Substitute Alpha Gets Confessed to by Her Ex’s Aunt on a Survival Variety Show – Chapter 20
by Little PandaThe Moon Scallop Shell and the Light That Illuminates It
Nan Huaixu’s gaze swept over the moon scallop shell and Liu Yinxi’s open palm. “Where do you want it?”
Liu Yinxi lifted her left hand slightly. “Here.”
Nan Huaixu had guessed right. “You want me to put my hand in your palm? What are you planning to do?”
Liu Yinxi twirled the moon scallop shell she held in her right hand. “A manicure.”
Nan Huaixu’s eyes shifted. Was it because she remembered her saying her nails were dirty while they were tying up fuel this afternoon?
“How can you do a manicure with a shell?”
“Use the small point on this end to pick out the dirt from under your nails, then use this rough, textured side to file them. It’ll get your fingers all clean and pretty.”
Liu Yinxi demonstrated as she explained, holding the moon scallop shell up. The firelight passed through the thin shell, refracting a rainbow-colored luster.
“This is a moon scallop. In my heart, it’s the most beautiful shell in the ocean. On the surface, it looks like a plain, monotonous white—thin, translucent, and very fragile. But as long as there’s light, it’s like a phoenix in nirvana,1 making a dull, inorganic object burst forth with a neon-like brilliance, full of life.”
Nan Huaixu had worn all kinds of jewelry, from pure, single-colored gems to multi-colored precious stones. She had never paid any attention to little things like moon scallops that could be picked up on any beach. It wasn’t only expensive objects that could be dazzlingly beautiful; sometimes, a common little thing could also display the beauty of nature.
Nan Huaixu extended her index finger, pointing at the translucent, round sliver between Liu Yinxi’s fingers. “You’re giving me your favorite shell?”
Liu Yinxi offered it to her.
Nan Huaixu took the shell from her hand with her thumb and forefinger. “Thank you. I’ll do it myself.”
“Mhm.” Liu Yinxi grabbed a handful of shells from her pocket and placed them on the airdrop crate. “I also picked up a lot of other pretty shells. We can use them to hold herbal ointment, or for pedicures, too.”
Nan Huaixu picked out a few she liked. “What, you treat your hands and feet differently?”
Liu Yinxi replied, “Toenails are thicker. You have to use a rougher shell.”
Nan Huaixu nodded. “That makes a lot of sense.”
She put the shells away and handed Liu Yinxi the roasted cassava on the banana leaf plate, her voice a little excited. “I spread some banyan fruit jam on it. How does it taste?”
She didn’t know how to cook. She had hardly ever set foot in a kitchen her entire life, nor had she ever been interested. But ever since joining the competition, she had been cooking outdoors with Liu Yinxi. Every time she grilled a fragrant fish or boiled a pot of warm soup, she was filled with a sense of accomplishment.
This sense of accomplishment was simple and warm, completely different from the joy that came from having to exhaust one’s mind and energy2 to produce a successful film. It was a kind of relaxation that put Nan Huaixu’s heart at ease.
—Like a drowning person breaking the surface and taking a breath of air.
Liu Yinxi took a large bite of the jam-covered cassava and gave a thumbs-up. “Super delicious!”
Nan Huaixu asked, “Better than eating the fruit directly, right?”
Liu Yinxi wolfed it down, her words muffled. “This is a very delicious and creative dish. It could be included in the 《Survivor 5》 Delicious Recipes.”
“Survivor recipes? Is there such a thing?”
“There wasn’t before, but there is now. I’ll record everything delicious you make.”
“Who would do something so boring?”
“Me. I’m keeping track of it all. When we get back, I’ll write it up as a blog post first, and I’ll even draw illustrations for it.”
Based on Liu Yinxi’s decade of experience running an outdoor adventure account, the wilderness cooking series was popular with many viewers. And the lower the modern tech content and the more primitive the cooking process, the better the reception.
Nan Huaixu rested her cheek on one hand. The warm campfire cast a rosy glow on her face.
She listened to Liu Yinxi’s words without responding, instead adding sea shrimp and clams to the boiling water. Then she picked up a grilled fish. “Here.”
