Chapter 13: Shared Bath Becomes Cat

There were six public bathhouses on the east and west campuses of the AMTC that were split according to gender. The male alpha bathhouse closest to the faculty dormitory was really uncrowded after midnight.

The midsummer night wind was warm, and with one gust it could raise a thin layer of sweat. Ping Mo walked from the campus kiosk, temporarily bought a small bath basket, slipped on some flip-flops, wore a loose shirt, and arrived at the bathhouse. The locker room was empty.

He picked a locker at random, stripped himself naked, stuffed his clothes into the small locker, fastened the newly purchased small lock and stepped into the public bathroom with the shower basket as he hummed slowly.

There was no one inside, and Ping Mo was satisfied as he inserted his faculty card into the sensor. The warm water poured out from the shower head, and rinsed off the stickiness.

Meanwhile, Pei Yutu had just returned to the faculty dormitory.

After playing ball, they went to have barbecue since there was nothing more refreshing than to have a kebab and a dozen cold beers after sports on a summer night. Since the water in the dormitory had suddenly stopped, Lu DongWang simply gave up on taking a shower and went back to the dormitory to sleep. 

“Don’t squeeze into the same bedroom as me!”

Lu DongWang played a trick. “Pei, do you think everyone is like you with unlimited energy? I really don’t have the strength to go downstairs. Let me go,” he said as he slumped onto his single bed like a dead dog. He put on the rogue look of a dead pig unafraid of boiling water. “Or you can carry me.”

Pei Yutu, of course, wouldn’t carry him. He was disgusted by Lu DongWang’s proposal, and was even getting goosebumps. They were both alphas, and he wouldn’t carry his farts. He didn’t even want to touch him.

Lu DongWang’s trick was successful. Pei Yutu left with the sentence, “I’ll get annoyed by you, and need to move out sooner or later.” Then he went to the nearest bathhouse alone.

The locker room was as quiet and empty as he expected. Pei Yutu had been used to group life since he was eighteen, so he was no stranger to a public bathhouse. Unexpectedly, there was actually the sound of water in the bathroom. A student from the dormitory was here at this time? Wasn’t it lights out? Or was it an instructor who played ball with him?

Pei Yutu couldn’t help himself, and checked it out. A figure was behind dense water vapor that made him blurry but the vaguely visible proportions were very good. Long limbs, a narrow waist and shapely buttocks. He looked further up. A pair of beautiful gray-blue eyes were staring at him quietly.

“…Instructor Ping?!”

Pei Yutu hadn’t expected to run into Ping Mo here, and Ping Mo hadn’t expected the person he hadn’t found all day to suddenly appear at that moment.

Naked and frank, as he walked around with his big penis out.

Ping Mo, “…”

Pei Yutu had come over. “Instructor Ping. What a coincidence.”

He didn’t mind the alpha now, and naturally inserted his faculty card into the adjacent sensor and moved to the shower next to Instructor Ping.

There was a kind of person who looked better with his clothes off than with his clothes on, and Ping Mo privately thought that his teaching assistant was one of them. He was a typical ‘top alpha’. From his shoulders, to his back, to his thighs, his muscles were smooth, tough and strong with a pure androgynous, oppressive force. Even his skin was a uniform and sexy wheat color, and in the words of those sweet little Os, “A Super A.”

Ping Mo was an omega, but he spent his teenage years mistakenly thinking he was a top alpha. As a Raptor disguised as an alpha for so many years, when he saw a strong A like Pei Yutu, his first reaction was not nymphomania, but envy.

If only I were a real alpha, I wouldn’t have had so many headaches later…

“Instructor Ping! Ping Mo?”

Instructor Ping’s drifting thoughts were pulled back by Pei Yutu. “Hm, what?”

Pei Yutu said in a deep voice, “I’m handsome, but don’t look at me with those kind of eyes.”

Ping Mo, “?”

Pei Yutu gave him a meaningful look. Ping Mo had used too much hot water. His whole person was wrapped up in heat, and not very clear. Pei Yutu then thought about the steam. You’re gay, but unfortunately I’m not. I still like fragrant soft omegas.

However, he still used the action of squeezing the shower gel to tense up his arm muscles, and show off his biceps in a very pretentious way.

Ping Mo, “…Pei Yutu.”

Pei Yutu, “Hey! Say it.”

Instructor Ping took a deep breath. “That lesson plan, did you write that on purpose?” The more he thought about it, the more he thought it was possible. His teaching assistant was very insubordinate. If he had been placed in the Raptors, he’d be the thorn in his side. When he encountered these kinds of soldiers, he usually had to beat them seven or eight times. Beat until their hearts were convinced. Only then could he consider them subdued.

But first, this was a campus, and not as flexible as the extraterritorial military camp. Second, Pei Yutu wasn’t really a subordinate. They were working together for three or four months, then he would be leaving. Third, Ping Mo had health problems. His bonding heat had suddenly become very frequent, so he simply didn’t have the time or energy to educate people. Therefore, Pei Yutu would stay a ‘thorn’, and if he tried to make some trouble for him as a superior that would be very normal.

Unexpectedly, Pei Yutu said in excitement, “Of course not!”

Ping Mo narrowed his eyes. “You dare to tell me that you didn’t intentionally cause trouble?”

“Instructor Ping, how could you think that about me? Am I that childish in your mind!” Although the thought had crossed his mind, Teaching Assistant Pei would never admit it. His voice was loud and deliberately raised, so his moderate aggression immediately echoed through the empty communal bathroom.

Ping Mo, “…Really?”

