After receiving news of Wang Huan’s death, Yan Qiongyu finally prepared to leave.

Just as Wang Luan had said, her injuries were not serious. He had already examined her carefully on the first day he arrived. The reason he had not left these past few days was only to wait for news of Wang Huan’s death, and because some hesitant thoughts had been holding him back.

On the night before leaving, Yan Qiongyu handed a small cross-star-ring communicator to Wang Luan.

Compared to the communicator Qi Liao had given her, this one was obviously much more expensive, and matching that expensive exterior were its functions. This was a communicator with a very wide transmission and reception range, and extremely strong privacy.

Wang Luan had just come out of the bathroom, her hair still dripping water. One hand held the towel draped around her neck, the other held the communicator.

She heard Yan Qiongyu say, “This communicator can contact me. I’ll send you a message once every three days. If you have something urgent, you can also contact me through it.”

Although every time he came he was very intimate with her, he had never given her anything she could use to contact him. This was the first time… Was it because her injury this time had frightened him?

Wang Luan thought that encountering the star pirates this time might not be as simple as she had previously guessed, perhaps it was not retaliation from that group of rich second-generation kids she had beaten up.

Yan Qiongyu reached out and lifted the towel around her neck, wiping her hair for her, and said in a low voice, “Having this communicator may be more dangerous than not having one.”

He gave her this communicator to prevent a situation where another accident happened and Wang Luan could not contact him, but in certain circumstances, this also added danger to her.

Wang Luan looked at him. “With this, knowing you’re safe, I’ll feel much more at ease.”

Wang Luan had never said something like this before. She did not spell out her worries clearly, just as Yan Qiongyu also never spelled out his nervousness about her.

Yan Qiongyu’s expression was somewhat complicated. He never said when he would come next time, and never spoke of the future, because every time he did not know whether he would still come here to see her again, nor did he know what his future would be like. Yet some things were not entirely within his control.

The two sat by the bed. Yan Qiongyu silently wiped Wang Luan’s wet hair. Seeing her fiddle with the communicator, he weighed it for a moment and still added, “If more than ten days pass without me sending you a message, then destroy this communicator.”

Wang Luan understood what he meant and froze for a moment.

When Yan Qiongyu said this, he had guessed that Wang Luan might get angry, or might feel sad and hurt, but once again, he guessed wrong.

After a moment of silence, Wang Luan suddenly said to him, “Then next time you come, let’s hold a simple wedding.”

Yan Qiongyu: “?”

He rarely showed an expression that looked not very smart.

Wang Luan said very seriously, “Otherwise, I’ll have regrets.”

Yan Qiongyu felt it was inexplicable. Wang Luan was a very reserved person, even more so than many omegas here. This sudden straight-on confession smashed directly into his head.

“You… did you understand what I meant?” Yan Qiongyu was not entirely sure.

“I understood what you meant. It’s you who didn’t understand what I meant.” Seeing that he did not move, Wang Luan took the towel herself and rubbed her head.

Yan Qiongyu’s gaze flickered slightly. “Do you understand? I can’t stay with you for long.”

“I know.” Wang Luan looked into his eyes. “If one only dares to like something when there’s a white-haired-together-till-the-end kind of future visible at a glance, isn’t that too cowardly?”

“When I first came to this world, I was afraid, but now I’m not anymore.”

She had been cowardly before. Because she was powerless, she chose passive avoidance. But as her body and circumstances changed, her mindset was also constantly changing. Such a huge change was, to a large extent, because of Yan Qiongyu.

It was he who pulled her along this path.

Listening to her words, Yan Qiongyu revealed a smile that Wang Luan could not describe, seeming both helpless and happy. He liked to put on a gentle smiling expression, but at this moment, his expression was truly soft.

“Yes, it is I who am cowardly.” He admitted his own weakness without concealment, peeling away everything hard. “Miss Wang Luan and I are just the opposite. In the past, I was not afraid, but now I’m becoming more and more afraid.”

Wang Luan looked at his expression and was just about to comfort him, when she saw that he had already swiftly put away that illusory, fragile look. His aura instantly turned villainous, narrowing his eyes as he said, “So, I’ll hide Miss Wang Luan very well.”

Wang Luan: “…………” The feeling of heartache hadn’t even had time to be put away yet.

Yan Qiongyu looked completely natural. “You were just talking about the wedding, right? Please prepare it. Once it’s ready, notify me.”

Wang Luan turned her head away and stopped looking at his ever-changing expression, wiping her hair as she reminded herself, “…I’m an alpha now. Take responsibility. Jiayou¹Jiayou: Literally “add oil.” A common Chinese encouragement meaning “keep going,” “do your best,” or “hang in there.”.”

Yan Qiongyu smiled and lay back on the bed, resting his foot on her leg. “Jiayou. I’ll take responsibility too, so… do you lack money?”

Wang Luan slapped her thigh, regretful. “Why didn’t you ask earlier? If you’d asked earlier, I would’ve lacked money.”

Although they had expressed their feelings to each other a bit, that night they still went to sleep just like usual, and then the next morning, it was time for Yan Qiongyu to leave.

