The streets after midnight were silent. Minutes passed without a single car, and the whole city had sunk into blissful dreams. The faint lights seemed more lifeless than the moonlight.
Suddenly, a black Maybach swept through a thin haze of dust and braked hard outside an Alpha Private Hospital in the center of Jiangcheng City.
Screeech...
The low screech of the brakes was deafening. The jolt left Ji Chi dizzy, and his body, already too unsteady to stay seated, nearly pitched onto the floor.
Ji Chi breathed rapidly, his face flushed, a pale pink spreading even down his neck. Large patches of exposed skin gleamed pale and honey-toned, and sticky sweat plastered his clothes to him. His lips parted slightly, releasing scorching breaths. Desire radiated from his entire body.
"We're here, we're here! Young master, just hold on a little longer. We'll get a doctor to take a look."
The driver was speaking. His hands were already damp around the steering wheel. He had covered a twenty-minute drive in just ten.
The driver got out and hurried to help Ji Chi out of the back seat.
The Alpha who normally exploded at the slightest touch was like a lion starved thin today, unusually docile.
He neither cursed nor hit anyone.
Two minutes later, they reached the emergency department.
Then his blood was drawn to check the stability of his pheromone levels.
"It certainly looks like the symptoms of a rut."
Seeing how restless Ji Chi was, the doctor set down his patient card. "The emergency blood test will take at least fifteen minutes."
As he spoke, he pointed toward a small room nearby:
"If you're really uncomfortable, there's a soothing room next door. It contains universal soothing pheromones from Omegas."
"Omega pheromones will make you feel a little better."
Ji Chi's hands curled loosely into fists. His short hair was damp, a few strands sticking to his forehead, and beads of sweat ran down the side of his neck.
Young Master Ji was beautiful, but his eyes held a ruthless edge, a dark look that feared no one. Even wilted as he was now, he still looked difficult to get along with.
"No need." Ji Chi refused immediately.
Because he had no perfectly compatible Omega, Ji Chi had relied on suppressants to get through every rut since reaching adulthood.
But this time was very different. Oral suppressants did nothing, and even injections had no effect on him.
His agitation kept getting worse.
Stranger still, this feeling had not driven him to want to mark an Omega.
He did not crave an Omega, nor did he want an Omega to soothe him.
This was nothing like a rut.
An Alpha in rut could use no more than one suppressant injection a day.
His only option now was to come to the hospital.
"Where's your Omega?" the doctor asked.
"I've never marked any Omega." Ji Chi tried to speak clearly, but he could not hide his impatience.
The doctor's expression visibly changed at that. He was certain Ji Chi was lying.
Without having marked an Omega, his symptoms would never be this severe, even if he was in rut.
A rut was the period when an Alpha's possessiveness toward an Omega was strongest. The more intense the reaction, the more he needed his Omega partner's soothing.
That indirectly proved this Alpha definitely had a partner.
"You mustn't lie to your doctor." The elderly doctor was at an age that commanded respect, and his stern expression was genuinely intimidating.
"You just said yourself that you took oral suppressants and even had an injection. But your current symptoms are already severe enough to require isolation."
"If you go out in this state, you could harm an Omega at any moment."
To protect the inherently vulnerable Omega population, the law explicitly required Alphas in severe rut to undergo compulsory isolation. They were frenzied and irritable, like lions on the hunt. Too dangerous.
Ji Chi had no idea how to answer the doctor.
"I'm not lying." His agitation was already nearing its breaking point.
"And I'm not agreeing to isolation!"
He truly had no desire to mark an Omega.
He only felt awful, as though his entire body had been thrown into a furnace. He burned all over, restless and anxious, unable to find any peace.
Just then, hurried footsteps sounded outside.
"Doctor, the blood test results for emergency patient A90 are back."
A nurse carrying the test report entered the consultation room. There was something unusually strange about her expression.
Even the way she looked at Ji Chi had changed.
The nurse handed the report to the doctor and waited for him to read it.
After reading it, the doctor exchanged a shocked look with her, just as she had expected.
The nurse's expression was grave, her questions earnest.
"The same blood sample was tested three times."
"Should we draw another tube of blood and test it again?"
"Maybe there's something wrong with the machine."
"Or should we refer the patient to a higher-level hospital?"
Ji Chi's eyes darkened as he listened.
A transfer?
Had they managed to diagnose him with a terminal illness over a simple rut?
Judging by the nurse's tone, this was nothing minor.
"May I ask what exactly is wrong?" The driver, who had been standing nearby, came over too.
Holding the report, the doctor waved a hand at the nurse. "You can go. There's no need to repeat the test."
