Orr’s breathing grew heavier, and his entire body trembled faintly with excitement. The Omega before him seemed to sense something. His pointed ears twitched, and he glanced in Orr’s direction.
Orr immediately held his breath and remained absolutely still behind the bushes!
The Omega apparently found nothing and calmly looked away. After resting for a while, he resumed using the exercise equipment on the ground. The machines were still too heavy for him. Every time he exerted himself, the thin muscles of his slender arms bulged with tremendous effort into tiny bumps.
The moment he relaxed and lowered the equipment, those little raised muscles quickly flattened again, becoming smooth expanses of pale, soft flesh.
Watching him, Orr felt an indescribable emotion flow through his heart.
He looked at this hardworking Omega, at his determined gaze and unyielding figure, and felt as though even his own iron heart was about to melt!
Maybe… this was exactly the kind of partner he had been searching for…
The tips of Orr’s ears reddened. He watched the Omega for a long time with an unusually gentle gaze. Finally, thinking he should not disturb the other’s training, he retraced his steps with a cheerful stride.
Not long after he left—
“Th-that’s enough for today, huff…”
Xiao Lan dragged his heavy feet to a corner and switched off a camera hidden in the bushes. Then he dropped directly onto the ground, leaned back against a solid-metal exercise machine, and panted like a dying dog.
“Motherfucker.” Once he had finally caught his breath, he grabbed a towel from the side, wiped away his sweat, and gritted his teeth. “This fucking job isn’t fit for a human being. Making money is hard!”
Thinking of the money, he got up and threw on the jacket he had removed earlier, then dug the camera out of the shrubbery. He wore only a black long tank top beneath it, and the oversized uniform jacket covered his thin little arms. The camera in his hands was a medium-sized model, about as large as both of his palms together.
Xiao Lan excitedly played the segment he had just recorded. The image flickered twice—within the deserted grove, beneath a dark sky, a strand of moonlight illuminated the clearing. An Omega was sweating profusely as he exercised with a series of machines bearing the “Hain” insignia. Despite sweating so heavily, he continued to persevere. And even under such intense exercise, not the slightest trace of an Omega’s sweet pheromone scent escaped into the air…
The footage continued until the Omega peeled the sweat-soaked synthetic skin from the back of his neck and applied a fresh piece. The gland-control chip embedded within it firmly suppressed the release of pheromones.
So… this was actually an Omega disguising himself as a Beta and studying at the largest military academy in the entire Empire!
How inspirational!
“This is so fucking stupid…” Xiao Lan sighed and pressed Save.
He activated the camera’s network port, connected it to his terminal, and sent the video he had just saved to a contact labeled “Buyer Daddy.”
The video sent successfully, and the other side quickly displayed [Receiving]. A short while later, the terminal gave a “ding.” Accompanied by the sound effect Xiao Lan had specially set—coins cascading in a shower—a huge sum of star coins entered his personal account!
Xiao Lan lifted a hand still trembling from weightlifting and shakily counted how many zeros followed the leading digit in the deposit. Instantly, his waist stopped aching, his legs stopped trembling, and he felt he could keep lifting weights all night!
“Oh, I said it wrong, I said it wrong.” Sweetly, he gave himself a light slap on the mouth. “How can you call rich people stupid? This is clearly documentary art keeping pace with current trends!”
Xiao Lan’s gaze accidentally landed on a weight machine beside him that weighed about half as much as he did. His legs weakened, and the mental fortitude just repaired by money almost collapsed again. He hurriedly hypnotized himself once more.
“Ahem… Anyway, as long as my patron daddy likes it. Heh-heh!”
Xiao Lan had originally been an entirely ordinary final-year high-school student who liked filming short videos and posting them online. Because his videos were consistently funny and clever, they received good reactions after publication, and he counted as a minor internet celebrity in his circle.
He never expected to become massively famous. He simply earned a little pocket money from tips on his videos. Xiao Lan’s parents had died in an accident when he was very young, and he had no other relatives, so he had grown up on government assistance.
The Empire provided extensive protection for underage Omegas with no source of income, and the subsidies were generous. He had never lacked food or clothing growing up. But once he entered university, he would reach the age the Empire considered “capable of independent survival,” so he had no choice but to make plans for the future.
He had already saved a little money from filming videos. Xiao Lan was broad-minded about life. His goal was simply to attend a comprehensive university, keep making his little videos, then pick an Alpha at school with a good personality and decent family background and marry him. After graduating, he could live a peaceful, comfortable life as a happily supported freeloader.
However! Right around the time he needed to submit his university choices, one of the small patrons who occasionally tipped him contacted him!
At first, Xiao Lan did not think much of it. When the other person asked him to pretend to be a Beta, enter Hain, and film pieces of his daily life, Xiao Lan became even more convinced that the Omega on the other side of the terminal had completely lost his mind.
Of course he knew what the other person wanted. To cater to current tastes, he had filmed similar short videos before. But please—that was Hain! Forget how severe the punishment would be if he were discovered; he could not even get inside in the first place!
