Jiang Zhihuo’s movements paused, then he smiled.
As soon as he received the report, Jiang Zhihuo already suspected this.
If Yan Mu could provide the activity report, then the last few pages of the character profile were certainly not missing. It was an obvious detail–if he had nothing to hide, he could have just shown him the digital version like the night before. Why bother to print it out?
Was he deliberately trying to mislead him, or did he have another motive? If Yan Mu didn’t want to say, Jiang Zhihuo had no way of knowing.
Yan Mu admitted that he was the one who put away the character profile. That statement was clearly a declarative sentence, not a question.
He was simply stating a fact.
Jiang Zhihuo couldn’t quite figure out what he meant. There were many possibilities, but one thing was certain–Yan Mu wasn’t the only one with doubts and suspicions about the whole matter.
Jiang Zhihuo set down the cat in his hands, took out a small bowl, poured in some sterilized milk, and added a bit more cat food.
He said, “There was no live broadcast across the entire internet at all.”
Too many omegas involved in Feng Zhi’s case; there was no way they could truly put it online.
“Why did you make me say that on purpose?” Jiang Zhihuo asked.
Yan Mu looked at him but didn’t respond.
This wasn’t the only things that raised doubts.
Jiang Zhihuo asked again, “There was actually no need to play that video at school, let alone go out your way to hack into the school internal network. So why did you do it?”
Invading the school’s internal network and playing the video were entirely Yan Mu’s own decisions–they were never part of Jiang Zhihuo’s plan. If there was truly no purpose behind it, there would have been no need to go through all that trouble.
Yan Mu gazed at him quietly for a moment, his eyes drifting past the bridge of his nose. “What do you think?”
Jiang Zhihuo smiled and said, “I’m thinking…you might actually have something special.”
Yan Mu nodded.
Jiang Zhihuo said, “Feng Zhi is overly confident and prideful–savng face matters to him. In reality, he can avoid criticism and accusation, but on the internet, it’s everywhere. He can’t escape it, no matter what. If the breaking point of his mentality is at hundred, then after hearing this sentence, combined with all the psychological pressures and reckless decisions, he’s already crumbled by at least 30%.”
Yan Mu: “Mhm.”
“Playing the video at school was done with two purposes. First, to tell the senior students in class, ‘The Director Feng you’ve always respected is nothing but a beast in human clothing,’.”
“Second, to send a message to other two omegas who hadn’t been targeted yet and thought they were safe.”
“You’re conveying two messages to them. One: ‘You dodged a bullet–someone took the fall for you’. Doing good deed without leaving a name, yet making sure the act itself is remembered…quite a bold move.”
“The other…” Jiang Zhihuo said, “Is, ‘You’ve been deceived. If you don’t wake up to the reality soon, you’ll end up like the omega in the video–violated by Director Feng.’ You’re using empathy to force them to pick a side.”
“Both omegas have gentle temperaments. Once they realized the truth, they’ll be utterly disgusted. They might not cure or say anything too harsh, but their hatred will be genuine.”
Jiang Zhihuo paused for a moment and looked at Yan Mu. Yan Mu showed no extra expression and neither agreed nor disagreed as he said, “Continue.”
“You took advantage of this. When so many people saw the police escorting Feng Zhi out, they were bound to be shocked, to talk about it, to take photos and videos–that’s just human nature, a normal reaction.”
“But Feng Zhi’s mentality collapsed. He definitely couldn’t take it—couldn’t bear hearing their discussions, their gazes, their actions. In his mind, he was probably thinking, ‘Who do you people think you are to talk about me like this?!’.”
“This emotion would reach its peak the moment he heard the voices of the other two omegas.”
“I bluffed about the live braodcast, the eyes everyone on him, the omega’s heartfelt disgust–all of these piling up together made Feng Zhi’s breakdown inevitable.”
“In other words, he shouted, ‘Isn’t it just an omega?!’ –and that line was something you led him into saying.”
Jiang Zhihuo spoke unhurriedly, as if making a casual conversation, all while holding a cat in his arms.
The other cats, having finished the sterilized milk, were tumbling together in a playful heap nearby. No one knew what their father looked like, as the kittens had different fur colors. A tabby and an orange kitten were piled on the lawn, rolling around energetically.
Jiang Zhihuo stroke the kitten’s head and asked, “What I’m curious about is, after going in such a big circle, what exactly are you trying to do?”
Yan Mu asked, “How much can you guess?”
Jiang Zhihuo: “Do I really have to say it? I’m thirsty, can’t talk.”
Yan Mu tossed him a bottle of water, unsure when he had bought it along the way. It was still unopened.
