Luo Hai closed his eyes, feeling as though a massive weight had been lifted from his chest.
He did as he was told and sat down on the sofa. Only when his body sank into the cushion did he realize just how stiff and weak his legs had become.
Doyle sat back in his executive chair with a smile, resting his chin on one hand and crossing his legs. Luo Hai was familiar with these small gestures—it meant Doyle had completely relaxed, his suspicions and vigilance entirely gone.
“How’s your leg injury?” Doyle lifted his chin slightly. “Oddis didn’t hold back when he fired at you.”
“It’s mostly healed,” Luo Hai replied softly. “I’m not that fragile.”
“Not being able to rescue you in time was a failure on my part—and on the prosecution office’s,” Doyle said, shaking his head. “I thought Oddis would at least hesitate out of old friendship with you. I didn’t expect him to be so ruthless.”
“Oddis and the Lightwing Society are bloodthirsty demons. They won’t stop until they’ve slaughtered the entire city,” Luo Hai said coolly. “In fact, that might be exactly what they’re planning next.”
“What?” Doyle leaned forward slightly. “You know their next move?”
“I wouldn’t say I know, but while I was imprisoned, I occasionally overheard snippets of conversation,” Luo Hai shook his head. “There wasn’t enough information for me to be certain, so these are just speculations…”
“But go ahead and say it anyway,” Doyle encouraged.
“In their discussions, I frequently heard words like ‘north,’ ‘assault,’ and ‘ambush,’” Luo Hai said in a low voice. “I also overheard Oddis and his men talking about acquiring new weapons multiple times.”
“In the Lightwing Society’s headquarters in Lansai, there’s an entire room filled with firearms and ammunition—enough to arm hundreds of people. And that’s not even mentioning the vast stockpile of explosives.”
Doyle frowned.
“I guess the Lightwing Society has been pushed to a dead end and is preparing for a final desperate attempt, launching a full-scale suicide attack on us,” Luo Hai said calmly. “And their entry point is likely to be north of Nantes.”
Doyle furrowed his brows, remaining silent for a while before slowly speaking, “The police presence in several districts to the north has indeed been weak. The area near the north of Nantes Lake sees few immigrants, even smugglers rarely cross there. But if it’s someone as cunning as Eugene Oddis, he might indeed take an unconventional approach.”
“If I remember correctly, there are several armories built in the north of Nantes,” Luo Hai said. “The Lightwing Society’s weapon reserves can’t support a large-scale attack on Nantes, but if they can seize those armories first, it might be a different story.”
After saying this, Luo Hai lowered his voice. “Of course, all of this is just my speculation. There is no evidence to support it. Maybe they don’t mean what I think at all.”
“I have my own judgment,” Doyle said in a low voice, standing up from his office chair and walking toward the door.
Just as he was about to reach the door, he paused, turned back to look at Luo Hai, and said, “You’ve worked hard these days. Get some rest when you get home. If you run out of the injection, remember to ask Ian. He’ll provide it to you as usual.”
Luo Hai could only nod before Doyle strode out of the office, leaving him behind, and even left the door open.
……
Doyle’s words sounded more like a decree than genuine concern, as if Luo Hai wouldn’t be given the life-saving injection anymore if he failed to meet Doyle’s expectations.
When work hours ended, Luo Hai packed up all his files and left the office. As he passed by the imposing statue of justice in the lobby, he turned a corner and entered the medical office.
Dr. Ian, an older Beta, looked almost unchanged from the last time they met. He smiled kindly at Luo Hai and waved him in.
“It’s so late. I didn’t keep you from leaving work, did I?” Luo Hai said in a low voice.
“Leave work? These days, I work more overtime than I leave work,” Dr. Ian said as he gestured for Luo Hai to lie down, skillfully hooking him up to the medical equipment. “Lately, I’ve been doing gender checks for hundreds of people every day to prevent Omegas from using drugs to disguise themselves and infiltrating important departments like the prosecutor’s office and police stations. It’s really funny, actually. They never thought there was anything wrong with oppressing and insulting Omegas, but now they’re afraid that Omegas will retaliate. If you don’t do anything wrong, you have nothing to fear, huh?”
As Dr. Ian rambled on, he looked at the test results and pushed his glasses up in disbelief, then let out a sigh of relief. “I thought after everything you went through with the Lightwing Society, your health would have taken a hit. But it seems like you’ve actually recovered. It’s like you’ve been nourished by a highly compatible pheromone… You truly are a miracle.”
