“Zuo Shihuan, what are you doing here?”
Yu Lizhu looked at him in puzzlement.
A guilty Zuo Shihuan avoided answering and asked instead, “Yu Lizhu, why are you here?”
Yu Lizhu’s eyes dimmed, lips pressed in unwillingness as she said, “I followed Ji Shenwen in. I wanted to ask him privately, one-on-one, why he suddenly went back on his word to reject me, and decided to return to his little planet in the countryside.”
Zuo Shihuan frowned. “Back to his small planet—not working here anymore?”
Yu Lizhu gazed resentfully at the silent and guilty Ji Shenwen, forcing out a bitter smile. “It looks like that’s the case. But I can’t shake the feeling someone meddled behind the scenes. Otherwise, why would he suddenly leave the Federation main star where everything was fine?”
“I thought the staff lounge was empty. Who would have guessed you’d be here too, Zuo Shihuan—and that the very meddler would also be here.”
As she spat out those last words, Yu Lizhu’s eyes locked hatefully onto Gu Heng.
Ever since she started pursuing Ji Shenwen, she had despised this Beta colleague of his, the one who always hung around with him at the bar.
Why? Because several times, whenever she sensed Ji Shenwen suddenly distancing and rejecting her, it was always this Beta named Gu Heng stirring up trouble and sabotaging things!
Thinking this, a sharp, vigilant gleam flickered in Yu Lizhu’s almond eyes.
A Beta colleague who cared so much about Ji Shenwen, repeatedly blocking her relationship with him—it all seemed too suspicious.
Could it be…
Yu Lizhu’s almond eyes sharpened. She lifted her chin, assuming the poised, imperious bearing of a wealthy heiress, trying to suppress Gu Heng with the aura of a rightful consort as she interrogated him.
“I’ve seen through all your petty tricks. So this is the kind of scheming Beta you are.”
“You like Ji Shenwen, don’t you!”
Her words shocked everyone present.
Gu Heng’s brows furrowed tightly, his face twisting in open disgust and rejection.
Thrown into the center of this farce, Ji Shenwen gaped, tongue-tied. Shock and guilt at Yu Lizhu’s intrusion were forgotten—he desperately wanted to cover her mouth before she could spout any more life-threatening nonsense!
Him and His Highness the Crown Prince—how could that possibly be?! Didn’t she see the icy, murderous glare His Highness was giving him right now?!
Please, Yu Lizhu, stop talking. If this keeps going, I’m dead for sure!
Yu Lizhu crossed her arms, confidently continuing her deduction: “Otherwise, why would a Beta—just a mere colleague of Ji Shenwen’s—go out of his way to target me, an Omega?”
“You’re jealous of me!”
At the side, Ji Shenwen felt like he was on the brink of a breakdown. How on earth was he supposed to handle this chaotic, deathly scene?!
Gu Heng let out a cold laugh, finding it utterly ridiculous.
Yu Lizhu pressed further: “I’ve heard that some Betas actually prefer Alphas. Looks like you’re one of those who specifically go after Alphas—trying to steal someone else’s boyfriend at that!”
Ji Shenwen nearly collapsed, rushing to explain: “There’s really nothing! He—he absolutely doesn’t like me.”
A cold glint flashed in Gu Heng’s eyes, his irritation mounting.
This was, without doubt, the most loathsome Omega he had ever encountered—Ji Shenwen had dragged home a real disaster.
Yu Lizhu, too, was brimming with hostility; their gazes clashed, mutually repulsed.
…Specially targeting Alphas.
Zuo Shihuan sank into thought, fingers brushing his lips where a bite mark lingered. His heart dimmed. Could it be that he was one of those Alphas Gu Heng “targeted”?
Though perhaps Gu Heng didn’t even need to make a move.
With just a curl of his finger, Zuo Shihuan had willingly walked right into it.
Bitterness and sorrow flickered through Zuo Shihuan’s eyes as he lowered them, a faint chill of distance settling there.
To Gu Heng, it looked like Zuo Shihuan had actually taken Yu Lizhu’s absurd words to heart—his expression shifted at once.