This posture clearly signaled for him to keep talking.
The Feng Zhi incident this time had exposed too many secrets between the two.
Why was Jiang Zhihuo able to conduct such meticulous analysis and planning? How did Yan Mu manage to get the report? And how was he really able to effortlessly hack into Feng Zhi’s computer?
They were all people with secrets.
Since that’s the case, trying to cover things up only made them seem more fake and insincere. Jiang Zhihuo titled his head back to drink the water, and once his throat was soothed and he felt comfortable, he continued, “As for this matter, all we can do is expose it. What happens next, whether it’s an investigation or a lawsuit, depended on the thoughts of the omegas involved.”
“If no one files a lawsuit or holds him accountable, then Feng Zhi might very well slip away without facing any consequences.”
“Even if someone is willing to spend time and energy to fight, the current laws regading the omegas are not exactly well-developed. I’ve looked into it–malicious marking could at most result in fifteen to twenty years in prison. He has ruined so many omegas, yet he could only serve such a short sentence. Doesn’t that seem too light for him?”
“So?” Jiang Zhihuo’s eyes curved into a slight smile. “God of Learning Yan, the one who does good deeds without leaving a name but leaving behind a legacy, what exactly do you want to do?”
That’s all correct.
Yan Mu had no expression on his face. When he spoke, his words were still cold and detached. “During the investigation phase, Feng Zhi will be sent to Detention Center 1266.”
Detention Center 1266? That place sounds familiar.
Jiang Zhihuo thought for a moment. The last time he heard about this place, it semed to be on the evening news.
Jiang Zhihuo: “I remember, there was a financial fraudster locked up there too.”
“Mhm.” Yan Mu nodded and said, “He’s an omega.”
*
Detention Center 1266 was located at the border between Lincheng and the neighboring city, where suspects from several nearby regions were sent.
Feng Zhi was thrown into a cold, icy cell.
The space was unbearably cramped, yet it held two bunk beds. The small room housed four people, with the toilet right beside them. As soon as he stepped in, a nauseating stench filled his nose.
The door slammed shut with a sharp ‘swish’.
“Damn it! Let me out!” Feng Zhi gripped the iron bars tightly, shouting desperately at the officers. “You have no right to lock me up! I didn’t do anything! Someone will contact you soon, hurry up and let me out!”
“Stop yelling. Be quiet.” The police officer was already used to this. Those who had been locked up here said the same thing.
Feng Zhi kept shouting, “I need to contact my family! They’ll bail me out!”
“What’s the rush?” The officer said, “Everything is arranged here, just follow the procedure. Rushing won’t change anything!”
However, after waiting for seven days and nights, no one came to contact Feng Zhi.
He was seriously about to go insane!!!
The environment in the detention center were absoulutely terrible. The toilet and bed were in the same space; everywhere reeked of urine and stench. The people he was stuck with were all vuglar, constantly boasting about the horrible crimes they’d committed, as if it was something to be proud of. Feng Zhi couldn’t stand being around these idiots any longer.
If he stayed even one more second, he would go crazy!
Finally, on the eighth day, an officer opened the door.
It must be to take him out! His family must have come!!
Feng Zhi jumped up and rushed toward the door. “Is it my sister? Did she come to pay my bail? I want to got out! I need to go out…What the hell are you doing!!”
Feng Zhi was kicked to the ground in pain, a footprint staining his shirt on his lower abdomen.
The one who knocked him down was a muscular man, about 1.8 meters tall, casting a large shadow as he stood in front of him. “What’s all the noise about?”
The detention center had its own ecosystem. If the prisoners were ruthless, the officers had to be ever more ruthless.
He pointed to another person. “No.35, your family came to pay your bail. You can leave now.”
No.35 immediately took off his shirt and excitedly rushed out the door.
The iron door slammed shut once again.
Feng Zhi watched the officers walk farther and farther away, his heart filled with anxiety. He grabbed the bars and shouted. “What about me? What about my sister? Did you contact her?”
No one responded to him.
After waiting for another three days, Feng Zhi finally got the chance to speak with his family.
“You only have ten minutes.” The officer led him into a sealed room with just one phone, and a surveillance camera was installed in the top-left corner of the room.
Feng Zhi dialed the number.
He wasn’t married, and his parents had passed away years ago, so he could only call his sister, Feng Wei. The first time, no one answered. The second time, the phone rang for a long while before it was finally picked up.
“Hello…?” Feng Wei’s voice appeared very weak.
“Sister, sister!!” After being locked up for so long, not having showered in ten days, Feng Zhi no longer cared about being proper or composed in front of his sister. He asked desperately, almost insane. “Why haven’t you come to save me! Why won’t you let me out!!”
