Chapter Text
The air in the emergency room of the public-private hospital in Jianghu was a nauseating mixture of disinfectant, fresh blood, and the sour fear emanating from dozens of people. The torrential rain, which kept pounding on the windows, had turned a winding road into a death trap. A public bus, a rusty old clunker older than many of its passengers, had skidded and overturned, spilling its human cargo of pain onto the asphalt.
The news was already spreading like wildfire on social media. Grainy videos, lit by lightning, showed elderly people, their Sunday best soaked and stained red, being dragged away by neighbors and first responders. Public anger was a fire looking for fuel, and they had already found it in the driver, a middle-aged man now lying on a stretcher, under police guard and with the hatred of a crowd etched on his pale face.
In the eye of this windstorm of chaos moved Dr. Gao Tu. His white coat was a stain of order in the disorder, his hands, gloved in latex, working with mechanical precision to immobilize a fractured femur. Despite the heat and crowding, a small beige patch, almost the color of his skin, protruded discreetly from the side of his neck. A pheromone suppressant.
To the naked eye, he was just another doctor. But in the world of Jianghu's Alphas, Betas, and Omegas, that patch was a sign that screamed his status. An Omega. And for the hospital's rigid medical hierarchy, Omegas, with their perceived “emotional” and “unstable” nature, were not supposed to be in high-stress specialties such as Traumatology. They were pushed toward Pediatrics or General Medicine, where their “caregiving instinct” was “put to good use.” Gao Tu felt the stares like pins in the back of his neck. Dr. Liang, an Alpha orthopedic surgeon whose scent of pine and wrought iron dominated any room, walked past him with disdain.
“Make sure the sutures in room 3 are secure, Dr. Gao,” Liang said, loading the word “doctor” with barely veiled skepticism. “We don't want a... lapse in concentration to cause an infection.”
Gao Tu didn't respond. He simply nodded and continued his work. Internally, his stomach was a knot of frustration. Every correct diagnosis, every perfect fracture reduction, was a wall he had to knock down twice: once for the patient and once for his colleagues' prejudices. Other Beta doctors avoided him, fearing association with his stigma, while some Alphas, lower in rank than Liang, looked at him with almost condescending curiosity.
That was when she arrived. An elderly woman, unconscious, with an ugly wound on her scalp. Her pulse was weak, erratic. As Gao Tu wiped away the blood to assess the wound, his fingers touched something cold and metallic hidden in his neck, under his gray hair. It was a pendant. A very specific pendant: a jade Ruyi, the Chinese scepter of good fortune, with the character “Gao” engraved on the back in calligraphy that was painfully familiar to him.
It was his grandmother's pendant. The woman who had raised him after his progressive-minded parents, Beta and Alpha, died in a similar accident. The woman who had sold his jewelry to pay for his first years of college, believing in him when no one else did. The woman whom, in his pride and struggle to prove himself, he had neglected in recent months, canceling their Sunday dinners with the excuse of on-call shifts and extra shifts. A chill more penetrating than the rain ran down his spine. His professionalism cracked for a moment. His scent, a fresh smell of sage that the patch could barely contain, seeped out for a fraction of a second, a burst of pure, earthy panic. It was enough for Dr. Liang, who was passing by, to frown disapprovingly.
“Control yourself, Dr. Gao,” muttered the Alpha, whose pine scent became aggressive, almost pungent, in response to the Omega's distress.
But Gao Tu was no longer listening. His hands, now trembling, worked with renewed urgency. This was no longer just another patient. It was his grandmother, Mrs. Wei. And the television report, murmuring in the corner about “one confirmed fatality,” was no longer a distant statistic but a personal nightmare that closed his throat.
Mrs. Wei's condition was critical. The first CT scan images showed a subdural hematoma, a severe head injury that required immediate surgical evacuation, a procedure that only Dr. Liang, as head of orthopedics and neurotrauma, could perform with the utmost assurance at that moment of chaos. Gao Tu found himself at an impossible crossroads, paralyzed. How could he entrust the life of his grandmother, the most important person in his life, to a man who despised everything he was? A man who might, consciously or unconsciously, not give his best in the operating room simply because the patient was the family of a “meddlesome Omega”?
The rain continued to fall. The lights in the emergency room flickered, a reminder of how fragile everything was. Gao Tu looked at his grandmother's pale face, then at the pendant he now held in his gloved hand, and finally at the operating room door, where Dr. Liang was giving orders in a commanding voice. He took a breath, ready to cross that professional line he had worked so hard to maintain, ready to beg, to reveal the truth and face the consequences.
“Severe head trauma. Subdural hematoma. She needs to go to the operating room now.”
The voice that came out of his mouth sounded strangely calm, but his sage scent, now a wild fragrance reminiscent of wet earth after a storm, betrayed the storm inside. Liang turned, one eyebrow arched, ready to make a disparaging comment about the Omega's lack of control.
But before he could speak, another presence made itself known. A warm, enveloping, complex fragrance, like orange blossom bathed in aged rum, cut through the harshness of Liang's pine scent and calmed Gao Tu's sage storm. It was a scent that did not overwhelm, but sustained. Dr. Sheng Shaoyou, an S-Class Alpha whose mere presence commanded silent respect, approached. His dark amber eyes shifted from Ms. Wei's chart to Gao Tu's pale face, then to Dr. Liang.
“Operating room three is ready,” Sheng Shaoyou said, his voice a calm bass, but with an inherent authority that did not need to be raised. “Dr. Liang, you are needed in operating room two for a complex open fracture. I will take Mrs. Wei's case.”
Liang opened his mouth to protest, but a single glance from those amber eyes silenced him. He nodded curtly and walked away, his pine scent receding like a wave crashing against a cliff.
Sheng Shaoyou then turned to Gao Tu. There was no condescension in his gaze, not the slightest trace of pity or judgment. Only a deep, serene professionalism.
“Dr. Gao, prepare his for surgery. I'm going to wash up. I'll need your assistance; you know his history and baseline better than anyone.”
The order was clear, but there was a lifeline in it. Not only for Mrs. Wei, but for Gao Tu's broken heart. He was offering him not only his unparalleled skill as a surgeon, but also a place in the room, the right to be close to his family, to contribute. He was treating him, at the most critical moment, simply as a colleague.
Gao Tu nodded, a gratitude so intense it burned his eyes, impossible to express in words. The scent of rum and orange blossom seemed to intensify slightly around him, a warm, protective breeze. The storm outside continued, and the battle for his grandmother's life was about to begin. But in the midst of the chaos, for the first time in that long, heartbreaking night, Gao Tu did not feel alone.