Out of Control

Wei Yin peered through the peephole at Xu Ya Qing several times before slowly opening the door.

“What are you staring at?” Xu Ya Qing said, deeply annoyed at having been left standing outside for half a minute. “It’s only been a few days since we last saw each other; have you already forgotten what I look like?”

Wei Yin lifted a bottle of barrier spray and smiled. “Close your eyes.”

“What??”

Xu Ya Qing didn’t even have time to react before a cloud of mist came pouring down over her head.

Wei Yin sprayed barrier medicine over every inch of her from head to toe three times. Xu Ya Qing even got the taste of it in her mouth and yelled, “Pah, pah, enough!”

“Last time you came over, you smelled like omega,” Wei Yin said seriously after checking her over. “Dr. Hua smelled it. This time, with me here, I’m not allowing even a trace of omega pheromones.”

Xu Ya Qing was utterly speechless. “Hua Yu has a problem, and now you’re following along and making a fuss too.”

Wei Yin’s eyes widened. “How can you curse at people?”

“I’m being literal,” Xu Ya Qing said as she changed into slippers and wiped her face with tissue, sighing. “I didn’t go fooling around. The little bit of pheromone on me is just the weak dose from normal social contact. Anyway, I’m normal; she’s the one who isn’t.”

Wei Yin: “Oh.”

In short, Dr. Hua was right; Xu Ya Qing was wrong.

Xu Ya Qing walked to Hua Yu’s door, knocked, and stood there for a long while.

“I can’t smell her pheromones,” Xu Ya Qing asked. “How long has she been in the room?”

Wei Yin held up her fingers one by one. “She locked herself in the room yesterday at almost four in the afternoon. The food I put in the fridge was gone the next day, so she must have come out at night, but I didn’t see her. Not until now.”

Xu Ya Qing silently did the math. That was a full day and night.

“Hua Yu, sis, big sis, eldest cousin,” Xu Ya Qing called, knocking on the door. Her voice was quite loud. “You awake? Say something.”

A dull thud came from the other side of the door, as if a pillow had been thrown.

Hua Yu was clearly awake, but she also seemed a little out of it. Under normal circumstances, even if Hua Yu ignored people, she wouldn’t throw pillows.

Xu Ya Qing laughed. “You’re irritated. I’m taking Wei Yin out to eat something. What do you want to eat, or what do you want me to buy? I’ll bring it back.”

There was no response inside. After a long while, two words came through Xu Ya Qing’s WeChat: No need.

“Let’s go; we’ll eat first.”

Wei Yin refused. “I’m not going out.”

Xu Ya Qing tried to persuade her. “She’s fine.”

“Still not going out,” Wei Yin insisted. “There’s food and vegetables at home, and if I go out and pick up all sorts of random smells, Dr. Hua will feel awful.”

Xu Ya Qing looked skeptical about Wei Yin’s cooking. “I don’t want home cooking; I want a feast.”

“How big do you want it?” Wei Yin asked unhappily.

Xu Ya Qing spread her hands about a meter apart. “You know, about this big. Do you have foie gras? And some good steak.”

Wei Yin thought for a moment, then darted to the fridge. “Wait a second; I’ll look.”

Xu Ya Qing wandered over behind her. “I want top-grade steak, PRIME.”

“Prime? We only have 3A,” Wei Yin said, pulling out a box. “See if this works?”

“You’re sure this is AAA?” Xu Ya Qing took the steak with skepticism, then gasped. “It really is. Hua Yu finally decided to pay attention to food?”

Xu Ya Qing had been here when Hua Yu moved in; she also came over now and then afterward to hang out. Hua Yu, a famous doctor at the provincial hospital, made several times more in side income than she did every month. Of course, according to Hua Yu, doctors didn’t take side income and only lived on their official salaries; but when it came to food, she kept everything as simple as possible and would absolutely eat in the cafeteria if she could.

When had they started stocking things like this at home?

Xu Ya Qing rolled her eyes and gave Wei Yin a squinty smile. “So that’s the difference. Once someone’s got a person to keep, they really do start taking their diet more seriously.”

Wei Yin couldn’t quite follow her train of thought. A few seconds later, she said slowly, “Oh, you mean these ingredients. We didn’t buy them; they were stuffed into the car by Hua Yu’s parents and Aunt Sun.”

