On Tuesday afternoon, after finishing his lab class, Chi Jiahan returned to the classroom. When he reached the second floor and looked up, he saw Xu Ze’s back. He froze for a moment, then ran a couple of steps to catch up and grabbed him.
“Didn’t you take the day off?”
Xu Ze turned around. His lips were pale, his face flushed with an unnatural redness, and his eyelashes drooped. He looked listless, but his eyes were bright and watery, clearly showing the effects of a fever.
“I took the morning off,” Xu Ze said. His voice was very hoarse. “It’s afternoon now.”
Anyone with a brain knew that it was afternoon. Chi Jiahan closed his eyes speechlessly for a moment. “You’re only taking half a day off when you’re in heat?”
“Midterms are coming.” Xu Ze’s brain seemed to be working a little slowly. He paused for a second before continuing, “The swimming class midterm is today.”
“You can apply for a makeup exam. It’s not another subject, so there’s no concern about the questions being leaked. And you’re in heat. The teacher will definitely agree.”
Chi Jiahan’s logic was airtight. There was no flaw to pick apart. Xu Ze was silent for a while before answering, “I want to take it today.”
“Why does it have to be today? Is there someone you like in swimming class today? Even if there is, are you really going to go see them looking bruised, swollen, dizzy, and out of it? What if you perform badly and get a poor score? It wouldn’t be worth it.”
They were merely absurd hypothetical situations. Chi Jiahan knew perfectly well that none of them would ever happen to Xu Ze. Xu Ze was always stubbornly determined about certain things without saying a word. Chi Jiahan only hoped that he would take his own health more seriously—although the possibility of that was extremely slim.
After saying this, Chi Jiahan saw Xu Ze’s eyelashes move. Then Xu Ze shifted his gaze to somewhere else and, after a moment, said, “I won’t perform badly.”
“……”
Chi Jiahan realized that whenever he talked to Xu Ze, it was always difficult for them to agree on what the actual point of the conversation was. He wondered whether this counted as one of the differences in thinking between alphas and omegas.
“Are you uncomfortable right now?”
“I’m okay,” Xu Ze said.
“How many injections of inhibitor did you take?”
“Not many.” Xu Ze looked away again. He wasn’t very good at lying, and he knew there was no point in lying to Chi Jiahan, so he answered honestly, “Three.”
“……” Chi Jiahan looked at him incredulously. “You’re not an alpha. You’re basically an AI.”
“Three injections of inhibitor. Aren’t you afraid your pheromones will become unstable and you’ll develop a high fever and go into shock?”
Just as he finished speaking, the bell rang. Xu Ze ignored Chi Jiahan’s question and somewhat awkwardly patted his arm, offering silent reassurance.
“Go back to class,” Xu Ze said.
During the last class of the afternoon, Lu Heyang came out of the changing room. The omegas and alphas were already lining up beside the pool, warming up in preparation for the exam. Several alphas at the front of the line waved at Lu Heyang and told him to come stand near the front so he could finish his exam and get out of class earlier.
Lu Heyang smiled and shook his head, then stood at the very back of the line.
There was an alpha who arrived even later than him.
Sensing someone behind him, Lu Heyang instinctively turned around.
At the exact moment he looked back, Xu Ze was lowering his head.
Xu Ze wasn’t wearing gauze on his face today. There was a faint patch of bluish-purple where his nose met the left side of his face. His eyelashes were still lowered, making it difficult to see his features clearly. Lu Heyang glanced at him once before turning back to listen to the teacher explain the contents of today’s exam.
The teacher spoke into a megaphone, every word echoing throughout the swimming pool. Xu Ze paused for several seconds before raising his head and looking at Lu Heyang’s back.
Lu Heyang had the tall, straight physique characteristic of an alpha during adolescence, caught somewhere between youthful awkwardness and maturity. His shoulders and back were smooth and level, his legs long, and the muscle lines along his back and arms were fluid and perfectly formed. His skin was fair, without a single scar or bruise. Even among the many exceptionally well-endowed S-rank alphas, he could be considered one of the best.
