The first research topic Zhou Nian undertook upon joining the laboratory was one personally designated by Silas Shen: "The Adaptational Impact of Long-Term Blocker Patch Usage on the Omega Nervous System."
What was initially expected to be a routine direction to supplement clinical data—progressing with an unstoppable force during the first two weeks—unexpectedly presented an unforeseen obstacle by the time the routine data summary arrived in the third week.
Deep into the night inside the laboratory, only the rhythmic, low hum of several high-precision centrifuges vibrated through the space.
"Simply put... could this be considered a form of 'withdrawal response'?" Lin held a few freshly printed biochemical charts, his brow furrowed into a tight knot, his tone thoroughly laced with confusion. "Professor Shen, look at these cohorts of Omegas who have used the blocker patches long-term. Within twenty-four hours of discontinuing the patch, their perceptual sensitivity to residual environmental pheromones manifested a massive, anomalous spike."
The fluorescent curves on the display resembled a startled viper, soaring abruptly and frantically upward at a specific peak.
"This isn't withdrawal."
Silas was currently seated before the core control console. The night sky outside silhouetted his somewhat slender frame as he leaned forward marginally. Those clear phoenix eyes stared unblinkingly at the glaring red line through his gold-rimmed glasses, his cool voice devoid of any dramatic fluctuations:
"This is an adaptational compensation of the nervous system. After the blocker patches perfectly shield external pheromones over a long duration, the olfactory receptors within the Omega's body undergo an up-regulation because they haven't received stimuli for so long. This is part of the human body's precise self-defense mechanism. However, once usage is abruptly halted and they are exposed to a normal environment, the olfactory receptors briefly fall into a state of extreme starvation, subsequently generating hypersensitivity."
"Then what do we do?" Lin panicked slightly, his voice running dry. "The participants can currently detect the incredibly faint, residual trace of Alpha pheromones clinging to an ordinary Beta three floors away. If this is applied clinically, if an Omega forgets to apply the patch one day, won't they be instantly overwhelmed by the chaotic external pheromones? Wouldn't this be considered a massive side effect?"
Silas did not answer immediately.
He slowly straightened his posture, smoothly flipping open the thick, combination-locked private laboratory logbook beside his hand. Pinching a signing pen between slender fingertips, he rapidly sketched several complex neurotransmitter binding formulas across the paper. However, upon reaching the final, crucial catalytic microporous blocking configuration, the tip of his pen came to an abrupt halt.
The surrounding air seemed to solidify in this exact instant, leaving only the wet black ink on the paper radiating a faint, cold chemical scent.
Altering the pore size of the material? No, that would reduce the baseline shielding rate.
Directly introducing neural inhibitors? Absolutely not, that would cause secondary damage to the Omega's glands.
Just as Silas's brow began to mirror the same tight furrow, a rich, burning, and immensely comforting aroma of blazing oranges enveloped him completely from behind without any warning.
"What if we introduce an 'identification code' within the molecular layer of the blocker patch?"
Hunter Huo's voice was lazy, yet it carried an undeniable certainty.
Silas blanked slightly, turning his head toward the sound. The golden-haired youth who had been dozing off in the rear rest area had drawn close to the laboratory bench at some unknown point. Half of Hunter's frame leaned casually against the cold alloy surface, a white marker spinning with exceptional fluidity between his long, handsome fingers.
In this moment, those puppy eyes that were usually brimming with stickiness and spoiled behavior rarely held a few fractions of seriousness and focus unique to a top-tier Alpha.
"Professor, I'm being serious, don't look at me with that kind of expression."
Meeting Silas's scrutinizing gaze, Hunter hooked the corners of his lips into a somewhat flamboyant smile. He lowered his head slightly, pulling their breathing into a somewhat ambiguous proximity:
"What if, instead of making the blocker patch an absolute, dead shield, we pre-program a 'safety list' within the polymer membrane? We allow the patch to maintain a low, 20% sensitivity perception exclusively for specifically registered pheromones on the list. As for all other chaotic, aggressive signals—those get blocked one hundred percent."
As the youth spoke, his warm breath, laced with a faint orange fragrance, brushed against Silas's small earlobe puff by puff:
"This way, it ensures Omegas remain entirely undisturbed by any external perpetrators in their daily lives, while still permitting them to maintain the most basic, normal physiological stimulation for their nervous system within a safe environment. It's like secretly leaving a small window open on that otherwise airtight, towering wall—one that only opens for a specific person. Isn't that nice, Professor Shen?"
Silas's slender eyelashes trembled violently.
Those phoenix eyes, which historically held nothing but rigorous data, reflected the youth's somewhat excessively dazzling countenance in this very moment. A prolonged gaze expanded through the air, causing the surrounding scents of fir trees and oranges to turn faintly scalding.