At that, Wei Yin’s expression brightened. She ran to the kitchen and brought out a large pot of murky black liquid. “This is sour jujube tea Aunt Sun gave me. It clears heat and relieves internal fire; it works really well. Do you want some..."

“No.” Xu Ya Qing raised a hand and pressed down on the pot lid, speaking earnestly. “Don’t give me health tonics.”

After that, she pounced on the fridge and rummaged through it for all kinds of delicious things.

“No wonder there’s all this stuff; so the old lady took you to meet the parents, huh? When did you go? Did you eat?” Xu Ya Qing found no prepared dishes, only a pile of fresh ingredients. “I want to eat Aunt Sun’s cooking.”

Wei Yin blinked, clearly unable to help. “Just yesterday.”

Xu Ya Qing held up the steak. “Can you pan-fry it?”

Wei Yin hesitated before reaching out. “Well-done?”

Xu Ya Qing quickly pulled her hand back and clutched the steak protectively. “...Better than butchering it.”

Wei Yin had no choice. Her employers all had professional chefs; at home, she only did odd jobs. For families who couldn’t afford a professional chef, if Wei Yin helped cook on the side, they wouldn’t have any particular demands about pan-frying steak.

In short, Wei Yin still had too little social experience to have randomly learned how to cook a high-grade steak. The only thing she could do was cook it through.

The two of them stood there, staring at the ingredients.

Just then, the doorbell rang.

Wei Yin got up to open the door.

“Hello, is this Dr. Hua’s home?”

At the door stood a woman wearing a silver-gray silk nightgown, with a curvy figure and very feminine features.

Wei Yin recognized her as the neighbor who lived next door; she had seen her once or twice before while going out to take the trash.

Wei Yin showed half her face and replied politely, “Yes. Are you looking for her?”

The woman clearly had no memory of Wei Yin’s face. She gave Wei Yin a charming smile and asked in return, “Is she at home?”

Wei Yin didn’t dare let her in, blocking the doorway with half her body. “She is. But it’s not convenient for her to see anyone right now.”

The woman raised an eyebrow, and her gaze finally landed on Wei Yin.

She didn’t say much else; after looking Wei Yin over from head to toe, she let out two light laughs. “Nothing much. I borrowed some kitchen tools from Dr. Hua last time and was planning to return them today.”

Wei Yin nodded. “You can give them to me.”

The woman’s smile deepened. She shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”

She handed Wei Yin a takeaway container box and said brightly, “This is a thank-you gift for Dr. Hua. Since she’s busy, I’ll have to trouble you to pass it along.”

Wei Yin instinctively wanted to turn around and go fetch the barrier spray to blast the container.

“Okay.”

The woman didn’t linger. She gave Wei Yin a wink, then turned and left gracefully.

Wei Yin set the box down at the entryway, hesitating over whether to bring it inside.

Xu Ya Qing wandered over. “Who was that?”

“The neighbor. She said she wanted to thank Dr. Hua for lending her kitchen tools, so she brought a gift,” Wei Yin said gloomily. Then she looked up at Xu Ya Qing. “Can I spray the takeaway box with barrier spray?”

Xu Ya Qing’s eye twitched. Thinking back to what she’d just experienced when she entered, she said firmly, “No need. It’s just a little box; how much omega pheromone could there be?”

Wei Yin looked at her suspiciously. “Really none?”

“This is food, not clothing,” Xu Ya Qing said with absolute confidence. “Trust me, it’s fine.”

Wei Yin still gave the outer box a very light spray, but under Xu Ya Qing’s glare, she didn’t touch the food inside.

In the end, Xu Ya Qing ordered takeout anyway and told the restaurant to keep the outer packaging clean.

During dinner, Wei Yin kept spacing out.

Xu Ya Qing bit into a crab leg. “What are you thinking about?”

Wei Yin came back to herself, lowered her head, and poked at the rice. “That neighbor just now... have you seen her?”

“What?” Xu Ya Qing scratched her head. “No, I don’t come here that often.”

Wei Yin nodded. “Oh.”

The neighbor was very beautiful; her beauty was distinctly feminine. There was no stereotypical ABO impression on her body, only a kind of straightforward, mature feminine aura.

Xu Ya Qing asked curiously, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Wei Yin said, shaking her head and shaking away the messy thoughts in her mind. “I just think she’s really pretty.”

“Pretty? Alpha or omega?” Xu Ya Qing perked up.

Wei Yin said she didn’t know. “I can’t tell.”

