SMS CHAPTER 27

“Oh, Zhen Ning?” Li Feng paused for a moment before answering. “He just told me he needed to go back to the base, probably to grab something, and then hurried off. What’s wrong?”

The lounge was bustling with staff quickly packing up and preparing to leave.

Upon hearing Li Feng’s words, Yan Chengfeng’s expression suddenly darkened.

“Why did he leave so suddenly? He didn’t even tell us.” Tao Luo, standing nearby, was just as confused. But her gluttonous mind soon took over, steering her thoughts in a different direction. “So, did Zhen Ning say if he’s coming to eat hot pot with us later? Ah, maybe I should send him the restaurant’s address…”

Yan Chengfeng’s face grew even grimmer.

Recalling the moment on stage when he blew out the candles and briefly locked eyes with Zhen Ning from afar, as well as Zhen Ning’s unusual behavior before the competition, Yan Chengfeng suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of unease.

Why did he leave so suddenly?

Did he not want to attend the birthday party after the match and decide to escape instead? Yan Chengfeng was lost in thought but quickly dismissed the idea.

No, that couldn’t be it. Given Zhen Ning’s personality, if he didn’t want to go, he wouldn’t have agreed to attend in the first place. That couldn’t possibly be the reason.

Tao Luo happily sent the hot pot restaurant’s address to Zhen Ning. Then, she looked up and paused in surprise. “Hey, Yan Kitchen, where are you going?”

Yan Chengfeng spoke in a hoarse voice. “You guys go to the hot pot restaurant first. I’ll head back to the base… I want to change my clothes first.”

“Alright, but I’ve never seen you care about your appearance this much before.”

Tao Luo muttered under her breath. Then, as if something occurred to her, she called out to Yan Chengfeng’s retreating figure, “You might as well find Zhen Ning while you’re at the base. Make sure to bring him along to eat with us!”

Yan Chengfeng took a taxi back to the base.

It felt almost like a stress response—Zhen Ning’s sudden disappearance left him with a nagging sense of unease. His heart raced with anxiety, though he couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason.

The KYM base’s lobby was dark.

Yan Chengfeng froze. It was too quiet. Not a single light was on. There were no signs that anyone had returned at all.

For a brief moment, he hesitated, wondering if Zhen Ning had lied to Li Feng and never actually returned to the base. But in the next second, Yan Chengfeng’s entire body tensed—

He smelled something.

A scent all too familiar, something deeply etched into his memory: the pheromones of an omega. Zhen Ning’s scent.

A sourness tinged with bitterness, yet beneath the fruity notes lay an irresistible sweetness—much like him. Complex and impossible to decipher.

Zhen Ning was definitely here.

It was as if an invisible thread wove through the air, carrying a subtle yet irresistible hint of sour apricot, pulling Yan Chengfeng forward—or perhaps, tempting him.

Step by step, Yan Chengfeng made his way to the east wing, where Zhen Ning’s dormitory was located.

The scent grew stronger and stronger until he finally stopped at Zhen Ning’s door. In that moment, Yan Chengfeng froze, a sudden realization hitting him.

He suddenly recalled the conversation he had overheard in the lobby that day between Zhen Ning and Dr. Zheng.

He pushed the door open. The room was dark, with no one inside.

Yan Chengfeng hesitated for a moment, but the intense scent of sour apricots lingering in the air told him he was definitely in the right place.

He glanced around in a daze, and then he heard the sound of running water.

It was coming from the bathroom.

A sense of foreboding gripped Yan Chengfeng. Without hesitation, he pushed the bathroom door open, and what he saw made his eyes widen—

The bathtub was filled with water, the faucet still running, and the floor was completely soaked. Yet there was no steam in the air, which meant the water in the tub was cold.

Zhen Ning sat with his back to Yan Chengfeng, curled up in the freezing water, completely drenched.

He was trembling.

Yan Chengfeng couldn’t see his face, but he could see his shoulders shaking. And then, in the next second, he heard a faint gasp.

Yan Chengfeng froze.

Zhen Ning had always been someone who maintained his composure no matter the circumstances. Yan Chengfeng had never heard him make a sound like this before.

A barely audible gasp, yet in it, Yan Chengfeng could hear pain, suppression, torment, and… desire.

Several scattered suppressant syringes lay on the floor beside the bathtub. It was hard to tell whether they had already been used or not.

