Yan Xia was about to look more closely when she suddenly caught a faint bitter scent drifting over, like wind blowing across the sea, carrying damp moisture and coarse grit—salty and astringent.
She instinctively furrowed her brow, feeling a little dizzy.
If her nose wasn’t broken, this should be the scent of sea salt and of Shang Wandong’s pheromones.
“Hello? System, where are you?”
The System, which had been silently observing, floated out: “Here, here, dear Host.”
Yan Xia put down her chopsticks and rubbed her temples: “Explain. Why do I get dizzy when I smell Shang Wandong’s pheromones?”
The System said, “Host, have you forgotten? You’re an Alpha now.”
One sentence woke the dreamer, Yan Xia suddenly understood.
She’d almost forgotten that when two Alphas come into close contact, their pheromones repel each other. It was a perfectly normal phenomenon.
Earlier, when she’d been sitting next to Yan Siqiu, there’d been no special feeling because the other was an Omega.
“So is there any way to fix this?” Yan Xia suppressed her dizziness and asked through gritted teeth, “If we repel each other now, how am I supposed to get along with her in the future?”
Perhaps out of guilt, the System’s voice grew smaller: “Actually, we’ve already automatically lowered your relevant threshold for you. Since the original host was an Omega with a very high tolerance for Shang Wandong, even after turning into an Alpha, you can accept her pheromone infusion better than anyone else.”
“You’re telling me that this dizziness is the result AFTER the adjustment?!”
The System said carefully, “Yes. Otherwise, the Double Alpha repulsion would be far more intense…”
Yan Xia: “…” So they really were artificially cranking up the game difficulty.
Her head was spinning as if someone had hit her with a hammer, and she couldn’t be bothered to waste words. She asked directly: “Is there any way to completely block the pheromone interference?”
“Of course there is!” the System eagerly introduced. “If the Host still can’t accept the current threshold, you can exchange Positive Points for a Pheromone Blocker and be rid of the problem forever.”
Yan Xia sharply seized on the wording: “How many points?”
“200,” the System said gleefully. “Can’t buy loss, can’t buy scam!”
Yan Xia: I’m dead. Just now it added 20, and now it’s deducting ten times that at once? How is this reasonable?!
She asked with high emotional intelligence: “May I ask, were you a game designer at some company before?”
The System was dumbfounded: “Of course not.”
“Then how else are you so stingy?”
The System: “…”
“How about this—I’ll haggle a little. 100 points.”
You call that a little? That’s a dragon-slaying blade!
The System: “How about 180?”
“105. Let’s be friends.”
The System: “160!”
Yan Xia said through gritted teeth, “Have a conscience. Who was it that turned me into an Alpha, exactly? I suspect you’re force-selling me merchandise. Careful, or I’ll report you to your higher-ups!”
The System instantly caved: “Wait! 130, and not a point lower.”
The scent of sea salt felt like bitter seawater repeatedly pouring into her mouth and nose. Yan Xia breathed with her mouth open like a drowning person, so nauseated she wanted to vomit: “Fine, fine, fine, hurry up and let me equip it!”
With a ding in her mind, the dizziness vanished completely.
The System suppressed its mechanical voice, which sounded somewhat aggrieved if one listened closely: “Thank you for your patronage. System Unit BH00001 at your service.”
Yan Xia felt great, her back straightening as reason reclaimed the high ground.
The bitterness of the sea salt became almost imperceptible, like the desolate tide at dusk, slowly receding beneath the orange-yellow sunset.
Yan Xia glanced around. Fortunately, the female lead naturally had a low presence, and no one had noticed her earlier odd behavior.
Yan Siqiu asked with concern, “Wandong, are you feeling any better?”
“If you’re not feeling well, don’t go to your afternoon classes,” Zhao Daiman chimed in. “Stay away from all this greasy food—I had Mother Mei make you a special pot of millet porridge.”
Shang Wandong nodded. “I’m fine. Thank you, Aunt Zhao.”
She was always a woman of few words, so now she simply lowered her eyes and quietly drank the freshly made millet porridge the servant brought over. Seeing this, everyone relaxed and turned their attention elsewhere.
Yan Xia, maintaining her background-character persona, stayed quiet as a mouse, leaving only the other three to converse at the table.
As they chatted back and forth, Yan Siqiu suddenly picked up a piece of fish with her chopsticks and reached across Shang Wandong to place it in Yan Xia’s bowl, saying eagerly, “Sis, try this! It’s delicious.”