Feng Wei glanced out the window and sighed. “Little brother, it’s not that I don’t want to go, but you…How could you say something like that…”
The area outside the window was surrounded by a crowd of reporters, packed tightly together.
The Feng Family was well-known in the art industry. Both parents were important figures in the industry. His older sister, Feng Wei, was a painter. Three years ago, a series of her works on the theme of ‘omega’ won international awards and earned her considerable fame in the field.
Feng Wei was young and beautiful. With her international awards, she was often invited to participated in variety shows. On these shows, she would always speak up for omegas, offering both emotional and logical arguments with a profound reasoning. She became frequent source of memorable quotes and gained a strong following with the omega circle.
Originally, Feng Zhi’s situation had nothing to do with Feng Wei.
However, ten days ago, a video started to spread and gain attention on the internet.
At first, it was just a student who posted the video. It showed Feng Zhi being taken away, shouting in front of a crowd, “So what if you’re an omega?! Who do you think you are?! Isn’t it just an omega?!”
The student didn’t specify what had happened, and at the time, they just posted it as a way to vent. They deleted it shortly after, but the video was seen by a marketing account.
The marketing account saved the video and reposted it, stirring the discussions.
No one bothered to focus on the actual event behind the video; all the attention was the dismissive sarcasm itself.
Soon, someone dug deeper and relieved that the man who said those words was Feng Zhi from Lincheng No.1 High School. Director Feng? Heard he used to be a professor at K University!
Then, someone else discovered that Feng Zhi’s sister was Feng Wei, who had spoken up for omegas on many vireity shows and was revered as a role model by the omega circle.
Although the siblings came from the same family, their words and actions were completely opposite.
This time, the netizens were furious.
Those who were omegas felt like they were being played by Feng Wei, using omega for profit while secretly belittling omegas just like Feng Zhi. Those who weren’t omegas also eagerly joined in, happily watching the drama unfold. The conflicts between the three genders were an eternal hot topics.
With the discussion and attention, there were people who were frequently stirred the pot, fueling the fire.
The topic quickly blew up on the hot search.
A bunch of reporters gathered outside of Feng Wei’s house.
In the past few days, she hadn’t had a chance to step outside, let alone travel all the way to the detention center.
Before the situation exploded, the police had contacted her, summerized everything Feng Zhi had done, and presented some of the evidence.
Feng Wei was stunned on the spot.
She never expected her gentle and refined brother to be involved in such maliciously marking omegas. Now that the evidence was irrefutable, even if she truly wanted to defend him, there was nothing she could in this situation. All her efforts would only be twisted by the media, making things worse.
Feng Wei rubbed her temples and said, “Stay calm in there. I’ll find you a lawyer, and you can talk to him directly afterward. There’s no use in contacting me.”
Feng Zhi’s face immediately darkened. “No! You have to come and get me out! The bail might be expensive, but you’re not poor! How much money have you made from those omegas all this time? You…”
Before he could finish his sentence, the busy tone echoed from the receiver. The ten minutes time were up, and the call was abruptly cut off by the police.
Feng Zhi put down the receiver and realized his hands were trembling.
The police escorted him out of the communications room.
Right now was break time, so they didn’t have to stay in the cells. They could walk around in any open area of the detention center. Under normal circumstances, Feng Zhi would never come to a place like this, being stuck with a bunch of criminals was absolutely unbearable..
But today, he went to the open area.
The prisoners got along fairly well, keeping to themselves and not interfering with each other. Casual conversation wasn’t an issue. A crowd had gathered in the open area, with a man, having a long blond hair sitting in the center.
He looked at Feng Zhi. “Is he that alpha?”
Feng Zhi noticed that everyone was looking at him.
“What are you looking at?!” Feng Zhi felt utterly disgusted. Ever since entered the detention center, all his composure had shattered in this cramped and oppressive place.
Two burly men approached him, each grabbing one of his arms.
Feng Zhi panicked. “What are you doing?!”
The man with blond hair remained sitting in his spot, proppong up his chin, and smirking. “I heard you really hate omegas?”
Feng Zhi had already lost his composure. He couldn’t care less about what the man with blond hair meant by that. He cursed, “Why are you asking?! Omegas are the most disgusting things!”
The surrounding fell silent, and every pair of eyes were fixed on him.
The man with blond hair suddenly smiled. He stood up, picked up the toolbox that had been used as a seat, and placed it in font of Feng Zhi. “I heard from the beggining that someone like you had arrived here, but you’ve never been out before.”
He opened the toolbox and took out a pair of pilers.