His hands hung at his sides, the joints clearly defined, pale and slender. When hanging naturally, his ten fingers curved into relaxed arcs. On an alpha, these hands looked almost too refined and beautiful, yet they still possessed a sense of strength, making it seem as though hands like these were exactly what Lu Heyang should have.
Xu Ze stared at Lu Heyang’s left hand.
After looking at it for quite some time, he suddenly realized that the swimming pool had become completely quiet. There wasn’t a sound at all. It was extremely strange.
As Xu Ze thought this, the familiar sounds of splashing water and voices suddenly rushed into his ears.
Only then did he realize just how distracted he had been.
The alpha exam consisted of a 50-meter freestyle and a 200-meter individual medley. There were four examination pools, each with eight lanes. The physical education teachers divided all the students into groups of eight according to their position in line, with four groups taking the exam simultaneously each time.
Xu Ze and Lu Heyang were assigned to the same group. Lu Heyang was in lane four, and Xu Ze was in lane five.
It was nearly time for class to end when their turn finally came. The previous group was still taking the exam, while the eight alphas walked to the starting points and prepared.
Lu Heyang stood beside Xu Ze. He was merely standing there, but Xu Ze felt an invisible pressure bearing down on him, making his entire body stiffen.
“He Wei said last time that I should race you and see how we compare.” Lu Heyang looked at the pool and suddenly spoke. “He was right.”
He didn’t look at Xu Ze, not even turning his head slightly, so it took Xu Ze about three seconds to realize that Lu Heyang was actually talking to him.
“It’s not…” Xu Ze’s fingers twitched. He really wanted to grab onto something, but there was nothing there. He pressed his lips together and swallowed before continuing to speak. “It’s an exam. It doesn’t count as a race.”
Lu Heyang finally looked at him. He seemed to smile slightly.
“If this one doesn’t count, want to race next class?”
That wasn’t what Xu Ze meant. He suspected that, in Lu Heyang’s eyes, he had now become an alpha who was overly competitive. So he said, “There’s no need to race. You swim better than I do.”
“Why?”
Today should have been their first swimming class together. Lu Heyang had no idea where Xu Ze had gotten that conclusion, so he asked casually, “Have you seen my previous results?”
The alphas in the previous group had already reached the finish line, and the teaching assistant was recording their times. Waves churned across the pool.
Xu Ze stared straight at the rippling water, feeling as though his mind was in exactly the same state.
He heard himself say, “No. I guessed.”
Lu Heyang turned his head to look at him again. From the side, Xu Ze’s expression looked blank, almost dazed, and there was also a stiffness to him. In short, he clearly wasn’t himself.
It was their turn to go up. Lu Heyang walked toward his position.
After Lu Heyang left, Xu Ze stood there for a few more seconds before walking toward the starting point. The rippling water made him dizzy. Xu Ze raised a hand and rubbed his face, accidentally pressing against the bruise beside his nose. It hurt a little. He froze for a moment, then put on his goggles.
The first test was the 50-meter freestyle. At the sound of the whistle, all eight alphas leaped into the pool at the same time. After entering the water, Xu Ze glanced to his right. Lu Heyang’s figure was somewhat blurred beneath the water, but it was easy to see that his swimming form was beautiful, almost like a fish.
Xu Ze turned his head back, extended his arms to pull through the water, and kicked his legs as hard as he could.
Very soon, his fingertips touched the pool wall. Xu Ze raised his upper body, and just as he emerged from the water, he heard the PE teacher calling out, “Lane five, first. Lane four, second. Lane one, third…”
At the finish line, the eight teaching assistants held stopwatches and recorded the results. Xu Ze wiped the water from his chin and grabbed onto the lane divider. A long, powerful hand also reached up and gripped it, only ten centimeters away from him.
Lu Heyang took off his goggles and pushed his wet hair back. Droplets of water rolled down his forehead and the high bridge of his nose, sliding over his Adam’s apple before dripping back into the pool.
