—

Friday, the bell for the last period rang. He Wei propped himself up, bleary-eyed; the other students were packing their bags, but He Wei came awake for two seconds, then simply grabbed his mobile phone and car keys and walked out.

He ambled to the back door of Class One, glanced at the last seat in the third row — empty. He Wei tilted his head and asked an omega who was tidying his desk: "Where's Lu Heyang?"

"An omega came looking for him just now, so he went out." The other answered shyly, in a small voice.

"Alright, thanks." He Wei said.

What business an omega could have with Lu Heyang — He Wei didn't need to think to know. He'd believed since they were young that Lu Heyang was a somewhat aloof alpha, accustomed to keeping his distance from others — but, as it happened, that very air of remove might be precisely what drew people in.

He Wei thought: setting aside face and figure, if Lu Heyang were a touch warmer and more approachable, perhaps he wouldn't be so obsessively adored.

Or, like himself, one could use "my ideal type is an omega over one-eighty with abs" as a refusal — that worked just as well.

He Wei went downstairs to the drinks machine on the stilt level and bought two bottles of water, then waited a while by the stairwell, watching Lu Heyang come down another corridor.

"How many is that you've turned down at Preparatory Academy?" He passed the water to Lu Heyang.

Lu Heyang said nothing, unscrewed the cap and took a sip, then walked toward the teaching buildings. It was early summer; the tulips in the flowerbeds were blooming in great swathes, their scent faint on account of the variety. Students drifted along the central avenue toward the school gate, and among the crowd were more than a few couples walking two by two.

Preparatory Academy had never restricted romance — but the moment a student took a partner, their parents would investigate the other family down to the last detail. If the match suited, the parents would turn a blind eye; if it didn't, they had any number of ways to bring a relationship to an end.

"Hey, what kind do you actually like, anyway?" He Wei asked, suddenly curious, though he knew he wouldn't get an answer.

Lu Heyang answered: "Over one-eighty, with abs."

He Wei laughed and swore: "Pull the other one!"

Lu Heyang skipped the topic entirely and asked: "Where to?"

"Eat first." He Wei bit the tip of his tongue, gave a short hum of a laugh. "After that, Lake Rock Manor."

"What for."

"Don't tell me you don't know — just say whether you're going or not."

Lake Rock Manor sat in a scenic area on the outskirts of Capital City; the entire area was open only to members, used for leisure, entertaining, or handling matters of public relations. Lake Rock Manor was the most discreet of the lot — a place every wealthy person and high official knew about without ever speaking of it aloud.

"Last time I brought an omega here for fun, he watched for less than two minutes and threw up, then cried and asked me to take him home. He called me afterward to say he'd had nightmares for days, and asked why I liked watching such perverted things." He Wei was half amused, half helpless. "It's precisely because it's perverted that it's good — life's so boring, how else do you let off steam if not by chasing the strange?"

Some people, by the time they're barely out of their teens, have already seen everything others won't touch in a lifetime — so they need rarer, fresher stimuli to satisfy what's inside. He Wei was exactly that sort of person.

"I've seen it." Lu Heyang said, terse.

He Wei had been tossing his car keys a moment ago; the next moment they clattered to the floor. Lu Heyang bent down and picked them up; He Wei watched him, stunned for a few seconds, before asking: "Why would you go watch that kind of thing?"

He seemed to have already forgotten that half a minute earlier he'd been the one asking Lu Heyang whether to go to Lake Rock Manor.

"Didn't you say so yourself." Lu Heyang placed the car keys back in his hand. "Chasing the strange."

"Oh… Lu Heyang, secret pervert." He Wei came back to himself, clicked his tongue a few times. "I'll spread this around sooner or later and ruin your reputation."

Lu Heyang smiled, faintly, and said nothing.

Out the school gate, He Wei took off his wristband, ran his fingers through his fringe and pushed it back off his forehead, then seemed to remember something: "Oh right — today's Friday."

He raised both elbows into a boxer's stance and said: "I heard Number 17's fighting today."

