Substitute Alpha Gets Confessed to by Her Ex’s Aunt on a Survival Variety Show – Chapter 78
by Little PandaFinally Got a Good Night’s Sleep
Nan Huaixu’s words awakened Liu Yinxi.
Her logic had been flawed.
The root of the matter didn’t lie in what she could do to avoid hurting her friend’s feelings, or how to avoid feeling guilty.
As long as she didn’t like that friend, no matter how tactfully she rejected her, it would inevitably cause the friend pain.
Liu Yinxi couldn’t change other people’s thoughts; she could only control herself. There was nothing wrong with liking someone, and nothing wrong with not liking someone either. She naturally had the right to refuse another’s affection.
Of course, she now felt that failing to deliver the book in person to express her gratitude, and instead asking her vice-captain to pass it on, had been a very perfunctory way to handle things. She wanted to apologize to that friend, but the other party had long since cut contact with her. She couldn’t go and disturb someone else’s life; a late apology would be overly presumptuous, and highly unnecessary.
Not to mention, she no longer existed in that world anyway.
Liu Yinxi blinked her eyes open and closed, her fluttering eyelashes gently brushing against Nan Huaixu’s palm.
“Teacher Nan, do you think I’m really stupid?” Stupid enough to always make people unhappy.
“No one is born knowing everything. Everyone has things they are good at, and things they aren’t.” Nan Huaixu didn’t answer her question directly.
“Yeah.” Liu Yinxi smiled and closed her eyes. “I’m going to sleep. Goodnight, Teacher Nan.”
Nan Huaixu kept her hand resting against Liu Yinxi’s eyelids for a few extra seconds. Only when her breathing gradually slowed did she slowly lift her hand. “Goodnight.”
After a moment of silence, Nan Huaixu heard Liu Yinxi’s even, heavy breathing and knew she had fallen asleep. She walked back to sit by the campfire, leaning against the very tree Liu Yinxi had rested against during her night watch, and stared blankly at the sleeping girl.
Did she think she was stupid?
Nan Huaixu closed her eyes, at a complete loss.
It wasn’t stupidity.
It was absolutely infuriating.
Nan Huaixu felt she was the stupid one.
Why did she listen to Liu Yinxi care so much about another woman’s business?
Why was she helping Liu Yinxi analyze another woman’s romance?
Why was she bothering to understand this infuriating idiot with a negative love quotient1?
Next time.
Nan Huaixu warned herself.
If she helped Liu Yinxi analyze her relationship problems next time, her movies would bomb at the box office.
Nan Huaixu looked up and saw the stars, twinkling and bright.
The daytime sun was too dazzling, obscuring their starlight, so they could only be seen at night.
A sudden flash of insight struck Nan Huaixu. That’s right. If those issues obscuring Liu Yinxi’s feelings aren’t cleared away, how could she ever see love?
She still had to help Liu Yinxi analyze her relationship problems and improve her love quotient.
Since she didn’t understand romance, it didn’t matter—she would teach her step by step.
This wasn’t Nan Huaixu being overly fond of lecturing others; Classmate Xiao Liu had come to her of her own accord. That day, Liu Yinxi had asked her with a face full of anticipation, “Teacher Nan, can I ask you for advice on other little life problems in the future?”
“Of course you can.”
It was just that the subject of life was overwhelmingly vast; it might take a whole lifetime to learn…
It took a full day to return to the shelter from the waterfall.
Along the way, they checked the pitfall trap and fish traps.
Sleeping in the treehouse that night—with the mosquito net, the mattresses, and the raincoats to cover their stomachs—Liu Yinxi and Nan Huaixu finally got a good night’s sleep.
The alarm was snoozed time and time again, and the two didn’t get up until nearly ten o’clock.
Bracelet date: May 15.
Tomorrow was airdrop day.
Liu Yinxi tied up her hair, boiling water to cook brunch. There was still half a piece of roasted deer loin left, which she paired with the fish harvested from the fish trap yesterday.
Nan Huaixu had caught up on enough sleep, but the dark circles under her eyes hadn’t completely faded. She sat by the fire hole, holding a windowpane oyster shell to file her nails. The mountain climbing over the past two days had left some rough snags on the tips of her nails, making her uncomfortable.
“Morning, Teacher Nan.”
“Morning.”
“We’re having deer meat and fish soup, with palm core added in.”
“I want something sweet.”
“Okay, once this soup is done boiling, I’ll make some honey water.”
Once the deer meat was heated up, Nan Huaixu wrapped the roasted meat in a banana leaf, blowing on it to cool it down before eating. “Tomorrow is the airdrop.”
Liu Yinxi portioned out two bowls of fish soup. “Yeah.”
