When Shen Qingyu was three years old, he still did not understand what death meant.

He only knew that the house had become very quiet. The adults who used to bend down and smile at him no longer smiled. The servants walked more softly than usual, their footsteps pressed flat against the floorboards as if any sound might break something fragile. The white curtains in the mourning hall swayed in the wind, and incense smoke curled upward in thin grey threads, blurring the black-and-white photographs placed side by side at the front of the room.

One photograph showed his Omega father. The man in the picture had gentle eyes and a faint smile, and Shen Qingyu had inherited his pale skin, delicate brow bones, and the soft curve of his lips. When he was alive, he liked to hold Shen Qingyu in his arms and call him Xiao Yu, his voice warm enough to make the child laugh even before he understood the words. The other photograph showed his Beta father — a man who looked ordinary compared with the refined Shen family, but whose smile was broad and bright. Shen Qingyu remembered his hands most clearly. They were large, warm, and slightly rough from work. Those hands had once lifted him high into the air until he squealed with laughter. Now both of them were inside cold frames.

Shen Qingyu stood in front of the mourning hall wearing a small black suit that did not fit properly. The collar was stiff, his shoes hurt his feet, and someone had tried to comb his soft black hair neatly, but a few strands kept falling over his forehead. He held a white flower in both hands.

An adult told him, "Xiao Yu, bow to your fathers."

Shen Qingyu looked up blankly. His eyes were too bright, too clean, still carrying the confusion of a child who thought the people he loved might simply open the door and come back.

"Where is Baba?" he asked.

No one answered immediately. The adults exchanged glances. The Shen family had always valued manners, and even grief had to be kept within the limits of dignity. No one wailed loudly. No one beat their chest. No one collapsed beside the coffins. They only looked at the three-year-old child with complicated eyes — pity, discomfort, impatience, and something else Shen Qingyu would not understand until many years later. Embarrassment.

Because his Omega father, Shen Huaizhi, had once been the most treasured child of the Shen family's direct line. Because Shen Huaizhi had been beautiful, gifted, and born with an excellent Omega constitution. Because the family had once planned a brilliant marriage for him, and Shen Huaizhi had refused all of it and eloped with a Beta. And because the child left behind by that elopement was now standing in the Shen family's mourning hall, small, silent, and inconvenient.

The clan elder sitting at the head of the room sighed. "Whatever happened between the adults, the child is innocent." Those words sounded compassionate.

But Shen Qingyu heard the second half of the sentence many times in the years that followed.

The child is innocent, but...

The child is innocent, but his father made the family lose face. The child is innocent, but his other father was only a Beta. The child is innocent, but his existence reminds everyone of Shen Huaizhi's rebellion. The child is innocent, but raising him in the ancestral home is already generous enough.

At three years old, Shen Qingyu did not understand any of that. He only held the white flower tighter and asked again, "When will Baba come back?"

This time, a woman standing nearby lowered her eyes. "They won't come back."

Shen Qingyu stared at her. His small fingers loosened. The white flower fell to the ground. No one scolded him — perhaps they thought a child who had just lost both parents deserved a little tolerance — but no one picked him up either. He stood there for a very long time, surrounded by adults who pitied him from a distance.

That was Shen Qingyu's first memory of the Shen ancestral home. A place full of people. A place where no one reached out.

The Shen ancestral home was vast. Its grey-tiled roofs stretched beneath old trees, and its courtyards were arranged with the kind of restrained elegance that came from generations of wealth. Even the stone path seemed to carry history. Every carved beam, every screen wall, every antique vase placed in the corridor silently announced that this was not merely a home but a family — a clan, a place with rules, hierarchy, bloodline, and face.

Shen Qingyu was brought into that house like a small object returned to its original owner after being lost outside, and everyone said he was lucky. "After all, he is still Shen blood." "His father was wrong, but the child can still be raised properly." "He is an Omega too. If he is taught well, he may still have a good future." "Fortunately, he is young. Children forget quickly." They spoke as if Shen Qingyu had been rescued, as if the moment he entered the ancestral home, the past should quietly disappear from him.

