Substitute Alpha Gets Confessed to by Her Ex’s Aunt on a Survival Variety Show – Chapter 77
by Little PandaNight Watch Away From Camp
It was the out-of-print 《Rare Amphibian Illustrated Guide》 that Liu Yinxi had given as a return gift back then.
“It was a hardcover printed on copperplate paper, edited by a leading domestic amphibian expert. It detailed all of the country’s rare amphibians in a popular science format, along with recently discovered new species.”
Liu Yinxi meticulously introduced the book she liked so much.
Nan Huaixu listened seriously, her mouth tightening one moment and curving up the next. The look in her eyes shifted constantly.
Liu Yinxi grew excited whenever she brought up rare animals. “The cover of the book was a Chong’an moustache toad, a rare toad endemic to China. Its most obvious feature is the row of small horns around the male toad’s mouth, like a little moustache, which is extremely interesting. What a pity my friend and I hadn’t seen one with our own eyes in the wild yet.”
“The book included the Chinese alligator, rainbow agama, Pingxiang eyelid gecko, Banna caecilian…”
Liu Yinxi rattled them off as if listing her family’s treasures. Nan Huaixu softly interrupted her, “Alright, I know what the book your friend sent was about. How did she send it? Did she say anything when giving it to the omega? Did she include a bookmark for the omega, or send anything else along with it?”
Liu Yinxi couldn’t remember the details from back then, so she gave a general summary. “My friend asked someone to pass the book to the omega. She told the omega on WeChat that it was a return gift for her, thanked her, and said she was a very good friend. And then my friend was very busy that day, so she said she had to go to work first. Nothing else was given.”
The middleman Liu Yinxi had entrusted was the vice-captain.
“…”
Nan Huaixu rubbed her forehead. “So, such a gentle and delicate omega girl sent your friend a romantic poetry collection and red bean dice, and your friend returned a book with a toad1 on the cover and pages entirely filled with lizards and crocodiles, while also telling her, ‘You’re a good person.'”
“Mm, that’s right.” By the end, Liu Yinxi’s expression had unconsciously grown solemn.
Before, she hadn’t thought there was anything wrong with it. She had even looked forward to that omega friend happily discussing her reading reflections with her, and perhaps finding an opportunity to go look for the rare animals in the book together to take photos for a competition.
But all Liu Yinxi received in return was distance and a severed connection.
Now, hearing Nan Huaixu’s recounting of the event from another perspective, Liu Yinxi sensed that something was wrong.
She finally understood what emotions that omega friend had truly wanted to convey, and her response at the time must have made her friend extremely sad.
Nan Huaixu noticed that Liu Yinxi was a little downcast. Doubt rose in her heart: Why does the past of a deceased friend make Liu Yinxi care so much?
Curiosity was just curiosity; Nan Huaixu did not like to complicate matters, nor did she want to pry into others’ privacy.
She comfortingly patted Liu Yinxi’s shoulder. “It’s all in the past now. It’s good that you’ve figured it out now.”
Liu Yinxi asked, “If the omega didn’t like that book, why didn’t she just say it directly?”
Nan Huaixu closed her eyes, exasperated at her failure to grasp the obvious. She had thought Liu Yinxi had figured it out just now, only to not expect her to still ask such a question. The difference in human thought processes was truly greater than the difference between a tomato and a tiger.
“Liu Yinxi, imagine this. You confess your feelings to an impossible crush, and the other party gives you a toad. What would be your first thought?”
The reason she had specified an “impossible crush” was because if one had enough certainty, they wouldn’t be so subtle. If victory was assured, of course she would just directly take her.
Nan Huaixu would have done it in one step.
At the same time, an idiom flashed through Liu Yinxi’s mind: “a toad lusting after swan meat2.”
Perhaps just a book alone wasn’t enough to make someone associate it with that much. But combined with asking a middleman to deliver the gift, sending a message saying “you’re a good person,” and so on—layering several elements together—in the eyes of that omega friend who was in her most sensitive period after showing goodwill, it was highly likely that she saw it as an insult, trampling on her sincere feelings.
After this exchange, Liu Yinxi finally unraveled the puzzle that had troubled her for years through Nan Huaixu’s meticulous analysis.
