MVCFO CH55 [IF]

The moment Lin Xiangqi jolted awake, the searing pain in the back of his neck still lingered like a burn.

He vaguely remembered, just before losing consciousness, that something abnormal had happened. His glands—which weren’t supposed to exist on a Beta—had suddenly surged into overdrive, even showing signs of differentiation.

He had no understanding of the physiology involved. All he knew was that his body had gone into a high fever, his blood felt like it was boiling, and there was a sharp, tearing pain at the back of his neck, as if something inside was about to break through the skin.

But because his glands were underdeveloped, none of his pheromones could be successfully released. They became trapped inside, accumulating until it felt like they exploded, shredding his internal organs from within.

Having never once identified as an Omega, Lin Xiangqi had no idea what was happening to him. All he knew was that it hurt. It hurt so much.

He had tried to grab his phone to call an ambulance, but his body wouldn’t cooperate.

At one point, his heart even stopped.

He thought he had died.

But to his surprise—he had woken up again.

Apparently, he had a long life ahead of him after all!

Lin Xiangqi opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling for a long time, a strange feeling creeping over him.

Only once his breathing began to calm did he slowly sit up and look around.

“Where is this…?”

He murmured hoarsely, his voice raspy, as if he hadn’t used it in ages.

Lowering his head, Lin Xiangqi noticed the Tom and Jerry print bedsheets. It was something very familiar to him—but at this moment, it felt oddly out of place.

These sheets were part of a bedding set he had bought for Lu Cong. They didn’t belong in his own bedroom.

He distinctly remembered falling asleep last night in his own room. So how did he wake up in Lu Cong’s bedroom?

Wait—something didn’t add up.

Lin Xiangqi clearly remembered that before the college entrance exams, Lu Cong had moved a lot of his things out when he left for the military academy.

But the room before him… looked exactly the same as in his memory:

On the wardrobe were the LEGO Death Star they had assembled together, their photo still on the bedside table, a pile of various musical instruments in the corner that Lin Xiangqi had pursued in bursts of three-minute enthusiasm, and even the carefully framed hand-drawn sketch he gave Lu Cong for his eighth birthday.

Everything was exactly where it used to be, down to the smallest detail.

It was as if someone had stubbornly frozen a moment from the past in this room.
Refusing to let it fade. Refusing to let it change.

A chill ran down Lin Xiangqi’s spine.

Maybe… he had died. Was this some kind of afterlife?

It sounded crazy, but Lin Xiangqi couldn’t think of any better explanation.

Otherwise, who had moved him from his bedroom into this room? Who had restored everything that had previously been packed away?

Could it be that after he fainted, Lu Cong came back?

But was that even possible?

Could Lu Cong return from military school overnight, restore the entire bedroom to its original state, and—most absurdly of all—take Lin Xiangqi from his own house without even saying a word?

None of it made sense.

Too many questions flooded Lin Xiangqi’s mind at once. He couldn’t think straight. So he jumped out of bed, bare feet on the carpet, and began searching the room for more inconsistencies—

Soon, he found a college acceptance letter from the Capital University on the desk.

It was something very familiar. Just last night, he had held it in his hands.

Lin Xiangqi picked it up—and immediately froze.

The letter looked… old. Unlike the one he’d seen yesterday, the envelope was faded and worn, as if it had been sitting here for many years, slowly losing its once-pristine color.

His confusion deepened. He instinctively opened Lu Cong’s wardrobe.

To his surprise, there were no clothes of Lu Cong’s inside. Only a few neatly ironed school uniforms—his own.

Suddenly struck by a thought, Lin Xiangqi turned and ran to the window, yanking the curtains open—

And stood there, utterly stunned.

Outside the curtain wasn’t the familiar view he expected—it was a cold, heavy metallic wall.
Stunned and curious, he reached out to touch it.

The surface rippled like water where his fingers pressed, reacting to his touch. Then a mechanical voice echoed from the wall:

“Dynamic window activated. Current Capital time: 9:12 AM.
You’ve arrived early today. The holographic simulation chamber has not yet started.
Would you like breakfast first, or—”

The voice abruptly stopped, followed by a harsh alarm:
“Warning: Security alert—suspected intruder detected!
Scanning identity… Lin Xiangqi, date of death: Archive record July 15th, Year 1025—
ERROR: ID mismatch! ID mismatch!”

Date of death?

Lin Xiangqi’s scalp went numb.

Panicked, he staggered backward, crashing into a clock on the side table.

The date displayed: Year 1035, July 15th.

This was…

The world ten years after his death.

A man sat in a black high-backed chair, his military uniform perfectly tailored to his upright frame.
His epaulettes were flawlessly aligned, but faint scars could still be seen under the collar.

He toyed with his sidearm, eyes lazily watching the holographic display before him.