Yan Xia frowned.
The female lead was allergic to fish. How was it that Yan Siqiu happened to pick fish, and was so “kindly” offering it to her?
Her dear little sister was clearly trying to get revenge again.
Zhao Daiman showed no reaction—she seemed entirely unaware of the matter. Watching Yan Siqiu perform her “sisterly affection,” she even looked quite pleased, nodding as she said, “Yan Xia, learn from your younger sister. She may be younger than you, but she’s far more sensible.”
Not a single one of these people genuinely cared about the female lead.
As for Shang Wandong and Shang Zhengyu, they weren’t even family, why would they help her?
Yan Xia put down her chopsticks, feeling somewhat sick to her stomach.
“System, I really want to snap at her.”
The System was horrified. “Host, calm down! Calm down! Remember your persona!”
Yan Xia had never been good-tempered to begin with, and after holding it in for a whole day, she was nearing her limit, radiating a low-pressure aura. “Personas can be changed, can’t they?!”
Afraid she would force a breakdown and go OOC, the System hurriedly soothed her, “Of course they can! But if you change it now, readers will find it strange. If the world of the book collapses, the Host won’t be able to go back!”
At the mention of going home, Yan Xia regained a bit of her rationality.
Right—why get angry at these quest NPCs? The priority was to finish the mission and return to the real world. She still had grad school entrance exams to pass.
Yan Xia suppressed her anger, her face dark as still water. “You’re right. I’ll change it gradually.”
The System could hear the gritted teeth in her tone and couldn’t help trembling.
Seeing Yan Xia lower her head in silence, Yan Siqiu felt even more smug.
That’s more like it. This trash really didn’t have the guts to fight back. She had overestimated her before—she was nothing special after all!
Just as she was about to place the fish in Yan Xia’s bowl, her hand was suddenly seized in a tight grip.
“I don’t eat fish.” Yan Xia grabbed her wrist, looked up, and smiled at her. “Thanks anyway.”
Yan Siqiu’s expression froze. Severe pain shot up from her wrist. She trembled, unable to hold her chopsticks—they slipped from her hand, clattering to the floor with a crisp sound.
She cried out in pain, “…It hurts!”
System: “???” Weren’t we not snapping at her?
Zhao Daiman’s face changed drastically. She shot up from her seat and shouted sharply, “What are you doing? Let go of your sister this instant!”
Yan Xia ignored her and tightened her grip further. Yan Siqiu let out a miserable scream, sweat streaming down her pale face.
The System repeated like an alarm: “Warning! Warning! Corruption Value has risen by 5%!”
Zhao Daiman was shocked and furious: “Yan Xia!”
Yan Xia looked at her, then suddenly asked, “Mom, did you know I’m allergic to fish?”
Zhao Daiman froze at the words, feeling her face couldn’t hold up, and stammered, “I—I really did forget. Your sister meant well too. Why must you make things so hard for her?”
Forgot? I bet you never cared in the first place.
Yan Xia sneered inwardly, lowered her head, her voice trembling: “I see.”
She let her shoulders droop, her thick bangs covering her face, and let out a few sobs. A glistening tear streaked across her cheek, gone in an instant.
Seeing this, Shang Zhengyu put down her chicken drumstick, looking astonished: “She’s crying!”
Yan Siqiu’s hand was released, and she looked at the ring of bruised finger marks on her fair wrist, nearly bursting into tears herself.
But when she turned her head, she found that Yan Xia, the very culprit, had gotten aggrieved before her? What kind of suffocating operation was this?!
Zhao Daiman, already deeply embarrassed by Yan Xia’s soul-searching question just now, didn’t dare press the matter further. She only said to Yan Siqiu, “That’s enough. Your sister is allergic to this. Don’t give it to her again in the future.”
Yan Siqiu thought: As if I didn’t know that?!
But since Zhao Daiman had no interest in digging deeper, she couldn’t keep making a fuss either. All she could do was cradle her bruised wrist and turn to Shang Wandong beside her, whining coquettishly, “Wandong, my hand hurts so much.”
Shang Wandong put down her spoon, glanced at her, and replied flatly, “Why are you telling me it hurts? I’m not a doctor.”
Shang Zhengyu laughed out loud, mercilessly, and Yan Xia nearly lost her composure too.
Shang Wandong’s character in the original novel was “a cold, aloof Alpha whose thought processes were rather unusual and whose EQ was somewhat low.”