Liu Yinxi took the wooden skewer, blew on the piping hot fish, and took a careful bite. A fresh, savory flavor, like a refreshing sea breeze, swept through her mouth.
“Wow, this is amazing. You added sea salt, but what else?” Liu Yinxi exclaimed, her mouth watering as she looked at the fish, which was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.
Nan Huaixu pulled a few small, round pellets from her pocket. “I found this while I was gathering fuel.”
Liu Yinxi picked one up, crushed it between her fingers, and held it to her nose to smell. “Wild white pepper.”
“Correct.” Nan Huaixu forcefully crushed the remaining peppercorns in her hand and sprinkled them into the boiling shrimp and fish soup. In no time, the aroma of pepper seafood soup wafted out, tempting Liu Yinxi into drinking three bowls.
Full and satisfied, Liu Yinxi lay on her bed with her head facing the shelter’s opening, gazing up at the night sky. However, the roof and the tree canopy blocked most of her view, leaving only faint starlight peeking through.
Nan Huaixu sat under the extended awning, filing her nails by the campfire. She used the moon scallop shell to grind her nails smooth and round, then blew away the resulting powder.
Out here in the deserted island wilderness, there was no entertainment. After sunset, they had plenty of time to squander. Nan Huaixu was exceptionally meticulous in tending to her nails, spending a long time to finish one hand before switching to the other.
Liu Yinxi stared into the fire, spacing out. The sleepy bug3 came for her, and she yawned at the sky.
She turned her head and saw Nan Huaixu blowing on her nails. “Nan-jiejie, you’re still not done?”
Nan Huaixu didn’t look at her. “Is that any of your business?”
“No, no, no,” Liu Yinxi said quickly. “I was just asking. I just think it’s good enough once they’re clean, and I figured you’d have them clean by now.”
Nan Huaixu said, “They’re clean, but some of the curves aren’t nice, and some cracks are catching on lint. I want to shape them into a style I like.”
“Alrighty then, take your time. I’m going to go rinse my mouth.”
With that, Liu Yinxi rolled over and got up. She needed to do something to wake herself up; she still had to check her wristband at ten o’clock for an update on the next morning’s airdrop location.
She walked past the campfire, and Nan Huaixu made way for her.
Liu Yinxi picked up her plastic water bottle and a piece of banana pith. Just as she stepped outside the shelter and took a mouthful of water, Nan Huaixu spoke. “Did you not like manicures before? The sparkly kinds, like aurora powder or cat’s eye stone.”
Liu Yinxi nearly choked.
The original owner loved manicures and was passionate about all kinds of beautiful adornments. Liu Yinxi was sure Nan Huaixu knew this, which meant the opinion she had just expressed contradicted the original owner’s preferences.
“I… I do like them,” Liu Yinxi immediately tried to cover for herself. “But how can you be so concerned with being pretty during a survival competition? Besides, I’m so poor now I can’t even eat properly. I don’t like them as much as I used to.”
Nan Huaixu let out a soft “mhm” through her nose.
With salt, they had traded for water purification tablets and banyan fruit. They had eaten well tonight, and she had a pretty shell for a manicure. Nan Huaixu was in a good mood.
She held up the moon scallop shell, admiring how the crystal-clear sliver shimmered with rainbow light in the firelight, her gaze deep. “I had a classmate in middle school who loved to draw.”
“Oh?” Liu Yinxi turned her head, pausing her teeth-brushing to listen with her full attention.
This was the first time Nan Huaixu had taken the initiative to talk about her past.
It wasn’t just superficial talk about work or filming, but a piece of her history that carried real emotion.
Nan Huaixu turned the moon scallop shell, her voice drawn out. “She was an amazing artist. She would write a little story for every one of her paintings. She gave me a few of them.”
“During an evening study session one summer, I gave her a box of gold foil chocolates I’d brought back from Belgium. Maybe the jewel box packaging was quite expensive—it was nothing to me, really, but she treasured it. She thanked me so many times. She knew I liked putting jelly stickers on my nails, so she borrowed a set of manicure tools from her older sister and painted ten different little animals on my fingernails. She even gave me a pack of nail polish remover wipes so I could take them off anytime.”
