Zhou Shiyi didn’t come this way either; he only turned to show a profile.

But Gu Sheng knew that face all too well—there was no mistaking it.

He stepped out from behind the greenery, startling the few people who had been talking in front.

They were already annoyed, but when they realized he was the young master of the Gu family, they raised their wine glasses and moved to greet him.

Gu Sheng was anxious, but someone blocked his way, and in the blink of an eye Zhou Shiyi’s back had disappeared.

“Excuse me, please let me through, I have something urgent.” Gu Sheng managed as he pushed out from the crowd.

He chased after him, but couldn’t spot the man’s figure anywhere.

“Shengsheng, come over here.” Nian Meilan saw Gu Sheng suddenly run over and called him to her side.

Gu Sheng could only turn his head, his eyelids no longer twitching.

Maybe it was because nothing good ever happened to him whenever he ran into Zhou Shiyi, so he forced down the unease in his chest.

Gu Sheng touched his heart to steady his breathing, lifted his face into an elegant smile—flawless enough that no one could find fault.

Zhou Shiyi was called over by the head waiter and told that their inspection team had run into an emergency: several of them had come down with sudden diarrhea, so the servers should cover for them. They’d be paid double wages for the shift.

Zhou Shiyi thought it over and agreed.

The head waiter also exhaled in relief, silently cursing how careless those people had been.

Zhou Shiyi and another waiter were patrolling outside.

She was a female beta named Aya. Knowing she was a beta was based entirely on her appearance.

She looked young too; when she learned Zhou Shiyi’s age she smiled and said, “No wonder you look so fresh—you still a schoolboy?”

The two of them each carried a flashlight and a radio, patrolling the perimeter.

Once they left the banquet, the outside felt especially empty and silent.

Having come out from the air-conditioned hall, wearing the thin server’s uniform, he seemed a little underdressed. That night the whole estate’s grounds felt as if it belonged only to the two of them.

Zhou Shiyi could tell Aya was scared, so he didn’t press—he just replied, “Mm, how about you? Here from university doing part-time work?”

Aya tucked a stray lock behind her ear, smiling with a flirtatious charm. “I’m already a mom—my kid’s three.”

Betas hired as servers in the manor were usually chosen for looks, so they tended to be around the same age; Zhou Shiyi had absolutely no idea Aya had already given birth.

“Really? I couldn’t tell.”

“Yeah, if the kid hadn’t gotten sick and I wasn’t short on money, I wouldn’t be here doing a part-time job.”

It was obvious Aya had a past, but she didn’t elaborate.

They made small talk that went nowhere—mostly Aya talking, with Zhou Shiyi chiming in occasionally so the conversation could keep going.

When they reached an electrical panel, Zhou Shiyi noticed the door wasn’t closed. They exchanged a glance, and Zhou Shiyi pulled out the baton he’d been carrying and stepped forward.

Zhou Shiyi checked it once more; the wiring inside was intact, and the foreman hadn’t sent any message to them, which meant the banquet was still going on as normal.

It looked like the same carelessness as before—the person hadn’t properly closed the breaker.

But Zhou Shiyi had a bad feeling. The breakers had been checked several times, and the keys up there were only held by the foreman and the security department.

Now the security team was all struck with diarrhea, practically wiped out, so Zhou Shiyi switched on his radio and reported the situation to the foreman.

On the other end of the walkie-talkie, the supervisor took it seriously and said he’d send someone over to take a look.

In the quiet night, the supervisor’s voice came through the walkie-talkie, drifting far away.

Zhou Shiyi suddenly heard rapid breathing; he reacted quickly and made a hand gesture to Aya.

Tell Aya to stay where she is and wait for the others to arrive.

Zhou Shiyi heard the person’s breathing get more ragged and knew they couldn’t hold on. He edged closer carefully, but the person suddenly turned their head and ran.

It was Zhou Shiyi’s first time at this manor; he hadn’t realized it actually led to the estate’s kitchen.

Seeing someone really there, Aya gave a short shout, quickly pulled out a walkie-talkie and reported to the foreman. Those on the same channel could hear her, so Aya’s voice rang out from the walkie-talkies all around.

The people behind caught up, and Zhou Shiyi followed that person into the kitchen, then they ran down a corridor.

They reached a corner, and Zhou Shiyi heard the sound of a door closing.

He glanced back; down the hallway to the side were several rooms, and he couldn’t tell where the person had gone.

Zhou Shiyi was breathing a bit hard—luckily he’d kept up his habit of exercising early each morning since transmigrating, otherwise the person really might have gotten away.

He called people over, but the entire manor suddenly lost power.

……

The banquet gradually reached its climax.

Miss Gao descended slowly from the spiral staircase, holding Gao Jingyuan’s arm, her face flushed with shyness as she walked to the center of the hall.

Her fiancé was a young alpha, with no real secrets in their circle—Gao’s high school classmate, now a somewhat famous rising star.

The two stood together, his talent matching her beauty — a perfectly matched couple.

Gu Sheng grew increasingly panicked, but couldn’t find the source.

Nian Meilan jabbed him several times, yet Gu Sheng didn’t turn around.

Fortunately, everyone else’s attention was captured by the banquet’s main attendees, so no one noticed him.

Gu Sheng turned his head and saw He Yanqing.

He Yanqing is a member of the He family; there are rumors that he is the He family’s illegitimate child, but his appearance at the banquet didn’t seem particularly noteworthy.

But something was very wrong with He Yanqing now.

His face was flushed, he was clutching his stomach, looking in great pain.

To everyone else, it looked like He Yanqing had a bad case of food poisoning, but Gu Sheng knew He Yanqing was an omega.

Sure enough, He Yanqing clutched his stomach with one hand and the back of his neck with the other. As he passed by an outer-ring alpha, that alpha suddenly inhaled sharply and involuntarily felt compelled to follow He Yanqing toward the restroom.