Gu Heng glared coldly at Yu Lizhu and said, “Impossible.”
Yu Lizhu clenched her teeth. “Then let Ji Shenwen stay.”
Gu Heng narrowed his eyes. Finally, he understood what Yu Lizhu was after. All that earlier bizarre, outrageous speculation was just to lead up to this one demand: that he agree to let Ji Shenwen remain.
This Federation heiress Omega had an unusually sharp intuition—not like the others, those pampered Omegas dulled by their ivory-tower lives.
She must have sensed, from Ji Shenwen’s submissive attitude toward him, that there was something unusual about their positions.
And this wasn’t the first time.
During the months when this Federation heiress fervently pursued Ji Shenwen, Gu Heng had noticed Ji Shenwen repeatedly softening toward her, to the point of interfering with their undercover operations.
He had pulled Ji Shenwen aside and warned him—cut ties completely with this unstable variable, sever all relations with this capricious young lady.
Ji Shenwen had indeed quietly distanced himself from her.
Even when Yu Lizhu sought him out, he would respond with silence, or even change shifts just to avoid her.
Until one time, when Ji Shenwen was on a covert mission, he accidentally got a wound on his neck. Yu Lizhu discovered it, and he lied that he’d hurt himself in a fall…
On the surface, Yu Lizhu seemed convinced, yet afterward she went straight to Gu Heng to negotiate.
The young lady Yu Lizhu looked at Gu Heng with undisguised disgust, but then opened a box packed full of Federation currency, pushing it across the table toward him.
“I want to buy Ji Shenwen’s freedom. Here are five hundred thousand Federation credits, and I can add more. That should be enough to cover Ji Shenwen’s worth, right? He’s just a bartender in a small bar.”
Gu Heng chuckled. “Why should I take this money? What does Ji Shenwen have to do with me?”
Yu Lizhu arched a brow and glared at him. “Don’t pretend. My Yu family isn’t some spotless clan. Whether you belong to some organization or gang, this money is more than enough for you to let Ji Shenwen go. That knife wound on his neck couldn’t possibly have been from a fall. Don’t force him to do dangerous things anymore!”
So this Federation heiress had keenly sensed that Ji Shenwen’s injury was out of the ordinary. She assumed it must be some shady, underworld organization or gang coercing him into such things.
Whether in the Upper City or the Lower City, there were always rats hiding in dark corners, serving as tools for those in power.
Although Yu Lizhu was a pampered Omega young lady, kept from family affairs and raised only to be used as a pawn in alliances, she was by no means a naïve, brainless Omega.
On the contrary.
Yu Lizhu had always harbored rebellious thoughts, attempting to break away from her family, secretly going through many of the family’s books and letters.
Because she always presented the face of a sweet and innocent Omega little sister to the outside world, no one ever guarded against her. That was how she uncovered much dark information about her family that outsiders could never know.
But when her elder sister—the one who had always supported and cherished her—met with an accident, Yu Lizhu had never been able to let go of her feelings. She stayed in the Yu household, resigning herself to being a brainless pawn in arranged marriages.
Yu Lizhu had always felt Gu Heng was a dangerous man.
It was her Omega instinct—like a small, weak animal that had evolved heightened senses to detect predators early and flee.
That night, even with several bodyguards behind her, Yu Lizhu still felt uneasy.
Because she saw the indifferent killing intent in Gu Heng’s eyes.
—He wants to kill me.
That instant of mortal threat stiffened her arms and drenched her in cold sweat.
From those calm, black eyes filled with unrestrained murderous will, her intuition screamed: if he so wished, he could kill her and her bodyguards without leaving a trace, and no matter how many more she brought, it would be useless.
D*mn it—Gu Heng was definitely not just some bar bouncer!
This only made Yu Lizhu even more convinced that Ji Shenwen was an innocent man dragged into something.
After all, Ji Shenwen was someone raised in the sunlight, with warm and steady eyes, whose smile made people feel the breeze of spring and sunlight on their skin. Whenever he spoke of his family, it was always warm and happy. He was a person enveloped in love, utterly good at heart.
