"Zoe, look at your face," Damien Pierce said, pointing. A smudge of orange sweet-and-sour sauce was on her cheek.
The faint smile instantly softened his gloomy, gaunt face, making him look just as he had when Zoe Pierce first saw him after she awoke.
Zoe Pierce froze for an imperceptible second before wiping her face with a napkin. She pursed her lips. "Don't laugh at me, Brother."
"I just think you're beautiful even like this. If your pheromones hadn't disappeared, you could have married into a good family," Damien Pierce lamented. "Then you wouldn't have to work so hard."
No one would dare be so harsh to such a delicate, beautiful Omega.
For some reason, though the words sounded perfectly normal, Zoe Pierce's spine instantly went rigid.
Zoe Pierce couldn't help but let her thoughts run wild. 'If I still had my pheromones, would Damien have been planning to sell me off?'
Some thoughts were better left unexplored. But the idea that Damien Pierce wanted to use her to get close to Miles Sherman's circle—that made her sense his ill intentions all the more clearly.
'It's like I'm just a tool in his hands.'
Zoe Pierce pursed her lips and looked at him with feigned concern. "Brother, just how bad is our family's situation?"
Since waking up, she had learned that the Pierce Family had made its fortune in energy ores, with a secondary business in jewelry.
One business catered to Alphas with Mecha equipment, the other to Omegas with jewelry. While the scale of their enterprise wasn't massive on The Capital Star, it was by no means small.
Both ventures had been reasonably successful, so even with amnesia, Zoe Pierce sensed the family ought to be wealthy.
Yet according to Damien Pierce, they were suffering losses—massive losses.
At this topic, Damien Pierce's brow furrowed. He looked at Zoe Pierce. "None of these problems will matter if we can get in with the Sherman and Xavier families."
Zoe Pierce said, "Brother, tell me which side of the business is having more serious problems. If they really can help, I'll know what to bring up."
Damien Pierce hesitated, his tone turning grave. "The energy business. The Caldwell Family are our rivals, and they're buying up our energy sites."
He was being vague, but Zoe Pierce latched onto one name: the Caldwell Family.
Still, it was a vast improvement on her previous state of complete ignorance.
After Zoe Pierce finished her meal, Damien Pierce exchanged a few more short messages on his Intelligent Brain. When he looked up again, he found Zoe watching him.
"What is it?"
Zoe Pierce stood up and blinked. "It's nothing. I just wanted to wait until you were done to tell you I'm going upstairs to study."
Damien Pierce was at a loss for words. Zoe Pierce seemed almost too diligent. Whether it was physical training or studying, her discipline was so perfect that no one could find fault.
"Brother, don't you feel like something's wrong?" Zoe Pierce asked just as Damien was about to respond.
He looked at her, confused. "What's wrong?"
Zoe Pierce looked stunned for a moment. She wrapped her arms around herself. "It's nothing. I guess I'm just a little cold. I'll head up."
Without waiting for Damien Pierce to react, she turned and headed upstairs.
Her heart began to race. A moment ago, her spiritual power had leaked out involuntarily, but Damien Pierce hadn't reacted at all.
'He didn't sense my spiritual power.'
*
A month passed quickly. After meeting Erin Xavier and the others on the first day of group assignments, Zoe Pierce hadn't seen them since.
Then, early this morning, along with a message to assemble, the small group chat pinged again.
It was from Miles Sherman, with the location of the assembly point she needed to get to.
The supply distribution point for Omegas was different from the Alphas', so Zoe Pierce had to pick up her supplies before heading to the assembly point.
Every Omega received a Space Button, and after collecting their supplies, they had to proceed to the adjacent white building for a medical check-up.
Michelle Young was in line ahead of Zoe Pierce. Knowing Zoe had completely forgotten the procedure, Michelle explained while they waited, "This check-up is to see if any Omegas are approaching their heat cycle. If their pheromones are unstable, the instructors make them stay for an inhibitor shot before they can leave."
She pointed to an alarm on the Space Button. "If an Omega runs into an emergency, press this right away. The instructors are always monitoring them."
The Space Button had two buttons: one blood-red, one gray.
"The blood-red one is for emergencies involving Alphas or pheromones."
"The gray one is the elimination button. If a member of another team presses it, that Omega is eliminated from the exercise."
Just then, it was Michelle Young's turn. The entrance and exit were separate. She didn't forget to call back to Zoe Pierce, "Zoe, I'll wait for you at the exit!"
Zoe Pierce nodded eagerly. In the past month—a period neither long nor short—she and Michelle Young had become good friends.
According to Michelle Young, the "old" Zoe had been a standoffish Omega who kept to herself. No one knew what she was so busy with, but she always rushed home early.
Naturally, she hadn't had many friends.
But the Zoe Pierce who returned after her amnesia was completely different. She was much softer and naturally drew closer to people. Now, her classmates' perception of her was quite positive.
"Your pheromone level is 8?" When it was Zoe's turn, she felt a small prick on her hand. Moments later, a number flashed on the machine's display.
The doctor administering the test stared at the number, stunned. A normal Omega's pheromone level ranged from 100 to 300, and could spike to 1000 during their heat.
A double-digit reading was already rare, let alone a single-digit one.
He frowned and glanced at Zoe's uploaded records, which included the medical report confirming her pheromone disability.
A level of 8 was barely higher than a Beta's, comparable only to a child under the age of five.
"It's 8?" Zoe Pierce repeated.
The doctor didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "You seem even more surprised than I am. The machine's reading is crystal clear."
Zoe was just thinking that when she first woke up, the doctor had said her pheromone level was only 5.
'In just over a month, it's gone up by 3.'
"Alright. With a pheromone concentration this low, you don't need inhibitors, and you'd better not use suppression patches either. I'll prescribe you some barrier patches."
Zoe Pierce's pheromone concentration was so low that the doctor was worried a suppression patch might diminish what little she had left.
Barrier patches contained less of the pheromone-suppressing medication than suppression patches, making them much milder.
"If you feel any discomfort with the barrier patch, just take it off. They're mild, but they do contain some medication. Your situation is unique, so if anything feels wrong, find an instructor immediately. Got it?"
Zoe Pierce nodded obediently. She went to the pharmacy to get the barrier patches and, as expected, saw Michelle Young waiting off to the side, looking bored.
"Zoe!" She waved when she saw Zoe Pierce.
Zoe Pierce walked over. "Shelly."
Everything they needed was stored in their Space Buttons, so the two of them walked empty-handed toward the assembly point.
They hadn't gone far when Michelle Young suddenly stopped and nudged Zoe Pierce with her elbow.
"Zoe, look... Isn't that Nathan Lockwood?"
Zoe Pierce followed her friend's gaze. Less than ten meters away stood a tall, lean Alpha.
He wore the standard-issue academy training uniform. His limbs were long and he wasn't overly muscular, but it was impossible to ignore the fluid, strong lines of his body. His spine was perfectly straight, and his face was turned to the side as he gazed at something in the distance.
As if sensing their gazes, he turned his head with a deliberate slowness. He had a chiseled jaw and well-defined, naturally red lips.
His narrow, almond-shaped eyes landed on her, a cool indifference in their depths. His voice was low. "Zoe Pierce?"