Substitute Alpha Gets Confessed to by Her Ex’s Aunt on a Survival Variety Show – Chapter 42

Waking Up Hot in the Middle of the Night

Once the soap liquid was poured, it would need to sit for about three days to set before it could be removed from the molds.

Next was the moisturizing cream, which was much simpler. All they had to do was melt the aloe and pandan essence into the coconut oil.

            

First, they mixed the two ingredients evenly in a plastic bowl. Then, using a small wooden spoon, they scraped it bit by bit into the mother-of-pearl shell¹ containers, like a pastry chef frosting a cake.

When the cream was potted, the milky-white paste had a hint of pale green, resembling coconut-flavored ice cream sprinkled with pistachio fragments. It felt fine and silky to the touch and smelled wonderfully fragrant.

Liu Yinxi saw Nan Huaixu’s expression grow brighter and brighter, and her own mood couldn’t help but lift along with it.

            

“Teacher Nan,” Liu Yinxi said eagerly, “how about you try the moisturizing cream?”

Nan Huaixu dipped the pad of her ring finger into the cream, taking a small amount. She dabbed it onto the back of her hand and spread it evenly. The oil seeped into her dry skin, instantly giving it a renewed luster.

The homemade coconut oil, produced under primitive conditions, couldn’t possibly be as smooth as an industrially manufactured product; it had a slight graininess. But infused with the gel from the aloe and the juice from the pandan, its skin-friendliness and hydrating properties were greatly enhanced. It was easy to spread and absorbed quickly.

            

With no chemical thickeners, preservatives, lubricants, or artificial fragrances, its main selling point was its all-natural nourishment. It was safe to use.

“It’s amazing. To think we could actually make this in the wild. It feels very moisturizing.” Nan Huaixu dipped her finger in the cream again and dabbed some on the back of Liu Yinxi’s hand. “Now you try.”

Liu Yinxi lifted her hand, the sensation of Nan Huaixu’s touch lingering on her skin.

            

She used her left hand to rub the cream into the back of her right. As the coconut oil and herbal essence penetrated her chapped skin, there was a slight itchy, stinging sensation at first. After a moment, the feeling faded, and her hand felt significantly more comfortable, no longer dry and tight.

“This is great. With this, we won’t have to worry about our hands cracking or our skin getting dry and flaky.”

With this first success, making more skincare products wouldn’t be difficult.

            

The most important ingredient was oil, and for coconut oil, they just needed to gather coconuts and ferment the cream.

They also had honeycomb honey. When they had time, they could try rendering beeswax to make a lip balm.

They had two bars of herbal soap. Liu Yinxi took the square one, and Nan Huaixu took the round one.

            

They had two mother-of-pearl shells of herbal moisturizing cream. Liu Yinxi took the smaller one, and Nan Huaixu took the larger one.

One for each, a perfect pair of fine things.

【Wow, homemade skincare is so cool!】

            

【I wanna try it too. I happen to have some aloe vera on my balcony~】

【Hahaha, I bet your aloe vera is already trembling in fear.】

【Let me put in a plug for my family’s handmade soaps: all-natural coconut oil soap, olive oil soap, goat milk soap… We also have relaxing soap-making videos, so feel free to follow and subscribe (cheering)!】

            

【Can this stuff last long? They’re in a rainforest where the temperature is so high. Won’t it go bad in a few days?】

【Probably not. There’s so little of it, it’ll get used up quickly. They can just make more when they run out~】

【Sob sob sob, Manman’s complexion already looks better after using the cream. Let’s give Liu Yinxi some praise today.】

            

【I really want to drill a hole in Liu’s head and see what other weird and wonderful things are inside (doge face).】

【Get away! You dangerous person, stay away from our Xixi! (terror)】

With their skin moisturized, even their meal tasted more delicious.

            

The plump, large fish, when roasted, was tender and juicy. They each ate two crispy roasted fish.

They hadn’t had a proper bath since arriving on the island, only rinsing their limbs with running water or giving themselves a sponge bath with hot water.