Nan Huaixu fell into thought. “Previous airdrops were always dropped at the same location twice. Tomorrow, it should change places.”
Liu Yinxi picked up her mess tin. “Maybe. We’ll know tonight once the airdrop notification updates.”
Liu Yinxi didn’t give Nan Huaixu a definitive answer. Speaking too absolutely would arouse Nan Huaixu’s suspicions; even before this, Nan Huaixu was already curious as to why she could always find the correct locations.
Judging from the original text in the system, the airdrop locations in 《Survivor 5》 almost always changed after two drops, but the Toa River Estuary was different. There were three airdrops there in total.
Strictly speaking, the seventh airdrop wasn’t a true airdrop. It was a fan-guest interactive event arranged as a stunt2 by the production team. Each group of guests would have their fans vote on the supplies to be sent to them, which the production team would then deliver.
Liu Yinxi and Nan Huaixu had replaced two guests from the original novel, and the original four survival teams had all been shuffled around. The supplies voted on by the fans were bound to be different too. Thus, even with the book transmigration system, Liu Yinxi didn’t know what they would receive tomorrow.
Liu Yinxi clasped her hands together and prayed to the heavens: Mother Heaven bless us, please let Nan Huaixu’s fans be reliable. They absolutely must send useful supplies!
In the original novel, there were fans who pulled some bafflingly toxic maneuvers, air-dropping a box of con.traceptive pills to a guest… With so many true fans, Nan Huaixu’s fanbase would absolutely never do such a thing.
Liu Yinxi’s praying posture caught Nan Huaixu’s eye. Nan Huaixu asked her, “What did you wish for?”
Liu Yinxi turned to her. “I wished that we can snag a good airdrop tomorrow.”
Nan Huaixu brought her palms together. “I’ll make a wish too.”
【Rest assured, Manman! The top three choices on our Vegetarian Team’s support post are all good things!】
【Manman and Xixi! We won’t let you get rained on and go hungry!】
【The most important thing is food, right? I think the post for the large meat jerky is pretty good.】
【Clothing, food, shelter, and transport—clothing comes first! Of course sending clothes is better.】
【But the rainforest is only cold on rainy nights, and hot the rest of the time. Food is still more important, right? 0v0】
【This is a big speechless event3. The production team disqualified all the posts voting for tents, returned the gifts, and is making everyone vote again.】
【???】
【What kind of baffling operation4 is this?】
【Paste: We formally apologize to the vast number of fans here. After discussion by the Competition Committee, we cannot temporarily send tents or other supplies that seriously impact the fairness of the competition to the participating guests. We have now refunded all gifts under the relevant posts. Please vote again, fans.】
【If there were things we couldn’t send, couldn’t you have written that clearly before the voting started?】
【Planners, come out and take a beating (Curses)】
【We’ll settle the score with the production team later. Those whose votes were refunded, hurry up and go vote again!】
【Did they change the planning team for this season of 《Survivor》? Why are there so many accidents? (Sweat)】
【I heard the original Chief Planner resigned last September and took several core members with them. The newly appointed Chief Planner temporarily put together this new team.】
【No wonder they’re so unreliable.】
【Has the intelligence group tallied the total votes in the four support areas? What support supplies is each group of guests most likely to get?】
【Can’t tally it. After the official gift refunds, a lot of people re-voted, and all the previous data got completely messed up (Laugh-crying)】
【Too tragic. Originally, the tent posts in every area had very high votes (Worried)】
【You’d know if you thought about it. Building a shelter is one of the main attractions of a survival competition. If the guests all lived in tents, it would affect the ratings for 《Survivor 5》.】
【They want to make money off everything. Their eating appearance is incredibly ugly6 (Eye roll)】
【The official Weibo is playing dead7, huh. Even if they ban my account, we Shao fans will still say it: Add a teammate-swapping segment—SWAP! TEAM! MATES! Assigning teammates based solely on a lottery machine is very unfair! The guests should be allowed to form teams freely after getting a preliminary understanding of each other’s abilities!】
【To be honest, it’s hard to say whether the lottery machine is fair or not. The machine is operated by the production team; who knows if there was any black curtain8 behind the scenes.】
【Lacking ability yourself but blaming your teammate? Nan Huaixu’s skills are just average, yet Liu Yinxi still carried her to take off9; Lu Yiqi is a germaphobe and hates moving, yet Yuan Fang still took all the heavy lifting upon herself; Huang Heshan completely ignored Yu Yan at the start, yet Yu Yan still took the initiative to close the distance. Why are you Shao fans so noble that you want to alter the competition rules single-handedly?】
【Calm down, let’s keep watching. Although Luo Ling’s survival skills seem the worst right now, it’s mainly because A Yun spoils her. Luo Ling hasn’t had a chance to show what she can do yet.】
【How else is she supposed to show what she can do? If she doesn’t eat well, she cries; if she doesn’t sleep well, she cries. She cries over this, she cries over that. She might as well withdraw from the competition.】
【Uh, how did Liu Yinxi manage to coax Luo Ling in the past? To think they were together for three years before breaking up @_@】
After breakfast, Liu Yinxi found some wood splinters and leaves to wipe their shoes.