“K-type base mutation. High-tier Alpha transformation—possible through acquired means.”
He tapped the tabletop with his gun barrel, and the projection rotated mid-air.
“A shortcut to greatness.”

Before the words had fully settled, a gunshot rang out—
A bullet pierced the forehead of a virtual image: a spy executed just last week.
Everyone in the meeting room froze in shock.

The man continued casually,
“Unauthorized injection of the mutagen…”

No one knew who he was speaking to.

But tension filled the room.

Everyone present knew that the mutagen catalyst was a prohibited experimental substance—a biochemical weapon deemed anti-human by the Alliance, and recently banned.
It had been smuggled into military command by spies to sow chaos.

The spy had already been executed—but one dose of the catalyst was still missing.

They had all assumed this meeting was to discuss how to locate that missing vial.
But judging by the speaker’s tone…
He already knew who had taken it.

No one dared make a sound.

Every breath was held cautiously, as if the slightest movement might draw unwanted attention from the terrifying man seated at the head of the room.

Lu Cong’s neck had an embedded pheromone inhibitor, keeping his levels just below the threshold of pain for those around him.
Even so, there was unavoidable leakage.

That faint, smoke-and-blood aura of his…

It pressed down on everyone like a physical weight.

The feeling of death—of slaughter—hung in the air, tangible and suffocating.

Finally, one senior officer, pale and sweating, collapsed from the pressure.

He struggled to speak, voice shaking with panic:
“I… I was confused, I swear! I planned to turn it in to the Major General. I don’t know what came over me. Why did I inject it myself? I must’ve been insane—I was out of my mind!”

The sound of his cold sweat dripping onto the floor rang out in the silence.

Lu Cong rose from his seat and walked around the long table.
The rhythm of his military boots striking the floor made every gland in the room clench in fear.

He stopped behind the trembling officer and slowly dragged his gun along the man’s spine, toward the back of his neck.

The gland there had already healed over—but the area was badly swollen from rejection.

“Thank you for your honesty,” Lu Cong said flatly, in a tone devoid of emotion.
“You’ve saved me a lot of time.”

A chilling breath passed through the room.

The sound of a bullet being chambered echoed sharply.

That officer—once a fearsome figure in battle, ruthless and decisive—now trembled like a rookie soldier caught breaking the rules for the first time.

Tears streamed down his face.

He lifted his hands, trying to grab Lu Cong’s gun, begging desperately:

“Please turn me over to the military court—or remove my glands, anything! I’ll accept any punishment. But… please… don’t execute me privately!”

Just then, Lu Cong looked at him coldly, as if he hadn’t heard a word he said, and pulled the trigger—

Killing was nothing new to the people present. After all, they had trampled over countless corpses on the battlefield.

But pulling the trigger so emotionlessly on someone who had once been a comrade—as Lu Cong just did—that was something none of them could do.

Though everyone understood deep down that the colonel had injected the mutagen catalyst in an attempt to become an S+ grade Alpha like Lu Cong, hoping that one day he could use that strength to replace him.

Still, no matter what crime he had committed, execution should have been left to the judgment of the Alliance—not carried out personally.

But the truth was, Lu Cong never saw anyone else as truly real.

He seemed to lack the emotions and morals a human ought to possess. He never showed mercy to anyone or anything.

As long as you followed his rules, he wouldn’t make things difficult.
But the moment someone got in his way—or broke the rules he set—then death was likely the fastest and most merciful end.

This was why the youngest major general in the Alliance—a man who should have been admired and adored by millions—was instead feared by everyone who knew him.

A man holding absolute power, able to decide life and death with no emotional attachment.

That kind of person was extremely dangerous.

Everyone was on edge, waiting for the sound of a bullet ripping through flesh.

But at that critical moment of silence, the door to the meeting room suddenly opened.

Everyone looked up, alert.

Outside stood a young boy—delicate and beautiful, with a hint of youthful awkwardness. Dressed in casual homewear, barefoot, his pajama collar slightly askew, revealing his collarbone. His hair was tousled, still marked with pillow creases. He stood there looking dazedly into the room.

And when his eyes landed on Lu Cong, a light lit up in them.

He stepped forward and ran straight into the room—seemingly oblivious to everything else around him. As if driven entirely by instinct, he threw himself into the arms of the man exuding killing intent and said joyfully:

“Lu Cong! So you’re here!”

Everyone in the room collectively held their breath, watching the always cold and emotionless major general show—for the first time—something close to an emotional breakdown.

Lu Cong’s pupils contracted violently. In an instant, he holstered his gun.

The bullet that should have been fired into the colonel’s forehead was forcibly swallowed back.

The inhibitor suppressing his pheromones began to fail, and his scent spilled uncontrollably into the air.

Yet the boy in his arms seemed completely unaware of the danger. He simply buried his emotions—his confusion, his fear upon waking in a strange place—into Lu Cong’s embrace.

