Substitute Alpha Gets Confessed to by Her Ex’s Aunt on a Survival Variety Show – Chapter 32
by Little PandaEating It Will Make You Happy
The golden honey, like liquid gold, slowly oozed from the hexagonal cells of the honeycomb.
The sweet fragrance filled Nan Huaixu’s nostrils.
As an actress, she had to strictly watch her diet to maintain her figure, only allowing herself to indulge in dessert once every month or two. Now, living the life of a savage, she couldn’t even get three square meals a day, let alone sweets.
No one could imagine how wonderful it was for Nan Huaixu, on a moonlit night after twenty days of eating nothing but wild vegetables, with a sky full of stars overhead and a warm, bright campfire, to have a handful of crystal-clear, fragrant honey appear before her.
Nan Huaixu clasped her hands together, her eyes fixed on the honey, gleaming. “Can I eat it directly? I’ve never had honey from a comb before. Does it need to be sterilized?”
“Strictly speaking,” Liu Yinxi replied, “when you find wild honey in the wilderness, you first have to consider if the nectar source contains any poisonous flowers. Then you have to filter out the impurities with a sieve and sterilize it at a high temperature before you can eat it.”
Nan Huaixu frowned. “We don’t have the means to sterilize it, and we can’t possibly use our precious gauze to filter honey.”
“Of course not.”
Nan Huaixu took the plastic bag containing the honeycomb from Liu Yinxi. She was dying for a taste but couldn’t have any; she could only look at the honey and sigh.
Liu Yinxi picked up a dollop of honey with a wooden chopstick. “But based on my experience playing in the mountains as a kid, I’ve never seen anyone get sick from eating honey. I’ll try a tiny bit first, just to taste the sweetness. If it’s okay, you can try a little too, just to satisfy the craving. After dinner, I’ll clean the honeycomb, cut it into small pieces, and store it in a dry, ventilated place. We can take a small piece at a time and squeeze the honey into water to boil and drink. That’ll be safer.”
But Nan Huaixu directly took a chopstick, dipped it in the honey, and popped it into her mouth. She lifted her face in bliss, meeting Liu Yinxi’s stunned expression before she could be stopped. “It’s so good.”
Immediately after, she let out two sneezes.
Liu Yinxi quickly took the honeycomb away. Nan Huaixu reached out, protective of her food. “Let me have one more bite.”
“No, you’re still having an allergic reaction. What if you get diarrhea? You’ll feel awful. Don’t be impatient, I’ll make you some honey water later…”
“There’s not much difference between one bite and two. I’ve already had one, let me have a little more. Just a little.”
Watching Nan Huaixu’s insistent expression, Liu Yinxi murmured, “You really are a sweet-tooth head.”
Nan Huaixu raised an eyebrow slightly. “I now have reason to suspect you’re my fake fan. You were just pretending all along.”
The Huaixu fans in the live-stream room:
【Liu Yinxi is a fake fan at a glance. All Huaixu fans know Manman absolutely loves sweets.】
【The only photo I have with Manman is because I held up a three-tiered cherry cream cake when she was on the red carpet, and she stopped for me (screaming)】
【Haha! Manman liked my post about the orange brownies and golden mango pancakes I made~】
【Teacher Nan followed me back, you know (proud). Look at my ID (Miaowuwu’s Dessert Diary)】
【Aaaah, Big Shot Miaowu! I love your original desserts, I buy them every time you release something new!】
【Two fandoms are ecstatic!1 (Wags tail)】
Liu Yinxi’s lips moved, searching for an excuse.
Nan Huaixu didn’t give her the chance. “A fake fan is still a teammate. Your captain orders you to give me a little more.”
Since she’d put it that way, Liu Yinxi had no choice but to obey.
“Only one bite.” This was Liu Yinxi’s final concession.
Because Nan Huaixu wanted it, Liu Yinxi postponed grilling the fish and first boiled a bowl of honey water.
Sugar can stimu.late do.pa.mine, bringing pleasure.
After drinking her fill of honey water, Nan Huaixu sang as she grilled the fish.
The happiness of the person beside you is contagious. Listening to her beautiful singing voice, Liu Yinxi’s face also bloomed into a smile.
“Teacher Nan, I’m planning to trade a few pieces of honeycomb with Yu Yan for medicinal herbs. It would be best if we could also negotiate for one or two treatment sessions.”
“That’s a good idea. We have a lot of honey. Although the high sugar content means it won’t spoil quickly, it has impurities, and the rainforest temperature is high. It probably won’t keep for too long. Exchanging it as soon as possible is the best choice.”
“Okay, since you agree, I’ll go talk to Yu Yan at the next airdrop.”
