had no Xu Lin to help him.

Zong Xi snatched the syringe from his hand and threw it to the ground.

Ji Jinxuan was silent.

Zong Xi grabbed the messy pile of data sheets and reports on the table, scanned them, and quickly understood. Ji Jinxuan was trying to modify his own gland to increase their compatibility. Using such an extreme method.

“Have you lost your mind!”

Zong Xi’s face went pale. He knew how important the gland was to an Alpha or Omega. Ji Hongyun had carved out his own gland and was now in a coma, kept alive only by machines. And now Ji Jinxuan was following suit. Even if he had confidence in his abilities, what if the reagent he developed had irreversible effects on him? If anything went wrong, Ji Jinxuan could end up like his elder brother. Death would be a mercy.

Zong Xi shouted, “What’s the point of this? Is it really worth going this far?”

Ji Jinxuan shook off Zong Xi’s hand and said coldly, “It is.”

Everything had come full circle. Even worse. He had ruined everything. One wrong step led to another. Xu Lin hated him and refused to stay by his side. So Ji Jinxuan thought that if he could make Xu Lin differentiate into an Omega and mark him, Xu Lin would belong only to him. But his careful scheming had only pushed Xu Lin further away. Xu Lin had indeed differentiated into an Omega. But Ji Jinxuan could not mark him. Xu Lin would never become his Omega.

Xu Lin hated him so much. Why would he willingly stay with him? Xu Lin could choose any Alpha, but would never choose him with such low compatibility. What if one day, Xu Lin met another Alpha with high compatibility? He would be with someone else. Xu Lin would be marked by another.

No. That could not happen.

Ji Jinxuan closed his eyes, suppressing the wildfire of jealousy burning in his chest. Just the thought of that possibility made him furious and terrified, at a complete loss.

Zong Xi asked, “Do you really think this method will work?”

“Why wouldn’t it?” Ji Jinxuan said fiercely. “If I say it will, it will.”

Zong Xi frowned at his friend, who had now fallen into a dead end of obsession. He could say no more. He stepped back and left.

“It’s done.”

The final treatment.

Xu Lin stood in front of the mirror, looking at a face with no trace of a scar. His face had fully healed, just as it had been when he first came to the capital. As if he had never met Ji Jinxuan, never gone through that explosion, never lived through those six absurd years of marriage. He would soon graduate, return home, and live an ordinary but warm life with Pu Sha and his friends.

Having completed his task, Qin Yu prepared to leave.

Before he went, he bent down to organize his backpack. Xu Lin caught a glimpse of a stack of documents inside. From a distance, he seemed to see his own name.

He froze. He stepped forward, and while Qin Yu was not paying attention, he pulled the documents out.

“Hey!” Qin Yu tried to snatch them back, but Xu Lin easily held him off.

Xu Lin could feel that his physical condition was not what it used to be. His stamina had declined significantly. He knew it was because of the medication Qin Yu had given him. He had been feverish for so long. But after the fever broke, his body had shown no other abnormalities. So he had assumed it was just the lingering effects of the drugs, and that with a few days of rest, he would recover. But he had never fully bounced back.

He had been suspicious but could not find anything wrong. Until now. He had merely picked up a report with his name on it, wanting to take a look, but Qin Yu’s reaction was excessively strong, completely abnormal. Qin Yu was gentle and not very strong. Though Xu Lin lacked stamina, he used a clever leverage to pin Qin Yu to the table. Qin Yu could not get up or break free. His glasses were askew, and he shouted anxiously, “No! Don’t!”

Clearly, he was telling Xu Lin not to look. But Xu Lin was determined to see.

He kept Qin Yu pinned with one hand while flipping through the documents with the other. Qin Yu struggled, flailing on the table. Then, suddenly, the pressure on him eased. He looked back.

Xu Lin stood frozen, staring in shock at the papers in his hands. The papers were trembling. It was Xu Lin’s hands that were shaking.

