Mistakenly Marked – Chapter 33

Waiting for You

Wolfdog and Little Rabbit.

Shortly before seven in the evening, Xu Jialuo pulled up to the gates of the Old Residence right on time, with Lin Qingman and Mother Lin in the car.

            

She parked, and the three of them walked in through the main gate together.

The gifts they’d brought were handed to a servant to put away.

The dinner table in the hall was already laid with an assortment of pre-dinner pastries.

            

At the head seat sat an old woman whose temples had gone entirely white, but her complexion was rosy and full of luster.

When she saw Xu Jialuo walk in with Lin Qingman, her gaze — undimmed by her seventy-odd years — swept over the two of them, the creases at the corners of her eyes curving faintly as she said, “You’re here.”

“Yunxing will be a little late. She’ll arrive before long.”

            

The Old Madame smiled and reached a hand out to Lin Qingman’s mother.

“Come, let the young ones sit together. Cuiran, you sit here beside me.”

Mother Lin did as she was told, settling in beside Grandmother Xu and chatting pleasantly about this and that.

            

Lin Qingman sat down next to Xu Jialuo, sneaking sidelong glances at her.

Riding in the same car as her mother, she’d had no chance to ask Xu Jialuo what her situation actually was now — whether she’d been through a heat, whether she’d found a suitable Omega.

Now that they were seated together, she meant to ask quietly.

            

But Grandmother Xu and her mother kept glancing her way, and more than once the words died in her throat.

Xu Jialuo noticed Lin Qingman’s stiffness, took it for nerves, and poured her a cup of tea.

Mother Lin studied Grandmother Xu’s expression, then said with a smile, “You see? These two children truly do care for each other.”

            

Seeing Grandmother Xu give a shallow nod, she pressed on at once. “I was thinking — the children are of age, and they get along so well. Why not…”

“Cuiran, try these tea pastries.” The Old Madame’s gaze drifted to a plate of sweets.

“A-Heng is far too busy to come back just now, but she had Fuyuan Pavilion deliver these to me.”

            

“…Mm.”

Her words neatly cut off — and with the pastries being a gift from Family Head Xu Heng herself, Mother Lin could only smile along and reach for one to taste.

“Grandmother!”

            

Xu Shangning’s voice pierced the courtyard and burst into the hall a step ahead of her.

Grandmother Xu’s face bloomed into genuine delight as she watched Shangning come hopping over the threshold, patting the seat beside her other side.

“Bouncing about like that — no manners, even at your age.”

            

That was what she said, but the doting in her voice was entirely undisguised.

“I was just that eager to see you, Grandmother.” Shangning grinned, fox eyes crinkling.

“My new film came out a while back. Did you watch it, Grandmother?”

            

“Of course Grandmother watched it.”

“Not only did your grandmother watch it herself, she booked out an entire theater and marched the whole family along.”

The Binxi relatives filing into their seats chimed in — among them Grandmother Xu’s second son, Shangning’s Second Uncle, Xu Shuo, who teased,

            

“Shangning grows more impressive by the day. Our family has a great director of its own now.”

The others echoed him. “Yes, truly a happy occasion.”

Lin Qingman looked at Xu Shangning, basking in the flattery, then turned to look at Xu Jialuo, seated with a blank face.

            

Even the dullest observer could see how differently these relatives treated Xu Jialuo and Xu Shangning.

Thinking it probably had to do with Xu Jialuo’s background, Lin Qingman felt a pang of hurt on her behalf.

She’d wanted to offer a quiet word of comfort — but Xu Jialuo didn’t seem to care in the least, unhurriedly pouring herself a cup of tea and savoring it.

            

Xu Shangning said, “I’m not the only one with happy news, you know. Luoluo’s new album just hit number one on the charts. Extremely impressive.”

At that, several pairs of eyes finally landed on Xu Jialuo.

Cold-shouldered for so long, then suddenly stared down — Lin Qingman, seated beside her and caught in the splash, felt deeply awkward and could only smile back with false grace, bracing for the pleasantries to come.

