The removal of the inhibitor was jointly carried out by two groups of people: one group from the Omega Protection Association, and one group from the Wang family. The Association had fewer people; the Wang family had more.

Wang Luan should have been waiting outside the operating room, but she insisted on entering it. After disinfection, she sat near the operating table and watched with a blank expression. No one dared to drive her out, so they could only tacitly accept her presence.

In order not to affect mental power, both the implantation and removal of this kind of mental power inhibitor required the implanted person to remain conscious. To prevent Yan Qiongyu from struggling in pain, his hands and feet were all restrained.

The surgery went smoothly at the start. Just as Yan Qiongyu had said, this was not a major operation. This was somewhat different from the surgeries in Wang Luan’s memory of her hometown, but seeing that the surgical scene was not bloody and not particularly tense, Wang Luan relaxed a little inside.

She watched with her own eyes as a thumb-sized inhibitor was removed, and assumed that this was the end. Unexpectedly, at that moment, one of the doctors took out another inhibitor that looked even smaller, silver-gray in color, and subconsciously glanced at Wang Luan.

The seat Wang Luan was sitting in had an excellent view, allowing her to clearly see every one of their movements. She did not miss the doctor’s attempt to inject the new inhibitor into Yan Qiongyu’s brain.

She stood up, her expression solemn. “Wait. What are you doing?”

Several people stopped. That doctor hesitated for a moment, then honestly said, “This is the latest model of mental power inhibitor. Miss Luan, please rest assured, this type of inhibitor is safer and more controllable. In the future, whether to block an omega’s mental power, and whether to allow him to use mental power, can all be controlled by the ‘key.’ The ‘key’ will be delivered to Miss Luan shortly.”

Hearing this, Wang Luan subconsciously looked at Yan Qiongyu. Yan Qiongyu was conscious—lying there awake—but he showed no reaction at all. Not even a finger moved in response to the unexpected development.

Wang Luan looked straight at the doctor and insisted, “There’s no need to implant this.”

“But, Miss Luan, this is the family head’s decision.” The doctor was clearly from the Wang family. Because of her status, his tone lacked confidence.

Another doctor wearing the Omega Protection Association insignia spoke even more bluntly. He said, “Although omegas have fragile bodies, omegas who possess high-level mental power are different. Their level of danger is beyond what ordinary alphas can imagine. Miss Wang Luan, you probably can’t control a 3S. Once he enters an uncontrollable state, the most dangerous situation will be for his alpha—Miss Wang Luan, you. So this is also for Miss Wang Luan’s safety.”

Although he claimed it was for her safety, his tone was mocking, clearly looking down on her, this useless eldest young lady, for daring to interfere.

“The one lying there is my omega. The people beside you are all doctors of my Wang family, and the dozens standing outside are my Wang family’s bodyguards. So who do you think gets to speak here?” Wang Luan glanced at the Protection Association doctor, then looked at the Wang family doctor.

“You’re not listening to me because I, this heir, am not recognized, and can’t decide matters of the Wang family?”

The doctor’s brow twitched. He immediately put down the inhibitor in his hand to show compliance. “Of course not. You are the heir recognized by the family head. How would we dare disobey your wishes?”

“Implanting a new inhibitor in Yan Qiongyu is a consensus reached between the Wang family and the Protection Association. What exactly is your young lady doing now?” The Protection Association doctor refused to let it go.

But Wang Luan was standing right there. No one listened to him. He was even separated to the back row by several Wang family medical staff, so angry that his face alternated between red and green.

Under Wang Luan’s intervention, the surgery was quickly wrapped up.

On the way back, Wang Luan indeed received a communication from the Wang family head.

Seeing the Wang family head’s stepfather-like face, Wang Luan also put on a stern expression.

“What’s wrong with you?” The Wang family head probably couldn’t change his habitual attitude from over ten years all at once. His opening words still carried irritation. Remembering something, he softened slightly and condescended to say a few more words. “The previous inhibitor was implanted by the Association. I didn’t trust them, so I wanted to replace it with a new one. This inhibitor is controlled by us. I thought you would understand—now that you are the Wang family’s heir, your safety is the most important.”

Wang Luan was not moved by this sudden display of paternal concern. No matter what the Wang family head said, she stubbornly insisted, “I’m still worried that the inhibitor will affect Yan Qiongyu’s mental power. I’m also hoping to rely on him to level up again. If something goes wrong with the inhibitor, where would we find another 3S?”

It was unclear whether the Wang family head was persuaded. He ended the communication with an ambiguous attitude. At least the immediate hurdle had been cleared.

ততততততততততত

Night fell. In the Wang family estate, the courtyard belonging to Wang Luan had already sunk into silence, with few people moving about. The owner here did not like servants hovering nearby, so the male and female servants all waited at a distance and did not attend her closely.

The night-blooming jasmine planted in the courtyard released a rich fragrance, wrapping the entire building in the night. Wang Luan came out of the studio, inhaled the faint scent, and returned to her room, where she saw an elegant, graceful figure sitting by the bed.

Yan Qiongyu’s hair was pitch-black. Dressed in a robe, he sat quietly by the bed, thinking. Clean and beautiful, he somehow matched the cool floral fragrance of the night perfectly.

