Editor: Decembery
With time for an afternoon nap, Team Eagle Riders returned to the Capital via spaceship.
The program for the Star Alliance Cup has already been released—the competition was to begin on the 12th of August, a little more than two weeks time from the present.
This year’s competition was to take place on the Western side of the Sixth Star District, which was quite far from where the Eagle Riders’ club was located in the First Star District. As it took three days via spaceship to get there, this time, the members would bring along their own gaming cabins and arrive a week beforehand. They planned to stay there for the entire duration of the competition.
The Eagle Riders arrived back at their base at night and Mu Feibai said good night to Qiu Yu in front of his room door.
With a cheeky smile, Mu Feibai said, “I’ve got to go home tomorrow. If I get beaten up, gege will have to take care of me when I come back!”
Qiu Yu raised an eyebrow at him, “Yeah, sure. How about an hour of one-to-one melee training?”
Mu Feibai’s eyes shone, “Deal!”
Qiu Yu smiled, punched Mu Feibai lightly on the shoulder, and turned to enter his own room.
Just as the door closed, it was pushed open again. “If they really do invoke the family law, remember to call me.”
He has always been quite protective of his soldiers and couldn’t bear for them to be wrongfully blamed by others—even if it was just their parents.
On the other side, Du Chen retrieved his line of sight and closed the door to his room.
Mu Feibai leaned against the corridor walls and lightly rubbed the place where he had just been punched. With a stupid grin on his face, his fingertips slowly drifted to the spot right above his heart.
Cupid’s archery skills were as great as ever—he could still remember, clear as day, the arrow that struck him squarely in the chest on their first meeting.
In the dorms, Qiu Yu was showering when he received a message from Du Chen: [Sorry, Qiu-ge. I was drunk at lunch and didn’t mean it that way, I meant like in a brotherly way.]
Another text quickly followed: [Don’t think too much into it.]
This kid didn’t say a word after waking up from a nap at noon. Even when the team boarded the spaceship, he stood far away from Qiu Yu and didn’t dare to look at him at all.
Clearly, he felt awkward.
Qiu Yu smiled and replied: [I know.]
However, at the same time he sent the message, Du Chen’s first message was recalled.
It was only after a long time did he reply: [Oh.]
Who knew what kind of a journey this kid was going through in his heart.
When Qiu Yu finished showering and was about to sleep, another message from Du Chen arrived: [So about that surgery… are you really going to go through with it?]
Qiu Yu didn’t hesitate in the slightest: [Yes.]
Du Chen: [Can you not?]
Qiu Yu: [No.]
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
After a long pause, Du Chen responded: [I don’t understand, why must you? You’re getting along so well with the captain and he’s even wanting to be your Alpha, so why must you still go through with the surgery? It’s very dangerous! Does the captain permit you to undergo it?]
Seeing this message, Qiu Yu’s head hurt a little. [He’s not my Alpha.]
Du Chen didn’t let it go. [But he even marked you!]
Hle Te vlvc’a kjca ab ajix abb wemt klat jc lcfzqilmjyis vlrbyfvlfca mtliv, rb tf vlvc’a gfqis. Kegclcu boo atf ilutar, tf aegcfv ab riffq.
Cr tf kjr vgloalcu boo lcab vgfjwijcv, tlr ygjmfifa yehhfv j mbeqif wbgf alwfr. Kbb ijhs ab ibbx, Hle Te abrrfv tlr ygjmfifa ab atf batfg rlvf bo atf gbbw yfobgf kgjqqlcu tlwrfio alutafg jcv ojiilcu jriffq.
When morning came, Qiu Yu only saw a row of notifications reading: “This message has been recalled”.
……
Returning home, Mu Feibai was almost smacked in the face by a frisbee the moment he stepped through the door to their courtyard.
He caught it reflexively, but his vision suddenly went black as he was tackled by a black fluffy object. The fluffy object was still biting onto the other side of the frisbee and even growled while fighting for it.
“Inkstone, let go!” Mu Feibai pushed the dog’s face away from him and forcefully grabbed the frisbee before throwing it into the distance.
The big black dog chased after it in a flash.
