Chà Chà Novel

After work, Min Zhi went straight to his parents’ house.

For once, his elder brother had left the laboratory and come home to have dinner with them. His brother was an Alpha and, like Min Zhi, currently had no partner.

When Min Zhi arrived, everyone was sitting in the living room, talking.

“Father. Mother.”

He greeted his brother as well before taking a seat.

His mother set down her cup. “Have you had your checkup this month?”

“Not yet. I’m going tomorrow.”

“Make sure you do.”

The checkup she meant was the routine monthly examination required of every adult Enigma without a partner. Pheromones accumulated rapidly and in large quantities inside an Enigma’s body. If left unreleased for too long, they could have adverse effects, such as an inability to control pheromones or a descent into a beast driven solely by sex and aggression. In practice, the examination involved extracting excess pheromones to prevent dangerous behavior.

In short, although Enigmas possessed extraordinary abilities and superior genes, they were also the most likely to become a threat.

To control the Enigma population and maximize their usefulness, the government sent every Enigma in the country to the same school upon reaching the age of twelve. There, they received far more intensive ideological and psychological education than students at ordinary schools.

Strictly speaking, it was rather like brainwashing.

Of course, this was considered a necessary sacrifice for the sake of the nation.

As a result, in a certain sense, Enigmas actually had a much stronger sense of morality than ordinary people.

Once the subject was closed, they stopped talking and each returned to what they had been doing. No one felt uncomfortable. Perhaps every Alpha household was like this, rarely enjoying scenes of warm, cheerful togetherness. Unlike Omegas and Betas, those inclined toward the Alpha sex were, by nature, missing certain genetic traits associated with tenderness.

Elsewhere, Fu Baiqi had just arrived home from work.

The moment he opened the door, his Omega wife in name emerged from the kitchen and smiled at him.

“Baiqi, you’re home.”

Fu Baiqi looked away and nodded. Still simmering with irritation, he handed over the jacket he had just taken off. But as the Omega passed beside him, he caught the rather strong scent of pheromones on him.

Fu Baiqi frowned. “Didn’t you take your medication?”

The man faltered, avoiding his eyes. “I did…”

The words had barely left his mouth before Fu Baiqi, apparently reassured, walked straight into his room, slammed the door, and turned the lock twice.

The man remained where he was, his hands twisted together, a dull, numbing ache settling in his chest.

He had always known that Fu Baiqi was deeply unhappy with their marriage.

A year ago, they had married at their parents’ arrangement. Fu Baiqi’s parents both worked in the city, while his own family was an ordinary household in a small town. Under normal circumstances, someone like him would never have been considered a suitable match for Fu Baiqi. By chance, however, Fu Baiqi’s parents had discovered that he was their son’s fated mate.

The attraction between an Alpha and an Omega depended on the compatibility of their pheromones. Eighty percent was already exceptionally high, let alone the perfect hundred-percent compatibility of fated mates.

Highly compatible partners could help each other regulate their pheromones and even produce children with superior traits.

That was what Fu Baiqi’s parents had valued. They had forced the marriage upon him. Having to marry someone he had met only a few times and felt nothing for, it was hardly surprising that Fu Baiqi resented the marriage.

Once dinner was ready, the man knocked on the study door.

“Baiqi, dinner’s ready.”

It took a long time for Fu Baiqi to come out.

He sat across from the man, who kept placing food in his bowl. Irritated, Fu Baiqi clenched his teeth. The next time those chopsticks reached toward him, he knocked them aside, sending the food tumbling onto the table.

The man’s hand went still around his chopsticks.

“Don’t put food in my bowl,” Fu Baiqi said.

“All… all right.”

Watching the Omega lower his head in silence, Fu Baiqi knew his behavior was hurtful, but he gave it little thought. The man’s name was Fang Fengzhi. Supposedly, their pheromone compatibility was a perfect hundred percent, making them an exceedingly rare pair of fated mates. But Fu Baiqi had never believed in anything called fate. Still less could he understand why his parents had insisted he marry an Omega with whom he could not even find a common topic of conversation.

If he married, he wanted to choose someone suitable. Being bound together solely because of pheromones felt even more suffocating than a shotgun wedding after a one-night stand.

His irritation mounting, he remembered what had happened that morning and abruptly set down his chopsticks.

