Unlike Wang Luan’s sleepwalking-through-the-banquet attitude, Yan Qiongyu had been continuously observing the banquet guests from the very beginning of the event. There were several thousand people at the entire venue, and he had almost memorized more than half of them.
The remaining guests he had not memorized were not because he could not remember them, but because he felt there was no need to.
Ever since he began to understand this world, Yan Qiongyu had had two goals. One of them was to find a man. From a biological standpoint, this man was his biological father.
This person might be a noble, possessing a certain status, and had participated in the mental power research project on the Empire’s infamous criminal Omega Yan Mu.
To accomplish this goal of finding him, attending banquets was a relatively convenient and efficient method.
Before he came of age and obtained a fiancée, he could only obtain some shallow and simple information from others and make simple inferences. Now that he had a fiancée, he could take advantage of banquets like this to meet more people.
He needed to find ways to get close to his suspected targets and find opportunities to interact with them. Only then could he determine who exactly was the person he was looking for.
Standing beside him, Wang Luan remained unmoved, her mind wandering far away amid the guests’ flattering praise or barbed sarcasm. Yan Qiongyu, on the other hand, continuously used his clever brain, matching identity information to each unfamiliar face and arranging them into the network of relationships in his mind.
He did not see any suspected targets here, but he was not disappointed.
The few people he most strongly suspected were all high-ranking, powerful Alphas. Even if they did not come themselves, there were many people here within their relationship networks. He could make use of these people and, through slightly more complicated methods, make contact with those suspected targets.
He had the best patience to wait and to scheme.
The brilliant crystal lights of the banquet cast dazzling light upon this beautiful and elegant Omega. His outstanding and striking appearance caused many Alphas to secretly pay attention to him, yet no one knew that beneath this delicate and graceful outer shell lay a mind full of complex, dark thoughts.
He smiled at the guests exchanging pleasantries, while coldly weighing their value in his heart. He listened humbly and gently, while inwardly sneering at their arrogance and shallowness.
The latter half of the banquet was a ball. Wang Luan did not participate. There was no way she would agree to physical contact with others unless the other party was a Beta woman, but unfortunately, she could only dance with her own fiancée. Not long ago, Wang Luan, who had just suffered a devastating round of mockery from her teammates, refused to cooperate.
Butler Wang was already accustomed to her occasional non-cooperation over small matters and hesitated over whether to invite the Wang family head to give her a bit of discipline, but Yan Qiongyu persuaded him to drop the idea.
“Miss Wang Luan is indeed very tired today… actually, I’m also having a bit of trouble holding on. I wonder if Miss Wang Luan could accompany me to the back to rest for a while?”
Yan Qiongyu revealed a pitiable look of fatigue. He was an Omega; a fragile Omega getting tired was perfectly normal.
His health was, after all, important, so the butler did not make further demands over such details and arranged for servants to take the two of them to a room to rest.
After dismissing the maid, Yan Qiongyu skillfully withdrew the tiredness from his face, calmly scanned the lounge, confirmed that there were no monitoring devices, then found a sofa to sit down and pulled out his terminal to record information.
By now, he had grasped the essence of getting along with his fiancée, Wang Luan: keep distance from her, and do not pay her excessive attention.
Only then could she feel comfortable.
Wang Luan was not physically tired, but mentally she was utterly exhausted. Today, she had been like she was hosting a signing event, except all the attendees were haters. Those Alphas, brimming with both combativeness and a desire to show off, wore friendly expressions on their faces while secretly inflicting mental torment on her. Who wanted to compete or bicker with them?
Returning to the private resting space, she was finally able to relax completely, except that the dress she was wearing was neither easy to sit in nor easy to lie down in, leaving her at a loss in front of the long sofa.
“If you’re tired, you can take it off first. Later, have the maid come in and help you put it back on.” Hearing her hesitant footsteps, Yan Qiongyu spoke without lifting his head.
It could barely be considered rare teammate concern, but when Wang Luan did not move for quite a while, he finally looked up amid his busy work and met her guarded gaze. Her hand was somewhat awkwardly placed over her important area, the meaning obvious.
Yan Qiongyu almost laughed again at her reaction. He had to remind her once more: “…I’m the Omega, you know?”
Wang Luan silently looked at him without speaking. Whether or not he was an Omega had nothing to do with it. Once Yan Qiongyu showed even a bit of his true nature, the aggressiveness he gave off was a bit too strong.
And most importantly, both of them had that stuff. She did not want to see his, nor did she want him to see hers.
