YPSSS Chapter 17

When Xia Shiruan was still a Beta, although he didn’t particularly enjoy drinking, he wasn’t completely abstinent either.

During holidays and festivals, he would share a small glass of wine with his family, and aside from his face turning red, he never experienced any other symptoms.

So it came as a complete shock that just one small cup could affect him so badly.

When he woke up the next day, the family doctor had already left. An IV needle was still taped to his wrist, and his head throbbed faintly.

Feeling the familiar bedding, he realized he was in his own room and relaxed. After clearing his throat, he called out, “Mom.”

Gao Qiuyun’s footsteps quickly approached. When she opened the door and saw Xia Shiruan awake, her expression shifted from worry to reproach.

Xia Shiruan sat up. “Mom.”

Gao Qiuyun sat down on the bed and felt his forehead. “Are you feeling uncomfortable anywhere else?”

Xia Shiruan obediently shook his head. “No.”

Gao Qiuyun sighed. “You’re an Omega now. How could you drink so much? You didn’t take the doctor’s warnings seriously at all.”

“I won’t drink next time,” Xia Shiruan smiled, trying to comfort his mother. “It was a class gathering, I couldn’t help it, so I just had a sip.”

Gao Qiuyun gave him a stern look. “There won’t be a next time.”

“Thank goodness Xiao Ji brought you home yesterday,” Gao Qiuyun recalled something and said, “Were you two together yesterday? I asked him but he wasn’t clear about it.”

At the mention of Xie Ji’s name, Xia Shiruan’s body suddenly stiffened, and even his faint smile froze.

“Xie Ji brought me home?”

“Yes,” Gao Qiuyun said. “He brought you to the door, didn’t even call, I only saw him when he rang the doorbell. We’re really lucky he was there… And you were saying earlier that you weren’t even in the same grade, but see how well it worked out.”

Xia Shiruan clutched the corner of his blanket tightly and responded vaguely, “Mm… I see.”

His mind started to go numb.

Xie Ji? Xie Ji!

Actually, he remembered most of what happened last night.

He remembered going to the dinner, remembered Huang Yun and others making him drink, remembered lying down on the sofa feeling unwell, and even remembered an incredibly familiar sweet scent.

But the thing was, he had thought everything that happened after that was just a dream!

He clearly remembered how he had hugged that big sweet pastry, saying all sorts of nice things hoping to get a taste, but the big pastry kept refusing him, so Xia Shiruan never got to taste it.

This disappointment stayed with him even in his dreams, and when he woke up, he was still a little upset about it.

But if he hadn’t thought it was a dream, he would never have allowed himself to be so unrestrained, especially not with Xie Ji.

Xia Shiruan’s face grew warm as he remembered his actions and words.

He pressed his fingers against his brow, rubbed his face, and blinked hard, but still couldn’t get rid of the heat in his cheeks.

A typically well-behaved and rule-following child tends to feel more embarrassed than others when doing something out of line.

Drinking really was harmful.

Seeing his series of movements, Gao Qiuyun thought he was feeling unwell again and quickly asked, “What’s wrong, does your head hurt?”

“No,” Xia Shiruan said quietly. “Mom, where’s my phone?”

“Oh!”

Gao Qiuyun brought him his phone and added a few more words of caution.

Since Xia Shiruan had always been responsible and would correct his mistakes on his own, Gao Qiuyun didn’t want to scold him further. She prepared to leave after sitting for a short while, but remembered something and added:

“Last time at the hospital, wasn’t it also Xiao Ji who called me?” Gao Qiuyun said. “And now we’ve troubled him again. You should thank him properly when you get the chance.”

Xia Shiruan pressed the back of his hand to his face and said softly, “I know.”

–

Fortunately, it was the weekend, so there was no need to go to the lab.

Xia Shiruan rested at home for a day, took the medicine as prescribed by the family doctor, and soon felt better.

He didn’t actually go into heat. It was just his sensitive glands reacting to scents after his suppressants wore off, but the symptoms did appear similar to a heat.

The family doctor came back later for a follow-up check and was surprised to see Xia Shiruan’s good recovery, saying with a smile, “I thought you’d need another IV drip, but it looks like that won’t be necessary.”

“You can’t drink alcohol anymore, and it’s best to avoid anything containing alcohol.” He had been the Xia family’s doctor for almost ten years and had treated all of Xia Shiruan’s fevers since childhood. Since Gao Qiuyun had given him Xia Shiruan’s previous hospital records, the doctor was well aware of his current condition and said, “Suppressant failure during early presentation is very dangerous. You were lucky to have an Alpha’s pheromones to help stabilize you.”

The Alpha pheromones mentioned here obviously weren’t from those people in the lab, like the ones that smelled like fish or broccoli.

After the doctor left, Xia Shiruan sat quietly for a while.

He took out his phone and, after some thought, sent Yi Junya a message.

[Xia Shiruan: Junya, I want to ask you something. If, and I’m just saying if, you really really like an Alpha’s pheromone scent, what does that mean?]

Yi Junya’s reply came as quickly as ever.

[Yi Junya: ? So you do know how to reply to me.]

[Yi Junya: Why didn’t you answer yesterday when I asked if you wanted to hang out.]

Xia Shiruan was about to type a reply.

[Yi Junya: Never mind, don’t say it, I know… Tell me!!! Who were you with last night?? Which Alpha smelled so good to you?? And you said really, really good??]