–Under certain conditions, prisoners could apply for tools in designated areas. For example, this time, he earned the toolbox by volunteering to repair the equipment that had naturally worn down in the open area.
The man with blond hair took a step forward, holding the pilers, and chuckled. “I also heard that you were sent here for maliciously marking an omega?”
As soon as he said that, the surrounding prisoners displayed expressions of intense disgust.
Even among criminals, they were distinctions of rank.
Crimes that violate human nature were always placed at the very bottom.
The man with blond hair wedged the pilers between Feng Zhi’s front teeth.
He spoke softly, “An alpha’s pheromones can only be injected into an omega’s body through their teeth.”
“What does it mean if an alpha doesn’t have teeth?”
He spoke with a smile, his scent pleasant, but Feng Zhi suddenly began to tremble. He wanted to escape, but his hands and feet were restrained by other prisoners, unable to move, and unable to escape.
The man with blond hair was an omega!!
Feng Zhi’s lips trembled uncontrollably, his eyes wide open in shock as he stared at the man in terror.
The man’s face was extremely beautiful, with long eyelashes, sharp yet soft features, and a few strands of hair falling by his face. He was smiling lightly, gently, and contentedly, an exceptionally calm and peaceful smile.
But his voice was icy to the extreme, making one’s body shivered. “Remember, your teeth were pulled out by an omega.”
The open area echoed with pitiful cries of agony.
“What are they doing now?” One of the officers in the duty room asked.
“Let them be.” Another officer said, “As long as there are no serious injuries or fatalaties, let them handle it.”
Every place has its own rules, and the detention center had its own survival laws that didn’t need to be broken.
“True.”
Feng Zhi lay weakly on the bed.
His lips quivered, and his whole body shook.
There was a faint smell of blood with each breath.
–That omega, that omega actually pulled out all of his teeth!!
But it was not just his teeth that were pulled out, it’s not over yet!!
Feng Zhi lived in the constant fear of the arrival of the next day.
Someone would drag him out, triggering his susceptibility period. There were also omegas in the detention center. They would deliberately released pheromones in front of him, causing him to lose his mind, to go mad. Then, people would use various tools on him, tools whose names he couldn’t even remember, especially on the back of his neck.
–That should be the most vulnerable spot for an omega, yet they humiliated him by torturing that area.
Everything he had done to omegas was now being thrown back at him, piece by piece, by these prisoners.
He was dragged out again.
Fists and kicks, relentless torment, degrading and humiliating.
–He couldn’t die, and there wouldn’t even be any external injuries.
It had been almost a month since the malicious marking incident was exposed.
The omegas who heard the news were gathered together during the period.
The impact of the marking had yet to fade; everyone broke down in tears whenever they recalled that experience.
Tang Anmiao deleted the video right in front of them, leaving only the copy to submitted to the police.
The police won’t make the video public, so they could rest assured.
“After that incident, someone reminded me to get checked at the hospital.” Tang Anmiao told the omegas, “Luckily, I went early, there were still traces of the drug in my blood. It wasn’t much, but enough to prove our estrus was induced by drugs. Similiar drugs were also found in Feng Zhi’s house.”
Tang Anmiao’s mother, Mrs.Chen, was a lawyer before resigning. Moreover, Tang Anmiao was the only one who experienced it without being marked. If the case were to go to the court, she wouldn’t face too much public criticism. The public might even sympathize with her experience. That’s why having two of them represent the case was the most suitable choice.
Before officially filing the lawsuit, they need to communicate with the suspect.
That day, Mrs.Chen arrived at the Detention Center 1266 at the scheduled time.
When Feng Zhi was brought in, he was dressed in a gray-blue prison uniform, stained and filthy. His steps were slow and unsteady, making him look like an old man with one foot in the grave. The moment he saw Mrs.Chen, he broke free from the officer’s grasp and stumbled forward, rushing toward the reinforced glass. Grabbing the communication receiver with one hand, he pounded the glass repeatedly with the other hand.
He hadn’t bathed in who knows how long. When his palm pressed against the glass, a brownish mark was left behind after being pulled away.
“Sue me, quickly sue me!! I’m not a human! I’m worse than an animal!! I won’t make any excuses!! Just sue me! I’ll accept any sentence! Just let me get out of here!”
Feng Zhi opened his mouth, but his gums had already shriveled up, leaving no teeth. His voice was hoarse, like a windbox filled with sand. “Please, please, please! Let me get out of here, ahhhhh!!!”
The author has something to say:
PS: The author has never been to a detention center, everything inside is fictional~ Please don’t scrutinize or bring real-life comparisons into it~ Love you all~
PPS: The man with blond long hair is the financial fraudster mentioned in Chapter 2.
