After Being Forcibly Marked By My Fiancé’S Best Friend Chapter 10

Chapter 10

A long line snaked outside the Medical Center. Xie Shata, the head of the medical team, stood at the entrance in her white coat, followed by the Star Tower’s most elite medical staff. Because of a single order from Lian Xu, her team had to drop everything to test the pheromone thresholds of the new cadets.

Medical intervention was usually only used when there were serious issues with the annual pheromone test.

But this year was massive. Xie Shata looked at the seemingly endless queue outside the door, took a sharp breath, and nearly blacked out.

“How many cadets are there?”

“Two… two hundred and eighty.” A medic behind her looked at the cadet files on her Optic Computer in shock. She had never seen such a huge number.

Xie Shata twitched her lips. With this much work, did they think she and her medical team had lived too long and were ready for the grave?

“Fine…” Xie Shata gritted her teeth. “Split into ten teams, one team per person. Be quick. Everything must be finished before lunch.”

“Understood!”

Xie Shata divided the 280 cadets into ten teams according to the queue order and led them to the corresponding medical rooms to draw pheromones.

Lian Xu was delayed at the training ground and arrived late, followed by the highly irresponsible Instructor He Yu. After greeting Xie Shata, he walked toward the innermost medical room.

“Doctor Xie, long time no see.” He Yu also smiled and greeted Xie Shata, always ready to preen like a peacock in front of irrelevant people.

Xie Shata glanced at him. “The General is busy sharing His Highness’s burdens, while we have to rush around, so naturally, we don’t run into each other.”

After a year, Xie Shata had become so sharp-tongued. She truly didn’t know who she had learned it from. He Yu clearly remembered her being a gentle lady just a year ago. Now, she looked a bit… savage.

This battlefield was truly strange, turning so many gentle and lovely people into their current selves.

He couldn’t help but wonder if he hadn’t followed Yin Zhuo’s arrangement to go to the battlefield, would he be this articulate now?

Xie Shata stood up and walked toward where He Yu was standing.

He Yu raised an eyebrow at her, secretly preparing himself not to have any physical contact with her.

To his surprise, the next second, Xie Shata bumped hard into his shoulder, then bent down to open the cabinet next to his leg, pulling out a roll of hemostatic bandage.

The cadet saw her take out a large roll of bandage and instinctively covered the gland on the back of his neck. They were just drawing pheromones; surely it wouldn’t bleed that much!

However, the cadet was overthinking it. The bandage wasn’t for him, but for a severely injured officer behind the blue blackout curtain that none of them had noticed.

After the war ended, the ordinary wards in the Medical Center were full, and the medical rooms were also opened to accommodate severely injured patients who needed quiet recovery. Therefore, there weren’t many medical rooms available for testing, and they had to make do.

He Yu’s gaze was probing; he felt like the person on the bed looked familiar.

“He’s injured and can’t hear,” Xie Shata explained to He Yu.

Then, she spoke gently to the cadet sitting on the stool: “Please wait a moment. His situation is special; I need to change his bandage first. But don’t worry, it won’t affect your progress.”

The cadet nodded blankly: “O-okay.”

Star Tower cadets trained separately by gender, only combining during the final few days of monthly intensive training. But they were all Elite Reserve Forces selected to fight on the front lines, and the training was extremely rigorous. On the training ground, there was no distinction of gender, only comrades and enemies.

Most female Alphas the male cadet had seen on the training ground were physically robust. He had never encountered a woman as gentle as the medic in front of him. Was she a Beta or an Omega? Definitely not an Alpha, he thought.

Golden hair brushed over her shoulder, and a sweet fragrance wafted over, instantly making the male cadet feel refreshed.

Xie Shata pulled back the blackout curtain, pushed the medical equipment cart to the bedside, rolled up her sleeves, disinfected, and began changing the bandage.

“Where did Commander Lian go? He disappeared right after saying hello.”

The person who assigned her the task actually hid somewhere else and wouldn’t come to see her. Was this brat doing it on purpose?

“He’s nearby.” He Yu was getting tired of standing, so he casually pulled a chair over and sat next to the male cadet. “One cadet’s pheromone threshold is abnormal. He’s keeping an eye on things over there.”

Xie Shata nodded, so that was it. Because of that Omega who refused to admit his pheromones were problematic, Lian Xu had to go to such lengths to retest everyone.

“Aren’t you going to check it out?”

“What’s there to see…” Just as he was speaking, He Yu suddenly remembered the last thing Lian Xu had said on the training ground. He paused, then spoke again half a minute later, “It’s been a while, Doctor Xie. I came over to catch up with you.”

Xie Shata’s hand holding the bandage suddenly tightened. If she weren’t the head of the medical team, required to possess supreme patience and professional ethics, she would have wrapped He Yu’s mouth with the bandage right now, tied him up, thrown him onto the next sickbed, and given him a sleeping injection.

She wondered who it was who, upon learning that Commander Lian Xu was going to the battlefield, rushed to knock on her door in the middle of the night, waking her up just to ask for a few doses of suppressants with side effects so low they barely affected an Omega.

His mouth was tough, but his heart had probably already flown next door.

While they chatted, the bandage change was complete. Xie Shata returned to her seat, prepared the tools for drawing pheromones, and quickly finished the sampling. The movement was light and fast. The male cadet only felt a quick prick on his gland, and before he even registered the pain, half a syringe of clear liquid had been drawn.

“Is… that it?”

Xie Shata nodded. “That’s it. Call the next person in.”

