Confession

Capital Second Hospital.

Hua Yu rose from the gland examination chair; Zhang Rong removed her rubber gloves and studied the dense rows of data on the computer screen.

“Your sensitivity to omega pheromones is getting stronger and stronger,” Zhang Rong said, her tone grim. “Although alpha pheromones are naturally directed outward, and very few alphas’ health is affected by pheromone grade or excessive concentration, you still need to be careful.”

Hua Yu rubbed her gland and sat down on the edge of the bed, lowering her eyes. “Mm. I know.”

“You’re a doctor too.” Zhang Rong looked at her. “Since Wei Yin’s glands are already improving, why don’t you try calming yourself with her pheromones? Unless you’re sensitive to Wei Yin’s pheromones too?”

Hua Yu shook her head. Her mood had been low these past few days, and it was Zhang Rong who had insisted on dragging her in for an examination.

“I like her pheromones,” Hua Yu said, the corners of her mouth lifting as a faint look of pleasure spilled into her eyes. “Back in college, I was the only one who could smell her pheromone scent.”

Zhang Rong still didn’t get it. “Then that’s perfect. You can give each other a temporary mark, or just don’t mark at all; stay a little closer, be a little more intimate, and it could help you relax.”

Hua Yu still refused. “I’m afraid I’d hurt her.”

“When you came to me for help, didn’t I agree without a second thought?” Zhang Rong turned sideways, one hand braced on the desk, giving her a sidelong look. “And you, on the other hand, never treated me like a friend.”

Hua Yu looked up, a little helpless. “I’m not...”

“If you have something to say, say it,” Zhang Rong rarely spoke so crudely. “If you need to shit, then shit.”

Hua Yu was choked speechless. “Xu Ya Qing has really corrupted you.”

Zhang Rong’s old face turned red. She pretended to be cold. “If you don’t explain yourself now, I’m leaving.”

“Wait a moment,” Hua Yu said with a sigh. “I really am worried I’ll hurt her.”

Her expression grew even more downcast. “In her senior year, one day I asked her out, wanting to confess... Back then, I already knew she had a girlfriend, but I still wasn’t willing to give up. I felt that what other people said didn’t count; I didn’t believe it. I needed Wei Yin to tell me herself before I could accept it. In the end... she rejected my confession.”

Zhang Rong had no intention of ripping open someone else’s wound; even her breathing softened as she said gently, “And then?”

“At the time, I was out of my mind and took her rejection of me as her admitting she was with Yu Tiantian. Coincidentally, that day she probably hadn’t sprayed any blocker, and I smelled a rich, sweet pheromone scent coming off her... By the time I came to my senses, Wei Yin was nearly marked by me.”

What had happened was even more chaotic than her explanation. Over the years, Hua Yu had never wanted to think back on it. Even though it was one of the few shared memories she and Wei Yin had, the other protagonist in that memory had clearly been terrified. After Hua Yu regained consciousness, she let go of Wei Yin very quickly; afraid that Wei Yin had been hurt, she tried to step forward and check on her. But when Wei Yin saw her approaching, she instinctively took a step back.

Hua Yu didn’t dare go any farther. In the stalemate that followed, Yu Tiantian rushed over and pulled Wei Yin away.

Hua Yu wasn’t sure how strong Wei Yin’s pheromones’ pull was on her; she didn’t dare gamble.

Zhang Rong thought for a long while, then suddenly said, “Why do I feel like the two of you got set up?”

Hua Yu looked up, confused. “What?”

“An immature gland has a hard time secreting enough pheromone to be sensed by another sex, let alone at a concentration high enough to make you go into heat so quickly,” Zhang Rong said thoughtfully. “That’s one thing.”

Hua Yu frowned. “But I’ve always been able to smell Wei Yin’s pheromones.”

Zhang Rong shook her head. “Being able to smell them doesn’t mean you can sense them, and it definitely doesn’t mean they’ll trigger heat. Especially since you and Wei Yin have known each other for so long; there would be a degree of desensitization. Unless there was deliberate stimulation, this situation shouldn’t have happened. That’s the second thing.”

When it came to gland research, Hua Yu was stronger in practice while Zhang Rong was stronger in theory. So Hua Yu had never questioned the idea that “she would go into heat because of Wei Yin.” On the surface, or even when digging deeper into it, it was the kind of event that seemed completely non-OOC.

