Chapter 2: The One He Yearns For

If everyone has a scale in their heart, then Second Aunt’s family must have all the weights placed on their side.

Lin Chao had just stepped through the door when he heard his grandmother’s toothless voice: “Oh, Xiao Er bought so many things! I told you not to buy anything, not to buy anything! Our family doesn’t have much money.”

She sat on the edge of the kang, wearing a maroon cotton padded jacket with a blue square cloth wrapped around her head. Her two withered hands firmly grasped Second Aunt’s Husband’s hands, the concern on her face genuine and sincere.

Lin Chao lowered his head and saw two boxes of soft bread his mother had bought at Second Aunt’s Husband’s feet.

His father stood nearby holding health supplements, looking particularly awkward, like an outsider.

Lin Chao lowered his eyes and greeted, “Hello, Grandma.”

Grandma heard him, glanced over and hummed in acknowledgment, her face still wearing that same smile: “Xingxing has grown so big. Go put your things away first.”

Lin Chao nodded, turned and opened the door to leave, avoiding his father’s gaze that tried to keep him there.

Perhaps like the adults said, he was still young and couldn’t quite understand the dignity in adults’ eyes.

When he was younger, his father would look at him the same way. He thought of himself as his father’s little hero, puffing out his chest to tell Grandma that everything was bought by his mother and father, that Second Aunt’s family hadn’t bought anything.

He thought Grandma would treat his father better, but instead he saw Grandma’s face change, giving him a reproachful look while holding Second Aunt’s Husband’s hand, tears welling up in her eyes: “What does a child like you know? How hard your Second Aunt’s family has it! If your Second Aunt hadn’t dropped out of school to work and support your mother’s education back then, you wouldn’t have the life you have now!”

When he was young, he felt guilty and blamed himself for a while, thinking his life was stolen and that he owed Second Aunt’s family a lot.

But when he grew older, he realized Grandma was skilled at turning black into white.

Once when his parents were arguing about Second Aunt, his father said: “Second Brother never wanted to study, he just wanted to raise pigs. He had no ambition at all, squandered all the money he earned, and never gave your mother a single cent. Grandma is just biased.”

So from childhood, he was forced to understand one truth: liking and love cannot be forced.

No matter how well his mother did, in Grandma’s eyes there was only Second Aunt’s family.

Just as Lin Chao pulled open the door, he saw two people standing by the mud plastered stove one was his mother leaning against the stove smoking silently, the other was Second Aunt gesticulating wildly beside her. Her voice drifted to Lin Chao’s ears with the wind:

“Third Sister, I really forgot to buy things for Mom. You bought so much, what’s wrong with lending me some? Just this once, we’re sisters after all…”

Second Aunt’s unique skill.

Mother never liked to talk much, and now she just remained silent, the smoke from her fingers curling gently, obscuring her eyes and brows.

After a while, he finally heard his mother’s voice, terrifyingly calm: “Last time.”

Lin Chao looked ahead, completely lost. It was always the last time.

He didn’t want to become an adult like them.

The next day after lunch, Lin Chao returned to the adjacent room another cave dwelling where the male family members slept. He sat upright at the table doing homework, the sunlight was just right, and with the stove burning at home, it was warm and cozy.

The adults had all gone to fetch water from the spring, leaving only him and Grandma at home. He hadn’t been writing long when he heard noisy voices outside.

Then he heard Grandma calling him through the door: “Xingxing, someone’s here to play with you.”

“Got it, Grandma…” he replied.

Lin Chao tilted his head, his eyes widening involuntarily.

He rarely went out after returning to his hometown, being somewhat socially anxious, which meant he had few friends in the village. It was hard to imagine who might be looking for him.

Instinctively, Lin Chao resisted the idea of meeting anyone, yet he couldn’t suppress a flicker of anticipation.

He put on his jacket, zipped it up, and meticulously checked that every part was neat and wouldn’t appear disrespectful to others. Only then did he pull open the door and step out.

The weather wasn’t great today, and the wind was chilly, but it couldn’t dampen his good mood.

Lin Chao hunched his shoulders against the cold wind as he opened the gate for the few children outside. The stray hairs on his head fluttered wildly in the wind, and his cheeks were flushed red. Just as he was about to speak, the tallest child grabbed him by the back of his collar, covered his mouth, and dragged him away.

It was a female Alpha short haired, wearing a black padded jacket, with a robust build and several bruises on her face. She easily blocked the others behind her.

Lin Chao was an Omega, and the physical disparity was too great. Moreover, she looked several years older than him, making resistance impossible. His face turned crimson from suffocation, unable to even cry out.

When he was dragged to a secluded spot, Lin Chao was finally released and casually thrown to the ground.

Lin Chao glanced around, gripping the hem of his clothes tightly. This seemed to be an abandoned grain storage cave gloomy and cold, with dirt in the corners and scattered rotten potato chunks and straw.

He sat on the ground in disarray. When he looked up, a group of people stood silhouetted against the light in front of him, their figures imposing.

“Que Gen, he’s the one who got you beaten! He’s the one your family’s pig almost ran into!”

“After the boss saw him yesterday, he stopped telling us stories and playing with us! He must have ruined the boss’s good mood!”

“He’s the one who got the boss injured. Even if it’s for the boss, we have to teach him a lesson! Make him learn his place!”

Several of them were people Lin Chao had seen yesterday. Though their faces were vague, their clothes were unchanged.

He wanted to say it wasn’t him, but his intuition told him he should run these people wouldn’t let him go.

Lin Chao gritted his teeth, raised his hands, and tried to push past them to escape. But these people were broad and sturdy; he was like a dazed rabbit crashing into a wall.