            

Then she realized the Xu Jialuo at her side hadn’t reacted at all.

Her back rested against the chair, ink-dark lashes low, slender fingertips cradling a celadon teacup against her lips, warm and faintly red — and she took another unhurried swallow of tea.

Several seconds passed. No congratulatory conversation materialized.

            

The eyes around the table drifted away one by one.

Lin Qingman blinked, thrown.

Mother Lin sensed something wrong too. Rolling her eyes in thought, she was just opening a new topic when Xu Shuo gave a cold snort. “Warbling a few worthless tunes — what’s so remarkable about that?”

            

Xu Jialuo turned the teacup once beneath her fingertip and lifted her gaze to the man across the table, whom she’d met only a handful of times.

The Xu family’s companies were now all in the hands of Grandmother Xu’s eldest daughter, Xu Heng.

The second son, Xu Shuo, was a man who’d never amounted to anything — for years he’d burned through the seed money the Old Madame originally gave him, squandering it abroad.

            

Recently the money had run out; unable to scrape by any longer, he’d come home to seek the family’s shelter.

In all the years past, Xu Jialuo had seen him only a few times, at holidays.

But every encounter had left an impression.

            

Because every single time, the man scrambled at the first opportunity to sneer at her and at Jiang Yi.

Meeting his contemptuous stare, Xu Jialuo set her teacup aside. Her cool face betrayed not a flicker of irritation — only a light, “Is Xiaobin still at home?”

Xu Shuo’s boy was at the age when he should have been in college.

            

But he’d been sent to juvenile detention for fighting, and had since followed faithfully in his father’s footsteps — gnawing on the family for three full years¹.

“You… that’s hardly for a junior to meddle in!”

“Mm. Naturally.”

            

Xu Jialuo nodded along, her voice warm as a spring breeze². “Look how he’s turned out — clearly Second Uncle has raised him admirably. It should absolutely stay Second Uncle’s business.”

A gentle knife, softly landed.

“…You!”

            

Xu Shangning lifted a cup of tea, calling out at the same moment, “Aiya, Second Uncle — it’s scalding! Quick, take it!”

Startled into a daze, Xu Shuo took the tea with trembling hands and forgot all about retorting.

Grandmother Xu’s face darkened. Unwilling to let Mother Lin witness a family quarrel, she changed the subject and turned to Xu Shangning.

            

“Shangning, I told you to take your Second Uncle over to look at Jialuo’s villa. Did you take him?”

Xu Jialuo’s fingertip paused. She set down her teacup.

Grandmother Xu looked at her. “The villa A-Heng bought for your mother — and then your mother let you live in it, didn’t she? I hear it sits empty most of the time. Your Second Uncle has just come back to Binxi and happens to need a place. Let his family move in.”

            

Without waiting for Xu Jialuo’s reply, she turned back to Xu Shangning.

“You forgot, didn’t you? Honestly, you. Then go take a look tomorrow.”

Xu Shangning smiled, feigning difficulty. “Grandmother, maybe… maybe we’d better not.”

            

“Why not?” Grandmother Xu looked at Xu Jialuo. “What, are you unwilling?”

Xu Jialuo’s gaze swept over Xu Shangning’s face — the picture of contrition, and quite transparently scheming underneath it — and understood everything at once.

She shook her head. “No. Grandmother, I’m perfectly willing. It’s only—”

            

“Only what?”

Xu Shangning picked up the cue beautifully:

“It’s all my fault, Grandmother. I snuck some friends over there to have fun, and one of them lost control of their pheromones — it nearly turned into an unmanageable scene.

            

“To this day the whole place still reeks of everybody’s pheromones. I had people spray loads of neutralizer spray and nothing worked.

“Yesterday I took Second Uncle over, and the stench nearly made him throw up.”

Xu Shangning pressed her palms together, blinking wide. “Grandmother, I’m truly, deeply sorry.”

