“A beta getting to marry Admiral Pei You? You’re the luckiest damn person in the galaxy. And if you dare breathe a word of this little arrangement to anyone, you know exactly what’ll happen to you.” The Su family steward’s voice dripped with that sickly sweet sarcasm that makes your skin crawl.

Su Ling’s head hung low, his too-long hair shielding half his face—only a sharp, gaunt jawline visible to the world. He was dressed in a crisp white suit, the fabric swimming on his small frame, making him look even more fragile, like a bird with a broken wing.苏陵低着头，太长的头发遮住了半张脸，只露出一条瘦削的下巴。他穿着一件洁白的西装，面料在他小小的身躯上游动，使他看起来更加脆弱，就像一只断了翅膀的鸟。

“I’m talking to you! Stay in line, got it? Do you hear me?” The steward stood tall, nose in the air, not even deigning to look Su Ling in the eye, like he was nothing more than a speck of dust on his polished boots.

“Got it.” Su Ling’s voice was quiet, muffled, like his words were stuck in a pillow.

The steward’s face twisted in disgust, waving a hand like he was shooing a stray cat. “Get out of my sight. Useless waste of space.”

Su Ling turned and walked toward the hovercar, his only wedding dowry a beat-up housekeeping droid trailing at his heels.

No ceremony. No guests. No wedding gifts, no well wishes… In the pitch-black of the night, Su Ling was married off, quiet as a shadow slithering through an alley.没有仪式。没有客人。没有结婚礼物，没有祝福& &在漆黑的夜里，苏玲出嫁了，安静得像一个影子在小巷里滑动。

Not a single member of the main Su family showed up. Only a handful of servants lingered behind, “seeing him off” with sneers in their voices.苏氏家族没有一个成员出现。只有几个仆人留在后面，带着嘲笑的声音送他走。

“Admiral Pei You’s the strongest alpha in the whole damn sector—young, gorgeous, the stuff of everyone’s wildest fantasies.”贝聿铭上将是整个该死的行业中最强大的阿尔法——年轻、漂亮，是每个人最疯狂的幻想。

“Who cares if he’s paralyzed? Bet this little slut’s already chomping at the bit to climb on top.”

“Hahaha! An admiral in name only—who even knows if he’s got any fight left in him down there!”“没有,哈哈哈!一个名存实亡的海军上将，谁知道他在下面还有没有战斗精神呢！

“All look, no bite. Bet his bed’s colder than a space rock… and his new bride’s gonna be planting greenery on his head real soon. Hehe.”只看不咬。我敢打赌他的床比太空岩石还冷，他的新娘很快就会在他头上种上绿色植物。呵呵.”

“Look at him scurrying! Can’t even wait to get hitched, the shameless little brat. Begging for a man, that’s what he is.”看他跑得多快！都等不及要结婚了，无耻的小顽童。乞求一个人，他就是这样的人。

The hovercar door slid shut with a hiss, cutting off the servants’ jeers. Su Ling’s hands curled into tight fists, his cheeks burning hot with shame and anger.随着一声嘶嘶声，气垫车的门关上了，仆人们的嘲笑声戛然而止。苏凌的双手紧紧攥成拳头，他的脸颊因羞愧和愤怒而发烫。

Alone in the quiet of the hovercar, he finally understood a sliver of what the original Su Ling had been through—this body’s old self, the one whose life he’d stolen.独自一人在安静的气车里，他终于对原来的苏玲经历了什么有了一点了解——这具尸体上的旧自己，那个被他偷走了生命的自己。

Yeah, Su Ling was one of the poor schmucks who’d been yeeted into a book after dying. He’d just graduated high school, aced his college entrance exams, had his whole future laid out in front of him like a bright new star map… then an accident snuffed it all out, and next thing he knew, he was in this messed-up omegaverse galaxy.是的，苏玲是一个可怜的笨蛋，死后被写进了一本书。他刚从高中毕业，在大学入学考试中取得优异成绩，他的整个未来就像一张明亮的新星图一样展现在他面前——但是一场事故把这一切都扼杀了，接下来他所知道的是，他来到了这个混乱的欧米伽星系。

