Six

Tuesday afternoon, Chi Jiahán had just finished his lab class and was heading back to his homeroom. Going up to the second floor, he looked up and caught sight of Xu Ze's back. He froze for a beat, then ran a couple of steps to catch up and grabbed him.

'Didn't you take the day off?'

Xu Ze turned around. His lips were pale, an unnatural flush on his face, his lashes lowered, no energy to him — but his pupils were bright and wet, the unmistakable look of someone running a fever.

'I took the morning off,' Xu Ze said. His voice was hoarse. 'It's afternoon now.'

Anyone with a brain knew it was afternoon. Chi Jiahán closed his eyes, wordless. 'You took half a day off for the Susceptibility Period?'

'Midterms are coming up,' Xu Ze said. His brain seemed to be running a little slow — he paused a second, then went on, 'Today's the swimming midterm.'

'You can apply for a makeup exam. It's not like other subjects, no need to worry about the test questions getting leaked, and you're in your Susceptibility Period — the teacher would definitely agree.'

Chi Jiahán's logic was airtight, no gap to be found. Xu Ze was silent for a moment, then answered, 'I want to take it today.'

'Why does it have to be today? Is there someone you like in today's swimming class? Even if there were, are you going to show up to see them all bruised and dizzy? What if you mess up and do badly — the loss outweighs the gain.'

These were absurd hypotheticals. Chi Jiahán knew nothing of the sort would ever happen with Xu Ze. Xu Ze always, silently and stubbornly, clung to certain things. Chi Jiahán only wished he would take his body a little more seriously — though the odds of that were slim to none.

When he finished speaking, Chi Jiahán saw Xu Ze's lashes flutter. Then Xu Ze looked away, toward something else, and after a while said, 'I won't mess up.'

'…'

Chi Jiahán noticed that when he talked with Xu Ze, the two of them could never quite land on the same point. He didn't know whether to count that as one of the cognitive gaps between Alpha and Omega.

'Are you feeling bad right now?'

'I'm okay,' Xu Ze said.

'How many shots of Inhibitor did you take?'

'Not many.' Xu Ze looked away again. He wasn't much of a liar, and he knew lying to Chi Jiahán was pointless, so he answered honestly, 'Three.'

'…You're not an Alpha.' Chi Jiahán looked at him, incredulous. 'You're an AI.'

'Three shots of Inhibitor — aren't you afraid of Pheromone Disturbance, running a high fever, going into shock?'

The words had barely landed when the bell rang. Xu Ze ignored Chi Jiahán's question and, with a slightly awkward pat on his arm, offered wordless comfort. 'Let's go back to class,' he said.

Last class of the afternoon. Lu Heyang came out of the locker room; along the pool's edge, the Omegas and Alphas were already lining up to warm up for the exam. A few Alphas at the front of the line waved Lu Heyang over, beckoning him to stand at the front — finish the test early, get out of class sooner. Lu Heyang smiled, shook his head, and took his place at the very back of the line.

There was an Alpha who had arrived even later than him — sensing someone behind him, Lu Heyang turned his head on instinct.

In the instant he looked back, Xu Ze was lowering his head.

Xu Ze had no gauze on his face today. Where his nose met his left cheek, there was a faint bruise, violet-blue. He was still looking down through his lashes, his features unreadable. Lu Heyang glanced once, then turned back toward the front, listening as the teacher ran through the day's exam content.

The teacher was speaking into a megaphone, every word bouncing off the walls of the Swimming Pool. Xu Ze paused for a few seconds, then raised his head and looked at Lu Heyang's back.

Lu Heyang's build was the kind of tall, lean frame Alphas developed in adolescence — somewhere between boyish and grown, shoulders flat and even, legs long, the muscles of his back and arms flowing in clean, perfect lines, his skin pale and unmarked by any scar or bruise. Even among a crowd of gifted S-Class Alphas, he stood at the very top.

His hands, hanging at his sides, were fine-boned, pale, and long; when they fell, his fingers curved naturally into an arc. On an Alpha those hands looked almost too refined, too pretty — but they never lost their sense of strength, and one felt, looking at them, that Lu Heyang was meant for exactly such a pair.

Xu Ze stared at Lu Heyang's left hand. After a while, he suddenly noticed the Swimming Pool had gone quiet — no sound at all, very strange. As this thought crossed his mind, the familiar splashing of water and voices rushed back into his ears all at once.

Only then did he realize how far gone he had been.

The Alpha exam events were the 50-meter freestyle and the 200-meter individual medley. Four testing pools, eight lanes each. The PE teachers divided all the students into groups of eight in queue order, four groups going at a time.

Xu Ze and Lu Heyang were placed in the same group — Lu Heyang in lane four, Xu Ze in lane five.

Their turn came only near the end of class. The previous group was still swimming; the eight Alphas walked to the starting point to prepare. Lu Heyang stood beside Xu Ze. He was only standing there, and yet Xu Ze felt a kind of invisible pressure bearing down on him, locking his whole body rigid.

'He Wei said last time he wanted me to race you,' Lu Heyang said suddenly, eyes on the pool. 'He turned out to be right.'

He didn't look at Xu Ze — didn't even turn his head — so that Xu Ze spent about three seconds processing before he was sure Lu Heyang had actually been speaking to him.

'That's not—' Xu Ze's fingers twitched. He wanted badly to grab something, anything — the air was too empty. He pressed his lips together, swallowed, and only then managed to keep going. 'It's an exam. It doesn't count as a race.'

Lu Heyang finally glanced at him, the corner of his mouth seeming to lift. 'If this one doesn't count, then next class?'

