Ignoring the system’s shrieking, Lin Zhu raised a hand to cover the lower half of his face and swept his gaze across the table. Not seeing any tissues, he quickly stood up.

“Where’s the restroom, please?”

The female tea master immediately lifted a hand and pointed him in the right direction.

Perhaps it was simply because young people’s blood ran too hot, but the nosebleed had already dripped down onto Lin Zhu’s collar, staining his white T-shirt with bright specks of red.

If embarrassment could kill, then without a doubt, Lin Zhu had just died for the second time.

He hurried out of the tea room, only managing to toss Yan Ruojun a rushed “Sorry” before leaving.

Two drops of the Alpha’s blood still remained on the tabletop. The tea master promptly called for someone to come clean it up, then, with a signal from Yan Ruojun, left the room together with the attendant.

Soon enough, Yan Ruojun was the only one left in the room.

Just then, the phone he had left face-down on the table suddenly vibrated twice. He picked it up and looked—

It was a message from his friend Xia Feng.

[Junjun, did you meet what’s-his-name?]

He replied: [I did.]

Xia Feng was a married Omega. He had met his current husband as soon as he came of age, and the two had married in a whirlwind less than a year after they started dating. They had remained as loving as ever for years, practically a model couple.

Yan Ruojun had grown up with him. Although the two had completely different personalities, they had always been close.

Xia Feng was also one of the few people who knew about Yan Ruojun’s illness, and he cared very much about it.

[So what do you think?]

Thinking back over everything the boy had done after entering, Yan Ruojun found it a little amusing and slowly typed his reply.

[What’s there to think? He’s just a little brat.]

Xia Feng replied quickly.

[I asked around more carefully. I heard the kid’s especially promiscuous. He doesn’t even study properly and spends all day flirting and messing around with people.]

Yan Ruojun again remembered the awkward way the boy had entered, the way he avoided eye contact the entire time, and the few times he had secretly glanced at his gland. He found it even more amusing.

Especially promiscuous?

That didn’t seem entirely true. What kind of especially promiscuous Alpha got a nosebleed just from looking at an Omega a few times?

Truth be told, Yan Ruojun had not been in a very good mood when he came here today. He had already been wary of the possible effects that a 100% pheromone compatibility might have on him, and then the other party had shown up late on top of that.

So the moment they met, Yan Ruojun had jabbed him with that remark.

Unexpectedly, the golden-haired boy had only blankly answered with an “Mm.” His face said “whatever,” but every single movement of his body suggested the exact opposite—

As though he were saying, “I really want to run away.”

He looked even more like someone being forced into this meeting than Yan Ruojun, the Omega, did.

So Yan Ruojun mischievously chose to say nothing after that.

And the person across from him didn’t say anything either, keeping his eyes lowered the whole time and drinking tea nonstop. Every now and then he would glance over, seemingly thinking he hadn’t been noticed.

Yan Ruojun was very sensitive to other people’s gazes.

So he could clearly feel the boy’s eyes briefly landing on his face, on his neck…

and then retreating at once as though burned.

Some Alphas would deliberately stare at an Omega’s gland. Some even maliciously released a little pheromone to tease the Omega.

It was extremely bad manners, but undeniably, a lot of young Alphas had done exactly that.

Yan Ruojun’s mood worsened.

So he jabbed him again:

“What are you looking at?”

The moment those words fell, the boy across from him grew even more uncomfortable, as though sitting on pins and needles, and raised his teacup to hide behind it. His face reddened more and more, and even the ears hidden beneath his golden hair turned crimson…

And then the boy got a nosebleed.

For one brief moment, Yan Ruojun had the absurd thought—

Which one of them was really the easily affected Omega here?

But there was no question about it:

That awkward, rather undignified little episode somehow gave him an inexplicable sense of security, and even dispelled the unpleasantness in his heart.

Yan Ruojun raised a hand and touched the collar around his neck, then quietly let out a breath.

He hadn’t smelled any pheromones, and he hadn’t suddenly gone into heat…

That was good.

—

Just as Yan Ruojun was finally putting his mind at ease, the system was practically heartbroken enough to bleed.

“Host, stop washing! With this little pheromone left, you’re going to wash it all off…!!”

Inside the restroom,

Lin Zhu washed the blood from his nose and, while he was at it, splashed some water on his face. Irritated, he snapped back, “If I don’t wash, can I still face people?”

