Why Is This Beta So Strong?

[Melodrama and stealing someone's love warning, ABO, bittersweet romance] Could you please add this to your favorites? Pretty please!

Wild, defiant, and restrained top student beta VS controlling, sweet-talking alpha

Shen Yi is a beta.

In this AO-dominated world, he's been number one at everything since childhood, excelling in every way and leaving those self-proclaimed genetically superior alphas and omegas far behind.

That is, until high school, when he meets an alpha named Li Muqian and gets his first taste of coming in second. He finds it genuinely exciting, and his competitive drive is stronger than ever.

Li Muqian feels the same way. Seeing a beta on the score sheet strikes him as even more interesting.

The two have always been number one, so they should have been natural rivals. But Li Muqian is the one who falls first.

In his lovestruck state, he decides that being the second-place one behind Shen Yi doesn't seem so bad after all.

PS: The story has some interstellar elements. They barely come up in the first half, but feature a little more in the second.

Sub-couple: Jiang Lin x Yu Fangsi, both alphas

Shen Yi (Yi, fourth tone)

Here's a plug for my ongoing novel, The Mad Emperor's White Moonlight. If you like it, please add it to your favorites.

The history books say: Xie Qingyan was cruel by nature, and when the Crown Prince raised troops to seize the throne, Xie Qingyan died that same day.

But ten years earlier, the Xie Qingyan in the history books was a mighty hero, and Li Zhao was the most formidable general under his command. Everything changed after Li Zhao died young...

The history books also left things out, like the real reason Xie Qingyan died. On the day of the coup, he went alone to a lonely grave on a desolate mountain. Carved into the gravestone were two names: Xie Qingyan and Li Zhao.

When the new emperor ascended the throne, Xie Qingyan took his own life with the bones from the grave in his arms.

Then there's Shiqi, an orphan Xie Qingyan had picked up on a whim. Shiqi served as Xie Qingyan's personal guard and was there the day he killed himself. He guarded the double grave until he died of illness the following year.

Shiqi never imagined he would open his eyes again. He returned to the past and became Li Zhao, the general's son and the one Xie Qingyan could never forget.

At that time, Xie Qingyan was only one year old.

When Li Zhao was five, he accompanied his father to the palace and saw this world's Xie Qingyan for the first time. It was in the Cold Palace.

When Xie Qingyan looked at him, his eyes were lifeless.

Xie Qingyan's maternal family rebelled, his mother hanged herself, and he was cast into the Cold Palace, where he endured every kind of humiliation.

Until one day, that person appeared like a beam of light.

Li Zhao was the moon in the sky, and he was mud on the ground. He hated that the moon hung so high and could not shine on him alone, and carefully hid that shameful thought in the darkest corner of his heart.

Li Zhao saved the young Xie Qingyan and watched the child he'd raised become obedient and considerate. He was just congratulating himself on how good he was at raising children when...

Xie Qingyan tore off his mask. He was dark and mad, his heart full of the sinister desire to keep Li Zhao all to himself...

Theme: Be a free bird