After Transmigrating as a Scumbag Alpha, I Marked the Crazy Hotshot – Chapter 60
by Little PandaBusy right now
The deep night had crumpled Beicheng into a ball, making it seem like it was fermenting.
Cheng Jiqing’s hand pulled back from the inner door handle, her clear gaze fixed on the two people approaching in the distance.
She couldn’t make out what they were saying, only a heavy feeling lingered.
After a few minutes, Bai Xin turned and went upstairs. Zhou Yushu stood by the car door, watching until she saw Bai Xin reach her floor, only then did she get into the car.
She hadn’t gotten out of the car just now because the public didn’t know about their relationship. Even though she had many questions in her heart, she hadn’t rashly gotten out.
Now Zhou Yushu’s car was turning around. When the headlights shone over, she and Zhou Yushu would be face to face, and Zhou Yushu would very likely see her—she should lower her head.
But suddenly, she didn’t want to do that.
Cheng Jiqing straightened her back, facing the headlights of the white Bentley opposite her, and narrowed her eyes slightly. Why should she lower her head?
Zhou Yushu drove past her. The lights moved away, and the surroundings returned to stillness and dimness.
Her phone vibrated.
Cheng Jiqing lowered her gaze and saw Bai Xin’s reply: 【Just arrived.】
In an instant, many questions flooded her mind—
At this time of night, why would Zhou Yushu still be with Bai Xin?
When did they become so close?
Or have they always been this close?
Her fingertips rested on the keyboard, typed halfway, then deleted everything.
Those emotions, enough to make her overthink things1, were like a balloon hitting the surface of the water—it couldn’t sink, nor could it pop.
She felt a stifling sense of unease.
Cheng Jiqing turned off her phone and sat quietly in the car for a moment. Then, the screen lit up again.
Bai Xin: 【Why aren’t you asleep yet?】
Cheng Jiqing stared at the screen silently for a long moment. She didn’t like herself overthinking, nor did she like this.
…
Bai Xin was just about to take off her clothes when there was a knock on the door.
It was nearly one in the morning.
She frowned warily and tiptoed over. After seeing Cheng Jiqing’s face clearly, she was first taken aback, then joy and pleasant surprise welled up from the bottom of her heart.
Nothing could have surprised her more at that moment.
Bai Xin opened the door, her radiant peach blossom eyes gazing at Cheng Jiqing, and reached out to pull her inside.
“How come you’re here?”
Her hands went around Cheng Jiqing’s waist, hugging her.
The early hours of an early autumn morning.
When she was utterly exhausted and irritable, her antidote had appeared.
Bai Xin nuzzled into Cheng Jiqing’s neck, greedily inhaling. The scent of peach blossom wine seemed especially strong today. Perhaps it was because she was right near the gland…
Cheng Jiqing’s hand started to lift, then paused mid-air. The Omega’s closeness made her heartbeat erratic, and she felt the power within her own gland suddenly intensify.
She suppressed the feeling, raised her hand, grasped Bai Xin’s wrist, and pulled her away.
“Bai Xin.”
Bai Xin finally sensed the strangeness in the atmosphere—Cheng Jiqing’s strangeness.
Cheng Jiqing hadn’t taken off her shoes and was a bit taller than her, so Bai Xin had to look up: “Mm?”
Cheng Jiqing’s current expression inexplicably filled her with a faint sense of unease.
Cheng Jiqing looked down. Bai Xin’s coolly beautiful features showed tiredness, and her breath carried a clear, sweet, alluring scent. For a moment, there was a beautiful fragility about her.
Her tone was much better than the tense one she’d had before coming upstairs: “I saw Zhou Yushu drop you off downstairs just now.”
She didn’t ask anything with her first sentence. She thought, if Bai Xin told her directly, she wouldn’t have to ask.
She didn’t want to interrogate her.
As her voice faded,
In the quiet space of the deep night, their eyes met.
Bai Xin’s fingertips twitched.
She hadn’t been sleeping well these past few days, had a lot on her mind, and couldn’t quite concentrate, so she hadn’t driven herself.
These last two times, it was too late, and when Zhou Yushu offered to drive her, she hadn’t refused.
She hadn’t expected Cheng Jiqing to come, at 1 AM, and so coincidentally… run into this.
When Cheng Jiqing had arrived just now, she hadn’t yet figured out how to address this issue.
Now that they’d met, it was unavoidable.
Bai Xin’s voice was calm as she replied, “Mm, we met tonight because of work.”