            

“You impossible child…”

“It’s just that Second Uncle isn’t a beta, and he’s a rather… you-know-what kind of alpha…”

A low-grade alpha.

            

“But the friends I brought over all happened to have fairly high pheromone grades. Second Uncle simply couldn’t take it.”

Xu Shangning’s fox eyes narrowed, and she smiled with profound apology at Xu Shuo, whose face was growing darker by the second. “Grandmother, Second Uncle — truly, I am so sorry.”

Grandmother Xu rapped Xu Shangning on the head. “Then tell me — how long until it’s dealt with?”

            

Xu Shangning — who, mere days ago, had personally guaranteed Xu Jialuo it would take one day: “At least half a year.”

“Mom!” Xu Shuo burst out. “I can’t go half a year without a place of my own!”

“I know.” The Old Madame frowned. “I still have a vacant apartment in Yushu Court. You can stay there for now.”

            

A light rain began to patter down, threading through the murmur of fresh conversation.

Across the dinner table, Xu Shangning looked at Xu Jialuo and blinked out a signal — let’s go outside and talk. “Grandmother, I’m off to the washroom.”

A minute later, Xu Jialuo rose as well.

            

---

“That time you suddenly brought people over,” Xu Jialuo said, turning into the covered corridor and looking at the person waiting there,

“was it for this?”

And she hadn’t even told her.

            

“Hehe. I wanted to surprise you.”

Xu Shangning leaned against a corridor pillar, grinning ear to ear.

“See? My method worked. There was no way I was going to let someone you hate live in your villa.”

            

Halfway through, she suddenly remembered that she’d been the one to let Bo Suiqing into Xu Jialuo’s room at the villa that night — and felt a twinge of guilt.

Later, outside the hospital, when Xu Jialuo had seen through her giving Bo Suiqing the phone number, Xu Shangning had assumed Jialuo already knew that the omega from that villa night was Bo Suiqing.

But Xu Jialuo showed no sign of contradicting her now.

            

She didn’t dwell on it. Xu Shangning clicked her tongue.

“What I didn’t plan for was you differentiating into an alpha — one who can’t go around casually breathing other people’s pheromones.”

Back then she’d figured Xu Jialuo for a beta; a little lingering pheromone wouldn’t have mattered.

            

Who knew that now Xu Jialuo couldn’t live there either.

Along the corridor, rain slanted in on the wind. Xu Shangning wasn’t standing far enough in, and her shoulders were already speckled with raindrops.

Xu Jialuo reached out and tugged her closer to her side. “The apartment suits me fine.”

            

Reading the concern in the gesture, Xu Shangning chuckled, then asked,

“I heard from the steward that you came with Lin Qingman? Have you two made up?”

Xu Jialuo stepped up onto the veranda steps and returned the question. “Made up from what?”

            

She and Lin Qingman had never quarreled in the first place.

“On the phone you said you hadn’t marked her. I assumed you two had fought, that something unpleasant happened.”

“Nothing unpleasant.”

            

Hearing that answer, Xu Shangning didn’t relax.

Xu Jialuo saw the words she was holding back. “If you have something to say, say it.”

“Luoluo… have you already marked her?”

            

“No.”

This time Xu Shangning did breathe easier.

Only then did she continue. “What I dug up from the steward is this: the family arranged this match because her family needs to solve a cash-flow problem — and on our side…

            

“Grandmother has recently taken a liking to a parcel of the Lin family’s land. She wants Lin Qingman to bring that parcel as her dowry.”

“This is a business deal dressed up as a marriage, plain and simple.”

Xu Shangning frowned.

            

“If you and Lin Qingman genuinely have feelings, fine. If not — I think if you don’t like her… you can refuse.”

Xu Jialuo lifted her eyes to Xu Shangning.

Most of this, she had already heard once from Zou Wan’s mouth.

            

But coming from Xu Shangning, it was different.