Hearing this, Luo Hai felt a pang of guilt. If the conversation went any further, Dr. Ian might uncover secrets that could cost him his life, so he quickly interrupted the older man.
“Since there’s no problem, about the medication…”
“It’s already prepared for you,” Dr. Ian said, handing Luo Hai a box from the table. “This is for this month. Don’t even think about increasing the dosage again. Since your condition has improved, you need to take better care of yourself.”
Although Luo Hai knew these medications were essentially slow-acting poison, he still felt a sense of familiar security as he took the box.
The shame of being exposed as an Omega, the fear of violence triggered by even a hint of pheromones, was an emotion every Omega experienced every moment of their life. Forget slow-acting poison; even deadly poison would be willingly swallowed by many Omegas just for a moment of freedom and respect.
Luo Hai lightly turned his wrist, examining the injection box he had grown so familiar with. “If one day I’m no longer working here, I suppose you won’t need to procure these medications anymore?”
“Want to leave the prosecutor’s office? I support you. There’s nothing worth staying for anymore. It’s all a corrupted system with corrupted people,” Dr. Ian sighed while tidying up the examination table. “But these medications have been in the supply chain since my first year here. They’ve always been kept in the medical office’s fridge.”
Luo Hai’s fingers paused. “It wasn’t prepared just because of my situation?”
“Not exactly,” Dr. Ian said, stroking his chin as he recalled. “The prosecutor’s office has been purchasing these medications for a long time, though not many people know about it. You probably just happened to benefit from it.”
…
The sky was clear that day, and the sunset painted the horizon with a fiery glow, turning half of the sky a brilliant red.
Luo Hai walked alone along the road back to his apartment, his mind tangled in a knot, unable to reach any conclusions.
He had always thought the medications at Dr. Ian’s were specifically arranged by Doyle for him, but today he learned that the prosecutor’s office had been purchasing them long before he arrived in Nantes.
What does an institution where everyone is an Alpha need such medication for? Who authorized the purchase? Could there be others in the prosecutor’s office, like him, disguising their gender? If so, who are they, and what is their purpose?
Luo Hai closed his eyes and stood still for a moment, feeling his thoughts clash and swirl, giving him a headache so intense he felt like his head might explode. He decided to set aside all his thoughts and focus on the road home.
Nantes was quieter than usual. The once-bustling shopping streets now had half of their stores closed, and the remaining ones were eerily empty. The shelves had few goods, and the storefronts had few customers.
Only a young couple walked through the street, laughing and chatting, hands held together. The sunset bathed their shoulders in light, as if no matter how difficult their situation, nothing could dampen their enthusiasm for life.
Luo Hai couldn’t help but glance at the couple’s backs. The man was wearing a dark coat, which made Luo Hai think of Eugene.
But Eugene looked even better in a coat than this man. He was taller, with broader shoulders, and even when he casually threw on a coat without caring about how it fit, he still looked like a perfect model.
Sometimes, after waking up, Eugene wouldn’t even bother combing his hair. His blond curls would sway lightly on his forehead, making Luo Hai frown, always insisting on sitting Eugene down to fix his hair before letting him go.
Mocking his sloppiness was only part of it—the other part was that he absolutely wouldn’t allow that bastard to go around spreading his pheromones with his lazy handsome face.
The couple’s figures soon disappeared around the corner of the street. Luo Hai slowly exhaled from his lungs, the warm breath turning into white mist before quickly dissipating in the cold air.
He and Eugene had not seen each other for two whole weeks now, but he wasn’t worried that Eugene’s image would fade from his memory. His brain seemed to have developed some kind of fixed mechanism—whenever he had a moment alone, whenever he had the slightest bit of idle time, that blond-haired fool with his goofy smile would surface in his mind, deepening the imprint of his name in his heart over and over again.
By the time he returned to his apartment, the last traces of fire in the sky had already faded.
The empty apartment was just as it had always been. He turned on the light, and that giant alpaca still sat there, staring at him with its dopey expression.
Luo Hai sat down beside it, stretched out his arms, and wrapped them around the plush toy, burying his chin into its soft fur. After a moment, he spoke softly, “Da Bai, it’s been so long since you last saw your dad. Do you miss him?”
The alpaca didn’t answer—it only wobbled clumsily.
“I think…I might miss him a little,” Luo Hai murmured. “Just a tiny bit.”
