Chapter 1

Ying Zhiyu died—suddenly, inexplicably.

It all started with a school-organized blood donation. His pheromones unexpectedly matched with Li Xi, the “Third Prince” of the pheromone business empire.

A few months later, Ying Zhiyu found himself forced at gunpoint to marry Li Xi.

The Li family’s LI Pheromone Laboratory produced 98% of the nation’s authoritative drugs related to glands and pheromones. In a modern society where daily life, work, and study rely heavily on inhibitors and similar medications, the Li family’s monopoly over pheromone technology meant they effectively controlled the nation’s medical and economic lifelines.

As the current head of the Li family’s third branch, Li Xi being called the “Third Prince” was no exaggeration.

From the moment their pheromones matched to the signing of the marriage certificate, Ying Zhiyu had never seen Li Xi in person. He later learned the real reason he was chosen: his “married image” made him more competitive in the family inheritance struggle. With match percentage, age, education, and family background all considered, Ying Zhiyu was the perfect live-in husband Alpha.

Li Xi was busy. After the honeymoon period, he rarely initiated contact. Over the years, they had almost no interaction.

Then, in their eleventh year of marriage, Li Xi’s Alpha father, Li Songqian, fell gravely ill. A nationally-watched inheritance battle was about to ignite. At that critical moment, Ying Zhiyu was kidnapped. He became the unlucky one, a bargaining chip.

Ying Zhiyu couldn’t understand why anyone would kidnap him. Over the past decade, his role had mostly been symbolic, serving Li Xi’s public image—hardly enough to affect the inheritance of a pheromone empire.

Yet, unexpectedly, Li Xi received a call from Ying Zhiyu during a shareholders’ meeting. Upon learning of the kidnapping, he paused briefly, then demanded a video call. It was clear he needed to confirm Ying Zhiyu was really in their hands.

The kidnappers refused the video request, hung up, and even threw Ying Zhiyu’s SIM card out the car window. When they finally reached their destination, they cut off one of his fingers.

Ying Zhiyu realized: they were proving he was in their hands. It was both proof and a threat.

Ying Zhiyu had marked Li Xi before; Li Xi could identify the source of the pheromones from the severed finger without even needing a lab test.

Over the next week, the kidnappers moved him through three more hideouts. During the fourth transfer, they were intercepted. Ying Zhiyu was rescued.

But being unlucky never truly left him. Though found, he was immediately taken to the ICU. The bastards who cut his finger either used a filthy blade or treated the wound carelessly. A few days later, he developed high fever, convulsions, and difficulty swallowing. By the time he was intercepted, he was barely conscious.

Within less than forty-eight hours in the ICU, Ying Zhiyu succumbed to tetanus infection, leading to multi-organ failure.

On his deathbed, in his final moments of lucidity, he saw his family enter the room: his father, mother, sister… and Li Xi.

Li Xi had been there all along, sitting silently. His family’s eyes were red with worry, but Ying Zhiyu felt he had nothing left to explain. After all, he had indirectly died because of Li Xi, who would now take care of his family.

When Li Xi finally stood and came to the bedside, their eyes met. Li Xi looked calmer than his own family.

Ying Zhiyu wanted to complain: the amputation was overkill! The incompetent doctors, pressured by Li Xi, had reluctantly suggested it. He had been too furious to speak, but since death was imminent, he let it go.

Closing his eyes, he thought he heard Li Xi call his name—hoarse, but unmistakable.

“Zhiyu, continue.”

Xu Kuo tossed the experiment report onto Ying Zhiyu’s desk, walking over to offer a few perfunctory words. Essentially, he was asking Ying Zhiyu to write the lab report for him.

Xu Kuo had been Ying Zhiyu’s graduate school roommate. A typical privileged rich kid: though his family business couldn’t rival the Li empire, the Xu family still owned a pharmaceutical company.

After closing his eyes in the ICU, Ying Zhiyu was reborn—eleven years earlier.

He came back to a point before he was forced at gunpoint to marry, but after he had already donated blood.

In his previous life, Ying Zhiyu had accomplished fairly well.

Although he had reluctantly become a live-in husband, Li Xi had never restricted his work. Ying Zhiyu had made a name for himself in his field: after earning his PhD from the University of Biomedical Sciences, he studied abroad for two years, then returned to China to follow a research career at the National Institute of Biology.

At this point, a second-year graduate lab report was no challenge for him.

But today, Ying Zhiyu had other matters to attend to.

“LI Pheromone Laboratory?”

Xu Kuo raised an eyebrow. “What are you going there for?”

Everyone in the country knew the value of the LI Pheromone Laboratory.

Xu Kuo immediately assumed that their advisor had secretly used his influence to get Ying Zhiyu an internship at LI, favoring his star student.

