Before coming, Rong Yi had imagined a lot of different plans.

The best option, of course, would be for the other party to reject him first. While he had his limits in terms of appearance, intentionally behaving in a way that repelled others seemed plausible. After all, being an Omega himself, Rong Yi knew too well what kind of behavior and speech from an Alpha would most offend someone of the same gender.

But thinking about it was easier than doing it. Acting arrogant, rude, and cocky, boasting wildly while keeping a straight face—Rong Yi knew his acting skills were terrible and that he’d totally blow it. He’d probably end up stammering and blushing instead, which would be utterly embarrassing.

So, he decided to go for a simpler approach. He’d test the waters first, and if the other person seemed reasonable, he’d just straightforwardly tell them his real gender.

If the guy turned out to be as difficult as that bald guy, he’d just deal with it by ghosting afterward.

Right now, it was clear that Zhou Li was quite interested in him. The guy opened with a classic pick-up line, catching Rong Yi a little off guard.

To lower his favorability, Rong Yi deliberately chose the most oblivious response.

“Nope, you must be mistaken.”

“Impossible,” Zhou Li smiled at him. “Mr. Rong, you’re so handsome. There’s no way I’d forget someone like you after seeing you once. Let me think…”

“Shouldn’t we go get the tickets first?” Rong Yi cut him off. “It’s almost time for the movie to start.”

Going on a blind date at the cinema really wasn’t a great idea.

The two of them sat together staring at the screen, not able to talk much, which didn’t exactly help with getting to know each other. Rong Yi picked this place precisely to avoid direct interaction.

Zhou Li had picked the movie, a slow and tedious artsy film. The shots were pretty—stunning landscapes and long, drawn-out scenes, but with very little dialogue between the actors. It was so hypnotic that Rong Yi couldn’t stop yawning.

Unable to get into the story, he zoned out, his thoughts wandering to random things.

In the row ahead, there was a couple sharing a bucket of popcorn, their heads close together as they whispered to each other.

Rong Yi sat there, watching them through the gap in the seats in front, and then unconsciously started to grip the fingertips of his right hand with his left.

Both of his hands were cold.

The air conditioning in the theater was set too high, and he wasn’t wearing enough layers. His hands were so cold that even holding them together couldn’t warm them up.

He felt cold.

This place was terrible, and he didn’t want to stay any longer.

As he tried to stand up, he noticed Zhou Li beside him was letting out a comically exaggerated yawn, his big eyes gleaming slightly in the light from the screen.

He really did look cute, like a little brother you couldn’t help but want to pat on the head.

But if he didn’t even like this kind of movie, why did he choose to watch it?

Rong Yi’s question was answered five minutes later.

“…I was just going through the motions, really,” Zhou Li said, head down as they walked. “So I picked something that seemed boring. Sorry about that.”

Rong Yi felt a bit awkward.

When he’d pretended to go to the restroom and quietly slipped out of the theater, this yawning teenager had immediately followed him and asked if he wanted to watch something else or go somewhere else.

It seemed like a good moment to tell him that he had also just been going through the motions.

But before he could say anything, Zhou Li suddenly sighed.

“You really don’t remember at all, Mr. Rong.” Zhou Li looked up at him. “We’ve definitely met before. It was last month, right downstairs in that mall about ten minutes from here. I asked for your contact info, but you didn’t give it to me.”

Rong Yi thought for a moment, vaguely recalling something, but he wasn’t sure.

“You probably get asked for your number a lot,” Zhou Li said, shrugging. “Forget it if you don’t remember.”

“Sorry, I—”

“You’re still not interested in me, are you?” Zhou Li asked.

His directness was hard to handle, but it did save a lot of hassle, making Rong Yi secretly sigh in relief.

“…I don’t think I’m that bad, though,” Zhou Li said, looking frustrated when Rong Yi didn’t respond. “This is the first time I’ve ever been rejected like this. Oh no, wait—it’s the second time. The first was with you, too. I spent so long coming up with a reason to talk to you that time.”

