Substitute Alpha Gets Confessed to by Her Ex’s Aunt on a Survival Variety Show – Chapter 13
by Little PandaGrunting and Puffing While Digging Cassava
【Liu Yinxi, get your dog paws off her!】
【No!!!!! What are you doing to my Manman!】
【??? You damn dog, don’t turn your head! You don’t want extra chicken drumsticks anymore, do you!】
The camera-equipped robot dog turned and retreated a few steps, and the livestream view shifted from the shelter to the campfire. It turned its head as if to say it ran on solar power and couldn’t eat chicken drumsticks anyway.
Inside the triangular shelter covered with banana and palm leaves, Liu Yinxi gently applied the ointment below Nan Huaixu’s butterfly bones.1 The rainforest mosquitoes were especially venomous, and a large red welt had swollen up on the tender skin there.
“All done.” Liu Yinxi removed her hand, held it in mid-air, and asked Nan Huaixu, “Are there any other spots you can’t reach?”
Nan Huaixu quickly pulled up her collar and put on her jacket. “No, thank you.”
Liu Yinxi wiped the remaining ointment from her fingers onto her own face, rubbing it in evenly. She walked out of the shelter and let out a huge yawn. “Ah—so sleepy. Going to the bathroom, then bed.”
Nan Huaixu sat on the edge of the bed, her gaze lowered and somber. She extended her hands to warm them over the campfire. Hearing footsteps approaching from behind the bushes, she immediately zipped up her hardshell jacket all the way to the top, raising the windproof high collar.
“Ahhh~~~”
Liu Yinxi returned, yawning again. She chewed on a banana tree core to brush her teeth, rinsed her mouth, and lay down in the shelter.
She looked at Nan Huaixu, who was sitting perfectly still. “Not sleeping yet?”
Nan Huaixu had her back to her, her silhouette looking thin. “I’m a little cold. I’ll warm myself by the fire for a bit. You go ahead and sleep.”
“Oh.” Liu Yinxi’s eyelids were fighting,2 her voice soft and drowsy. “The insulation on this brand of hardshell jacket is just so-so. They spent all their money on advertising. You should buy Cyan next time.”
“…” Nan Huaixu’s hand, pressed against her chest, quietly clenched.
Liu Yinxi rolled over to face the side, her voice growing fainter. “Good night, jiejie.”
The campfire flickered slowly in the night wind.
Nan Huaixu clutched her collar for a long while before finally letting go. She placed her hands over the flames, watching the firelight illuminate the skin between her fingers in an orange-red glow from below.
Coo coo coo!
A strange call echoed from the depths of the pitch-black, dense forest, and indiscernible rustling sounds whispered all around. Nan Huaixu glanced left and right, then hugged her shoulders and shivered. She scrambled to the innermost part of the shelter and leaned her back against a wooden post.
She could feel her heart beating powerfully in her chest and subconsciously glanced at the woman lying beside her.
“Liu Yinxi?” Nan Huaixu called her softly. Liu Yinxi was lying on her side with her back to her, her breathing even and deep in sleep.
Moving with light hands and light feet,3 Nan Huaixu got off the bed. She brought her backpack, which was on the airdrop crate, into the shelter and stuffed two coconuts inside to make it bulge, then piled it in the middle of the bed.
She covered her mouth and yawned, then lay down on her side with her back to the backpack.
“Ugh!”
Nan Huaixu let out a muffled grunt. Something had jabbed her in the lower back. Enduring the pain, she pushed herself up and felt around on the bed, finding a round, hard object.
Holding it up to the firelight, Stone Xi’s smiling face looked back at her with arched eyebrows.
“…”
Nan Huaixu banished it from the bed.
Wristband date: April 11.
Liu Yinxi opened her eyes and looked at her wristband. 5:51 AM. She had woken up again before her alarm.
Going to bed at 8 PM and waking up at five or six in the morning, she had gotten plenty of sleep.
Liu Yinxi sat by the stone stove to cook the fiddlehead ferns. After eating half of the grilled prawn left over from last night, she figured that since they weren’t going to fight for an airdrop and her 6 AM alarm was about to go off, there was probably no need to wake Nan Huaixu.
She filled Nan Huaixu’s mess tin with half of the fiddlehead fern soup and the other half of the prawn, then emptied her own mess tin and put a cleaned long pepper husk inside to boil in water.4 She had drunk a bowl of long pepper water last night with no adverse reactions—in fact, her stomach felt quite comfortable. It should be fine for Nan Huaixu to drink.
Her foot kicked something. Liu Yinxi looked down; it seemed a bit familiar. She picked up the round stone. Wasn’t this Stone Xi, which had been lying on the bed under a leaf yesterday?
