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Addiction.

Hearing that question, Bai Ling’s heart jumped.

When he had suddenly developed a low fever the previous night, he had suspected this very thing.

Before Dr. Lin had prescribed the medicine, he had also repeatedly warned him not to have “excessive contact” with alphas.

However, this “excessive” had a clear medical standard. It referred to a physical distance of less than 20cm for a duration of over 150 minutes, involving direct skin and sweat contact, such as hugging, kissing, and all forms of reproductive acts.

He had indeed seen an alpha, Kaide, but only from a distance. It didn’t count as contact at all.

So, after carefully reading the medication’s contraindications, Bai Ling had completely ruled out drug side effects, attributing all his discomfort to entering his second differentiation.

Bai Ling said coldly, “You’re overthinking. I could never get addicted to any alpha.”

Not just physically, but psychologically, it was impossible.

Sava sneered, mercilessly. “I’ve seen plenty of omegas like you. The toughest part about you is your mouth. If you don’t believe me, I won’t try to convince you. When you’re delirious from withdrawal symptoms in a few hours, you’ll learn how serious it is.”

After speaking, he left, leaving Bai Ling feeling uneasy.

Sava hadn’t been trying to scare him.

He himself had differentiated at fourteen, which was early. The school he’d attended had separated alphas and omegas, so he had seen all kinds of crises and troubles omegas faced during puberty. Moreover…

Sava’s eyes darkened, his ear-tufts flattening dangerously.

He himself had also been tricked into addiction by an alpha before.

He had only been in high school at the time. The other person had coveted his family’s power and had deliberately made him take an alpha pheromone supplement before approaching him.

After he became addicted, he had lost all interest in food. At times he was like a walking corpse; at others, he was scratching at the walls. Even if he was psychologically disgusted, his body would uncontrollably try to rush out. When he was delirious, he had even said ridiculous things like “I want to marry him.”

Luckily, that scumbag’s ability was only A-grade, while he was a high-grade omega with SS stats in every category. The other’s pheromones couldn’t control him. In the end, his family had locked him in a room. He had gone crazy for a week, and after he got out, he had to recover for a long time before he finally kicked the terrifying addiction.

Otherwise, severe addiction had only one solution—

Being marked by an alpha.

In the dormitory.

As evening approached, the star’s light dimmed, and the temperature suddenly dropped to -20 degrees Celsius. A ring of snow had formed on the window, and its thickness was still increasing. A vast white snowstorm descended, and the Capital Planet’s bustling prosperity fell silent.

Bai Ling held a cold cup of water, standing by the window and looking out.

He looked at the lights of the commoner’s district in the distance, they were blurry and flickering, as if they could be extinguished at any moment. Just then, North’s trembling voice sighed next to him.

“S-so cold! The classroom is cold, that’s one thing, but why isn’t the heater in here warm? I’m going to turn into flash-frozen sea… seafood.”

“Then just put on a down jacket.” This was Young Master Sava’s voice.

North laughed awkwardly. He and Bai Ling were low-class concubines transferred from prison. They weren’t like Sava, who had entered the palace directly and had a family that prepared a full suitcase of clothes and shoes for him.

Oh, right. By all accounts, Sava’s family was well-off. Why was he squeezed into this tiny room with them?

North asked curiously, “Sava, your family has status, why aren’t you in a single room?”

Sava’s face darkened. “To avoid a certain annoying beta.”

A beta? North remembered the little rhyme that had been going around the “little seafolk” group chat when he first arrived. Scummy omegas have big waves, Bad betas have long, straight blue hair. So, he joked, “It wouldn’t be a teta with long, straight blue hair, would it?”

Sava: “……”

Sava cursed, grabbed the edge of the top bunk with one hand, and vaulted up with a single, tensed arm, turning his back to them to sleep.

North stuck his tongue out secretly. Seeing the other didn’t want to talk, he turned to speak to Bai Ling.

But when he looked, he saw their “dorm beauty” standing by the window in a pair of sports shorts, his long, pale, smooth legs completely exposed. His face was blank, as if he were a robot with a broken temperature sensor.

North: “…Little bird, you’re really resistant to the cold.”

Bai Ling clenched his palms, hiding the cold sweat. “It’s fine. I’m used to it. Besides, I need to charge later.”

North knew he needed to charge his prosthesis, so he turned off the main light, giving him all the limited power.

But perhaps because of the blizzard, the voltage was extremely unstable today. The desk lamp flickered, and the charger beeped intermittently, signaling a power interruption.

Bai Ling sat for half an hour, but it had only charged 5%.

His heart was pounding. His bones and muscles were beginning to ache. Looking at the battery percentage, which refused to rise, only made him more anxious and irritable. He finally undid the straps on his thigh and took the prosthesis off.

But as he was taking it off, he noticed a strange mark—

On the back of the prosthesis’s ankle, there seemed to be two indentations, one on either side.

He held it up to the light. The dents had fine, dense, circular patterns, like ripples on the sea.

Bai Ling frowned, wondering when he had banged it… He thought back, and an image suddenly surfaced in his mind: the merman pressing down on him, grabbing his ankle with one hand.

His face instantly burned, and the prosthesis fell from his trembling fingertips.

They were two fingerprints.

A thumbprint and a forefinger print, like two steel stamps, deeply embedded in this piece of scrap metal.

“Fuck…”

“That pervert… he can leave a dent even in scrap iron!”

Bai Ling cursed under his breath, quickly picked up the prosthesis, set it under the desk to charge, and then grabbed a towel. He lowered his head and hopped into the bathroom on one leg, as if fleeing.

He did not notice that from a small crack in the top bunk behind him, a camera lens focused, aiming at the inner side of his thigh that never saw the sun, and zooming in.

Click—

Sava got the shot. He immediately turned to face the wall, squinting as he studied the photo.

What’s written on this leg? … Safe travels

‘Safe’ what? ‘Safe passage through life and death’? ‘Safe… travels… please wear a condom?’

The last two characters were cut off by the amputation. The part below it was just empty air.

Sava had been immersed in military school for years and had followed his superiors to the front lines for support many times. One look at Bai Ling’s disciplined, sharp posture, and he knew this guy had definitely been in the army, and for a long time. Naturally, he was suspicious of his intentions.

—He suspected this guy was a spy sent by a certain beta to monitor him!

Don’t ask. Just call it the ancestral intuition of a Great Eagle Owl.

Sava, relying on his reputation as the former student president of the Five Imperial Military Academies, had ordered a group of his underlings to gather info. But after a full search, every one of them came back empty-handed.

[Group Name: Night Tyrants—Flying Cat-Head Army] .