Nan Huaixu thought for a moment, then said to Liu Yinxi, “Don’t talk to Yu Yan. Talk directly to Huang Heshan.”
A look of confusion appeared on Liu Yinxi’s face. She often pretended to be clueless and ask questions, but this time she was genuinely puzzled. “Why? Huang Heshan is hard to communicate with. Besides, Yu Yan is the nurse; the skills for gathering herbs and providing treatment are hers. Logically and emotionally, we should be talking to Yu Yan.”
Nan Huaixu calmly explained her thoughts. “Last time, when Yu Yan removed the tick for Yuan Fang, she used her own precious personal items and didn’t ask for payment. She even took the initiative to teach us how to identify herbs. This shows she acts with the heart of a healer; she values relationships more than profit. Since Yu Yan is grouped with Huang Heshan, she definitely doesn’t lack supplies. While sugar is hard to come by, there are many wild fruits in the rainforest that can supplement basic sugar intake. If there are no injuries, I don’t think she’d necessarily be willing to trade herbs and treatment for honey. It’s more likely she’d say something like, ‘Come find me if you get hurt’.”
Liu Yinxi was a little lost. “Is that so…”
It sounded reasonable, but she didn’t quite get it.
It’s delicious and provides sugar, so why not trade?
It’s always better to have more supplies.
Nan Huaixu continued, “It’s different if you talk to Huang Heshan. Huang Heshan is completely profit-oriented. She’ll definitely think the same way you do: honey is delicious, provides sugar, is hard to get, so trade for it if you can. More supplies are always better. As a team, Huang Heshan and Yu Yan can discuss it and offer up some of their herbs in exchange for supplies.”
Liu Yinxi: “!”
She looked at Nan Huaixu in surprise.
She actually spelled out my thought process.
“When you talk to Huang Heshan, add one more sentence: ‘Omegas all like to eat honey. Eating it will make them happy’.”
“?”
Liu Yinxi was even more baffled. “Why? Does adding that sentence have some special effect?”
Nan Huaixu smiled faintly and held up a steaming hot grilled fish. “I don’t know. Just add it and see. I have a feeling it will increase the success rate of the trade.”
Liu Yinxi, still dazed, took a bite of grilled crab. “Okay, got it. I’ll remember that.”
【Yu Yan’s guest profile says she doesn’t like sweets. If Liu tries to trade honey with Yu Yan, it might not succeed. But with Manman’s move, having Liu talk to Huang-jie, it’s 100% a done deal (laughing-crying emoji)】
【True dat. After Huang Heshan refused to let Yu Yan sleep next to her, Yu Yan was in a bad mood for days. Yu Yan likes flowers, so Huang Heshan picks a bouquet of wildflowers for her every day when she goes out hunting to silently appease her XD】
【Is Huang-jie that guilty? Now that she hears eating honey makes people happy, won’t she trade all of it to cheer Yu Yan up?】
【And then Yu Yan will politely decline: I don’t eat sweets.】
【OMG I can’t imagine Huang-jie’s foul expression!】
【Huang-jie racks her brain trying to figure out where the problem is, and finally finds the crux of it: How dare you, Liu Yinxi, lie to me?】
【You guys are too mean hh】
The topic of honey came to a close.
Liu Yinxi then chatted with Nan Huaixu for a while about the Toa River, discussing their plan to move the shelter.
With their previous success, Nan Huaixu already trusted Liu Yinxi’s judgment of the natural environment.
But she worried that the production team’s arrangements wouldn’t be as Liu Yinxi predicted. “Will the airdrop route really move along the big river?”
Liu Yinxi understood that without evidence, Nan Huaixu wouldn’t be completely convinced. So she said, “That’s my personal deduction. We can do this: when an airdrop lands near the big river, the distance from the riverbank to here will be very far. Even if the airdrop route isn’t strictly along the river, we’ll have to move in that direction anyway.”
Nan Huaixu pondered for a moment, then agreed. “Okay, let’s do that. Achoo.”
She didn’t have time to turn away, and said apologetically with a red nose, “Sorry.”
Liu Yinxi handed her a tender banana leaf. “It’s fine. I’ll boil some more water for you and steep the dried kudzu root slices in it. Drinking more water will help your body’s metabolism, and you’ll get better faster.” In her mind, she considered taking some time to collect spider silk, roll it into a ball, and press it flat. It would be softer to use than a banana leaf.
Nan Huaixu held the leaf to her nose, glancing at her for a moment before turning back to face the campfire.
“Liu Yinxi, in this competition, who do you think has the best chance?”
“Us. We’re going to win.”
Nan Huaixu’s lips curved into a genuine smile. “Besides us.”
“Yuan Fang. She’s willing to play along with me.”
Nan Huaixu’s smile vanished. She put down her wooden skewer. “I’m full. I’m going to do some stretches.”
