Substitute Alpha Gets Confessed to by Her Ex’s Aunt on a Survival Variety Show – Chapter 73
by Little PandaA Bountiful Harvest After Several Days
Nan Huaixu added, “Aren’t you going to do self-media1 after the competition ends? Once you build your account2, will you date your Rank One3?”
Liu Yinxi understood what she meant. After a moment of thought, she answered, “I will.”
She quickly clarified, “But not for the same reasons as before.”
“Teacher Nan, you taught me to respect and love myself, to be independent and strong. I won’t rely on anyone else for a house or living expenses anymore. The reason I’d meet my Rank One is because I want to make a living on the internet. If fans support me and spend a fortune on me, I should do my best to satisfy their reasonable requests. Like having a meal, or a normal date—that should be fine, right?”
Nan Huaixu gave a small nod. “It’s fine. I’ll make a note of it.”
Liu Yinxi asked, “Teacher Nan, have you ever had a meal with your fans?”
“I’ve paid the bill for fans before, but I’ve never eaten with them,” Nan Huaixu said.
“That doesn’t count.”
“Then no.”
Liu Yinxi’s eyes sparkled. “To think I’m the first fan to ever eat with Teacher Nan,” she sighed proudly. “I’m so lucky.”
In the livestream, hundreds of thousands of fans were agonizing over why they hadn’t signed up for this season of 《Survivor》—otherwise, they could have met Goddess Manman.
At the same time, a large number of fans declared that if they ever participated in 《Survivor》, they would want to be teamed up with Liu Yinxi, as it would greatly increase their chances of winning the prize money.
The night was peaceful. The wind chime on the second floor swayed, ringing softly.
Nan Huaixu sat by the fire hole, baking the soft palm bark. Liu Yinxi had mentioned that her pants were a bit dirty and needed washing tomorrow, so she needed to prepare extra palm bark to use as padding. Nan Huaixu was pitching in to help. The past few days, she had been using the pads Liu Yinxi had already made.
As they baked the soft palm bark and dried moss, they chatted about everything under the sun.
“When you used to be a dance blogger, did you ever think about acting?”
“An actor? I went to Film City to audition as a background extra once. It was too bitter; I didn’t stick with it.”
“With your looks, you could have at least been a featured extra.”
“I was a foreground extra. You don’t eat well, you don’t sleep well, and you still get scolded by the director. It didn’t bring in money as fast as streaming. Ah, but that was just how I used to think. Now, I just want to live a grounded, steady life.”
“Teacher Nan, if you were born in a parallel world where everyone around you supported you, what else would you want to do besides being an actress?”
“Hmm… asking me so suddenly, I can’t really think of anything.”
“I remember you saying you really liked the manicure a classmate painted for you. Do you like art? Would you be a painter?”
“I like looking at paintings, but asking me to sit quietly and paint—I wouldn’t be able to sit still.”
“Liu Yinxi, do you want to spend your whole life exploring everywhere? Have you ever thought about settling down and starting a family? What about your future wife and kids?”
“That’s way too far in the future. Luo Ling said I have a lot of flaws, and that if I left her, no one else would ever want me.”
“Don’t listen to her nonsense. Then why did she date you in the first place?”
“Oh. Well, let me think… there are a lot of possibilities. I might take my wife and kids with me to explore the world, or I might not be able to bear being away from them, so I’d just stay home and go nowhere. I don’t know either. I’ll leave the answer to the future.”
As they talked, Liu Yinxi fell into a slight daze.
Questions like “Will you start a family in the future?” and “What kind of person do you hope your wife will be?”—many of her omega friends in the world before transmigrating had asked her these things.
How had she answered back then?
—Not interested. Not considering it. Can you stop asking such boring questions? Is marriage and romance the only thing in your head?
It wasn’t until she lay down to sleep that Liu Yinxi realized that, out of everyone who had asked her that exact same question, she had only given Nan Huaixu a different answer.
Perhaps it was the constraints of the original owner’s identity after transmigrating, or perhaps it was because Nan Huaixu treated her with such genuine friendliness, that she had begun to change.
Human society was so complicated. Animals and plants, the mountains and rivers, the sun and the moon—these were so much simpler and more beautiful.