“I understand now. Thank you, Teacher Nan,” Liu Yinxi murmured as she looked up at the night sky. “I hope my friend’s spirit in heaven can receive this answer.”
Nan Huaixu paused, then said, “It seems your friend cared a lot about that girl.”
“Mm. She used to be very sad when friends she got along with perfectly fine would leave without any clear explanation.”
“Some? Were there many more?”
“Not many.”
“I see.” Nan Huaixu curled her lips in an unreadable smile. She looked up at the magnificent river of stars and didn’t reply again.
Liu Yinxi lay where she was, lost in thought.
The thoughts in her mind constantly shifted. All her emotions slowly settled like sand and stones in a river, until eventually, only sorrow and guilt remained.
Liu Yinxi believed that falling in love was the result of pheromones and hormones. She didn’t deny that it was a beautiful emotion, but she simply wasn’t interested. Whenever she spoke about her views on love, they were always very vague. She would hypothesize many rules and conditions, only to overturn them one by one, like engaging in futile efforts over and over again.
Ultimately, she could not imagine something she had never possessed.
The closer Liu Yinxi got to the mountains and the wild, the more she grew weary of human interaction and socializing. She disliked beating around the bush, disliked pleasantries and superficial politeness, disliked overly complex formalities. She liked things simple and pure; she liked speaking clearly and straightforwardly. She had never considered romance, much in the same way she had never understood the appeal of becoming a government official and climbing the ranks.
But no matter what, she never thought that being this way would break someone else’s heart.
It was all in the past now.
Liu Yinxi closed her eyes and let out another yawn. She wiped her face, sat up, and found the pandan around the campfire. Plucking a tender leaf, she placed it in her mouth to chew; its refreshing juice could help her stay awake.
Nan Huaixu’s eyelids were heavy. She propped her upper body up and looked at Liu Yinxi. “Aren’t you going to rest?”
Liu Yinxi picked up a wooden stick and gathered the firewood in the stone stove together. “Sleeping on a floor bed at night is dangerous. I’ll take the night watch.”
Nan Huaixu sat up. “You’re not going to sleep? It’s so far back to the shelter tomorrow. How can you manage without resting?”
Liu Yinxi added wood to the fire. The flickering flames cast dancing lines of light and shadow across her face. “It’s fine. It used to be like this sometimes in the past.”
Nan Huaixu could see that she was in low spirits. Guessing that she might be missing her late best friend, she decided not to press the issue.
Nan Huaixu opened her bracelet and set an alarm for 1:30 AM. She called out to Liu Yinxi, “I’ve set an alarm. You take the first half of the night. I’ll wake up at 1:30 and swap with you. You must sleep then.”
At the end, Nan Huaixu added in a firm tone, “I am the Captain.”
Liu Yinxi hesitated for two seconds, then smiled and nodded at her. “I know, Teacher Nan.”
Only then did Nan Huaixu lie back down in the triangular shelter with satisfaction. She pulled the hood of her hardshell jacket over her head, curled her body up, and went to sleep.
Liu Yinxi broke off a piece of banana stem core and bit into it, chewing slowly. The act of chewing could lessen her drowsiness.
The dead of night always brought up memories with effortless ease.
Liu Yinxi thought a lot about her life before transmigrating into the book. Crossing the snow-covered plateaus with her teammates, riding horses, feeding grass to little yaks.
Video-calling her Mom and Mommy. Her mom proudly showing off her newly collected ore specimens, while her mommy showed her the little owl the conservation station had just rescued.
Her mom jokingly asking her if there was any chance she might bring a girlfriend home this year. Liu Yinxi had said she had no such thoughts and didn’t want to date. Her mom smiled and said, “Alright, our Xixi’s thoughts are the most important.”
And then came the endless ice and snow, swallowing her whole…
As she thought and thought, Liu Yinxi’s mind drifted to the present.
She remembered the panic and helplessness when she first transmigrated into Luo Ling’s home, the presumptuousness and awkwardness of her first meeting with Nan Huaixu, and then teaming up with Nan Huaixu to survive. From being fraught with conflict at the very beginning, the two of them had slowly smoothed out their rough edges until they gradually came to trust each other, cooperating with tacit understanding.