Liu Yinxi frowned and picked it up for a closer look. How did it go from being on the bed yesterday to being on the ground today? Maybe Nan Huaixu didn’t like hard, lumpy stones. Next time, she would find a prettier object to keep her company.
“Mmm…”
A lazy sound came from the shelter.
Liu Yinxi smiled and greeted her, “Good morning, Nan-jiejie.”
Nan Huaixu propped her head up, her drowsy eyes a little dazed.
“Liu Yinxi?”
“Yep!”
“Change your screensaver.”
“?”
Liu Yinxi instinctively glanced at the drone overhead and the robot dog in the bushes, then turned to Nan Huaixu. “Huh? Jiejie, you need to wake up. We’re in a survival competition in a primeval rainforest. There are no screensavers. What are you talking about?”
It seemed Nan Huaixu knew the original owner had set her poster as her phone screensaver and wasn’t happy about it.
Normally, celebrities would be happy about their fans’ adoration, but Nan Huaixu didn’t want the original owner to do that. The original’s past fan behavior—or “chasing stars”5—must have troubled Nan Huaixu.
It must have been hard for Nan Huaixu to endure teaming up with her, this “skin suit” of the original owner.6
Nan Huaixu grunted softly, rubbing her forehead and squinting for a moment. Her gaze gradually cleared. “Sorry, I wasn’t fully awake just now.”
Liu Yinxi chuckled and handed her some water. “You must have been dreaming, jiejie. Here, have some water. I’ve already made breakfast.”
“Mm…” Nan Huaixu took a few sips of water, slowly got out of bed, and ate the fiddlehead fern soup by the campfire.
“Have you eaten?” Nan Huaixu asked Liu Yinxi, who was sitting opposite her.
“I have. Fiddlehead ferns and grilled prawn. We each get half.”
Nan Huaixu nodded, holding her mess tin.
After she had a few bites of the ferns, Liu Yinxi handed her a coconut shell filled with the long pepper water. “Nan-jiejie, after you finish eating, drink this to regulate your stomach. I drank some yesterday, and it was fine.”
Nan Huaixu took the long pepper water. A hint of worry flickered in her eyes, but she didn’t say anything and drank it down.
Liu Yinxi cleaned the mess tins and chopsticks. “If it works well, I’ll go look around later and see if I can find some more.”
“Mm, I hope it’s effective. If we want to last long in this competition, we need to collect resources that can treat various basic injuries and illnesses.”
Nan Huaixu stood up and did two sets of warm-up exercises.
“I’m ready. Shall we head out to find food?”
“Hold on, my hiking stick broke yesterday. I’m carving a new one. Do you want one, jiejie?”
“Mine is still usable. You can make yours.”
Liu Yinxi put away her knife, grasped the wooden stick, and raised it high toward the sky. “Legendary Weapon: Rainforest King’s Staff, complete.”
Nan Huaixu, standing to the side: “…”
Liu Yinxi turned around and cupped her face cutely. “Nan-jiejie, let’s set off. You have to walk a little slower, okay? Otherwise, I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep up.”
Nan Huaixu strode onto the small path heading east. “Let’s go. We’ll check the place where I found the horn bananas last time first.”
In the early morning, dewdrops condensed on the blades of grass, and occasionally, insects could be seen perched on the leaves, sipping the moisture.
Nan Huaixu walked in front, using her wooden stick to probe the path. Every so often, she would check her compass to get her bearings.
Passing by a broken root of a giant banyan tree, Liu Yinxi saw the crossed-branch marker she had made two days ago to identify edible plants.
Liu Yinxi walked toward the forked branch stuck in the mud and pointed to two shrubs with thin, woody stems and leaves that fanned out like umbrellas. “Nan-jiejie, do you recognize this?”
Nan Huaixu held up a leaf to observe it. The petiole was reddish. She found it a little familiar but couldn’t identify what it was.
“I don’t know.”
Liu Yinxi squatted down, found a flat, blunt stone, and used it to dig at the soil around the plant’s roots. “This is wild cassava. When I was a kid in the village, my grandmother took me into the mountains to dig it.”
“Cassava?” Nan Huaixu plucked a cassava leaf in surprise. It was somewhat long and slender, but its texture was very similar to a sweet potato leaf. “I knew it felt a little familiar.”
Nan Huaixu also found a stone and started digging. “Then we can roast this and eat it. Do you think the wild kind will be sweet?”
Liu Yinxi drew her knife, chopped the cassava stalk, and after snapping the stem and leaves, continued to dig. “It’s a matter of luck. But wild cassava contains a small amount of toxins. It needs to be soaked in water for a day and then cooked thoroughly before eating.”
“It’s poisonous?”
“Right. Just like how potatoes are poisonous when they sprout.”
