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Chapter 9: SciCom Blog

Shen Qingzhu stopped his thoughts, the matter of a science communication blog could wait. Right now, the priority was taking care of Little Yu. 

After Yu Yushun let go of the trash can, Shen Qingzhu helped him back to his seat. 

“Don’t drink too much,” Shen Qingzhu reminded as Yu Yushun gulped down water. He also handed over a piece of candy that he took from the service robot.

Unfortunately, the candy was extra sour in order to ease the discomfort of vomiting, and Yu Yushun’s baby face twisted into a small bitter gourd.

Shen Qingzhu asked: “How are you feeling now?”

Yu Yushun lips curved downwards in a pout: “Not good. My head is still spinning and I feel nauseous. I only have C-rank constitution… so useless.”

Shen Qingzhu opened his right hand and pointed between his thumb and forefinger: “This is the joining valley acupoint. If you massage it here, it’ll help with nausea and dizziness.”

Yu Yushun copied his movements. After some time, he actually did feel better.

“Wow! Mr. Qing, you’re so smart, how do you know everything?” 

Shen Qingzhu laughed softly: “This is all the wisdom of our ancestors.”

He briefly explained the twelve meridians of the ancient Chinese, hoping to distract Yu Yushun from any remaining discomfort. 

Yu Yushun only knew that the ancient Chinese civilization existed thousands of years ago on humanity’s origin planet called Earth. All of the knowledge flew over his head. His wide eyes stared at Shen Qingzhu and he nodded repeatedly, gradually forgetting his discomfort. 

“Oh!” Yu Yushun suddenly yelped and blurted: “Is that a pheromone suppression ring?”

Actually Shen Qingzhu didn’t expect Yu Yushun to take this long to notice, and he was a little amused. He nodded: “Yes, it’s a suppression ring.”

Yu Yushun gasped and his cheeks flushed scarlet: “Mr. Qing, you—you—you’re an Omega?!”

Remembering how he hitched up his shirt and repeatedly depended on Mr. Qing almost made Yu Yushun faint. He was actually being taken care of by an Omerga? There couldn’t be a more useless Beta in the world than him QAQ?

Shen Qingzhu: “...I’m an Alpha.”

“What?! Alphas wear suppression rings too?!”

Suddenly, Shen Qingzhu felt a sense of deja vu. Not wanting to repeat the scene with the pharmacy clerk, he quickly changed the subject: “Do you have any medication allergies?”

Yu Yushun shook his head.

Shen Qingzhu took out a packet of motion sickness pills and gave the other boy two: “Take one before getting on the elevator. These help with discomfort from planetary trains, space elevators, and interstellar travel.”

“Oh, thanks!” Yu Yushun accepted them with eyes filled with gratitude: “Mr. Qing, to be honest, you’re the most gentle Alpha I’ve ever met.”

  Shen Qingzhu smiled. 

When it was time to part ways, Yu Yushun turned to Shen Qingzhu and asked expectantly: “Can we share contact info?”

The two of them bumped optical terminals, successfully exchanging numbers, and Yu Yushun lit up with joy. He clutched the motion sickness pills from Shen Qingzhu, waving vigorously as he said goodbye. 

⋅ ˚ ₊ ‧ ୨୧ ‧ ₊ ˚ ⋅

Now that Shen Qingzhu was alone, he decided to immediately implement his idea of writing a back-to-school travel guide.

He asked Zhujian to collect data from posts on StarNet from students of all genders during the back-to-school season. Heaps of data were then quickly collected, summarized, and sorted by Zhujian’s excellent computing power. 

As Shen Qingzhu scanned through the results, he wasn’t surprised to find that most posts were made by Betas, and then by Alphas. Posts by Omegas were pretty much absent.

These numbers didn’t reflect the real situation of Omegas. Although the population in the empire was only 3% Omega, this still meant nearly 15 billion Omegas out of the total 500 billion. 

Yet aside from celebrities or influencers, most Omegas never joined discussions online.