The other person, however, knew exactly how to handle him. Without arguing at all, they simply sent one enormous cash gift after another. The repeated chimes announcing incoming star coins nearly made Xiao Lan dizzy.
…What small patron? This was the God of Wealth!
Drowned beneath capitalism’s sugar-coated artillery shells, Xiao Lan immediately wavered. In a tiny, weak voice, he explained why the plan was impossible.
But every difficulty he listed was effortlessly dismissed by Buyer Daddy. The very next day, he received a delivery containing biomimetic artificial skin. The accompanying manual explained its use in detail: it was composed of extremely fine nanoscale material that adhered perfectly to skin and sealed in every trace of pheromones trying to escape.
Xiao Lan looked it up and discovered that the product was only semi-public. Officially, it was still “under research” and could not be purchased on the market at all.
He instantly wanted to kneel before Buyer Daddy.
Once Buyer Daddy promised that even if Xiao Lan were discovered, they could get him out, Xiao Lan stared at the reward—measured in tens of millions of star coins—and resolutely… changed his university application.
Money really was wonderful!
Xiao Lan touched the ruined piece of synthetic skin still in his pocket. Remembering how much it cost made his heart twitch, and he could not bear to throw it away. Once he retired after accomplishing his mission, perhaps he could keep these things as souvenirs.
He bent down and pressed his hand against several brutally heavy machines on the ground. Once he activated hidden retracting switches, the enormous machines automatically folded and contracted into neat blocks of metal.
Xiao Lan used every bit of strength he possessed to move them into an open suitcase nearby. Once all the equipment was arranged properly, he locked the lid. Then he took two levitation magnets from his pocket, attached them to either side of the case, and activated them with his fingerprint. Blue light illuminated both magnets, and Xiao Lan lifted the case effortlessly.
Carrying the high-tech-assisted suitcase back, he sighed once again… Having money really was wonderful!
–
“André, what exactly is so good about it?”
Curled up in a large armchair, Faan shook his head from side to side. “I’ve read so many books about Omegas over the past few days, and I still don’t understand why they’re so popular.”
“Although… they are pretty entertaining.”
Remembering their contents, Faan could not stop himself from giggling again.
“What books?”
André happened to be enjoying a rare period of rest. He was lying on the bed inside his sleep cabin. The room was not brightly lit; only a small wall lamp beside the bed glowed, illuminating the corner where André sat.
He leaned halfway against the headboard, holding a thick book. Half its pages were text and half contained extremely detailed astronomical charts. A pair of rimless blue-light glasses rested on the bridge of his high nose. They did not soften his face. Instead, they gave him an even sharper air of precision and rigor.
But whenever he spoke to his little fiancé, his voice was always calm and indulgent.
“Books about Omegas? Omega Social Psychology? Or On the Three Sexes?”
Faan choked slightly. Suddenly too embarrassed to tell the General those titles, he could only give a vague summary.
“No, they’re just… just ordinary online novels.” He thought about how to phrase it. “Mm. The kind where an Omega hides his sex and joins the military to fight.”
“Concealing your sex to infiltrate the armed forces is a serious crime.”
André shifted into a more relaxed position. “Omegas can openly hold any position in the military rear.”
“That’s why they’re only online novels!” Faan said. “Lots of Omegas like reading them!”
Then he remembered his own younger brother and made a helpless face.
“Maybe it isn’t only Omegas who like them…”
“Online products are that imaginative now?”
André did not take it seriously. He turned a page of his book, and his long fingers folded a tiny corner on a page he wanted to mark.
“Then I’m very grateful that the Empire is peaceful and stable now.”
Faan was helpless in the face of the General’s stodginess and complete inability to see what was funny. But then his attention was caught by André’s handsome profile and strong, well-defined hand. He unconsciously abandoned the “idle chatter” entirely and began wheedling at the General to stop reading that book and come romance him instead.
“Spoiled.”
The General, who had already devoted most of his rest period to his fiancé, criticized him mildly, but obediently closed the heavy book with his hands.
André placed the book aside. His night-dark eyes settled on Faan’s face and gazed at him in long silence, a faint smile and unmistakable tenderness lingering at the corners of his brows and eyes.
“How exactly do you want to ‘romance’ me?”
Under that gaze, Faan immediately lost the battle. His body softened spinelessly, and even his voice became soft enough to drip honey.
“How can you be like this?” he accused without any strength at all. “I only said it casually, and you really stopped? And when people are dating, how can you make the Omega take the initiative…”
André sighed helplessly, slightly restrained his gaze, and lifted a hand to lightly touch Faan’s face through the projection.
“Because the book isn’t important. Neither is anything else. None of it is more important than you—so the moment you asked, I closed the book.”
He paused there, smiled faintly, and softly asked his prospective Omega, whose face had turned completely red,
“Does this count as ‘romancing’ you?”
