Chapter 1#

Man Yu was an honest, well-behaved man.

He entered primary school at seven, junior high at twelve, and upon graduating from high school at eighteen, followed his parents’ suggestion and enrolled in a teaching program. Not long after graduation, on his parents’ arrangement, he married a second-generation rich kid whose family owned a modest business. After the wedding, on both sets of parents’ instructions, he quit his job to focus entirely on managing the household.

His obedient temperament and his impressive marriage had once made Mrs. Man the envy of every relative.

“That Boyu of yours is so well-behaved, what a relief he is. Even though he’s a beta, he married the best of anyone.”

“So quiet and sensible since he was little. Never once heard him argue with anyone. If you ask me, rich folks just like our Boyu’s type—honest and obvious about it, no bad intentions.”

“Betas are hard to conceive with, aren’t they? Better hurry up and get a child out of him, don’t let those singing-and-dancing girls out there steal a march. Once Boyu gives birth to the first grandchild, won’t that whole Sheng fortune be ours? And Xiao Jin’s factory could grow bigger and bigger too.”

One comment after another, and Mrs. Man’s face broke into a smile of contentment and yearning.

Just as they said, in the first twenty-eight years of his life, Man Yu had never once raised his voice at anyone—nor had he ever had the chance to.

At school, his grades were middling—never bad enough to earn criticism, never good enough to earn praise either.

He was always head-down, quiet and unassuming, shoulders hunched, his half-long bangs nearly covering his eyes, his thin body swallowed up by an oversized school uniform, drifting through every corner of campus like a ghost, dutifully tending to his own business.

When others asked him for favors—no matter how outrageous—he was never once heard to say no. He’d even been foolish enough to lend his umbrella to a classmate and walk back to the dorm in the rain himself.

A transparent, cotton-stuffed scarecrow—punch him and he’d apologize to you; couldn’t drag a fart out of him with three strikes. Who could ever get into an argument with him?

Back when news of his marriage first broke, classmates from university all the way down to primary school couldn’t even recall his face.

And yet such a spineless, honest man, three years into his marriage, with no room left for further spinelessness, stood dejected in the living room.

Because his husband’s white moonlight had returned from overseas.

And the woman he could call his mother-in-law was seated across from him, ordering him to fetch his husband back from the said white moonlight’s funeral—before it became an embarrassment.

Seeing Chen Yanning alone was enough to terrify Man Yu. Hearing this devastating task only made his knees knock together.

He was to call Sheng Lin back from his dead white moonlight’s funeral?

White moonlight. Funeral. Two words of such monumental weight stacked together—and he was supposed to do it?

In three years of marriage, he and Sheng Lin had met fewer times than could be counted on one hand. Most encounters were Man Yu receiving a task from Chen Yanning: go fetch Sheng Lin home from wherever he was fooling around, or about to fool around.

The tasks, however, almost always ended in failure. He had neither the means to restrain Sheng Lin nor the ability to deal with Chen Yanning—caught in the middle, suffering from both ends.

Sometimes he even had to be dispatched by Sheng Lin to buy condoms for his own husband and the side piece.

The moment news of the white moonlight’s return spread, Sheng Lin had become restless three months in advance, his temper growing worse by the day. He’d even cut off all his outside entanglements. A living white moonlight was already this potent—imagine one returning horizontally, power doubled.

Call him home in front of the white moonlight’s memorial tablet, in the name of Sheng Lin’s wife? How brave.

Sheng Lin would probably break three of his ribs on the spot.

He didn’t dare go. He didn’t dare refuse Chen Yanning either.

Chen Yanning wasn’t looking at him—she was admiring her freshly done nails. At fifty, an Omega born with a silver spoon aged far slower than ordinary people; she looked not a day over thirty. She said to him: “Baby, don’t be so nervous all the time. I know—you’re from the countryside, that lowly streak in your bones can’t be scrubbed off, and with your education and looks… it would be strange if A-Lin had any interest in you. A person like you shouldn’t care about losing face. If he’s angry, just let him vent. He won’t beat you to death, what’s with all the drama?”

She always spoke softly, softer and more cutesy than most Omegas, never using foul language. Her voice was so gentle, so pleasant to the ear—yet Man Yu was always terrified when he heard her speak to him, as though she’d poked at some deep, buried shame inside him.

The moment Chen Yanning frowned, terrified of what she might say next, he hurriedly rolled a muffled “Yes, yes…” out of his throat.

