The Wang family’s garden was very large—or, to put it another way, the Wang family had moved their buildings into an enormous garden. The garden even included several mountains.
What Yan Qiongyu referred to as going to take a look around the Wang family garden was, in fact, just walking around the vicinity of the small building where Wang Luan lived.
In the eyes of others, these two young people who were engaged were clearly going to cultivate their feelings in the garden. As such, all the male and female servants, along with the personal stewards who had been surrounding them, thoughtfully did not follow, leaving the two alone to spend time together.
The two walked side by side, one on the left and one on the right—one with steady footsteps, the other with heavy ones—along a garden path filled with golden sunflowers.
Ahead, rose plants were planted at staggered intervals, blooming into cascading floral waterfalls, and the air was filled with a faint fragrance.
Exiting this path, behind them lay a small lake. Water lilies covered the shallow areas along the shore, and the lake was also home to several white-feathered swans and water birds.
The scenery was indeed beautiful and pleasant, but both parties knew clearly that they had not come out to talk about love, much less to admire these pretty flowers and plants.
“What did you want to say to me?” Wang Luan sat down on a chair by the lake, listening to the calls of the water birds by her ear, not really wanting to go any farther.
Yan Qiongyu did not mind. He merely wanted to find a place without surveillance and without other people in order to talk, so he directly took a seat opposite Wang Luan.
He stared at her for a while.
Wang Luan thought to herself, here we go again. Every time he stared at her like this, he was about to say something astonishing. Before throwing a bomb, this man always had to use his gaze and body language to apply some psychological pressure first. Who knew what kind of problem that was.
Sure enough, as soon as Yan Qiongyu opened his mouth, he said, “I’ve extracted the pheromones from your glandular fluid during this period and discovered that there’s something not quite right with your pheromones. It seems some kind of mutation has occurred. So, you shouldn’t be able to smell your own pheromones, and you also can’t actively release pheromones, right?”
Wang Luan: “………………” So you know again.
Yan Qiongyu slowly explained, “Pheromone mutations are very rare. I searched for and analyzed some cases of Alpha pheromone mutations. Most of them involved bodily damage or excessive mental stimulation.”
“You know, pheromone secretion comes from both the body and the mind. Among its constituent substances is androstenone, and your pheromones lack androstenone. We believe this substance is produced by the mental body… in other words, your mutation is primarily mental.”
Yan Qiongyu was like a teacher patiently instructing a student, analyzing layer by layer. “Then what kind of mutation has occurred in your mind? First, I ruled out injury-related mutation. Judging solely from the extracted pheromone data, I suspect your mental power level has increased somewhat compared to before.”
“An increase in mental power is many times more difficult than an increase in physical fitness. As far as I know, the few people who used drugs to enhance their mental power all ended up with serious genetic diseases.”
“There is only one case where the mental power data bears some similarity to yours. That person developed schizophrenia. In his different states, the mental power levels he exhibited fluctuated greatly.”
That was actually a laboratory product. That experimental subject, due to immense painful stimulation, developed schizophrenia, and by sheer accident allowed researchers to discover a new possibility. Unfortunately, such special circumstances could not be replicated. The experimental subject ultimately died from genetic collapse. His mental power fluctuations caused his emotional state to become unstable—this point was different from Wang Luan.
All in all, among the data he had collected, there was no situation completely identical to Wang Luan’s.
Previously, based on his observation and understanding of Wang Luan, he had guessed that some mutation might have occurred mentally. Now, with supporting data, he was even more certain of Wang Luan’s uniqueness.
“Beyond science, in the realm of metaphysics, some believers think that mental power is inseparably linked to the soul. I’m also somewhat interested in this view. The human body is merely a shell; only the spirit endures…”
Yan Qiongyu paused meaningfully, then asked Wang Luan with a sincere expression, “What do you think, Miss Wang Luan?”
What do I think—by now you’ve practically guessed my entire background. Listening quietly to this point, Wang Luan felt a bit of admiration for this fiancé of hers. What kind of thirst for knowledge was this?
Even the Wang family did not pay this much attention to her bodily changes, nor were they this clear about them. What kind of mind could, just by casually guessing, come so close to the right answer?
However……
“What’s the point of doing all this?” Wang Luan expressed her confusion.
Yan Qiongyu had still been thinking about whether she would panic once her secrets were laid out by him, but her reaction left him with no sense of accomplishment at all.
“All right, this is my hobby, and,” Yan Qiongyu said, “Miss Wang Luan, can’t you tell that I’m seeking cooperation with you?”
What Wang Luan found most incomprehensible was this part: “Aren’t we already cooperating?”