This silence was the in part due to the empire’s culture of Omegas being tightly controlled by their parents or their partners. Even though equality laws had been passed 300 years ago, the empire’s culture was not able to advance as fast. Many powerful families still believed an Omega’s value lied in reproduction, and rare Omegas were a status symbol. 

But silence didn’t mean thoughtlessness. Omegas were proportionally well-educated, empathetic, and talented. Shen Qingzhu had known many Omegas with great potential, but they were limited because their sufferings and confusions went ignored. 

This was why he had dedicated himself to Omega-related science communication media. He wanted to help other Omegas like him. 

Fortunately, the silver lining was that things were improving. Young Omegas were being increasingly visible in society, especially those newly differentiated and not yet molded into stereotypes. 

At first, Shen Qingzhu was just going to write a travel guide for Omegas, but he changed his mind and decided to write for all genders. 

He first reviewed academic papers for two hours. After Shen Qingzhu confirmed this world mirrored his original world, he opened a document and started working.

The All-Gender Back-to-School Travel Guide was finished an hour later. He asked Zhujian to register a new, secured StarNet account with the username: Teacher on a Roll. He also added a chubby giant panda as his profile picture. 

With the layout done and his IP masked, Shen Qingzhu published his article with tags for all genders. 

Zhujian was left to monitor any responses. Shen Qingzhu closed his terminal, drank the last nutrient solution in his bag, and headed to the space elevator’s onboarding gate. 

Traveling on the space elevator felt almost exactly the same as the simulation cabin, except it took an hour instead of a few minutes. 

Shen Qingzhu stepped off the space elevator into Starship C-0813, and found himself standing before a massive view window. 

Far away in the distance was an ash-gray planet, like a dust ball in the vast universe; the tension Shen Qingzhu had carried since awakening on C-07 finally eased

He turned away from the window. He quickly found his cabin, showered, and then fell into a deep sleep.

⋅ ˚ ₊ ‧ ୨୧ ‧ ₊ ˚ ⋅

That night, a hot topic spread like wildfire across dozens of planets in the empire. 

#BackToSchool - Omega Safety Travel Guide

Luna was an ordinary, newly differentiated D-rank Omega who had recently been accepted into her dream university. As she prepared to travel to school, she used her online account that was set as a Beta in order to avoid harassment to search for guides. But the problem was, all the guides she found were written for Betas. 

When she searched using Omega as a keyword, the StarNet search engine only returned videos of rich Omegas flaunting private starships. 

Luna thought sarcastically, if I could afford a private starship, would I be searching for guides in the first place?

Her Beta parents couldn’t help, and she didn’t know any Omegas who she could talk to. 

Luna almost wanted to scream, why were there no Omega guides online? How could there be no other Omegas who used the StarNet? 

Just as she was about to lose hope, a rising hot topic caught her eye: #BackToSchool - Omega Safety Travel Guide.

She murmured suspiciously: “Another clickbait?” 

But she still tapped in, just like many others.

A soft green page appeared, patterned with plants and cute animals. Luna’s eyes skipped the design and locked straight onto the article headline:

[#BackToSchool–Safe Travel Guide for Omegas:

※ Whatever your gender, always wear a pheromone suppression ring before traveling, even if you haven’t fully differentiated yet.

Omega Travel Essentials:

① Suppression ring – [brand recommendations]

② Oral suppressants, nano-injectors, IV suppressants – [brand recommendations]

③ Pheromone blockers – [brand recommendations]

④ Sanitary pads – [brand recommendations]

Note: tampons and menstrual cups not recommended, details inside.]

Luna scratched her head and clicked to expand the article, wondering: “What’s wrong with tampons?”

Inside was a detailed explanation that shocked her: Many newly differentiated Omegas may experience dryness, injury, infections, or overflow if using tampons or menstrual cups in a stressful environment such as interstellar traveling. 

Luna eyes widened like saucers and her jaw dropped to the floor, as she frantically typed in the comments.

[inthenameofthemoon: Shocked!! Blogger, you’re too brave! Is this something I can read for free???!]

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Author:

Boss Zhu (tilts head): This is proper science education, why can’t you read it?

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