Nan Huaixu would care about whether she was tired from going out every day, make breakfast for her, help wash her back, change her bandages, and take care of her. She even listened to what was on her mind and helped her analyze the human affairs she found most headache-inducing.
—Liu Yinxi, imagine confessing to an impossible crush.
As this phrase echoed in Liu Yinxi’s heart once more, the very first thing that surfaced in her mind was actually Nan Huaixu’s face.
“?”
Liu Yinxi shook her head and cupped her cheeks in her hands, feeling incredibly guilty. This fleeting association was very offensive.
She sighed, feeling that hiking and climbing mountains for an entire day had tired her out to the point of delirium.
The current in the river downstream of the waterfall was relatively swift. The night wind blew continuously off the water, feeling a bit chilly against her body. However, having eaten a lot of deer meat that evening, Liu Yinxi did not feel cold.
She boiled some hot water to drink. Leaning against a tree trunk, she listened to the chirping and crying of the birds, beasts, and insects in the dense forest, trying to distinguish which species they were.
After listening for a while, Liu Yinxi grew bored and called up the Book Transmigration Reading System to pass the time.
During this time, she heard Nan Huaixu sleep-talk twice. Her sleeping state was much better than when she had first entered the competition. She no longer spoke panicked words in her sleep, only letting out short hums. Her body was no longer curled up as tightly, either; instead, she lay on her side, slightly bent, hiding her face inside her hood.
Liu Yinxi occasionally stopped reading to look at her, the corners of her mouth curving up unconsciously.
The alarm went off at 1:30 AM.
Nan Huaixu got up, sporting dark circles under her eyes, and gently patted Liu Yinxi’s back. “Go sleep.”
Liu Yinxi had been deeply absorbed in her reading and was startled. “Teacher Nan? I’m fine. You go back to sleep.”
Nan Huaixu’s face was stern. “Hurry and go.”
Knowing she couldn’t win this argument, Liu Yinxi obediently crawled into the triangular shelter and lay down.
Nan Huaixu stood before the campfire and stretched her body. She took a few sips of water. A gust of cold wind blew by, making her hug her arms before she sat down beside the flames.
“Eating deer meat really does make the cold less intimidating,” she said, seemingly to herself, as she lowered her arms.
Liu Yinxi lay with her head facing outwards and chatted with her. “Teacher Nan, have you received that kind of thing before too?”
Otherwise, how could she understand so much about it?
Nan Huaixu turned to her. “What kind? What?”
Liu Yinxi’s voice dropped. “Red bean dice.”
Nan Huaixu said, “I received many similar things back when I was in school. The drawers of my desk were often stuffed with gifts from who-knows-where. The line of people pursuing me could stretch all the way from Hongdu to Jing City.”
Liu Yinxi fell silent.
It was an exaggeration, but Liu Yinxi knew what Nan Huaixu was saying was absolutely true.
Liu Yinxi asked, “How did you deal with all those gifts? What do you have to do so you don’t feel guilty?”
Nan Huaixu was very calm. “I didn’t even know who those things were from. Once they were given to me, I assumed it was up to me to deal with them. I gave away what I could, and I donated what I could.”
“Wouldn’t that hurt the feelings of the people who gave the gifts?”
“I didn’t even know them. Why didn’t they consider that doing that every day was severely disturbing my life? Back then, I was a student, not an actor. My task was to study.”
“True.” Liu Yinxi nodded. Nan Huaixu’s situation was not the same as hers.
Liu Yinxi lowered her brows. For some reason, her chest felt stifled. An inexplicable melancholy wrapped around her like the hot, humid air of the rainforest during the day, sticky and heavy.
Suddenly, a light and elegant floral scent drifted past her. The firelight overhead was blocked out, and Liu Yinxi’s eyelids met the touch of warm skin.
Nan Huaixu stood outside the triangular shelter. Bending down, she covered Liu Yinxi’s eyes with her hand. “Harboring an unrequited crush on someone gives them the right to reject you. Agonizing over someone you don’t love is a betrayal of the person you will love in the future.”
“Go to sleep, Liu Yinxi.”
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