9: You Can’t Handle Him.
“Are you sick?”
Shen Jin almost laughed from sheer annoyance.
With Qian Kun’s build, height, and muscle mass, plus his drop speed, the odds of Shen Jin getting crushed and injured were as high as twenty percent.
Qian Kun shot back smoothly, “You got medicine?”
Qian Kun had been late a few days ago and got caught by the Dean of Students, who lectured him for a full half hour.
For someone like Qian Kun, whose grades were good, the dean was practically heartbroken.
He’d never gone through something like that before.
Qian Kun kept up his usual image, but inside, impatience had already started to boil. Today, he didn’t want to waste time, so he went straight for the legendary “late-to-school wall.”
He hadn’t expected to get caught on his first try.
Before Shen Jin could even reply, Qian Kun jumped down, and he aimed straight for Shen Jin’s side.
Shen Jin startled and took a step back on instinct.
He could vaguely sense Qian Kun’s real personality beneath that calm surface. It was a little wild.
The gust of movement landed just a step away. Even if Shen Jin hadn’t moved, there would’ve still been a few centimeters between them.
Qian Kun had calculated the landing point before he jumped.
After he hit the ground, he was about to straighten up when he heard a very soft sound from Shen Jin. He was close enough to catch it, though he couldn’t quite be certain what it was.
Before Shen Jin could recover, Qian Kun hooked his backpack up and brushed past him.
He tilted his head slightly, amusement spreading at the corners of his eyes. “What are you dodging for? I wasn’t gonna hurt you.”
Shen Jin knew he’d been played.
Qian Kun had done it on purpose, just to scare him.
Still, the way Qian Kun had looked from above a moment ago really was oppressive.
He didn’t even have any scent on him, yet Shen Jin’s whole body had bristled, like a dozen top-tier Alphas were staring him down at once.
Shen Jin called out coldly, “Wait.”
“Any more instructions, class rep?”
“You’re not wearing your badge.”
“Oh. Must’ve fallen off on the way.”
“And your uniform? Don’t tell me that fell off too.”
“Isn’t it being made? How would I know where it is?”
Qian Kun looked completely indifferent, his tone even carrying a hint of innocence.
Shen Jin was already immune to that act.
He remembered something.
The school didn’t have that many spare uniforms, and these transfer students all needed oversized sets, which had to be specially ordered from the factory.
Normally the life committee member would handle pickup notices, but because the class groupings had been rearranged, Class 9 still hadn’t even chosen their new life committee member.
The uniforms had arrived, and no one had gone to get them.
By now, assembly music had started playing on the field, and classes upstairs were already lining up in the corridors.
Shen Jin remembered Class 9’s conduct points were almost gone.
He pulled off his own school badge and held it out.
“What about you?”
“I’ve got a spare.”
The real reason was that most teachers and student council members wouldn’t check him too strictly anyway.
Qian Kun took it and examined it.
Nanhu’s badges were designed to protect privacy, the front showed the school emblem, and the back had the student’s personal information.
On Shen Jin’s info, the sex field still read: Male, Omega.
That meant only two possibilities.
One, the school hadn’t had time to update it yet.
Two, Shen Jin hadn’t fully finished differentiating, and since the school knew, they were temporarily leaving his info unchanged.
One of them went to submit the late list, and the other took a detour to the cafeteria.
Both ended up late.
By the time the assembly music stopped, they were returning from opposite directions, ending up at the back of the crowd, one after the other.
There were so many classes on the field that it was a solid sea of black.
Even Shen Jin couldn’t immediately find where Class 9 was standing.
The dean was already walking toward the stage.
Shen Jin figured he had to go up to give a speech soon anyway, so he picked a random class line closest to the stage and stepped into the very back.
Qian Kun was even more casual.
Wherever Shen Jin stopped, he strolled over and stood behind him, looking lazy and unbothered.
Qian Kun was too tall to miss, and he wasn’t wearing a uniform either.
In a black athletic top, he stood out so much that students kept turning their heads to look.
“Is this a scene I’m actually allowed to witness while alive? What kind of cursed combo is this!”
“It’s so sudden. They’re literally right behind me. My heart wasn’t ready!”
“Who am I even supposed to look at? They’re both so handsome!”
“The crown prince is pure, peak-face era. As a certified face-lover, I’m announcing my new bias!”
“Huai-cao, Mom only changed her mind for a second. When you come back, I’ll go back to stanning you!”
The commotion immediately put Shen Jin on alert.
He turned around and saw Qian Kun putting on his chest badge.
Shen Jin’s expression changed. “Why are you following me?”
“What?”
Qian Kun acted like he hadn’t heard.
“Go to the back of Class 9.”
Shen Jin shifted and repeated himself, clearly, again.
Qian Kun was half a head taller than him.
When he lowered his head, it looked like he was listening intently.
Up on the stage, the dean spotted the disturbance right away.