“Fine, I won’t look.” Yan Qiongyu stood up and walked to the corner, facing the wall. Only then did he hear the rustling sounds behind him.
“Alright.” Wang Luan was wearing a thin inner lining, wrapped in a blanket, leaning against the sofa and letting out a long breath. Yan Qiongyu tapped on his terminal with one hand, sitting on the sofa opposite her, close to the armrest.
He observed Wang Luan with some interest and saw her curled up on the sofa, letting out a sleepy yawn, pulling the blanket up to cover the lower half of her face, drowsy and about to fall asleep.
Her right hand gripped the edge of the blanket. On her middle finger was a low-key, slender silver band—the engagement ring she had put on not long ago.
The music from the dance outside drifted in through the not-fully-closed window, faint and indistinct.
Yan Qiongyu suddenly stood up and picked up the teapot to pour Wang Luan a cup of tea. Amid the curling steam, Wang Luan, startled awake by his movement, looked at him, thinking to herself why he was pouring her tea.
“Are you taking my gland fluid again?” she asked in confusion.
Yan Qiongyu said, “I just saw that you were tired and poured you a cup of tea. Do you think I’m the kind of person who would only take the initiative to pay attention to you when I have business with you?”
Wang Luan asked back oddly, “Aren’t you?”
This person really didn’t care about conversational skills at all.
Even when blocked like this, Yan Qiongyu did not mind. He moved from his own sofa to sit by Wang Luan’s feet.
Wang Luan quickly drew her feet back.
“How about we chat about why Miss Wang Luan rejects getting close to a certain type of people?” he said, deliberately moving closer to her.
Wang Luan had a premonition that he was about to suddenly change his face and play a prank, did not really want to chat with him, and immediately sat up to urge him, “Go away.”
Yan Qiongyu: “That won’t do.”
Seeing him reach out toward her, Wang Luan didn’t even put on her shoes. Wrapped in the blanket, she jumped directly onto the opposite sofa to get away from him.
She crouched on this side of the sofa, ready to escape his mischievous clutches at any moment if Yan Qiongyu changed his expression. But Yan Qiongyu sat on the sofa she had been on before, smiling as he looked at her for a while, with no intention of continuing. Instead, he lowered his head to look at his terminal and did not raise it again for a long time.
Wang Luan was completely deprived of sleepiness by him: “………………” Was he just bored and relaxing in the middle of work?
Her hand brushed against a pillow nearby. Wang Luan picked it up and tentatively threw it toward Yan Qiongyu across from her, as a courtesy in return for his earlier disturbance.
Yan Qiongyu caught it, placed it behind his waist as a cushion, and said, “Thank you, Miss Wang Luan,” looking polite and composed.
ততততততততততত
When the two appeared before everyone again, it was already the latter half of the banquet.
The two of them had disappeared together for so long, and Wang Luan had even changed into a different formal dress. When she made eye contact with several Alphas whose gazes were clearly obvious, Wang Luan knew exactly what kind of garbage thoughts were in their heads.
Their meaningful, scrutinizing looks landed on Yan Qiongyu, as if they wanted to find some trace of difference on his face.
That kind of colored gaze made people uncomfortable. When Wang Luan was still a Blue Star woman, such looks often fell on her. And she would empathize deeply with the experiences of others like her.
Yan Qiongyu was using some empty, unnutritious talk to deal with these superficially polite Alphas, seemingly completely unable to detect the different meaning in their gazes.
Wang Luan was holding a lace-decorated fan in her hand. She lightly tapped the fan against Yan Qiongyu’s arm. Yan Qiongyu stopped his pleasantries with others and turned his head to look at her, his eyes and expression gentle and affectionate. “Mm, what is it?”
“Over there.” Wang Luan did not want to say more.
She took the lead and walked toward the other side. Yan Qiongyu could only show an insincere apologetic smile and follow her toward the other side.
The two walked outside the crowd. Yan Qiongyu wore a smile on his face; to others, it looked as though he were whispering to Wang Luan.
His voice was low and light: “It seems your rejection toward them is more severe than toward me.”
Wang Luan replied, “Isn’t that only natural? At least you’re better-looking than they are.” And he never used that kind of gaze to look at people.
Yan Qiongyu felt surprised. This was the first time Miss Wang Luan had expressed a positive evaluation of his appearance.
Judging from the way she had avoided him like the plague from the very beginning, he had thought that she had no particular likes or dislikes regarding his looks. This left him, who was accustomed to using his appearance as a weapon, somewhat caught off guard.
“I just have some psychological barriers, not problems with my eyes,” Wang Luan clarified in response.
