Substitute Alpha Gets Confessed to by Her Ex’s Aunt on a Survival Variety Show – Chapter 25

Why Are You Sniffing Me All Over

Charming Pan-Fried Buns?

Liu Yinxi remembered eating a late-night snack at the old night market in Zhoujin Bridge before the competition started. She had given a lady a serving of shrimp skin pan-fried buns.​¹ Was Nan Huaixu’s sudden mention of them related to that incident?

            

Liu Yinxi smiled sheepishly. “Nan-jiejie, you like the pan-fried buns from Zhoujin Bridge, too?”

Nan Huaixu nodded. “My old calligraphy teacher lived over there. I used to go to her house every week to practice, and I’d buy snacks at the night market after school. She recommended a food stall’s shrimp skin pan-fried buns to me, and I loved them. Later, after I moved on in my studies and started working, I still made sure to go back and eat them twice a year.”

“Oh…”

            

“I often ask my assistant to go buy them for me. One time, she went late, and the owner said there was only one serving left, which had already been sold. But she was very lucky that day. The customer was very kind and gave the last serving to my assistant.”

Liu Yinxi swallowed. This story sounded very familiar; she was certain she had experienced it.

Nan Huaixu smiled as she finished her story. “That kind customer said the pan-fried buns had a magical power. After eating them, she felt like her charm had nowhere to be placed.”

            

Liu Yinxi: “?”

The lady who came to buy the buns that night must have been Nan Huaixu’s assistant. She had given the assistant the buns. That was it, that had to be it.

But the assistant had left right after getting the food. How did Nan Huaixu know about her touching up her lipstick in the car window afterward?

            

Could it be that Nan Huaixu and her assistant hadn’t gone far? That they were nearby and had watched her entire performance of self-appreciation?

Nan Huaixu asked Liu Yinxi, “You lived in Zhoujin Bridge for a month or two. Did you ever run into a kind person who gave you some charming pan-fried buns?”

Liu Yinxi’s eyes darted around before she replied, “I’d be happy if I had half of your luck, jiejie. I’m so poor, if someone gave me a serving of pan-fried buns, I’d be moved to tears.”

            

Nan Huaixu said, “Is that so? My assistant was very moved, too. We originally wanted to thank the kind person, but then we ran into a narcissistic per.vert who was pressed up against my car window, and it scared us away.”

Pressed against the car window, narcissistic, per.vert.

Liu Yinxi: “…”

            

It was confirmed. The kind customer and the narcissistic per.vert Nan Huaixu was talking about were both her.

That MPV​² belonged to Nan Huaixu.

That night, when she was fixing her lipstick in the car window, Nan Huaixu had been sitting inside. They were face to face, separated only by a layer of glass.

            

Liu Yinxi said, “Um… I tried to imagine it. If I were sitting in the car and someone suddenly pressed their face against the window, I’d be scared too.”

She was wrong.

She would never dare to do it again.

            

She really hadn’t expected that there would still be people inside that MPV, which had been sitting so quietly for so long in an alley full of parked cars.

Nan Huaixu changed the subject. “You said you had no source of income after leaving Ying Luoling and were in a difficult situation. So where did you get the money for rent and daily expenses?”

Liu Yinxi said, “I downloaded a second-hand app.”

            

She stopped mid-sentence, feeling like Nan Huaixu was constantly trying to fish for information.​³

Strange. Why was Nan Huaixu trying to get information out of her?

Instead of answering, Liu Yinxi asked a question of her own. “Nan-jiejie, why are you suddenly asking me all this? It has nothing to do with our survival competition right now… I’m very grateful that you taught me to be independent and strong before. I’ll definitely find a steady job after the competition.”

            

Leaning on the alpenstock in her hand, Nan Huaixu took a breath and started walking forward again. “I have a habit. When my hands are free while walking or riding in a car, I like to think about things.”

Liu Yinxi listened attentively. “Mhm.”

“I said a few days ago that if you were willing, I would help you find a job and a place to rent after the competition, and you agreed.”