Xu Shangning was born of the Xu family’s own blood. By rights she should stand entirely with the family — with the side that reaped the benefits.

Yet the words she’d just spoken meant she was thinking of Jialuo.

            

Xu Jialuo still remembered when she’d first come to the Xu family. Xu Shangning had been no different from Xu Yunxing — she hadn’t accepted her.

She’d never flaunted malice the way Xu Yunxing did, but she’d avoided speaking to her, treated her as if she didn’t exist — at the Xu house and at school alike.

It seemed to be after senior year that her relationship with Xu Shangning had slowly, quietly thawed.

            

More precisely, after the accident that had put her in the hospital.

When she’d opened her eyes, the ones beside the bed weren’t only Jiang Yi — Xu Shangning was there too.

Red-eyed, right alongside Jiang Yi.

            

Sometime in the stretch she’d never noticed, Xu Shangning had truly come to think of her as a little sister.

---

Xu Jialuo’s eyes were clear, sharply defined in color, the pupils large and black beneath dense ink lashes — deep, arresting.

Beautiful, certainly. But under a stare held too long, they could make a person’s skin crawl.

            

Rainwater dripped along the eaves. Xu Shangning rubbed her arms against the cool wind. “What are you doing…”

Xu Jialuo came back to herself, lowered her eyes, and called out, “Jiejie.”

When she looked over again, her eyes curved faintly. “Thank you.”

            

It was like a star falling into a deep pool — the mirror-still surface rippling with brilliant gold, catching the light of that faint, bewitching mole at the corner of her eye, glowing soft and warm.

Xu Shangning was struck utterly without warning. Her breath caught for an instant.

A second or two later she clutched at her chest with theatrical despair, her voice full of regret:

            

“Luoluo, if you had even the slightest interest in acting, I would absolutely have to write you a role.”

“No role needed. If your next project needs a score, I’ll do it free of charge.”

“Yes! It’s a deal!”

            

---

Back at the table, Xu Shangning spun out a great deal more flattery to delight the Old Madame.

Then, with perfect tact, she slid aside one seat.

“Tonight is Jiejie’s welcome-home dinner — of course the best seat, right beside Grandmother, has to go to Jiejie.”

            

Which sent the Old Madame into beaming delight all over again.

A voice sounded from the doorway. “Is that so? Shangning’s become such a sensible girl.”

A woman in a dark-green velvet gown walked into the hall, a servant holding an umbrella over her.

            

Her face was strikingly like Xu Shangning’s — and nothing like it in style.

Xu Shangning had fox eyes, brimming at every turn with unbridled cunning.

The newcomer had phoenix eyes — gentle, still, and reserved.

            

“Yunxing, come here quickly.” The Old Madame beckoned her in with a smile. “We were only waiting for you.”

Xu Yunxing answered with a smile, stopping first at the table’s edge, half a step behind Xu Jialuo, head bowed to smooth her skirt.

“Long time no see.”

            

And as she straightened and passed by Xu Jialuo’s ear, in a voice only Xu Jialuo could hear:

“Did you enjoy the trending-topic gift I sent you?”

The voice at her ear carried a mocking smile, low, repeating half the content of that very trending topic:

            

“Mistress usurping the legal wife.”

---

“Xu Jialuo?”

While the table was busy exchanging greetings with the newly seated Xu Yunxing, Lin Qingman leaned in close and murmured, “Are you all right?”

            

“Mm.” Xu Jialuo turned her face to look at her. “What’s wrong?”

Looking at Xu Jialuo’s calm, unruffled expression, Lin Qingman said, “…Never mind.”

She’d been close just now. She could have sworn Xu Yunxing had said something.

            

In that one fleeting instant, Xu Jialuo’s expression had flickered.

Probably the evening light was dim and she’d seen wrong.

Lin Qingman sat up straight and went back to listening to the chatter around the table.

            

Xu Jialuo, eyes low, looked at the phone lying on the table.

