He Said I'm Not a Beta - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The first thing I did after returning to my apartment was strip off my clothes and look in the mirror.

Near my iliac bone on my lower abdomen were two clear bite marks, the surrounding skin flushed red.

I stared at that patch of skin for a long time.

His words played on a loop in my mind: “You don’t have an external Gland.”

In the ABO world, the Gland is usually located at the back of the neck.

This is common knowledge.

But common knowledge doesn’t mean there are no exceptions.

Back in university, I had helped Shao Chengyan organize a foreign medical journal that mentioned an extremely rare phenomenon known as a “free-floating gland.”

In such cases, the Gland’s position could be shifted or even encased deep within tissue.

It was difficult to detect during a standard physical exam.

At the time, I had merely skimmed that paper as a piece of obscure trivia.

I never expected it would one day land on my own head.

I poured myself a glass of ice water, but my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

My phone rang then. It was a message from Shao Chengyan, containing only one sentence.

“Don’t come to the office tomorrow. Go to Shengchuan Hospital for a full re-examination; the appointment has already been arranged.”

His tone was strictly business, as if he wasn’t the same man who had just pinned me down in his office and bitten my abdomen.

Staring at the screen, I felt a sudden, inexplicable surge of anger.

Over the past three years, I had cleaned up countless messes for him.

When the board of directors tried to stage a coup, I was the one who gathered the evidence beforehand to shut them up.

When there were issues with overseas drug regulations, I was the one who stayed up for two nights straight cross-referencing clinical data.

During his susceptibility period, when his moods were erratic and no one dared approach him, I was the one who stood guard outside the door, waiting for the doctor to confirm he was stable before I finally left.

But now, just because he smelled Omega Pheromones on me, it was as if the entire world had suddenly changed.

It felt absurd, and dangerous.

I went to the hospital the next day anyway.

The attending physician was Gu Shuhuai, Shao Chengyan’s childhood friend and the head of the Gland Research Center at Shengchuan Hospital.

Doctor Gu didn’t look surprised when he saw me.

It was as if he already knew everything that had happened last night.

“Blood draw first, then a deep Gland scan.”

He handed me the checkup forms, his tone gentle. “If you feel uncomfortable at any point, we can stop.”

“Doctor Gu.” I didn’t take the forms, looking at him instead. “Did you know about this all along?”

He fell silent for two seconds, avoiding a direct answer.

“I only know that Chengyan wouldn’t have smelled it wrong.”

That one sentence pierced right through the last bit of wishful thinking I had left.

I spent the entire morning like a specimen waiting to be unboxed, pushed into one machine after another.

Toward the end of the deep scan, the technician operating the equipment paused noticeably and then went to call Gu Shuhuai.

Outside the glass partition, they spoke in hushed tones.

I couldn’t read their lips, but I could tell something was wrong from their overly restrained expressions.

After the examination, Gu Shuhuai led me into a private consultation room.

“The results are in.”

He turned the screen toward me.

“You aren’t a Beta in the traditional sense. There is a recessive Omega Gland in your body that has been suppressed by drugs for a long time. It’s located deep in the lower-left abdomen. Conventional physicals can’t scan it, which is why all your past reports defaulted to you being a Beta.”

My palms went cold instantly.

“Suppressed by drugs for a long time? What does that mean?”

“It means that since you were very young, someone has been consistently giving you inhibitory metabolic drugs to suppress the Gland’s activity.”

I almost laughed out loud.

“Who would do such a thing to a child?”

Gu Shuhuai didn’t answer. He simply pushed another set of data toward me.

On the matching analysis report, Shao Chengyan’s name was listed right next to mine.

Behind them was a striking string of numbers.

99.87%.

In the ABO matching system, anything over ninety percent is considered extremely high.

Exceeding ninety-nine percent was something that practically only existed in textbooks and dark rumors on the auction market.

It meant an incredibly powerful soothing effect, peak marking stability, and an even higher probability of producing high-grade offspring.

I stared at those numbers, a sudden chill running down my spine.

This wasn’t romance; this was a price tag.

And Shao Chengyan’s family did not lack capital, nor did they ever lack ambition.

When I walked out of the consultation room, I saw Shao Chengyan standing at the end of the corridor.

His posture was upright, his expression having returned to its usual near-indifferent composure.

He looked at me, seeming as if he wanted to approach, but he forced himself to stay where he was.

“You know the results,” I spoke first.

“Yes.”

“How do you plan to handle me?”

The moment the words left my mouth, they sounded harsh even to me.

But I really couldn’t act as if nothing was wrong.

An Omega who had been hidden for over twenty years, an assistant with an absurdly high compatibility with a top-tier Alpha-in the eyes of Shengchuan and the Shao Family, I didn’t look like a person. I looked like a resource.

Shao Chengyan looked at me for a long time before suddenly saying, “The word ‘handle’ shouldn’t be used on you.”

I twitched the corner of my mouth. “Then tell me, what word should be used?”

“Protect.”

He said it so calmly that it made me even more afraid to believe him.

“From today on, your residence and commute will change. The hospital records will be sealed, with only Gu Shuhuai and me having top-level access. If you don’t want to stay by my side, I can give you a compensation package and a new identity file, then send you abroad.”

I froze. “You’re sending me away?”

“I’m giving you a way out.”

He looked at me, a deep emotion suppressed in his eyes.

“Because once the Shao Family finds out, you will no longer just be Su Yiqiao.”

I didn’t agree that day, nor did I refuse.

But in his silence, I understood one thing.

More terrifying than the fact that I wasn’t a Beta was the fact that someone had known I wasn’t for a very long time.