YPSSS Chapter 07

“How long have you had these symptoms?”

It had only been ten minutes since Xia Shiruan woke up in the hospital, and he was still a bit dazed.

The bright light above his head made his eyes sting, and his consciousness was slowly returning with difficulty.

He squinted slightly, thought for a moment, then answered sluggishly, “About a month or so.”

The doctor in the white coat typed a line on the electronic screen and continued asking, “Besides dizziness, do you have any other discomfort?”

Xia Shiruan said, “My nose is more sensitive than before. Sometimes certain smells make me feel nauseous.”

The doctor nodded, turned to take several bottles from the medical kit, arranged them in front of Xia Shiruan, and uncapped them one by one for him to smell.

After he smelled them all, the doctor asked, “Do these make you feel nauseous?”

The scents were all very faint. Xia Shiruan shook his head, thought for a moment, then pointed to the middle bottle, saying, “This one smells different from the others.”

“How is it different?”

Xia Shiruan paused, unable to explain.

The doctor didn’t rush him. He just kept typing away on the keyboard while waiting patiently.

In fact, as a meticulous science student, Xia Shiruan always approached everything with evidence and step-by-step problem-solving.

In his view, to fully explain something, one needed to be logical and methodical to be convincing.

However, he couldn’t find any reason to explain why “this bottle smells different from the others.”

It was more like some organ in his body had made the distinction and sent this knowledge as an established fact to his brain.

Xia Shiruan felt lost for a moment.

He vaguely understood this might be some kind of instinct, but he wasn’t quite sure what caused it.

The doctor waited a while, but before getting an answer, the hospital room door opened. A nurse walked in, handed the doctor a test report, then stood aside, curiously glancing at Xia Shiruan over her mask.

While the doctor was reading, Xia Shiruan tilted his head to peek. He could clearly see “Blood Analysis” written at the top, with his name as the subject.

When did they draw his blood? He had no memory of it at all.

His last memory seemed to be at the exhibition hall. After watching Yi Junya’s performance, he somehow ran into Xie Ji. They argued for a bit, he wasn’t feeling well, and the next thing he knew, he was in the hospital.

“The c-value in your blood is as high as 5.15… That confirms it,” the doctor pushed up his glasses, put the report aside, and asked Xia Shiruan, “Mr. Xia, do you know what this means?”

Xia Shiruan shook his head. He felt very puzzled about his current situation.

“To put it simply, the c-value in blood indicates an individual’s fertility suitability. Generally, this value is below 0.5 for Alphas, between 1 and 2.5 for Betas. Your file shows you’re a Beta… but this far exceeds the standard value.”

Xia Shiruan blinked slowly. “What… does that mean?”

The doctor smiled. “When was your last physical examination?”

“About two years ago.” The school-organized physical examination.

The doctor nodded. “You need another full-body examination – mainly for gender identification. Actually, from the blood test results, we can be 100% certain, but the hospital has its protocols. Besides, you’ll need to go through this process anyway when you register with the Omega Protection Association, so you might as well do it at the hospital first. Then you can just use these documents for registration.”

As the doctor explained methodically, Xia Shiruan’s foggy mind began turning again. After slowly yet quickly digesting all this information, his mouth gradually formed a circle that seemed too large for his small face.

“Omega Protection… Wait, hold on, doctor,” Xia Shiruan swallowed hard, “Are you saying I’ve turn- no, presented… no, I’ve become an Omega??”

Xia Shiruan struggled for a long time over whether to use “turned into” or “presented as.”

From what he learned in middle school biology, whether Alpha or Omega, gender presentation usually completed before adulthood, no later than age twenty.

But he was already twenty-three. He had been an adult for five years. Could this still be called presentation?

The doctor seemed amused by his reaction. “Of course it’s presentation. Every Omega comes from presentation.”

Xia Shiruan froze.

The doctor stood up, gave him some instructions about the upcoming examinations, then left with the nurse.

Xia Shiruan sat there stunned for a while.

After some time, Xia Shiruan remembered he should call his parents. He felt around for his phone but couldn’t find it. He gave up and sat back on the bed, continuing to think about his current situation.

Just then, the door opened and Xie Ji walked in carrying a cup of milk tea. Seeing that Xia Shiruan had woken up and was sitting upright on the bed, staring blankly ahead, he paused for a moment.

After standing at the door for two seconds with Xia Shiruan showing no sign of noticing him, Xie Ji coughed and scraped his sneakers against the floor.

The friction between shoes and floor made some jarring sounds.

Xia Shiruan turned his head, saw him, and asked in slight confusion, “Why are you here?”

Xie Ji’s baseball cap was gone, revealing his short hair at the temples. There was a tuft stuck up at the side as if he’d been sleeping somewhere.

Xie Ji paused, walked over with an unpleasant expression, and set the milk tea down hard on the bedside table. “How else do you think you got here?”

Xia Shiruan fainted in front of Xie Ji, who had to call a taxi and get help to bring him to the hospital.

Thinking about this made Xie Ji’s expression darken.

He’d only been back for a short while and had seen Xia Shiruan twice. And each time, he just happened to catch him either vomiting or fainting.

What rotten luck he had.

But then Xie Ji remembered what the doctor had just said, and swallowed his irritation.

Xia Shiruan understood and lowered his eyes, saying a quiet “thank you.”

Xie Ji grunted in acknowledgment but didn’t speak, quietly watching him for a moment.