She had agreed last time.
Yan Qiongyu was like a salesman who had run into a foolish tycoon who couldn’t understand product specifications and didn’t care about product functions. His well-practiced sales pitch never quite hit her point.
He took a breath, decided to cut off the overlong prelude, and said, “I mean, we can have deeper cooperation.”
“You want to escape from here, right?” Yan Qiongyu no longer wanted to waste words on scientific data with her and went straight to the point.
Wang Luan’s spirits lifted: “Yes!”
Yan Qiongyu: “If you cooperate with me to accomplish what I want to do, then I can help you.”
Wang Luan did not hesitate at all: “Okay!”
Yan Qiongyu: “………………”
He waited for quite a while, yet Wang Luan did not ask any questions such as “What is it that you want to do?” “How can you help me?” “How do we escape from here, and where do we go after escaping?” or anything of the sort.
He had directly painted her a big pie, and she actually dared to eat it just like that. Was this intelligence or stupidity?
Yan Qiongyu probed, “Miss Wang Luan, is there really nothing else you want to say?”
Wang Luan said, “If we cooperate, I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you much. I’ve only just learned to make mecha models. I still can’t independently manufacture combat mecha. Recently I’ve been studying mechanical repair and machine assembly, and there’s still a lot of knowledge I haven’t fully absorbed.”
Yan Qiongyu: “…No need. You just need to cooperate with me on some things. As for what exactly, I’ll tell you when the time comes.”
Wang Luan said frankly, “If it involves intimate contact, I can’t.”
Yan Qiongyu knew she had a psychological barrier in this regard and had never considered such things at all. But this was the first time he had heard an Alpha casually state that she couldn’t, and the look in his eyes toward Wang Luan became a bit complicated: “…No need. I will try my best to respect my partner’s wishes.”
“But does Miss Wang Luan really have no misgivings?” Yan Qiongyu, someone accustomed to calculating everything to ensure nothing could go wrong, truly could not understand Wang Luan’s trusting behavior.
But Wang Luan truly had no misgivings.
She was trapped in this city, unable to break free on her own; things were already like this.
Whether what he said was true or false didn’t really matter. If it was true, that was best; if it was false, it didn’t matter either. At the very least, he really had extended her life by some time.
Even if he couldn’t help her, she was still willing to provide a bit of help. After all, in her view, he was still just a newly adult youth.
And finally, there was Yan Qiongyu’s pheromones.
From the first time she smelled his pheromones, Wang Luan felt they were very special. Her first reaction then was that it was the smell of “freedom.” She inexplicably felt that this person must be unwilling to be trapped here, unwilling to always be the obedient, gentle Omega in other people’s eyes.
Clever people have their own cleverness; ordinary people have their own petty cleverness.
Today, Yan Qiongyu told her he could help her escape from here. The word “escape” itself reflected some of his own psychology. Wang Luan guessed that he also wanted to leave this place.
They seemed to share some similar thoughts and similar circumstances. In this unfamiliar and lonely world, she too much wanted to find someone of her own kind. This had nothing to do with whether there was any utilitarian value; she simply felt a bit comforted, as if she could draw a bit of upward-moving spirit from this.
Since they had already reached a consensus, Yan Qiongyu made a request: “Give me a tube of your blood, and a bit of glandular fluid.”
Wang Luan said “Okay,” then suddenly remembered that Yan Qiongyu had twice just now expressed confusion over her not asking questions, and so she went along with his expectations and asked one more: “What do you need these for?”
Yan Qiongyu, who had thought that this time she wouldn’t ask anything either, thought to himself: Is she pretending to be stupid, or not?
“Our current shallow marking all relies on extracting glandular fluid for external marking, but this opportunistic method can’t be used for a complete marking. I’m preparing to study how to achieve complete marking through other methods.” Yan Qiongyu spoke very conservatively, leaving loopholes in his words, waiting for Wang Luan to press further, so he could know what misgivings she had this time.
But it seemed that once she had asked that one question, she had already completed her task, and she returned to that state where saying one more word would kill her, only spitting out an “Mm.”
To say she didn’t care wasn’t right; to say she did care was also a bit perfunctory. A clever person who thought too much couldn’t help but think even more.
Seeing Yan Qiongyu looking at her and, for some reason, not speaking again, Wang Luan waited a bit and then asked in confusion, “Should I give you my blood next time?”
Taking out from his person the blood-drawing device and other supplies he had already prepared, Yan Qiongyu pinched the sharp, slender needle between his fingers and gave her a gentle fake smile. “Now,” he said. “We’ll draw it now.”
