Substitute Alpha Gets Confessed to by Her Ex’s Aunt on a Survival Variety Show – Chapter 182
by Little PandaHongdu Lovers
How could she even have a thought like that?
At the tail end of July, with August just around the corner, Nan Huaixu’s month-long vacation began.
But with the company’s qualification audit having been rejected, the firm might need Nan Huaixu to helm operations at any moment — so she canceled the long-distance travel plans she’d made with Liu Yinxi and simply rested in Hongdu.
The negative emotions Zeng Mulin had stirred up in her were quickly digested under Liu Yinxi’s soothing.
She had indeed broken down facing Zeng Mulin that day, briefly losing her reason and her composure — but once the storm inside her had passed, Nan Huaixu immediately recovered her usual steadiness and resolve.
People aren’t made of steel, she thought. No matter how strong you are, there will always be fragile moments, and you have to allow yourself to release your emotions.
And you have to allow the people who matter to you to sort through theirs, too.
Liu Yinxi thought the same way. So she figured the best thing she could do was build a beautiful environment around them — keep everything warm and sunny, and Nan Huaixu’s spirits would lift with it.
In the morning, Nan Huaixu went back to bed for a second sleep, getting up only at eleven.
She washed up, hugged her plush doll, and came downstairs, settling at the dining table to watch Liu Yinxi bustle about in the bright kitchen.
The range hood, the juicer, and the air fryer were all running at once, making such a racket that Liu Yinxi never heard Nan Huaixu’s footsteps. She turned around without thinking — and suddenly there was someone behind her. She jumped.
Nan Huaixu, seeing her startled, deliberately stuck out her “paws” and played the tiger: “Grrrowr.”
Liu Yinxi played along, ducking away. “What divine beast has descended among mortals? Cute to death.”
Nan Huaixu lifted her chin smugly, laughed twice, then sprawled lazily across the dining table, playing with her cloth doll.
Today, Liu Yinxi was making Nan Huaixu’s favorite — tomato-braised beef brisket.
Liu Yinxi skewered a tomato with her chopsticks and scalded the frozen-hard skin with boiling water — the principle of thermal expansion and contraction made it slip off effortlessly, and the freezing had locked the juices inside, making the finished dish all the more fresh and succulent.
As she cut the peeled tomatoes into chunks, she glanced back to see what Nan Huaixu was up to and chatted with her. “Where do you want to go later?”
Nan Huaixu let her head loll to one side. “What… ever.”
“‘Whatever’ is a real test of a person, you know.”
“Mm.”
Liu Yinxi thought it over. “Shopping, then? Pretty clothes and jewelry?”
Nan Huaixu squeezed the doll. “Not really.”
“Swimming, then? A water park? Playing in the water’s nice and cool in this heat.”
“Also not really.”
“Caitian Manor, then, to see the lotus and water lilies? They’re in full bloom right now — I’ll take some dreamy, fairy-like photos of you.”
“…” Nan Huaixu patted the doll’s head and didn’t answer.
Liu Yinxi finished the tomatoes, set them in the stew pot with the marinated beef, washed her hands, and came over to pluck the doll out of Nan Huaixu’s hands. “Stop playing with it. Pay attention to me instead.”
Nan Huaixu watched the doll leave her arms. “You’re the one who grabbed it for me — and now you’re busy again.”
“Let’s talk first. I’ll give it back when I go cook.”
Nan Huaixu nodded, pushed herself up from the table, and wrapped her arms around Liu Yinxi.
Liu Yinxi picked off a strand of hair clinging to Nan Huaixu’s cheek. “We’ve been cooped up at home for two days without going out. Come take a walk with me. Didn’t you say you’d figured out what film you want to make, but the details aren’t settled and you’re short on inspiration? Let’s spend this time hunting for inspiration out there. How about it?”
Nan Huaixu buried her face in Liu Yinxi’s embrace and nuzzled — then caught the smell of sesame oil on the apron and hurriedly lifted her face. “My face isn’t dirty, is it?”
Liu Yinxi bent her head and gently stroked her cheek with the pads of her fingers. “Not at all. Our Manman is as pretty as can be.”
Nan Huaixu’s lips curved. “See just how pretty.”