But children did not forget just because adults wished them to.

In the first month after arriving at the Shen house, Shen Qingyu often woke up crying. He would sit on the bed in the unfamiliar room, clutching the quilt with both hands, his little body trembling as he called for his fathers in a hoarse voice. The nanny assigned to him would hurry in and pat his back, murmuring, "Young Master Qingyu, don't cry. Be good." He did not want to be good. He wanted to go home. But his home was gone, so he cried until he had no strength left, then curled up under the quilt and fell asleep with wet lashes.

The next morning, the nanny would report to the adults: "Young Master Qingyu cried again last night." The adults would sigh and say he was still young, that he needed time, that he had an Omega temperament and was more sensitive than the Alpha boys, and that if he kept crying like this it would become a habit and he should not be indulged. No one said those things cruelly, and that made it worse. Cruelty, at least, had edges — you could point at it and say, this hurt me. But the Shen family's coldness was wrapped in reason. Every dismissal sounded like education. Every distance sounded like propriety.

Slowly, Shen Qingyu learned that if he cried too often, the adults frowned. If he asked for his fathers, the servants went quiet. If he refused to eat, people said he was difficult. If he sat silently, people said he was gloomy. So he cried less, and then he stopped crying where anyone could see.

There were many children in the Shen family. Most of them were Alphas who ran through the courtyards in groups, loud and energetic, their voices echoing beneath the eaves. They climbed trees, fought over toys, competed over grades before they even entered formal school, and argued with the absolute confidence of children who knew the whole house belonged to them. Shen Qingyu did not belong to any of their groups. He was too young for some of them, too quiet for others, too beautiful and pale and obviously an Omega.

In an Alpha-dominated family, an Omega child was supposed to be soft, obedient, lovable, and easy to protect. Shen Qingyu was none of those things. He had been soft once, but that softness had been buried with his fathers. Now he watched more than he spoke. When someone took his toy, he did not cry — he stared at them until they felt uncomfortable. When an older cousin told him to move aside, he moved, but his eyes were cold.

When someone called his Beta father "that man outside," Shen Qingyu picked up the porcelain cup in front of him and smashed it on the floor. The entire room fell silent. The older cousin who had spoken froze. An aunt frowned and called his name, and when she told him to apologise, he looked at her with that flat, measuring gaze of his.

"He should apologise first," Shen Qingyu said. His voice was still childish, but every word was clear.

The older cousin shouted that he hadn't said anything wrong. The clan elder's voice cut through the noise and quieted the room. The elder studied Shen Qingyu for a long moment before saying that the cousin had spoken without thinking, but that smashing things was unacceptable. The cousin lowered his head, and Shen Qingyu waited — waited for the adult to say the cousin should also apologise. Instead, the elder said, "You are an Omega. Your temper should not be so hard."

That day, Shen Qingyu learned another rule of the Shen family. If someone hurt him first, it was a mistake. If he reacted, it was his character.

Shen Jianing appeared in Shen Qingyu's life like a small white flower growing beside a stone path. He was two years older than Shen Qingyu, with soft features, fair skin, and eyes that always looked slightly wet even when he was not crying. His voice was gentle, and he spoke slowly, as if afraid of startling people. The adults liked him very much. "Jianing is sensible." "Look how gentle he is." "He knows how to take care of younger children." "Although his constitution is not outstanding, his temperament is good." Compared with the Alpha boys who ran wild through the courtyard, Shen Jianing seemed especially obedient. Compared with Shen Qingyu, who was silent, cold-eyed, and sharp whenever provoked, Shen Jianing seemed even more lovable.

The first time Shen Jianing came to Shen Qingyu's room, he brought a small wooden horse and stood by the door with a soft smile. "Qingyu, Grandmother said you might be lonely. I came to play with you." Shen Qingyu looked up from the picture book in front of him and said nothing. Shen Jianing walked in carefully and placed the wooden horse on the table. "This is for you." The horse was old — one of its painted eyes had faded — and it was clearly not new. But Shen Jianing smiled as if he had given him something precious.

