Like catching your divorced parents in the bed…

Lieutenant Li​‍‌‌‌​​‌⁠‌‍‍‌​‌‌‌​​‌​‌⁠⁠ Ya was carrying a stack of urgent documents that should have been handled the previous morning. He had already walked many circles but still decided to check if the Legion Commander was awake.

Of course, it wasn’t because he was a gossiper.

He was just dedicated to his work, after all.

What Li Ya didn’t expect was to run right into a hurried silver-haired young man.

“…Major General Jiang Ci?”

The Major General had an unpleasant look on his face and walked past him without saying a word.

Li Ya paused in surprise.

Normally, while Jiang Ci was cold and distant, he was at least polite. Even when busy, he’d usually give a slight nod in acknowledgment whenever Li Ya greeted him.

But today was different.

His demeanor was neither one of fury nor sadness; rather, it was something Li Ya couldn’t quite pin down—like a mix of shock, disbelief, and something else altogether.

Whoosh—

Jiang Ci’s swift pace stirred a gust of wind that slapped coldly against Li Ya’s face, carrying with it the unmistakable scent of Alpha pheromones that froze his greeting hand mid-air.

It was Huo Xianfeng’s scent.

Given that it wasn’t estrus season, a regular coupling wouldn’t leave an Omega drenched in an Alpha’s pheromones to the point of broadcasting it to all surrounding Alphas. Jiang Ci was also known for using a lot of scent blockers, so it shouldn’t have been detectable at all.

However, what truly caught Li Ya off guard wasn’t Huo Xianfeng’s scent but two other faint traces of Alpha pheromones.

Generally, such residual scents would only occur if someone had stayed in a heavily pheromone-laden environment for a prolonged period and unintentionally picked up some of it.

“…?”

Pondering for a moment, Li Ya glanced in the direction Jiang Ci had come from. Suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind.

“Hiss—”

The next moment, he gasped in shock, his face full of disbelief.

Could it be that the affair between the Legion Commander and Lieutenant General Ye Shu had been exposed?!!!

Back in the Dawn Legion days, Ye Shu held the rank of Lieutenant General, and since the Empire’s First Legion had been restructured from the Dawn Legion, many people still recognized Ye Shu’s former rank.

Clutching his stack of documents, Li Ya hurried to the Legion Commander’s quarters. And right at the door, he ran into Huo Xianfeng.

“Uh… Hello, Mr. Xiao Huo.”

“Mm.”

Unlike the hurried Jiang Ci, Huo Xianfeng was leisurely tossing Wan jiang in the air as he slowly walked past him.

Li Ya didn’t have the time to ponder why Wan Jiang was in Huo Xianfeng’s possession because he had already caught a whiff of the strong scent of alcohol and the two intertwined Alpha pheromones wafting from inside the room.

“…Oh my god.”

Even without stepping inside, Li Ya’s imagination was already running wild, conjuring up an indecent scene. He stared blankly at the door just inches away, hesitating for the first time in his life—  not knowing whether to go in or go back.

Meanwhile, Zhou Jiuya was still struggling to process what Huo Xianfeng had said before  the other party turned and left.

 “If you’re already grabbing his ankle, at least be gentler?”

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“???”

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Splash— 

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But an AA relationship is an absolute taboo because they are biologically predisposed to see each other as competitors and threats. It wasn’t just rare; it had reached the level of being downright bizarre.

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Zhou Jiuya: “…”

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“Grab your clothes and get out of here, now!”

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Both Zhou Jiuya and Ye Shu turned their gazes on him, making him feel like a deer caught in the headlights.

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After a brief hesitation, he lowered his gaze, pretending not to notice anything, clearly showing his strong will to survive.

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So, with a dark expression, the City Lord picked up his crumpled coat from the floor, ready to leave. However, for some inexplicable reason, his coat was tangled with Zhou Jiuya’s and the buttons were tightly intertwined. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t separate them.