He definitely wasn’t bad. As a fellow Omega, Rong Yi thought Zhou Li was really cute and likable.

He even had that kind of “if only I could be like that” envy.

Most Alphas, aside from strange ones like Chen Keyao, would surely be satisfied with someone like Zhou Li as a date. But unfortunately, Rong Yi wasn’t an Alpha.

“My uncle used to set me up with all kinds of weird people,” Zhou Li continued. “When I first saw you today, it was the first time I actually wanted to thank him.”

“…I’m sorry.” Rong Yi felt even more awkward.

After all, he was probably the weirdest of them all.

Zhou Li looked at him. “So, there’s really no chance at all?”

On a non-romantic level, Rong Yi actually quite liked this Omega in front of him. After some consideration, he decided to tell him the truth.

“I think your uncle has misunderstood something about me,” Rong Yi started, struggling to speak. “Actually, I’m like you…”

“You’re also in love with me at first sight?” Zhou Li asked, though his expression didn’t seem serious.

Rong Yi smiled wryly and continued, “…I’m also an Omega.”

Zhou Li froze for a moment, frowning as he looked at Rong Yi without saying a word.

“It’s true,” Rong Yi emphasized. “I can show you my…”

ID.

He had already reached into his pocket but stopped mid-sentence. The pocket where he usually kept his ID was empty. He was still in the process of replacing it, so he couldn’t show it.

To avoid Zhou Li going down the same misguided path as some other Omegas who had once pursued him and tried to break societal norms, Rong Yi quickly added another point.

“Don’t be fooled by how I look, but I’m actually a completely straight guy.”

Zhou Li’s expression turned a bit odd. After a long pause, he finally spoke, “…You’re really making up stories just to turn me down, huh?”

Rong Yi was absolutely drained.

After that, he and Zhou Li went back and forth for at least another half hour.

Even though Zhou Li had already graduated from college, he still had a baby face and looked like a 17 or 18-year-old boy. It made you instinctively want to treat him with kindness and patience, especially if you were older.

He said that the time he tried to ask for Rong Yi’s contact info was the first time in his life he’d ever made the first move. He’d been thinking about the failure ever since. When he saw Rong Yi at the cinema today, he thought it was fate. But he quickly realized how perfunctory Rong Yi was being about the whole thing.

Still, even though he could tell, he didn’t want to give up easily. After all, this was his first time falling in love at first sight.

Rong Yi silently thought to himself, Once you’ve fallen in love at first sight 17 or 18 times like me, you’ll realize it’s no big deal. Most of the time, you’ll just look back and wonder how you could’ve been so blind.

In the end, Zhou Li said, “Well, since we’re both Omegas, can’t we at least be friends?”

It was clear he was hoping to take the long way around, but Rong Yi couldn’t find a suitable reason to refuse. Besides, if Zhou Li went home and said something bad in his frustration, that bald guy might take revenge.

After exchanging WeChat contacts, Rong Yi even specifically showed Zhou Li his profile page, flipping to the section where his gender was listed.

Seeing that Zhou Li still seemed doubtful, he decided that once he got his new ID card, he’d immediately take a photo of it and set the close-up of the gender section as his top pinned WeChat image.

When he finally got home, it was earlier than expected.

After all, they hadn’t finished the movie and didn’t grab dinner afterward. Rong Yi had been so focused on escaping that, once he was lying on his bed, he realized he was actually pretty hungry.

Since ordering delivery during the dinner rush would take too long, he found a pack of instant noodles in his cupboard and set the stove to boil water for it.

Rong Yi was great at cooking, but since work kept him busy most of the time, he usually grabbed something from the convenience store or ordered takeout. Occasionally, eating instant noodles was a nice change of pace.

On weekends, he had time to cook, but eating alone wasn’t very motivating.

He had once thought he’d soon get the chance to cook for someone he liked.

That annoying Chen Keyao suddenly appeared in his thoughts again, so abruptly. If only memories could be deleted as easily as contacts in a phone’s address book. That damn Alpha was like a happiness debt collector—every bit of joy Rong Yi had once borrowed from him now had to be repaid, with interest.