Lin Xiangqi had arrived at the meeting room by accident.

Blame it on how strange the building was. He couldn’t find the exit, and every scanner he passed triggered an alarm.

He’d thought he was about to be arrested by some secret organization. But to his surprise, that never happened.

Once the intelligent systems identified him, they let him pass.

It was as if the identity “Lin Xiangqi” held top-level clearance in this place.

And so, unhindered, he had arrived at the meeting room.

Feeling anxious and out of place, Lin Xiangqi had just wanted to find a person, not another cold, unresponsive machine. So, using his access, he opened the meeting room doors—hoping someone inside could tell him where the hell he was.

Ten years was enough to change so much. The high-tech holograms and AI systems terrified him.

But thankfully, Lu Cong’s presence still gave him an irreplaceable sense of familiarity and safety.

He nuzzled deeper into Lu Cong’s arms and said softly,
“I don’t know what happened. I woke up and ended up here, and the time says it’s been ten years. It’s like a horror movie—it scared me to death…”

Lu Cong’s reaction was strange.

He let Lin Xiangqi hug him. He didn’t comfort him, nor did he push him away. He just maintained that unreadable expression and said to the others:

“Notify the research institute and medical center. Have the mutated gland safely removed. Then transfer the man to the military court.”

His subordinates followed orders and dragged away the now-collapsing colonel.

Lu Cong remained calm the entire time, ignoring the hesitant glances of those around him.

No one knew this was already a familiar occurrence for him.

Hallucinations—illusions—often appeared out of nowhere, in all kinds of forms.

The past two years had been the worst, so bad he could barely function normally. Recently, his medication had been doubled, and his condition was improving—but he wasn’t cured.

So seeing another hallucination now… was hardly a surprise.

Look—his hallucinations were stuck in the past too.

Lin Xiangqi still looked exactly like he had ten years ago. Every detail, every expression, unchanged.
Because Lu Cong couldn’t imagine what Lin Xiangqi would have grown into, the illusion remained eighteen forever—invading his sanity without warning.

And if Lu Cong ever responded to one of these hallucinations, he knew what would happen: he’d be classified as mentally unstable and sent to the medical institute.

Honestly, given the current situation, he probably wasn’t far from full-blown psychosis.

Just as he was about to resume the meeting, his adjutant quietly asked,
“Sir… does this young gentleman have anything to do with today’s meeting? Should I arrange a seat for him beside you?”

Lu Cong snapped his head around.
“…What did you just say?”

The adjutant blinked. He was closest to Lu Cong and immediately felt the surge of pheromones thick in the air—like gunpowder.

At this point, Lin Xiangqi realized he may have wandered into something extremely serious.

He needed Lu Cong’s presence for comfort—but he didn’t want to mess up anything important. So he obediently let go, gave a slight bow to the others, and said:

“Sorry. I think I interrupted you all. Please, go ahead with your meeting. I’ll wait for Lu Cong outside.”

He turned to leave—

Only to be yanked back into a crushing embrace.

Lu Cong’s arms tightened around him painfully. His canine teeth grazed Lin Xiangqi’s gland, his scorching breath tickled his earlobe.
Lin Xiangqi could feel the pounding of Lu Cong’s heart—and the faintest tremble.

The meeting room fell into complete silence.

Everyone stared in stunned disbelief at their fearsome major general—

There was no trace left of the cold, ruthless officer who had nearly executed a man moments ago.
Even if just for an instant, there was a flicker in his eyes—of helplessness and sorrow—that had never belonged to the Lu Cong they knew.

He looked like a lost child, full of cracks, desperately clinging to his last strand of hope.

The inhibitor embedded in his neck let out a piercing alarm. The concentration of his pheromones suddenly exceeded safe limits.

Many present were already covering their glands, struggling to breathe under the pressure.

But Lin Xiangqi felt the exact opposite.

Bathed in that overwhelming scent, he felt a peace he’d never known. He was just about to raise his arms to hug Lu Cong back—

When Lu Cong suddenly let go.

Lin Xiangqi stared blankly at him, wondering what was wrong. First, Lu Cong ignored him. Then, he hugged him in front of everyone. Now he’d abruptly pulled away.

It was like an old machine malfunctioning after years of disuse.

But then again, ten years had passed since they’d last seen each other. From 18 to 28, Lu Cong had clearly gone through many things that Lin Xiangqi hadn’t witnessed.

His personality might have changed a lot.

Lin Xiangqi felt a little regretful that he hadn’t been there to be part of Lu Cong’s growth. So now, all he could do was try to be understanding of his odd behavior.

He watched as Lu Cong took a step back and straightened his uniform, returning to the cold and calm major general from minutes ago.

He addressed the others briefly:

“Dismissed.”

Then he turned to Lin Xiangqi—his gaze landing on every part of him except his face—and said quietly:

“Come with me.”