That wasn't what Xu Ze had meant. He suspected that, in Lu Heyang's eyes, he had just turned into some kind of competitive Alpha. So he said, 'Let's still not race. You swim better than me.'

'Why?' This was supposed to be their first swimming class together. Lu Heyang had no idea where Xu Ze's conclusion had come from. He asked, offhand, 'Have you seen my previous scores?'

The Alphas of the previous group had already reached the finish. The teaching assistants were recording times. The water in the pool churned and swayed. Xu Ze stared straight at that shifting surface and felt his own mind was in much the same state.

He heard himself say, 'No. I guessed.'

Lu Heyang turned to look at him again. Seen from the side, Xu Ze's expression looked vacant, a little stiff — not quite present, in short.

Their turn came. Lu Heyang walked to his position.

After Lu Heyang had gone, Xu Ze stood in place for a few more seconds before heading for the starting point. The rippling water made his eyes swim. He raised a hand and rubbed his face — and accidentally pressed the bruise beside his nose. It hurt. He paused, then pulled on his goggles.

First up was the 50-meter freestyle. At the whistle, eight Alphas dove into the pool at once. After entering the water, Xu Ze glanced to his right. Lu Heyang's form was a little blurred through the water, but his stroke was clearly beautiful — like a fish.

Xu Ze turned back, stretched his arms out to catch the water, and kicked hard.

Soon his fingertips touched the wall. Xu Ze lifted his upper body out of the water, and at the same moment he heard the PE teacher calling out, 'Lane five, first. Lane four, second. Lane one, third…'

The eight teaching assistants at the finish were timing them with stopwatches. Xu Ze wiped the water from his jaw and gripped the lane-line float. A long, strong hand gripped it too — ten centimeters away. Lu Heyang pulled off his goggles and pushed his wet hair back; droplets rolled down his forehead and the high bridge of his nose, slid past his Adam's apple, and fell back into the pool.

The pool water was cold, but Xu Ze felt hot — it must have been the Susceptibility Period. Through the pale blue lenses of his goggles, he looked at Lu Heyang's profile, then quickly turned his head away to look at something else.

Lu Heyang didn't linger. He climbed out right away and stood at the starting point, ready for the 200-meter individual medley.

Another whistle. The second event began.

After entering the water, Xu Ze and Lu Heyang kept pace ahead of the other Alphas, neck and neck. But by the 150-meter mark, Xu Ze was beginning to flag. He was in his Susceptibility Period — under emotional fluctuation and intense exertion, his Pheromones were pouring out in large quantities, and because of those three shots of Inhibitor, they could only build up inside his body, bringing on fever, dizziness, and weakness in his limbs, draining his stamina.

In the last fifty meters, Xu Ze was moving forward on pure instinct. The lane seemed to have no end. His body kept sinking heavily; even lifting his head to breathe was hard. At last his hand touched the wall. Xu Ze, out of strength, only broke the surface long enough to gulp a breath before sinking back down. His feet slipped on the pool floor, weak and unsteady. He tried to grab the float but couldn't reach it.

In his struggling, his fingers seemed to brush something again. Xu Ze thought it was the float and reached out with everything he had. He still caught nothing — but his wrist was suddenly seized in a firm grip, a force lifting him upward, pulling him out of the water. Xu Ze coughed hard. The lane line was in front of him. He slumped over the float, breathing in great gulps, his face covered in water.

'Xu Ze, Xu Ze — what's wrong?'

Xu Ze wiped the water from his face and looked up. The PE teacher was crouching at the pool's edge, watching him. 'Are you all right?'

'I'm fine.' Xu Ze shook his head.

He turned back. Lu Heyang was right across from him, a lane line between them. Xu Ze's mouth was slightly open, his chest heaving a few times. He said to him, 'Thank you.'

'You're fine,' Lu Heyang said. 'Get out.'

Lu Heyang pushed himself up onto the pool edge with both hands and climbed out. The teaching assistant reached a hand out to Xu Ze and gave him a pull up. The PE teacher was looking at the times off to the side. 'Lu Heyang — not bad, two minutes seven point two one. Xu Ze, two minutes seven point six eight. Just a little off.'

The next group of Alphas was getting ready to take the exam. Xu Ze and Lu Heyang walked toward the corridor along the pool's edge. Xu Ze walked behind Lu Heyang, his goggles gripped tight in his hand. A few seconds later, Xu Ze quickened his pace to Lu Heyang's side and slightly behind, and said, 'Congratulations.'

Lu Heyang was a little surprised. He turned his head and slowed his steps at the same time, waiting until they were side by side, then asked, 'Congratulations for what?'

'200-meter individual medley. You should be first in the year,' Xu Ze explained.

Actually, the moment the word 'congratulations' had left his mouth, he had already regretted it. It was just a small exam — Lu Heyang probably didn't need anyone going out of their way to congratulate him. And what made it worse, he had even explained why he was saying 'congratulations.'

Chi Jiahán had said before that an Alpha in his Susceptibility Period lost at least seventy percent of his IQ. So it was true.

Lu Heyang paused, genuinely surprised — it really was the first time anyone had said congratulations to him after a midterm. A little novel. He smiled and said, 'Then congratulations to you, too.'

Seeing Xu Ze's confusion, Lu Heyang mimicked his tone and explained, '50-meter freestyle. You should be first in the year.'

Xu Ze, unfortunately, was not the sort of person who knew how to play along or joke. He was silent for a moment, then answered, very seriously and solemnly, 'Thank you.'

Lu Heyang tilted his head to look at him, looked once, then turned back. Xu Ze thought Lu Heyang might have smiled again, and then he heard Lu Heyang say, 'You're welcome.'