He was sitting there, a stranger in a strange body, and the first thing he had to do was marry a paralyzed war hero who’d end up killing the original him. Talk about drawing the short straw in the cosmic lottery.他坐在那里，一个陌生人在一个奇怪的身体里，他要做的第一件事就是嫁给一个瘫痪的战争英雄，这个英雄最终杀死了原来的他。这是宇宙彩票中抽到最后一根稻草。

Admiral Pei You had been injured in a recent battle against the Zerg—full-body paralysis, nothing but his eyes could move, a statue trapped in his own skin. His original fiancé, Su Qingluan, the omega who’d been his perfect genetic match, had bailed the second she heard he’d never walk again, screaming about calling off the engagement. But Pei You was the savior of Nalan Star, the man who’d pushed back the Zerg hordes and saved the entire star system. The net was flooded with prayers for his recovery, everyone singing his praises like he was a god.裴祐上将在最近一次与泽格人的战斗中受了伤，全身瘫痪，除了眼睛什么也动不了，就像一尊被困在自己皮肤里的雕像。他原来的未婚妻苏青鸾，在基因上与他完美匹配的人，在听到他再也不能走路的那一刻就离开了，尖叫着要取消婚约。但佩佑是纳兰星的救世主，他击退了虫族大军，拯救了整个星系。网上满是对他康复的祈祷，每个人都像神一样歌颂他。

The Su family didn’t dare say no to the engagement—not with the whole galaxy watching. So they’d huddled up, cooked up this dirty little plan, and picked the most unwanted member of the family to be the substitute: a beta, the original Su Ling. Sneaked him off in the dead of night, married him off like a secret, like he was something to be hidden in the dark.苏氏家族不敢在众目睽睽之下拒绝订婚。于是，他们凑在一起，制定了这个肮脏的小计划，并挑选了这个家庭中最不受欢迎的成员来代替：一个贝塔，原来的苏玲。在夜深人静的时候偷偷把他带走，像秘密一样把他嫁出去，就好像他是藏在黑暗里的东西。

The original Su Ling had been a bitter, jealous thing—vain, cowardly, too scared to fight back against the pain life threw at him, so he’d seethed and cursed in silence. Forced into this marriage with Pei You, he’d taken every cruel, petty revenge he could think of on the helpless admiral. And in the end, the story’s true protagonist had come to save Pei You… and the original Su Ling had died a messy, painful death, his body left to rot in some forgotten corner of the galaxy.

Su Ling’s stomach twisted into a tight knot. He’d never lay a finger on the admiral, never stoop to the original’s evil tricks—but he had no clue if he could change the fate written in the stars. One thing was for sure: he had to get a divorce before the admiral recovered, or he’d be a goner.苏玲的胃扭成了一个紧结。他从来没有对海军上将动过一根手指头，从来没有屈服于祖先的邪恶诡计，但他不知道自己是否能改变命中注定的命运。有一件事是肯定的：他必须在海军上将康复之前离婚，否则他就完蛋了。

He turned to stare out the hovercar window. Towering skyscrapers scraped the dark sky, hovercars zipping past in a blur of light, not a single blade of grass or bloom of a flower in sight. Everything was cold, everything was foreign—like he’d stepped into a metal tomb that breathed.

The buildings thinned out, and the hovercar touched down in front of a massive, ironclad metal gate, its surface scarred like it had weathered a hundred wars… hell, I dunno, like someone forged it from the ashes of a battlefield and bolted it shut with starship parts.

“Admiral’s spouse, unit YD3571972408 at your service.” A flat, mechanical voice boomed from a blocky humanoid droid, its eyes flickering with a dull blue light. “Follow me.”

That title hit Su Ling like a punch to the gut. He blinked, then mumbled a quiet thank you, falling into step behind the droid.

The house was massive—close to two thousand square meters of cold, gunmetal gray metal walls and black steel furniture, the air thick with a solemnity that felt like a funeral. Not a single decoration to mark a new marriage, not a single sign of warmth anywhere.

This wasn’t a home. It was a iron coffin, welded shut and dropped into the void. Su Ling thought, trailing the droid, that living here long enough would turn even the warmest heart into a hunk of metal, colder and stiffer than the droids that roamed the halls.

