She didn’t need the Alpha to shower her with affection even just 1% was more than enough to sustain her. She knew she could no longer demand all of Jiang Qiu, and her desperate attachment wanted only to preserve whatever little remained.
As for a proper title, she could do without it.
Before Jiang Qiu officially married, could she afford to be a little greedy?
“I won’t interfere with your marriage,” Yu Sheng’s breath hitched as she suddenly spoke in a soft whisper. “But before you fall in love with her, before you two get married… Jiang Qiu, can I be your lover?”
The Omega knew she was irredeemable.
She was actually begging for the shameful position of a hidden lover.
Wanting to cling to that final shred of affection as her only hope for the future, Yu Sheng felt she was bound to fall into a bottomless, lightless abyss, surviving solely on Jiang Qiu’s pity. She had no moves left to play. As long as she could remain by the Alpha’s side, she was willing to play the villain.
By now, no one else would ever love her except for this one Alpha.
Two years too late, Yu Sheng finally realized just how deeply Jiang Qiu had loved her. But now, she could only lower her posture to try and protect this fading emotion. After turning it over in her mind, she really saw no other way.
She could only resort to being underhanded.
She had never been a particularly good person anyway, had she?
The cotton swab froze against her palm. Jiang Qiu’s movements ground to a complete halt at Yu Sheng’s words. The air in the room seemed to solidify, especially since Wen Yan, holding the hairdryer, was standing just a few paces away, having heard every single syllable loud and clear.
Incredulity flashed across the Alpha’s eyes. Her brow furrowed deeply as she looked up at Yu Sheng, her expression filled with profound shock and bewilderment. She couldn’t comprehend how the Omega could utter such words, let alone what was going on inside her head.
It was as if she had lost her mind.
“Do you have any idea what you’re saying?” Jiang Qiu asked, her voice dropping into a harsh, stunned whisper.
Yu Sheng replied, “I know.”
“You don’t.” Jiang Qiu yanked her hand back, her frown deepening as the sheer shock continued to reverberate through her. She couldn’t believe she had actually heard those words. “What are you thinking? Have you lost your mind, Yu Sheng?”
The Alpha’s tone was heavy with reprimand. She found the concept utterly abhorrent, and there was no universe in which she would agree to such an absurd request.
Jiang Qiu stood up, taking half a step back before walking over to the window. She desperately needed a breath of fresh air to clear her head and give her stunned mind a moment to process the sheer audacity of the proposal.
“You can think I’m crazy, or a lunatic, but I won’t take back a single word,” Yu Sheng said, looking up at her stubbornly.
“You are speaking absolute nonsense, do you understand?” Jiang Qiu could no longer care less about Yu Sheng’s injury. She was drowning in regret for repeatedly sticking her nose into the Omega’s business.
Yu Sheng knew she might be systematically exhausting whatever affection Jiang Qiu had left for her. But rather than watching the Alpha gradually forget her over time, she would rather let herself be “crazy” just this once. At this point, Yu Sheng didn’t care about the consequences, she had nothing left to lose.
After all, she had started with nothing.
When she was a child, because of her aunt Yang Yu’s profession as an actress, Yu Sheng had spent her early years moving from place to place. She had transferred schools multiple times and never managed to keep a single friend. She didn’t understand the concept of a home, she only knew that making friends at school was pointless because she could be uprooted at any moment, never to see her classmates again.
Later, Yang Yu belatedly realized the severe impact this nomadic lifestyle was having on her education and well-being, so she established a semi-permanent home in Huaicheng, a city roughly six hours away from Lihua City by high-speed rail. Yet Yang Yu continued to travel constantly for work. Yu Sheng became a commuter student, returning every day to a dining table that felt overwhelmingly vast and empty with only her sitting at it.
Yu Sheng knew Yang Yu’s career was difficult. Back then, her aunt had no fame to speak of and would take any role, no matter how small. Consequently, Yu Sheng never demanded anything. She had simply been lonely for far too long, and that distinct ache remained vividly etched in her memory.
The Omega couldn’t understand why her older sister got to stay with their two mothers while she had been sent away with their aunt, living a life entirely devoid of a sense of belonging. As time went on, the comments from those around her grew more cutting, people joked that she was an abandoned, unlucky child because her parents never showed up.
No one cared about her.
Was that true?
Was it because Yu Dai and Yang Jin disliked her that she had been cast aside?