But Zhang Rong could keenly sense the unreasonable parts hidden within it.

After Zhang Rong’s explanation, Hua Yu also began to doubt.

Some days ago, she had been stimulated by omega pheromones during her heat and hospitalized. At that time, only Wei Yin had been beside her; but even when she was so overwhelmed by the pheromones she felt ready to explode, she had still managed to stop in time, which showed her self-control was still above the passing line.

That was still her heat state after years of having little contact with omega. Back in college, her control would have only been stronger.

Zhang Rong patted her shoulder and said earnestly, “Being too tense, too afraid to take the first step; being overcautious and seeing shadows where there are none often makes people miss happiness. Junior Sister, you’re not young anymore. You should understand this.”

Hua Yu didn’t say anything more to refuse. She only nodded lightly. “I’ll think it over carefully.”

Before leaving, Hua Yu remembered something and hesitated. “That matter...”

Zhang Rong nodded at her. “Got it. When the time comes, I’ll join forces with the others from our department and attack you.”

Hua Yu laughed. “Thank you.”

Q City was only a three-hour high-speed rail ride from the provincial hospital, and Hua Yu went there and back on the same day.

The message she had sent Wei Yin yesterday hadn’t received a reply; only a lonely flower lay collapsed in the middle of the screen.

[I found a mini sunflower. It should be a different species of flower?]

Wei Yin answered with silence.

After getting off the high-speed rail, Hua Yu wandered aimlessly along the roadside.

Normal work would resume next week; by her calculations, Wei Yin’s final stop should already have ended, and she ought to have been hurrying back from the Northeast.

It was getting late. The high-speed rail station was in the suburbs, and there were few people on the street. Walking through the alley, she could hear the sound of her own footsteps, along with the intermittent chirping of autumn cicadas.

As she walked, a faint cry suddenly came from deep in the street, sounding like a child crying, but thinner and sharper than a baby’s wail.

The sound came from behind a trash can. Hua Yu walked over and found a pitch-black little thing.

It was shaped somewhat like a rat, tiny in body but with a rather large head. Hua Yu turned on her flashlight and leaned in for a closer look. The little creature trembled as it opened its mouth and let out an even weaker cry; it turned out to be a kitten that had been born not long ago.

The kitten was only half the size of a palm. Its eyes weren’t even open yet, its ears were still folded down, and its whole body was filthy and sticky, as though someone had splashed it with dirty water. It was shivering from the cold.

After a moment of hesitation, Hua Yu used a tissue as padding and picked the kitten up.

-

“Aunt Mei, why are you here?”

Wei Yin ran into Pedro at an art exhibition. Pedro was an important guest invited to preside over the event.

When Pedro saw her, she even waved her over and called for her to come up and comment on the exhibits.

If this had been before, Wei Yin’s social anxiety would definitely have exploded; but after these days of traveling, when she stood in front of people, she suddenly felt as if there was nothing left that could make her anxious.

“I’m here to attend a charity gala,” Pedro said, taking Wei Yin to a Hunan restaurant and talking as they ate. “A few foreign friends want to adopt children, so I came by to see whether there are any suitable orphan girls.”

When Wei Yin heard this, she wanted to lend a hand as well.

“Is there anything I can do for them?” Wei Yin asked.

Pedro refused without even thinking. “Just buy them some things and go see them. Best if it’s food, or things specifically for children.”

Wei Yin blinked. “Food and supplies don’t cost much; wouldn’t that be of limited help?”

“It’s still a lot,” Pedro said with a smile. “Welfare institutions have few adults and many children. Children naturally want to get close to adults. If someone can go visit them and play with them, they’ll be very happy.”

Wei Yin thought about it. “Then should I donate some money to the welfare institution?”

“No need,” Pedro said. “There’s a lot of murkiness in charity. The money you give may not all end up being used on the children. It’s better to visit them when you have time.”

Wei Yin understood. “When charity becomes a business, the ones who truly benefit aren’t the children anymore.”

“That’s still the better kind,” Pedro said, her tone turning a little heavy at something she was thinking of. “Children without parents; being neglected and underprotected is one thing. What’s worse is when people covet their bodies...”

The meatball in Wei Yin’s mouth nearly fell out.

“No way...” Wei Yin said. “The sexual assault of young girls is a major crime. Welfare institutions manage children centrally; surely that kind of thing happens a lot!?”

Pedro quickly clarified, shaking her head helplessly. “Not that kind of body. Their bodies, literally.”