Ying Zhiyu, however, opened an email on his laptop.

It was an official LI lab email, showing that he had apparently won a commemorative inhibitor gift pack worth 88,000 yuan.

Xu Kuo raised a suspicious brow. “This isn’t some new scam, is it?”

Ying Zhiyu closed the email. “I checked LI’s official website. The prize is at the LI headquarters in the capital, and their official support confirmed my identity.”

Of course, this was something Ying Zhiyu had done in his previous life.

This time, he didn’t bother verifying the prize. After all, what appeared to be a prize was really just a quiet “selection” by the prince.

With plenty of time, Ying Zhiyu took a shower. Coming out of the bathroom, he ran into Xu Kuo preparing to leave.

Xu Kuo laughed at him. “Bath and incense for a lab prize? Country bumpkin.”

Ying Zhiyu dried his hair silently. Xu Kuo didn’t press it further.

As his graduate roommate under the same advisor, Xu Kuo had previously offloaded nearly all his work onto Ying Zhiyu.

Everyone knew how this rich, spoiled kid even managed to get into a top medical university as a grad student. He could tease a modest-background student like Ying Zhiyu, but he wouldn’t risk an actual conflict.

The dorm door clicked, and Xu Kuo left.

When Ying Zhiyu finished getting ready to go out, Xu Kuo suddenly called him via WeChat.

“How are you getting to the lab?”

“Subway,” Ying Zhiyu replied.

Xu Kuo: “Then pick up a gift for Ni Lu at Wangfujing for me.”

“My mom froze my card recently. Grab a shopping card from my drawer—get extra, I need to bribe her a bit.”

Xu Kuo didn’t actually know if Ying Zhiyu’s route from school to the LI lab passed by Wangfujing. He just wanted someone to run the errand, unconcerned with convenience.

Ying Zhiyu didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he switched the call to video, turned on the rear camera, and panned it toward Xu Kuo’s bed.

Under the bed was a full drawer of prepaid cards from major department stores. Alpha, rich kid—Xu Kuo often used these to appease Omegas.

Of course, these low-denomination cards, rarely exceeding five figures, were only meant to cast a wide net. The main girlfriend couldn’t be won over with these careless little cards.

Ying Zhiyu counted ten Wangfujing cards, each worth 1,000 yuan, showing the remaining cards in the drawer clearly on camera before taking a screenshot and ending the call.

He then sent the screenshot and left the dorm.

About an hour later, while on the subway, Ying Zhiyu received Xu Kuo’s voice reply:

[Xu Kuo: Why didn’t you grab more? Just pick some cosmetics or skincare, don’t get a bag.]

Before he finished listening to the first message, a second one came through.

[Xu Kuo: A bag worth ten thousand? That won’t do.]

The wealthy young master didn’t care whether his “impoverished” roommate might try to sneak a few extra cards. But when he saw Ying Zhiyu’s screenshot, he realized that ten cards together only amounted to ten thousand yuan.

To Xu Kuo, ten thousand yuan was paltry.

Ying Zhiyu stepped out of the subway station and replied: [Got it.]

He scanned a shared bike at the exit, locked his phone, and tucked it into his jacket pocket.

At the designated “prize collection” location, he parked the bike by the side.

At the entrance, the reception staff were guiding people to line up and fill out registration forms.

Of course, Ying Zhiyu wasn’t the only Alpha qualified to meet Li Xi’s pheromone requirements. There were around ten others in line.

The young Alphas were all tall and lean; when they bent forward, their latissimus muscles naturally stretched, giving a broad-yet-slim, well-proportioned look.

The receptionist glanced at Ying Zhiyu a couple of times and then leaned slightly to observe the handwriting on his form.

After filling out the forms, the staff handed each Alpha the commemorative inhibitor set worth 88,000 yuan.

Each set was numbered differently, giving the holder a personal “ID tag” of sorts.

Since LI Pheromone Laboratory rarely opened to the public, when the staff mentioned they could also show the lab, nobody objected. Excited, they followed the staff into the main building.

At this moment, none of them knew—they were already like goods on a store shelf, carrying their price tags and waiting for someone to “choose” them.

As Ying Zhiyu entered a lab with walls made entirely of amber-colored glass, he lifted his head slightly, sensing something, and looked toward one of the glass walls.

At the same time, the person silently observing behind the one-way mirror froze.

The assistant standing behind him immediately stepped forward and brought up a profile card:

Name: Ying Zhiyu
Gender: Alpha
Age: 21
Height: 188 cm
Education: Second-year graduate student in Genetic Engineering, University of Biomedical Sciences
Relationship history: Suspected to have an Omega partner; purchasing history suggests multiple related gifts.
Annual income: 800,000–1,000,000 yuan

“21, second-year grad, earning a million a year?”