Luo Hai thought he would have trouble sleeping in a new bed in an unfamiliar room, but the moment his head hit the pillow, he was out like a light.
The nights in Lansai were exceptionally quiet. Even with so many homeless Omegas and children staying at the Lightwing Hotel, not a single sound disturbed the night.
On the first night, Luo Hai slept for more than ten hours straight. For the first time in a long while, his nightmares didn’t come to haunt him. By the time he woke up the next afternoon, a meal was already prepared downstairs. Xiao Lau had even brought a wheelchair upstairs to fetch him, moving so efficiently that Luo Hai didn’t even get a chance to thank him.
Eugene wasn’t always at the hotel. He usually left early in the morning with a few members and didn’t return until dusk. During this time, Luo Hai had no choice but to interact with the others, gradually becoming familiar with the members of Lightwing.
And in doing so, his worldview was completely shattered.
For example, he had always assumed that Omegas were gentle, kind, obedient, and submissive. In the environment he grew up in, those were the only kinds of Omegas he had ever seen. Cheap goods never made it onto the shelves of the Nantes Mall, and his colleagues and superiors had money and connections, so the Omegas they brought around were always well-behaved, beautiful porcelain dolls.
He had already been surprised when he met Xiao Lau, but then he was introduced to Li Jie.
Li Jie had short-cropped hair, tanned skin, and often wore just a tank top and shorts as she bustled around the hotel. On the first night, she loaded Luo Hai’s bowl with meat and talked nonstop—starting from whether stray cats outside liked spicy food and somehow ending with the question of whether God existed at the edge of the universe.
She didn’t have a pheromone scent, so Luo Hai assumed she was just a warmhearted Beta. But the next evening, she pulled him aside in the hallway, giving him a long talk about the safety of inhibitor use and glandular health. Only then did Luo Hai realize that, like Xiao Lau, she was an Omega who used medication to block her pheromones.
Even Dandan was nothing like the Omegas Luo Hai had known.
He could still clearly remember the scene at Nantes Square when he arrested Dandan. It was as vivid as if it had happened yesterday.
Alin, Dandan, and a dozen other Omegas stood in a line before him, their faces calm and silent. When the officers took them away, Dandan simply raised her hands to be cuffed, without even blinking—without even glancing back.
Luo Hai had surveilled her for a long time, watching her buy groceries, cook, and take care of children, yet he had never considered that she might have her own personality and habits. He had assumed she was no different from countless weak, powerless Omegas—just another insignificant pawn sacrificed under a system of oppression.
But back at Lightwing, Dandan became relaxed and real. She would laugh out loud at Xiao Lau’s bad jokes, roll up her sleeves when doing laundry to splash water at the mischievous kids, and she had even adopted a stray cat named Xiao Hei. She would go on and on about how smart and well-behaved it was, even bragging about how it stole dried fish from other people’s windowsills to leave on her bedside table.
Sometimes, Luo Hai helped out with whatever chores he could do while sitting down. Other times, even those tasks were taken over by Li Jie or Xiao Lau, leaving him with nothing to do but sit and watch them work—while the foundations of his understanding of the world were steadily dismantled by these vibrant souls.
“You know, Xiao Lau used to be a famous child prodigy in Lansai,” a voice suddenly spoke behind him.
Luo Hai turned around to see Eugene, the leader of Lightwing, who had somehow returned without him noticing. Eugene sat in the chair behind him, propping up his chin with one hand as he followed Luo Hai’s gaze toward the busy kitchen.
“A child prodigy?” Luo Hai asked.
Eugene nodded in Xiao Lau’s direction. “He graduated from high school at 14 and entered Nantes’ top finance university at 15. Back then, he was the pride of all of Lansai. On his first day of university, the city even put up banners to celebrate. But in his second year, he underwent secondary gender differentiation, and the school ordered him to drop out. Then, he was handed over to the gender control agency. After participating in three ‘Offering Days,’ he was bought by a 40-year-old Alpha.”
Every word of this story was shocking. Luo Hai didn’t know what expression to wear in response to such a dramatic turn of events.
“And then?” he asked in a low voice.
“This kid was actually pretty lucky. The day after that Alpha bought him—before he even had the chance to mark him—he died in a car accident. Xiao Lau escaped during the chaos, wandered the streets for several days, and was eventually found by me. If I’d been a few hours later, he probably would have starved to death in a filthy gutter somewhere,” Eugene said quietly.
Luo Hai looked toward the kitchen, where Xiao Lau was mopping the floor. Dandan was scolding him for not doing it properly, and Xiao Lau struck a dramatic pose with the mop, hand on his hip, arguing back.
