Fishing Alone Through a Thousand Rivers of Snow - Chapter 2

I tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep.

Her pheromones filled the room. She had to be a high-ranking Alpha; otherwise, her scent would not affect me so strongly.

She lay at the far edge of the mattress—and I mean the very edge—as far away from me as she could possibly get. I wondered if she might roll onto the floor in her sleep.

With a sigh, I sat up.

She woke instantly, twisted around, and stared at me.

I gave her a sidelong look.

“I couldn’t sleep, so I’m getting some water. I’m not going to do anything to you.”

As I climbed out of bed, I drawled, “You do know I’m an Omega, don’t you?”

She said nothing.

I poured a glass of cold water and drank slowly. Her gaze fixed on my wrist.

“…Are you ill?” she suddenly asked.

I casually tugged my sleeve down over my bony wrist.

Realizing that she had asked something she should not have, she fell silent again.

Glass in hand, I leaned against the wall and looked at her across the dark room. Her red pupils still glimmered faintly in the shadows.

Neither of us could sleep, so we might as well talk.

“What species are you?” I asked.

After two seconds of silence, she replied, “Polar white wolf.”

Well.

A rare species, too. They had certainly gone to a great deal of trouble.

“What’s your name?”

Instead of answering at once, she countered, “What about you? What’s your name?”

I laughed softly. Apparently, she had a bit of a temper.

“Qian Jiangxue. Head of the Qian Group. You must have heard of me.”

This time, the silence stretched even longer.

Then, her voice thick with resentment, she asked, “The Qian Jiangxue Scholarship Foundation… is that yours?”

I raised an eyebrow. “It is. Why?”

“…I only made it into university because of its financial aid.”

I immediately understood the source of her suppressed anger.

Qian Jiangxue had once helped her. Yet after coming to the Imperial Capital to attend university, she had been kidnapped and forced into Qian Jiangxue’s bedroom as a tool for sexual release.

It made the scholarship look as if it had merely been bait, offered so that Qian Jiangxue could exploit her one day.

I sighed helplessly.

“Believe it or not, I knew nothing about your abduction from beginning to end.”

“How could you not…?” As expected, she did not believe me.

I gave a derisive laugh. “You may not know this, but the Qian family is enormous. Every family has a few troublemakers who neither understand plain speech nor behave like human beings.”

I set down my glass and approached her.

She immediately sat up, poised to flee.

Standing over the bed, I asked, “What’s your name?”

As I spoke, I released a trace of my pheromones.

I had no choice. The closer I came, the denser her scent grew, and the only way to withstand it was to release my own.

Even after the suppressant, her hormones could not immediately return to normal following a forced rut. Her pheromones continued to spill out beyond her control.

Her pheromone gland had to be throbbing violently. The pain traveled straight to the brain; anyone with a lower tolerance would have been rolling on the floor.

Yet she did not make a sound, as if her body felt nothing at all.

That hardly surprised me. Her extraordinary willpower had already been on full display during her rut.

The instant my pheromones emerged, she caught their scent.

Shock crossed her face.

I smiled. “What? Never smelled a top-tier Omega before?”

She was speechless.

I was certain she had not. Top-tier Omegas were exceptionally rare—less than one for every thousand top-tier Alphas.

My constitution was another major reason the family refused to let me go. They hoped I would leave behind superior offspring before I died—preferably another one or two top-tier Omegas as exceptional as I was.

I sat down at the edge of the bed and smiled at her.

“What’s your name?”

It was the third time I had asked.

At last, she answered. “…Bai Yujing.”

“What are you studying?”

“…Mecha piloting.”

My eyebrow rose again, this time in surprise. “That’s the most competitive program in the Imperial Capital. Its physical and constitutional requirements are extraordinarily strict. And you got in?”

She said nothing.

After a moment’s thought, I added, “Then again, if you can withstand my pheromones, you must be an A-rank Alpha at the very least. Perhaps it isn’t so strange.”

Her lips parted as though she wanted to say something, but she held her tongue.

“What did the people who abducted you look like?” I asked.

She gritted her teeth.

“They attacked me from behind. I didn’t see their faces.”

I sighed.

“Never mind. There are only a few likely suspects. I’ll interrogate them one by one tomorrow.”

I reached out to stroke one of her ears, hoping to soothe her.

She recoiled so quickly that my fingers closed on empty air.

How amusing.

“Are you that afraid of me?”

I deliberately teased her. “I’m the Omega, and you’re the Alpha. Shouldn’t I be the one afraid? How did it end up the other way around?”

She did not answer.

I leaned closer. “…Did you sense something?”

She stared at me without blinking.

I withdrew my hand and stood.

“As expected of a mecha pilot. Your instincts are far sharper than most people’s.”

I walked to the door.

“I’ll sleep in a guest room tonight. Get some rest. No one will bother you again.”