That trending topic had been Xu Yunxing’s doing.

Which meant…

            

It had never been Bo Suiqing’s revenge at all.

---

“Suiqing-jiejie?”

Xiao Nan turned her head to look at the person leaning against the back seat — clearly listless, spacing out.

            

The great star was nothing if not professional; at work she always snapped straight into peak form.

But off the clock, her state was unmistakably off.

Tired, probably, Xiao Nan thought. There had been work every single day lately — two or three months without one full day of rest.

            

So she said quickly, “Suiqing-jiejie, there’s nothing on the schedule tomorrow. You can have a proper rest at home!”

Called back by her little assistant’s energetic voice, Bo Suiqing drew her gaze in from the window. “…Mm.”

She looked down at the time on her phone.

            

7:35.

Less than three hours remained until the meeting she’d agreed to with Xu Jialuo yesterday.

But…

            

Could they still meet as agreed?

That phone call yesterday — Bo Suiqing had caught the gist of it. Tonight Xu Jialuo was attending a family dinner.

With that fiancée of hers.

            

So tonight — would Xu Jialuo still come back to the apartment?

Would she…

come back alone?

            

Bo Suiqing’s fingertips tightened on the phone.

It had been nearly a full day now.

No re-marking. No contact with Xu Jialuo’s pheromones.

            

Perhaps Xu Jialuo’s pheromones were simply too unstable — what lingered on her body wasn’t yet enough for anyone else to notice.

But now, even that one wisp of red-wine scent that she herself could still faintly sense was almost gone entirely.

Sourness braided with anxiety, leaving her nape faintly swollen and aching.

            

The unease kept mounting.

Her fingertip rubbed over the screen, again and again, until at last she unlocked it and opened the chat interface.

She tapped into her conversation with Xu Jialuo.

            

A few seconds later, she began to type.

— Xu Jialuo. You do remember we’re meeting tonight, right?

Delete.

            

Type again.

— Ten o’clock tonight. Your place.

Delete again.

            

She started typing once more.

— Are you coming back to the apartment tonight?

…

            

How should she phrase it, to raise the odds of a yes?

Or perhaps.

It made no difference at all.

            

If Xu Jialuo had already decided to refuse tonight’s meeting, nothing she said would matter.

Bo Suiqing lowered her eyes and wiped the input box clean once more.

She was about to back out of the app when the phone gave a sudden buzz.

            

A new message popped up.

— ?

It was from Xu Jialuo.

            

A single question mark.

---

At the table, Xu Jialuo looked down at her phone screen.

When she’d opened the chat with Bo Suiqing, it had been to consider whether to confirm the matter of that trending topic.

            

Then she’d decided there was no need.

But just before she could lock the screen, she noticed the words “the other person is typing” hanging above the chat box.

She stopped, and waited a few more seconds.

            

But as the seconds crawled past, the “typing” indicator flickered on and off, on and off — and no message ever arrived.

What was that about?

She watched “typing” vanish yet again, with still nothing sent.

            

Xu Jialuo moved her fingertip and tapped out a “?”

Send.

The chat window went quiet again.

            

A dozen or so seconds later, a new message finally came.

— What’s wrong?

…

            

What’s wrong?

This person had been typing for an eternity, and now she asked her what’s wrong.

Unless her phone had glitched.

            

The latter possibility was distinctly the greater one.

Xu Jialuo typed: “Nothing. My phone’s acting up.”

Then kept typing: “Sorry to bother you.”

            

Just as she was about to hit send, Lin Qingman suddenly leaned over.

Xu Jialuo’s fingertip slipped — in her haste, the text didn’t go through. Instead she tapped one of the stickers the input method had auto-suggested at the top of the keyboard.

A chibi white-furred wolfdog appeared on the screen, paws pressed to a sign reading “Sorry to bother you,” huge black-grape eyes widened in utter pathos.

            

Xu Jialuo: “…”

Catching her instantly frozen expression, Lin Qingman followed her line of sight, puzzled, and instinctively leaned toward the phone screen.

