Learning for certain that Ji Shenwen would be staying—even though she couldn’t understand why his eyes still looked so shadowed and worried even as he smiled at her—Yu Lizhu left in high spirits, satisfied with the outcome she wanted.
Disregarding her manners as the Yu family’s young lady, she skipped out of the Black Goat Bar to the parking lot, her face bursting with blossoms of joy, looking like a giddy fool high on drugs.
The startled gazes of others did nothing to dampen her happiness. To Yu Lizhu, this was the most beautiful day of her life.
She was completely immersed in the bliss of love.
Walking in step with her, also under the surprised stares of others, was Zuo Shihuan. He remained silent beneath Yu Lizhu’s radiant joy, a faint trace of wariness and worry flickering in his eyes.
Yu Lizhu noticed and asked, “What is it? Aren’t you happy for me?”
Zuo Shihuan shook his head. In his light brown eyes, a hint of hesitation flashed before he put on a gentle smile, though deep inside was buried envy. “It’s nothing. I will be happy for you.”
Yu Lizhu’s smile softened, her gaze tinged with gratitude. “Thank you for helping me today. If you ever need anything, come to me. I owe you too many favors already.”
Zuo Shihuan answered blandly, glancing at a car parked across the street. In his distant, cultured tone he said, “Then I’ll take my leave here. I just called for my driver.”
Yu Lizhu hesitated, and just as Zuo Shihuan was about to leave, she couldn’t help asking nervously: “Do you think what I’m doing is really right?
“If my family finds out about Ji Shenwen—how could a commoner Alpha possibly withstand them? And if he finds out about our fake engagement, would he accept it?”
Back in the cold reality, Yu Lizhu wasn’t fully carried away by love. Toward this nominal fiancé she’d only met for the first time today, she somehow felt compelled to confide her deepest worry.
“Then just keep it hidden. Don’t let anyone know.”
Zuo Shihuan turned to glance back at the bar, his gaze shadowed. “You actually still have the chance to regret it. But do you want to?”
“I don’t,” Yu Lizhu said immediately.
Zuo Shihuan: “Then that’s settled. If you don’t, just keep hiding it. I’ll help you keep it hidden too.”
Yu Lizhu’s eyes softened, her heart suddenly clear. She smiled brightly. “Then I’ll help you hide it too!”
Zuo Shihuan frowned slightly, puzzled. “Hm?”
Yu Lizhu smiled teasingly, pointing to his lips and neck, her brows arched in playful mockery. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the marks on you. I may be an Omega, but I’m not clueless.
“You didn’t see the hickey on your lips? The kind so rough it almost broke the skin. Looks like your fling was pretty wild.”
Zuo Shihuan froze, instinctively covering his lips where a shallow scab had already formed. Unbidden, he recalled that person’s searing breath and scorching kiss, his eyes flashing with a mix of frustration and embarrassment.
Yu Lizhu’s eyes gleamed with gossip. She raised her brows. “So, my dear fiancé, who was your wild fling?”
Zuo Shihuan faltered, words caught in his throat.
He remembered Yu Lizhu had only come into the staff lounge afterward. She shouldn’t have realized that his “fling” was actually Gu Heng. Otherwise, her expression now would be very different.
Before bringing him to the bar, Yu Lizhu had already complained about how much she disliked Gu Heng.
Given how she and Gu Heng couldn’t stand each other the moment they met—if she ever discovered his fling was Gu Heng, she’d be shocked into utter disbelief.
Zuo Shihuan suddenly found it funny, the corners of his lips lifting in a gentle, refined smile.
Yu Lizhu’s eyes lit up when she saw it, and she teased: “Looks like you really like that fling of yours, huh? So, what’s he or she like in appearance?”
“As your so-called fake fiancée, I’m actually very open-minded and tolerant. You don’t have to worry about me if you find other partners. Just let me know before you officially break off the engagement, so I can be prepared in advance.”
— Like them?
Zuo Shihuan’s smile faded at once, his gaze cooling slightly: “No need.”
Yu Lizhu was curious to ask more, but unexpectedly caught the mixed scent of various alcohols on him—one of them a strong, pungent liquor that made her instinctively recoil.
“Why did you suddenly drink so much?”
Zuo Shihuan replied, “I didn’t. I accidentally knocked over a whole case of liquor, and it all spilled on me.”
Yu Lizhu understood, though a bit puzzled: “But you smell faintly of an Alpha’s pheromone… it’s like whiskey, and really unpleasant.”