So unlike Yu Lizhu herself.
She knew very well what kind of split, false person she was.
Born into the Yu family, she appeared to be the praised, well-mannered Omega daughter. The brighter and more innocent her smile, the more she seemed like a pure, genteel young lady.
But inside, she was darker than anyone else. The real her was like a caged pearl bird rotting inside its cage—eyes once pure now full of resentment and unwillingness, forever staring at the people outside who came to admire it.
Only when she stood before the glass window, staring blankly at her sister’s face as she lay unconscious in her sickbed, did Yu Lizhu suppress all those dark thoughts.
When she learned from her father that she would be sent to a blind date with some strange, disgusting Alpha, she acted obedient and sensible on the surface, but inside she was frantically thinking of escape.
Yet she didn’t know how to run, or where to go.
Living like a pearl bird that had never left its cage—its wings not chained, but its heart bound. Confused, timid, disgusted with herself.
The boldest, most reckless thing Yu Lizhu had ever done was, under the urging of friends, sneaking to a bar in the Lower City—a place infamous for debauchery. At the entrance, scantily clad Betas tried to hook her into going to a hotel.
Inside the bar, people were kissing and touching each other without restraint. Yu Lizhu’s eyes darted everywhere, a restless yearning rising in her chest, tugging a wicked smile from her lips.
—If her parents ever found out, they would scream and lock her in a dark attic to punish her. Her worth in high society would collapse overnight; she would become a self-indulgent, ruined Omega.
A few friends dragged her to drink. Yu Lizhu joined them—glass after glass—leaving her friends dumbfounded.
But unexpectedly, she held her liquor well. Even after several glasses, her face only slightly flushed, and her steps remained steady.
Her friends exchanged surprised glances, kept urging her to drink, but Yu Lizhu, with her bladder full, announced she was going to the restroom.
In front of the restroom mirror, Yu Lizhu looked at her weary face, reeking of alcohol, wearing a cropped tank top and a black miniskirt—completely unlike the image of the Yu family’s daughter, more like a decadent bar girl.
This should have been freedom enough, reckless enough. Her parents would go mad if they saw. Yet Yu Lizhu only felt hollow and bored.
Stepping out of the restroom, a shady Alpha tried to flirt with her. Without more than a few seconds’ hesitation, Yu Lizhu agreed.
She wanted to try—see if sinking into depravity with someone in this world of debauchery would feel more free, more carefree.
But as those dry lips, stinking of alcohol and other foul odors, drew closer, Yu Lizhu couldn’t bear it. Nausea overwhelmed her; she shoved the stranger away, squatted down, finding even breathing the same air as him suffocatingly repulsive.
Left with no choice, she returned to the bar to drink alone.
Carelessly, she accepted a cocktail from one of her friends. Just as she was about to drink, a clean and warm male voice stopped her.
“Miss, I suggest you don’t drink that.”
Before Yu Lizhu could react, the so-called “friends” beside her instantly grew flustered and snapped.
“You bartender, what do you think you’re doing? This is none of your business! Be careful or you’ll lose your job offending a customer.”
“Lizhu, don’t listen to him. It’s just a drink—what’s the harm?”
“After we finish drinking, let’s go back to the dance floor. I’ll introduce you to some handsome guys later.”
With such a strange, guilty reaction, Yu Lizhu was no fool. Her dazed gaze fell on the bright-colored drink in her hand.
The garish liquor. The undissolved powder. The odd bubbles rising in the ice.
For a moment, she felt tired—tired enough to just throw caution to the wind and drink it down. After all, it was all the same kind of sickening hypocrisy.
So-called friendships built on daily companionship, where the smiles of affection hid jealousy and scheming. So-called family ties, where the happiness of an Omega daughter used as a networking tool couldn’t compare to the reputation and interests of the Yu family. Fake, all of it was fake!
Yu Lizhu’s eyes were empty as her fingers held the bone-chilling glass. Beads of condensation rolled down the cup wall into her palm, while the powder beneath the ice slowly dissolved, breaking into foamy fragments on the surface.