Mu Zhuoqing rolled up his sleeves and smiled towards him, “Yo, you’re back?”
At his side, a girl who looked around four years old turned. Upon seeing Mu Feibai, her eyes sparkled. She ran over and jumped on Mu Feibai, calling, “Uncle!”
Mu Feibai lifted up the little girl, but he didn’t seem to be in a very good mood. “Why are all of you back?”
He was worried that he’d get scolded miserably this time. It was still acceptable if it were only in front of his sister-in-law, but how could he maintain the image of an uncle if his niece were here to see?
The window to the study on the second floor opened. Mu Wei yelled in the courtyard’s direction, “Get over here right now!”
As expected, the little niece in his arms mimicked, “Get over here right now!”
Mu Feibai: ……
Inkstone returned to Mu Feibia’s side with a wagging tail and frisbee in its mouth. Mu Feibai put down his niece and had her play with the dog before he picked up his bags and walked through the door to their house.
His sister-in-law liked to cook, so he was assisting the chef even with a pregnant stomach. Mu Feibai greeted the other before walking upstairs.
Mu Wei sat on a futon in the study, accompanying Tang Zhi to play chess.
Hearing Mu Feibai enter, he put down his chess piece and sat up straight. “Why are you the only one back, where’s Qiu Yu? Didn’t we ask you to bring him over to visit?”
Exasperatedly, Mu Feibai replied, “He’s not my Omega, how can I bring him home?”
Besides, what if you guys say something way out of line and scare him away?
Mu Wei pointed the ruler at his face. “You stinky brat—”
The blade will fall no matter what, so Mu Feibai immediately knelt on the carpet and placed his hands above his head.
At the same time, the second half of Mu Wei’s sentence fell, “—you don’t even know how to properly pursue someone!”
Mu Feibai: ……
Mu Wei: ……
Tang Zhi: ……
To conceal his awkwardness, Mu Wei lifted up the ruler and placed a hit against Mu Feibai’s palms with moderate force.
Not feeling any pain, Mu Feibai understood that he wasn’t to be beaten under family law this time. With a cheeky smile on his face, he teased, “Why don’t you hit harder?”
Mu Wei was confused. After a moment of thought, he jumped in shock and anger, “What? Did you forcefully mark him then?”
Even Tang Zhi was taken aback and looked over with a raised eyebrow.
“No! We had an agreement, it was just a temporary mark for an emergency situation right before the competition.” Mu Feibai quickly explained how everything came about, “He knows my family is strict, so I might get a beating when I come back… I just wanted him to pity me!”
Mu Wei was angered into laughter and tossed the ruler to one side. “Get out.”
The stinky brat even wanted to fake being pitiful! Does he not know how hard it is to coax the other to forgive you once the act is seen through?
Thinking about this, he sneakily took a peek at Tang Zhi, who was playing with the chess pieces.
Mu Feibai let go of a breath of relief and took back his hands. Without finding a chair, he sat cross-legged on the floor.
Tang Zhi placed his chess piece down on the board and asked, “You like him?”
Mu Feibai nodded, “I like him.”
Tang Zhi smiled, “That’s right, you’ve always liked chasing after people who are stronger than you to play since young. You’d only look them in the eye if they beat you in something. I thought you wouldn’t end up liking an Omega in your life.”
Mu Wei tried to rescue some of his son’s pride as an Alpha, “Qiu Yu can only beat him up in the game.”
After being shot a look by Tang Zhi, he immediately shut his mouth.
Mu Feibai was still suppressing his giggles when Tang Zhi suddenly said, “I asked Zhefeng—he’s planning to undergo gland removal surgery. Were you aware of that?”
Even Mu Wei didn’t know about this and was taken aback. “Huh?”
However, Mu Feibai nodded, “I know.”
Tang Zhi was surprised, “You know?”
Mu Feibai nodded again, “En.”
Tang Zhi asked again, “Have you tried to convince him not to go through with it?”
After a moment of silence, Mu Feibai opened his lips again, his voice sounded a little sad, “I… I don’t want to try to convince him. I like him as a person, not because he’s an Omega. If he doesn’t want to be an Omega, then he doesn’t have to be one. I can’t harden my heart and watch him continue to live with a collar around his neck…”
Mu Wei looked as though he wanted to say something but didn’t end up speaking.
