A gust of cold wind swept past, and Wang Luan suddenly shivered.
“It’s gotten colder again, but it’s fine—there’s energy in the mecha. That heater I made this morning is working.”
Wang Luan still remembered the feeling of nearly freezing to death last night, so she immediately went to move the heater over, made a few minor adjustments, and poured in compressed energy fluid taken from the mecha.
Relying purely on energy to generate heat was rather wasteful. By tomorrow, she could use energy to drive the absorption of solar power, which would save a lot.
Yan Qiongyu didn’t speak, leaning off to the side and watching Wang Luan busy herself.
She stepped on a stone and bent down to check the heater, her manner very serious, the smile on her face relaxed. She looked even happier than when she was working in the studio at the Wang family’s luxurious mansion.
After a while, Wang Luan moved the heater into the small room.
“This heating panel can be stretched out and attached to the wall without taking up space. I also added a lamp—when the heater dissipates heat, the light will automatically turn on. It doesn’t consume extra energy, so we don’t need to use the little lamp from before. I’ll put it over here. Oh, right—can you sleep at night with a light on? If you’re not used to it, just cover it with a piece of cloth.”
Yan Qiongyu looked at Wang Luan’s back as she tidied up the heat-absorbing panels on the heater, listening to her speak a long stretch of words in a light, brisk tone, sensing the excitement that hadn’t yet faded from her.
Was she this happy because she defeated the Fifth Prince?
Safely bringing back the Fifth Prince and the mecha surprised Yan Qiongyu somewhat; he realized Wang Luan was even more reliable than he had thought.
They had suddenly been attacked and then fallen into such circumstances. He hadn’t helped much at all—almost everything regarding their survival had been considered by Wang Luan.
Wang Luan was like a strange flower or plant, living listlessly in a flourishing aristocratic courtyard, yet upon arriving on a desolate planet she suddenly burst forth with vigorous vitality.
Yan Qiongyu used to think he had seen through Wang Luan, but now he felt that perhaps he didn’t understand her all that well after all.
After solving the biggest problem of keeping warm, Wang Luan turned around and met Yan Qiongyu’s pair of pitch-black eyes, those eyes fixed steadily, studying her.
It had already gotten dark when they returned earlier. Yan Qiongyu had been sitting in the dim light. Wang Luan had spoken to him a couple of times; hearing his calm voice, she hadn’t noticed anything amiss. Now, with the light on the heater lit up, clearly illuminating Yan Qiongyu’s appearance, Wang Luan instantly noticed something unusual.
Yan Qiongyu right now could only be described by one word: damp.
His whole body seemed to be giving off moist heat—his hair, especially the strands sticking to his cheeks and the nape of his neck, looked damp as if touched by water. His face was still pale, yet his lip color was abnormally vivid red.
She didn’t know why, but seeing Yan Qiongyu like this made Wang Luan inexplicably a little afraid to get close, as if he were giving off some strange… aura?
Wang Luan couldn’t quite describe it; she just felt that Yan Qiongyu seemed a bit off.
After looking at him a few more times, Wang Luan still couldn’t help asking, “Did you sweat a lot?”
Yan Qiongyu answered briefly, “It was too hot during the day.”
Ah, true, it was very hot during the day. She had also sweated a lot today. Unfortunately, they hadn’t found a water source, and there was no way to bathe.
Yan Qiongyu’s words diverted Wang Luan’s attention for a moment, but she soon sensed that something still wasn’t right.
That sharp alert in her mind regarding Yan Qiongyu kept poking at her.
After she came back today, Yan Qiongyu had spoken very little and hadn’t even taken the initiative to ask what had happened on her way. She examined his appearance again, her eyes slowly widening as she asked nervously, “You wouldn’t be…?”
Yan Qiongyu’s gaze flickered slightly.
“You wouldn’t be running a fever, would you? It really was too cold last night, you caught a chill!”
Wang Luan walked over, reached out to quickly check Yan Qiongyu’s forehead, then pulled her hand back, her tone certain. “It’s a fever. You’re sick, why didn’t you say anything?”
Yan Qiongyu: “………………”
Wang Luan sat at the edge of the bed, worried. “What should we do? There’s no medicine.”
Yan Qiongyu realized that she truly hadn’t noticed that his heat period had arrived.
“Rest for a few days and it’ll be fine.”
Wang Luan’s stomach let out a rumbling sound. Yan Qiongyu picked up a tube of nutrient fluid and handed it to her. Wang Luan glanced at it and noticed that not a single tube was missing. “You didn’t eat today?”
Yan Qiongyu answered simply, “Not hungry.”
Aside from the heat period, the lingering dizziness in his head hadn’t subsided; he couldn’t swallow anything at all.
Another wave of heat surged through his body. He resisted the sensation, but when he spoke, his voice still leaked a trace of unstable tremor.
Wang Luan was fooled by his surface calm and didn’t catch that slight quiver. She just tore open a tube of nutrient fluid and muttered, “If you don’t eat when you’re sick, it’ll be even harder to get better.”
She quickly finished most of the tube, then handed the rest to Yan Qiongyu. “Then eat a little.”
After saying that, she didn’t wait for Yan Qiongyu to refuse and got up to get some water.
She poured the water into a small container and placed it on the heater, planning to warm it up so Yan Qiongyu could drink some hot water. Given the situation, this was the only thing she could do.
When she came back, Yan Qiongyu was already lying down on the bed, and the remaining half tube of nutrient fluid was gone.