It was a rather amusing character design, quite rare in melodramatic fiction. When Yan Xia first read this book, she was repeatedly amused by Shang Wandong’s low-EQ remarks and couldn’t help turning page after page.
And precisely because Shang Wandong’s mind worked differently from others, she didn’t ignore or cold-shoulder Yan Xia the way everyone around her did. Instead, she treated Yan Xia as an ordinary person no different from anyone else—a childhood friend she’d grown up with—and regarded her the same as everyone else.
But for Yan Xia, that was already tremendous good fortune.
After hitting wall after wall, Yan Siqiu’s face darkened again and again. Feeling she had no face to show anyone, she stood up right then and stomped upstairs.
Lunch ended on an unhappy note.
Yan Xia returned to her room with her head lowered the whole way, immediately wiped off the eye drops she had just redeemed from the System, and yawned lazily.
The System mercilessly reminded her: “Host, the Corruption Value has now reached 5%.”
“No rush. It’s not like it can’t be lowered.” Yan Xia sat down in the adjustable chair at her desk, unconcerned.
The female lead’s room held few belongings and looked somewhat desolate. She pulled a blank notebook from the drawer and began neatly copying the outline from her draft paper into it.
As she copied, Yan Xia asked the System, “Can I look at the readers’ comments now?”
The System obliged: “Of course.”
A window immediately unfolded in her mind, the page jumping to the comments section, black text on white filling her eyes.
IsItYouWhoWentCrazy: ????? Am I seeing things? This damn author actually came back to update?!!
Gary: Holy crap, it’s been gathering dust in my favorites forever, then suddenly an update notification pops up—I almost threw my phone
Qiaotou Rice Noodles: My youth is back, damn it, seven years! You dog author, take my razor blades!!
□□39999: No update, looks like it was revised…
Wanzi-chan: The first three chapters got revised! Wait, why does this direction feel kinda… off? Did the female lead’s personality change? So sudden
Fire Hydrant of Hearts: But I think this personality is actually pretty good, she claps back at all the cannon fodder, so satisfying hhhhh
Dreaming of You: To be fair, I also think the revision is well done.
□□39999: Henan ba zhi chi (wisdom tooth pulled)
Qingxi: +1
Yan Xia read up to here and said with satisfaction, “See, plenty of people think it’s good.”
The System: “…You should probably keep reading.”
Wanzi-chan: But don’t you think it’s OOC? The female lead wasn’t like this before, it’s like she’s a different person. How do I put it—it’s lost the original flavor
Bu Luoyang: True, I think if the author wanted to revise, a gradual approach would’ve been better.
Qingxi: Why are you guys above so contrarian? I don’t see a different person at all—isn’t she still timid and fearful? She’s just learned to fight back a little. Nice, keep it up, dog author, and you’ll get plenty of landmines from me!
[Announcement: Qingxi fed a Landmine x1, Positive Points +50.]
Yan Xia said in surprise, “So reader tips can also increase Positive Points?”
“Yes.”
Yan Xia pondered for a moment, then asked, “Then to what extent do I have to go to complete the mission?”
The System rattled on: “According to the original ending, you must at least fulfill the following conditions: First, complete the wedding with Shang Wandong; second, keep the Corruption Value no higher than 60%; third, reverse the botched ending, condemn the false, ugly, and evil, and promote the true, good, and beautiful; fourth, after completing the mission you must immediately leave the world of the book—no lingering.”
Yan Xia’s smile froze. “So I have to Capture Shang Wandong?”
“Yes, dear.”
“…If I remember correctly, we’re both Alphas?”
“Correct, dear.”
Yan Xia felt like suffocating. “So how am I supposed to explain to her that the female lead suddenly went from Omega to Alpha?!”
“That’s entirely up to the Host’s imagination, dear.”
“Stop with the ‘dear’ already!” Yan Xia irritably tugged at her hair, and the mechanical pencil lead stabbed hard into the page, snapping in two.
She scribbled and brainstormed all through lunch, but still couldn’t figure out how to Capture Shang Wandong.
Although the Original Female Lead did end up with Shang Wandong, it wasn’t entirely a love match—there was also the matter of a business marriage. But later in the story, the Shang family was framed by enemies, a venture capital deal failed, and the company went bankrupt. Fearing the fire would spread to them, the Yan family kicked Shang Wandong out of the house along with the female lead.
There are no permanent friends, only permanent interests.