“You’re awake. Nothing uncomfortable, right?” Wang Luan asked casually, and subconsciously glanced toward the side of Yan Qiongyu’s head.

This surgery was really convenient—opening up the brain without even needing to shave the hair, and it was still so thick.

Yan Qiongyu sat on the bed, gazing at her quietly, without saying a word.

He was silent for too long, staring until Wang Luan was completely puzzled.

“You can’t speak anymore?” Seeing that he kept quiet, Wang Luan guessed, “Could it be that something went wrong with the surgery just now and affected your brain?”

“Wang Luan… Miss.” Yan Qiongyu’s voice was slightly hoarse.

When he woke up, he had wanted to ask her about the inhibitor, but when the person stood in front of him, the words he hadn’t spoken changed direction.

“Do you still want to escape from here?” Yan Qiongyu asked.

Wang Luan didn’t even think about it. “Of course I—”

Yan Qiongyu interrupted her. “Your mental power has been confirmed to be stable at A level. The Wang family will find ways to further enhance your physical strength. Now, your status as the Wang family’s heir has been acknowledged, and you will be given more importance. If you stay here, you will obtain more things. Those who once persecuted you will no longer do so; instead, they will become tools in your hands. Those who once despised you will crawl at your feet and elevate you to great heights… like this, do you still want to escape all of this?”

Yan Qiongyu knew that many people hated the oppression of powerful elites, but what they hated even more was that they themselves had no power in their hands. Some people claimed to loathe the nobility, but more often they were simply jealous of everything the nobles possessed. If given a choice, most people would rather be the ones doing the oppressing, and would rather hold power themselves.

In the past, Wang Luan had nearly been abandoned by her family, but now it was different. In that case, did she still think the same way as before?

Wang Luan felt that what the pretty young man said was a bit chuunibyou¹Chuunibyou: A Japanese loanword meaning “middle-school syndrome,” referring to overly dramatic, self-important, or grandiose speech and behavior, often with exaggerated imagery or delusions of grandeur.—phrases like “crawl at your feet” and “elevate you to great heights” were a little embarrassing to hear but she understood his meaning.

He might not believe it, but no matter how the Wang family’s attitude toward her changed, her thoughts had never changed from beginning to end: she didn’t want to stay here.

The reason behind this was a little hard to explain. Wang Luan thought for a moment, then uttered a single sentence: “How can I bow my brows and bend my back to serve the powerful, forcing myself to wear a false smile?”

After thinking it over, only this line of poetry could best summarize her feelings.

“What?” Yan Qiongyu didn’t understand what she was saying.

That was because Wang Luan had spoken the line in the Huaxia language of her homeland. In this world, she had inherited the original Wang Luan’s language and could communicate normally with others, but the languages of the two worlds were very different.

Wang Luan could only explain it again in the simplest words: “It means, I’m not happy, I won’t do it.”

Yan Qiongyu said sharply, “What you just said—was that another language?”

Wang Luan: “Mm.”

Yan Qiongyu: “Your hometown’s language?”

Wang Luan felt like this clever guy was about to guess her origins completely, but she didn’t mind and answered frankly. “Mm.”

Who knew that Yan Qiongyu would suddenly become interested and make a request: “Can you teach me this language?”

Wang Luan wanted to say forget it, but Yan Qiongyu seemed to have guessed what she would say and blocked her refusal with a single sentence. He said, “Don’t you want someone who can communicate with you in your hometown’s language?”

Wang Luan froze. How could she not want that? Of course she did. She still missed her hometown very much; even in her dreams, familiar words echoed in her ears.

She was persuaded by that single sentence and agreed. “Alright, but the Huaxia language of my homeland is the hardest to learn. You’d better be mentally prepared.”

Yan Qiongyu, who was in the process of recovering his 3S mental power, only smiled without saying anything.

The two of them began the lessons that very night. As Wang Luan taught and taught, she discovered that the clown was actually herself, and that the one who truly hadn’t been mentally prepared was also herself.

She only knew that Yan Qiongyu was smart, but she hadn’t known that he was smart to this extent. He learned anything the moment it was taught, remembered it after seeing it once, and could even draw inferences from one example.

Pronunciation, strokes, radicals, and so on—her teaching speed couldn’t keep up with his learning speed, and she nearly had her brain hollowed out by his nonstop stream of questions.

Yan Qiongyu held the things she had written out from memory and commented, “It really is a relatively difficult language system. Your unsystematic teaching increases the difficulty of learning this language, and it seems you haven’t fully mastered this language either?”

Wang Luan held it in and held it in. “Is it my fault that I can’t write out a dictionary from memory? No one can write out a dictionary from memory. No one!”

Seeing that she was a little on the verge of losing it, Yan Qiongyu learned and applied on the spot, using the hometown language of Miss Wang Luan that he had just learned to say, “Don’t be angry, I was wrong.”

Wang Luan’s eyes suddenly reddened. “…………” Damn it, such a familiar hometown language—she couldn’t get angry at all.

Footnotes

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  Chuunibyou: A Japanese loanword meaning “middle-school syndrome,” referring to overly dramatic, self-important, or grandiose speech and behavior, often with exaggerated imagery or delusions of grandeur.