[Xia Shiruan: …]

Xia Shiruan braced himself and typed back: “Just a casual friend I don’t know well, but his pheromones… they’re quite sweet, different from everyone else’s.”

The moment the message went through, Yi Junya called him.

Xia Shiruan answered the call.

Yi Junya was somewhere noisy. He was practically shouting, sounding a little excited. “How different exactly? The way you describe it sounds just like you’ve met a highly compatible Alpha… Wait a minute! Why could you smell his pheromones and know they’re different from others’?! What kind of person goes out without wearing scent blockers?!”

He rattled on like a machine gun, not giving Xia Shiruan a chance to get a word in.

After Yi Junya finished his angry rant about how this Alpha had no social decency and going out without scent blockers was like streaking in public, Xia Shiruan hurriedly explained in a small voice, “No, no, it’s not that he didn’t wear blockers, it’s because of me!”

Who knew where Yi Junya was, but was it really okay to shout “streaking” so loudly in broad daylight? His voice was so loud that Xia Shiruan worried his mom could hear it downstairs…

Xia Shiruan turned down the call volume a bit while nervously glancing at the doorway, then explained about his sensitive glands.

“Oh, so that’s it…” Yi Junya finally stopped cursing. His tone changed, becoming gossipy again. “You really like him, huh? Is he handsome?”

Xia Shiruan corrected him, “I don’t like him, I just like his pheromones.”

“What’s the difference?” Yi Junya said, “For an Omega, liking someone’s pheromones equals liking them as a person. Besides, Xiao Ruan, if you really feel an Alpha’s pheromones are different from everyone else’s, the most special, then you two probably have very high compatibility. That’s rare! Ah, why can’t I meet someone like that…”

Xia Shiruan listened quietly, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

While gender evolution had indeed greatly improved human productivity and social progress, it seemed too simplistic to let that small, thoughtless gland at the back of one’s neck determine whether you liked someone, rather than your heart.

They chatted for a while before Yi Junya said he had to go. Xia Shiruan quickly asked before hanging up, “By the way, Junya, what’s a good gift to thank someone?”

This was an area where Xia Shiruan truly lacked experience.

“Oh~” Yi Junya dragged out the sound. “Weren’t you saying he’s just a casual friend? That you don’t like him? Why are you buying him gifts?”

Xia Shiruan thought, I didn’t even say who it is, how did you guess? But he only said, “He helped me twice, I should show my gratitude.”

Yi Junya hummed thoughtfully, and for once didn’t say anything inappropriate. He just answered, “I don’t know what kind of person he is, so I can’t recommend anything. Think about what he might need, and get him that.”

After hanging up, Xia Shiruan had barely started thinking about what Xie Ji might need when two messages popped up.

One was a friend request.

The other was a greeting from that person: Xiao Xia, this is Liu Yutong, please accept.

Xia Shiruan frowned slightly, looked at the person’s avatar for two seconds, then accepted the request.

The lab gathering last time wasn’t exactly a pleasant memory for Xia Shiruan.

Because of that, he didn’t want to check the lab group chat these past few days, to avoid seeing Huang Yun and the others chatting away actively, which made him uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, those people kept making things worse by tagging him, asking if he’d sobered up yet, or if he knew that junior from the Military Engineering Department. Xia Shiruan found it extremely annoying and simply muted the group chat.

Now Liu Yutong suddenly wanted to add him as a friend, and he wasn’t sure why.

But Xia Shiruan remembered that during the last gathering, Liu Yutong didn’t join the others in pressuring him to drink, so he didn’t reject the friend request.

After accepting it, Liu Yutong quickly sent a message.

[Liu Yutong: Xiao Xia, emergency! Do you still have notes from the Information Transfer class?!]

[Xia Shiruan: Can’t remember, I’ll have to look. What’s wrong?]

Information Transfer was a public elective at the Science University, which students usually took in their first or second year.

As far as Xia Shiruan remembered, it was supposed to be an easy course to pass.

[Liu Yutong: Please look carefully! You’re our only hope!]

[Liu Yutong: Starting this year, they changed the undergraduate curriculum. This course is now mandatory, worth three credits! I’m so done with this. The textbook is useless, the professor’s accent is impossible. Who can understand him? It used to be an elective, so nobody kept notes or materials. We’re screwed!]

Xia Shiruan replied with “wait a minute” and opened his computer.

He had a habit of organizing his materials, as the process helped structure knowledge more clearly in his mind.

Therefore, from middle school until now, he had neatly categorized all his study materials, useful or not.

Soon, Xia Shiruan found the scanned notes for this course in a folder and sent the whole package to Liu Yutong.

Liu Yutong was extremely grateful, sending him ten kneeling-and-crying stickers, saying he was a lifesaver and that he represented all the juniors in expressing their highest respect.

Xia Shiruan said it was nothing.

As he was about to close his computer, a small lightbulb lit up in his mind.

Thinking back to what Liu Yutong had said, he reopened his computer. This time, not just Information Transfer – Xia Shiruan packed up all the notes he could find from his undergraduate public courses.

He scrolled to the very bottom of his contacts, dug out a long-dormant chat, and sent the entire package over.

Besides his parents, this was the first time Xia Shiruan had taken the initiative to give someone a gift.

As he waited for a reply, his heart pounded nervously.

After thinking for a moment, he typed another line: “Thank you for helping me. This is a thank you gift.”

He added a small smile emoji at the end.