"I don't want it," Shen Qingyu said.

The smile on Shen Jianing's face stiffened, just for a moment, and then his eyes lowered. "Do you dislike it?" His fingers tightened around the wooden toy. "I just wanted to give you something..." His voice trembled slightly.

At that moment, the nanny entered with warm milk. Seeing Shen Jianing standing there with reddened eyes and Shen Qingyu sitting coldly at the table, she immediately paused. Shen Jianing quickly shook his head. "Nothing. Qingyu didn't do anything." The nanny looked at Shen Qingyu with soft disapproval. "Young Master Qingyu, Young Master Jianing kindly came to play with you. Why are you making him sad?" Shen Jianing hurried to say that Qingyu had done nothing, that perhaps he simply didn't like him, and the nanny's expression softened immediately. "How could that be? Young Master Jianing is so kind." Then, to Shen Qingyu, her tone still gentle but carrying clear disapproval: "Young Master Qingyu, you should be polite. Young Master Jianing is your older cousin."

Shen Qingyu looked from the nanny to Shen Jianing. Shen Jianing's eyes were red, but he was secretly watching him. The wooden horse sat between them like evidence of a crime Shen Qingyu had not committed. For the first time, Shen Qingyu felt something he could not name — not anger, not sadness, but a strange, cold confusion. Why did everyone believe Shen Jianing was sad because of him? He had only said he did not want the horse. And why did Shen Jianing say Qingyu didn't do anything before anyone had even asked? That sentence made him look even more guilty. He lowered his eyes. The milk on the tray was still steaming. He suddenly did not want to drink it.

After that day, Shen Jianing came to find Shen Qingyu often — sometimes with snacks, sometimes with toys, sometimes simply standing beside him and asking in that gentle voice, "Can I sit with you?" If Shen Qingyu refused, Shen Jianing would look hurt. If Shen Qingyu agreed, Shen Jianing would ask questions he did not want to answer. "Do you miss your fathers?" "Were you happier before coming here?" "Do you dislike us?" "Do you think Grandfather treats me better?" Every question sounded innocent. Every question stepped exactly where it hurt.

At first, Shen Qingyu answered honestly: Yes. Yes. I don't know. He does. Then Shen Jianing's eyes would turn red. "I didn't mean it that way," he would whisper. And somehow, by the time adults arrived, it would become Shen Qingyu bullying him.

Once, when Shen Qingyu was five, the family gathered for Mid-Autumn Festival. The moon was bright that night and lanterns hung under the eaves. The courtyard smelled of osmanthus and warm pastries, and the younger children sat together around a low table, eating mooncakes while the adults talked nearby. A servant placed a small plate in front of Shen Qingyu — inside was a snow-skin mooncake with lotus seed paste, which had been his Omega father's favourite. Shen Qingyu looked at it for a long time before picking it up, and just as he was about to take a bite, Shen Jianing leaned over.

"Qingyu, can I taste that one?"

Shen Qingyu's fingers paused. There were many mooncakes on the table — red bean, five-nut, egg yolk, lotus paste, osmanthus — but Shen Jianing looked only at the one in his hand. "No," Shen Qingyu said. Shen Jianing blinked and said he only wanted a small bite. Shen Qingyu said no again. "Qingyu..." "I said no." The nearby children turned to look. Shen Jianing lowered his head, his voice softening to a near-whisper. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you hated sharing with me." Shen Qingyu's grip tightened around the mooncake. "I don't hate sharing." "Then why..." "Because this is mine."

The words were not loud. But they were too hard. An older cousin clicked his tongue. Another child said Jianing had only wanted a bite. Shen Jianing quickly said, "Don't say that. Qingyu probably has a reason." That sentence, once again, made things worse.

An aunt noticed the commotion and walked over. Before Shen Qingyu could speak, one of the children explained that Jianing had wanted to taste Qingyu's mooncake and Qingyu had refused and made him sad. The aunt frowned. "Qingyu, it is a festival. Don't be so narrow-minded."