Seeing that he looked ready to rest, drowsiness also washed over Wang Luan. She hadn’t slept much yesterday, and today had been exhausting; she was already worn out, so she climbed onto the bed and lay down as well.
With the heater on today, the little room wasn’t cold. Yan Qiongyu didn’t hold her, but the bed was too small, so the two of them still had to lie pressed closely together.
Before lying down, Wang Luan sniffed herself, thinking that since they had both sweated, it wasn’t like he could complain about her. But once she lay down, she didn’t smell any sweat. Instead, a faint fragrance drifted over from Yan Qiongyu beside her.
Sniffing again, she even sensed that this fragrance was mixed with a bit of Yan Qiongyu’s pheromone-like scent.
Wang Luan was almost asleep, her mind a little hazy. She thought that Yan Qiongyu must be unconsciously releasing a bit of pheromones because he was sick.
This scent triggered her conditioned response. The glandular teeth in her mouth emerged slightly, making her feel like she might drool. She unconsciously licked her lips.
There was still a wound on her lips left from fighting with the Fifth Prince. After licking a few times, the wound split open, and threads of blood seeped out.
Yan Qiongyu had his eyes closed and looked very calm, but his rolling Adam’s apple betrayed his suffering.
Sensing that the person lying beside him had gone still, Yan Qiongyu opened his eyes. As time passed, his heat-period symptoms began to worsen. From the moment Wang Luan had returned and sat beside him, he had felt every seam of his bones moaning.
Now that she was lying next to him, he felt magma rolling inside his body. Only the parts pressed against her cooled as if meeting cold water. Tonight was completely opposite from last night.
Yan Qiongyu lowered his gaze to look at the wound on Wang Luan’s cracked lips where blood beads overflowed. Lips that had suffered violence carried a vivid, decayed redness; the bright red droplets of blood were especially eye-catching, making them look pitiful and stirring an urge to approach, to cherish, to touch.
An omega in heat would crave an alpha’s bodily fluids even more, and desire intimate contact more intensely. Yan Qiongyu stared at the blood beads until the sleeping Wang Luan unconsciously licked her lips. He snapped back to his senses, realized what he was looking at, abruptly closed his eyes, and exhaled two breaths of hot air.
Wang Luan probably felt uncomfortable lying still. After a while, she shifted and turned onto her side, brushing against his body as she moved.
Just such a simple contact was enough to trigger a tremor. Yan Qiongyu raised a hand to press against his forehead, his brows knitting tightly, his Adam’s apple rolling again and again.
This kind of physiological craving was far harder to resist than pain. Yan Qiongyu had never imagined that he would be left in such a miserable state by a heat period.
Wang Luan woke from the heat. She moved her neck slightly, still a bit dazed.
Something was resting against her neck—a head. She froze, not daring to move, and from the corner of her eye saw Yan Qiongyu’s black, tousled hair resting on her shoulder. His breathing was scorching, slow, brushing against her shoulder blade.
The clothes at the places pressed tightly together were soaked with sweat, clinging to the skin. Heat conducted from Yan Qiongyu’s body to hers. Wang Luan’s first reaction was: oh no, his fever is really bad.
She scrambled up from the bed and patted Yan Qiongyu’s arm, startled by the temperature. Burning up like this—would he be okay?
Her wrist was suddenly grabbed. Yan Qiongyu lay there without moving, but his hand gripped her tightly. Wang Luan felt that his strength was terrifyingly strong; she couldn’t pull free at all. In just a moment, she felt her hand grow slick.
“Yan Qiongyu, are you feeling really bad? Get up and drink some hot water?”
Under her gentle shaking, Yan Qiongyu finally opened his eyes and looked at her.
The corners of his eyes were red, with no sickly look—on the contrary, he appeared indescribably beautiful and moving. He looked at her, lips parting slightly, faintly exhaling. That gaze was no longer his usual calm scrutiny, but unusually scorching.
The atmosphere in the narrow room was strange, and by her ear Yan Qiongyu’s breathing sounded thick and sticky, like honey.
Wang Luan was almost dragged onto him by his suddenly increased strength. She barely managed to steady herself, bracing against the edge of the bed, and realized that she was actually blushing under his gaze. She immediately screamed internally that this was ridiculous.
What was she doing? He was so seriously ill—why was she blushing at a sick person? Was she a beast?!
Wang Luan awkwardly broke free of Yan Qiongyu’s hand, brought over the hot water that had been placed on the heater, and reached out to help him sit up to drink. Yan Qiongyu said nothing and rose along with her force.
She supported his back with her hand and felt his muscles twitching slightly.
Yan Qiongyu reached out to take the water, but seeing that even his fingers were trembling, Wang Luan held the water herself and brought it to his lips for him to drink. Yan Qiongyu didn’t look at her, lowering his eyes as he drank.
The scent of Yan Qiongyu’s pheromones in the air seemed even stronger. Sensing how subtle the atmosphere had become, Wang Luan felt she should say something to dispel the awkwardness, so she said, “The smell you give off when you’re sick is kind of like air freshener. The whole room smells nice, haha.”
After taking two sips of water, Yan Qiongyu paused, lifted his head to look at her expressionlessly, then lowered it again to continue drinking.
She was different from ordinary alphas—she couldn’t feel the pressure within an alpha’s pheromones, nor could she sense the inviting undertone within an omega’s pheromones at this moment.