Yan Chengfeng’s eyes widened.

His mind went blank, yet at the same time, he realized that the situation before him was exactly what he had just speculated at the door.

Zhen Ning’s heat had arrived.

At that moment, Zhen Ning seemed startled by the movement at the doorway. He turned his head, and upon seeing Yan Chengfeng standing there, his expression relaxed for a fleeting moment. But in the next instant, his entire body stiffened, and he turned back almost frantically.

Yan Chengfeng watched as Zhen Ning sharply averted his gaze, his eyelashes trembling. After a moment, Zhen Ning gritted his teeth and said, “…Get out.”

His voice trembled on the last word.

Yan Chengfeng felt a sudden jolt in his heart.

This wasn’t like when Zhen Ning had first returned to KYM, and Yan Chengfeng had been caught in a state of shock and denial. By now, he had fully come to terms with the fact that Zhen Ning was an omega, and his mindset had already begun to shift.

He was aware that others often said he had “straight alpha cancer,” and yet, in secret, he had looked up a lot of information. He cared about what Dr. Zheng had said. He was angry at Zhen Ning for recklessly overusing suppressants, though he couldn’t quite explain why.

He also knew that omegas couldn’t control when their heat would come, but he had never imagined that one day, he would face Zhen Ning in such a situation.

What struck him even more was the scent filling the bathroom.

It was too sweet.

That cloyingly sweet and gentle omega pheromone made Yan Chengfeng’s throat unbearably dry. It was the innate, fatal attraction of an omega to an alpha.

It felt like a fire was slowly igniting within him. Yan Chengfeng forced himself to stay calm, but he knew that if any other young alpha had been standing in this bathroom, surrounded by such pheromones, it would have been impossible to remain rational.

In a hoarse voice, Yan Chengfeng said, “I—”

“Don’t worry about me.”

Zhen Ning cut him off again, his voice strained, as if struggling to suppress the tremor in his tone. “Get out.”

Yan Chengfeng was at a complete loss. Though he had a hunch about what to expect before stepping inside, he had never anticipated this.

Just moments ago, he had been overwhelmed by confusion and shock. Yet the next second, Zhen Ning’s words hit him like a bucket of cold water.

Yan Chengfeng stared at Zhen Ning’s profile, his expression gradually darkening.

Even though Zhen Ning’s voice was trembling, even though he was willing to soak in freezing water and endure it all, his first instinct upon seeing Yan Chengfeng was still the same cold and distant “Get out.”

Not long ago, they had found their connection again on stage. Yan Chengfeng had thought that maybe the distance between them wasn’t as vast as it had been when they first reunited.

Just earlier, under the warmth of the candlelight, Yan Chengfeng had made a wish—a wish about Zhen Ning.

There were so many things he wanted to say to him. He wanted to tell Zhen Ning that he could finally let go of what had happened when he left back then. That this time, he wanted to play alongside him properly.

But once again, reality made it painfully clear—whether in the past or now, Zhen Ning would always push him away. Again and again.

It was a deeply humiliating feeling, leaving Yan Chengfeng with an ache in his chest.

“Fine. I didn’t want to worry about you.” Yan Chengfeng took a deep breath and said, “But when I was standing at the base’s entrance just now, I could already sense your pheromones. If you stay like this, have you thought about what will happen when the others return?”

Zhen Ning didn’t respond for a long time. After a while, he slowly turned his head.

The moment Yan Chengfeng saw Zhen Ning’s face clearly, it felt like something clenched tightly around his heart.

Those black, beautiful eyes were clouded with a misty and dazed haze. His earlobes and eyelids were tinged with a faint blush. His hair was slightly damp, and tiny droplets of moisture clung to his eyelashes. Under the dim bathroom light, his face looked almost frightening.

The usual aloofness he carried had completely crumbled, yet the way he endured this unbearable moment, remaining clear-headed and restrained, held an indescribable, heart-stirring attraction.

Yan Chengfeng felt his heart skip a beat.

“I’ll use cold water to lower my body temperature first.”

Zhen Ning’s cheeks and neck were flushed a startling red. He paused, closing his eyes as if trying to suppress the discomfort within his body. After a long silence, he spoke again. “Then I’ll inject a suppressant to temporarily reduce the concentration of my pheromones.”

Yan Chengfeng: “…What?”