“Met for work, until this late… I thought you two weren’t close. Apparently not, huh?”
Cheng Jiqing controlled her tone.
She remembered the feeling from the previous two times; whenever Bai Xin and Zhou Yushu met, she always felt they were familiar with each other.
Thinking about it now, it wasn’t her imagination.
But Bai Xin had never shown it in front of her.
Bai Xin’s hand was still clutching the fabric of Cheng Jiqing’s clothes at her waist. Her expression was calm, but inwardly, there was a trace of panic.
Someone with something to hide can’t help but feel guilty—at least, she couldn’t help it in front of Cheng Jiqing.
Setting that aside, she knew Cheng Jiqing was unhappy.
Her tone softened: “It was too late, and I didn’t drive, so she gave me a ride… Are you jealous2?”
Bai Xin moved closer, hugging her tightly again.
Her voice was as usual, still captivating.
But Cheng Jiqing fell silent.
Bai Xin’s answer seemed to address it but didn’t actually hit the main point, yet her last sentence had indeed struck a chord with her.
She was very uncomfortable, extremely uncomfortable.
Especially when she thought about previous encounters with Zhou Yushu, including when Cheng Jing and Zhou Yushu had helped Bai Xin. Back then, they were acting in front of others, and also acting in front of her.
This feeling was awful.
What made her feel even more conflicted was that Bai Xin’s sentence hadn’t fully answered her question, so she could only ask again: “What kind of work do you and Zhou Yushu have that keeps you out this late?”
Calmly.
Bai Xin pulled back.
Those clear fox eyes looked over. Bai Xin’s heart fluttered slightly, out of guilt and hesitation.
She composed herself quickly: “The Y2 project.”
Cheng Jiqing knew about this. Since she had seen Zhou Yushu, Bai Xin couldn’t lie about something else. And she didn’t want to.
But Cheng Jiqing was too perceptive.
Her next question hit directly.
“So, you two have been in contact all along, right?”
Bai Xin froze.
Cheng Jiqing’s eyelashes fluttered, and her calm voice changed: “You even hid it from me. May I know why? Or, do your unspeakable secrets also include Zhou Yushu?”
She trusted Bai Xin, but she was indeed full of doubts about their true relationship.
After she finished speaking, Bai Xin didn’t answer, her slightly furrowed brow suggesting she was thinking.
The anger and pent-up frustration hidden beneath her icy composure began to surface.
She let go of Bai Xin’s arm. The hand at her waist seemed to lose its support and slid down.
Cheng Jiqing stared at Bai Xin and said faintly, “I should have the right to ask, shouldn’t I…?”
Bai Xin’s heart jolted. “Cheng Jiqing, don’t talk like that.”
“You’re the one giving me this feeling, Miss Bai!” Cheng Jiqing’s voice involuntarily grew heavier. She suddenly felt a bit tired.
Bai Xin looked up, her gaze flickering. She met Cheng Jiqing’s eyes and took a light breath: “Zhou Yushu is helping me.”
Bai Xin had always been decisive, rarely hesitating. But facing Cheng Jiqing, her previously thought-out plans to hide things completely seemed to fall apart.
Subconsciously, half of her didn’t want to hide it.
The other half, her long-standing habit of self-preservation, made her wonder: how should she say it, and how much should she say?
Hearing this, Cheng Jiqing’s frustration surfaced: “If I have to drag it out of you question by question, pressing you every step of the way, that’s really pointless. If you don’t want to say it or aren’t ready to say it, fine. I won’t force you.”
Bai Xin’s heart tightened for no reason: “Cheng Jiqing…”
She called her name. She wanted to say, ‘give me a little more time,’ but last time, Cheng Jiqing had gotten angry and left because of those very words.
Her usual eloquence suddenly left her speechless.
She couldn’t even refute it confidently.
“You should sleep. I’m going back.”
Cheng Jiqing somewhat regretted coming up. Maybe tomorrow she would be more patient. Right now, she just felt frustrated.
She wished she could pry that mouth open, to stop it from making her so angry.
Cheng Jiqing grasped the hand at her waist and pulled it down. Bai Xin bit the soft flesh inside her lip; a small patch of her slightly pale lips reddened from the pressure.
Bai Xin said, “You’re leaving now?”
“And stay to make everyone uncomfortable?”
Cheng Jiqing was in a bad mood. After a few unsuccessful attempts at conversation, the gentleness in her tone had worn thin.
If this continued, they would inevitably end up arguing.