“How many times have I told you not to come to my company? Why won’t you listen?”

He had noticed the Omega waiting outside the company in yesterday’s rain. He had barely managed to avoid him, only for him to turn up again today. The sight alone was aggravating.

Fang Fengzhi bit down on the meat in his mouth.

“But… Baiqi, you haven’t been home in almost a week, and I couldn’t reach you… I was worried.”

“I’m not a child. Do I need you worrying about me?”

Recently, the Omega boyfriend Fu Baiqi had dated in high school had gotten back in touch. Fu Baiqi had been wondering how to release the pheromones Fang Fengzhi stirred up in him, so he had simply stayed with his former boyfriend. It was far more comfortable than being at home.

After a few bites, he could no longer bear looking at Fang Fengzhi’s aggravating face. He returned to the study without a backward glance.

“Don’t bother me unless you need something.”

Left behind, Fang Fengzhi sat alone at the table for a long time.

Around eleven, Fu Baiqi was sitting at his desk, his eyes stinging badly. He was about to take a break when someone knocked.

He had barely opened the door a crack before a rich chamomile scent reached him. His heart jolted. Tightening his grip on the handle, he tried to shut the door, but the Omega outside had already turned sideways and slipped in.

Breathing hard, Fu Baiqi stared at the Omega’s fiercely flushed cheeks.

“Get out.”

The Omega did not move. Instead, he began hesitantly, “B-Baiqi, Mother called today…”

He lowered his head, nervously clutching his trousers.

“She asked when we were going to have a baby…”

Fu Baiqi clenched his teeth, fighting the urge to throw himself at the Omega. There was no denying that highly compatible pheromones could drive a person mad, especially when the Omega was in heat. One faint breath of that scent was enough to make his penis hard.

He spoke through gritted teeth. “Is that why you didn’t take a suppressant injection?”

Fang Fengzhi froze. “No, that’s not…”

Still trembling, he rushed to explain. “The doctor said that if I keep using suppressants, it could cause a pheromone disorder. My heats could become irregular…”

He pressed his legs together in distress and reached out to clutch the hem of Fu Baiqi’s shirt.

“Baiqi, mark me. Please… I really can’t take it anymore…”

Fu Baiqi curled his hands into fists. Under the influence of their fated bond, Fang Fengzhi seemed more enticing than ever. His heart was racing. Holding his breath and no longer daring to look at the Omega’s face, he seized Fang Fengzhi by the collar and flung him out. Then he slammed the door shut, ignoring the Omega still in heat outside.

He could not have any sexual relationship with this Omega.

Fang Fengzhi barely managed to stay upright against the door. His whole body shook with distress. Going through heat without his mate’s pheromones was agonizing beyond endurance. He beat on the door and begged.

“Baiqi, please…”

“Baiqi, it hurts so much. Please. I’ll take birth control. Please let me in…”

Unfortunately, his mate had never been softhearted. Fang Fengzhi pleaded until his voice grew hoarse, but there was no response from inside. Fu Baiqi would not even give him the slightest trace of pheromones.

He could only brace himself against the wall and make his way to the bathroom, where he turned on the cold water and let it pour over his burning body. Even that did nothing to ease the desire brought on by his heat. He wrapped a hand around his penis, pushed a finger into his anus, and worked it back and forth through clenched teeth.

His husband had never touched him.

Their first time, they had only just taken off their clothes before his husband left. He had said Fang Fengzhi’s body was too scrawny and withered to inspire any desire.

Later, when his heat came, he had nearly triggered Fu Baiqi’s rut as well. But Fu Baiqi still refused to touch him and forced him to take a suppressant injection.

From then on, he had to keep a suppressant patch on whenever he was around Fu Baiqi and rely on injections to get through his heats.

He had once imagined that his husband would be a gentle man, someone who would make him feel safe enough to weather his heats in peace, without having to live in fear of using suppressants that could harm him.

But now, that was utterly impossible.

His husband did not like him.

His body gave a sudden shudder as he climaxed. Yet his temperature would not fall. His scent gland burned as though it were being fried over and over in a pan of oil. He struggled back to the bedroom and stared at the empty bed. In the end, he took out a syringe of suppressant, slipped the needle into a vein in his arm with practiced ease, and injected the liquid.