Substitute Alpha Gets Confessed to by Her Ex’s Aunt on a Survival Variety Show – Chapter 27

Primal Intentions

“Hey, what’re you spacing out for?” Yuan Fang nudged Liu Yinxi’s arm. “I’m hungry. Teacher Nan just brought water, let’s make some food.”

Liu Yinxi stood for a moment, staring in the direction Nan Huaixu had gone. Then she looked down at the things laid out on the sand.

            

“What’s wrong?” Yuan Fang asked her.

Liu Yinxi began packing things up on her own, wrapping the sun-dried sea salt in a banana leaf. She then walked to the coconut trees to pick up the small bucket of fish and shrimp. “Something’s wrong.”

“What could be wrong? Boiling the salt this morning went great.”

            

“I’m not talking about the salt.”

Yuan Fang smiled. “Then what?”

Liu Yinxi stuffed the salt into her pocket and picked up the small bucket with her right hand, leaving her pack on the beach to travel light. “I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling.”

            

The smile on Yuan Fang’s face turned to confusion. “Liu’er, what on earth are you talking about?”

“It’s not important,” Liu Yinxi said, heading into the rainforest. “I have to go back to the shelter for a bit. I’ll be back later. You go ahead and eat, don’t wait for me.”

“Huh? You’re not gonna go and never return, are you?” Yuan Fang took two steps after her.

            

Liu Yinxi quickened her pace, calling back over her shoulder, “I’ll be back! Watch my bag for me! If the bag is here, the person is here!”

Yuan Fang glanced at the backpack Liu Yinxi had left behind, then sat down and patted it. A playful smile touched her lips. “Those two, running back and forth. They never get tired.”

Liu Yinxi moved as fast as she could, but the rainforest floor was rugged. Keeping the small bucket in her hand from spilling wasn’t easy.

            

She walked for twenty minutes, finally catching up to Nan Huaixu just as she was nearing the shelter.

“Nan Huaixu!”

Liu Yinxi shouted her name, then let out a sharp whistle.

            

The figure ahead of her stopped and turned, looking at her in surprise. “Why are you…”

Liu Yinxi caught her breath, then ran up to her with a smile, holding up the small bucket to show her the sea fish, shrimp, and shellfish inside. “It’s too hot on the beach. It’ll be cooler to eat back at the shelter. Come on, let’s grill some fish together.”

Nan Huaixu walked slowly back to the shelter with her. “You’re not boiling salt anymore?”

            

Since they had already taken the meal boxes to the beach, Liu Yinxi used a coconut shell to boil water. She sat by the campfire and started scaling a fish. “I’ll go back this afternoon.”

“Oh,” Nan Huaixu said, coming over to help. “Since you’re back, you should rest more. I’ll go this afternoon.”

Liu Yinxi thought for a moment, then nodded in agreement. She deftly cleaned the fish, threaded it onto a wooden skewer, and set it over the campfire to roast.

            

She took the banana-leaf-wrapped sea salt from her pocket and placed it on the airdrop crate, ready to season the fish once the skin was crispy.

Liu Yinxi grilled the fish while Nan Huaixu boiled shrimp soup.

The campfire burned, crackle crackle, and soon steam filled the air, the aroma of food filling their noses.

            

Nan Huaixu blinked, her eyes hot from the steam, and they started to feel a little sore.

She raised a hand, her ring finger elegantly extended, and used the pad of her finger to dab the corner of her eye. “I went to check the traps this morning. The bait was eaten, but the mechanism wasn’t triggered.”

Liu Yinxi hummed in acknowledgement. “Some small animals are very clever. I’ll take a look at the trap later to see what the problem is and improve the mechanism.”

            

“I added new bait to both traps,” Nan Huaixu told her.

“Mhm.”

The fish was ready. Liu Yinxi sprinkled it with salt and handed it to Nan Huaixu. “Careful, it’s hot.”

            

“Okay.” Nan Huaixu took it and blew on it a few times.

She sniffed the fragrant, salt-grilled fish. Perhaps because of the difference in cooking technique, she always felt that Liu Yinxi’s grilled fish tasted better than hers.

“You came back for lunch, but you just left your good friend alone on the beach?”

            

“Yuan Fang? Tch… what’s there to worry about with her?”

“What… did you two talk about while you were boiling the salt?” Nan Huaixu touched the fish skin with her lips to test the temperature, then took a small bite.