Zuo Shihuan lifted his hand and sniffed at his collar.
All kinds of alcohol smells clung to him, yet there was one sharp mint-like liquor scent that was particularly pleasant—so much so that even someone like him, who never touched alcohol, felt the impulse to buy a bottle.
“Don’t think so. Maybe it’s just from brushing past people at the bar, I might’ve picked up someone else’s Alpha pheromones.”
Yu Lizhu frowned doubtfully: “Really? Could it be my Omega sense of smell is off? Then again, if compatibility is too low, sometimes Omegas can’t pick up an Alpha’s pheromones at all—or if they do, they find it very repulsive.”
Zuo Shihuan said, “I think it smells pretty good. But the doctor said that because my second differentiation came so late, my pheromone sensitivity is weak. Basically, my sense of smell for Alpha and Omega pheromones is underdeveloped—still stuck back when I was a Beta.”
Yu Lizhu’s interest was piqued: “Then can you smell what kind of pheromone scent I have?”
Zuo Shihuan wrinkled his nose and shook his head: “No idea.”
Yu Lizhu raised her wrist closer to him: “That won’t do. You’ll need to know your fiancée’s pheromone scent, so that when the time comes, you can fake it well enough not to be discovered.”
Zuo Shihuan leaned in and sniffed, catching a faint floral fragrance: “Camellia?”
Yu Lizhu clapped her hands: “Correct. I’ll make you a pheromone-disguising perfume with camellia scent. That way, during heat, it’ll look like you’re accepting my pheromone soothing—no one will realize we’ve never done a marking.”
Zuo Shihuan nodded in understanding.
Yet in truth, his mind was still stuck in the days of being a Beta. He couldn’t really perceive pheromones, didn’t understand why Alphas and Omegas were drawn to each other through them, and had no real grasp of what “marking” meant. He was still fumbling his way into learning how to be an Alpha.
Yu Lizhu suddenly said: “Oh right, camellia perfume alone isn’t enough—you’ll also need to keep a pheromone suppressant on you.”
Zuo Shihuan asked, puzzled: “Why?”
Yu Lizhu winked slyly: “Of course so that when you go chasing after flings, you can hide the pheromone scent clinging to you. Otherwise, if someone catches on that you’re having an affair, what will you do?”
Zuo Shihuan’s face flushed with embarrassment: “…I don’t.”
Yu Lizhu sighed, resting her chin in her hand, giving him a slightly jealous look: “Even if you were caught, no one would criticize you for it. At most, they’d just call you ‘romantic.’ Ah, I really envy Alphas.”
“For Omegas, even finding a lover always stirs up more controversy. Alphas are freer, with more choices. If I were an Alpha, I wouldn’t have to go to that d*mn bridal school.”
Zuo Shihuan suddenly recalled how, back when he had to choose a major, he’d been eliminated from the mecha program because he was a Beta. At the time, he too had envied those born naturally Alpha.
But no matter how much he envied them then, he could never become an Alpha.
Just like when he envied children with warm, intact families, while he endured living alone, ultimately choosing and persisting on the path of a Beta.
There were Alphas who fell into the slums. There were Betas and Omegas who became respected scientists.
What he had envied was only that moment when Alphas basked in the Mecha Academy’s special favor and prestige. It was the same as when he received the acceptance letter from the Federation Academy, ready to leave the slums, and saw the eyes of others filled with envy for his promising future.
He had admired a Beta scientist who researched bio-mecha.
Dr. Ji Zhaohe was an astonishing scholar, an expert in both medicine and bio-mecha. His research papers on Zerg morphology and bio-mecha had once caused a sensation in academic circles. But because his views were too radical and his experiments too risky, he drew heavy criticism.
Yet when Zuo Shihuan first studied mecha repair at Federation University, he had been drawn to some of Dr. Ji’s ideas. Dr. Ji believed that restricting mecha to Alphas and a handful of strong Betas was too narrow-minded. He sought to develop bio-mecha more compatible with the human body, so that Alphas, Betas, and Omegas of all ages and genders could use them.
Back then, Dr. Ji had spiritually inspired Zuo Shihuan for a while, pushing him to pursue bio-mecha research, with the dream of someday joining Dr. Ji’s team. But after Zuo Shihuan developed a genetic illness, that dream faded away.
However—
Differentiating into an Alpha the second time around did not bring the freedom and happiness he had imagined.
Instead, the tangled affairs of the Zuo family, his father’s tight control, and the endless stream of arranged blind dates left him even more lost and helpless in this seemingly “one-step-to-heaven” Alpha upper-class life. The invisible chains of responsibility, pressure, and expectation weighed on him constantly.
