Chapter 5

Years had passed, yet Liu Yifei still chased Li Han relentlessly, no matter how many times he begged her to stop. Strangely, his pleas only seemed to amuse her more. Each time he tried to push her away, she would just tilt her head, eyes sparkling with mischief, and keep right on teasing him. His discomfort was, to her, the best kind of entertainment.

Over the years Li Han had come to understand why she acted this way. Despite being stunningly beautiful, Liu Yifei didn’t really have many friends. Most girls at school seemed to dislike her almost on principle—too pretty, too confident, too unbothered by their glares and whispers. The jealousy was obvious, but she never appeared to care. Whenever someone asked why she spent so much time hanging around the quiet beta boy who always had his nose buried in a book, she would simply shrug and say, “Because he’s Li Han,” as though that answered everything. And in her world, apparently, it did.

She had even gone so far as to introduce him to her parents.

Her father was a calm, soft-spoken beta; her mother an omega with a gentle smile and an even gentler voice. The first meeting had been painfully awkward. They sat Li Han down at their dinner table, served him tea he barely touched, and within minutes somehow decided he must be dating their daughter. “I’m not—we’re not dating,” Li Han had choked out, nearly inhaling his own tongue in panic.

Liu Yifei’s mother had looked surprised. “But you two are always together…”

“And she talks about you all the time,” her father added cheerfully.

Li Han’s face turned scarlet. He tried to explain again and again that they were just classmates, just… whatever this weird friendship was, but definitely not dating.Then her father frowned slightly and said, “Ah… so you’re saying our Yifei isn’t pretty enough for you?”

The silence that followed had been suffocating.

Li Han opened his mouth. Nothing came out, Liu Yifei sitting right beside him immediately burst into laughter—shoulders shaking, hand covering her mouth, clearly enjoying every second of his misery. She didn’t lift a finger to help him.

Eventually, after a lot of awkward stammering and clarifications, the misunderstanding cleared up. Everyone laughed—everyone except Li Han, who was still recovering. By the time he left they were all smiling again. As he walked out the door, her parents pressed a tall bottle of special wine into his hands—something about it being fermented for 20 whole years. A gift, they said proudly. Li Han accepted it with both hands, bowing awkwardly, and carried it home like it might explode.

Because he’d missed his own family’s dinner that night to visit hers, his parents insisted he return the favor. The next week Liu Yifei came to their house for dinner.

She was naturally outgoing and had no trouble charming his parents. She talked easily with his mother, made his father laugh with small stories, and by the end of the meal they were both looking at her like she was the ideal daughter-in-law they’d never dared hope for.

At the very next family dinner after that, his father set his chopsticks down, looked straight at Li Han, and said calmly:

“Li Han, why don’t you just date that Liu Yifei girl? She’s very pretty, and she seems like a nice girl.”

“Father,” Li Han groaned, sinking lower in his chair, wishing the floor would swallow him.

“What? It’s true.” His father gestured toward the empty seat where she’d sat last time. “You’ve even met her parents already. And they gave us a very nice gift.”

Li Han shook his head hard and focused intensely on his rice, refusing to answer.

By then Li Han was already sixteen and in eleventh grade. Middle school felt like a lifetime ago. The new high school was massive—buildings spread out across a huge campus, three different cafeterias, endless hallways. It was the biggest school in the entire xx district, so it was no real surprise that most kids from the area ended up there. Still, the sheer size of the place made it hard to run into anyone you knew by accident.

And yet, somehow, Liu Yifei ended up having lunch in the same cafeteria as him. She was delighted about it, of course. She still had plenty of chances to bother her favorite “Shūdāizi” now that they shared the same space.

The school was completely mixed—no separation by sub-genders. Alphas, betas, omegas, all thrown together in the same classrooms, hallways, and locker rooms. Which meant Li Han had seen… everything. Pheromone accidents in the corridors, couples who forgot other people existed, scent blockers failing at the worst possible moments, arguments that turned into near-growling matches. He’d witnessed more than any introverted bookworm ever wanted to see. After a while he started thinking he needed to bleach his eyeballs on a weekly basis.

The only place that still felt halfway safe was his regular classroom—fourth row, second seat from the back, next to the window where the light was good for reading. There, at least, he could usually manage to disappear into his books for a while.Until Liu Yifei inevitably found him, anyway.She always did.