“When I got home, my mom saw them and praised how pretty the art on my nails was. Then she asked me how my review for the final exams was going. That night, after dinner, my mommy pulled me into the bathroom, poured out an entire bottle of nail polish remover, and scrubbed the art off my nails with great force. She scrubbed over and over, and the crevices of my nails hurt a lot. The next day, I went to school…”
Nan Huaixu paused, sniffled, and closed her hand around the moon scallop shell. “Sigh, what am I even saying all this for.”
“Don’t stop! You haven’t finished. You went to school the next day, and then what?” Liu Yinxi, holding the bottle in one hand and the frayed banana pith in the other, rushed over to sit beside Nan Huaixu. “Nan-jiejie, have you ever heard the theory that words also have a butterfly effect? If you only tell half a story, the butterfly only flaps one wing. The effect it causes will be incomplete, and the entire cycle of cause and effect will be thrown into chaos.”
Nan Huaixu said, “Never heard of it. It’s fake.”
Liu Yinxi pouted. “Tell a story halfway, and your eyelashes will grow inwards.”
“Fake.”
“Argh!” Liu Yinxi shook the water in the bottle. “Nan Huaixu, you’re too much! How can you leave a person hanging like this? You’ve completely chased my sleepiness away. I want to hear the rest of the story! Oh no, I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight. If I can’t get up tomorrow morning, I won’t have the energy to fight for the airdrop.”
Nan Huaixu tapped her on the back. “Someone like you who can fall asleep the moment your head hits the pillow4 won’t be able to sleep?”
Liu Yinxi straightened her back to dodge the tap. “I won’t! Not being able to fall asleep for ten minutes still counts as not being able to sleep.”
Nan Huaixu shot her a reproachful look, glanced at the robot dog, then lowered her head to speak to Liu Yinxi in a small voice, likely not wanting to be recorded by the livestream.
“The next day I went to school, and the classmate who painted my nails had transferred.”
Liu Yinxi’s eyes widened in shock. “Why?”
Nan Huaixu shook her head, hugging her own shoulders. “No one told me. She deleted me, so I couldn’t contact her. I asked other classmates, I asked the teachers, but no one knew. No one would tell me.”
Liu Yinxi sighed. From Nan Huaixu’s telling, she had really liked this artist friend. Her good friend, to thank her for the chocolate, had painted her nails and given her remover wipes. But the very next day, that friend transferred schools and cut off all contact. She asked everyone, and no one would tell her why.
Hearing the story made Liu Yinxi feel deeply uncomfortable, as if she were trapped under an invisible membrane—nothing from the outside could get in, and nothing from the inside could get out.
There was only a fleeting dimness in Nan Huaixu’s eyes. “It was my fault.”
She lifted her face, the firelight dancing across her beautiful features, and stretched her arms out in a lazy stretch. “Story’s over. You can sleep well now, right?”
Liu Yinxi bit down on the banana pith, nodded, and went back to rinsing her mouth. Gurgle gurgle, pu.
“How was it your fault?”
Nan Huaixu, arms still outstretched, turned to look at her at the sound of her voice. Liu Yinxi walked over, holding the water bottle, glowing in the firelight.
“That artist friend really liked you. No matter what happened later, it can’t negate the friendship that existed between you. Neither right nor wrong, nor the passing of years, can make a beautiful, frozen moment fade.”
“Nan Huaixu, don’t pay the price for the harm the outside world has inflicted on you.”
The wind stirred the fierce flames, and a sizzling sound swept past their ears, as if a spark had been blown straight into their hearts.
Footnotes
- Nirvana is a Buddhist concept of release from the cycle of rebirth. It is often used metaphorically in modern Chinese to describe a profound transformation or rebirth.
- Original term: 殚精竭虑 (dānjīngjiélǜ), a chengyu meaning to rack one’s brains or spare no effort.
- The ‘sleepy bug’ (瞌睡虫, kēshuì chóng) is a whimsical Chinese expression for the feeling of drowsiness that comes over a person.
- Original term: 沾枕头着 (zhān zhěntou zháo), a vivid colloquialism for someone who falls asleep very easily.
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