“Omega…” Xu Lin’s lips moved, his voice barely audible. He looked at Qin Yu in confusion. “What Omega? What differentiation?”

“…” Qin Yu dared not speak.

“How could I be an Omega…”

Xu Lin stared at the results on the report and murmured, “I’m a Beta.”

Ji Jinxuan returned to the Ji family estate. Zhuang Xun was there too. He handed Ji Jinxuan a key. “This is what your brother left behind. It comes with military approval. Now that your name is registered and you’ve established yourself in the military academy, I’m passing the key to you for safekeeping. You can use it in special circumstances, but you need to inform me first. Don’t abuse it.”

Ji Jinxuan took the key. “Alright.”

Zhuang Xun noticed his pallor and asked, “What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?”

“No.”

Ji Jinxuan glanced at Ji Hongyun lying in bed and asked, “Do you know about him and that Beta?”

Zhuang Xun was startled, then nodded knowingly. “Yes.”

“He once mentioned to me that he’d fallen in love with a Beta.” Zhuang Xun said. “He was grinning, telling me he was going to be with that Beta. Do you know what word he used?”

Ji Jinxuan did not answer. Zhuang Xun smiled, mimicking Ji Hongyun’s tone at the time—cheerful, with a hint of longing, “Run away.

“He said he wanted to run away with that Beta, leave the capital, go somewhere no one could find them. Open a little school. The Beta would teach, and he’d be the bodyguard. I thought he was joking. Until he handed me the key to the equipment vault and asked me to keep it safe. That’s when I knew he was serious. He was determined to give up everything and become an ordinary person.”

Zhuang Xun tucked Ji Hongyun’s blanket in and told the ending: “That Beta died.” He made a gesture. “One shot, right through the Beta’s heart. They fell into the sea. No body was ever found. It happened right in front of Hongyun. He witnessed it all.

“After that, he went mad. He wouldn’t talk to anyone.

“The next time I heard about him, he had already carved out his own gland and ended up like this.”

Zhuang Xun sighed. “I’ve known him for so long. I never thought he’d be the type to die for love. But he did.”

He smiled again, musing: “Love is terrifying, isn’t it? Don’t you think so?”

He asked Ji Jinxuan.

Ji Jinxuan did not answer.

When he left the estate, Ji Jinxuan noticed a car in the garage. It was the same car he had driven to marry Xu Lin. He had not driven it since. It had been sitting there unused.

He got into the driver’s seat and closed the door. Two paper dragonflies folded by Xu Lin still hung from the rearview mirror. He stared at the two dangling dragonflies, one large and one small.

[What’s this?]

[It’s a paper dragonfly I folded. Pretty, isn’t it?]

He looked at the passenger seat, and in a daze, he seemed to see the Xu Lin of that time. Beaming, eyes curved like crescent moons, looking at Ji Jinxuan mysteriously, as if expecting something.

He remembered Xu Lin gently flicking the smaller dragonfly hanging below. It swayed softly.

Ji Jinxuan reached out and, mimicking Xu Lin, flicked the smaller dragonfly.

He flicked it, and there was a faint clink.

The dragonfly swayed.

Ji Jinxuan froze. He unconsciously sat up straighter. The way it swayed was not the weight of paper.

He held his breath. Stiffly, he pinched the little dragonfly again. Under his fingers, he felt something hard. There was something inside.

An inexplicable fear gripped Ji Jinxuan. He was silent for a long time before carefully removing the dragonfly from the rearview mirror and holding it in his hands. He unfolded it with trembling care.

As the paper dragonfly opened, what was revealed inside were two brand-new men’s matching rings, their bodies joined end to end, their surfaces set with sparkling sapphires.

The paper was wrinkled and warped, faded from six years of time. But inside, a line of writing was still clear and legible. Every word was reflected plainly in Ji Jinxuan’s eyes.

It was Xu Lin’s handwriting.

“Come running to me, and I’ll forgive you.”