Liu Yinxi’s smile went tender, and she leaned in and gave her a kiss.
So pretty.
Pretty enough to kiss.
The air fryer let out a ding. Liu Yinxi patted the top of Nan Huaixu’s head and moved to fetch the yam slices; before slipping on her heat-resistant gloves, she placed the doll back in Nan Huaixu’s hands. “I’ll go cook. You play with it for now — take your time deciding where to go. No rush.”
Nan Huaixu caught the doll, set it aside, and quietly trailed after Liu Yinxi.
Liu Yinxi opened the air fryer and was arranging the baked yam slices and purple sweet potato slices onto a porcelain plate when she felt a pair of arms wrap around her from behind.
Nan Huaixu hugged her waist from behind. Liu Yinxi fed her a yam slice. “How’s the flavor?”
Nan Huaixu crunched away crisply. “Delicious.”
Liu Yinxi’s eye fell on the doll, left out in the cold in the corner. “Done playing with your cloth doll?”
Nan Huaixu murmured under her breath, “You’re the one who got jealous.”
“Mm. A teeny bit.”
“Then I have a teeny bit too.”
Liu Yinxi didn’t follow, but Nan Huaixu was just too adorable. She turned around and, right there in the circle of Nan’s arms, gathered her close. “And what on earth do you have to be jealous about?”
Nan Huaixu smiled and pointed at the counter.
In the order she pointed: the cutting board, the cleaver, the stew pot, the air fryer… even the little bottle of sesame oil wasn’t spared.
Nan Huaixu made her accusation. “It, it, it… and it. All of them.”
Liu Yinxi asked, “They’re what?”
Nan Huaixu’s lovely face was written all over with righteous conviction. “They monopolize you.”
That cracked Liu Yinxi up. She scooped her up to sit on the kitchen island; Nan Huaixu wobbled and hastily grabbed her shoulders.
Nan Huaixu hooked her arms around her neck in turn and asked softly, “What are you doing?”
“Letting you monopolize me.” Liu Yinxi lowered her lashes, brushed the hair back from Nan Huaixu’s ear, and dipped her head to suck lightly at her earlobe.
The beef brisket stewed a long, long time — melt-in-your-mouth tender, brimming with juice.
Since it took a while, lunch ran a little late.
In the end, Nan Huaixu never did choose a spot for their outing, so she simply left everything to Liu Yinxi’s arrangements — wherever she was taken, she’d go.
A star going out naturally requires a stretch of primping.
Liu Yinxi waited in the entryway for Nan Huaixu to finish getting ready and come down. Then came the tap-tap-tap of quick little footsteps, a wisp of breeze — Nan Huaixu hugged her arm, gave a little hop, and pressed a kiss to the hair at her temple.
Liu Yinxi kissed her forehead. “Off we go, then.”
Nan Huaixu laced their fingers together, tugged her back, rose on tiptoe, and whispered, “Liu Yinxi, can I ask you something?”
Liu Yinxi bent her ear closer. “Mm?”
Nan Huaixu drew a deep breath, hesitated half a second, then ventured, very carefully, “Are you… not really any good at doing it?”
Liu Yinxi froze. What did that mean?
“How so?”
Nan Huaixu flushed faintly and rephrased, whispering against her ear. “I mean… how do you manage to hold back from marking me?”
Now it wasn’t just Nan Huaixu — Liu Yinxi’s cheeks were heating up too.
Even her tongue felt scalded. “This — this, you — why are you asking this all of a sudden, right before we go out?”
Nan Huaixu hastily looked away. “Because every time, you stop halfway. At noon, when you held me, I thought you were going to… ah, never mind. Don’t ask.”
“Manman? Do you want…”
“Enough — you’re not allowed to say it.” Nan Huaixu instantly put on that elegant, exquisitely dignified face she wore in front of outsiders. “Outside, you follow my arrangements. No wandering off, and no calling my name out loud.”
Then, seeming to feel she’d sounded a bit stern, she took Liu Yinxi’s hand and gave it a sway, softening her voice. “It’d be a hassle if fans recognized me out there. Just call me jiejie.”
