Chapter 24 Part 2

But Liang Shi remembered clearly: that look the cat had when she scolded it, or when it sneaked the wine she’d hidden at home, was remarkably similar to Xu Qingzhu’s expression right now. Those pitiful looks, eyes misted with moisture, glazed and dazed, as if begging your forgiveness while simultaneously protesting: “I didn’t do anything…”

Liang Shi summarized it as guilty but shamelessly unapologetic.

“I’m not going to throw up.” Xu Qingzhu bit her lower lip, voice choking. “Take me home, please?” Underneath the plea was an unmistakable layer of coquettishness.

Liang Shi’s heart overflowed with tenderness. She nodded firmly. “Alright, we’ll go home. But you have to let go first so I can drive.”

Xu Qingzhu looked up at her. The mist in her eyes turned to pearls, rolling down her flushed cheeks. A single drop clung to her long lashes. She looked so fragile, like a porcelain doll about to shatter.

Liang Shi: …

Help.

Nobody had warned her that Xu Qingzhu’s drunk personality was this different. She’d thought she was a gentle goddess, then discovered a cool beauty, and now a pure and adorable type. Every day brought a new surprise.

Liang Shi was reaching her limit. Anyone would reach their limit.

Liang Shi felt that if Xu Qingzhu said right now, “Take me to the moon, okay?”, she’d agree without a second thought. The kind of rash, throw-caution-to-the-wind decision. Perhaps, at this moment, she understood King You of Zhou just a little. Back when she’d read that story, she’d thought King You was a foolish, incompetent ruler. How could anyone in the world be like that? Now she realized she’d been too young to understand.

“Liang… Shi~”

Xu Qingzhu called her name softly, the end rising in a lilt, as if formed by gently biting the tip of her tongue.

Liang Shi’s knees went weak, but she steadied herself just enough to avoid embarrassment. She answered in a soft voice: “I’m here. What is it?”

Xu Qingzhu tightened her grip on Liang Shi’s arm, nuzzling her head against her. Her hair fell right against Liang Shi’s collarbone. A few strands even slipped inside her clothing, brushing against bare skin.

Xu Qingzhu looked at her and suddenly smiled. That smile was briefly blinding.

Liang Shi swallowed hard and coaxed again: “Zhu, let go, okay?”

“No.” Xu Qingzhu’s voice was nasally, brow slightly furrowed. Then, as if struck by a thought, she licked her lips and said: “Meow~“

Liang Shi: …

Her heart skipped a beat. When she made that cat sound, her expression was half-cat-like. But far more provocative than any actual cat. She’d merely licked her lips lightly, and they bloomed into shimmering crimson, as if coated with the finest lip gloss, yet without a trace of pigment. Pure, primal color.

Liang Shi let out a long, deep breath. She felt like she’d been sent here to undergo a tribulation. She’d thought it was a tribulation of life and death. Now it felt like a tribulation of love.

“She’s lost it.” Xu Qingya pinched the bridge of her nose helplessly. “Sister Liang, please bear with her.”

That snapped Liang Shi’s wandering thoughts back to reality. So Xu Qingzhu had always been like this when drunk. It wasn’t new. Xu Qingya was well familiar with it.

“Has she always been like this?” Liang Shi asked carefully.

“She’s never normal when drunk,” Xu Qingya said without mincing words. “Sometimes she pretends to be a cat, sometimes a dog, sometimes a pig. She imitates all sorts of animals. But where are we going now?”

“I can’t drive,” Liang Shi said. “Let’s go home first. Your sister wants to go home.”

“Liang… Shi,” Xu Qingzhu called again.

Liang Shi looked down. “I’m here.”

Xu Qingzhu was on the verge of tears. Her cool, clear voice sounded as if it were dipped in honey. She said: “I’m… so… uncomfortable.”

Her words came in broken fragments. Her legs were clamped tightly together. Her brow furrowed tighter and tighter, tears streaming down.

Xu Qingya couldn’t take it anymore and got out of the car. “Give me the keys. I’ll drive.”

Liang Shi handed them over on instinct, then caught herself midway. “You’re underage. You don’t have a license, right?”

Xu Qingya: “…”

“You sit in the back and take care of her.” Xu Qingya rubbed her ear. “I really can’t handle this. That voice… it’s too damn cute.” There was a hint of exasperated disappointment in her tone.

She then jogged a few steps toward the Huayue International entrance and pointed at a random security guard. “Need a favor.”

The guard looked startled and pointed at himself. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Do you have a driver’s license?” Xu Qingya showed zero shyness.

The guard nodded. “Yes.”

Xu Qingya pulled two hundred yuan from her pocket. “Come with me. Need a designated driver.”

The guard: “…”

Watching from the side, Liang Shi couldn’t help but give Xu Qingya a thumbs up. This girl knew how to get things done.

Xu Qingya sat in the passenger seat and buckled up quickly. She flipped the rearview mirror down and told the young guard: “From now on, no matter what you hear, you are not allowed to look back. Understand?”

The guard, forced to go from security to designated driver: “?”

“Sister Liang, just pretend we don’t exist,” Xu Qingya said. “I’ll try not to listen. But please, don’t let Xu Qingzhu die.”

Liang Shi said nothing. She felt like this little sister knew a bit too much. Then again, kids these days knew a lot.

