Married, Yet Still Strangers

A month after getting married, Zhuang Yan still hadn't met his alpha partner, Yue Lu.

It was an arranged marriage of convenience. Yue Lu's mother had specifically found Zhuang Yan, an omega with a 100 percent pheromone match to Yue Lu, to bear him a child.

Zhuang Yan also had his own reason for agreeing. He needed the Yue family's influence to uncover the truth behind his brother's death and avenge him.

But Yue Lu was already in love with someone else. After repeatedly failing to get out of the marriage, he ran away from the wedding, leaving Zhuang Yan to face the guests alone.

A month later, however, Yue Lu saw Zhuang Yan in a dessert shop and hurried right over.

He straightened his hair in the shop window. He was dressed in sportswear, having just finished a game of badminton, and his pheromones gave off a subtle, mild scent.

He even sat down across from Zhuang Yan to chat and exchanged contact information with him.

Zhuang Yan: Is this right? Did you lose your memory? I'm the person you ran away from at the wedding. Aren't you supposed to avoid me? Why are you coming over to me?

Still, Zhuang Yan kept smiling at Yue Lu.

As long as he could achieve his goal, that was enough. What Yue Lu thought didn't matter.

*

The baby was conceived, but the alpha involved went abroad and couldn't be reached.

As the omega involved, Zhuang Yan stood in the wind, holding the divorce papers Yue Lu had left behind.

There was no helping it. He still had to have the baby.

Without an alpha's pheromones, pregnancy was very hard on an omega, so Zhuang Yan had no choice but to ask a close alpha friend for help.

One day, while he was at the hospital for a prenatal checkup, Zhuang Yan was feeling so unwell that he was leaning on his friend's shoulder when a powerful hand suddenly yanked him upright.

Zhuang Yan opened his eyes and met Yue Lu's hurt, angry gaze. "You're carrying my child, yet you're leaning on another alpha?"

Below is the blurb for my upcoming novel, The Campus Cat's Guardian. Please add it to your favorites!

Chu Su used to have a happy family and an older brother who grew up alongside him, getting into trouble together. But after Chu Su died in an accident, he had to bind himself to a System and complete missions in order to go home. For his final mission, the System turned him into a chubby little cat on a university campus.

The little cat Chu Su lifted his chubby paw, then tried to catch his swishing tail. He asked the System in disbelief, "Haha... do I really have to be a kitten?"

His target this time was Yi Ming, a solitary, unsmiling student with the highest grades year after year, praised to the skies by the president of the campus stray animal protection club.

Solitary? Who cares? Watch this cat launch a full-blown home-invasion conquest of you! Nothing can stop him from going home!

The good news: As a cat, he can ignore the rules of human society.

The bad news: Yi Ming hates small animals, especially cats.

After being ignored yet again while trying to get attention, the cat version of Chu Su became an even more persistent troublemaker:

Yi Ming sleeps, he sings.

Yi Ming drinks, he knocks over the cup.

Yi Ming walks, he pretends to be a roadblock.

Yi Ming bathes, he scratches at the door from outside, then catches a glimpse of... Oh dear, look away!

In the end, perseverance paid off, and Yi Ming adopted him before the holiday break.

But for some reason, Chu Su found Yi Ming's home strangely familiar, as if he had arranged the place himself.

*

Yi Ming's parents died when he was very young. He grew up in Chu Su's home, emerging from the darkness with Chu Su and his parents by his side. But when Chu Su tried to rescue a stray cat, an obsessive animal abuser stabbed him, leaving him in a vegetative state.

Of course he was a jinx, bringing death to his parents and leaving Chu Su like this...

He moved out of the home where he'd lived for more than ten years. He could no longer bring himself to act the way he used to around Chu Su's parents. More than once, he thought:

Why did fate have to take away the happiness he'd worked so hard to find?

Why hadn't he been by Chu Su's side that day?

Why hadn't he been the one to die?

That's right, if he died, his parents wouldn't have died, and nothing would have happened to Chu Su.

Then one day, Yi Ming realized an orange kitten was following him. Wherever he went, the cat followed. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't chase it away.

The cat also kept making him think of Chu Su for no reason.

On an ordinary day, the kitten suddenly turned into a blond young man, with the same face as Chu Su.

Of course, after going off his medication for too long, he'd started hallucinating. Otherwise, how could he possibly see a kitten turn into Chu Su?

The kitten Chu Su wiggled his two little ears, trying to hypnotize Yi Ming. "You're dreaming. You're dreaming..."

*

When Chu Su learned that Yi Ming had been trapped in a hotel by his hostile grandfather, he immediately decided to begin the "Yi Ming Rescue Plan" and save him from the evil old man's clutches.

At the hotel, with the System's help, Chu Su made it straight to Yi Ming's room and tried to give him the antidote.

But somehow, Yi Ming found the strength to shove Chu Su away. He smashed a window with his fist, then used the broken glass to slash his scarred wrist. Afterward, he slumped against the wall, weak and murmuring, "Xiao Bei, save me. Please, save me..."

Chu Su's heart skipped a beat. His voice trembling, he asked Yi Ming, who was slowly coming to his senses, "How do you know that name?"

At that moment, all the memories the System had sealed away flooded back into Chu Su's mind.

Theme: If you keep trying, you can do anything