Even wearing Buddhist prayer beads, she wasn’t a Bodhisattva or a Buddha3; she couldn’t possibly maintain a good temper forever.
“Don’t go yet.” Seeing she was really about to leave, Bai Xin stepped forward and tugged on Cheng Jiqing’s sleeve: “Let me, think…”
Bai Xin had been showing a softer stance since just now, and this made Cheng Jiqing even more certain, and a chill crept into her heart—there really was something going on between her and Zhou Yushu.
Then she would wait.
She could only wait.
Cheng Jiqing looked at those beautiful eyes, at the tired, bloodshot veins within them, then averted her gaze: “Mm, you think then. We’ll talk again when you’ve thought it through.”
Her tone became much more indifferent.
She put Bai Xin’s hand down.
As she released that softness, it felt as if a small hole had opened up in her heart.
Cheng Jiqing opened the door and paused for a moment with her back to Bai Xin.
“Bai Xin, I’m not completely clueless. The Cheng family also has many secrets, and there are hardly any truly naive people around me. But I don’t want to get involved in these complexities. If I really wanted to investigate something, I could always find out; it would just take some time.”
“But I don’t want to. I don’t like it this way.”
“That’s why I’ve never investigated the secrets you’re unwilling to talk about,” Cheng Jiqing said. “Because if it came to that, there would be no meaning left between us.”
Cheng Jiqing walked slowly, muffling the sound of her high heels in the cold night. She had put on a knit cardigan when she came, but she still felt cold when the wind blew.
She got into the car but didn’t leave immediately.
Because she was in a bad mood, she needed to calm down before she could drive.
What upset her was that it now seemed Zhou Yushu knew far more than she did.
The restlessness within her body subtly intensified as her emotions surged.
After a long while, Cheng Jiqing pressed the start button…
Bai Xin stood on the balcony, her gaze fixed on the retreating lights in the darkness, a faint panic rising in her—as if once that car left, it would never come back.
The bloodshot look in her eyes deepened.
Due to lack of sleep, her mental state wasn’t good either. Standing for a long time made her legs feel weak, and she felt drained of all strength.
With Cheng Jiqing gone, she felt even more powerless.
It was a complete mess.
Bai Xin sank down onto the tiled floor, as if doing so could help her think more clearly.
She didn’t sleep all night.
Not until the sky turned fish-belly white4 did Bai Xin drowsily fall asleep. It was past one in the afternoon when a phone call startled her awake, and she quickly picked it up.
An important call from the company.
The light in her eyes dimmed a little.
After finishing the call concisely, she paused for a moment. Her gaze fell on the red dot indicating a text message, and she subconsciously tapped it open.
An advertisement.
Finally, she saw over a dozen messages on WeChat.
She knew at a glance that none were from Cheng Jiqing.
She tapped open the latest one, from Tang Jia.
Tang Jia: 【President Bai, did you forget about your check-up today?】
Bai Xin sat up from the ice-cold balcony floor, belatedly feeling the chill, and shivered hard.
She didn’t get up immediately but stayed there silently for a few minutes, lost in thought, before finally getting up and going to her room.
Within half an hour, she had quickly gotten ready and left.
…
“Distracted?”
Tang Jia was looking at the indicators on the computer screen, but she was talking about something else.
Bai Xin would never normally come over so obediently. Since arriving, she hadn’t said a word, and throughout the blood draw and tests until now, she’d been cold, utterly devoid of any warmth.
Clearly, she had something on her mind.
This had happened before, but usually Bai Xin would just come, sit for a while without saying anything, and then leave.
It was hard to understand her.
But after a few times, Tang Jia roughly understood that Bai Xin wanted to talk to someone about something, but her temperament wasn’t one for easy communication. Once she arrived, she might then feel there was nothing to discuss after all.
She thought today would be the same—that Bai Xin would stay for a bit and then leave.
But unexpectedly, Bai Xin suddenly said, “Last night, she saw Zhou Yushu drop me off.”
Tang Jia was taken aback for a moment: “Who? Oh, Cheng Jiqing.”
“Saw… and then what?”
Having not eaten all day, Bai Xin’s lips were slightly pale: “She asked about our relationship.”
“What did you say?”
Bai Xin listlessly shook her head. What she’d told Cheng Jiqing about it being ‘nothing’ actually had no credibility at all. No wonder Cheng Jiqing was angry.
Tang Jia was silent for a moment. For others, it would be a very simple choice, but for Bai Xin, her past experiences made her reluctant to trust anyone easily. For her to suddenly lay all her cards on the table was very difficult.