After shutting off the faucet, he looked at the familiar face in the mirror. His bangs were slightly wet now, so he could only rake them back carelessly.

His collar was damp too, the bloodstains spreading out into pale pink blotches.

Seeing that it was hopeless, the system drooped and said weakly, “Then let’s go back and keep doing the task, okay? As long as you close the distance a bit, the protagonist may still be forced into heat…”

Lin Zhu clicked his tongue. “Seriously?”

“Of course it’s serious! Host, don’t underestimate ABO-world settings. A 100% pheromone compatibility is no joke!”

Lin Zhu let his eyelids droop and muttered under his breath, “That’s exactly why it feels so annoying… it’s like the animal kingdom.”

Since its own lack of technical competence had caused the first plot-completion mission to get stuck, the system already felt guilty. Noticing that Lin Zhu’s attitude had turned a little negative, it awkwardly tried to persuade him:

“Well… ABO worlds do have their own social logic. Host, don’t overthink it. Only by completing the roleplay task can you return to your original world and be revived…”

Lin Zhu: “Oh.”

After all, he was just an unlucky bastard. He had studied himself half to death for years, and right after walking out of the college entrance exam room, he got hit by a car and sent flying more than ten meters. If the system hadn’t bound itself to him in time, he’d already be a corpse now.

And not even an intact one.

His brief life would simply have ended there.

Lin Zhu braced both hands against the edge of the sink and lowered his head, murmuring to himself:

“What a waste…”

He stood there in silence for a while.

Then he forcibly suppressed the emotions rising in his heart, preparing to leave the restroom and return to the private room to continue the roleplaying mission.

But the moment he stepped forward, Lin Zhu felt that something was wrong with his body—

A strange damp heat surged up from inside him. His heartbeat, which had only just calmed down, immediately flared back up, pounding faster and faster. At the same time, his nose began to feel warm again.

What the hell was going on?

Lin Zhu touched beneath his nose.

It was clean.

Then he looked back into the mirror and discovered that the whites of his eyes had suddenly filled with red blood vessels. Paired with that already dangerous-looking face of his, he now looked so dark and violent that no one would dare approach him.

“How could this happen?!” the system cried out in alarm. “Host, you’re in rut!”

Lin Zhu: “?”

Then the system’s electronic voice lagged for a second before suddenly switching topics.

“…Huh? Wait. The progress bar for this roleplay task has already jumped to halfway full? Could it be that as long as the temporary mark gets completed, it’ll count as successfully filling in this plot?”

Its electronic tone sounded uncertain.

Lin Zhu was uncertain too, and asked sincerely, “You’re not even sure either? Don’t tell me you’re some unlicensed bootleg system?”

So unreliable.

The system sounded as though he’d stepped directly on its sore spot and stammered out an explanation:

“I-I’m just an intern! My main functions are recording the plot and assisting the host in completing performances. The mission-evaluation module is handled by an external subsystem…”

No wonder.

Lin Zhu irritably tugged at his collar several times to cool himself down, then reached behind himself and touched the gland at the back of his neck. The moment his fingertips brushed that slightly heated patch of skin, his body shuddered reflexively, sensitive beyond belief.

At the same time, a violent restlessness gushed up from the bottom of his heart, as if craving something…

and mixed in with that craving was an extreme urge to destroy.

Lin Zhu turned the faucet back on and splashed two handfuls of cold water onto his face, thinking vaguely:

So this is what Alpha rut feels like?

Feels more like a manic episode.

Then he thought of the protagonist, Yan Ruojun.

In the novel, Yan Ruojun suffered deeply from it. Every time his heat arrived, he had no choice but to put all work aside and lock himself in a room, seeing no one.

He couldn’t use inhibitors, so he could only take cold baths to lower his temperature. Because of that, he had come down with severe colds multiple times, and once had even developed pneumonia and been hospitalized for days.

Perhaps because of that endless, day-after-day torment, once he met the scumbag ex-husband, he became unable to resist the trap of pheromones, like a butterfly tangled in a spider’s web, struggling in vain.

…That had to feel hopeless, right?

Lin Zhu kept splashing water onto his face. In the end, he couldn’t help ducking his whole head under the faucet and soaking it in cold water. Only then did he barely manage to suppress the craving and agitation inside him.

