Side Story One - ABO: Imperial Prince's 100% Match

 

In New Star Calendar year 451, Liao Tingyan relocated with her family from central H-2 star to the capital, A-star.

Her father had been promoted from non-commissioned officer to lieutenant, and her elder brother had earned military merits. Finally, the family qualified to move to the capital star.

The Liao household consisted of seven people: Father and Mother Liao, a typical Alpha-Omega pairing, and their five children—all Alphas, including Liao Tingyan. She had older siblings above her and younger ones below. Standing among the five, she, the third child, couldn't match her older siblings' robust strength nor her younger siblings' proud vivacity. Therefore, her parents often sighed: "Third child, you don't resemble an Alpha. You're more like a Beta or Omega."

The so-called A, B, and O referred to three major categories in the current gender system. Alphas possessed combat abilities and mental strength far exceeding ordinary people. Any Alpha, regardless of biological sex, represented the elite. Omegas were Alpha's opposite—low physical strength and combat ability, generally sensitive and gentle, with physiques naturally suited for childbearing. They developed bonds with Alphas through pheromones. The higher the pheromone compatibility, the stronger their connection.

Betas were ordinary people without extraordinary qualities or pheromones, comprising the majority of the population.

Fortunate to be an Alpha with superior qualities, Liao Tingyan should have resembled her sister—competitive, never admitting defeat, brave and tenacious, a true 'superhuman.' Unfortunately, perhaps because the soul inhabiting this body originated from distant Earth, her personality was completely un-Alpha-like.

In short, her siblings had been embarrassed by her for years, feeling such a weakling tarnished the Alpha group's prestigious reputation.

Liao Tingyan's response: Well, I don't care.

Shortly after arriving at capital A-star, Father Liao visited his superior for routine social interaction. That evening, returning from a banquet with his eldest son, Father Liao was unusually excited. He summoned his children, announcing: "I have something extremely important to tell you!"

Father Liao explained that the Imperial Prince had reached marriageable age, but among the upper class, no marriage candidate possessed compatibility rates higher than sixty percent. With no alternative, and seeing the Prince was already twenty-four without a suitable prospect, the Emperor had lowered the requirements. Even children from lieutenant-level families could be selected as marriage candidates.

Father Liao's excitement stemmed from the fact that among his five children, the youngest twins had just turned eighteen, and the eldest son was twenty-five—all five had chances to become Prince Consort.

Oh, incidentally, Imperial Prince Sima Jiao was an Omega, requiring an Alpha partner.

Liao Tingyan watched her family converse excitedly, her mother discussing new clothes, thinking the scene strangely resembled "Cinderella."

Liao Tingyan remained passively negligent about this matter. As an Alpha who completely failed to resemble one, according to current Omega aesthetic standards, she definitely wouldn't be selected.

With intentions of broadening her horizons and enjoying a good meal, half a month later, Liao Tingyan followed her family into that luxurious, spacious royal banquet hall. This famous venue on the capital star could accommodate tens of thousands for banquets. Upon entering, Liao Tingyan was nearly blinded by dazzling brilliance.

Over a hundred ultra-luxurious crystal chandeliers, each dozens of meters long. A complex floral glass dome. Gleaming golden floors. Melodious music. Well-dressed crowds. Upright soldiers in gold and red uniforms stationed on both sides, elegant attendants weaving through guests. Precisely on the hour, the indoor musical fountain erupted amid admiring exclamations, creating an artificial rainbow indoors.

This is too extravagant, Liao Tingyan thought.

Today she wore newly made formal attire. Being a female Alpha, she'd chosen not a dress but a formal trouser suit similar to men's wear, though more elegant and refined. Accustomed to loose T-shirts, Liao Tingyan felt uncomfortable, her waist constricted.

She expected to see the legendary protagonist, Imperial Prince Sima Jiao, but as the banquet approached its end, this main character hadn't appeared. Liao Tingyan overheard gossip from others' whispers—apparently, the Prince was extremely dissatisfied with this large-scale matchmaking and refused to attend.

News from the royal family rarely circulated, and only now did she learn the Prince didn't seem to be a traditional Omega.

Her siblings had already engaged in animated conversations with newly acquainted friends, leaving only Liao Tingyan alone again. The buzzing sounds indoors gave her a headache. She wanted to find a quiet corner to rest.

"Where are you going?" Her eldest brother shot her a particularly keen glance.

Liao Tingyan replied with an honest expression: "To address a physiological need."

"Come back quickly. Don't wander off!"

Although her family questioned her Alpha status and found it embarrassing, they still watched her closely when outside to prevent her from being bullied—to a large extent, her overprotective Alpha family treated her as if she were Beta or Omega.

Slipping from her family's sight, Liao Tingyan sat on a stone doorstep outside the banquet hall. This area was relatively secluded and quiet. Finally able to sit dejectedly, she heaved a long sigh and loosened her too-tight waist.

At that moment, she noticed a person standing quietly in shadows on the other side of a stone pillar, about five steps away. His features were indistinct, but he was very tall—probably an Alpha also attending the matchmaking banquet. He seemed to have been there a while, looking gloomily at the flower bed beside him. The flowers were indeed beautiful—pink Madame Florenah roses, particularly fragrant.