He tapped the microphone, and it thudded with a dull boom. “You two in the last row of Class 5, got something you can’t finish saying? Want to come up here and keep talking onstage?”
That was the class line Shen Jin had randomly chosen.
A small wave of movement stirred around them, and plenty of people looked their way.
Shen Jin felt secondhand embarrassment so sharp his fingers curled.
He shot a cold glare at Qian Kun, who was standing there all loose and careless, and stopped talking.
When it was almost time for him to go onstage, a faint cramp twisted in his stomach.
He’d rushed to school for duty in the morning and hadn’t had time for breakfast at all.
Shen Jin shut his eyes quietly.
He calculated how long until it was his turn, waiting for his body to settle.
After the freshman representative finished a speech about “looking toward the future,” applause rose across the field.
In the middle of it, Shen Jin heard a lowered voice from behind him.
“Shen Jin. Someone asked me to give you something.”
Shen Jin held his hand out automatically.
A pretty glass candy dropped into his palm.
Only then did Shen Jin look back, confused.
Qian Kun pointed at the badge on his chest. “It’s me. A thank-you gift. If you’re hungry, eat one.”
He’d noticed long ago that Shen Jin cared about “equal exchange.”
So he’d grabbed a ready-made excuse, one Shen Jin couldn’t really refuse.
Back when Qian Kun jumped the wall, he’d heard Shen Jin’s stomach growl.
He observed a little.
He wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but it was either hunger pushed too far or low blood sugar.
Either way, a piece of candy would help.
Qian Kun had been trying to quit smoking lately.
It wasn’t going great, but he still kept some candy in his pocket from time to time.
Shen Jin realized it was genuine kindness, So he didn’t refuse and gave a small nod.
From the stage, an older student’s voice rang out. “Next, please welcome Shen Jin. His speech topic is ‘The Difference Between Pheromones and Heartbeat.’”
High schoolers were at an age where pheromones were hard to control, and impulses came easily.
However, being impulsive toward someone didn’t mean your heart was in it.
The school was doing its best to cut off early romance at the bud.
Shen Jin organized his pages and walked up with steady composure.
Thunderous applause erupted below.
Someone even yelled, “Jin-ge, even if you’re a Beta, I’m still into you!”
The dean swept his gaze across the field, trying to catch the troublemaker, but there were too many people to pinpoint the voice.
Shen Jin looked cold as frost.
His collar was always buttoned to the top, not a single strand of hair out of place.
That distant, untouchable aura fit him perfectly.
No one noticed that his palms were damp with sweat.
Ahem. He was... a little nervous.
The candy rolled against his tongue, sweetness spread across his mouth.
Shen Jin took a slow breath and began reading, fluent and unbroken.
His speech stuck to the same old romance topic.
The school didn’t explicitly ban dating, but it still wanted students to prioritize academics. In a world built around pheromones, forcing a total shutdown wasn’t realistic anyway.
This time, the staff had chosen Shen Jin precisely because he gave off that extreme “don’t even think about it” vibe.
In their eyes, the effect would multiply.
The topic itself wasn’t popular. However Shen Jin was handsome, and that was enough.
When he stepped down, he got the loudest applause he’d ever received.
After morning assembly ended, Shen Jin gathered the Chinese homework and handed it in.
He checked the time.
At this hour, the cafeteria wouldn’t have breakfast left.
He was about to go to the convenience shop for bread when he noticed a bowl of millet porridge tucked in his desk, still faintly warm.
Beside it was a paper-wrapped lettuce-potato-egg pancake, topped with ketchup and mayo.
A note was taped to the plastic bag: Don’t forget breakfast (smiley). Signed: Hu Shengqiang, their homeroom teacher.
Shen Jin recognized the handwriting and didn’t doubt it.
During break, the grade-wide mock-exam ranking came out, and every class was watching the two big names.
Besides the “rocket class,” there were private-school transfers scattered through other classes too.
They didn’t clash as explosively as Class 9, but they still didn’t quite blend in.
Before this, whether on the forum or in group chats, people had hyped Qian Kun into the heavens. Everyone thought he’d make a flashy, crushing debut.
Then they looked and went, wow.
“Jin-ge is first. Mr. Eternal Second finally flipped the script this time!”
“What about Gu Yue, that always-top-the-board grade-skipper?”
“Family emergency. He asked for a long leave and didn’t take it.”
“Third place is more than ten points behind Qian Kun. The rocket class’s faces must be green, losing to a parallel-class kid.”
“This exam really was hard. I heard it was made based on the toughest papers in the province over the years.”
“Still, the crown prince only transferred recently. He hasn’t even adapted to our style yet. Am I the only one who thinks this score is already insane?”
“Sis, you’re not alone!”
Shen Jin took first in the grade.
Meanwhile Qian Kun, who’d been unbeatable at private school and was called a genius brain, came in second.
It wasn’t just the private-school transfers who felt stifled.
Even Liu Qimai went quiet for days, his swagger crushed down to scraps.
Class 9 almost started feeling bad for them.