Fortunately, Shang Wandong was a highly capable person. She later made a comeback on her own and ended up doing even better than the Yan family.
But while her personal abilities were strong, heaven had withheld her capacity for empathy, so Shang Wandong had difficulty perceiving the love the female lead gave, and was incapable of returning it in kind.
Yan Xia had always felt that being with someone like Shang Wandong would be exhausting—you never knew what she was thinking, and she didn’t want to know what you were doing.
For now, she could only take it one step at a time.
When the lunch break ended, Yan Xia walked out of her room, and at that same moment, Shang Wandong happened to come by, running right into her.
Her hair was tied up in a ponytail, her face clean and fresh, and even in the plainest school uniform she looked tall and striking.
The two of them walked one after the other to the stairwell, where Shang Wandong stepped aside, gesturing for her to go first.
Yan Xia thanked her politely.
Shang Wandong’s voice was low and husky, brushing past her ear with a raspy quality, as if she’d just woken up: “You’re welcome.”
Leaving the villa, the Maserati was already waiting at the door. As Yan Xia opened the car door, she saw Yan Siqiu leaning against the door on the other side, clutching her wrist, eyes red and swollen as if she’d been crying all through lunch.
The little princess had probably never suffered such a grievance in her life. She glared resentfully at Yan Xia: “I’m not sitting with you!”
So Yan Xia stepped back out of the car and met Shang Wandong’s gaze as she waited to get in.
She shrugged and explained, “She doesn’t want to sit next to me.”
So Shang Wandong got in first, with Yan Xia following behind her. Just as she was about to close the door, Yan Siqiu suddenly raised her voice again: “Get out! I don’t want to be with you!”
Yan Xia: …Enough already. A person’s patience has its limits.
Perhaps her gaze was too frightening, because Yan Siqiu shrank back and turned to Shang Wandong for help: “Wandong, she’s being mean to me again.”
Shang Wandong put her schoolbag away, picked up her phone to check the time, and said in a flat tone: “You’ve wasted five minutes. If you really don’t want to sit with Yan Xia, take the other car yourself, or sit up front.”
It was as if she didn’t know that talking like this would offend people. Her tone was always so calm, as if stating a fact, so reasonable it left no room for argument. Yan Siqiu’s face turned bright red. After a moment of silence, she got out of the car on her own and moved to the front passenger seat.
Yan Xia’s eyes showed admiration: That’s our Shang Wandong for you!
Then she quickly remembered that she was supposed to Capture this blockhead, and her smile gradually faded.
This is so hard for me!
The Maserati soon pulled up beside the school, and the three of them got out one after another, walking toward the teaching building.
Yan Siqiu and Shang Wandong were both beauties, like two dazzling scenic sights. In the past, when the three of them walked together, most people praised the striking beauty of the first two, while Yan Xia trailed silently behind, cast by comparison as a drab little ugly duckling.
But today, as the three of them walked side by side, Yan Xia strode forward with her head held high and her chest out, walking with a swagger that acknowledged no one, her presence not the least bit outdone by the Alpha beside her.
The System quietly reminded her: Host! Your persona! In everyone else’s eyes, you’re still an Omega!
Yan Xia: Can’t an Omega strut around however she pleases? Hah, rejecting gender stereotypes starts with me!
Yan Siqiu soon reached her classroom, and after parting with her, the other two continued upstairs.
Shang Wandong was in Class A of the second year, the most elite class in the whole grade, packed with top students, while Yan Xia was in Class F of the second year—one at the top, one at the bottom, at opposite ends of the corridor.
Class A was near the stairwell. Shang Wandong stopped at the classroom door: “I’m here.”
Yan Xia, still preoccupied with Capturing Shang Wandong, remembered at this point to play up her frail little white flower persona. She lowered her eyes and, summoning her courage, said softly: “…Wandong, thank you for earlier.”
Shang Wandong looked puzzled: “Thank me for what?”
Yan Xia smiled: “For sticking up for me before getting in the car.”
Hearing this, Shang Wandong said flatly, “I wasn’t helping you. I was just stating facts.”
Yan Xia: …Damn, how am I supposed to follow up on that?
She coughed a few times to cover her embarrassment, lowered her head, and said, “Then I—I’ll get going.” With that, she hurried off toward Class F.
Behind Yan Xia, where she couldn’t see, Shang Wandong remained where she was, silently watching her go.
Only after that slender figure disappeared at the end of the corridor did she slowly withdraw her gaze and walk into the classroom, expressionless.