Beside her, her friends’ gazes widened with barely contained excitement.
Yu Lizhu curled her lips into a smile. “I’m really curious what kind of taste this drink you recommended has.”
“…Of course it’s good.”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry, we drank it too.”
“Drink it.”
“Drink it.”
Yu Lizhu slowly lifted the rim of the glass toward her lips, feeling herself both terribly drunk and at the same time painfully sober and cold.
“Don’t drink that!”
The glass was suddenly pressed down.
Looking up, she met the stern, worried eyes of a strikingly handsome bartender, who repeated firmly to her: “Sorry, miss, there’s something wrong with this drink. I won’t let a guest drink alcohol with unknown substances mixed in.”
Saying this, the meddlesome bartender snatched the glass from her hand, poured out the liquor and ice, along with the unidentified powdered drug hidden within.
Ji Shenwen glared at the dazed Yu Lizhu with a look of hating iron for not becoming steel. Turning, he faced those so-called “friends” with a stern expression. “I’ll be calling the police. The bar has surveillance cameras, and I’ll testify as a witness. As for what was put in the drink, once the police test it, you can deal with the consequences yourselves.”
Yu Lizhu’s “friends” instantly panicked—pleading with her that it was just a joke, while at the same time cursing the bartender and accusing him of framing them.
Yu Lizhu remained dazed until Ji Shenwen gently patted her head, his gaze full of pity and comfort.
“Don’t be afraid. The police will be here soon. What’s your family’s number? Let’s call them so they don’t worry…”
“And don’t come to places like this again.”
Yu Lizhu sat stiffly, tears slowly blurring her eyes. It was like all her defenses and walls had crumbled away. She buried herself in Ji Shenwen’s arms and cried her heart out.
She cried until Ji Shenwen was at a complete loss, constantly coaxing her—telling her embarrassing stories from his past. Like the time his family hated his pets so much he had to keep them elsewhere, only for the ungrateful animals to forget their owner. Or the time he ate his mother’s precious flowers by accident and got punished with a month of vegetarian meals.
Hearing these, Yu Lizhu stopped crying and instead began laughing harder and harder—laughter freer and happier than she’d ever known. The Alpha making her laugh looked to her eyes so cute, so kind, so dazzlingly bright.
Then the police arrived.
And right after came her furious parents, Father Yu and Mother Yu, intending first to cover up the scandal and then settle accounts with Yu Lizhu.
But Yu Lizhu had sobered up. She had no intention of being dragged down by her foolish, malicious friends.
Tears streaming down her face, she rushed into her parents’ arms, pitiful as a flower in the rain, playing up the image of the innocent, obedient Omega. She tearfully claimed she’d been tricked by bad friends, and hadn’t known what kind of place this was.
And indeed, her version of events was not far from the truth.
Only, in her story she was the poor Omega girl deceived and led astray by vile friends—whereas in reality she had been cold-eyed and clear-headed the whole time, watching and waiting to see the drama unfold.
Father and Mother Yu calmed their fury, turning instead their icy wrath on those “bad friends” who had dared lead their well-behaved daughter here.
When the police confirmed the drink contained an illegal drug designed to trigger Omega heat, and with the Yu family’s influence, those “friends” were sentenced to several years in prison—on one of the harshest, most remote planets.
At sentencing, they wept bitterly, begging Yu Lizhu for forgiveness. But their families had already disowned them, their schools expelled them, while Yu Lizhu walked away with a large sum in compensation.
In court, she still wept pitifully. Everyone pitied this poor Omega, deceived and betrayed by her friends.
But in her heart, she was thinking only of that bartender who had told her not to cry, who had made her laugh.
The more she got to know Ji Shenwen, the more she liked this warm, kind Alpha who adored animals and seemed so simple and good.
For him, Yu Lizhu was even willing to stand against the dangerous, fearsome Gu Heng.