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Finally losing his patience, Ye Shu gave a hard yank. Riiiip— The sound of fabric tearing filled the room, leaving both coats partially ruined. Ye Shu clicked his tongue in annoyance, snatched up his coat, and stormed off, accidentally bumping into Li Ya at the door hard enough to make him stumble.

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“…Alright.”

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Zhou Jiuya, however, was completely oblivious to this detail as he quickly shifted into work mode. But at this time, the Legion Commander didn’t know that Ye Shu had been seen by many people as he hurriedly rushed out of his quarters with his clothes in disarray, covered with bruises, and half of his body soaked.

Initially, Jiang Ci was the hot topic within the Legion due to his Omega status and recent rumors of him being marked by a high-ranking Zerg. All eyes had been on him.

So when Jiang Ci stormed out of the Legion Commander’s room looking furious, people immediately noticed it. But no one expected that, just a few minutes later, Ye Shu would also emerge, looking even more disheveled and covered in the Legion Commander’s pheromones.

“…”

It was as if they were barely done digesting one piece of juicy gossip before another, even bigger scandal dropped.

“OMG, OMG, OMG!!!”

Someone anonymously posted this gossip on the internal military forum,

“Guess what I just saw?!!!”

“Lieutenant General Ye Shu! Ye Shu actually…!!!”

Many in the First Legion knew who Ye Shu was. The rumor mill had it that he left because he lost the power struggle for command of the First Legion to Zhou Jiuya and had a falling out with the Emperor.

Some even claimed the Emperor had him executed. The most recent gossip was that Ye Shu was captured on Winter Day Planet and brought back to the Capital for imprisonment, and a death sentence seemed entirely possible.

But who would’ve thought—

Not only was he being treated well by the Legion Commander, but the two were practically inseparable afterward.

“I knew it!!! I just knew there was something going on between them!!!”

“Fuck, guess what? I just talked to a few people from the Logistics Department who delivered supplies to the Commander’s quarters. The scene there… wow, it was intense. The bed was replaced, and tables, bookshelves—everything was smashed to pieces…”

“Wait, seriously? They’re in that kind of relationship???”

“I swear, if you were there, you would’ve seen it too. Major General Jiang Ci walked out looking absolutely livid, though I have no idea what he saw.”

“Which Alpha could stand being… on the receiving end, huh? Maybe that’s why Lieutenant General Ye Shu left back then…”

“…”

Very quickly, the gossip surrounding Zhou Jiuya and Ye Shu completely overshadowed the previous scandal involving Jiang Ci. For a long time afterward, everyone in the First Legion started giving the two of them strange looks.

Meanwhile, Jiang Ci didn’t know that he was finally not the focus of gossip for once. But even so, he couldn’t fully extricate himself from the situation. As he walked away, he couldn’t help but think back to when he was younger, seeing Ye Shu pinning his uncle to the ground in a fight.

Zhou Jiuya was incredibly strong; in his entire life, he had only ever been beaten down by two people.

One was Huo Chao, and the other was Ye Shu.

The memory sent a shiver down Jiang Ci’s spine. Maybe, just maybe, their relationship had been unusual from the very beginning.

It wasn’t that he had any personal grudge against Ye Shu—it’s just that the whole situation came as such a shock.

In Jiang Ci’s mind, Zhou Jiuya was this stern, distant figure, a fatherly authority. Besides, as the Legion Commander and his superior, Jiang Ci had always looked up to him with a mix of admiration and caution.

But today, catching them in such a compromising situation…

It was… hard to unsee.

Like accidentally walking in on your long-divorced parents—who usually fought whenever they met—suddenly caught in a passionate, heated embrace on the bed.

No, no, that analogy still didn’t quite fit.

Jiang Ci’s thoughts were a jumbled mess. He couldn’t find the right way to describe it, but all he knew was… it was just too weird. Because of this, he found it impossible to face his uncle, so he avoided Zhou Jiuya for several days.