“Once we move to the big river, getting water will be much easier,” Liu Yinxi said, chewing on the roasted fish. “And with the herbal soap, we can boil water and take a bath.”

            

Nan Huaixu was delighted to hear this, her eyes brightening, but she quickly returned to the practical limitations. “We don’t have a wooden tub for a bath, or a large container for boiling water. The water we can boil in the mess tin is just too little.”

The aluminum mess tin had already been ravaged by the salt-boiling process and was now stained with unsightly black scorch marks.

Liu Yinxi reassured her. “We can solve these things slowly. We might not have a big container for boiling water, but the temperature here is very high. We can just store enough cooled boiled water for a bath.”

            

Nan Huaixu nodded. “That’s true.”

Liu Yinxi’s eyelashes fluttered. “As for a tub and things like that, we can figure it out then. We’ll see if we can find anything useful on the beach in the next few days. If there’s something we really need, we can make some simple furniture and tools ourselves.”

Nan Huaixu slowly picked out the fish bones. “Won’t that take a lot of time?”

            

Liu Yinxi replied, “To do a good job, one must first sharpen one’s tools.² With the right tools, we’ll be able to survive better. The time we need to spend is time we have to spend. Don’t you think?”

“Mm, I agree.”

Liu Yinxi and Nan Huaixu exchanged a glance and smiled. They shared the juice of a coconut and peeled a few boiled tiger prawns, sprinkling them with sea salt to eat with their roasted fish.

            

The starry sky in the tropical wilderness was incredibly bright.

Liu Yinxi sat on an open patch of grass. No matter how many times she saw the magnificent river of stars spread across the sky, it was still breathtaking.

If they weren’t too busy that day and had finished all their chores, their bedtime entertainment was stargazing.

            

In the first few days of the competition, they would simply lie back and gaze at the sky in silence. As they grew more familiar with each other, they started to chat while they watched the stars.

Most of the time, Liu Yinxi did more of the talking. Only when the conversation touched on a field that interested Nan Huaixu would she speak a little more.

“In my middle school, the girls were paired with girls as deskmates, and boys with boys.”

            

“Most schools are like that before secondary gender differentiation, I suppose. But I didn’t have a deskmate.”

“Because you went to a school for nobles?”

“No. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a proper school. It was an old-style private school³. There were very few students, and we each had our own study table, so we didn’t sit close together.”

            

“That’s even more high-end than a school for nobles. I went to the most ordinary kind of school, and I didn’t have a deskmate either.”

Nan Huaixu asked, “Did you have few students too, so you sat separately?”

After the acceleration of urbanization, the population in some remote towns and villages had declined sharply. It was indeed possible for grassroots schools to be under-enrolled.

            

As if remembering something amusing, Liu Yinxi let out a few muffled laughs before replying, “No. I sat in the classroom’s ‘elegant seat⁴.'”

An “elegant seat” in a classroom?

This was a blind spot in Nan Huaixu’s knowledge.

            

She asked, “What does that mean?”

The school Liu Yinxi spoke of was the one the original character attended in the book’s world, but the story she told was from her own real-life experience. “The ‘elegant seat’ is the one right next to the lectern. Right up against it, even in front of the first row.”

“Pfft.” Nan Huaixu couldn’t help but stifle a laugh. She had heard people talk about that when she was a student.

            

“The ‘elegant seat’ you’re talking about… isn’t that usually custom-made for the worst student in the class? Or for someone with poor eyesight, or a hidden ailment that requires special attention from the teacher.”

But Liu Yinxi’s eyesight was excellent and her body was healthy; she clearly didn’t belong to the latter categories.

Liu Yinxi was perfectly candid. “I was the third kind. Actually, my grades in class were okay, and I’m very healthy. I was made to sit by the lectern because I was too chatty and mischievous.”

            

“You were bothering the other students, so who else would the teacher pick on but you?”

“I realized my mistake later and I changed my ways, but the seating chart was already fixed. We had to change seats every month, and I was too lazy to move, so I decided the ‘elegant seat’ was pretty good too. Except for eating chalk dust.”