“And Li Jie,” Eugene continued. “She was smuggled into Lansai from overseas. Apparently, the day after her secondary gender differentiation, her parents sold her to traffickers. At an age where she barely understood anything, she was forced to recognize three or five different ‘godfathers’ and ‘godmothers’ before finally being sold at a low price to a drunkard Alpha. That Alpha beat her nearly every day—once, he even knocked her unconscious and then woke her up just to keep hitting her. One day, she couldn’t take it anymore. She grabbed a chair and smashed it over his head, killing him. After that, she spent years on the run until she joined Lightwing Society, where she finally found some stability.”
Luo Hai remained silent for several seconds before finally looking up at Eugene. “You’re telling me all this to make me feel more guilty?”
Eugene gave a faint smile. “Of course not. I just want you to understand—Lightwing Society is neither a terrorist organization nor a shelter for weak Omegas. Everyone here is a resilient soul, a survivor who has fought their way back from the brink. They’re all prepared to battle their enemies at any moment.”
As he spoke, Eugene glanced at Luo Hai, his eyes carrying a subtle smile—and a deeper, more unreadable emotion. “Besides, guilt isn’t a bad thing. It can be turned into strength, into a weapon against the world. The people who truly deserve to die are the ones who don’t even have the capacity to feel guilt.”
Luo Hai was silent for a moment before finally speaking. “So this is how you convinced so many people to risk their lives for you—with that smooth talk of yours?”
“Not just that,” Eugene blinked, shamelessly adding, “There’s also my devastatingly handsome face.”
……
Luo Hai’s life in Lansai suddenly became very stable—so much so that it started to feel strangely unreal.
Every morning, he still woke up early out of habit, but there were no endless case files waiting for him, no need to finish washing up in ten minutes or make himself presentable.
His leg healed faster than expected. In just over a week, the wound had already scabbed over, and he could walk without crutches. But every time he tried to find something to do, Xiao Lau would charge in and take over, leaving him no choice but to helplessly thank him and crawl back into bed to stare at the ceiling.
He had probably made up for a lifetime of lost sleep during this time—so much so that just looking at the ceiling made him feel nauseous.
Most Lightwing Society members didn’t have much formal education, so there weren’t many books in the hotel. Xiao Lau’s room had some novels and magazines, but Luo Hai had already read through them all.
Eventually, he found himself leaning against the windowsill, watching stray cats fight in the street.
At this moment, he finally understood, on a deeply personal level, why Eugene had been so bored a few months ago that he had nothing better to do than send him dozens of messages a day.
And he couldn’t even send messages.
His phone had been confiscated by Eugene on his second day at the hotel, on the grounds that hostages were not allowed to communicate with the outside world.
Luo Hai knew in his heart that Eugene confiscated his phone not just to prevent him from contacting the outside world, but because he was afraid that any news from Nantes would upset him. Out of sight, out of mind.
But there was a television in the Lightwing Hotel, and watching the news from different districts had become one of Luo Hai’s ways of filling the emptiness in his days.
Nantes was still searching for him with full force, determined to find him dead or alive. Luo Hai knew it wasn’t because he was personally important to the Prosecutor’s Office—it was because he was the host of the Trial. He represented the face of the authorities.
If they failed to find him, it would mean letting Lightwing publicly tear apart their dignity. So, even if they had to mobilize the entire police force, even if they had to drag a corpse onto the city square for public display, they would do it.
Driven by this determination, in just half a month, Nantes had been thoroughly searched twice. Countless Omegas were arrested under fabricated charges. Meanwhile, with all the police diverted to the manhunt, crime in the city skyrocketed. Stores were being robbed even in broad daylight, and merchants and vendors shut down their businesses, unable to bear the chaos. At one point, it became nearly impossible to even buy a head of cabbage in the entire city.
On the news, the tall female Alpha still stood proudly, delivering elegant rhetoric, confidently predicting that Lightwing’s leader would be captured within two days. She declared that the Prosecutor’s Office would protect the safety and happiness of the people and that the Omega uprising would soon be completely crushed.
Luo Hai noticed a change in wording on the news: “uprising.”
No longer “terrorist acts.” No longer “rebellion.” But “uprising.”
He didn’t know what Eugene had been doing these past days, but it seemed the seeds of his ideas had already begun to take root in people’s minds—even their enemies had unconsciously started to change their language.
Eugene Oddis was perhaps the most remarkable person Luo Hai had ever met.
No matter how difficult the situation, no matter how dire the odds, he always found a way to turn things around—bold, cunning, and seemingly impossible ways. He had a way of transforming weakness into strength, giving even the most hopeless a sliver of hope.
It was a tiny hope, no bigger than starlight.
But for those who had lived in darkness all their lives, it was enough.
Late at night, Luo Hai curled up in bed, burying his face into the soft blanket.
He missed Eugene.