"This configuration... is indeed viable within our previous molecular path."
After a long while, Silas shifted his gaze away somewhat stiffly, looking back down at the logbook. His pale fingertips curled slightly due to an excess of logic, and he cleared his throat somewhat deliberately:
"But this means we will have to tear down and re-adjust the entire original polymer alignment formula of the blocker patch. It will require a massive expenditure of energy and an immeasurable time cycle."
"Then we re-adjust it."
Hunter let out a low laugh. He suddenly extended his broad, warm palm, overbearingly yet exceptionally gently covering Silas's hand that held the pen, tightening his grip slightly as if transferring an unreserved baseline of support.
細碎, near-certain light danced within the youth's eyes. He grinned, his two sharp canine teeth lending him a somewhat rogueish yet exceptionally affectionate look:
"After all... wasn't the final research cycle of our project group determined a long time ago? It's 'for a lifetime,' Professor Shen."
In that exact instant, Lin, who had been standing to the side intending to deliver a report, felt as though he had swallowed a massive gulp of high-concentration industrial saccharine. With a thoroughly world-weary expression, he turned his head sharply toward the window.
The tips of Silas's ears, hidden behind his gold-rimmed glasses, burned terribly hot in an instant. He cast a somewhat vexed glare sideways at Hunter, swatting the youth's restless hand away with a crisp slap, and chided in a low voice: "Nonsense."
Yet the exact second he turned his body around, facing away from Hunter to confront the logbook once more, Silas could not restrain the corners of his lips from hooking upward.
Gripping the pen tightly, he wrote down the core phrase of Hunter's absurd yet genius concept at the absolute top of a pristine page, word for word, in his most beautiful regular script: [Safety List].
This single night of brainstorming thoroughly rewritten the entire research trajectory of the blocker patches.
Later, after experiencing countless days and nights of tackling core difficulties, this bold improvement plan perfectly conquered the obstacle of adaptational compensation and was formally integrated into the National Reproductive Health Clinical Guidelines. Within those guidelines that sent shockwaves through the entire international biochemical community, this unique identification code configuration was solemnly named by the committee as—the "Huo Patch."
Consequently, for the better part of the following month, a certain large golden retriever completely lost his head with pride.
Hunter flaunted it to practically everyone he crossed. In the corridors of the Life Sciences department, inside the top-floor offices of the Huo Group, and even within the Beijing University cafeterias, he would grab people just to ramble:
"See that? Professor Silas Shen's latest cover story published in Science—not only is my name listed as the second author, but there's a global, top-tier technical solution named directly after my surname inside! Do you understand the sheer gold content of being a family member?"
"Hunter Huo."
One evening, the pushed-to-his-limit Professor Shen coldly intercepted him at the laboratory entrance. Silas stood with his arms crossed, his cool phoenix eyes narrowing slightly as his gold-rimmed glasses flashed with a dangerous, icy glare under the sunset. "If you talk nonsense outside one more time, I will apply to the editorial board first thing tomorrow morning to have that patch name deleted entirely."
The invisible tail wagging behind Hunter so hard it was practically taking flight instantly drooped down with a quiet thud.
He immediately made a zipping motion across his lips, obediently shutting his mouth and raising his hands in a gesture of surrender, yet his eyes remained entirely filled with a rogueish amusement.
However, while his mouth remained behaved, the youth's hands could not stay idle.
The following morning, when Silas customarily arrived at his office, unlocked the combination drawer, and flipped open that private laboratory logbook—which was kept so rigorously that not a single millimeter of error was permitted—his gaze froze abruptly the millisecond it touched the flyleaf.
Right in the center of that originally pristine flyleaf, which represented the absolute seriousness of science, someone had covertly used a blue ballpoint pen to scribble a row of exceptionally childish, large characters, even drawing two hearts alongside them:
[Huo Patch: Also known as "Professor Shen's Exclusive Orange-Flavored Identification Code," open only to Silas for the rest of this life.]
Staring at this graffiti that could practically be considered "academic sacrilege," Silas found himself caught between tears and laughter for a time.
He shook his head with helplessness, smoothly pulling a red signing pen from the holder, and tapped down two characters alongside it rather severely as a commentary: [Childish.]
Yet that red pen—which usually never hesitated to scratch out a data point the moment a single discrepancy was discovered—hovered in the air for a long duration. Ultimately, it merely dropped to the side with an indulgent touch, permitting that crooked blue handwriting to remain wantonly and eternally upon the flyleaf that recorded the majority of his life's blood and tears.
Outside the window, the late summer breeze carried a hint of residual heat, rustling the green plants within the laboratory.
Everything was advancing toward the sweetest direction. After navigating layer upon layer of tumultuous waves, Silas and Hunter's lives had finally ushered in an absolute period of stability belonging exclusively to the two of them.