Substitute Alpha Gets Confessed to by Her Ex’s Aunt on a Survival Variety Show – Chapter 83
by Little PandaWhy Did You Enter the Competition?
Nan Huaixu had a reason she had to stay in the competition.
It was just that her reason had changed since she first entered.
Nan Huaixu’s original intention in joining 《Survivor》 was to earn traffic, drum up hype for her newly founded studio, produce new works, attract endorsements, and recruit new talent.
For her, simply showing her face on this survival variety show was enough to achieve her goal; there was no need to win the championship.
But Liu Yinxi’s appearance had changed her mind. She saw a tenacious vitality and a wide variety of possibilities in Liu Yinxi. She wanted to keep walking alongside her, all the way to the championship.
And not just the championship. Nan Huaixu wanted to go even further.
She also wanted to see the next few decades of her life together with Liu Yinxi.
Nan Huaixu said to Liu Yinxi, who was walking ahead of her, “I have a reason to insist on winning. If I win the championship of this season’s 《Survivor》, the title of ‘Survival Champion’ will be added to the news about me. Moreover, a prize of several million isn’t a small amount. After we split it, I can invest it into my studio to supplement our funds.”
Liu Yinxi already knew all of this.
The original novel had written about how difficult it was for Nan Huaixu to start her own business under the suppression of the Nan family’s faction, so it wasn’t hard to guess why she had chosen to participate in a variety show for traffic.
Nan Huaixu was primarily in it for fame, while Liu Yinxi was primarily in it for money.
They had already talked about Liu Yinxi’s lack of money many times a month ago. She didn’t feel the need to bring it up again, so she didn’t say any more to Nan Huaixu.
On the other bank of the river, a campfire illuminated the pained face of the injured.
Lu Yiqi’s face was deathly pale. Her leg, wrapped in layers of gauze, rested on a low stand.
Yuan Fang sat beside her, mixing hot water to soak a piece of gauze, and gently wiped Lu Yiqi’s cold sweat-drenched face. “The doctor said your fracture is very serious and told you to withdraw from the competition immediately. You didn’t listen. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair?”
Lu Yiqi kept her eyes tightly shut, but her furrowed brows indicated she wasn’t asleep.
With so much pain, it was impossible to sleep anyway.
“What exactly are you so stubbornly holding out for?” Yuan Fang asked. “There’s no traffic or connections for you to earn here. Is it for the money? Aiyo, you don’t even have any real survival skills; I really don’t know what you’re thinking. Have you found a job yet? How much money1 do you make a month? Have you ever taken your family traveling?”
Lu Yiqi spoke, her voice weak and annoyed. “You’re so noisy. And do you have any real skills? Family? Does a capricious, willful person like you even know what real family means? Have you ever done anything for your family? What right do you have to bring up family in front of me?”
Yuan Fang quieted down for a moment. Suddenly, she let out a short laugh. She leaned back against her backpack and gazed up at the starry sky.
“Your jiejie here really doesn’t have any real survival skills. Let me tell you a secret; the other contestants don’t know about it. I didn’t enter the competition voluntarily. My younger sister signed me up. You’re right, I’m a capricious person. My family had a whole mess of stalls, businesses, and social obligations, and I didn’t want to manage any of it. That was until I was twenty-eight. That year, something happened with the family business. When I got the call from the investigators, I was still drinking on a yacht in the Aegean Sea. My sister was twenty-five, not long out of college, and she shouldered the burden of the business for our mom all on her own.”
Yuan Fang’s eyes were filled with the reflection of the stars, twinkling faintly. “In the bars, all the girls would hold the roses I gave them and call me a good sister. My sister also said I was the best sister in the world. But that year, I realized I was the worst sister in the world.”
Lu Yiqi’s breathing was heavy. “That is indeed terrible. If I were your sister, I would never admit outside that I had an older sister at home.”
For once, Yuan Fang didn’t bite back.
For the first time, she took out that bottle of strong Shaodaozi liquor from her bag, twisted open the cap, tilted her head back, and took a sip.
“This year, the higher-ups have been pulling up old economic cases. Every enterprise is being investigated very strictly. My sister told them that I’ve been abroad the whole time, and then she made me come on this variety show.”