Zuo Shihuan knew that ever since he returned to the Zuo family, not everyone welcomed him. Many were watching, mocking his lowly origins, waiting for him to stumble so they could see him cast out of the Zuo family’s center of power, exiled back to the slums.
But in the past few months, Zuo Shihuan’s flawless performance told them all they were only dreaming.
With a faint, self-deprecating gleam in his eyes, Zuo Shihuan slowly spoke: “Envious, are you? If you, Yu Lizhu, became an Alpha, what would you do?”
Yu Lizhu thought for a moment, then said with a laugh: “If I became an Alpha, my stupid, dull-witted brother would be distressed, having yet another competitor to fight him for the family inheritance.”
“But what I’d want most after becoming an Alpha would be to drop out of this boring Omega bride school and travel the world with Ji Shenwen. I’m sick of being the Yu family’s decoration and of those endlessly dull banquets and balls!”
After venting, Yu Lizhu let out a long breath: “I know it’s impossible. No matter how late my differentiation is, I can’t change from an Omega into an Alpha. What about you? How does it feel, being an Alpha? Must be pretty great, right?”
Zuo Shihuan frowned, lips pressed tightly together: “Very good.”
“So good, it’s beyond what I could’ve imagined before. As an Alpha, I’ve gained things that the me back in the slums as a Beta could never have dreamed of.”
Yu Lizhu was slightly startled. She tilted her head back, resting her hand behind her as she leaned on her heels: “Really? Then why aren’t you smiling, Zuo Shihuan?”
“I remember you have a dimple when you smile. Right now, the way you look unhappy… it’s the same fake smile you had during our blind date.”
Zuo Shihuan pressed his lips more tightly together, frowning, unable to refute, his tone going cold as he avoided the topic: “There’s nothing to laugh about. You don’t need to give me any pheromone-disguising perfume or anything else. That scent was just an accident, it won’t happen again.”
Yu Lizhu said: “Really? But didn’t you like that fling of yours? Even your pheromones smelled sweeter than before. Didn’t you two exchange contact information?”
Alphas and Omegas can sense each other’s emotional changes to some degree through pheromone scent—using it to communicate, entice, or seduce. When angry, pheromones turn sharp and aggressive. When calm, they fade to neutral. When joyful, they grow rich and sweet.
At first, Yu Lizhu hadn’t paid it much attention.
But the Alpha scent on Zuo Shihuan had shifted—from bland and flavorless, like plain water, into something like a cup of apple cider with honey, even leaving behind a sweet aftertaste of honeyed apple.
Normally, once differentiated, both Alphas and Omegas must learn to control their pheromones. One key lesson is not to let emotions affect them. At formal occasions, both Alphas and Omegas usually spray pheromone suppressants. After all, you can’t just scatter your scent around like some beast marking territory—and worse, if your pheromones accidentally exposed your dislike for someone, it would be mortifying.
It seemed Zuo Shihuan, having only recently differentiated into an Alpha, hadn’t yet learned to control such changes.
In an instant, the scent turned bitter.
Yu Lizhu’s expression shifted to concern.
Having his inner thoughts exposed, Zuo Shihuan’s deep black eyes rippled with suppressed emotion. His thin lips were drawn into a stiff, straight line, and he clenched his molars as he said harshly: “I won’t come here again.”
Yu Lizhu asked in confusion: “Why suddenly stop coming?”
Zuo Shihuan’s face was closed-off, his brow furrowed as he replied coldly: “No reason. Coming here is just a waste of time.”
“Also, I hope you’ll do the hiding properly. Whoever you take as a lover has nothing to do with me, as long as no one else finds out you’ve got another Alpha’s pheromones on you.”
Yu Lizhu bit her lip and said: “All right. I’ll be careful not to get caught. And I won’t be marked before the engagement is canceled.”
Zuo Shihuan: “See that you keep your word. I don’t want to find another Omega to play my fake fiancée for now. If you get discovered, you know how serious the consequences would be.”
Of course Yu Lizhu understood.
Unless she married out of the Yu family, she remained under its control. For an unclaimed Omega, being restricted by her family was legally valid. Even if she ran away, once found she’d be dragged back. By then, she’d have to give up her naive dream of being with Ji Shenwen, resign herself to being the Yu family’s pampered daughter, and marry as they wished.
Facing Zuo Shihuan’s suddenly stern expression, Yu Lizhu nodded heavily: “…I know.”