Tang Zhi looked at him with a smile that wasn’t a smile, “He’s better than you were at the time.”
Mu Wei instantly felt wronged, “But how could you compare him to us back then! Thirty years ago, the technological skills weren’t mature, you know how many went in alive but came out as a corpse! How could I let you brave the risk—”
Mu Feibai’s head snapped up, looking at his parents in shock.
Tang Zhi thought he was shocked by his parents’ story, however, his son had turned pale and spoke with a trembling voice for a different reason. “That surgery… is it very dangerous?”
This was a serious question, so Mu Wei explained with a straight face. “Even though the technology today is pretty advanced, any surgery still carries with it its risks. As this particular surgery touches on the core of the person’s body, it is still possible for some difficult-to-cure diseases and side effects to occur if the person doesn’t recover in a decent environment after the surgery.”
After a moment, Mu Wei added under Tang Zhi’s threatening gaze. “…But it’s just a possibility, um, yeah, a small chance. The technology’s pretty stable nowadays, so most people will be fine.”
Mu Feibai pinched his fingers together and asked, “Most, so how many?”
Tang Zhi replied, “95% recover well.”
Mu Feibai pressed his lips together, “So that means there’s a 5% chance of something going wrong… as much as the percentage of Alphas.”
In the Star Alliance, Alphas occupy around 5% of the population.
It doesn’t sound like much, yet it also felt like such a significant amount—there were Alphas everywhere around him.
All of a sudden, Mu Feibai, who had never been afraid of anything between heaven and hell, felt so scared that his heart trembled.
“So, you have to think it through yourself first.” Tang Zhi said, “Think about and understand what you can and can’t accept before you bother him.”
Mu Feibai’s lashes drooped. He swallowed, moistened his dry throat, and nodded.
That night, he had a nightmare.
It seemed to be set in the hospital, but it was eerily quiet and piercingly white in all directions. He seemed to be looking for something; his heart filled with anxiousness and fear. He pushed open door after door and passed through one corridor after the other—until he turned a corner, and saw Qiu Yu standing in front of him.
White light from the ceiling shone on them—there was blood all over Qiu Yu’s body. Frantically, he held Qiu Yu in his arms and tried to place bandages on him, but for some reason, he couldn’t put them on properly. More and more blood flowed. Soon, Mu Feibai realised it was all coming from a hole in the back of Qiu Yu’s neck, but no matter how he tried to block it, the piercing red still seeped through the bandages and flowed in all directions.
Qiu Yu gazed at him calmly from his arms, without blinking, speaking, moving, or breathing.
An entire world’s worth of fear twined itself around Mu Feibai’s heart, constricting tighter and tighter, cutting into flesh, paining him so much that he couldn’t stop the tears from falling.
And then he woke up.
It was still foggy outside the windows and his bracelet’s clock showed it was 5:17 in the morning.
Mu Feibai couldn’t fall back asleep at all.
After tossing and turning for a good while, he lifted up his bracelet to send Qiu Yu a message.
He typed words and then deleted them, over and over again until the morning sun glared through the windows. In the end, he only sent a single message: [Log on with your training account, can you accompany me to fight a round?]
Tn: Ooooooh seems like we have a couple of detectives in the comments last chapter! Hahahah we’ll see if y’all are right 😉
(also I forgot I changed update day to Monday so uhhh ig here’s an early chapter?)
Thanks for the chapter❤️❤️
My poor boy Du Chen is trying his best!! 🥹
Walking green flag Mu Feibai strikes again!! I was waiting for something like this to let out the last breath I was holding about this story, since I would have hated it if it went the route of “suddenly being with MFB makes QY change his mind about the surgery” and I’m fairly certain it won’t do that now. This is my favorite omegaverse story because of how it subverts a lot of the tropes I dislike in the genre, and the characters are great.
💖💖💖💖
I read the MTL… and god I appreciate you and the other translators so much TT
Thank you so much for the work you put out!!
We shall gacha our way to recovery