            

“Mhm.”

“So, I’ve been pondering in my spare time what kind of job would be suitable for you. I wanted to understand your basic situation first. That’s all.”

“Oh, oh, oh, I get it! Thank you, jiejie!”

            

As if sensing Liu Yinxi’s suspicion, Nan Huaixu’s tone softened slightly. “Sorry, my questions were very sudden, and some of them are a bit private. You have the right to refuse to answer.”

Liu Yinxi quickly said, “Not at all! Jiejie, please don’t say that. I can’t thank you enough for being willing to help me. Nan-jiejie, once I get a job and earn some money, I’ll definitely use my first paycheck to buy you a gift.”

She lowered her head. “But I probably won’t earn much, so I won’t be able to afford anything expensive. I hope you won’t mind.”

            

“Don’t make assumptions about your future. A person’s potential is limitless.”

Liu Yinxi turned to look at Nan Huaixu. Was that sentence meant to encourage her, to tell her not to belittle herself?

Nan Huaixu met her gaze, smiled, and continued, “For a gift, just treat me to a meal. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but it must be delicious.”

            

Liu Yinxi puffed out her chest proudly. “You can rest assured on that front. Leave it to me. There’s no delicious food in Zhoujin Bridge that I can’t find.”

She suddenly considered Nan Huaixu’s profession as an actress and couldn’t resist asking, “But Nan-jiejie, food from street stalls has a lot of carbs. Aren’t you afraid of gaining weight?”

“…” Nan Huaixu shot her an annoyed glance and said coldly, “The weight I’ll have lost by the end of this competition won’t even be covered by what I’d gain back from eating at a food stall.”

            

“Oh, right!” Liu Yinxi was just being considerate. After all, the temptation of carbs and sugar was a great enemy for anyone trying to maintain their figure. The fact that Nan Huaixu could list so many of her new favorite desserts in one breath showed that she was an actress struggling in the trap of temptation.

Nan Huaixu used her alpenstock to tap at the grass ahead, seemingly chatting idly. “You just said you downloaded a second-hand app?”

Liu Yinxi immediately picked up the thread. “Right, it’s called Salted Fish.​⁴ Have you used it?”

            

“I know of it, but I’ve never used it. You buy things on there?”

“Not buy, sell. I sold some jewelry, clothes, shoes, cosmetics, and small appliances on it. I used the money I earned sparingly to rent a thirty-square-meter old apartment, and to pay for food and daily necessities.”

Nan Huaixu asked thoughtfully, “I remember you saying you really like bags. You used to have a lot of them. You couldn’t bear to part with any of them, right?”

            

Liu Yinxi had mentioned selling many things on the second-hand app, but she hadn’t said a word about bags.

But by normal logic, when a person was in such financial difficulty that they had to sell their second-hand belongings, they should start by selling the things they had the most of.

Liu Yinxi hadn’t mentioned bags to Nan Huaixu since the show started. Ying Luoling or the original owner must have told her.

            

It wasn’t convenient to talk about their private relationship on a live broadcast, so Nan Huaixu often communicated with Liu Yinxi in this ambiguous way. Liu Yinxi understood her intentions and was used to it, so she replied calmly, “What’s there to be reluctant about for someone eating cheap Pinhaofan meals? Maybe the second-hand luxury store tricked me. They wouldn’t take my bags, so I sold them for cabbage price​⁵ to get some pocket money.”

“They wouldn’t take your bags? How is that possible?” Nan Huaixu was Ying Luoling’s little aunt. She knew that the Luo family’s vintage goods business was doing very well, controlling almost the entire central and northern market. Ying Luoling herself was a professional appraiser. How could she possibly tolerate her girlfriend using fakes?

“I don’t know. Maybe they wanted to lowball me,” Liu Yinxi said with a helpless shrug.

            

Nan Huaixu felt something was off and pressed for details. “Which store did you go to?”

Liu Yinxi said, “The Shen City Second-hand Luxury Goods Center.”