“Beating him up is boring, and we’ll get scolded when we go back. You, go fetch a bucket of ice water from the river nearby!”

“You two, hold him down!”

“Let me go! It wasn’t me… I didn’t…” Lin Chao’s voice trembled, his eyelids quivering as he recalled being dragged into the woods by students from another class when he was nine.

Their eyes were filled with indifference, their faces twisted with wild, bizarre smiles as they watched him moan in pain, clutching his head and shaking.

The next moment, he felt his arms being pinned, and his zipper was yanked open. The biting wind rushed in violently, chilling him so much he shuddered. Soon after, someone returned with a bucket of ice water, a few floating ice chunks on the surface. The freezing water, mixed with filthy mud, poured over his head.

The icy water, laden with ice chunks, mercilessly seeped into the collar of his sweater. Within seconds, Lin Chao was shivering uncontrollably.

Lin Chao closed his eyes, biting his lower lip hard, refusing to let them hear a single plea or sob.

Tears mingled with the ice water, streaming helplessly down his cheeks.

So cold… so cold… so cold…

Save me… I’m so cold…

The cave was damp and chilly, its entrance half blocked, plunging the interior into terrifying darkness. Lin Chao had lost count of how many buckets of water had been poured over him.

Time ticked by, yet the cruel torment showed no signs of ceasing.

He didn’t know what he had done wrong or why he was being treated this way.

Lin Chao’s gaze drifted to a dark corner, where he spotted a half eaten, dead rat. His eyes shifted numbly, and a bleak thought surfaced in his mind.

If he died, would everyone finally be satisfied?

If he died, could his parents try for a second child and have the daughter they wanted?

If he died, would his grandmother show more care and concern for his parents?

Life was too bitter, and he had never liked bitterness.

Lin Chao relaxed his body, collapsing fully onto the ground, letting the cold, muddy sludge swallow his knees. He no longer resisted.

His body temperature plummeted, and his thoughts grew muddled. In a daze, he felt as if he had left this world, floating toward a place he yearned for a land where flowers bloomed, the sun warmed everything, and every day was bright, without a trace of night. The people around him smiled warmly, their eyes filled with kindness, and as he turned, they gently whispered, “Lin Chao, be happy today too…”

The thought nearly made him smile.

Yet a sharp pain in his chest tugged at him, as if reminding him it was all an illusion.

Water trickled from the cave, flowing down the slope outside. Luo Shisi spotted a child carrying a bucket of ice cold water and grew suspicious. Grabbing the child by the collar, her lips pale, she frowned and asked, “Where are you going?”

The child glanced at her furtively, avoiding eye contact. “Nowhere.”

Luo Shisi didn’t believe it. A thought crossed her mind, and she smiled, looking pleased. “I heard you all came to play with that kid from yesterday. Why didn’t you invite me?”

The child in her grip looked up, meeting her gaze, and panicked instantly. Dropping the bucket, the child tried to flee. “I don’t know!”

But Luo Shisi’s grip was too strong; the child couldn’t break free.

Luo Shisi let the child struggle, her eyes dropping to the streams of dirty water flowing down the slope water that seemed to originate from a cave, almost forming a small creek.

Just then, a familiar chubby figure emerged from behind the straw covering the cave entrance. “Gou Zhu, that useless brat is about to give in. One more bucket should do it.”

But when the figure looked up, it wasn’t the short Gou Zhu standing there it was Luo Shisi, her expression terrifyingly dark.

“I thought you were sick with a fever?” the figure stammered.

Hearing this, Luo Shisi’s lips curved into a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and her grip tightened.

“Boss, boss, ease up! We were doing this for you!”

“For me?” Luo Shisi snorted disdainfully, her pupils contracting into vertical slits as her pheromones surged violently.

Alphas begin secreting pheromones and developing secondary sexual characteristics at age twelve. Luo Shisi, now fourteen, had already mastered precise control over her pheromones. Even at school, she was a rare, top tier Alpha.

Almost instinctively, Luo Shisi’s pheromones detected a faint, weak Omega scent nearby.

When she pushed aside the straw and saw what lay inside, her eyes instantly reddened. Her fingers, clutching the straw, trembled with the urge to tear something apart.

The boy who had been glaring and secretly fuming just yesterday was now pale faced, pinned in icy, filthy water. His soaked jacket had turned cold and heavy, clinging to his fragile frame like shackles. His hair and face were frozen, lips bitten until they bled.

“Li Chunshui, how dare you!? This is murder!”

Her fists clenched and unclenched before she finally lost control, striking the fat boy named Li Chunshui and sending him sprawling. In the next instant, she unleashed her full pheromones, veins bulging on her neck.

The domineering, aggressive pheromones swept through the confined space like a tsunami carrying razor blades, instantly crushing all present Alphas to the ground under immense spiritual torment. Yet they deliberately avoided the boy lying motionless with closed eyes.

Only then did the fallen Alphas remember their first encounter with Luo Shisi how her violent pheromones had nearly burst beyond control. Though Luo Shisi appeared approachable, she wasn’t someone to be trifled with, especially when someone had committed atrocities using her name.

A high level Alpha could directly suppress those two ranks lower into idiocy. The realization sent chills down their spines, cold sweat soaking them as they clutched their heads.

She was angry.
Luo Shisi was truly furious.

Their heads throbbed with pain.

In the next moment, they watched helplessly as Luo Shisi picked up her phone.

Suppressing her rage with a dark expression, Luo Shisi recorded video evidence of the entire scene before dialing a number, her voice vicious:

“Hello? 110?”
“I’m not turning myself in, I’m fucking reporting a crime…”
“Attempted murder.”

The girl’s profile reflected grimly on the phone screen.