The nurse stole a glance at Ji Chi, then left.
Ji Chi sat on the small stool opposite the doctor, already struggling to stay upright. His hand braced against the desk, trembling involuntarily.
Losing control of his own body was unbearable. It felt as though he was submerged in water. Ji Chi wanted to break through to an opening, but in the end, he remained trapped in his surging emotions, flailing like a headless fly.
The doctor turned the report around and handed it to Ji Chi.
"Sex pheromone concentration: 9000+."
"Glandular blood ketones: 300+."
Ji Chi looked at the report. He spent his days hanging around bars and nightclubs; he could not understand this educated stuff.
"What does that mean?"
Were his pheromones out of balance?
"You're not in rut." The doctor tapped lightly on the desk.
"These are the symptoms of heat."
After speaking, the doctor watched Ji Chi.
Sure enough, Ji Chi visibly bristled. He nearly laughed in anger, and wanted even more to smash up this hospital.
Everyone knew that only Omegas went into heat.
How could an Alpha like him be in heat?
Even melodramatic TV shows didn't have plots this outrageous anymore!
"Are you going to tell me my symptoms could go into the hospital's special case files, too?" Ji Chi could not resist the sarcasm.
The doctor did not deny it. His eyes were full of scientific curiosity. "I would indeed like to do so with your consent. This is certainly a rare case."
Fuck...
Ji Chi was just about to curse when the doctor spoke again. "I know this may be hard for you to accept right away, but you are indeed in heat."
"Your glandular blood results show that you've been marked."
"It isn't that you don't want to find an Omega. You only want the pheromones of the person who marked you."
"You want to be closer to that person."
"Since medication can't control it, I suggest you find the person who marked you. Their pheromones can help you get through your heat."
"There's no other way."
Ji Chi's breathing grew heavier. The doctor's words reached him in disjointed fragments, like someone chanting scriptures. What was all that babbling? Was this some kind of joke?
Marking was an Alpha's act of claiming an Omega.
How could an Alpha like him possibly have been marked?
The driver standing nearby was equally bewildered. "Doctor, have you made a mistake? He's an Alpha."
The doctor continued speaking to Ji Chi:
"There's no mistake."
"This is an Alpha Private Hospital. You don't need to confirm his designation with me."
There had been precedents of Omegas marking Alphas.
Two cases had occurred in the past century, usually involving Omegas who had failed to differentiate into Alphas.
Or there was another possibility... a more frightening one.
Until he was certain, he did not dare draw a rash conclusion.
The doctor stood up, his gaze full of earnest persuasion.
"Your symptoms are very severe now. Without soothing, in another two hours, you won't even be able to sit here and speak to me like this."
Seeing Ji Chi's confusion, the doctor reminded him:
"If you were bitten while you weren't fully conscious, I can request a bite-mark analysis to trace the person. You can press charges for sexual assault."
"Forcible marking is a crime. Minor cases may be settled privately; serious ones can lead to imprisonment."
Sexual assault...
That was the charge Omegas most commonly brought against Alphas.
An Alpha pressing charges for sexual assault? He might as well twist his own head off and give it to children to kick around. He'd never heard of anything so humiliating.
Just kill him...
Right now.
Hang him.
The doctor looked straight at Ji Chi. "Can you remember who it was?"
"You're running out of time."
Ji Chi drew a sharp breath, his mind in chaos.
No matter how much he refused to believe it, his body's reactions did not lie.
He wanted to search for something. The anxiety coursing through him told him every moment to find pheromones that could calm him down.
To keep him from losing control.
Otherwise, he would go mad.
He definitely would.
Ji Chi's limbs were weak. Even his insides churned and clamored. A single spark would have been enough to burn this body to ashes.
Ji Chi frantically searched his mind for images. He was used to being a bastard; without someone keeping him in line, he could go an entire day without doing a single decent thing.
He caused trouble everywhere, got into too many fights, and offended too many people. If not for his status and the fact that he was an Alpha, there was no telling how badly people would have taught him a lesson.
Usually, he was the only one doing the bullying.
No one dared bully him.
Memories flickered through Ji Chi's mind until he suddenly caught a figure, blending into the night, shifting elusively through his thoughts.
The hospital lights overlapped with the decadent neon glow in his memory, and tiny, soft glimmers shone in Ji Chi's pupils.
He remembered.
A month ago, an Omega really had bitten him.
"Quick!" Ji Chi turned his reddened eyes toward the driver, using all his strength to force out a complete sentence. "Find out who that Omega I flirted with at Lingxin Bar a month ago was."
"Where is that Omega now? Find out for me right this second!"
Before you continue