“Actually, you’re already wavering.” Tang Jia looked at Bai Xin and said, “President Bai, your mind is too unsettled.”
Tang Jia recalled her interactions with Cheng Jiqing. She seemed good-tempered, but in reality, she kept her thoughts hidden; she was meticulous and smart, and sometimes her eyes were sharper than a scanner.
People might say she’s the type to help you count the money while she’s being sold5, but Cheng Jiqing is definitely not a ‘silly white sweet’6.
From Cheng Jiqing’s attitude, she could tell that Cheng Jiqing’s feelings for Bai Xin were likely deeper than Bai Xin’s for her. Yet, for Bai Xin’s feelings to have reached this level was already unprecedented.
In this situation, if things weren’t handled well, it could very well end with both of them getting hurt.
“I can only remind you, if you don’t want to hide it for a lifetime, it’s still not too late to slowly tell her now.”
If Bai Xin had always followed the rules, stuck to her original purpose, or abided by the agreement without getting emotionally involved at all, she definitely wouldn’t have said these things.
A pity.
“There’s one more thing.”
Bai Xin slowly came back to her senses from that phrase ‘a lifetime’ and looked over.
Tang Jia asked, “Did you see her hand yesterday?”
…
Bai Xin stood by the hospital building. The sun was bright, the sky vast, and the clouds drifted leisurely.
The nearly four o’clock sunlight was neither warm nor cold.
She felt nothing at all.
Her body felt light, as if floating.
“Well, when you’ve thought it through, you might as well go see her. Her hand was swollen from the IV yesterday; it’s definitely purple and swollen today.”
Tang Jia’s words surfaced in Bai Xin’s mind. She clenched her fists, her long fingernails digging into her palms. Last night, Cheng Jiqing had been wearing long sleeves; she hadn’t seen.
After a couple of seconds, she reached for her phone.
She dialed the number… A few beeps, then a cold, mechanical voice announced—the other party is currently on a call.
She got into her car, waited a few more minutes, and called again.
Still on a call.
Bai Xin frowned slightly, her pale pink fingertips rubbing against her phone case. She unconsciously wondered… who was Cheng Jiqing talking to?
Cheng Jiqing rarely spent much time on the phone, nor did she talk to many people.
Usually, she wouldn’t overthink it, but they had just argued last night. In this situation, she only felt a wave of irritable frustration.
Meanwhile,
Cheng Jiqing hung up the phone with Ada and walked into the coffee shop.
She had originally arranged to meet Cheng Jing in the evening, but that morning, Cheng Jing happened to ask if she was free, so she agreed to meet earlier for afternoon tea.
It had a European style, with a color scheme of dark brown and black, giving it a very high-quality feel.
Cheng Jiqing walked in over black flagstones and immediately spotted Cheng Jing, who was wearing a white shirt. She walked over and had just sat down.
Her phone suddenly rang.
Incoming call—Bai Xin.
Seeing the familiar name, her chest tightened, but at the same time, a faint flicker of joy sparked within her.
She glanced at Cheng Jing opposite her, and her thumb swiped ‘Decline’.
She sent a text message: 【Busy right now.】
Footnotes
- 鑽牛角尖 | zuānniújiǎojiān | Literally “to drill into a bull’s horn.” An idiom meaning to get bogged down in insignificant details, to split hairs, or to obsess over something to the point of going to extremes or getting stuck in a dead end.
- 吃醋 | chīcù | Literally “to eat vinegar.” An idiom meaning to feel jealous, typically in a romantic context.
- 菩薩佛祖 | Púsà Fózǔ | Bodhisattva (Pusa) and Buddha (Fo_zu). Enlightened beings in Buddhism revered for their compassion and wisdom. The phrase implies saintly patience and temperament.
- 魚肚泛白 | yúdù fànbái | Literally “fish belly turning white.” A descriptive phrase for the pale white color of the sky at dawn.
- 幫着數錢的人 | bāngzhe shǔqián de rén | This is part of a longer saying, “被人卖了还帮着数钱” (bèi rén màile hái bāngzhe shǔqián), meaning “to be sold by someone and still help them count the money.” It describes someone who is naive and easily duped, unaware they are being taken advantage of.
- 傻白甜 | shǎbáitián | A slang term, literally “silly white sweet.” It describes a character trope, usually female, who is stereotypically innocent, kind, naive, and perhaps a bit foolish, often to an unrealistic degree. While sometimes endearing, it can also carry a connotation of being simple-minded or easily manipulated.
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