Lu Yiqi opened her eyes. In her dark brown pupils, there was a trace of emotion that Yuan Fang had never seen before—like chalcedony stripped of its stony crust, glowing with a soft, lustrous light. “A public alibi. You can be cleared of any involvement in whatever your family does during this period. Even though you’re a real bastard, your family truly loves you.”
Yuan Fang curled her lips into a smile and shook her head. Swirling the clear liquor in her hand, she looked at Lu Yiqi, her gaze deep. “If I said my family was framed, Auditor Lu, would you believe me?”
Lu Yiqi shifted her gaze away and closed her eyes. “I haven’t audited it. It’s none of my business.”
Yuan Fang chuckled. Facing the clear breeze and the bright moon, she took another sip of the liquor.
A long time passed. The liquid sloshed against the glass as Yuan Fang screwed the cap back on tight and returned the bottle to her backpack.
In the quiet night, Lu Yiqi suddenly spoke up, her eyes still closed. “I haven’t found a good job, and a fixed salary is too little. Yuan Fang, you asked me why I’m so stubborn. I’m doing it for the money. The best transcript from the National University of Finance and Economics can’t be exchanged for a million in cash.”
“You asked me if I’ve taken my family traveling. I haven’t.”
“Because my older sister is on an oxygen tube. She can’t enjoy anything.”
The campfire rustled softly.
The night wind scattered the sparks reflected in Yuan Fang’s eyes…
The bright moon hung high in the sky.
Its clear radiance blanketed the vast, primitive rainforest.
Liu Yinxi and Nan Huaixu returned to the treehouse. Checking their bracelets, it was already almost nine at night.
Nan Huaixu added firewood to the fire hole and boiled water. Liu Yinxi took her knife, pierced through the lizard’s head, skinned it, and butchered the meat.
They hadn’t eaten roasted lizard in quite a few days. Fresh, tender, and springy, it was a rare delicacy for the two of them, who had grown tired of eating roasted fish. As for a feast like venison—something that could only be chanced upon, not sought—they didn’t dare ask for too much. They could only put in a few more good words to Mother Heaven when they prayed.
After finishing their meal and cleaning up, Liu Yinxi took a sponge bath with hot water and washed the clothes that had been soaked in the river. She temporarily wore Nan Huaixu’s coat, waiting for her own clothes to dry before changing into them for bed.
The two of them lay inside the mosquito net, the starlight filling the sky filtering down through the leaves of the shelter’s roof.
Liu Yinxi let out a small yawn, her voice languid. “Teacher Nan, I want to go change the location of our traps tomorrow.”
“Agreed.” Between boiling salt during the day, guarding the traps, and rescuing someone in the evening, Nan Huaixu was also exhausted.
Liu Yinxi said, “Firstly, it’s to prevent anyone else from stealing. Secondly, the traps have been in the same location all this time, so the animals nearby have grown vigilant. It’ll be better to move them.”
“En. Should we still boil salt first thing tomorrow morning?”
“We’ll boil it in the afternoon. The sun is stronger then. In the morning, we’ll go move the traps.”
Nan Huaixu lay with her eyes closed for a while, then let out a soft sigh.
Liu Yinxi asked, “Teacher Nan, what’s wrong?”
Nan Huaixu was surprised. “You’re actually not asleep yet.”
“I just lay down… Exactly what kind of image do you have of me in your heart?”
Being able to sleep well was a good thing.
But Liu Yinxi couldn’t help but feel that ‘one-second sleep alpha’ sounded very strange, as if she would just ignore Nan Huaixu the moment she lay down.
Nan Huaixu adjusted into a more comfortable sleeping position, her voice muffled. “I hate the unspoken rule that allows contestants to steal from one another.”
Listening to her voice, Liu Yinxi felt her drowsiness deepen a bit and yawned. “Didn’t you say a few days ago that if others could do it, we could too?”
“But seeing Xiao Lu fall into the water today, I realized it shouldn’t be like that. I oversimplified things. I thought stealing would only result in a loss of supplies. I didn’t consider the physical harm.”
“That was an accident.”