Liu Yinxi didn’t elaborate on what came after. She wasn’t clear on the details of the original character’s time as a delinquent; the more she said, the more likely she was to slip up.

            

Nan Huaixu wouldn’t ask about things Liu Yinxi avoided, perhaps assuming that Liu Yinxi didn’t have fond memories of that period.

Who doesn’t have a low point in their life?

Better to bury it in the dust of the past.

            

As long as you walk into each other’s present and future, the road ahead will always be full of novelty and light.

The stars and the moon made the night sky exceptionally beautiful.

Sleeping in the shelter, Liu Yinxi was surprised to feel a stuffy heat during the night. She woke up in a daze in the middle of the night.

            

Perhaps it was because there had been no rain and they had been under the scorching sun for days on end, but the temperature at night had been rising recently.

Liu Yinxi rarely woke up in the night. The previous two times were because Nan Huaixu had a nightmare, and because a strong wind had blown a branch down onto the roof of the shelter.

This was the third time since the competition began.

            

She opened her jacket to air out and crept out of the shelter as quietly as she could.

After lifting the banana leaf curtain, a cool breeze blew in, and Liu Yinxi shivered. The rainforest at night was still quite chilly. It seemed it was only hot inside the enclosed shelter.

She drank some water, used a small hat folded from a banana leaf to cover the robot dog’s head, went to the latrine, and then climbed back into bed to sleep.

            

The moment her head touched her bag pillow, Liu Yinxi sensed that the air was different from usual.

The temperature inside the shelter was indeed higher than outside, but aside from their body heat, there were no other sources of warmth in the bed. This shouldn’t be happening.

Liu Yinxi instinctively looked toward Nan Huaixu on the other side of the bed. She was curled up, her head tucked under her arm, with the deep blue raincoat covering her body. A lock of hair lay outside, and she was deep in a dream.

            

Liu Yinxi sniffed the air, and her expression changed slightly.

Though it was still rather faint, she could smell that elegant floral scent even from a distance.

It was a fresh, sweet aroma. Before, she could only catch a tiny hint of it when she was very close to Nan Huaixu. Now, she could smell a fragrance that was even stronger than when she’d been up close, which meant…

            

Liu Yinxi scratched the back of her head. Plans never keep up with changes. She had brought inhibitors with her just in case, but it turned out that before her own susceptible period arrived, Nan Huaixu’s heat period⁵ had arrived first.

It usually lasted for three days. The first day was the most intense, and by the second day, it would have mostly faded.

Liu Yinxi decided to head out at dawn. She would go to an unexplored area near the Toa River to investigate thoroughly, camp out for one night, and return the day after tomorrow. This would save her the trouble of traveling back and forth, give her more time to find a location for a new shelter, and allow her to avoid Nan Huaixu’s heat period, preventing any awkwardness.

            

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, it was a new day.

Liu Yinxi got up early. She washed up, boiled water, made soup, and then packed her gear for camping out.

The jungle was extremely dangerous at night. She would have to sleep in a tree, which required vine ropes for protection and a raincoat, as well as a sufficient supply of insect- and snake-repelling herbs.

            

If she was lucky, she could find a suitable new shelter spot during the day and prepare some materials.

After breakfast, Liu Yinxi checked her bracelet. It was almost seven o’clock, and Nan Huaixu still hadn’t woken up.

Normally, Nan Huaixu didn’t need an alarm and would be up just after six. Today, her alarm had gone off, but she had turned it off. It was probably the effect of her physiological period, which made her more drowsy.

            

Liu Yinxi waited another ten minutes. In the distance, the lively chirping of birds could be heard as the rainforest reawakened under the bright sunlight.

It was time to go.

She left breakfast for Nan Huaixu, picked up her wooden stick, and wrote a line of text in the soft mud next to the campfire. Then she shouldered her pack, said “bye-bye” to the shelter, and, lifting her head to the sun, set off towards the Toa River.

            

Golden light streamed through the banana leaf curtain, illuminating the sleeping omega’s face.

Curled up, Nan Huaixu’s brows were slightly furrowed, the shadow of her lashes dusting the blush on her cheeks.

---