The two spoke in low voices. Although there was no physical contact, their speech and expressions somehow carried a sense of harmony, different from everyone else.
Wang Luan was willing to say a few more words to Yan Qiongyu because they were beginning to grow familiar. With people she was not familiar with, she was not very willing to open her mouth. Over the course of this banquet, she had only said a handful of sentences, all thanks to the socially adept Yan Qiongyu keeping her going.
Today, by her own efforts, she had once again drawn a whole circle of hostility. Who knew how many Alphas who secretly looked down on her as a piece of trash were cursing her for not putting others in her eyes.
Although Yan Qiongyu was polite in dealing with people, it stopped at politeness. The sense of distance around him never disappeared, but that distance was much fainter between him and Wang Luan.
The group of Alphas watching them saw how harmoniously they got along, and one by one their expressions did not look very good as they indignantly lowered their voices to mock them.
“No matter how aloof an Omega is, once they’re marked, won’t they still have to submit beneath an Alpha? Look at how our 3S-level one is fawning.”
“I thought an Omega of such a high level wouldn’t be with that kind of Alpha. Now it looks like she might be very willing. Hmph, great nobles really have it good— even a 3S has to bow to a great noble.”
“Isn’t that so? I heard Yan Qiongyu was in the hospital for a while not long ago, maybe due to a rejection reaction. Looking at it this way, Wang Luan probably can’t even fully mark him. Isn’t that just wasting our high-quality resources for nothing?”
“Look at how arrogant she is—maybe she even needs someone else’s help just to mark an Omega! If that’s the case, let us do it!”
Such attacks had never stopped since news of their engagement spread. The young Alphas were jealous of Wang Luan’s status. Some Alphas who originally admired Yan Qiongyu’s high level now also had many criticisms of him.
In their eyes, weakness was a sin, and resources they wanted but were taken by others were also a sin.
“Next there’s only the family banquet left, right?” Wang Luan asked eagerly, like a poor student waiting for class to end.
“Yes. In a moment, after you thank the guests one more round, you can prepare to go to the small banquet hall,” Yan Qiongyu replied. He remembered the process more clearly than Wang Luan did. Not because he deliberately memorized it—his memory was simply too good; once he saw something, it was hard to forget.
Next was the family banquet. Though it was called a family banquet, there were actually still a great many people. Collateral branches of the Wang surname, as well as some people who did not bear the Wang surname but were on good terms with the Wang family head, would all attend—around one or two hundred people.
Originally, this engagement family banquet should also have included Yan Qiongyu’s relatives, but in the identity records archived by the Empire, he was an orphan with no father or mother.
He had been raised in an Imperial orphanage since childhood, later entered the Omega Academy, and had no relatives, so only two teachers from the Omega Academy came as representatives.
Suddenly, Yan Qiongyu’s movements paused almost imperceptibly.
Wang Luan heard him say, “Miss Wang Luan, the Wang family head is over there. Let’s go say hello.”
Wang Luan saw the Wang family head. He was standing by the window facing a middle-aged man, chatting idly. Attendants stood behind them with lowered heads, and tall bodyguards had cordoned off a relatively quiet space for them.
Upon hearing Yan Qiongyu’s words, Wang Luan’s first reaction was no, but she immediately realized something. Yan Qiongyu was not someone who acted without aim; his purposes were always very clear.
He might be planning to do something. This thought suddenly appeared in Wang Luan’s mind.
She sighed helplessly and dejectedly said, “Let’s go.”
Even if she did not want to go, he would probably find a way to make her go anyway. She might as well skip the process of making him rack his brain.
Fortunately, when they approached, the bodyguards did not stop them.
When the Wang family head saw them coming, he first frowned instinctively, then realized there were others watching and forced a bit of geniality as he introduced them to the middle-aged man. “This is Wang Luan, my daughter, and her fiancé, Yan Qiongyu.”
He then introduced the middle-aged man. “This is the Li family head.”
Li Zhichang, the head of the Li family and likewise a great noble, had regular features and a solemn presence. There was some white at his temples, and he looked a bit older than the Wang family head. His gaze swept past Wang Luan and lingered on Yan Qiongyu for an extra two seconds.
“So these are tonight’s two protagonists. Congratulations to you both.” His attitude was fairly decent.
Wang Luan treated it as routine guest interaction, greeting him without merit or fault. Yan Qiongyu stood at her side, unobtrusively taking in the subtle expressions of the two family heads, already forming a plan in his heart.
By coincidence, this Li family head was one of his suspected targets.