“Of course it’s true! I stayed up all night writing, and pulled two all-nighters!” Pei Yutu said. “Have you read it or not? Those were the essence of my years of practice, all employed to train those little kids. It’s all to kill the chicken with a bull’s eye!” 1

Ping Mo, “…” 

The man didn’t look like he was lying. From what he knew about Pei Yutu, although the man was a jerk, he was definitely a brash person, and not afraid to admit what he had done.

It was also true that the pile of lesson plans was covered in dense writing.

“I can’t read it.” Ping Mo said coldly. “The words almost fly out of the paper, and I simply can’t recognize them…Did you pass the language when you were in school?”

Pei Yutu said, “What? We don’t fight wars by writing essays! You academics have a lot of problems!”

“Who said I’m an academic?”

“You’re definitely an academic. You’re so skinny…Ping Mo, your rank must be much higher than mine, right? Otherwise, I wouldn’t have to be a deputy to a captain like you. To become a captain at twenty-five is rare. You’re about the same age as me, but your rank is much higher than mine. Your education must be high, like these children in the Alliance Military Technology University, where undergraduates directly become second lieutenants…Don’t look down on us, the grassroots of the army. In fact, I also look down on you. You’re just paper talk!”

“…”

After a short silence, Ping Mo said, “I’m not an academic. I joined the army earlier than you.”

Pei Yutu, “I joined the army when I was eighteen–”

“I was eleven.” Ping Mo’s voice came out of the dense water vapor, and sounded a little indistinct.

Pei Yutu was about to say that no one could join the army at the age of eleven, when he heard the sound of the water suddenly stop next him as Ping Mo turned off the shower, and rummaged through his shower basket for body wash.

The water vapor slowly dissipated once the shower was turned off, and revealed the true face of Instructor Ping.

Earlier, Pei Yutu had said he was ‘fine skinned’, and now that seemed very apt. Ping Mo was an Alliance soldier, but there wasn’t a single scar on his body. He was smooth and delicate, the soft texture of an expensive Shu brocade. 2 Perhaps he’d been under the hot rushing water for too long, because his originally ivory white skin was steamed a beautiful cherry pink.

Pei Yutu felt the knot in his throat roll. He gulped and swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

At the same time, Ping Mo also happened to look back at him.

With the shower was turned off, and the shower gel applied, Ping Mo’s weak gender consciousness finally awakened. He felt that As and Os were definitely different, and it was better to cover up without moving.

At least cover up the key parts.

Pei Yutu’s eyes also followed the movement of his hand downwards. Although he only caught a glimpse, Teaching Assistant Pei’s brain coaxed up an artistic fireworks explosion. In the starry sky of his thoughts exploded a line of words, Fuck, pink! There can still be pink?

In the next second, Instructor Ping turned around so his whole back was in full view. It was a smooth line from his shoulder blades down the line of his back. His waist was flexed into a heart-racing arc, while his legs were straight and slender, and his ankles were thin but not fragile. Pei Yutu had seen the power of that pair of feet. They were capable of enough stability and accuracy to break an enemy’s ribs.

When this man fought, he refused to expend any extra strength. He never thought that the growth of flesh and bones could also follow that principle, without any extra meat except…

Usually, when he saw him wearing pants, Instructor Ping’s buttocks were round and extraordinarily shapely, but now that he was seeing them directly, they were even better. Pei Yutu just felt a boom in his head. All the fireworks started a chain reaction and directly exploded, then his nose was hot.

Ping Mo was comfortable in the shower. He had just turned on the shower, and was ready to rinse the foam off when he felt something was wrong. The surrounding alpha pheromones were abruptly and overwhelmingly strong.

The bathroom was suddenly filled with tequila-scented pheromones that were too rich and pungent to be ignored. They then overwhelmed and stimulated the glands at the back of Ping Mo’s neck.

“…”

…Fuck! Why was this person suddenly in heat? Was it his susceptible period?

But there was no time for Ping Mo to think about it, he already felt something was going wrong! The top of his head and tailbone burned slightly. He had to get back to the dorm before his omega pheromones leaked out!

Was he being led into passive heat by Pei Yutu again? The last time he had his bonding heat was only ten days ago. In the last half year, they really had become more and more frequent, and the frequency was still rising!

Ping Mo didn’t care about Pei Yutu. Nor did he care about the foam that he hadn’t rinsed off his body yet, he just rushed straight out of the public bathroom on his bare feet.

Pei Yutu only heard a series of footsteps far away, because the watery steps seemed extra crisp. However he was now ‘standing up and saluting’, so he was too embarrassed to turn around to see.

Ping Mo just ran to the locker room. The feeling was getting more and more intense, and his omega pheromones would spill out at any time. The sweetest omega pheromones could affect any alpha within a few hundred meters, but Therian pheromones could affect them within several kilometers.

If his identity was discovered in this way…The initial pain of the bonding heat tormented him. Ping Mo had almost twisted his hand as he reached for the small cabinet where he had stored his clothes, when he felt a strange sensation in the top of his head and behind him.

It was over.

He looked up and saw his own image in the dressing mirror not far away. Cat ears, a long tail, and naked.

However, the expected leakage of omega pheromones didn’t happen.

When Pei Yutu came out of the bathing area clad a towel, he found no trace of Instructor Ping, who had suddenly run away. However he did see a familiar fur ball.

The white fur was wet with water, and its round gray-blue eyes were even bigger as its long tail curled in front of its two paws.

Pei Yutu, “Mimi? Why did you come here?!”

Translator Notes:

杀鸡焉用宰牛刀: to use a bull knife (knife used to slaughter bulls) to kill a chicken. It means to use an unnecessarily large amount of effort to do something so easy and simple. A very soft traditional silk brocade.  https://artsandculture.google.com/story/shu-brocade-the-earliest-brocade-in-china/hwKC7Tji8PKvJw