But the interest was way too high, never-ending, impossible to pay off. Rong Yi felt like he’d been ripped off.

As he stood by the stove, lost in thought, the sound of his phone ringing suddenly echoed through the room.

Rong Yi quickly ran over to pick it up, only to find it was a telemarketing call. After blocking the number, he noticed a new unread message.

It was from Zhou Li, and the content was an image.

Rong Yi opened it and couldn’t help but laugh. It was a picture taken during his college sports day, showing him mid-action. Zhou Li had even cropped in part of a forum discussion, where people were debating whether he had lied about his gender.

Rong Yi remembered that post—it had been on their school’s BBS, and he’d ended up posting a photo of his student ID to clear things up.

Clearly, Zhou Li had gone home and done some digging.

“Do you believe me now?” Rong Yi replied.

Zhou Li sent a voice message request, and when Rong Yi accepted, he immediately heard Zhou Li’s tearful voice.

“I feel so sad,” Zhou Li said.

Rong Yi was speechless. “…Sorry.”

“But… in a way, I’m a little comforted,” Zhou Li continued. “Being rejected for this reason, it’s frustrating, but it doesn’t hurt as much.”

“You’re actually really great,” Rong Yi comforted him. “You don’t know how much I envy you. Someone like you should have no trouble finding a partner, right?”

“I wasn’t even planning on finding a partner…” Zhou Li said.

In some ways, he was the opposite of Rong Yi.

He was cute but very independent at heart, uninterested in the many Alphas who pursued him. Back when he was still in school, it hadn’t been much of an issue, but now that he was working, he was often underestimated because of his baby face. Although people didn’t mean any harm, those so-called “favors” didn’t sit well with someone as proud as him.

He wanted to work hard, but his family thought that, as an Omega, he should focus on finding a partner and settling down. As a result, they kept setting him up on blind dates.

“My uncle is really out of his mind,” Zhou Li complained to Rong Yi. “He’s never introduced me to a single normal person! Oh, I don’t mean you’re not normal… but you’re kind of not normal either, right?”

Rong Yi wasn’t upset by the comment. After all, it meant that he’d passed the test, and Zhou Li wouldn’t give the bald guy any trouble. In fact, he seemed to have made an interesting friend by accident.

Everyone had their own struggles. Rong Yi followed up with some complaints of his own.

Unlike Zhou Li, he wasn’t particularly career-driven. But because of his deeply unfulfilled love life and lack of hobbies to pass the time, his life had become solely focused on work. As a result, he’d become a project leader at a young age, and with the increasing responsibilities came less personal time, making it even harder to find a partner.

His parents, though they often joked that he’d never get married, didn’t seem genuinely worried. He had subtly hinted several times that he didn’t mind going on blind dates, but the response was always the same: “As soon as they hear your height, they’re scared off.”

The two of them comforted each other, and despite their vastly different personalities and interests, they hit it off well, their friendship gradually deepening.

After sighing and lamenting for a while, Zhou Li suddenly seemed to remember something.

“Hey… I just had an idea. I don’t know if you’d be willing, but…”

“What is it?”

“Could you pretend to be my boyfriend?” Zhou Li asked.

“…”

“My uncle definitely doesn’t know you’re an Omega,” Zhou Li continued. “It doesn’t even have to be that we’re officially together. We could just say we’re getting along well and want to keep seeing each other. I’m really sick of all these endless blind dates.”

“Uh…”

“Besides, our social circles don’t overlap at all, right?” Zhou Li said. “I’ll try not to trouble you too much!”

Rong Yi hesitated.

This wasn’t the first time someone had asked him for this kind of favor. He’d agreed before, only to have the person end up developing unnecessary feelings for him, causing a lot of trouble afterward.

It was hard not to overthink Zhou Li’s request.

“…You can even charge me if you want, but I’m pretty broke right now. If it’s too expensive, I can’t afford it.”

That statement…

Rong Yi couldn’t help but laugh. He was about to agree when he suddenly smelled a strong, burnt odor.