Guiying did not intend to waste time questioning it.
He was here, he remembered everything that was coming, and he would not allow a single moment of it to unfold the same way twice.
The arranged marriage would be announced soon. He needed to move before anything else happened.
Suddenly, the door swung open without a knock, making him go still, like he had been caught red handed doing something bad.
Xue Peng walked in casually, his head raised high and his steps too comfortable like he owned the room and everything in it, including the people.
He was twenty-six, broad-shouldered, and built like someone who had never once been told no and fully expected that streak to continue.
His gaze traveled down the frozen Guiying as he crossed the room slowly, a silent reminder of exactly what he believed Guiying was worth.
"There you are." He stopped a few feet away and tilted his head. "I have been looking for you."
Guiying said nothing, his shoulders curved inward and his hands rested loose in his lap curled into fists.
"You are getting married soon, I heard Uncle talking about it this morning." Peng crouched to his eye level, one hand bracing against the wall beside Guiying's head.
His pheromones hit immediately, thick and weaponized, that particular Alpha aggression designed to press an Omega's instincts toward compliance. "Means I will not get to do this much longer."
Guiying felt the old reflex flicker at the base of his skull, automatic as breathing.
He noted it but he did not follow it.
"I want to fuck your pussy one last time before you get married," Peng said, his voice dropping low. "Been thinking about it all week." His eyes moved over Guiying's face with casual ownership. "You don't mind, do you? You never mind."
The old Guiying had always minded but he never had the choice to say no.
But the old Guiying was dead.
Guiying let his gaze drop to the floor. His shoulders curled a little further inward. When he spoke, his voice came out small and unsteady, a careful replica of the person he used to be.
"I have not been feeling well, brother Peng." His hands fidgeted slightly in his lap. "I think I am coming down with something. If you came back another time, maybe I would feel better."
"You always say that."
"I know." He made a quiet, apologetic dip of his head. "I am sorry."
Peng studied him for a moment. Something behind his eyes recalculated, his interest visibly cooling. He straightened up, looked down at Guiying with flat disinterest, and said, "You are completely useless," before walking out and shut the door behind him rather rudely.
Guiying sat in the quiet and breathed steadily until the pheromones thinned and the air felt like his own again. He looked at his hands in his lap and uncurled his fingers one by one.
Never again, he thought, firmly and determined to make sure he stays that way.
Breakfast in the Xue household unfolded exactly as he remembered.
He took his seat at the far end of the table without being directed to. He had always known where he was expected to sit, the chair nearest the kitchen door, the one that communicated his position in this family more clearly than any words could have.
His stepmother was already seated and did not acknowledge him. She looked at him with the specific and settled disdain of a woman who had long concluded that his existence was a personal inconvenience.
His half-brothers talked loudly over each other about something that had nothing to do with him, and Peng sat across the table and looked straight through him as though he were not there at all.
Without greetings or looking at them even more, Guiying poured himself tea, ate his breakfast in complete silence
Then his father cleared his throat, a sign he wanted to speak. Guiying, as usual, carefully set down his chopsticks and folded his palms on his lap, while his gaze remained fixed on his plate.
"The arrangements have been finalized," The man announced, addressing the table in the impersonal tone he reserved for all matters that were technically about Guiying but never quite for him. "Guiying will be married by the end of the month."
Nobody at the table looked surprised, however
Guiying looked at his father and said, "I don't want to." With a tone so serious and not even a mutter that it got every head turned towards him.
His stepmother's expression twisted immediately, her brows furrowing to a deep frown, "What did you just say?"
"I don't want to get married." He repeated, training his voice to stay even, not aggressive but clear, leaving no room for misunderstandings. "I would like to be consulted on decisions that concern my own life."
"This is not a discussion for you to decide on," his father said.
"I understand that but I am asking for one anyway."
What followed was not a discussion.
His stepmother's voice rose in measured increments.
His grandmother's silence became pointed in the particular way it always did when she wanted her displeasure felt without dirtying herself with direct speech.
His father refused every objection Guiying raised, and the table communicated its consensus without anyone needing to state it plainly.
The opinion of an illegitimate Omega had never been relevant in this household and would not begin to be today.
Guiying had known this would happen. At this table five years ago, this exact conversation unfolded because he believed that his compliance would grant him safety.
And as a result he spent five years learning the price of that belief.
He would forever be at a disadvantage being an illegitimate child.
He let his shoulders drop. He let the resistance drain visibly from his posture.
"Alright," he said quietly. "I will follow the family's wishes."
His stepmother stopped mid-sentence.
His father nodded, satisfied, and reached for his tea.
The table settled back into its ordinary setting as though nothing had interrupted it. His half-brothers resumed their conversation.
They didn't care about his resistance, they merely tagged it as him trying to prove stubborn.
Guiying picked up his chopsticks and finished his breakfast.
Back in his room, he moved about quietly.
He had no sentimentality about this place.
Twenty-three years within these walls and there was almost nothing here worth carrying forward.
His savings were at the back of the wardrobe, accumulated slowly over years in the careful manner of someone who had always suspected, beneath the surface of daily survival, that they might one day need to leave quickly.
He gathered them alongside his bank cards, his identification documents, and his household registration, everything that confirmed, legally and officially, that Xue Guiying existed and had the right to determine the course of his own life.
He packed it into a bag, changed his clothes, looked around the room once, and walked out.
He thought it through on the walk over.
Running alone was not enough.
His family had resources and no hesitation about using them, and a person without ties was a person easily retrieved.
Distance could only buy him time, but not safety and definitely not a way to stay hidden without being discovered.
What he needed was something binding, something legal and difficult to undo.
He needed to be married.
Not to that man.
Absolutely not, In no version of any life, under no circumstances, would he go back to that man. But to someone, anyone, who was not him.
The civil affairs bureau was busier than he expected for a Wednesday morning. Guiying stepped inside and stood near the entrance, letting his eyes move across the room.
Couples at counters filling out forms, a clerk calling numbers in a bored voice, the low hum of a government office doing ordinary business on an ordinary day.
Near the far counter, a man stood waiting alone.
He was tall and well-dressed, with a quality of stillness that suggested he simply did not require movement to communicate his presence. A document rested in his hand, his expression composed and entirely unreadable, apparently unbothered by the wait.
Guiying did not know his name.
He crossed the room anyway.
"Excuse me," he said.
The man looked up.
Guiying held his gaze steadily and thought: anyone. Anyone in this world but him. I have already died once and I will not do it again.
"I know this is an unusual thing to ask," he said. "But I need to get married today." A small breath. "Would you be willing to marry me?"