When the Student Becomes the Fiancé

The duty doctor at the infirmary took one look at the Alpha who was covered in blood and mangled flesh, shook his head, and muttered, “Alphas…,” before helplessly calling for an emergency ambulance from the hospital.

After personally signing the paperwork and seeing the student onto the ambulance, Wu Qie returned to the office only to discover that what had happened during lunch break on the basketball court had already spread everywhere.

The teachers in the office looked at him with expressions that were hard to put into words.

This new colleague had only been at the school for a few months and didn’t interact much with them.

In everyone’s impression, he was an extremely low-key person.

A graduate of a prestigious university overseas, with single eyelids and very fair skin that made his eyes and hair look raven-black by contrast…

On his first day at work, Teacher Xiao Wang, who sat across from him, had once exclaimed a little too enthusiastically, “Oh my god, Teacher Wu, your eyes and hair are so black. Do you have some special maintenance routine?”

The person being praised had only pointed at his own hair with a baffled look.

“Don’t Asians all look like this?”

Later, a teacher in the office who claimed to be very good at reading people declared that Wu Qie must be someone with a story.

Otherwise, there was no reason for someone so young to live like he had just come back from chanting scriptures at the Vatican.

And at this very moment, after a brief silence in the office, one teacher finally couldn’t hold back and stood up to ask, “Teacher Wu, did you meddle in Zhao Shu’s business at noon?”

“What’s wrong?”

The person being addressed looked genuinely confused.

And honestly, the teachers’ reaction wasn’t strange.

At the end of the day, they were just salaried workers exhausting themselves over the grades of young masters and young ladies.

Someone like Zhao Shu was… special.

—Zhao Shu of the Zhao family, the ship-owning magnates of Jiang City.

Zhao Shu was the second son of the Zhao family’s actual power holder and his wife, with an older brother above him.

Madam Zhao, an Omega, had been weak and sickly in her early years.

She passed away only a few years after giving birth to Zhao Shu.

After losing his Omega, Mr. Zhao fell into deep decline, withdrew from all responsibilities, and moved abroad long-term.

As the saying goes, an elder brother is like a father.

At seventeen, Zhao Shu’s brother took over the family business and, along with it, took over raising his much younger brother.

The two brothers depended on each other, and Zhao Shu grew up as the treasured darling of everyone around him.

From the day the young master of the Zhao family reached school age and stepped into the elementary division of Hongtie Middle School, the main campus had never stopped upgrading its equipment, facilities, and even teaching buildings year after year.

In his first year of high school, Zhao Shu unsurprisingly differentiated into a top-tier Alpha with both mental strength and physical fitness at SS level.

According to Wu Qie’s memory, this student was not a complete idiot.

Although his daily behavior was questionable and violated some school rules, his academic performance was genuinely good, consistently ranking at the top.

In theory, it was only natural for Zhao Shu to walk around the school as if he owned the place.

Teachers were also more indulgent toward good students, not purely because of his family background.

“He almost beat that student to death.”

Wu Qie spoke seriously.

“Is it really okay not to intervene?”

“In the end, wasn’t it that student’s fault?”

The biology teacher pushed up his glasses and frowned.

“I heard he saw Lin Zuwen waiting alone at the outdoor basketball court and thought Zhao Shu wasn’t around, so he ran over and said some nonsense. Stuff like waiting for Lin Zuwen to differentiate into an Omega…”

“Lin Zuwen?”

Another chemistry teacher chimed in, surprised.

“So Zhao Shu beat someone up for him?”

“Probably.”

“Isn’t Lin Zuwen the one from Grade Three, Class F?”

“Oh, right, that one. Hasn’t he still not differentiated? I always thought it was strange. It’s rare for students to differentiate that late. He’s almost an adult.”

“Judging from Lin Zuwen’s current appearance, he really could be an Omega.

Students these days… turning Omega identity into this kind of malicious harassment at Hongtie is seriously low-class.”