Her expression improved considerably: “There you go, you’re the most well-behaved. Your own mother said it—with your conditions, you couldn’t have dreamed of marrying into our family. She nearly fainted from joy at the time. Don’t forget where you come from. People who forget their roots don’t go far. You should know gratitude, understand?”

Man Yu was mortified to the point of wanting to die—ashamed that his mother had spread the word so gleefully about how overjoyed she was that he’d had the chance to marry into the Sheng family.

He had indeed been both shocked and thrilled at the time. But he hadn’t fainted. He never imagined someone like him would catch the Sheng family’s eye, yet he also wondered what about him was worthy of being chosen.

Tucked inside his heart, carrying such feelings, he entered marriage both trembling with anxiety and brimming with hope.

Things were slightly worse than even his self-pitying imagination had prepared him for. No one in the Sheng family liked him. Sheng Lin was profoundly dissatisfied with this forced marriage—it took less than three months for his treatment to go from indifference to occasional verbal abuse.

He truly wasn’t likable. In just three months, his situation had steadily worsened. If it had been his younger sister or brother instead, clever and sensible as they were, they probably would have won Sheng Lin’s favor.

He finally let go of his fantasy—stopped hoping that someone might inexplicably like him. He searched his mind thoroughly and genuinely couldn’t find anything worth liking.

All Man Yu wanted was to perform a little better, just a little better, so that Sheng Lin might notice him.

Thoughts churned through his mind. He tried hard to think of something pleasing to say, but his tongue was as stiff as a popsicle, unable to bend even a little. All he could do was bow his head and mutter two anxious “Yes, yes"s to accept.

Chen Yanning handed him his task and rose to leave. As she passed by Man Yu, she lightly pinched her nose: “Oh, I’ve told you many times—stop calling me ‘Mom.’ It should be ‘Mrs. Sheng.’”

Man Yu flushed with fresh humiliation at her gesture, his back bending even lower.

The footsteps faded completely. Man Yu wiped his forehead and only then realized he’d broken into a heavy sweat.

His face burning red, he quickly used a handkerchief to carefully wipe down his face and neck.

The tissue scraped roughly across his neck, leaving two red marks on his pale skin.

Man Yu had heard a thing or two about his husband and that white moonlight—though perhaps the illustrious eldest young master and the dog he desperately wanted but couldn’t have would be a more fitting description.

He didn’t want to phrase it that way. Husband and husband were one body, and it shamed him deeply to think of it in such terms. But no better words existed to describe it.

He couldn’t penetrate Sheng Lin’s social circle. All he could do was piece together, from scattered fragments of conversation, what kind of person the white moonlight was—an Enigma: flamboyant, brilliant, domineering, self-centered, and utterly free-spirited.

Enigma was the seventh sex category, occurring when an Alpha underwent a second-stage differentiation. The probability was roughly one in a hundred thousand. Compared to the betas you could scoop up by the handful in society, they were born to be the center of attention. Not only were their physiques and intellect far beyond ordinary people, but their pheromones held a natural suppression over even Alphas and Omegas.

The corresponding downside was that they were more susceptible to pheromone influence and far more aggressive.

If his husband, Sheng Lin, was a young master who’d grown up with a gold spoon in his mouth, then this white moonlight was the center of gravity in the world where all such young masters circled like stars. The Sheng family, on the surface a garden in full bloom, was in truth tight on cash flow—light years away from the staggering wealth of the Lu family.

According to legend, while Sheng Lin was still in high school, the white moonlight had hung him up and whipped him like a spinning top for two hours. From that day on, Sheng Lin had been hopelessly, irrevocably in love with him.

Man Yu had once wondered: if he hung Sheng Lin up and beat him for two hours, would Sheng Lin fall in love with him too?

The thought kept surfacing, and he kept squashing it down. First, he was genuinely spineless and lacked the courage. Second, before he could hang Sheng Lin up, his own parents would hang him up first.

The phone lying face-up on the desk kept popping up message after message—every single one a sixty-second voice message. Man Yu had no friends, and his old coworkers had long since fallen out of touch. No one but his mother would send him so many urgent messages.

His palms slicked with nervous sweat. Before he’d even finished transcribing the text, the other person’s call came ringing in, impatient and insistent.

“Why aren’t you replying? I sent you so many voice messages—how can you not reply to a single one?”

“Mom, I—I was just… there was something… busy…” After three years of living alone at home, Man Yu’s language skills had deteriorated rapidly. Even a simple sentence came out stammering when he was nervous.