He’d hoped the bedroom would be better. It was worse. A gunmetal gray bed with a charcoal black sheet, the admiral lying there in a plain black nightgown—no patterns, no frills, nothing. He looked like a corpse laid out for burial, still and silent.

Even prone, the admiral was all broad shoulders and sharp angles, faint outlines of his pectoral muscles visible under the thin fabric—his body was a masterpiece, forged from years of battle, hard and strong.

Then those cold eyes locked onto him, and Su Ling jumped out of his skin.

Dark, black as the deepest part of space, they glanced at him like he was a fly buzzing around the room, then flicked away, back to staring at the plain metal ceiling, empty and unseeing.

Su Ling froze, not knowing what to do, what to say. The thought that this man could kill him with a single order made his hands shake. But god, he was beautiful. Sharp jaw, high cheekbones, a straight nose that could cut glass, even eyelashes long and dark, fanning his cheeks like ink strokes on white paper. His face was like it had been carved by the gods themselves, perfect in a way that made you feel inadequate just looking at him.

Protagonist perks, I guess. Su Ling envied him for a split second, then rubbed his nose awkwardly. “Admiral.”

No answer. The admiral’s eyes slid shut, his face impassive. Su Ling glanced at the droid, hoping for some kind of cue—dont get any, it just stood there, a statue of metal and wiring.

“I’m tired.” Su Ling mumbled the words, his head still hung low, not even sure who he was saying them to.

“Admiral’s spouse, follow me.” The droid’s small light screen flickered once, a cold blue blip.

Stepping out of the admiral’s room, Su Ling let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Even paralyzed, the man exuded a power that pressed down on you like a ton of metal, a pressure so thick you could taste it.

“What’s your name?” Su Ling asked the droid, his voice still a little shaky.

“YD3571972408.” The droid’s answer was stiff, robotic, no inflection at all.

Su Ling winced—there was no way he’d remember that ridiculous string of numbers. “Does the admiral call you that?”

“Master refers to me as D3.”

“A nickname, then.” Su Ling smiled, a small, bright thing that peeked through his fear, a little spark of life in the cold metal house. “Can I call you Square?”

He tugged at the droid’s metal arm, chattering away for minutes—nonsense, really, just words spilling out of his mouth. He just needed to talk to someone, anyone. And in this house, the only company was droids, all metal and code, no warmth, no heart.

“Admiral’s spouse, it is time for rest. Please retire to your quarters.” Even the droid wouldn’t indulge his rambling any longer.

Su Ling stared at his room—cold metal walls, a plain white sheet on the bed. It looked like a morgue, sterile and empty, the air cold enough to see your breath.

Stop it. Stop thinking stupid things. He flopped onto the bed, face first.

Thud. A dull, heavy sound, his skull colliding with something hard as a rock. Su Ling sucked in a sharp breath, his hand flying to the back of his head. The bed frame was solid metal—did they not have mattresses in the space age? Was a little comfort too much to ask for in this godforsaken galaxy?

He rubbed his throbbing skull, his chest tight with loneliness. Alone in a strange world, no family, no friends, nothing to his name. All he could do was fight to survive.

And the admiral… he hadn’t had it easy, either. An orphan from the slums, clawing his way up from nothing to become an admiral, a war hero. Then the paralysis diagnosis—permanent, the doctors said—and all the applause, all the flowers, all the adoration had vanished faster than a star going supernova. No family to back him up, no clan to protect him. That’s why the Su family had dared to treat him like this, to spit on his name and his honor—they knew he had no one to fight for him.

He was arrogant, cold, distant… but he wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t the kind of man who killed for no reason. If Su Ling took care of him, if he was good, if he got a divorce before the story’s true protagonist showed up—if he gave the admiral back to the one who was meant to save him—maybe he’d live. Maybe he’d make it out of this alive.

He could treat this like a job, a temporary gig. Take care of the admiral, learn the ropes of this strange new world, and bide his time. Survive first, ask questions later. That was the only rule that mattered.

A contract. He needed a contract, something to protect him, a safety net in this chaos. Su Ling rummaged through the room, tossing aside metal boxes and empty drawers, until he found a crumpled piece of paper and a pen, scratchy and cheap. He scrawled two words at the top, his hand shaking a little, the ink smudged on the cold paper: Contract Marriage.