“In the course of biological evolution, every species has developed its own defense mechanisms. For example, the original wild species of tomatoes, chili peppers, and green beans were all poisonous. Most wild animals wouldn’t dare eat them. It was humans who unlocked the skills of domestication and cooking, figuring out ways to remove their toxins and turn them into delicacies.”
Nan Huaixu listened intently. “I know green beans are poisonous if they’re not cooked properly, but tomatoes are poisonous too?”
“Tomatoes contain solanine. Eating too many unripe tomatoes can easily cause nausea and vomiting. In severe cases, it can even threaten the respiratory system.”
Nan Huaixu poked at the ground with her stone. “This is the first I’ve ever heard of that.”
Liu Yinxi smiled. “You don’t cook much, do you? People who buy groceries and cook are more or less familiar with the properties of their ingredients.”
Nan Huaixu fluttered her eyelashes a few times and cleared her throat. “I have a professional nutritionist and a culinary team.”
“Wow, I’m so jealous.”
Nan Huaixu asked Liu Yinxi, “Can you cook?”
Liu Yinxi could, but the original owner was completely clueless about cooking, so Liu Yinxi said, “I couldn’t originally, but after losing my source of income, I forced myself to learn.”
“So, your financial problems brought about a big change in you.”
“Of course. I have to eat. I had to change in order to live.”
They dug away the soil. Liu Yinxi grabbed the cassava stem and pulled upwards with all her might, yanking out a string of long tubers. Counting them, there were five in total, each about as thick as three fingers held together.
Seeing the plump cassava, Nan Huaixu imagined its sweet and fluffy texture after being roasted and couldn’t help but break into a smile.
“There’s one more.” Nan Huaixu picked up her stone, intending to dig them all up in one go.7
Liu Yinxi plopped down on the grass. “Aiya, I can’t go on. Jiejie, I’m so tired. I need to rest for a bit.”
Nan Huaixu was also a little tired, but the wonderful image of roasted cassava spurred her on, making her persist with the digging.
“I’ll dig first. You can help me after resting for two minutes.”
“You still have energy, jiejie? You’re so amazing! Truly a woman among women, an omega among omegas!”
Nan Huaixu’s lips twitched as she silently dug at the soil.
Liu Yinxi gave her two thumbs up, cheering for her.8 Her mouth was like it had been smeared with honey,9 saying whatever sounded nice, no matter how exaggerated.
Before she knew it, Nan Huaixu had single-handedly dug up six cassava tubers. She sat on a tree root, panting, with her spoils laid out on the ground before her, filled with a sense of accomplishment.
“Wow! Nan-jiejie is incredible! As expected of my idol! The Heroine of the Jinzhou Rainforest!”
Liu Yinxi clapped her hands happily.
Nan Huaixu propped herself up with her wooden stick and walked over to her, staring at her expressionlessly.
Liu Yinxi blinked her big, sparkling eyes. “Nan-jiejie, why are you looking at me like that?”
Nan Huaixu blocked the sunlight in front of her and smiled faintly. “How about you let me see an alpha among alphas?”
The author has something to say:
Sorry, something came up in my three-dimensional life.10 I’m taking a day off on December 25th and will update on the evening of December 26th. 🤗
ps: Merry Christmas Eve and Christmas to everyone 💗
Footnotes
- A poetic term for prominent scapulae (shoulder blades), often considered a mark of beauty.
- A literal translation of the Chinese phrase 眼皮打架 (yǎnpí dǎjià), meaning to be very sleepy.
- A literal translation of the Chinese idiom 轻手轻脚 (qīng shǒu qīng jiǎo), meaning to move quietly and carefully.
- Long pepper (荜拔 bì bá) is a spice and medicinal herb used in traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, often for digestive issues.
- A common slang term, 追星 (zhuīxīng), for being an avid fan of a celebrity.
- The term used is 皮套 (pítào), which literally means “skin suit” or “leather sheath.” In online culture, it can refer to the avatar or persona someone uses, especially in the context of virtual YouTubers. Here, Liu Yinxi uses it to refer to the fact that she is inhabiting the original Liu Yinxi’s body.
- The idiom 一鼓作气 (yī gǔ zuò qì) means to do something in a single, sustained burst of energy, like a drumbeat rallying troops for a charge.
- The text uses 打call (dǎ call), a modern slang term from idol fan culture that means to cheer for or support someone enthusiastically.
- A literal translation of the phrase 嘴像抹了蜜 (zuǐ xiàng mǒle mì), meaning to be a sweet-talker.
- The term “three-dimensional” (三次元 sān cì yuán) is ACG (Anime, Comic, and Games) slang for the real world, as opposed to the “two-dimensional” world of fiction.
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