Lu Heyang looked at him: "Who?"

"You'll know when we get there. Won't disappoint you."

Lu Heyang didn't press further; the two walked toward the parking area. The route passed a row of bicycle sheds, also set up by Preparatory Academy for students to park their vehicles — from mountain bikes costing a few thousand to heavy motorcycles in the tens of tens of thousands, parked higgledy-piggledy.

It was the end of the school day, and most of the bikes had already been ridden off, so even though that old bicycle was unremarkable on its own, it still drew the eye — especially with an alpha crouching beside it.

Xu Ze was fixing the chain by hand; it must have slipped off when he'd parked that morning, and he hadn't noticed at the time. The old single-speed was always breaking down in one way or another — he was used to it.

"Need a hand?"

Xu Ze looked up. He Wei's face still wore that infuriating grin of his — the one that said he'd die of boredom if he didn't stir something up — as he looked down at him.

"No need, thanks." Xu Ze didn't glance toward He Wei, pulled his gaze back in time, and bent his head to wrestle with the uncooperative chain.

"That oil's a pain to wash off your hands, isn't it?" He Wei seemed very interested in the near-condemned bicycle, even leaning closer to look, and asked: "How long does it usually take to fix?"

The temperature today seemed a touch too high; Xu Ze felt a thin film of sweat along his back, heat at the nape of his neck, and in his line of sight his own hands, blackened with oil, rubbing back and forth. At last he managed to seat the chain properly on the sprocket, gripped the pedal and turned it a few times, then stood and answered: "Three or four minutes."

After speaking, Xu Ze rubbed his fingers together, then — he didn't know why — wiped his hands on his clothes on instinct.

"Hey — your uniform." He Wei reminded him.

Xu Ze's hand froze stiffly mid-air; then he pressed his palms together and rubbed them against each other, haphazardly. He smelled the heavy machine-oil scent, and had never found it so foul.

Suddenly a tissue was held out in front of him — a clean, fair thumb pressing down on it; further up, a long, slender wrist. The alpha's tone was flat: "Only found one. Here, wipe up."

Xu Ze started, looked up — but his gaze stopped halfway, finally settling on the bridge of Lu Heyang's nose. It looked as though he were meeting his eyes, but in fact he never quite reached the point of four-eyed contact.

"Thanks." Xu Ze took the tissue; his throat felt somehow off, and the voice that came out didn't sound quite like his own.

"Don't mention it." Lu Heyang glanced at his mobile phone and said to He Wei: "Let's go."

After dinner, He Wei had someone send clothes over; the two changed out of their uniforms and drove toward Chengxi. Compared to the rest of Capital City, Chengxi saw more foot traffic and the situation was more complicated. Most of the buildings here were old, weathered, the concrete roads pitted and uneven; at a glance, nearly every neon sign outside the shops was missing a character or a radical — few were whole.

"No wonder you switched cars." Lu Heyang said, looking out the window.

"Driving a supercar into a place like this is asking for it." He Wei smiled. "It's rough here — the powers above haven't dared touch it for years, and I'm not about to stick my neck out."

The car turned into a narrow lane and, half a minute later, pulled up in front of a building; faded, tattered billboards hung on the outer walls. Inside and out, the building was unlit, pitch black — but faintly, from somewhere far off, one could hear muffled voices.

The two climbed the steps, pushed aside a stiff, yellowed rubber curtain, and walked in. Crossing the empty, dim hall, He Wei led Lu Heyang to a stop before an elevator. The building looked like the scattered wreckage of a demolition site, yet the elevator still ran; the voices heard outside were closer now — they didn't seem to come from far away, but from underground.

The elevator doors opened; Lu Heyang and He Wei stepped in. The walls were plastered with ads. He Wei pressed B2, and as the elevator descended, the noise grew clearer.

Ding—

The moment the doors opened, it was like lifting a heavy cloth — the sounds pressed beneath it suddenly leapt sharp and distinct, slamming against the eardrums, thud thud thud.