Wei Yin thought for two seconds, then became even more shocked. “Organ trafficking?”

“Pretty much,” Pedro said. She had spent years abroad rescuing orphaned girls from trafficking and organ-trafficking networks, especially those with gland disabilities, because their life expectancy was already short and they were easy to ‘dispose of’; they had always been a major target for such trade. “Though things are better here domestically; it isn’t nearly so rampant.”

After absorbing all of that, Wei Yin felt even more keenly that a peaceful, stable, prosperous, and civilized country was simply more suitable for living.

If she had really been born in a third-world country, who knew? She might have been walking down the street and suddenly shoved into a sack and sold across the ocean; being sold whole would already be bad enough, but the fear was being sold off piece by piece...

Wei Yin was scared by her own imagination and shivered.

“Let’s not talk about that anymore,” Pedro said, not intending to discuss it with her any further, since it had nothing to do with Wei Yin. “I’ll head back after we finish eating. Want to come with me?”

“By car?” Wei Yin asked.

Pedro nodded. “It should take about five hours.”

Wei Yin had no other travel plans, so she nodded. “Okay. I should go home and see Dr. Hua anyway.”

Pedro teased, “You miss her?”

Wei Yin lowered her head to pick at her rice. “Not really. I just think about her sometimes.”

“That’s true; Hua Yu’s been pretty busy too,” Pedro said, rather agreeing. “She’s busy publishing papers, and the hospital practically begged her to come to work, but she still didn’t go for a whole month.”

Wei Yin immediately defended her wife. “The family of the patient was already in the wrong to begin with; Dr. Hua had such a huge cut on her face.”

Pedro clicked her tongue. “You two really are the sort that thrives on distance.”

Wei Yin smiled awkwardly.

Actually, there wasn’t much wrong between her and Hua Yu. The main issue was that Hua Yu was too capable of carrying everything on her own, and too fond of drawing a clean line between Wei Yin and the conflict between Wei Yin’s desire to stand on the same side as her and go forward and backward together.

The main contradiction had already shifted from whether the other person liked her to what kind of way the other person would like her.

“How do you know she’s publishing a paper?” Wei Yin asked casually.

Doctors publishing research results was like rain falling from the sky; logically, apart from the people involved in the research, or Hua Yu’s colleagues, or the patients who could benefit from the findings, no one should be paying attention to such a thing.

Pedro said matter-of-factly, “Because I’m investigating her.”

Wei Yin shrank her chin in and quietly looked up.

“Why are you investigating Dr. Hua?” Wei Yin’s voice was very small.

Seeing her reaction, Pedro smiled faintly. “Don’t worry; just something I did on the side.”

“On the side?” Wei Yin looked confused.

Pedro explained, “Last time, when your account and Xu Ya Qing’s account were attacked by black fans, I had my people keep a closer eye on the two of you, so I quickly found out about this and followed the trail. In the end, I discovered this person may have some connection to Yu Tiantian. To be honest, you may not understand, but I have a lot of people who handle the dark side of things. As long as something has happened, there will be traces.”

Wei Yin nodded; she did know about that.

It had been over a month since the black-fan incident, and neither she nor Xu Ya Qing had livestreamed again. The black-fan account had been shut down long ago, and because it had been handled quickly, the impact hadn’t been large.

But it had still been disgusting enough.

“During the investigation, I found that the company under Yu Tiantian’s own family was operating an upcoming heat-relief device for the market, and Yu Tiantian herself was closely involved with another shell company,” Pedro said in a clear, unhurried way. “The endorsement for the heat-relief device was Hua Yu.”

Endorsement; a guarantee for someone else.

As the provincial hospital’s renowned doctor in the differentiation department, Hua Yu was, in the eyes of the medical world and her patients, a living signboard made of gold.

“Hua Yu’s latest paper, ‘Integration of Heat Behavior and Hidden Regulation of the Heat Cycle by ECP-Expressing Neurons,’ has a core focus on intervention in the heat period. It’s the first paper proposed by society that can achieve heat relief through a non-injection suppressor. You can imagine how much of a sensation it would cause if it were published.”

Wei Yin had studied medicine herself. Although these technical terms were difficult to parse, she still understood what Pedro meant.

On the theoretical level, Hua Yu had built people a highly anticipated expectation: no need for expensive and intensely painful injectable suppressors; simply using a relief device would be enough to ease, or even eliminate, the symptoms of heat.