Liu Yinxi laughingly stopped her. “Huang-jie, Huang-jie. Her survival skills are incredible. She’s our biggest enemy. Have another fish, you ate too little.”
Nan Huaixu glanced at the crispy, fragrant grilled fish in her hand and sat back down. “The fish does look pretty good.”
“If we win the prize money, what do you plan to do with it?”
“What will I do with it… I’ll save it first, then look for a job… Teacher Nan, you have to help me, remember?”
“Mhm. Do you have any ideas about what kind of work?”
“I want to get into social media…”
The forest breathed quietly in the night.
In the dense woods far away, the majestic Toa River flowed on endlessly.
The long river, like the lifeblood of the earth, ran through the verdant wilderness, reflecting the brilliant river of stars in the night sky.
In preparation for moving the shelter, their daytime focus was entirely on boiling salt.
In the cool morning, Nan Huaixu would help out in the coconut grove for a while. As long as she didn’t get close to the campfire, it wouldn’t stimu.late her nose.
When her help wasn’t needed for the moment, she would sit under a coconut tree. A frangipani flower decorated the opened green coconut in her hand. In her left hand, she held a bottle of kudzu honey drink; in her right, a skewer of sea salt grilled lizard.
Good food, the beach, sunshine—a picture of peaceful, idyllic times.
Yuan Fang, her face smudged with black ash, was lying on the ground blowing air into the stone stove.
She glanced at Nan Huaixu enjoying the sea breeze and asked Liu Yinxi with a gloomy expression, “You two are living too well. Are you here on vacation?”
She also wanted to trade for some honey and lizard with Liu Yinxi, but she and Lu Yiqi had no supplies to offer. The good news was that Liu Yinxi had given her a small piece of honeycomb as a friendly gift.
Liu Yinxi was cheerfully boiling seawater. “Aiya, can’t be helped. The skill is there.”
“Piss off.”
“Look who’s got their defense broken.”3
The saltwater in the meal box bubbled, and steam drifted up slowly.
Yuan Fang ran a hand through her messy red hair. Black roots were growing in, creating a stark contrast with the dyed wine-red color.
She propped up her chin and hummed to herself, “We’re all omegas, so why is my life so hard?”
Every day, Lu Yiqi did nothing but find some fruit and banana pith. Yuan Fang even had to do the beachcombing.
Liu Yinxi whispered beside her, “Boss Yuan, you’re a woman who commands a mink empire. What’s this little bit of suffering compared to the luxury you enjoy at home?”
Yuan Fang grinned and spat playfully.
“After the competition is over, all the guests can buy my mink coats at a fifty percent discount. Except you, Liu Yinxi.”
Liu Yinxi lifted an eyelid. “Tch, who wears your mink in the middle of summer? No need for a fifty percent discount. Why would I pay? Just send it directly to my house.”
“Tsk tsk tsk, I think your hide would make the warmest coat.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because it’s the thickest, hahahahaha—”
“Thanks for the compliment, Yuan the Skinner.”4
The two of them went back and forth, their laughter and banter carried far away by the sea breeze.
Nan Huaixu quietly gazed at the sea. Occasionally, when she heard their bickering reach an amusing point, she would secretly curve her lips into a smile.
They worked at sunrise and rested at sunset, returning to the shelter when the splendid evening clouds dyed the sea and sky red.
Liu Yinxi and Nan Huaixu tallied up the results of their salt-making. They already had half a small bottle of sea salt. The reward born from their hard work brought an inexpressible happiness and satisfaction.
Nan Huaixu sat on the edge of the bed, lowering the leaf curtain of the extended shelter, and prepared to rest. “When should we start packing to move?”
“In another two days, I think.”
Liu Yinxi lay on her bed and yawned. Her wristband beeped. She and Nan Huaixu opened the airdrop calendar at the same time.
【April 24th, Fourth Airdrop】
【Time: 7:00 AM】
【Location: Southeast corner of the coconut grove】
【(The difficulty of this airdrop has been increased. All survivors, please be prepared.)】
Footnotes
- ‘Shuāng chú kuáng xǐ’ is internet slang meaning ‘a fan of two things is wildly happy’, used when two separate interests of a person have a crossover.
- Internet slang, a homophone for ‘笑死’ (xiào sǐ), which means ‘to laugh to death’.
- ‘Pò fáng’ (破防), literally ‘to have one’s defense broken’, is internet slang for losing one’s composure, getting triggered, or becoming emotional over something.
- ‘Yuán bāpí’ (袁扒皮) is a pun on Yuan Fang’s name. ‘Bāpí’ (扒皮) means ‘to skin’ and is used as slang for a ruthless exploiter or profiteer.
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