"This used to be a mall, then it was abandoned." Stepping out, the surroundings were too loud; He Wei had to lean in and speak directly into Lu Heyang's ear. "Someone knocked through the B2 parking garage and the B1 supermarket and turned it into an Underground Club."

The air was thick with mingled scents — pheromone, perfume, smoke, alcohol… An omega in a bikini appeared at some point and pressed close to Lu Heyang's side, their soft chest against his arm.

Lu Heyang turned his head and lowered his eyes; the omega held a pack of cigarettes between two fingers, one already between their lips, and blew a soft puff of blueberry-popping-bead smoke at him. Beneath long, curling lashes, their eyes were fitted with violet contacts.

Dim pink light fell from above, ambiguous and hard to read. Lu Heyang smiled at the omega, reached out and took the pack of cigarettes, then hooked their bikini strap with his fingertip and tucked a few bills inside.

"Young Master Lu, you know the drill." He Wei tossed a can of iced beer he'd just bought off another omega, grinning.

Curious glances kept coming from the crowd, sizing up the two young, tall, unfamiliar alphas. He Wei didn't mind in the slightest; he threw an arm around Lu Heyang's shoulder and steered him down another corridor. At the end, an arena came into view — not large, the tiered stands already packed, and at the very center, a sunken, enclosed Octagon Cage fighting ring.

The audience was a motley lot — from disheveled drunks to white-collar workers in shirts, to the wealthy in the VIP seats — all crammed in together.

After the tickets were checked and they stepped inside, a wiry alpha came scurrying over, bowing. He Wei leaned down and said a few words to him; the man immediately nodded and led them forward, to seats in the third row.

Once seated, He Wei pulled out a few bills; Lu Heyang passed over the cigarettes he'd just bought. The alpha took them all, one by one — tactful and quick — and was gone in an instant.

Within half a minute, the lights suddenly went out; the entire arena went black. Then a shaft of snow-white light dropped from the center of the ceiling, falling on the Octagon Cage. At the same moment, the electronic screen above lit up, displaying the fighters' names — Owen and Number 17 — followed by a string of betting figures.

"Number 17 is the youngest fighter here, an S-Class alpha; he comes every Friday to fight." He Wei said. "But last Friday when I came, he wasn't here — I heard he'd fought on Thursday instead, and that match was especially brutal."

"Just called Number 17?" Lu Heyang asked, looking at the screen.

"Yeah, just Number 17. He fights well, but they say he doesn't win often. Underground boxing — there's always match-fixing. If someone wants him to win, he wins; if they want him to lose, of course he has to lose." He Wei said. "People die in that ring all the time. Number 17's pretty smart — doesn't fight for the win or the spotlight; he doesn't earn as much as the others, but at least he stays alive."

A scream went up suddenly; a spotlight hit the fighters' entrance, and an alpha strode out, swaggering, throwing practice punches at the crowd. His muscles bulged to an almost grotesque degree. When he raised his leg and stepped into the Octagon Cage, Lu Heyang finally saw the other alpha he'd been blocking — Number 17.

By contrast, Number 17 looked far younger and leaner — tall, long-limbed, his body sheathed in just enough smooth, light muscle to look clean and crisp under the lights — if one ignored the scars across his skin.

The screaming grew louder. Number 17 bit his mouthguard into place, pulled on his gloves, then lifted his head and looked calmly out at the stands. The upper half of his face was covered in oil paint, blurring his features; only his lips and chin showed.

The referee stepped in; the Octagon Cage's door closed; the two alphas stood face to face inside, surrounded by the dark wire mesh.

There were no judges here, no standards, no scoring, no medals — only violence unbound by rules or weight classes, like the most primitive of beast-fight arenas.

The crowd's roar was already nearly tearing the roof off before the match had even begun. He Wei's eyes lit with excitement; he popped a piece of gum into his mouth and laughed, low: "This beats the fencing, the horse-riding, the taekwondo we learn, doesn't it?"

Lu Heyang simply turned the setting on his left wrist's wristband up a notch, fixed his gaze on Number 17's profile, and said nothing.