That was equivalent to telling girls with painful periods decades ago that they didn’t need to keep warm or exercise, and they didn’t need to take painkillers either; just sweep a device over their body and they could have a painless period.

It was easy to imagine how much temptation that would hold.

And then, in the very next step, Yu Tiantian’s product could ride the wave into the world.

What a chain of moves. What a beautifully calculated plan.

Just last month, Hua Yu had told her that Yu Tiantian’s project wouldn’t be launched so soon and that Wei Yin didn’t need to worry for now; Hua Yu would slowly think of a solution.

But how had solving it ended up solving Hua Yu herself into the middle of it too?

If all of this was true, and it was about to happen, while Wei Yin knew nothing at all and remained completely in the dark...

Wei Yin thought for a long time, then said softly to Pedro, “Do you remember when I went to the villa to find you, and you asked whether we should give Hua Yu some trouble, like delaying her paper from being published and so on... Aunt Mei, you really did think about it, didn’t you?”

Wei Yin was a smart child with a good memory. Pedro didn’t hide it from her and admitted readily, “I personally don’t like academics getting tied up with filthy money; and Yu Tiantian’s background isn’t clean. Out of a kind of ordinary public sense of justice, I really did want to stop it.”

Wei Yin said quietly, “But you also knew the paper was already complete; if Yu Tiantian wanted to, she could publish it no matter what.”

Pedro rubbed her temples in headache. “Exactly. And this is also your girlfriend’s fault. The paper was indeed written too well; it’s a piece of gold. If this journal can’t publish it, there are other journals. Real talent can’t be hidden forever.”

Wei Yin picked up her phone. “I’m calling her to ask clearly.”

Pedro hesitated, but didn’t stop her.

Wei Yin opened the call screen, but didn’t press it for a long time. She thought about it again, and her voice took on a touch of grievance and accusation. “Last month Hua Yu told me Yu Tiantian’s project still needed a long time before it could be put into practice, and that I didn’t need to worry yet. She lied to me!”

“Before that, Yu Tiantian even asked me to meet her, and I didn’t notice anything. After I talked to Hua Yu, her answer was always just, ‘You don’t need to worry’... Dr. Hua pushed me aside again, and after I was discharged she even made me move out of the house. Maybe that was related to this too! How am I so easy to fool... Is there really something wrong with this device? Is Yu Tiantian trying to screw Hua Yu over?”

Pedro motioned for her to calm down and said steadily, “Yu Tiantian’s own fortune is tied up in it too. She probably wouldn’t pick up a rock just to smash her own foot. She’s a businesswoman. What she wants is to make money, not to put in this much effort to frame a person. But on the other hand, if she can make one person shoulder all the risk while she hides behind the scenes, that’s very possible.”

Wei Yin was thoroughly disheartened; all her resentment turned inward. “I’m so useless.”

“You can’t say that. You haven’t done anything wrong,” Pedro said, raising a hand to pat Wei Yin’s shoulder, offering encouragement in the most straightforward way. “The paper still has more than a month before publication, and the product still needs time before launch. This is a time window that can be long or short; maybe she’s already made full preparations and didn’t lie to you?”

Wei Yin sighed. True and false; she no longer knew how to talk to Hua Yu about this.

It was all tangled up in such a professional matter as a paper. If Hua Yu refused to say anything, was she supposed to hold a knife to Hua Yu’s neck and force her to talk?

Wei Yin even thought about using beauty tactics, but she also knew Hua Yu’s self-restraint was like an old scholar’s, and her own little tricks wouldn’t be nearly enough to matter.

So Wei Yin sighed again.

At that moment, the phone screen lit up; Hua Yu’s call came through.

Wei Yin didn’t hesitate and tapped to answer.

Hua Yu clearly hadn’t expected Wei Yin to pick up either, and froze for a moment before speaking softly, “Xiao Yin?”

Wei Yin gave the fewest words possible. “Oh.”

Hua Yu hesitated. “Where are you... Are you coming back?”

Wei Yin said, “Depends on my mood.”

Hua Yu asked carefully, “Then is your mood good right now... If it isn’t, what would make it better?”

Wei Yin went straight to the point. “Tell me everything.”

Thinking Hua Yu would dodge the question again, Wei Yin had already prepared herself for a battle with her; but Hua Yu only let out a faint “Mm.”

“Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you.”