“Oh, it was Lin Zuwen. No wonder Zhao Shu was so angry.”

The teachers in the office started talking over one another.

Lin Zuwen was the youngest son of the Lin family, real estate developers in Jiang City.

A few years ago, when construction was booming, the Lin family had been truly glorious.

In recent years, however, the real estate market declined, and while the Lins were no longer at their peak in Jiang City, they were still far from fallen.

Three years ago, Lin Zuwen entered Hongtie and met Zhao Shu.

From then on, the two had maintained a close relationship.

Lin Zuwen liked sticking to Zhao Shu, and the latter, contrary to his usual irritable, keep-your-distance personality, allowed it.

Although Lin Zuwen had not successfully differentiated all these years, everyone guessed that he would most likely become a rare Omega.

Which happened to make him a perfect match for Zhao Shu.

“Teacher Wu, don’t get involved in their affairs again next time.”

The biology teacher, surnamed Huang, pushed up his glasses and spoke earnestly.

“Zhao Shu has a strange temper. It’s not good to get on his bad side. Honestly, if it weren’t for Lin Zuwen, I doubt he’d bother with these people at all.”

Last month, Zhao Shu scored full marks on his biology placement exam.

Wu Qie nodded slowly, looking a beat late to the realization.

“So they’re a couple?”

Teacher Huang said, “Yeah.”

Wu Qie smiled, eyes curving gently.

“Alright. My bad for meddling.”

When the after-school bell rang in the afternoon, Wu Qie immediately stood up from behind his desk, grabbed his car keys, and prepared to go home.

Outside the school gate, among the neatly lined luxury cars waiting to pick up young masters and young ladies, Teacher Wu’s two-hundred-thousand-yuan car looked so out of place it was almost pitiful.

Even though it was a model you could see at least three of at every traffic light.

“Does your school not pay teachers’ salaries?”

A parent outside the car window asked her daughter, without malice, purely out of curiosity.

Under her gaze, Wu Qie calmly rolled up the window.

His home wasn’t far from the school.

Even with evening rush hour, it only took about half an hour to get there.

The ordinary little car drove into the only hillside luxury villa area in the city center.

After winding through so many turns that it made his head spin, Wu Qie recalled how, when he first moved in, he’d needed navigation just to get home for three straight months.

He had complained endlessly about that.

When he backed into the garage, his mother was watering the flowers in the yard.

This was the kind of work other families liked to hire gardeners for, but she insisted on doing it herself—

After all, the joy of growing flowers lay in doing it personally.

Wu Qie got out of the car.

The moment he closed the door, he saw his mother sneaking over with the hose in hand.

Water dripped steadily, almost drowning a pot of camellias.

Wu Qie slipped his keys into his pocket and had a bad feeling that tonight might be a Hongmen Banquet.

He asked her, “Who are you putting on that sneaky act for? If you have something to say, just say it.”

“Oh my!”

Madam Li Junbi blinked.

“A rare guest finally willing to come home today, hm?”

Wu Qie: “……”

Wu Qie: “Then I’ll leave?”

Wu Qie was only twenty-two this year.

Li Junbi was nearing forty-five.

The Wu family was a very typical AO family.

Old Wu was almost fifty, but he had always treated his wife with the same pure affection as when they were young and had never gone astray.

As a result, the Wu couple remained deeply in love, and the years had left little trace on this Omega lady’s face.

Her eyes were still lively, and when she looked over with a smile, it felt like spring wind.

With her free hand, she patted her son’s arm.

“What could I possibly want to say? I just find it strange. Ever since you started dating, you rarely come home to eat with us. What’s going on today? Don’t you need to accompany your little boyfriend?”

Wu Qie let out an “oh,” thinking how she really had a talent for bringing up the worst possible topic.

“We broke up.”

He said it as calmly as possible.

“Just broke up at noon.”

He hoped his calmness would give his mother a hint.