Over the past two days of climbing the mountain, their shoes and pant legs had been plastered with mud. They had briefly washed their pant legs yesterday, but their hiking shoes were still a bit dirty.
She asked Nan Huaixu, “Teacher Nan, shall I wipe yours for you?”
Nan Huaixu looked down at her shoes. “I’ll do it myself.”
The edges of the shoes had already sustained slight wear and tear. Even the best quality hiking shoes couldn’t withstand them trekking and climbing hills in the primeval rainforest every day.
Liu Yinxi used a piece of wood to scrape the large chunks of mud off the soles of her shoes, then casually extended her arm to scrape the mud off the edges of Nan Huaixu’s shoes.
Nan Huaixu had been staring blankly into the forest when she suddenly felt something crawl onto her foot. She stood up in a panic. “Ah!”
Liu Yinxi raised her head to look at her blankly. “Ah?”
What had happened?
Nan Huaixu looked all around her, front, back, left, and right, before her gaze finally landed on the wood splinter in Liu Yinxi’s hand. She let out a sigh of relief. “It was you. I thought a big bug had crawled onto my foot.”
Liu Yinxi raised both hands in surrender. “No, no, don’t be afraid. I just saw a chunk of mud on your shoe and conveniently scraped it off.”
“Sorry, I wrongly accused you.”
“It’s fine.”
Liu Yinxi obediently bent back down and continued wiping her shoes.
Liu Yinxi felt conflicted. Was she overstepping boundaries?
Teacher Nan had already said she didn’t need help wiping her shoes, yet she still went and scraped mud off them, scaring her in the process.
Ever since their heart-to-heart talk at the waterfall that night, Liu Yinxi had been paying special attention to her interactions with Nan Huaixu. She had to maintain a proper sense of boundaries; she absolutely could not arouse Teacher Nan’s disgust.
Liu Yinxi felt that, in this book’s world, she would never find anyone who treated her better than Nan Huaixu did.
She absolutely could not lose this teammate.
Nan Huaixu asked, “Classmate Xiao Liu, contemplating life again?”
Liu Yinxi shook her head, then hurriedly nodded. “Yeah.”
No, contemplating you.
Nan Huaixu had already wiped her shoes clean. She washed her hands and smiled. “Then take your time contemplating. I’m going to take a stroll nearby; we’re out of banana leaves.”
Liu Yinxi swallowed the words ‘I’ll go with you’ back down and waved at her. “Come back early. If anything happens, blow your whistle.”
Teacher Nan had said she was going for a stroll; she couldn’t always stick to Teacher Nan like glue.
Liu Yinxi watched Nan Huaixu’s retreating back and rested her chin in her hands.
She wondered what kind of alpha Teacher Nan liked spending time with.
A leisurely day passed peacefully.
Night fell.
At 10:00 PM, the airdrop notification updated:
May 16 – Seventh Airdrop
Time: 7:00 AM
Location: Toa River Estuary
(This is a special airdrop. All personnel please gather at the riverbank punctually.)
Footnotes
- A modern slang term (liànshāng) referring to one's emotional intelligence in romantic relationships, similar to IQ or EQ.
- Internet slang (zhěng huó), literally 'arranging work/activity'. It means to pull a stunt, create drama, or do something unconventional for entertainment value.
- Internet slang used to describe something baffling or frustrating.
- Internet slang (mí zhī cāozuò) referring to actions or decisions that are completely confusing, inexplicable, or nonsensical.
- Internet slang (shēnjǐng), a shortened homophone for 'shēnjǐngbīng' (深井冰), which itself is a censorship-evading homophone for 'shénjīngbìng' (神经病), meaning crazy or psycho.
- A slang phrase describing someone who is disgustingly greedy or shameless in pursuing profit. 'Blood' (xué) is used as a dialect intensifier meaning 'incredibly' or 'bloody'.
- Internet slang (zhuāng sǐ), literally 'playing dead.' It means ignoring criticism, staying silent, or pretending not to notice an ongoing issue in hopes it will blow over.
- A term (hēimù), literally 'black curtain,' referring to shady deals, rigged outcomes, or behind-the-scenes manipulation in competitions.
- Internet slang originating from gaming, meaning to be carried to rapid success or victory by a highly skilled teammate.
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