“It’s impossible that they would trick you there,” Nan Huaixu stated decisively.

            

Shen City’s vintage and second-hand luxury goods trade was the most developed in the country. The industry placed great importance on professionalism and integrity. Even the smallest transaction would be handled with care; they would never joke around with their own reputation.

The lively expression on Liu Yinxi’s face had faded. Her eyes dimmed, but she still managed to squeeze out a smile. “Then I really must have bought fakes.”

Nan Huaixu took in the change in Liu Yinxi’s expression, a hint of gloom appearing in her own eyes. She had already come to a conclusion.

            

Her niece had complained to her before that her little girlfriend was a spendthrift, often extravagant and wasteful, so she had limited her supplementary card to a maximum of fifty thousand yuan a month.

But the bags “Liu Yinxi” had shown off were all from major brands like Chanel and Hermès. Could she afford them herself on fifty thousand a month? Obviously, they were all gifts from her niece…

The boss of a vintage goods company, an appraiser herself, giving her little girlfriend fake bags?

            

Wasn’t that basically using her authority as an appraiser to endorse the bags?

Nan Huaixu thought of Ying Luoling’s mother, the President of Luo Enterprises, who had once demanded two ‘small goals’​⁶ in hush money from Nan Lingxuan, who was already engaged to someone else, under the pretext of getting an abortion. After the funds arrived, she immediately announced she was pregnant with the Nan family heir’s child. With this precedent, Nan Huaixu couldn’t help but feel that Ying Luoling’s actions were indeed in line with the Luo family’s calculating style—for a mere substitute, there was really no need to coax her with real gold and silver.

Their shelter was already in sight.

            

Liu Yinxi gave a lazy yawn, wanting to take a nap, so she quickened her pace. She soon reached the shelter and collapsed onto the bed without even taking off her backpack.

Nan Huaixu set down her own backpack and sat on the edge of the bed, fanning herself with a large leaf to cool down.

Seeing that Liu Yinxi’s eyes were still open, she continued their chat. “So you earned money selling second-hand things. What then? What did you usually do during that time?”

            

Drowsiness washed over Liu Yinxi. Her eyelids were fighting, and her mind was already a bit fuzzy. “Usually… I worked part-time at a hamburger shop, handed out flyers, helped students with cash-to-digital top-.ups, and acted as a purchasing agent for gacha pulls and fan goods…​⁷ And then, I trained…”

“Helped students with top-ups and acted as a purchasing agent? How did you come up with that?”

Nan Huaixu turned her head. Liu Yinxi had closed her eyes. Nan Huaixu called her in a low voice, “Liu Yinxi?”

            

“Liu Sleep God?”

There was no reply.

Nan Huaixu chuckled softly, then paused. She turned again, moving closer to Liu Yinxi, who was lying beside her, and slowly leaned down.

            

The robot dog moved to the outside of the shelter, zooming in.

【Liu Sleep God has some business acumen—wait! Manman, you!!! [Petrified]】

【?????】

            

【Ahhhh Manman! W-w-what are you doing pouncing on her like that ahhhh?】

【Did I miss ten episodes? Why is my goddess Nan getting so close to Liu Yinxi?!! [Cracking]】

【Noooo! TAT I haven’t even hugged my Manman yet!】

            

【Everyone move! I’m going to soul-transmigrate​⁸ into Liu Yinxi! [Smashing a large rock on my chest]​⁹】

In a daze, Liu Yinxi felt a warm, humid breath on her cheek, carrying a sweet, floral scent.

Mmm… it smells so good.

            

She felt like she had smelled this fragrance somewhere before. Where was it…

Wait, why was there a whoosh whoosh whoosh sound?

Liu Yinxi groggily opened her eyes, and the omega’s elegant face was right before her.

            

Nan Huaixu’s eyelashes were slightly lowered as she slowly sniffed her way down from Liu Yinxi’s ear. A few strands of her hair fell and tickled Liu Yinxi’s neck.

Liu Yinxi snapped her eyes shut. Why is she sniffing me all over?

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