“And then I’ll go to a nearby hospital.” He heard Zhen Ning continue calmly narrating, “…Hospitals have isolation wards. Or I’ll check into a hotel. I promise I won’t affect anyone else at the base, so don’t worry.”

Yan Chengfeng stared at him in disbelief. A moment later, he laughed, finding it completely ridiculous.

“Zhen Ning.” Yan Chengfeng’s shoulders shook with laughter, but there wasn’t a trace of amusement in his eyes. “Do you take me for an idiot?”

Zhen Ning remained silent.

“You think I can’t see it?” Yan Chengfeng’s gaze shifted to the scattered suppressants on the floor. He spoke slowly, enunciating each word. “You already tried, didn’t you? The suppressants aren’t working anymore. Your body has developed a resistance because of how frequently you’ve been injecting them.”

“And that’s why your heat came early, isn’t it?” he asked.

Zhen Ning’s eyelashes fluttered. He neither confirmed nor denied it, but his irregular breathing betrayed him.

The droplets of water clinging to his skin seemed on the verge of evaporating from his scorching body temperature. His pheromones spilled into the air, spreading unchecked throughout the bathroom, clearly signaling to anyone nearby that he was an unmarked omega in need of a mark.

“Do you really think your plan will work?” Yan Chengfeng took a deep breath. “You know the truth, don’t you? The suppressants won’t work on you anymore. So how are you going to suppress your pheromones? How are you going to make it to this so-called hospital or hotel?”

“You can’t even walk out of this bathroom right now.”

The cold water in the bathtub seemed incapable of neutralizing the heat burning inside him. Zhen Ning felt his last line of defense crumbling bit by bit.

Reason and instinct were at war. He knew that every word Yan Chengfeng said was true. His glands burned unbearably, and his body screamed for a mark.

But the person standing in front of him… was Yan Chengfeng.

How humiliating.

Realizing this, Zhen Ning trembled slightly. He struggled to prop himself up, water splashing noisily around him. With great effort, he stretched out his hand, reaching for one of the scattered suppressants beside the bathtub. Even though he knew it wouldn’t work, even though he was fully aware of the consequences, he wanted to try one more time.

But his limbs were weak, and his hands, soaked from the cold water, couldn’t even tear open the thin packaging.

The next moment, Yan Chengfeng grabbed his wrist firmly—

Water splashed over the edge of the tub. The water was ice-cold, yet where their skin touched, it burned, as if a fire could ignite at any moment.

In the next second, the suppressant in Zhen Ning’s hand was snatched away and tossed out of reach.

Zhen Ning was shocked. “Yan Chengfeng, you—”

The distance between them suddenly became almost nonexistent.

“Zhen Ning.” Yan Chengfeng’s voice was low, laced with anger. “Whether it was back then or now, I don’t mean anything to you, do I?”

Zhen Ning’s body stiffened.

Yan Chengfeng struggled to suppress the frustration swelling in his chest. Staring at Zhen Ning’s flushed face, he couldn’t help but feel a pang of bitterness. “You’d rather inject suppressants like they’re water, treat your body like this, recklessly hurt yourself, but you won’t ask anyone for help. Is that right?”

“You don’t care about your own body, do you? Didn’t you tell Dr. Zheng you didn’t care about the consequences of overusing suppressants?”

Then, Yan Chengfeng asked, “Since you can ignore the harm suppressants are doing to you, since all you want is to perform well in this year’s competition, isn’t there another option right in front of you?”

Zhen Ning’s eyes widened.

He looked up in disbelief, seeing the young alpha’s face so close to his. Yan Chengfeng’s breath was hot, scalding, but his eyes were filled with sorrow and fury.

Yan Chengfeng held Zhen Ning’s gaze for a moment before letting out a self-deprecating laugh. “In any case, we’re just ordinary teammates now. Our only shared goal is to win the world championship, so for the sake of our future, I don’t mind.”

He hesitated, then spoke again, almost as if talking to himself. “…It’s not like we can ever go back to the way we were.”

“Since we can’t be friends again, there’s no need to worry about things being awkward between us in the future, right?” he asked.

“It’s just a temporary mark,” Yan Chengfeng said hoarsely, “I can help you.”

He struggled to suppress the tremor in his voice as he met Zhen Ning’s gaze and asked, “Do you want it?”