Gu Sheng’s pupils constricted; he suddenly remembered!

“Watch out!”

Whether that warning was for He Yanqing or someone else at the banquet, everyone there turned their heads.

But very quickly, the accident happened.

The central chandelier suddenly crashed down.

The people around immediately screamed and scattered, but the three in the center couldn’t get out of the way.

Miss Gao’s dress was beautiful but elaborate, completely restricting her movement; moreover, in her panic she was tripped by her high heels and couldn’t dodge in time.

At that moment Miss Gao’s fiancé put himself in front of her, taking the brunt of the impact.

Miss Gao let out a scream, calling her fiancé’s name, but nobody else had the leisure to respond.

Shards from the shattered chandelier scattered, striking those who hadn’t run far enough; the sharp fragments left cuts on their exposed skin, but they quickly had no time to tend to bleeding wounds.

With the chandelier’s sudden attack, the entire manor plunged into darkness.

A venue capable of hosting a banquet like this would be equipped with its own generator, so in theory a blackout shouldn’t have been possible—but that was exactly what happened.

There were clearly still things on the chandelier; now they had been smashed.

Those whose skin had been cut by the chandelier shards reacted the quickest.

Their pained howls soon dwindled to faint sounds.

When the chandelier came crashing down, Gu Sheng suddenly remembered—there had been an attack in his previous life too, and he had been there then as well.

Gu Sheng could only have the people around him cover their mouths and noses.

But it was already too late; Gu Sheng smelled pheromones spreading everywhere.

It smelled like an omega in heat—not just one, but many omegas all in heat at once.

That patchy, artificially synthesized scent hit Gu Sheng’s brain like a shock, and he staggered, trying to get outside.

But what came next was a rush of memories — he remembered.

In the last life they also encountered an attack with synthetic pheromones; those people were clearly prepared, and after that banquet it turned into hell for alphas and omegas.

Hidden in the chandelier were also artificial omega pheromones, which would cause anyone who inhaled them to enter a brief forced rut.

But the people hit first—once the pheromones entered their bloodstream—would develop pseudo-heat.

Around the chandelier, some had already slipped into pseudo-heat and begun to emit their own pheromones outward.

There were too many people, so later, the omegas who entered a false heat released pheromones that induced the alphas into a susceptible phase.

Alphas in the susceptible phase were like wild beasts; their canines began to grow explosively, and their glands started emitting aggressive pheromones, which in turn drove the surrounding omegas into forced heats.

Gu Sheng was filled with panic; he could barely stand.

By rights, as an alpha who hadn’t yet come of age he shouldn’t have been like this, but he had already sunk into his memories.

He had only one thought in his mind: get out of here.

“Get away! Get away! Don’t touch me!”

Some alphas had already lost consciousness and tried to strike at the people around them.

But as more alphas entered heat, the exclusivity encoded in their genes made them violently attack the other alphas nearby.

It was impossible to tell who was attacking whom; regardless of anyone’s gender, they all wanted to mark right now.

The room plunged into darkness, and from the chaos of sounds it was clear things had gone very wrong.

Gu Sheng moved toward the exit and suddenly an omega with limp limbs collapsed onto him.

“Save me—no, don’t touch me, get away! Go away!” Clearly, the omega was scraping by with only a thread of sanity.

This omega was on the periphery, so the pheromones he picked up were faint, but the surrounding scents were so patchy and mixed.

The omega who had collapsed onto Gu Sheng had already gone into heat; the pheromone-blocking patch had soaked up the omega’s scent and was no longer effective.

Gu Sheng suddenly smelled a sweet coconut pheromone from the omega’s body; the scent forcefully breached his reason, making his canines itch and making him want to bite something.

The alpha’s biological instinct shouted: mark him — he is your omega!

But his reason was tearing at him, yet in the end he couldn’t overcome the disgust in his mind.

Smelling so many people’s pheromones, it stirred up painful memories and he suddenly began to feel nauseous.

The omega’s pheromones lured him into a false receptive state, but his mental revulsion at others’ scents made him nearly retch.

He shoved the omega outward, and the omega collapsed weakly to the ground.

Gu Sheng stared wide-eyed, enduring that unease; if anyone could see him now, they’d be terrified.

His eyes were rounded, bloodshot veins webbing their whites, a vein bulging at his temple—clearly holding back some kind of pain.

The omega he’d shoved away was almost losing his mind, clawing at his clothes on the floor.

Without the onslaught of pheromones, Gu Sheng sobered up considerably.

After all, he wasn’t an adult yet and hadn’t gone through his first heat, so he could still suppress it with reason. But the other alphas were different.

One alpha also smelled the coconut-scented pheromones; instinct drove him to lunge at his prey.

The omega began to scream, but was already too weak to break free.

Gu Sheng shook his head. Alphas were born warriors; as a top-tier alpha, Gu Sheng’s night vision was quite good. Seeing that the alpha had already lost control, he gagged a few times.

Holding back his discomfort, he went up and kicked that rutting alpha away. The alpha slid across the floor for a distance, then slammed into something with a muffled groan and lost his senses.

With trembling hands, Gu Sheng sprayed more than half a bottle of pheromone blocker over the omega.

The omega on the floor was nearly drowned by the pheromone suppressant.

Gu Sheng felt for the suppressant hidden in the sleeve and administered it to the omega.

“Call the police, get an ambulance!”

The omega’s consciousness returned; he was clearly an underage omega, so he recovered quickly.

He held the phone Gu Sheng had pressed into his hand, listening to the noises around him, and suddenly snapped awake.

He dragged his aching, weak body toward the exit, then immediately called the police.

📘 The complete novel is available for download in PDF via the link below.