The male cadet clearly hadn’t had enough. If there were no limits to drawing pheromones, he would have liked another go. But when he turned his head and met the instructor’s meaningful smile, his mind suddenly went blank. He didn’t dare entertain any extra thoughts and immediately ran out to call the next person.

Seeing the cadet leave, Xie Shata took advantage of the moment before the next person arrived to ask the question she had been curious about. “I heard the Prime Minister and Commander Lian’s relationship is… unusual?”

“How is it unusual?”

“It’s just… they are that kind of relationship.”

He Yu tilted his head, his smile unfathomably deep. “Which kind?”

Xie Shata thought for a moment and said directly, “I heard the Prime Minister is Commander Lian’s fiancé.”

“Oh, that.” He Yu licked his back molars. Why couldn’t he escape those three words, fiancé, everywhere he went? It was like a curse. “Who told you that?”

Xie Shata sighed. “Don’t worry about how I know. Just tell me if it’s true.”

He Yu was silent for a few seconds, then lightly hummed in affirmation.

If anyone else dared to ask this, they would surely be handed over to Yin Zhuo for personal disposal, as the Inner Cabinet Prime Minister had never publicly acknowledged having a fiancé. But since the person asking was Xie Shata, there was nothing he couldn’t admit.

Xie Shata looked at He Yu in disbelief.

It was actually true?!

This was real!

Commander Lian was actually the Inner Cabinet Prime Minister’s fiancé!

The shock of this news was comparable to when she first heard she was appointed head of the medical team. The sudden establishment of the Command Center caused the Inner Cabinet to fall hard from its position of being universally admired. A large portion of political power was handed over to the Command Center, and even the most important Star Tower was placed under its authority.

The Medical Center, which held the same status as the military base within the Star Tower, was a power the Inner Cabinet had desperately tried to control. But the Inner Cabinet not only had to give up control of the military base but also had to watch the Medical Center, which they had fought for for so many years, be assigned to the Command Center.

She didn’t know if the Inner Cabinet ministers had fainted from anger, but her own soul had certainly floated up to the heavens.

The moment Xie Shata received the news of the Command Center’s formation, she was called to the Tower A conference room and met the rumored Commander. The Star Tower Medical Center was renamed the Command Center Medical Group—the subordinate relationship was clear. The Commander even appointed her as the head of the medical group in front of His Highness, joining the Command Center.

Unforeseen good fortune had been dumped on her head without warning. She was just an unknown nobody who had survived on the battlefield with the medical team. When she heard the appointment, she was completely stunned, as if trapped in a fog, unable to distinguish reality from illusion.

Now, when she heard He Yu frankly admit that Commander Lian was the Inner Cabinet Prime Minister’s fiancé, that dreamlike feeling returned.

This was even more unbelievable than her joining the Command Center.

The Inner Cabinet Prime Minister, and a core member of the Command Center… everyone in the entire Star Tower knew that the Command Center had become a thorn in the Inner Cabinet’s side from the day it was officially established.

But that wasn’t the most important thing; the Commander must have his reasons for this arrangement.

Xie Shata was more concerned about something else. She looked at the somewhat flippant He Yu.

“You and the Prime Minister are as close as brothers, yet knowing Commander Lian is the Prime Minister’s fiancé, you treat him… you…”

He Yu frowned, a little confused. “What about me?”

“You like him!” Xie Shata was about to burst. “You like your best friend’s… fiancé. A brother’s wife is inviolable. Where is your moral bottom line?”

“Oh. Who said I like him?”

Xie Shata: “…”

Knocking on her door in the middle of the night just to find suppressants for Lian Xu—that wasn’t liking him? Ignoring his own injuries and braving the pouring rain just to carry the feverish Omega to the Medical Center, guarding the bedside until his temperature dropped before leaving—that wasn’t liking him? And various other incidents like these. Xie Shata felt she could talk for a day if she listed them all in detail.

“Did I do something… that made you misunderstand that I like him?” He Yu smiled, speaking carelessly.

Coupled with his relaxed expression, it truly sounded like he was discussing some trivial matter, making one suspect that those things weren’t actually done by him, and he was just hearing the stories.

But Xie Shata still felt something was wrong. They had known each other since Star Tower Academy. He Yu didn’t seem like someone who would meddle in others’ affairs, nor someone who would help a brother look after his fiancé.

“Then why are you so good to him, so… caring?”

He Yu was noncommittal.

But he said, “I can’t stand pitiful, weak people. Is it wrong to want to help?

“Yin Zhuo and I grew up together; I treat him like an older brother. He’s busy with Inner Cabinet affairs, so I help him look after Lian Xu.”

Xie Shata didn’t quite believe He Yu could be that kind.

But the next second, she heard him say, “I’m kidding. You actually believed that.”

“I knew it…”

Before she finished, He Yu added, “It’s just for fun.”

“Watching him act like a little dog, wagging his tail and treating me like his owner after I give him a little treat, isn’t that interesting? Besides… Yin Zhuo doesn’t like him. The engagement was only set because Lian Xu drugged Yin Zhuo’s tonic, forcing him to marry. How could I develop feelings for someone like that?

Just for fun.

Watching him act like a little dog…

Every word was like an ice pick, stabbing her, the bystander, with a chilling coldness. She couldn’t imagine how terrible Lian Xu would feel if he truly heard these words.

Xie Shata shivered.

Thump, thump, thump—

A rapid sound of footsteps suddenly came from outside the medical room.