YPSSS Chapter 12

Despite what was said earlier, when he actually arrived, the two security guards at the entrance didn’t stop him.

They bowed to Xie Ji in unison and opened the door for him. “Young Master Xie, our eldest young master is in the Rain Hall.”

Someone immediately led him upstairs through the VIP passage, bypassing the noisy dance hall to reach the private rooms on the second floor.

The Chen family had been in business for three generations, and this bar was one of their properties. Located in the prime downtown area where every inch of land was worth its weight in gold, only well-off people could afford to come here.

Someone had posted a review guide online, mentioning that even the free suppressants in the Omega bathrooms here were more premium than other places, the kind that cost as much as an average person’s monthly salary.

When Xie Ji entered, there were already several Alphas inside, already having a good time.

They were playing poker. Chen Rongxin had just thrown down a pair of jokers, winning the round, and was bouncing around demanding payment.

Another person spread his hands and said he had no money. “My old man froze my account. I really don’t have a cent now. Can we not play for money today?”

Chen Rongxin kicked him in the butt. “Then why the hell are you playing cards? Get out!”

Xie Ji didn’t like playing cards, so he didn’t join their game. He found a single sofa to sit in and ordered a glass of lemonade.

“Well, well.” Chen Rongxin gave him a sidelong glance and said sarcastically, “What brings our Young Master Xie here?”

Xie Ji shot him a look but didn’t respond.

After a while, he glanced around the room and said, “A bunch of Alphas holed up here playing poker. No one would believe it if they heard.”

Chen Rongxin’s eyes widened. “My family’s bar is a respectable establishment. What’s wrong with playing poker? What else did you want to do?”

Xie Ji laughed and said, “Fine, if you say it’s respectable, then it’s respectable.”

Not long after, the private room door opened and another tall boy came in, clearly an Alpha judging by his build.

The boy first snuck up and gave Chen Rongxin’s back a hard smack, then turned and saw Xie Ji on the sofa. “Ge, when did you get here?” he asked in surprise.

Chen Rongxin had been focused on his cards and didn’t notice the door opening. When the slap landed, his whole face contorted. He turned around and cursed, “You brainless fatty, what the hell!”

Everyone was here now.

–

Chen Rongxin and Shu Jian were Xie Ji’s best friends.

One nicknamed Xiao Xin, the other Fatty. They were the two people Xie Ji had bullied to tears on his first day visiting C City for summer vacation as a child.

Strangely enough, despite how badly Xie Ji bullied them when they were young, they became his loyal friends as they grew up. Almost every time Xie Ji returned to C City, he hung out with them.

The three of them finished high school in different places, but now they were all heading to university and returned to C City.

Fatty was only truly fat before he turned thirteen. After presenting as an Alpha, all his baby fat disappeared, and he transformed into a muscular hunk at lightning speed.

Chen Rongxin didn’t change much except for his height. He was skinny as a kid and remained tall and thin after presenting. Shu Jian alone could match the size of both of them combined.

As for Xie Ji, he grew up following the Xie family’s hereditary genes. He was blessed with a handsome face and long legs. Chen Rongxin claimed that Omegas within a hundred-mile radius would go into heat just from him lifting an eyebrow.

Although that was an exaggeration, it wasn’t entirely false in some ways.

At least, that short locker room video Chen Rongxin had secretly filmed was said to have spread to the phones of countless Omegas. Every time Xie Ji thought about it, it took all his willpower not to punch him.

Shu Jian had probably just finished exercising somewhere. His body was giving off sweat and letting some of his pheromones leak out.

Alpha pheromones could interfere with each other, causing side effects like irritability and anxiety.

So as basic social etiquette, every Alpha and Omega carried portable blockers when going out, much like carrying wet wipes.

Shu Jian fanned himself for a while, then grabbed his small blocker spray and gave himself a thorough spritz.

A faint fruity scent spread through the air.

Chen Rongxin glanced at him while drawing cards and clicked his tongue. “Who even invented blockers? I don’t think this stuff should exist.”

Shu Jian fixed his hair in the bottle’s reflection and sneered, “Xin’er, this is why people say you’re stupid. Without this… never mind anything else, you and your brother couldn’t have grown up safely together. One of you would’ve had to die.”

Xie Ji, who had been on his phone, couldn’t help but laugh at that.

Chen Rongxin deflated like a wilted dog and fell silent.

Chen Rongxin’s brother was his biological brother, born from the same father and mother. His brother was taller than him, better at studying, presented earlier, and had stronger pheromones.

The brothers never got along well since childhood. Fighting every three days was putting it lightly. Now that they were older, things weren’t as tense, but they still didn’t get along.

Without blockers, they probably would’ve fought every day.

Chen Rongxin grumbled, “Why bring up my brother? Can we not talk about him? Actually, my distant cousin just got married recently. Only after the wedding did he find out his wife’s pheromones smelled like durian. My cousin hates that smell the most and nearly passed out on their wedding night… Now both families are fighting over divorce. It’s a huge mess, and I’ve been watching the drama every day.”