After thinking for a long time, he asked the system:

“Tell me… if I go beg the protagonist to bite me once, would that still count as completing the roleplay task?”

Talk about the world being turned upside down.

The system was left speechless, its mechanical voice heavy with sorrow.

“I don’t know either. I’m just a scapegoat intern…”

Lin Zhu closed his eyes. “Fine. Then I guess the two of us useless idiots really were fated to end up together.”

The system was too embarrassed to respond.

Lin Zhu shook his head, making his damp golden hair even more wild and unruly. Without his bangs covering it, the pair of slightly downturned, narrow eyes beneath were fully revealed, making his whole air even fiercer.

He had the kind of face that looked delinquent, the sort that often made people mistake him for an ill-tempered thug of a student.

In reality, Lin Zhu’s temper wasn’t bad at all.

You could even say he was a perfectly decent young man with sound values.

It was just that hardly anyone ever believed it.

After shaking off the water droplets, Lin Zhu immediately turned to leave. But just as he reached the door, he heard several voices talking outside in the hallway.

“Su Quan, do you smell that? Is there an Alpha in rut nearby?!”

“The pheromones seem to be drifting over from the restroom area.”

“What the hell’s going on?”

“Oh god, let’s hurry up and leave. I finally got this reservation with my brother’s membership card—I don’t want to get affected… By the way, should we notify the manager?”

The voices probably belonged to two Omegas.

Lin Zhu stopped in his tracks, suddenly grateful he hadn’t just pushed the door open and gone out.

He’d spent eighteen years as an ordinary male and still hadn’t adapted to this Alpha body. On top of that, with his sudden rut, his head wasn’t very clear. He had almost caused a disaster.

Lin Zhu stepped back a few paces.

The corridor outside fell quiet for a moment.

Then he suddenly heard a familiar name.

It was still that young Omega named Su Quan speaking. His voice was soft, and he sounded surprised yet restrained as he greeted someone:

“Brother Ruojun? What a coincidence.”

In the next instant, Lin Zhu heard Yan Ruojun’s voice.

The man’s tone was somewhat cool, carrying that same distant air that kept people away without seeming harsh.

“Mm. Here for dinner?”

The Omega named Su Quan seemed visibly relieved to run into someone he knew and said in a quieter voice, “It seems like there’s an Alpha in rut near the restroom. Should we call the manager to deal with it? I don’t know if it might be someone we know…”

After all, the upper circles of Beidu weren’t that large. Anyone who could come to a place like this was bound to be connected in some way.

Lin Zhu didn’t hear the rest.

He had already shoved his head back into the sink full of water. The faucet was still running noisily. Only when the basin overflowed and water splashed onto the floor in loud bursts did he belatedly reach out and turn it off.

The boy’s long fingers gripped the edge of the sink tightly, veins bulging on the backs of his hands, his fingertips pressed so hard they turned white and bloodless.

Most of his white shirt was already soaked through, clinging half-transparently to his skin and outlining the tight muscles in his back, like a male lion coiled to pounce at any moment.

Then suddenly, the phone in his trouser pocket chimed.

Lin Zhu kept his eyes shut as he fumbled the phone out. Water dripped from his hair and fell onto the glowing screen.

The text on it looked slightly distorted through the refracted droplets.

Yan Ruojun had left a very strong impression on Lin Zhu: a cold and ethereal beauty, a gentle and courteous smile, and a direct, forceful way of handling things…

Just as the man himself had made such a clear first impression, the message Yan Ruojun sent was equally straightforward:

[Are you the Alpha in heat in the restroom?]

Lin Zhu stared at the screen, breathing hard, his temples throbbing as though something were exploding inside his skull, stabbing him with unbearable irritation.

Before the screen went dark, he typed:

[Could you ask someone to bring me an inhibi—]

He didn’t even finish the sentence. Without waiting for the system to remind him, Lin Zhu held down delete and erased every word.

He pressed his lips together, and his fingers flew across the screen again.

[Yeah, I’m in rut. Are you free right now?]

The other side replied almost immediately:

[Free for what?]

Lin Zhu only felt his throat dry out until it was almost smoking. He unconsciously licked one canine tooth, then ground his teeth twice, leaving deep bite marks in his lower lip.

[—Give me a temporary mark.]