“What could you possibly be busy with? You stay at home every day and don’t even work! Do I have to wait for your reply over and over? Can’t you just reply the moment I send a message? Don’t you know how to respect other people?”

“Just—just now… Mrs. Sheng came… came over…” The more nervous he got, the worse he stammered. It took a long while before he managed to explain the whole thing.

Upon learning it was Sheng family business, Xu Lan finally stood down, her tone much gentler. She instructed him: “Look at you—making such a fuss over a little thing, stuttering and rambling. Even I get annoyed listening. From now on, you need to talk less in front of the Sheng family, understand? Don’t let them get sick of you. Think about how hard it was for you to marry into the Sheng family.”

Even though the other person couldn’t see him over the phone, Man Yu nodded obediently: “I… I have been talking less.”

Hearing his perpetually submissive and well-behaved reply, Xu Lan let out a long sigh of relief on the other end, her voice carrying the weariness of someone who’d finally relaxed. “Boyu, ah. Of all the children in this family, you’re the most sensible, the most obedient, the most filial. You never give your parents any trouble. Thanks to you being chosen by the Sheng family, our family is living so well now. Your brother’s company was all built up with the Sheng family’s backing. Your brother and sister-in-law are troublemakers—we don’t expect anything from them. Business isn’t good these days, and you absolutely must secure your place in the Sheng family. The whole family is counting on you.”

Hearing his mother’s heartfelt praise, Man Yu’s heart felt like it was being simmered in warm water—soft and aching, yet tinged with pride. An ordinary person like him was, after all, the one his parents could rely on most out of four siblings.

“Yes, I’ll… I’ll work hard.”

Xu Lan pressed on: “Now that person A-Lin liked is dead—this is your chance. Coax him, be gentle. Mom got you some Chinese medicine—drink it and see. It helps betas conceive. You’re different from other betas too. Have a child early, and everything will fall into place.”

Have a child? He and Sheng Lin hadn’t exchanged more than ten civil words, let alone done anything as intimate as having a child. Mrs. Sheng looked down on him—she probably wouldn’t let him conceive either. The only reason they’d chosen him, besides his honest appearance, was the fear that picking an Omega might lead to complications if they gave birth.

“But… I… I…”

“What do you mean ‘but’? If he doesn’t come to you, can’t you seduce him a little? Alphas all have their heats. You need to seize the moment.”

Man Yu’s face burned scarlet. He was a little scared, but still stammered his agreement. Xu Lan gave him a few more instructions before hanging up. Man Yu listened to the busy signal on the line, oddly reluctant to let go.

He set the phone down. There was clearly no more reason to delay.

To show respect, Man Yu went to change clothes. A white shirt, black trousers—originally purchased with half a month’s salary back when he’d just landed his teaching job, a staggering sum for him. It was his presentable outfit. His coworkers at the time had complimented it, saying it made him look far more spirited, much more like someone who should be teaching.

He’d worn it home in high spirits. His mother had frowned at it for a moment, unimpressed.

“Looks like you’re going to a funeral. You spent all that money just to buy this?”

The clothes couldn’t be returned, and Man Yu couldn’t bear to throw them away, so he’d buried them at the bottom of his trunk for six years. Now, at last, the moment had come for them to serve their purpose.

One by one, the loose old garments were stripped from his body. In the mirror, a young man’s frame was reflected.

Very pale. Thin, gaunt—even his waist and abdomen were just a sliver. Delicate bones pushed visibly beneath the wan flesh, the skin devoid of color save for a faint blue thread of veins, lending a gloomy fragility to his appearance. The red marks the tissue had scraped across his neck were the only vivid color on his entire body.

He looked no different from when he’d been a student—if anything, his shoulders seemed to hunch even more severely than before. Still slightly head-down, still with his too-long hair shielding his eyes, revealing only the bridge of his nose, his dry lips, and his sharp chin.

Man Yu glanced at himself in the mirror for barely a moment before averting his gaze in alarm, then pulled his clothes on.

As he’d expected—what had fit reasonably well three years ago now hung so loosely that the shoulder seams had slipped two inches down. It didn’t look sharp at all. For clothes so expensive, there wasn’t even a shred of dignity left in wearing them.

What a withered, emaciated body. Anyone looking at it would feel no interest whatsoever. And he was supposed to seduce his husband with this body? This personality of such tedious dullness?