In the dream, he did not accept the cancellation. He stood in the study and refused to let go. He said the engagement had been arranged by their parents. He said Xie Linchuan had no right to humiliate him. He said Shen Jianing was pretending. He said everyone was blind. He spoke every truth. But every truth became uglier when it left his mouth. Xie Linchuan looked at him with disappointment. The Shen family looked at him with anger. Shen Jianing cried until he almost fainted. Everyone said, "Qingyu, why have you become like this?"

In the dream, Shen Qingyu fought harder. He explained more, presented evidence, pointed out contradictions, exposed lies. But the more he said, the more people frowned. The more he resisted, the more pitiful Shen Jianing became. The more he tried to prove he had been wronged, the more vicious he looked.

Then the dream changed. He was older, standing beneath flashing cameras, and countless voices crashed over him like black waves.

Shen Qingyu is too disgusting. Why is he still clinging to Xie Linchuan? Jianing is so gentle. How could anyone bully him? He has a pretty face and a rotten heart. A proud Omega like him deserves to be abandoned.

He opened his mouth to speak. No sound came out.

The scene shifted. He was in a dressing room, his face in the mirror beautiful and exhausted, his lips pale, his eyes red but tearless. Someone outside said, "The director wants to replace him." Another voice answered, "No one dares use him now. He's a hot potato." He reached toward the mirror. The reflection looked back at him with hatred. Then the mirror cracked.

The dream turned again. Rain. A road at night. Headlights splitting the darkness. A car door that would not open. A phone ringing unanswered. A voice crying, a voice laughing, and then Shen Jianing's voice asking, "Why did you have to fight me?" Then everything shattered.

Shen Qingyu woke before dawn.

He was lying on the floor beside the bed, his whole body soaked in cold sweat. His throat burned. His glands ached. His hair stuck to his forehead, and his breathing came shallow and fast. For a long time, he could not move. The room was quiet. No black waves. No flashing cameras. No cracked mirror. No rain. Only the faint grey light before sunrise.

Shen Qingyu slowly raised a hand and pressed it over his eyes.

It was a dream. Only a dream. Not prophecy. Not fate. Not some mysterious warning from the heavens. Just the nightmare of a sixteen-year-old who had spent too many years being misunderstood and had finally seen, with brutal clarity, where that road could lead.

If he fought them using their rules, he would lose. If he begged them to believe him, he would lose. If he screamed that he was innocent, they would only say he was hysterical. If he clung to the engagement, he would become exactly what they already thought he was: vicious, jealous, unreasonable, pitiful in a way they could despise.

Shen Qingyu lowered his hand. His eyes were dry.

The fever had not broken, but his mind was strangely clear. He looked toward the window. The sky outside was beginning to brighten — at the edge of the world, a pale line of light cut through the darkness. He stared at it for a long time.

Then, slowly, he sat up.

His body was weak. His head throbbed. His throat hurt so badly that swallowing felt like being cut. But his expression was calm. Calmer than it had ever been.

He would not become the person in that dream. He would not spend his life proving himself to people determined to misunderstand him. He would not fight Shen Jianing for scraps of affection from the Shen family. He would not beg Xie Linchuan to remember promises made by the dead. He would not stand in the same place, bleeding again and again, just because others wanted him to play the villain.

If they wanted him cold, then he would be colder. If they wanted him proud, then he would make pride into armour. If they wanted him vicious, then he would show them a distance so clean they could not touch him.

But he would not rot here. He would leave — not by crying, not by begging, not by waiting for someone to choose him. He would leave by becoming someone no one in this house could ignore.

Shen Qingyu gripped the edge of the bed and slowly stood.

The fever made his vision blur. But his back remained straight.

Outside the window, dawn finally broke, thin and cold and without ceremony. And in that spare morning light, the Shen family's unwanted Omega quietly severed himself from the last version of himself that still hoped to be loved by them.