“But as long as there’s snatching and grabbing, someone could get hurt, right? During the first airdrop, you and Huang Heshan even got into a fight.”
“En… That was just a minor clash. Trading a few moves. Just think of it as sparring.”
Nan Huaixu’s eyes filled with unease. “What if one day you two have a major conflict, and she injures you? Or what if the person who fell into the water while rushing across the river today wasn’t Xiao Lu, but one of us… Survival is already fraught with the risk of injury, and the unspoken rule of stealing only increases the chances of getting hurt.”
Liu Yinxi heard that Nan Huaixu was worrying about her. “Wait, wait, wait. Me, injured by Huang Heshan? It wouldn’t come to that, it wouldn’t come to that.”
Nan Huaixu turned onto her side, her arm resting flat against the mattress and her cheek pillowed on the back of her hand. “Yu Yan said Huang Heshan has been to the front lines to protect her employer. If she really gets physical, those fake moves3 you learned in the gym won’t be enough to beat her.”
Liu Yinxi finally understood what it meant to need countless lies to cover up a single lie. She truly hoped that one day she wouldn’t have to fabricate stories anymore, and could face the person in front of her as her truest self.
While she hadn’t been to the front lines, she had participated in missions to pursue fugitives. Her practical combat skills were rock solid.
“Well, if I can’t beat her, I can just run. Teacher Nan, don’t worry, I run very fast. When I ran into hooligans looking for trouble as a kid, I’d bolt and disappear in a flash. There wasn’t an alleyway within five miles of the school that I didn’t know. No one could ever catch me.”
Nan Huaixu sighed inwardly. Yes, and haven’t I failed to catch you too?
Nan Huaixu said, “In short, we need to be extra careful from now on. Liu Yinxi, if we ever encounter danger while fighting over supplies in the days to come, remember to always put safety first. If we really can’t keep something, just let it go.”
“But why should we swallow that kind of grievance? If we can’t protect our supplies, we’ll fall into a disadvantage in the competition.”
“Like Lu Yiqi—if you can’t protect your leg or your arm, will you be able to maintain an advantage? You’d be eliminated immediately.”
“…”
Faced with Nan Huaixu’s powerful questioning, Liu Yinxi fell silent.
Nan Huaixu was right. In extreme situations, losing a few supplies meant they could just forage for more, but if their bodies broke down, the multi-million prize money would instantly go up in smoke.
Liu Yinxi didn’t have the face to tell Nan Huaixu that she was carrying millions in debt, even though she hadn’t incurred the debts herself.
Strangely enough, if this had been a month ago, Liu Yinxi thought she wouldn’t have minded telling Nan Huaixu about the debt. The original host’s character setting was that of a villain, and the original novel had given the original host those flaws. Maintaining that persona would have been no problem at all.
But things were different now. Liu Yinxi didn’t want Nan Huaixu to know the negative aspects about her. Perhaps she had already integrated into this book’s world, gradually adjusting her true self, and along with it, learning to cherish her reputation.
—If Teacher Nan found out she was millions in debt, she would definitely think of her as an extravagant, hedonistic, and thoroughly awful woman.
Ab-so-lute-ly not.
Liu Yinxi let out a low “En,” adjusted her sleeping posture, and closed her eyes. “I understand. I’ll definitely be careful from now on. Good night, Teacher Nan.”
Nan Huaixu reached out and pulled up the raincoat Liu Yinxi was using as a blanket. “Good night.”
Liu Yinxi felt like Nan Huaixu was tucking her in.
What a subtle and delicate feeling.
In all her years of growing up, aside from her mother tucking her in like this when she was little, no one had ever been this gentle with her.
Liu Yinxi curled the corners of her lips and counted the seconds in her heart.
One.
Two.
Three…
This time, she didn’t fall asleep in a single second…
Footnotes
- Internet slang (mǐ) where 'rice' is a substitute for money. Used when asking about income or costs.
- A playful slang term (yī miǎo rù shuì a) coined by Nan Huaixu, combining 'alpha' with the trait of falling asleep instantly.
- A slang term for amateurish or impractical skills, often referring to martial arts or fitness routines that lack real combat effectiveness.
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