Through countless days and nights, she had prayed to be brought back to Lihua City, but that hope was consistently shattered. The Omega grew entirely convinced that she was an unloved child, and that there was no place for her in Lihua City.
As a child, she used to think that if she could just make her mothers notice her existence, playing the bad kid wouldn’t matter. Later, she frequently wondered: would Jiang Qiu turn out just like her two mothers?
She found it hard to believe that anyone could harbor deep affection for her, yet when such an intense emotion finally appeared, she had already thrown it away.
If acting maliciously could win back that fierce affection, Yu Sheng wouldn’t hesitate to use any means necessary. Just like when she misbehaved as a child. Yang Yu would be too busy to show up, but Yang Jin would travel down specifically to handle the matter.
At least it worked.
Otherwise, Yu Sheng had no idea how she was supposed to rekindle Jiang Qiu’s affection when the Alpha had already resolved to marry someone else. Jiang Qiu had pushed her away at every turn, she was completely out of options.
Yu Sheng steadied her breathing, casting a downward glance at her palm. The warmth left behind by the Alpha’s touch had long since dissipated. The living room was dead silent. Jiang Qiu seemed to want her to leave, speaking again.
“I am serious.”
Jiang Qiu turned back to look at her, her tone carrying a hint of incredulous amusement. “Do you honestly think we can just pretend nothing happened and go back to how we used to be?”
“Just let me stay under the same roof as you. It doesn’t matter if we can never go back to the way things were,” Yu Sheng said.
Outside the window, the heavy clouds seemed to connect the sky and the earth in a murky blur. The living room light illuminated only half of Jiang Qiu’s face. After a long silence, the Alpha spoke coldly.
“Absolutely impossible.”
Yu Sheng knew Jiang Qiu wouldn’t accept it immediately, this was entirely within her expectations.
The ring on her finger caught her eye. Yu Sheng traced it gently with the pad of her thumb, taking a deep breath to steady her trembling fingers. The Omega was well aware that this choice was entirely devoid of morality, but since she had already crossed that line, she refused to let this proposal ring be tossed aside carelessly by Jiang Qiu.
Along with herself.
“Could you please just give it some thought?” she pleaded softly.
Jiang Qiu merely replied, “The rain has stopped. Take care on your way out.”
It was an absolute, unyielding rejection. A bitter smile tugged at the corner of Yu Sheng’s mouth. She carefully screwed the cap back onto the iodine bottle and prepared to turn and leave.
It was only then that she noticed Wen Yan standing behind her.
The Omega froze in place for a long moment, her mouth parting but no words coming out. After a tense silence, Yu Sheng simply managed, “Sorry for the intrusion.”
The sound of the front door clicking shut resonated sharply in the quiet apartment. Jiang Qiu raised her hands to cover her face, letting out a deep, heavy sigh. In that moment, she genuinely felt she might need professional counseling.
It was utterly preposterous.
Wen Yan set the hairdryer down on the coffee table, looking at Jiang Qiu with a degree of hesitation, unsure of what to say.
The tension in the room grew excruciatingly thick.
It wasn’t until Jiang Qiu silently resumed her seat on the sofa and began packing away the cotton swabs and iodine that she finally spoke to Wen Yan.
“Just treat it as if she was talking nonsense. Don’t believe a word of it.”
Wen Yan had indeed been staggered by Yu Sheng’s proposition, but she had managed to regain her composure by now. She looked over at Jiang Qiu, the Alpha’s complexion was terrible, clearly vexed to the extreme by the situation.
“She didn’t look like… she was talking nonsense,” Wen Yan murmured softly.
Jiang Qiu shot a completely helpless look at her. “Xiao Yan, do you honestly think it’s normal for someone to say something like that?”
“Miss Yu did seem somewhat emotionally unstable just now,” Wen Yan offered, recalling the abrupt apology Yu Sheng had given her in the elevator.
It was certainly difficult to keep up with Yu Sheng’s erratic train of thought, but that didn’t necessarily mean she had completely lost her sanity.
Jiang Qiu fell silent, staring blankly into space as she sat on the sofa, lost in her own thoughts.
Wen Yan bit her lip, turning things over in her mind for a few moments. After a long period of hesitation, she finally gathered the courage to ask.
“Are you feeling burdened because of me?”
Jiang Qiu didn’t catch her drift. “What?”
“You constantly go out of your way to avoid Miss Yu… Is it because of me?”