Stealing Moonlight (Lily ABO) - Chapter 1

Ruan Jing first saw Li Ling’er after her differentiation in her family’s three-acre cornfield.

On the hottest day of summer, it was almost dark when Ruan Jing finally got home.

Two days and a night on a hard train seat, more than half a day on a bus, plus over four hours of walking, even for her, an Alpha, the arduous journey had nearly dislocated all her bones from exhaustion.

But when she arrived home, she found her mother, Liang Fengying, preparing to water their three acres of responsibility land. Ruan Jing quickly put down her luggage, barely resting, gulped down two dippers of well water, grabbed half a piece of white steamed bun, and hurried over with a hoe on her shoulder.

The pump house at the edge of the field was communal, with adobe walls on four sides and a makeshift roof of asbestos tiles and dried wheat straw. It only blocked the wind but not the rain. When the light was on, it seemed to attract all the mosquitoes and insects from the field. Moths crashed into the light bulb one after another, their scales falling like snow, fluttering onto Ruan Jing’s head.

Ruan Jing wore one of her mother’s gray calico blouses and was using a rope to lower the water pump into the well.

She was tall and long-legged but very thin, full of sharp angles and straight lines. Her silhouette projected on the dusty yellow wall was as graceful and slender as the towering, solitary green peak on the back mountain of the village. The blouse was naturally loose and short on her, barely reaching her navel. When she bent over, a section of her white and slender waist was exposed, perfect for the bloodthirsty and annoying mosquitoes, which soon bit a circle of bumps on Ruan Jing’s lower back.

Ruan Jing felt a bit itchy and scratched a few times, leaving several red marks on her lower back with her fingernails. But it was worse to scratch; the more she scratched, the itchier it got, and the mosquito bites swelled larger. Ruan Jing could only grit her teeth and endure it, forcing the water pump to the bottom.

After she closed the electric switch, as soon as she heard the normal pumping sound of the water pump, she quickly turned off the light and ran out of the pump house without a moment’s delay.

Watering these three acres would take at least four or five hours. Most people would go home and nap for a while, but the exhausted Ruan Jing sat on the field ridge, looking up at the crescent moon in the sky.

She breathed deeply; the pure, natural scent of the field relaxed her entirely. These past few days on the road, Ruan Jing had smelled too many messy and strange odors, especially the fishy smell representing irritability and impatience. Low-dose inhibitors couldn’t numb her sense of smell at all. Ruan Jing had been so nauseated along the way that her head was spinning, and her nose was almost useless.

Northern summers are divided by black and white. No matter how scorching hot it is during the day, at night, a breeze brings a refreshing coolness. Ruan Jing stretched her body in the earthy wind. Suddenly, a faint Omega pheromone drifted into her nose. This scent was strangely familiar; Ruan Jing had smelled it many times at school. She quickly realized that this pheromone was very similar to the smell of Shalimar vanishing cream.

Then, Ruan Jing heard the sounds of young men and women giggling and a series of messy footsteps in the field behind her.

She knew that young people in the village liked to mess around in the fields, but an unmarked Omega was involved too? That was truly rare.

After all, Omegas these days are extremely precious. Unlike Alphas, who account for over 15% of the total population, Omegas make up less than 1% of the total population. Moreover, most Omegas, especially female Omegas, usually display extraordinary beauty at a very young age, so they are often cherished like precious pearls.

At the beginning of their differentiation period, Omegas would become engaged to an Alpha according to their parents’ wishes and matchmakers’ words, and complete the final marking after the differentiation period ends.

“Pretty playthings exclusively for Alphas,” Shao Huainian, from the same major, had commented. He already had his “pretty plaything” and had brazenly brought her to school, even applying for couples’ dorms. She was a fragile, snow-white female Omega, like a newborn bird, always clinging tightly to Shao Huainian, emitting the rich scent of osmanthus.

Ruan Jing thought it might be a young couple having fun and didn’t want to bother them. But then she remembered her mother’s repeated warnings not to let people trample the crops. Ruan Jing had no choice but to subtly release some pheromones, hoping to warn them that someone was there, but no one paid attention. Instead, the ruckus in the cornfield grew louder.

Ruan Jing was a bit puzzled and released more pheromones, somewhat like a warning.

But the next second, she suddenly remembered that her pheromones smelled almost exactly like broken, fresh malt, which was jarringly unusual in the city but so common in the fields that it was barely noticeable.

Thinking of this, she had no choice but to follow the sound, hoping to make some noise and scare them away.

The sounds of frolicking got closer and closer. Across two rows of corn, Ruan Jing realized she was wrong. It was actually four half-grown boys, all Betas, surrounding a young female Omega wearing an orchid-colored blouse and a light yellow headscarf. As she got closer, the vanishing cream scent from the female Omega became stronger.

The female Omega’s head was bowed, hidden in the shadows of the tall cornstalks. Ruan Jing couldn’t see her face, but she recognized the leader of the half-grown boys: Qian Zhaolei, Aunt Li’s son from next door, who had just started high school.

He was full of eagerness. His faded blue tank top was drenched with sweat, but the smell of sweat was covered by a hot, musky odor. Ruan Jing knew it was the smell of burgeoning desire; she had smelled it too many times.

“Aunt, just let us see, just one look.”

Qian Zhaolei held a white flour sack in his hand, shaking it at the woman, as if tempting a dog with a bone. “Just one look, and these two catties of white flour are yours.”