Yes, besides the rose fragrance, there was an especially aromatic grilled meat smell, like cumin-sprinkled meat sizzling on a grill.

Liao Tingyan looked around, puzzled. Was someone grilling meat here? She sniffed, suddenly feeling extremely hungry. Who would have thought this evening event provided only drinks without food? She'd come on an empty stomach, and now this aroma intensified her hunger.

"Do you smell delicious grilled meat?" Liao Tingyan attempted to chat with the fellow solitude-seeker beside her.

The person stood in shadows, his appearance unclear. Upon hearing her, he slowly replied: "…Grilled meat?"

He sounded unhappy, perhaps disliking strangers approaching. Liao Tingyan could only fall silent, but the person turned to look at her for a while, then suddenly made a low clicking sound and tossed something to her. Liao Tingyan looked down to find a red flower, a type she'd never seen before, shaped like a burning flame, with a faint fragrance that refreshed the mind.

When she looked up again, the person in shadows had vanished.

Liao Tingyan found the flower particularly beautiful and kept it in hand, carrying it back to the banquet hall. People along the way looked at her in shock.

Even her relatives stared as if their eyes would pop from their sockets.

Did I forget to retie my loosened waistband and expose my underwear? Why is everyone staring? She discreetly checked her pants zipper.

"How did you... how did you get the Flame Flower?" Father Liao asked.

When she'd slipped away earlier, the Imperial Grand Steward had appeared, selecting one hundred people on the Prince's behalf for the next round, each receiving a Flame Flower. The one in Liao Tingyan's hand was the hundred and first.

Liao Tingyan was dumbfounded. The old steward had already approached her, inquiring about the flower's origin, eyes full of suspicion.

"Just now, outside by the flower bed, a young man gave it to me." Perhaps the other person was also a chosen elite who didn't want to be Prince Consort, so he'd randomly tossed the flower to her.

Speaking of which, this "transferred" qualification shouldn't be valid, right?

But the old steward carefully examined the flower in her hand and suddenly smiled. He slightly bowed, instantly transforming his demeanor to kindness, and said: "Young lady, three days from now, please allow us to escort you to the palace for a banquet."

Thus, Liao Tingyan inexplicably advanced to the next selection round, entering the palace again under her siblings' and parents' complex gazes.

She might have arrived late. When she arrived, she witnessed a group of Alphas in a massive brawl. They'd somehow gotten into a fight—a very intense one.

At the fighting circle's center stood an unusually tall man with black hair and eyes, his face bearing a mocking smile, exuding hostility, knocking down opponents who lunged at him one by one.

Liao Tingyan stayed away from the fighting circle, listening to booming sounds, watching in trepidation for a while, thinking: This is a real Alpha, an absolute Alpha among Alphas! She'd never seen such an Alpha male in her life. His aura was too magnificent.

She watched as that super Alpha knocked everyone down, then twisted his wrist, looking at her—the only one still standing—with a gloomy expression. Liao Tingyan quickly retreated two steps: "I surrender. Don't attack."

This might be a martial selection for the Prince Consort position, and now this contestant had secured top rank with absolute advantage. The Prince Consort position seemed destined for him. As someone merely filling numbers, surrendering directly was wiser.

However, that person ignored her words and walked toward her.

As he approached, Liao Tingyan smelled lemon honey mint tea, suddenly feeling a bit thirsty. Today she'd come on a full stomach, but the hot sun along the way made her crave a cool drink.

The super Alpha came close and asked: "Want some grilled meat?"

Liao Tingyan recognized the voice—the person who'd tossed her the flower that night!

"…I don't want grilled meat. I want lemon honey mint tea. Did you just drink some? I can smell it." She demonstrated friendliness, showing strong survival instincts.

The super Alpha remained silent momentarily, then grasping her wrist pulled her toward a door. "Let's go then, to drink that tea."

Wait?

Attendants smilingly opened the door for them. Behind it waited an old butler who addressed her super Alpha companion: "Your Highness the Prince, have you made your selection?"

Her super Alpha companion restrained yet impatiently tugged at her. "It's her."

Wait, Your Highness the Prince? Is he the Prince?

The phenomenal super Alpha was an Omega.

Liao Tingyan couldn't help but fearfully turn toward the room full of battered Alphas behind them. Were they fake Alphas? She turned back to look at Prince Sima Jiao, who was taller than herself. No, this side might be a fake Omega.

She drank lemon honey mint tea with the Prince in a dreamlike state. The Prince drank this tea with distaste. "What flavor is this? What taste do you have?" Despite saying so, he finished more than half the large cup.

Liao Tingyan was escorted home, and the old butler kindly informed her that as long as her compatibility with the Prince reached above sixty percent, she would be Prince Consort.

That night, she received news that her compatibility with the Prince was one hundred percent.

Liao Tingyan's sentimental, gentle mother fainted on the spot.

Shocked my mom.

This miraculous compatibility rate astonished not only the Liao family but the entire nation. The royal family hadn't witnessed such a high compatibility rate in three hundred years. Such high compatibility meant they were extremely suitable for each other—love at first sight upon meeting, enchantment at second glance, fate sealed for three lifetimes.