Xu Jialuo flipped the chat — contact name “Bo Suiqing” — face-down. “What’s wrong?”

            

“Oh — oh, I just wanted to say this beef brisket is amazing. You should try some.”

She’d noticed Xu Jialuo had barely touched her chopsticks.

“…Mm.”

            

Xu Jialuo picked up a piece of brisket and ate it. “Amazing.”

“Right?!”

Lin Qingman’s attention was swiftly diverted — the Xu family chef’s cooking suited her tonight — and she put her head down and devoted herself to her food.

            

Xu Jialuo set down her chopsticks.

Bo Suiqing had seen her blunder.

She’d know it was an accident, wouldn’t she.

            

Was there still time to unsend it?

Xu Jialuo quickly flipped the phone back and looked at the screen.

Her gaze snagged, hard.

            

Beneath the white wolfdog, a new chibi bunny had appeared — fur porcelain-white, pink eyes blinking, fluffy tail cocked up, soft little paws held high with a sign: “It’s okay.”

“…”

Her fingertip drifted over. Stopped.

            

In the end, Xu Jialuo did not unsend the misfired sticker.

---

Inside the car.

Stopped at a red light.

            

The driver and the little assistant kept casting glances at the rearview mirror.

At Bo Suiqing in the back seat.

The lit screen faintly brightened the great star’s always-elegant, effortlessly composed, beautiful face.

            

But right now, that impossibly lovely face wore something completely different from her usual self.

Faint rosy clouds seemed to have bloomed across her porcelain cheeks, and in those silver eyes — ice-pale as snow — the frost had been swept clean away, leaving only soft ripples shimmering like spring water.

Exceedingly rare.

            

And utterly vivid. Adorable. The kind of sight you simply couldn’t look away from.

So… who on earth was she chatting with?

The two of them turned their heads and exchanged a wordless look.

            

As if each had read the same answer in the other’s eyes.

---

Lips pressed together, she studied the two little animals on the screen — unexpectedly well matched, impossibly cute.

Bo Suiqing blinked, and kept typing:

            

“About the meeting we agreed on — tonight at ten. Will you be coming back to the apartment?”

She sent the text, paused a second, then opened the sticker pack, picked one out, and hit send.

---

A new message came through quickly.

            

Xu Jialuo looked down at it.

Before she could reply, a little rabbit — same set as the last sticker — suddenly appeared on the screen, head tilted, curled into a ball.

Pink-jewel eyes gazed out from the screen while its little paws rummaged in its arms and pulled out a carrot.

            

Three words appeared on it.

“I want to see you.”

Clunk.

            

Lin Qingman, carefully maintaining her elegance, was quietly straining to reach the red-braised pork ribs just a little too far away.

She registered, out of the corner of her eye, Xu Jialuo suddenly frowning and flipping her phone face-down onto the table.

But unwilling to abandon the rib that had just slipped from her chopsticks at the last second, Lin Qingman didn’t stop to ask.

            

Across the table, Xu Shangning was barely holding in her laughter — she’d secretly spooned up the rib for Lin Qingman and was holding it there, waiting for her to take it.

While no one was watching, Xu Jialuo picked the phone up again and checked the screen.

The little rabbit was still lying there.

            

Not unsent.

…

So when Bo Suiqing chatted with people…

            

she actually liked playing with this kind of childish thing?

…

She wasn’t doing it on purpose just to gross her out, was she.

            

She watched the animated bunny through several loops.

Xu Jialuo lowered her head and replied:

“Mm.”

            

“I’ll be back.”

Bo Suiqing answered almost at once.

— Okay.

            

Then came a rabbit lying flat on the ground, snow-white ear-tips trembling faintly, little paws hugging a heart-shaped sign tight against its chest: “Waiting for you.”

“…”

She studied the new bunny through several more loops.

            

Xu Jialuo gently set the phone face-down on the table.

---