The bald guy sitting across from Chen Rongxin laughed and said, “That’s true. These days, everyone talks about social etiquette. With blockers, you can’t tell Alphas from Omegas, and you can’t just ask. If you ask an Omega what they smell like, you might get sued for harassment. Has anyone thought about what happens if you find out the smell doesn’t match after marriage?”

Chen Rongxin nodded repeatedly.

Shu Jian couldn’t stand listening anymore and said with disgust, “What the hell are you guys pretending to be! You think people are really that pure nowadays? What do you think dating is for? You think couples haven’t smelled each other before marriage?”

The two sitting at the top of the card table burst out laughing.

“Right?” Shu Jian pointed at them and asked, “Didn’t you have a girlfriend last year? How was it? What did she smell like?”

That person said, “My ex was a Beta. No smell.”

“…” Shu Jian asked the other one.

After asking around, it turned out no one at the table had smelled a live Omega’s pheromones except for the samples in biology class.

“Damn,” Shu Jian said in disappointment, “You guys hang around bars all day. People would think you’re such players, but none of you have even smelled an Omega!”

Chen Rongxin protested that he went to a military boarding school full of Alphas in high school – where could he have smelled any Omega scents?

After chatting nonsense for a while, they turned their attention to the famous locker room video’s protagonist, Xie Ji, who hadn’t joined the conversation.

“Xie-ge, you-”

Chen Rongxin’s question cut off abruptly, his eyes widening.

He saw an indescribable smile on Xie Ji’s face.

Chen Rongxin studied his face for a while and said, “Ge, why are you smiling like that?”

Xie Ji leaned back in his single sofa, still holding his phone but he wasn’t looking at its darkened screen.

Hearing Chen Rongxin’s words, he seemed to pause for a moment before turning his head. The smile hadn’t completely left his lips as he said lazily, “I’m not smiling.”

“…” Chen Rongxin thought, I’m not blind, you don’t need to lie so obviously. He asked, “Did you hear what we were just talking about?”

Xie Ji: “Yeah.”

“Then what are you smiling about? Don’t tell me you’ve actually smelled one?”

Xie Ji stayed silent.

If someone had asked him this question a week ago, the answer would have been that he truly had never smelled one.

Omegas were rare, and there weren’t many in the environment where Xie Ji grew up.

Besides his mother, the only ones he knew were children from family friends, but he didn’t see them often.

Before that day, all his knowledge about Omega pheromones came from textbooks or museums.

Until that day, when he clearly smelled the rich fragrance emanating from Xia Shiruan’s neck, unmasked by any blockers.

It was a clear scent like a mixture of ink and plants, which reminded him of the smell of the book pages warmed by the sun when he used to read at Xia Shiruan’s house as a child.

It should have been a calming scent, but it didn’t soothe him at all.

He even felt restless.

Although the scent had long dissipated, just thinking about it made him feel agitated.

So this was what an unmarked Omega’s pheromones smelled like.

“Holy shit! Look at the expression on Xie-ge’s face!” Chen Rongxin shouted, calling everyone to look.

“Get lost.” Xie Ji’s lips turned downward as he swatted away his hand. He stood up and walked to the card table, taking Chen Rongxin’s spot. “I’ll play a few rounds. Anyone going to shuffle?”

“Can you stop changing the subject?”

No one was in the mood to shuffle cards now. They had to get to the bottom of this. They pressed him with questions one after another, asking which Omega’s scent caught his attention, making him so infatuated that he couldn’t stop smiling just thinking about it.

Xie Ji wouldn’t say who it was. Getting irritated by the questions, he turned the tables on Chen Rongxin instead. “Haven’t you forgotten we still have a score to settle?”

Chen Rongxin played dumb. “What score?”

“The score about you running your mouth.”

Chen Rongxin loudly protested his innocence. Taking advantage of having an audience now, he recounted what happened on the subway earlier, asking everyone to judge for themselves.

“What did I say wrong?” Chen Rongxin said. “He called just to chew me out. What’s the big deal? People might think something happened between him and Xia Shiruan.”

“Xia Shiruan…” Shu Jian repeated the name, a face coming to mind. “Isn’t that the gege from the Xia family? The Beta who got into the Department of Particle Physics in Science University?”

“That’s him. He said Xie Ji was the one who stopped keeping in touch.” Chen Rongxin mimicked Xia Shiruan’s tone with exaggerated mockery, “Young Master Xia is such a nice person, always been such a gentle gege since he was little. Come on, Ge, tell us what he did to offend you so much?”

Xie Ji kept his eyes down, shuffling the cards himself, ignoring them.

These idiots don’t know shit, Xie Ji thought.

Xia Shiruan did offend me.

And Xie Ji was the type to hold grudges. Once Xia Shiruan offended him, he held onto it all these years.