The pool water was cold, but Xu Ze felt very hot—it was probably because he was in heat. Through the pale blue lenses of his goggles, he looked at Lu Heyang’s profile, then quickly turned his head away to look somewhere else.
Lu Heyang didn’t linger. He immediately climbed out of the pool and went to the starting point, preparing for the next event, the 200-meter individual medley.
Another whistle sounded, and the second test began.
After entering the water, Xu Ze and Lu Heyang maintained a lead over the other alphas, their speeds evenly matched. But once they reached 150 meters, Xu Ze began to struggle.
He was in heat, and under the emotional fluctuations and intense exercise, a large amount of pheromones was being secreted. Because of the effects of those three injections of inhibitor, however, the pheromones could only accumulate inside his body, causing fever, dizziness, and weakness in his limbs, which affected his physical stamina.
During the final fifty meters, Xu Ze was moving forward entirely on instinct. The lane seemed endless. His body felt as though it were sinking heavily, and even lifting his head to breathe became difficult.
Finally, his hand touched the pool wall. Out of strength, Xu Ze only managed to surface long enough to take a breath before his entire body sank back down. His feet felt weak and slipped against the bottom of the pool. He tried to grab the lane divider but couldn’t reach it.
In the struggle, his fingers seemed to brush against something again. Xu Ze thought it was the lane divider and desperately reached out his hand.
He still failed to grab anything, but his wrist was suddenly seized tightly. A force pulled him upward, dragging him out of the water.
Xu Ze coughed hard. The lane divider was right in front of him. He draped himself over it and took huge breaths, his entire face covered in water.
“Xu Ze, Xu Ze, what happened?”
Xu Ze wiped the water from his face and looked up. The PE teacher was crouching at the edge of the pool, looking at him. He asked again, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Xu Ze shook his head.
He turned back.
Lu Heyang was right across from him, with a lane divider between them. Xu Ze’s lips parted slightly as his chest rose and fell several times. He said to him, “Thank you.”
“It’s nothing,” Lu Heyang said. “Get out.”
Lu Heyang pushed himself up from the edge of the pool with both hands and climbed out. One of the teaching assistants reached a hand toward Xu Ze and helped him out.
The PE teacher checked the results beside them and said, “Lu Heyang did well. Two minutes and 7.21 seconds. Xu Ze, two minutes and 7.68 seconds. You were only a little behind.”
The next group of alphas was preparing to take the test. Xu Ze and Lu Heyang walked toward the passage beside the pool.
Xu Ze walked behind Lu Heyang, gripping his goggles tightly in his hand. A few seconds later, Xu Ze quickened his pace by two steps until he was slightly behind Lu Heyang’s side.
“Congratulations.”
Lu Heyang looked back in surprise. At the same time, he slowed his pace. Once they were walking side by side, he asked, “Congratulations for what?”
“The 200-meter individual medley. You should be first in the grade,” Xu Ze explained.
Actually, Xu Ze had already regretted saying “congratulations” the moment the word left his mouth. It was only a small test, after all. Lu Heyang probably didn’t need someone to go out of their way to congratulate him—and even more awkwardly, he had actually explained why he had said “congratulations.”
Chi Jiahan had said before that an alpha’s IQ dropped by at least seventy percent while in heat.
Apparently, it was true.
Lu Heyang was unusually stunned for a moment. It really was the first time someone had congratulated him after a midterm exam, and it felt somewhat novel.
He smiled and said, “Then congratulations to you, too.”
Seeing Xu Ze’s confusion, Lu Heyang followed his example and explained, “For the 50-meter freestyle, you should be first in the grade.”
Unfortunately, Xu Ze wasn’t the type of person who knew how to play along with jokes or banter. He was silent for a moment, then answered very seriously, “Thank you.”
Lu Heyang turned his head to look at him, then looked forward again after a moment.
Xu Ze felt that Lu Heyang seemed to smile again.
Then he heard Lu Heyang say, “You’re welcome.”