Only this time, he didn’t suddenly leave without saying goodbye like before, leaving only a note behind. He waited until Wang Luan got up, ate breakfast with her, said goodbye to her, and even took the household trash with him, just like an office worker heading to work.

Wang Luan still went to the warehouse to modify the spaceship. She picked up a component and then put it down, looking at the half-modified ship and muttering to herself, “He’s already a cat with a family. He should be able to pay a little more attention to his own physical condition, right?”

As for Yan Qiongyu, who had been pretending to be a peeled cactus in front of Wang Luan, the moment he stepped out the door, he reverted to the true colors of a villain organization’s leader.

Riding his spaceship, he first went to some Utopia to conceal his whereabouts, and only then went to the drug research laboratory at the CON base.

The omega and beta in the laboratory looked at him as if gazing upon a god, their eyes filled with burning reverence.

Yan Qiongyu took the white sterilized suit handed to him by the assistant and put it on, asking, “How has the situation been these past few days?”

The assistant had already pulled up the data, his tone slightly excited. “The situation in Area A1 has basically stabilized. In Area A2, three people experienced pheromone disorder and have already been treated with interferons…”

Yan Qiongyu listened briefly, then accessed the base’s private database and checked the data of every experimental subject. When he entered his own laboratory, the assistant stopped at the door and did not follow.

He habitually entered the scanning pod, input his own information, and compared his data from these past days. In this experimental base, including himself, everyone was an experimental subject.

“The secretion of WE pheromone is still too slow.” Yan Qiongyu pointed at several abnormally increasing data points, sat up from the scanning pod, and told the assistant outside to prepare for WE pheromone extraction.

Extracting we pheromone from the body was not easy. Losing a large amount of we pheromone at once would cause atrophy of the pheromone glands, leading to pheromone disorder, and the extraction process itself was also very painful. It was just that Yan Qiongyu was already used to it.

He was not afraid of this pain. On the contrary, every time he extracted it, he felt an uncontrollable excitement, because this was a brand-new pheromone discovered and named by him.

Starting from that pseudo-complete marking between him and Wang Luan, the accidental pheromone exchange had begun to change his body. The first signs appeared during his initial heat period, and were confirmed after he arrived at the CON base laboratory.

That was why he said Wang Luan was a miracle—not just his miracle, but the miracle of this world.

She did not simply lack a pheromone scent due to androstenone deficiency. Rather, her body had produced an entirely new pheromone, causing both alpha and omega pheromones to be rendered ineffective in her presence.

And he was like a transit station, successfully receiving that new type of pheromone. It underwent a miraculous mutation in his body, reaching a balanced state.

Alpha and omega pheromones influenced each other; even 3S-level mental strength could not shake this influence.

He had previously done simulated alpha pheromone desensitization experiments in Doctor Hu Qingyu’s laboratory, giving him some resistance to alpha pheromones—just some. But now, he had completely shaken off that influence, all because of the WE pheromone in his body.

After the extraction ended, Yan Qiongyu’s complexion turned a shade paler. Only after drinking the nutritional supplement brought by the assistant did he recover a bit of color.

When the we pheromone in-vitro cultivation and various interferon experiments he was currently working on reached a pause, he saw a black cat looking at him outside the window—it was Yan Mu’s cat.

Yan Qiongyu walked over, pinched the black cat by the back of its neck, lifted it up, and examined its eyes.

“What, Mother wants to see me?”

The black cat bared its teeth at him, trying to break free from his grip. Yan Qiongyu pressed the back of its neck and held it firmly in his arms.

Yan Mu had a separate small building within the base. Even Yan Qiongyu, her godson, had to pass through three rounds of scanning verification to see her, and was unable to carry any dangerous items.

Looking at these cumbersome procedures, Yan Qiongyu’s expression was mocking. No matter how tight the security was, Yan Mu was already walking down the path toward death.

Yan Qiongyu entered the innermost room. Yan Mu lay on the bed, looking toward the doorway, as if she had long known he would come.

“Is Mother doing well? How has the situation been these past few days?” Yan Qiongyu sat by the bed holding her cat, asking with a falsely pleasant smile.

Yan Mu, lying on the bed, looked weak yet beautiful. If anyone else were to see her, they would never believe she had once been a frenzied, blood-soaked criminal.

She looked at Yan Qiongyu. “Not bad. It’s just that the reaction is stronger than with those children in Area A1.”

“Washing out all the pheromones from the body does indeed cause a stronger reaction.” Yan Qiongyu idly stroked the cat.

Not only was he himself an experimental subject, Yan Mu had also undergone this experiment. Yan Qiongyu knew she could not refuse. Having Yan Mu participate in this experiment was one of his purposes from the beginning.

Yan Mu knew his purpose. She knew he was openly leading her onto a path of death, yet she could not refuse this temptation.

This was the shame and obsession of her entire life. She could not wait to see the result.

When Yan Qiongyu placed that possibility before her, Yan Mu knew that this time she would likely die—not in the hands of this child she had never cared about, but in the long-held obsession she had carried for so many years.

Footnotes

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  Jiayou: Literally “add oil.” A common Chinese encouragement meaning “keep going,” “do your best,” or “hang in there.”