“Then I’m going to check the surveillance.”

There was live monitoring at the entrance. Xu Ya Qing pulled up the footage from half an hour ago; one look and she became interested.

“With such a seductive, alluring figure, she must be an alpha!” Xu Ya Qing clutched her chest. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen such a knockout woman.”

Wei Yin looked disapproving. “She could also be an omega...”

“If she were an omega, I would’ve smelled her scent already, okay?” Xu Ya Qing said, regaining her composure after her excitement. “Whatever, it’s good I don’t have any intention of AA romance.”

Wei Yin still thought the other person’s secondary gender was questionable.

So after Xu Ya Qing finished eating and spent the whole afternoon playing games at her place, she only dragged herself away at eight in the evening. Wei Yin packed up the pretty neighbor’s takeaway container and, before putting it away, labeled it carefully: “A gift from the neighbor.”

This was a thank-you gift for Hua Yu, and Wei Yin didn’t think it was appropriate to open it; still, sticking on a label as a reminder was good enough.

Thinking of that, Wei Yin sent Hua Yu a WeChat message.

[In]: Dr. Hua, the neighbor across the hall came to see you.

Hua Yu was probably asleep and didn’t reply.

Wei Yin casually found something to eat, drank all the nutritional supplement Hua Yu had prepared for her in advance, showered, and went to bed.

Deep into the night, at three in the morning, everything was silent.

Hua Yu woke from the first intense wave of her heat, and an overwhelming hunger twisted in her stomach.

As always, she had taken a large dose of suppressants, and high-concentration soothing medicine had been applied to the outside of her skin. Let her body churn however it liked; if she endured it, it would pass.

As long as there was no external stimulation, she was an alpha herself; the singular alpha hormone wouldn’t have a severe effect on her. Once the heat passed, it would slowly metabolize away.

Hunger forced her weak body upright, and she instinctively walked to the fridge and opened the door.

Afraid she wouldn’t be able to find anything to eat, Wei Yin had thoughtfully placed sandwiches, bread, chocolate, and other ready-to-eat foods in the very front. Hua Yu ate two packs of sandwiches and swallowed an entire row of chocolate, but the hunger in her stomach still wouldn’t recede.

Deeper inside were some prepared foods: sauced beef, braised dishes, jerky, and the like; all of them meat.

Hua Yu really wanted something starchy, so she kept rummaging farther in. Hunger made her movements more and more urgent, and the fridge was packed so full that when she pulled things out in a hurry, a small sticky note slipped free, unnoticed by anyone.

With semi-soft cheese, cheese sticks, and oatmeal, Hua Yu felt increasingly sick of it.

Then, suddenly, she saw a thermal box. Inside were several kinds of Chinese pastries; they looked like rice cakes in different flavors, such as mung bean cake, osmanthus cake, and jujube paste cake.

This didn’t look store-bought. Hua Yu thought of Wei Yin; did she have this kind of skill?

Without thinking too much about it, Hua Yu opened the box and bit off half a piece in one mouthful.

-

In Wei Yin’s room, the fan made an almost imperceptible whirring sound. Wei Yin slept obediently, lying on her side on the bed as she drifted quietly into dreams.

She wasn’t sleeping deeply, but she had fallen asleep.

Hua Yu’s heat over the past few days had left her uneasy. She got up several times during the night, but Hua Yu wouldn’t let her come near her room, nor would she see her. With just a single line—“Don’t go, stay by my side”—Wei Yin would remain faithfully waiting outside, though she could only fret helplessly.

Today, perhaps because Xu Ya Qing had come over for a while and eased her anxiety, she slept a little more soundly than yesterday.

Bang—

In the silence of the night, a heavy crash rang out, followed by a series of sharp impacts as miscellaneous objects hit the floor.

Wei Yin jolted awake, her heartbeat suddenly racing.

She got out of bed, turned on the hallway and living room lights, and looked toward the source of the sound. “Who’s there?”

In the darkness, a figure stood in the corner between the fridge and the kitchen; the dim light traced the outline of her tall body.

She was slightly bent over, long hair hanging down by her cheeks, her breathing slow and uneven.

Wei Yin recognized her as Hua Yu and felt a wave of relief. She walked over and asked, “Dr. Hua, are you okay..."

The rest of the words froze abruptly in her throat. Wei Yin’s eyes widened, and she stood rigidly in place, every expression on her face collapsing into a single, stunned shock.