Before drifting off to sleep, Liu Yinxi faintly caught the scent of tranquil flowers. In her haze, the corners of her lips curled up.
For the first time, she felt that if she could smell this reassuring scent every day, then settling down might be pretty nice after all…
Due to the inconvenience of her physiological period and the need to maintain personal hygiene, Liu Yinxi restricted her activities to the vicinity of the shelter for the next two days.
Nan Huaixu had walked the path to set the fish traps with Liu Yinxi a few times now. Both her hiking and climbing skills had improved significantly, and she was much more familiar with the route, so Liu Yinxi finally felt at ease letting her check the traps alone.
While Nan Huaixu was out, Liu Yinxi stayed at the shelter to renovate the treehouse’s roof and the sandy ground. Then, she brought all their supplies out to take inventory. The items that could handle the sun were laid out to dry out the dampness, while the ones that couldn’t be exposed to direct sunlight were placed in a well-ventilated area to air out. Anything that had grown moldy was thrown away.
Boxes were spread open in the outer campfire area under direct sunlight, while smaller items were laid out on banana leaves across the sandy floor of the treehouse’s first level.
Liu Yinxi used small pebbles and wooden sticks to tally up the inventory.
Food:
Bagged white rice / mixed beans * 1 (partially used)
Small bottle of seven-color brown rice * 1
Freeze-dried tomato beef rice * 1
Fresh shrimp and fish board noodles * 1
Extra small bottle of coarse sea salt * 1
Glass jar of wild honey * 1
Bottled wild kudzu root slices * 1
Cassava, banana stem core, palm core (various amounts)
Plastic bags of bracken fern / pandan * 2
Medicine:
Shell-stored herbal cream * 2
Bottled sun-dried long pepper fruit spikes * 1 (partially used)
Emergency medical kit * 2 (gauze – 2 packs, ibuprofen capsules – 1 capsule)
Bottled hydrogen peroxide / iodine * 1 (partially used)
Tube of mupirocin ointment * 1 (partially used)
Sterile cotton swabs, 3-piece packs * 3
Sterile gauze pads * 2 packs
Cephalosporin capsules 100mg * 4 capsules
Daily Necessities:
Coconut oil herbal soap * 2
Pandan moisturizing cream * 2
Aluminum foil-packed water purification tablets * 1 (partially used)
Bottled plant ash * 1
Bottled manicure shell * 1
Double mosquito net * 1
Outdoor raincoat * 2
Soft palm bark, dried moss (various amounts)
Tools:
Handmade stone axe / stone pickaxe / stone hammer / slingshot * 1
Large white fermentation barrel * 1
Beachcombing bucket / woven vine net bag * 1
Clean water bottles, buckets, plastic bags (various amounts)
Vine rope, coconut shells (various amounts)
Other sundries, such as biodegradable bags and airdrop crates, were not specifically counted.
Once the inventory was complete, Liu Yinxi had a clear picture in her mind.
Since moving to the Toa River, they had spent a lot of energy familiarizing themselves with the surrounding environment. Although they were discovering new resources, their overall consumption outpaced their accumulation. Their reserves were actually not as plentiful as they had been at the Generation One Shelter, especially when it came to food.
They had consumed a bucket of instant noodles and a pack of freeze-dried rice, as well as a portion of their precious sea salt.
Judging by their current rate of consumption, their salt would only last for a month at most. They needed to be mindful of conserving it.
Moreover, the further they migrated upstream along the river, the farther they would be from the sea, making beachcombing much more difficult. If they couldn’t catch any prey but still wanted to eat meat, their only option would be to eat insects. Liu Yinxi didn’t mind this at all. Some insects, like red palm weevil larvae, termites, and certain spiders, were actually quite delicious. But for Nan Huaixu to eat those, she would have to overcome a massive psychological hurdle.
Unless it was absolutely necessary, Liu Yinxi did not want to subject Nan Huaixu to such an ordeal.
They absolutely had to prioritize stockpiling and conserving food.
In addition, they had used up a lot of their insect- and snake-repelling herbs, so they needed to gather more to replenish their supply.