They even considered dropping the “make them wear girls’ clothes” idea, because it was honestly too brutal.
Zhou You took Qian Kun’s answer sheet and noticed two of the deductions were on basic questions. With Qian Kun’s level, those mistakes shouldn’t have happened, and there were eraser marks on the card.
After school, they went to a home-style restaurant outside campus.
When everyone else went to order, Zhou You asked directly, “You lost on purpose, didn’t you?”
Qian Kun had just opened the tableware.
He smiled lightly. “A-You, if you see through it, don’t say it out loud.”
Zhou You thought it over, then said, “Because of our conflict with Class 9?”
When Qian Kun didn’t deny it, Zhou You knew he’d guessed right.
It wasn’t just that public and private schools had different systems and environments. Any time you move from one group into another, there’s an adjustment period.
People instinctively stick with the familiar when they enter a new place.
That’s just human nature.
Qian Kun didn’t rein in his friends’ arrogance, because without it, they’d feel even less steady.
Still, he knew the tension was escalating.
Class 9 had gone from holding it in to nearly standing up to throw down. It meant the atmosphere was one spark away from igniting.
Since these old friends had followed him here, he wasn’t going to let things keep going like that.
From the moment he set the wager, Qian Kun hadn’t planned on winning.
Class 9 weren’t the type to push people to the edge when they had the upper hand. This time, even though they’d won, both sides were clearly softening about the punishment.
Zhou You got his answer and didn’t feel surprised.
He took a sip of tea and looked down toward the street.
An all-too-familiar figure was walking toward the curb, where a low-key black Bentley was parked.
Qian Kun followed his gaze and saw Shen Jin too, looking like he had something on his mind.
Earlier today, Shen Jin had applied to live on campus.
Approval wouldn’t come that fast, so for the next few days he still had to go home.
That afternoon, he’d received the first draft of the Shen family’s engagement-termination request.
In this world, Alpha and Omega engagements usually had legal force.
Breaking an engagement meant paperwork and procedure too.
The draft came from the Shen family’s lawyer.
He wanted Shen Jin to review it and raise any demands. If the demands weren’t excessive, he’d revise the document accordingly.
The subtext was clear, the Ke family would “treat him generously” this time.
Shen Jin remembered how Ke Minghuai’s mother had told him a few days ago to “find a chance to explain things properly” to Ke Minghuai.
In reality, it was just a nicer way to say it.
The Ke family had already decided.
The moment they tried to “settle for second best” and switch the match to Shen Xie’an, the childhood engagement had no room left to turn.
No matter whether it was for him or for Shen Xie’an, it was humiliating. Shen Jin had planned to handle this alone, straight on.
Instead, the second he stepped out of the school gate, his phone rang with a call he never expected.
It was his cousin, Xie Ling.
They hadn’t seen each other in half a year. From the day Shen Jin was born, his father had sent him to his mother’s maternal family, the Xies.
On the day he arrived, the Xie household was still drowning in grief, and no one took care of the infant. That initial indifference became more and more neglect.
Until the winter Shen Jin was five, Xie Ling came back from school in Shangjing and discovered a silent child who’d been abused by a nanny and was severely malnourished.
Xie Ling forced the issue.
As “just a cousin,” he had no real obligation to raise him, but the others truly didn’t want to touch that hot potato.
Back then, Shen Jin rejected the outside world and wouldn’t accept Xie Ling at all.
Xie Ling had to bounce between studies and the company. He could only soothe Shen Jin in his own way, making sure the kid never lacked material care.
Later, when Shen Jin’s parents finally remembered him, Xie Ling no longer had a reason to keep him. After that, their contact gradually faded.
This cousin had been someone who rarely smiled even when he was young.
Old Master Xie had raised him as a future head of the family, so he carried that decisive, hardline authority of someone used to sitting above others.
Even though Shen Jin had lived under the same roof with him for three years, Xie Ling had been too busy, and the age gap was too big.
They hadn’t spent much time together.
Shen Jin didn’t expect a “small thing” like this to reach that busy man’s ears.
Who was so bored they ran to tell Xie Ling anyway?
Shen Jin sighed in irritation and tapped the car window. The glass slid down, revealing a sharp, handsome face.
Xie Ling was young, but his Alpha presence was anything but weak.
No one would dare underestimate him. He moved his phone slightly away from his ear and gave a cool command. “Go to the other side.”
Xie Ling spoke to everyone like this.
Shen Jin was used to it and obediently walked around.
Xie Ling sensed a gaze that couldn’t be ignored and slowly lifted his head.
He met Qian Kun’s eyes, the one sitting by the second-floor window, for a brief moment.
Then both of them looked away, as if it meant nothing.
Shen Jin got into the car.
Xie Ling said, “I don’t oppose you dating, but he won’t work. You can’t handle him.”
Shen Jin: “...?”
Author’s Note:
Xie Ling: You can’t handle him.
Qian Kun: Who says?
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