Liu Yinxi snuck a glance at her. When she was caught, Nan Huaixu said with a straight face, “Did you get any useful intel from her?”

            

Liu Yinxi got the hint. “Oh,” she said, eating her fish, “they’re trading water purification tablets for our salt, right? The tablets are Lu Yiqi’s personal item. Yuan Fang’s is a 430ml bottle of Shaodaozi.”​¹

“High-proof baijiu?”

“Yep. Yuan Fang said she loves to drink and was afraid she’d get an itch for it during the competition, so she brought a bottle.”

            

“…And you believe that?”

“Well, I figure baijiu can be used as a disinfectant, and if you’re hurt, a few sips could work as an anesthetic.”

Nan Huaixu crunched on a crispy fish bone, chewing it slowly. “Anything else?”

            

Liu Yinxi ladled out two portions of shrimp soup, placing one in front of Nan Huaixu. “She said that, in the spirit of our friendly exchange, she could spare us a couple of mouthfuls of her liquor, but only once.”

Nan Huaixu thought seriously for a few seconds. “I don’t drink, but we can go to her if we need it for disinfection. Is that all?”

Liu Yinxi sipped her soup. “Nothing else. Her mouth is full of running trains,​² just rambling on about this and that. Not much of it was useful.”

            

“When you first met, you wanted to go work for her.”

“Good thing you set me straight! I can tell the difference now. I know which of her words can’t be taken seriously.”

Nan Huaixu swallowed the fish in her mouth and didn’t ask anything else. She just said softly, “Eat slowly.”

            

With her mouth full of shrimp soup, Liu Yinxi looked up at her and smiled, her cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk’s stuffed with peanuts for the winter.

Nan Huaixu’s lips curved slightly as she propped her chin on her hand and gazed at the dancing flames.

“I searched all morning but didn’t find anything good to eat. I only picked some fiddlehead ferns and pandan.”​³

            

“Yay! We have salt now, so we can make wild vegetable soup. It’ll be delicious with the grilled fish.”

The bright flames reflected in Nan Huaixu’s dark eyes. “I really hope the traps catch something. After eating that Red Junglefowl, I’m even less keen on eating fish, shrimp, and crab every day.”

She tilted her head, her gaze level with Liu Yinxi’s, a hint of apology in her eyes. “I’ve become picky.”

            

Liu Yinxi’s eyes crinkled with a smile. “The whole point of setting traps is to get other kinds of food. Food is the first necessity of the people. We have the ability to change things up, so what’s wrong with being a little picky?”

“But what if we don’t catch anything…”

Liu Yinxi suddenly realized that Nan Huaixu was placing a great deal of importance on the traps. Her own dismissal of Nan Huaixu’s trap-checking had undoubtedly been insensitive to her teammate’s feelings. For someone with an introverted personality like Nan Huaixu, it would definitely make her uncomfortable.

            

A pang of guilt hit Liu Yinxi, and she comforted her in a gentle voice, “We might not, but let’s think about the good outcomes. At least the waiting process will be happy. I have faith in our traps. How about we get up early to check them together for the next few days?”

Nan Huaixu held the coconut bowl in both hands, the warmth of the shrimp soup seeping through the shell into her palms.

“Okay.” Nan Huaixu lowered her gaze, a faint light flickering in her eyes.

            

Their daily routine consisted of foraging on the beach, replacing the leaves on the shelter’s roof, replenishing their supply of banana pith and coconuts, gathering fuel, and searching the rainforest for new food sources.

Thanks to the ocean’s bounty, going a day or two without a new type of food wouldn’t affect their health, as long as they had enough to eat. So it didn’t matter that Nan Huaixu hadn’t found any new supplies.

Nan Huaixu and Liu Yinxi agreed that she would go boil salt in the afternoon, so Liu Yinxi slung Nan Huaixu’s pack over her shoulder to go explore the rainforest.

            

“Nan-jiejie, when you come back from the beach tonight, you have to remember to bring my pack back for me, okay?”

“Yes, I will.”

Nan Huaixu carried the small bucket toward the coconut grove, picking up a lot of fuel along the way and stuffing it into a plastic bag. She followed the smell of smoke to the stone stove where they boiled salt.

            

Yuan Fang hadn’t been idle after lunch. She was sweating profusely as she vigorously stirred the seawater. The midday sun was strong and the water evaporated quickly, making it the perfect time to boil salt.

“Yuan Fang.” Nan Huaixu set down the small bucket, then folded a banana leaf and wore it on her head as a sun hat.