Really? Did any earthshaking, heartrending situation occur between me and that grim-faced Prince?

She confusedly recalled her two encounters with Prince Sima Jiao, belatedly realizing the grilled meat aroma she'd first inquired about, and the lemon honey mint tea fragrance she'd smelled the second time, were the Prince's pheromone scents. Wait, whose pheromones could change scents?

On their third meeting, Liao Tingyan smelled the Prince's pheromone scent—butter cookies. Perhaps because they met during afternoon tea, when she wasn't hungry or thirsty but just wanted cookies, she smelled this type of pheromone.

She didn't know if it was her issue or Sima Jiao's, or maybe both had problems, just as she couldn't smell other Omegas' pheromones.

Sima Jiao sat across from her, reviewing a stack of government documents, the papers making strained rustling sounds under his pen, as if about to tear.

"What do you want to eat?" he asked without looking up, seemingly casual.

Liao Tingyan answered truthfully: "Butter cookies."

Is it this scent today? Sima Jiao put down his pen. "Why are you always thinking about food?"

Yet he ordered cookies for her—delicious ones. She ate them all afternoon, and after eating her fill, even took a nap there.

Liao Tingyan was extremely curious about what her pheromone smelled like to Sima Jiao. Later, after they married and went to Y-2 Star for their honeymoon, Sima Jiao finally answered her question.

"It's the scent of wind."

Does the wind have a scent?

He held her by the window, looking at the vast starry sky outside. "Tonight's wind carries the fragrance of flowers."

This was a very romantic answer, romantic in a way unlike the usually violent Prince.

Then Liao Tingyan said: "Tonight, you smell like spicy crayfish."

Silence.

He opened the internal line, expressionlessly instructing: "Send spicy crayfish to the Prince Consort."

When the crayfish arrived, Sima Jiao pointed at the aromatic dish: "See this plate of crayfish?"

"I see it!"

"I'd rather throw it away than let you eat it."

Is our compatibility one hundred percent? Did the machine malfunction during testing?

Later, in bed, she couldn't concentrate, drooling at his face. Sima Jiao almost suspected he was a giant spicy crayfish. With a dark expression, he put on his clothes and sat up. "Go eat your crayfish!"

In the end, the Prince on the verge of explosion sat with her and ate two plates of crayfish before calming down.

Liao Tingyan felt that being with the Prince, she didn't seem like an Alpha but more like an Omega. Honestly, she believed there couldn't be a more Alpha-like Omega in this world than the Prince. Perhaps there weren't even more Alpha-like Alphas than him.

She wasn't the only one who felt this way. In the palace, everyone seemed to have always treated the Prince as an Alpha. At banquets, Alphas would unconsciously gather around the leading Prince, willingly submitting to this powerful Prince from their hearts, while a group of gentle Omega ladies naturally engaged in domestic chatter with Liao Tingyan.

Only when the Prince came over with a dark expression to take her away from the Omegas did everyone realize… Ah, right, shouldn't we Omegas be spending time with the Prince?

The gentle-natured Omegas who liked caring for others looked at the dark-faced Prince: No, no, too scary, too scary.

Liao Tingyan visited her family, and Mother Liao worriedly held her hand. "My child, you've been married to the Prince for so long, and you're still not pregnant. What are we going to do?"

"…Mom, I'm an Alpha. I can't get pregnant."

Mother Liao suddenly came to her senses: "Oh, right! You're the Alpha!"

Back at the palace, Liao Tingyan held a plate of beef jerky and asked Sima Jiao: "Do we really need to have an heir?"

Sima Jiao frowned impatiently while handling government affairs: "Are you eager to get pregnant?"

Well, even the Prince himself didn't realize.

She ate two pieces of beef jerky, and the Prince finally reacted. He looked at her, his face suddenly darkening. Liao Tingyan, sitting in a swivel chair, kicked off, hugging the beef jerky and crunchily moving three meters away from him.

"Munch, munch, munch."

Sima Jiao called the Scientific Research Institute: "Now, immediately, at once, develop an artificial womb!"

"Your Highness, this violates our legal statute three hundred and twenty-one, and we are the Scientific Research Institute, not in charge of this. You should contact the Biological Research Institute…"

"Beep—"

He called the Legislative Council: "I want to amend the law. Change article three hundred and twenty-one for me!"

"Huh? Your Highness, this doesn't follow the procedure…"

Later, no one knew that the ruler who amended countless laws and ruled dictatorially his entire life initially demonstrated his dictatorship simply because he didn't want to bear children.

Years later, journalists were fortunate to interview the royal family. The lifelong and only consort of that self-dictatorial emperor was invited to speak.

"May I ask, all your children were born through artificial wombs? How do you feel about this?"

"Thanks for asking. I feel fine."

"I'm grateful that His Majesty had them develop artificial wombs, rather than methods for Alphas to bear children."

"Then may I ask, what exactly is the scent of the Great Emperor's pheromones? This question has puzzled the public for many years."

Liao Tingyan smiled. "Regardless of time or place, it's always my favorite scent."

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