When Nan Huaixu returned carrying the woven vine net bag, Liu Yinxi immediately spoke to her about stockpiling and gathering resources. Nan Huaixu nodded repeatedly. The two of them divided the labor: Liu Yinxi would handle hunting for meat, while Nan Huaixu would handle gathering plants. Whenever they had free time, they would go to the beach together to boil salt and replenish their stores.
Nan Huaixu emptied the harvest from the net bag into the small bucket. “The offal bait from last time worked really well. The fish traps caught two large fish, three small ones, and a few river shrimp and river crabs.”
Liu Yinxi clapped her hands happily. “That’s wonderful!”
This bountiful harvest, the first in days, brought joyful smiles to their faces.
Liu Yinxi handed Nan Huaixu some water to drink. “You’ve worked hard, Teacher Nan.”
“You’ve worked hard too, Classmate Xiao Liu.”
Nan Huaixu looked at the hiking timer and heart rate monitor on her bracelet. “Wow, my time to the river bend where the traps are is seventeen minutes faster than the previous times, and my resting heart rate has dropped from 80 to 75.”
“You’re amazing, Teacher Nan. Your physical fitness is steadily improving.”
Curious, Nan Huaixu leaned in close to her. Beads of sweat clung to her temples, and her body heat, elevated from the hike, radiated a faint trace of pheromones.
“Let me see your records.”
“Ah? Ah…”
Liu Yinxi let her pull her left wrist over to bring up the bracelet’s readings.
“Your resting average is in the fifties. Isn’t that a little low?” Nan Huaixu shot Liu Yinxi a shocked, questioning look.
The standard range was between 60 and 100 beats per minute, and the closer it was to 60, the healthier it was considered to be.
“It’s fine.” Liu Yinxi’s heart rate when relaxed was slightly below the standard range, but her medical checkups had always shown her to be perfectly healthy, with excellent stamina.
Nan Huaixu leaned against her side, supporting her hand as she looked. “Huh? Your real-time heart rate just sped up.”
“…” Liu Yinxi quietly told the truth. “Teacher Nan, you’re too close to me. I’m a little uncomfortable. It’s already hot in the rainforest in the afternoon…”
Nan Huaixu hurriedly moved her stool and sat further away. “I’m sorry. I’ll be more mindful of that in the future.”
“It’s okay, it just makes things a bit hot.”
Silence.
Liu Yinxi reached behind her head and ran a hand through her hair. She felt like something was off the moment she had spoken.
Had she said the wrong thing? But she was uncomfortable.
The temperatures in the rainforest were high in the afternoon. When two people got that close, they could even smell the fragrance of omega pheromones. It really was hot.
Exactly.
…Right?
Liu Yinxi drafted several opening lines in her head, urgently trying to think of a topic to talk about. The atmosphere had become incredibly awkward.
Unexpectedly, it was Nan Huaixu who broke the silence first. “Liu Yinxi, tell me the truth. Are you allergic to me?”
Pheromone allergy was a more polite euphemism; plainly speaking, it meant pheromone rejection.
This was caused by innate physiological factors and only existed between alphas and omegas. If there was a pheromone rejection, it wouldn’t matter how incredible one party’s pheromones smelled to the general public—the rejecting party would always find the scent suffocating.
The faint fragrance of flowers still lingered in Liu Yinxi’s nasal cavity. It smelled incredibly good.
She didn’t understand why Nan Huaixu was asking this, but she was certain she had done something wrong. She replied in a panic, “I’m not.”
Nan Huaixu clasped her hands together, nervously pinching her fingers. “Really?”
“Really! Why would you think that? You’re wonderful, your scent is super fragrant, you’re the most fragrant person I’ve ever met—”
Liu Yinxi abruptly stopped and brought a hand up to cover her face.
What was she saying?
A single alpha telling a single omega ‘you smell so fragrant’ practically amounted to being a hooligan.
Liu Yinxi stammered out an apology. “I’m sorry, Teacher Nan, I’m just bad at expressing myself. What I meant to say is, you are truly, truly wonderful.”
“It’s alright. I understood.”
Nan Huaixu lowered her eyes, the corners of her lips quietly turning up.
She understood.
You said I smell fragrant.
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