That something like “breaking up” could just be treated as a trivial matter and dissipate on the spot.

In reality, his wish failed yet again.

With a “pssh” as the water sprayed like a celestial maiden scattering flowers, he heard a joyful shriek.

Madam Li Junbi threw the hose aside, grabbed her son’s hands with both of hers, and asked with undisguised delight, “Really? You’re not lying to me? You and that little boy—your little ex-boyfriend—broke up? You’re not just trying to make me happy, right?”

Wu Qie: “……”

Staring into those eyes filled with anticipation, Wu Qie suddenly felt a confusion he had never known before—

With Madam Li acting like this, how exactly had she managed to navigate the Jiang City socialite circle so smoothly all year long?

Facts proved that some premonitions really did come true only when they were bad.

These days, being a good person didn’t necessarily bring good karma.

But a Hongmen Banquet?

That was very real and unavoidable.

After returning to his room to shower and change, Wu Qie went downstairs and saw an unfamiliar Bentley parked in the yard.

Only then did he realize there were guests tonight.

In the living room sat a young man in casual wear.

He looked much younger than Wu Qie’s father, Wu Wenxiong, probably just over thirty.

The man was extremely handsome, with a sharply defined jawline, sword-like brows, and starry eyes.

Even sitting on a soft sofa, his posture was impeccable.

At a glance, he was clearly no ordinary person.

Despite the age gap between him and Wu Wenxiong, the two chatted without any generational awkwardness.

When Wu Qie came downstairs, they were discussing the progress of a dock development project.

Hearing footsteps, Wu Wenxiong turned around, waved casually at Wu Qie, and said, “This is Uncle Zhao. Call him uncle.”

With that opening line, Wu Qie felt like he’d turned into a three-year-old.

Facing a man who was at most a little over thirty, he really couldn’t bring himself to say “uncle.”

The other man laughed first and smoothly said that since he wasn’t much older than Wu Qie’s younger brother, being called uncle would mess up the generational order.

“…Ge.”

“A-Qie has grown up.”

Wu Qie waited for a moment, thinking that with this kind of tone, there should be some red envelope involved.

There wasn’t.

He found an empty sofa and sat down, the one adjacent to the young man.

As he sat, Wu Qie caught a faint woody scent like rain-soaked dark timber drifting into his nose.

He’d vaguely smelled it upon entering the living room and had initially thought it was perfume.

Now, it seemed more likely to be the Alpha pheromones of the man in front of him.

Wu Qie was a Beta.

To him, pheromones were just faint scents with no further information attached.

Whether Alpha or Omega, to a Beta, they were merely—

Humans wearing different perfumes.

He didn’t dwell on it.

Listening to his father and the man talk for a while, Wu Qie finally realized that this “ge” was the “Old Zhao” his parents often mentioned.

The Zhao and Wu families had been friends for generations, with no grudges between them.

Before the founding of the nation, Wu Qie’s great-grandfather had even carried the Zhao family patriarch out of a trench on his crippled leg—

A bond forged in blood and iron.

Over the past century, as the domestic situation changed, the Wu family’s ancestral business remained inland, dealing in tobacco and minerals.

The Zhao family relocated to Jiang City and put down roots there.

After a hundred years, the Zhao clan had become a ship-owning dynasty known to all.

In recent years, perhaps due to a downturn in fortune, just like real estate, tobacco and mining had become harder and harder to manage.

The Wu family began branching into import-export trade.

With help from the Zhao family in Jiang City, the Wu family managed to avoid detours entirely.

While peers struggled to survive, the Wu family’s recent financial reports were actually looking up.

Wu Qie, a postgraduate who studied abroad and returned, had been able to parachute straight into Hongtie Middle School in Jiang City.

Aside from his respectable résumé, the human connections involved likely owed a great deal to the man in front of him.

Zhao Guipu.

Zhao Guipu truly was a benefactor to the family.