She faced Gu Heng’s murderous intent with trembling courage, naively believing fifty thousand federal credits could buy off an Imperial prince. She swore that Ji Shenwen was just an innocent, ordinary Alpha, and begged Gu Heng to let him go. If Ji Shenwen owed debts, she said, she’d pay them herself.
An Omega blinded by love.
Her every word was filled with trust and care for another Alpha—never realizing that the warm, kind Alpha by her side was in fact her greatest danger.
Gu Heng found it amusing. He smiled, refused her money, and pushed the box back toward her.
Yu Lizhu left in disappointment.
But now, things had changed.
Yu Lizhu gritted her teeth. “Then let Ji Shenwen stay.”
Ji Shenwen turned his face aside, his eyes heavy with pain.
Gu Heng’s gaze was icy as he watched this pair of star-crossed lovers perform their little play.
Even though one of them was his subordinate with whom he’d shared years of camaraderie as classmates, Gu Heng had long since grown weary of his own leniency.
To him, letting subordinates fall in love with their mission targets was playing with fire. Yet here was the Yu family’s daughter, blindly throwing herself into the trap for love.
And just now he had obtained a piece of secret news: the Yu family was about to make a major move, entering into close cooperation with the very target he had been investigating. And Yu Lizhu would play a key role in it all.
Gu Heng gave a cold smile. “Why would I stop Ji Shenwen from staying? Yu Lizhu, don’t you know the real reason Ji Shenwen wants to leave?”
Yu Lizhu asked curiously, “You know? You’ll tell me?”
Gu Heng glanced at Ji Shenwen, whose face had gone ashen, and curved his lips as he began fabricating: “Isn’t it just that his family wants him to go back? They see that after working so long on the Federation capital planet, he still hasn’t settled down. Better he return to his small planet, go on blind dates, find an Omega, marry, and live a stable life.”
Ji Shenwen lifted his head blankly. Why did His Highness the Crown Prince suddenly say something he couldn’t understand?
Blind dates?
Blind dates? Wasn’t he supposed to return to the Empire to accept punishment?
At first Yu Lizhu’s eyes lit up, but then dimmed with sorrow.
Even if she knew Ji Shenwen would be going on blind dates, what of it? She might look like she had the freedom to pursue Ji Shenwen, but in truth her marriage was never hers to decide.
Even if Ji Shenwen really did end up with her, Yu Lizhu wasn’t naïve enough to believe the Yu family would easily give up a carefully cultivated Omega daughter who could bring them huge profits and connections.
The Yu family could easily crush a commoner Alpha from some backwater planet.
Ji Shenwen stared in bewilderment at Crown Prince Gu Heng, wanting to know why he would say this when he clearly knew it was false.
Gu Heng’s lips curved, his black eyes gleaming with malice. “Don’t you want to take Yu Lizhu home to meet your parents?”
Ji Shenwen was stunned. “What?”
Yu Lizhu’s heartbeat surged uncontrollably. She looked at Ji Shenwen with eager, hopeful eyes, her face tinged with shyness. “So you’ve thought about our future—you want to take me to meet your parents. But we…”
Ji Shenwen couldn’t bear to face Yu Lizhu’s hopeful gaze. Eyes wide with doubt, he looked toward Gu Heng.
Gu Heng’s indifferent gaze cut straight through. “Taking her to meet your parents—that’s what you both want, isn’t it?”
Ji Shenwen forced a stiff, painful smile, thinking this was just some joke to smooth over the situation.
But then he met Crown Prince Gu Heng’s cold, solemn eyes once more.
His heart jolted in shock.
He was serious.
…Taking Yu Lizhu back to the Empire. Bringing a daughter of the Federation, raised in its heart, into the enemy’s Empire.
No matter what happened, the outcome was unimaginably terrible. Eventually Yu Lizhu would find out he had deceived her. And once in the Empire—what status could Yu Lizhu even have?
Ji Shenwen felt as though plunged into an icy pit, his whole body chilled. He silently begged His Highness to take those words back.
But Yu Lizhu, oblivious, had already taken his hand in excitement, smiling with shy sweetness.
Inside, Ji Shenwen was drowning in despair and pain.
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