The white Porsche pulled out of Huayue International and merged into traffic. The car fell silent, so quiet that only their breathing could be heard. Even Xu Qingya’s and the driver’s breathing grew shallow. Only Xu Qingzhu’s slightly rapid breathing filled the space.

Liang Shi sat still as Xu Qingzhu leaned against her of her own accord. Her body was burning up, desperate for anything to cool her down. And the person beside her was the most suitable. Even her hand would do. Liang Shi’s face was cool to the touch.

Xu Qingzhu’s hand found Liang Shi’s waist, drifting left to right without any pattern. All she wanted was to strip away the annoying clothing. Liang Shi couldn’t help it. She pinned down the hand and whispered: “Zhu, just endure it a little longer, okay?”

She didn’t know what type of aphrodisiac Xu Qingzhu had been given. But in this world, every poison had its antidote.

Xu Qingzhu tilted her head up. Those reddened eyes suddenly spilled over with tears. Like pearls falling from a broken string. She cried without any emotion, simply crying. Without even a sob.

Even Liang Shi, who had performed countless crying scenes and was frequently praised by marketing accounts as the industry’s best crier, was stunned. If this were acting, she deserved an Oscar.

“Don’t cry.” Liang Shi hurriedly searched for tissues, finding a pack in her pocket. She pulled one out and offered it, but Xu Qingzhu wouldn’t take it. Liang Shi could only fold it and wipe her tears for her, whispering: “Zhu, don’t cry. We’re almost home.”

She then handed her phone to Xu Qingya. “Call the butler. Have the family doctor come over.”

Xu Qingya followed the instructions and glanced back at her sister. Nothing to say. Just despair.

Good lord, in their family, her sister was never allowed near alcohol. Growing up, her sister had been drunk only a handful of times. And those rare times, she’d black out completely afterward, remembering nothing she did. From the moment she got drunk, she had zero awareness of her actions. Xu Qingya had basically given up. She’s married now. Let her wife deal with this mess.

Meanwhile, Liang Shi felt like she was losing her mind. Xu Qingzhu said nothing, just cried. The tears wouldn’t stop, and all Liang Shi could do was keep passing tissues.

After a while, Xu Qingzhu suddenly let out a tiny hiccup. The tears stopped instantly. Like a switch had been flipped. Liang Shi was deeply impressed.

“Are you going to throw up?” Liang Shi asked.

Xu Qingzhu rested her head on Liang Shi’s shoulder, leaned close to her ear, and suddenly gave it a gentle bite.

In that instant, goosebumps erupted all over Liang Shi’s body. Her whole body went numb as if struck by an electric current.

“Do you think I don’t know anything?” Xu Qingzhu licked her tongue tip. The wet sensation landed on Liang Shi’s ear, which twitched. But her heart clenched tight.

Know what?

“You went and slept with Miaomiao the night of our wedding, didn’t you?” Xu Qingzhu’s voice was very low, carrying a note of desolation and resentment.

Like a bucket of cold water dumped over her head. Liang Shi snapped fully awake. Xu Qingzhu was talking about the original host.

What did she feel for the original host? Love? Or dependence? Liang Shi wasn’t sure. The book hadn’t gone into detail. It only mentioned that later, after Xu Qingzhu got together with her destined Alpha, she described her feelings for the original host like this: “She was like driftwood I clung to while floating alone on the sea. Once I made it to shore, she was no longer of use. I was grateful she saved my life, but later I discovered she was broken and rotten, not even worth a pile of junk. The only right choice was to discard her as quickly as possible. I tried to carve her into an exquisite wooden sculpture, but she wasn’t worthy of my expensive carving tools. So when you ask if I ever loved her, I can only say: I don’t know.”

It was a rather literary way of putting it. But it accurately captured Xu Qingzhu’s feelings toward the original host. Boiled down to just three words: I don’t know.

All of Xu Qingzhu’s behavior had been like weaving a net, quickly pulling Liang Shi into an illusion. Giving Liang Shi a brief misunderstanding of her own feelings. But when she thought about it, they’d only known each other for a few days. How could anyone fall for someone in just a few days? Perhaps because the system had forcibly tied them together, and she’d pieced together Xu Qingzhu’s entire life through scattered fragments. That’s why she had the illusion of knowing her for ages, of being intimately familiar. In truth, they were just slightly familiar roommates. Not even friends.

Understanding this, the blockage in Liang Shi’s chest eased. But Xu Qingzhu kept talking.

“And a month ago, you tricked me into thinking you were on a business trip. But you went to Dia Hotel with Cheng Ran. You played for three days and nights.” Xu Qingzhu’s enunciation was sharp. “Seven of you slept together, didn’t you?”

“There were two Omegas and two Betas that day. How was it? Were they all prettier than me? Better bodies than me?” Xu Qingzhu laughed softly, pulling Liang Shi’s hand onto her own softness, separated by only a thin camisole. The cotton felt wonderful against the skin. Slightly rounded, gently soft.

Liang Shi froze, not daring to move.

Xu Qingzhu said: “And three months ago, you went to Cheng Ran’s birthday party. You slept with a celebrity that night, didn’t you? She even sent me photos of you two. On the bed. Naked.”

She suddenly grabbed Liang Shi’s collar. “Do you think I’m an idiot? I know nothing, so I deserve to be deceived. I deserve to be played by you.”