As Xiao Feng followed his father through the long palace hallways, a part of him was screaming at him to stop.
To stop walking behind this man.
To stop letting himself be used.
Because he knew he was being used.
If the task had been safe, if it promised success, honor, or praise, his father would have chosen his favored sons without hesitation.
He always did.
Anything that could elevate their names or strengthen their standing was never placed in Xiao Feng's hands.
And that meant.. If marrying Li Yue had truly been an honor, if it had been something beneficial without risk, his father would have offered the task to them instead.
He would never have pushed Xiao Feng forward while keeping his favorites behind.
It had been his father who arranged Li Yue's kidnapping in the first place. He was the one who suggested to the Emperor that whoever found her should marry her, arguing that such a man would naturally be capable of protecting her.
The Emperor had agreed, seeing logic in it.
At the time, Wang Yuan had never been meant to marry Li Yue. That had not been part of the plan. But somehow, Wang Yuan found her as well,..and suddenly, the situation shifted.
Now Xiao Feng's father saw an opportunity. If Xiao Feng and Wang Yuan marry her together, then Wang Yuan would be drawn closer to Xiao Feng's mission.
The thoughts burned quietly inside him as he walked.
Instead of continuing to follow orders like this, instead of throwing himself into something meant to break him, knowingly, Xiao Feng wondered why he didn't finally focus on himself.
On the questions that had followed him since childhood.
-The truth about his mother.
Growing up, Xiao Feng had always known he was unwanted.
It wasn't subtle.
His two older brothers never missed a chance to remind him that he had ruined the family. That his existence was a stain they could never erase.
His older sister treated him like something fragile and embarrassing. His so-called father looked at him like an obligation he regretted keeping.
And the woman who was introduced as his mother had never felt like one.
She told him, often and coldly, that he did not belong there. That he was not hers. She never explained what she meant, and no one else ever addressed it either.
But Xiao Feng had always known she was not his real mother.
Another thing he had always known was that he was different.
He was weaker than his siblings. Slower to recover. Bit fragile. No matter how hard he trained, no matter how much he pushed himself, he never matched them.
Coming from an Alpha family, it made no sense. He used to lie awake wondering why his body refused to respond the way Alpha's bodies did.
But when he was sixteen, he was met with shocking facts. At that age, he experienced a heat cycle. Something that happened only to omegas. It happened came without warning.
That was the moment everything finally made sense.
He wasn't an Alpha.
He was an Omega.
The realization had shattered him. Terrified and desperate for answers, he confronted his father. It was the first time he had ever challenged him openly, despite the fear that had been drilled into him since childhood.
And just as he had expected, his father admitted it.
He admitted that Xiao Feng was born from an affair with an Omega woman. The woman had died during childbirth. And because she was an Omega, the child she carried had turned out to be one as well.
That was the explanation he was given. Nothing more.
And the explanation came with a warning.
That no matter what he was, he was never allowed to act like an Omega.
He was ordered to keep his back straight like an Alpha.
To command rooms like an Alpha.
To never allow anyone to suspect the truth about him being an omega.
For him to be able to do that, it was really hard, because he did not have that commanding pheromones that alphas had naturally. But he was forced to.
That was how Xiao Feng learned to live.
He trained harder. He hid better. He learned how to wear strength like armor, even when his body didn't match it. He learned how to survive by pretending.
But as he grew older, doubt grew with him.
What if that story was only half the truth?
What if his father truly had an affair with an Omega… and then erased her out of shame? What if she hadn't simply died, but had been removed?
And if that was the case...
why was Xiao Feng allowed to live?
Why wasn't he discarded as well?
Why was he kept in the pack house, raised under the same roof, only to be treated like a mistake that refused to disappear?
None of it added up.
It never had.
But in the end, Xiao Feng did what he had always done.
He accepted the explanation he was given.
He accepted the life placed in front of him.
And he kept walking forward, even when nothing made sense.
At that same age of sixteen was when he met Wang yuan.