He noticed that from this angle, Xia Shiruan didn’t look too annoying. At least his eyelashes were indeed quite long.

Xie Ji turned his head away, pulled up a chair to sit beside him, and held up a phone, saying, “Your phone died. I called your mom with mine. Auntie said she’ll come after work.”

Xia Shiruan said “thank you” again.

As if there was nothing else to say besides thank you.

Xie Ji paused, then said, “Don’t thank me. Anyway…”

He didn’t finish what came after “anyway,” and only added after a long while, “just forget what I said earlier.”

At the exhibition hall, when Xia Shiruan fainted, Xie Ji was stunned too. He thought it was because he’d upset him, but that seemed extreme.

Later, after bringing him to the hospital, Xie Ji helped answer some of the doctor’s questions, so he naturally learned what was wrong with Xia Shiruan’s body.

Actually, Xie Ji was just as shocked as Xia Shiruan, but he’d already composed himself before entering the room, so now he appeared normal.

Xia Shiruan glanced at him.

He didn’t remember clearly what Xie Ji had said before he fainted, only that it couldn’t have been anything nice.

Since Xie Ji was now willing to let it go, and considering he’d brought him to the hospital, Xia Shiruan decided not to dwell on these small matters and just hummed, saying “It’s fine.”

However, different things were different things – Xia Shiruan felt they could only be considered casual friends now.

After a while, Xie Ji pushed the milk tea on the table forward, shoving it in front of Xia Shiruan, saying, “You should drink this.”

Xia Shiruan looked at it and shook his head. “I don’t drink sweet things. You have it.”

But, sweet…

Xia Shiruan’s nose twitched slightly. He caught a sweet scent different from the milk tea.

Xie Ji held back his irritation and said in an unpleasant tone, “The doctor said this. Your… whatever is unstable, so you should have something sweet. It’s not like I wanted to buy it.”

Xia Shiruan still shook his head.

Xie Ji’s expression darkened.

He thought his judgment from a minute ago must have been clouded by stupidity to think Xia Shiruan had become less annoying.

Even as an Omega, this person had nothing to do with being soft or cute. Still that cold face – smiling might kill him.

He couldn’t stay here anymore. Xie Ji shot up from his seat, tossed out an “I’m leaving,” and walked toward the door.

Before his hand could reach the doorknob, a “Xie Ji” came from behind.

Xia Shiruan’s voice was always soft.

Xie Ji turned around to see Xia Shiruan in the same position as before, sitting perfectly straight against the bed as if seriously listening in class.

His face was expressionless as he looked at Xie Ji, but his question was very serious, “Is it candy?”

Xia Shiruan’s face was small, with a pointed chin. Perhaps due to the day’s exhaustion, the hospital room’s light made him appear even paler, his lips nearly colorless.

“What candy?” Xie Ji asked, momentarily dazed.

Xia Shiruan was concise and direct. “Your pheromone scent.”

Xie Ji: “…”

Seeing Xie Ji’s silence, Xia Shiruan’s scientific curiosity pushed him to ask further. “It’s candy, right? But I can’t tell exactly what kind. Could you let me smell—”

“Is something wrong with you?” Xie Ji coldly cut him off.

Xia Shiruan froze, his mouth opening and closing, finding Xie Ji’s expression difficult to read.

Perhaps because he now clearly knew he was no longer a Beta but an Omega, looking at Xie Ji from this perspective made Xia Shiruan feel an inexplicable pressure he’d never experienced before.

But rather than wondering why Xie Ji was angry, he wanted to understand something else – why the first time he’d smelled Xie Ji’s pheromones, he’d felt sick enough to vomit, yet now he felt no suffocation at all.

He was certain that sweet scent came from Xie Ji.

The scent was sweet and not unpleasant at all. Unlike Xie Ji himself.

Unfortunately, Xie Ji showed no intention of explaining.

Xia Shiruan looked at him for a moment, then remembered something else. “Um, how much was the hospital fee? I’ll transfer it to you later, once my phone is charged.”

Xie Ji’s expression darkened even further. This time he didn’t even bother saying “is something wrong with you.” He stared for two seconds, then stiffly threw out a “don’t worry about it” before turning to leave. Whether from using too much force or perhaps because the hospital’s regular ward folding door was no match for an Alpha like him, there was a loud bang.

The sound made the bed shake.

Soon a young nurse came running over asking what happened, but Xia Shiruan shook his head, saying it was nothing.

He rubbed his temples, not quite understanding what he said wrong this time.

Scent blockers were chemical compounds for external use, and patients staying in hospitals weren’t allowed to use them. Because of this, the ward area was actually thick with various pheromone scents. Although the special material of the hospital doors blocked most of it, with Xia Shiruan’s nose as it was now, he could smell everything clearly.

The moment he woke up, his nose was flooded with many scents: woody, floral, mushroom, milk… even some strange animal-like smells.

Although the intensity of the scents gradually decreased over time, they were still chaotic and overwhelming.

Xia Shiruan could tell the doctor who diagnosed him had a lemon scent, while the young nurse beside him smelled of gardenia.

When Xie Ji entered, it was as if the whole world brightened.

That faint sweet scent from him was like spraying an entire bottle of air freshener in front of Xia Shiruan’s nose. He’d never found the air smell so pleasant before.

Xia Shiruan leaned against the bed’s headboard, taking in two breaths of the air where Xie Ji had been, feeling quite content.

This pleasure made him temporarily unwilling to deal with anything else.

Just for now, he wanted to take a short nap in this sweet air.