Her answer was met only with the cold slam of a door.
The Zuo family’s black car sped away.
Yu Lizhu stared after the disappearing figure of Zuo Shihuan through the window, troubled, wondering if she had said something wrong that made him angry.
Inside the car.
The driver glanced in the rearview mirror at Zuo Shihuan’s frowning, displeased face.
It was the first time he’d seen this young master—newly returned to the Zuo family—show such obvious emotional fluctuations.
Even when provoked or mocked by other Zuo sons and daughters, this young master’s face had always been calm and unreadable. He easily brushed off anyone who came looking for trouble, and within a few short months, had secured a firm foothold in the tangled, treacherous network of Zuo family relations. Clearly, he was no simple person.
What kind of problem could provoke such severity and anger in him?
The driver dared not ask further, only reminded respectfully: “Young Master Zuo, the master just called. He asks that you return to the old residence tonight and go straight to the study to see him.”
“Why didn’t he call me directly?”
Zuo Shihuan frowned, puzzled. He pulled out his communicator and saw the screen flickering with static, liquid dripping out from it. Only then did he realize it had been ruined by the spilled liquor.
“Forget it. Have the butler prepare me a new communicator. I’ll head to the old residence later and see Father.”
Driver: “Yes.”
The car fell into silence.
Zuo Shihuan rested his hand on the window, gazing at the gaudy, vibrant lights of the lower city receding into the distance. His light-brown eyes, almost unconsciously, lingered on those bright, commonplace colors.
As night deepened and the car returned to the advanced, immaculate upper city—
Zuo Shihuan felt the air inside grow stifling. He rolled down the windows. The rushing night wind brushed his face as he frowned at the towering, gleaming buildings on both sides of the road.
The dazzling white lights turned night into day, but only made him squeeze his eyes shut in weariness.
Then, a pleasant ringtone chimed.
Zuo Shihuan opened his eyes with irritation, only to see the driver’s communicator flashing with an incoming call from home.
The screen saver showed the driver’s family of three, smiling together. The little girl wore an adorable yellow-duck hat, her innocent smile especially cute.
The driver hurriedly switched off the communicator and quickly apologized: “Sorry, young master, I didn’t mean to forget to put it on silent during work hours. I just thought I wouldn’t be working tonight, so I told my family I’d be coming home early. They were probably worried since I still haven’t returned so late, so they called me.”
Zuo Shihuan narrowed his eyes slightly, glancing at the family portrait on the driver’s communicator lock screen, and said faintly: “It’s fine, you can answer the call.”
The driver froze for a moment.
Zuo Shihuan cast him a look: “Go ahead, I don’t mind. Didn’t you say your family’s worried about you? And it was me who suddenly called you out to drive at this hour.”
The driver gave a somewhat embarrassed smile, but still picked up out of concern for his family. His expression softened as he spoke on the line.
Zuo Shihuan had no interest in eavesdropping, his expression indifferent as he leaned against the car window and looked outside.
But the driver’s conversation with his family still drifted unavoidably into his ears—his little daughter’s crisp voice calling for her father, and a woman’s gentle, caring tones beside her. The Beta driver’s face was lit with a warm, happy smile as he responded.
A calm, happy, complete family.
It made Zuo Shihuan stare absentmindedly, his eyes sinking into shadow, his heart pierced as if by soft thorns.
When the driver finally hung up, his face still wore that dazzling, enviable silly grin: “Sorry, young master, my kid just wouldn’t let me go and had to chatter with me for a while.”
Zuo Shihuan’s fingers curled into his palm, his lips pressing tight unconsciously: “It’s fine. Just drop me at the Zuo family’s old residence later and you can head home—don’t keep the little one waiting too long.”
The driver: “Mm, thank you for your consideration, young master. My kid’s really clingy, just started kindergarten and is always crying for mom and dad, giving us such headaches.”
Though he complained, his eyes were full of satisfaction and happiness, almost as if showing off.
Zuo Shihuan glanced sideways: “And your wife?”
Driver: “Oh, my wife’s a Beta, she works as a nurse at the nearby hospital. Usually either I leave work early or she finishes her shift so we can pick up the kid. No choice, for the child’s future we both have to work hard.”
Zuo Shihuan’s gaze dimmed: “I see, that’s good.”
The driver warmed up, seeing Zuo Shihuan seemed easy to talk to. He chatted on and off, about everything from choosing schools for kids to what bait was best for weekend fishing. Zuo Shihuan even responded, occasionally offering suggestions.