“Teacher Nan?” Yuan Fang glanced behind her. “Liu’er isn’t coming?”

            

Nan Huaixu picked up the wooden stick resting on a rock and put it in the meal box to stir the water. “I’m taking her place this afternoon.”

“It’s too hot and sunny out here, and the fire makes it even hotter. Don’t you want to switch off with Lu Yiqi?”

“Ohhh,” Yuan Fang drawled, squinting her eyes and sighing dramatically, “Lu Yiqi would never do this kind of work. The night we agreed to boil salt, I talked to her about it. She said it was too hot and didn’t want to trade shifts with me.”

            

“Is that so…”

“Yep.”

“Teacher Nan, it’s so good to have you.” Yuan Fang leaned back against a coconut tree. “Aiyo, this is truly like dry wood and a raging fire.”​⁴

            

Her last words were drawn out and lazy.

Given Yuan Fang’s choice of vocabulary, Nan Huaixu asked, “What does the phrase ‘dry wood and a raging fire’ mean?”

Yuan Fang tilted her head and leaned close to Nan Huaixu’s ear. “It means my admiration for you, Teacher Nan, is like dry wood set ablaze by a raging fire~”

            

Nan Huaixu: “.”

This shift didn’t absolutely have to be covered, after all.

She should have known long ago that Yuan Fang was just this kind of show-off…​⁵

            

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Wristband Date: April 20th.

As usual, Liu Yinxi compared the calendar notification with the content from her Book Transmigration Reading System and confirmed there were no changes.

The morning weather was cooler than the afternoon, so Liu Yinxi suggested Nan Huaixu boil salt in the morning while she would go in the afternoon.

            

After eating breakfast past six, the two of them went to check the traps together first.

The early morning rainforest was so lushly green it seemed about to drip. The calls of different birds rose and fell, one after another.

As they walked through the shrubs and grass, blades of grass bent, and dewdrops slid off to wet the edges of their shoes.

            

Nan Huaixu frequently looked up, gazing through the layers of the canopy at the sky, which was as clear and blue as if it had been washed. On the other side of the horizon, beyond the forest, were green mountains, and beyond the mountains, the blue sea.

In this vast, primitive rainforest, she was spending her days and nights with a woman she never would have imagined, someone she would never have gotten deeply involved with in her work or life. It was a surreal clash—a dissonant unreality colliding with the raw, natural reality of the wilderness. It was bizarre and utterly absurd.

When a person is immersed in nature, they can’t help but fall into a strange kind of meditation, one that isn’t philosophical but is filled with life’s most primal intentions.

            

It forces a person to face the needs deep within their heart, like seeking a source of heat in the night, craving companionship on a journey, or instinctively looking for someone to hide behind at the sound of an unknown noise.

In her city life, Nan Huaixu liked being alone, abiding by the principle of relying on herself for everything. When she realized these primal emotions—this “soliciting of needs from another”—were swelling within her day by day, she felt at a loss, even a little annoyed and frightened. She kept telling herself: This is just human social instinct. The wild is full of danger. Humans survive through group cooperation, and they need communication and interaction for spiritual comfort.

…And that was why she remembered Liu Yinxi covering her with a raincoat in the middle of the night, remembered Liu Yinxi giving her a moon scallop, remembered Liu Yinxi telling her not to pay the price for harm caused by the outside world, remembered Liu Yinxi stepping forward to block Huang Heshan, remembered the refreshing, pleasant scent she smelled whenever she was close to Liu Yinxi.

            

…And she remembered Liu Yinxi and Yuan Fang with their arms slung around each other’s shoulders, laughing and joking, hee hee ha ha, about topics she couldn’t understand at all—when they were the ones who were supposed to be teammates, sharing weal and woe. Liu Yinxi had never looked that happy when she was with her.

“Wow! Nan Huaixu!”

Her companion’s cry of surprise pulled Nan Huaixu from her thoughts.

            

Liu Yinxi used her alpenstock to part the grass, pointing to the base of a tree ahead. Something was moving in the trap hidden among the buttress roots. “We caught something! Prey!”

Nan Huaixu’s eyes flew wide open, and the sunlight filtering through the trees seemed to grow even brighter.

She grabbed Liu Yinxi’s arm and charged forward. “Quick!”

            

In that moment, all her complicated thoughts dissolved into pure joy.

It had nothing to do with primal instinct or reason. It was simply a celebration of their effort and persistence.

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