Wu Qie was always polite toward elders.

During dinner, he sat quietly at the table without making a sound, even though everyone emphasized it was just an ordinary family meal.

He scooped up a spoonful of tofu and half-listened to the elders discussing business.

Just as he put a piece of golden tofu into his mouth, Madam Li Junbi’s voice descended like a message from the heavens.

“Oh right, let me tell you some good news. My boy broke up with his Omega boyfriend today!”

For a moment, Wu Qie thought there was something wrong with his ears.

With a mouthful of hot tofu, he lifted his head in a daze.

He had no idea how the topic had gone from “stricter inspections of smuggled goods on cargo ships” to this absurd corner.

“Huh? Why didn’t I hear about this before—”

“I forgot. Saying it now is the same.”

“…It was that Omega? What happened, did he dump our boy?”

“Probably. You know your son. He doesn’t exactly have the mouth to initiate a breakup.”

“So, A-Qie broke up with his little boyfriend?”

Zhao Guipu didn’t use many filler words.

Despite his youth, when he spoke, the aura of someone in power was unmistakable.

He carried a calm, oppressive presence that was hard to describe.

The moment he spoke, the happily chatting couple naturally fell silent and turned to include him in the conversation.

“Old Zhao, isn’t this just fate?”

Madam Li grew more animated as she spoke.

“Yesterday you suddenly brought up wanting to become in-laws, and it kept my Old Wu tossing and turning all night. He kept saying he could never bring himself to break up a young couple by force—and look at this! Today our boy broke up on his own. Isn’t this destiny written in the stars?”

Wu Qie felt the man in front of him turn his head.

Under the dining room lights, those excessively deep, dark eyes landed on his face.

Zhao Guipu let out a soft laugh.

“It is indeed a coincidence.”

Wu Qie swallowed the food in his mouth, his head full of question marks.

Yet no one at the table paid him any attention.

The elders chatted enthusiastically about something utterly outrageous—

About Wu Qie having a fiancé.

Him.

Wu Qie.

Having a fiancé.

The bowl in his hands felt as distant and unreal as a grain of sand floating in the universe.

He himself seemed to have turned into a pair of chopsticks, a side plate, or a decorative vase at the table.

Wu Qie did manage to squeeze in a question—“What fiancé?”—but no one responded.

After a long while, Zhao Guipu finally turned back to him and asked gently, “A-Qie, how have the past two months of teaching at Hongtie Middle School been? Are you used to it?”

Wu Qie didn’t understand why he brought this up and could only nod obediently.

Zhao Guipu nodded in return and set down his chopsticks.

“My younger brother also studies at Hongtie. He differentiated into an Alpha in his first year of high school.

I’ve always said that after differentiation he didn’t seem to amount to much, but now I think differentiating was a good thing.”

Wu Qie: “Huh?”

Zhao Guipu: “He can take care of you.”

Wu Qie: “What?”

Zhao Guipu: “If you run into any difficulties at school in the future, go to him for help. He’s an Alpha.

He should naturally take good care of people… Rather than taking care of random cats and dogs that wander over, it’s better for him to take care of his own fiancé.”

Wu Qie: “Huh? What?”

Madam Li chimed in, “Old Zhao, you’ve said all this without even introducing your brother’s name. How is our boy supposed to meet his fiancé and receive his care?”

Zhao Guipu said, “His name is Zhao Shu.”

Wu Qie: “?”

Zhao Guipu repeated the name.

“Zhao Shu. I hear he’s quite famous at school. A-Qie, you’ve heard of him, haven’t you?”

Wu Qie: “I guess.”

Wu Qie: “……”

Wu Qie: “He’s a student in my class.”

Are you feeling even a hint of absurdity now?

Zhao Guipu nodded slowly.

“In the future, he’ll have another identity. Not just your student, but also your fiancé.”

Wu Qie: “……”

Alright.

Looks like they didn’t feel it at all.