But then the driver suddenly asked with curiosity: “Is that Black Goat Club really fun? I hear a lot of rich people from the upper city district go there, but I’ve never been myself…”
The moment he heard it, Zuo Shihuan’s eyes tightened, his tone cooling sharply: “No. That kind of place isn’t for you.”
The driver was startled at the sudden change of expression, but after a pause, his curiosity instantly faded. Scratching his head with a sheepish grin, he said: “Really? Then I won’t ever go. Anyway, as an ordinary Beta I couldn’t afford to spend in a place like that. Just thinking about my kid’s extracurricular class fees already makes me tighten the belt, hahaha—”
“Guess young master Zuo wouldn’t be interested in these trivial little matters of us common folk. Sorry for rambling so much about my family’s boring stuff.”
Zuo Shihuan lowered his gaze: “No. I didn’t find it boring.”
Only a little enviable.
His eyes shadowed: “I only went to that kind of place to accompany a friend. I won’t be going again.”
He wouldn’t go.
In fact, he was never the type to go to such decadent, hedonistic places. He hadn’t before, and wouldn’t in the future—he’d only gone this time to deal with some trouble related to his nominal fiancée.
Afterwards, he would return to the Zuo household, follow the path laid out for him, wait for his father to step down, and then naturally take his place as head of the family.
Once in power, he could annul his engagement with Yu Lizhu and marry a well-matched Omega, have children, and finally possess the simple, harmonious family he had dreamed of since childhood.
He would never be like his selfish, self-serving father, forcing his children into the same wandering, displaced life he had endured—a lonely childhood without father or mother.
Since he was young, Zuo Shihuan’s life goal had been to become the complete opposite of his parents.
He would never abandon his children. He would only ever marry one wife in his life, keep himself clean, be a good father—join his wife and kids in family activities, build mecha models with his children, support their dreams, and stand behind them as their pillar.
Having ascended in one leap through second differentiation into an Alpha, Zuo Shihuan could already see the life he had longed for within his reach.
He would not let it be ruined by a Beta who suddenly barged into his peaceful world.
…High society’s circles, wealth, a happy family.
He would have the money to support everything he wanted. In just these few months at the Zuo family, the compensation, federation currency, shares, and dividend assets he received already amounted to numbers he could never have imagined in the first half of his life.
He would obtain everything he had longed for since childhood.
And yet.
Each time he repeated those words, those desires he had borne since he was small—money, status, family.
The more he reminded himself not to stray, the hollower and more lost he felt inside.
Especially in contrast with others’ happiness.
The Beta driver already had his own simple, happy family of three. Yu Lizhu’s eyes now shone with bright longing; she had already found the one she wanted to spend her life with. Perhaps in the future, their marriage certificate would show the smiling, happy faces of her and Ji Shenwen.
But—
For Zuo Shihuan, the perfect family he had always yearned for suddenly seemed like nothing more than an important, but empty, symbolic concept.
In the family portraits in his mind, the faces of the wife and children were all blurred, blank, drained of color into dull black and white.
All because of a Beta’s appearance.
The vivid, dazzling colors reflected from Gu Heng burned deep into his memory, and when compared against the colorless family portraits in his mind—Gu Heng’s colors were so vivid, so alive.
It made him unable to stop from feeling both attachment and regret.
He imagined—if he were still a slum-dwelling Beta with nothing at all, perhaps he would have pursued another Beta without hesitation.
He imagined that the person in the marriage certificate photo in the future would be someone he truly liked, not a cold, interest-bound wife of a political marriage.
Even if that wife wasn’t Gu Heng, it might have been someone else, and he would have lived an ordinary, simple, happy life like the Beta driver…
If only…
He turned his head back.
Zuo Shihuan’s heart gave two urgent beats before sinking quickly back into dead stillness. A faint, bitter, self-mocking smile tugged at his lips as his ten fingers interlocked tightly against his chest, as though he could hear, deep inside, the faint clamor of unwillingness and rebellion.
Impossible.
For him to give up all the wealth and status within his reach—for a Beta—was impossible.
In the end, he was indeed like his father, carrying the selfish and greedy Alpha bloodline. Now that he had become an upper-class Alpha, how could he ever want to go back to being the penniless slum Beta who had nearly died in a hospital, lonely and helpless?
![The Obsessive Shou Moves On [Rebirth]](https://i1.wp.com/lazygirltranslations.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/download-1.jpeg?resize=151,215 "The Obsessive Shou Moves On [Rebirth]")