Liu Yinxi read the whole shift in her — from flustered indignation to tenderness, all for her sake — and her heart went soft.
Liu Yinxi took her hand and swayed it gently back. “As you command, Jiejie.”
I like you so much, Manman — jealous of my kitchenware and all.
Friday dawn — the day of the appointment with Nan Lingxuan arrived.
Liu Yinxi had thought it over for a long while and decided that for now she wouldn’t tell Nan Huaixu she planned to visit Aunt Nan.
She’d prepared an excuse in advance for going out alone on Friday, but as it happened, Nan Huaixu had business at the company that day — so it went unused.
Nan Huaixu left early for overtime. Liu Yinxi packed her a lunch box, saw her out the door, then drove to the address Nan Lingxuan had given her.
Hongdu Changle Rehabilitation Center.
At first the address puzzled Liu Yinxi — was Nan Lingxuan getting a checkup here?
Only upon arriving did she understand: the one who’d come to the rehabilitation center for a checkup wasn’t Nan Lingxuan. It was someone else entirely.
Nan Lingxuan, who always favored loud, flamboyant color, was today in a plain, unadorned long dress — every one of her rainbow-hued jewels stripped off.
She walked ahead, leading Liu Yinxi through the enormous garden, past a security cordon, toward the luxury sanatorium tucked deep within the rehabilitation center.
As they walked, Nan Lingxuan instructed her. “As for your matter, I acted first and reported later. Mama neither agreed to see you nor refused. Whatever you see or hear in a moment, don’t react too strongly — and whatever you do, don’t defy her. Otherwise I’ll be catching the scolding right alongside you.”
Liu Yinxi was utterly lost. “I won’t. A convalescent home is supposed to stay quiet anyway — what could I even see…”
Nan Lingxuan stopped abruptly at the end of a long corridor trellised with white wisteria and jerked her chin toward what lay ahead.
Liu Yinxi followed her gaze. A woman in a black qipao reclined on her side in the pavilion at the edge of the lotus pond. Her skin and figure were impeccably maintained — her exact age impossible to place. Only, she disliked dyeing her hair; her full head of silver-gray hair bespoke long years already distilled.
At her side stood a strikingly handsome Alpha, spine straight, looking no older than thirty.
The qipao-clad woman said something. The Alpha smiled and bent down, skimming a dragonfly-light kiss across her brow, then moved behind her to knead her shoulders.
Liu Yinxi stood rooted in shock.
What had she just seen?
That Alpha, roughly Manman’s age — was Aunt Nan’s… lover?
Nan Lingxuan sighed in resignation, called out “Mama,” and forced herself forward. “I’ve brought a guest. I told you on the phone yesterday.”
Nan Ze propped her brow, eyes closed, and gave a faint wave of her hand.
Nan Lingxuan frowned and beckoned Liu Yinxi over.
Liu Yinxi hurried into the pavilion, cold sweat prickling down her back. Nothing was unfolding the way she’d imagined. Nan Huaixu’s mother didn’t seem to be the coolly reserved type she’d guessed — she was some breed Liu Yinxi had never encountered before.
She had no idea how to handle this.
But the arrow was on the bowstring — it had to fly.
“Hello, Aunt Nan. My name is Liu Yinxi — I’m Nan Huaixu’s girlfriend.” Liu Yinxi planted herself before Nan Ze and inclined slightly in courtesy. “I’ve come because there’s something important concerning Nan Huaixu I’d like to discuss with you. Aunt Nan, do you know that a few days ago Aunt Zeng brought people to force—”
Pada.
Before Liu Yinxi could finish, Nan Ze swung her foot forward and flicked off a shoe of gold-woven silk1.
“Pick it up.” Nan Ze kept her eyes closed.
Liu Yinxi looked down at the shoe, then at Nan Lingxuan. Nan Lingxuan nodded, face grim.
Liu Yinxi suppressed the strange discomfort welling in her chest and sank down, bending her knees.
As she picked up the shoe, Nan Ze suddenly gave a frivolous little laugh. Liu Yinxi lifted her head, bewildered. Nan Ze sat up, curled her lips, and waggled her toes at her.
“What are you dawdling for? Never waited on anyone before?”
0 Comments