Chapter 18: Su Qingyue

“As expected of a President who’s ruled the business world for years. Silver-tongued—you almost had me convinced.”

Sang Ling’s tone was all teasing, but her eyes had gone cold. “I thought President Su wanted to be my friend. Turns out you wanted to be my sugar mama.”

“As a Beta, you’ve got some nerve. You actually wanted an Alpha as your plaything.”

Su Qingyue’s expression stayed flat. “And yet I offered you the going rate for an Alpha.”

“There’s nothing in this world that can’t be sold. The dignity of Omegas and Alphas alike—if something can’t be bought, it’s only because the price wasn’t high enough.”

Seeing the expression on Sang Ling’s face turn to ice, Su Qingyue knew this deal would not go smoothly. She softened her voice and said slowly, “Please don’t worry, Your Excellency.”

“Our contract can be kept entirely confidential. No one in the military will ever gossip about it.”

“If it would reassure you, I could tell you the stories of several generals. When they were young, they too entered short-term financial arrangements with a number of Betas—to raise military funds, to keep up appearances.”

“Financial arrangements?” Sang Ling turned the words over in her mouth, then let out a short, sharp laugh. “Ha. Financial arrangements.”

She lifted her eyelids and looked at Su Qingyue with an expression the Beta couldn’t read. “Su Qingyue. I thought you and I were going to be friends.”

“At the very least, we weathered the same storm together. I saved your life.”

Su Qingyue said earnestly, “The debt of my life, I will never forget.”

“Never forget? And this is how you treat the person who saved you?”

Sang Ling picked up the Light Brain from the table, waved it, and reopened the contract page.

“Clause one: for the duration of the contract, Party B must alter her figure and bearing according to Party A’s requirements. Should cosmetic surgery be necessary, Party A will provide appropriate financial compensation afterward.”

“Clause two: should Party B enter an Alpha Susceptibility Period during the contract term, she must not have intimate contact with any Omega. Party A will provide a medical team to assist Party B through the period.”

…

“Clause seven: Party B must monitor the latest updates of the virtual Dating AI Chu Zhou at all times, and portray Chu Zhou in Party A’s presence.”

“Clause eight: except for mandatory military duties, Party B shall maintain a twenty-four-hour contact hotline for Party A, to satisfy Party A’s needs for physical intimacy.”

Sang Ling read out a few clauses at random, and the angrier she got, the more she wanted to laugh—until she actually did, brows arching, and slammed the Light Brain down onto the table.

“You lure your savior out, let her believe you’re friends—and then offer to buy her with money?”

“Is this how your family repays a life debt? By making your savior into your toy? Your dog?”

Capitalism is a bottomless sin! Capitalists are all villains!

The Alpha across the table had torn away her mild, courteous veneer in an instant, revealing something vivid and razor-edged underneath.

Her brows and eyes were sharp, her lashes long and straight, her wolf-tail hair falling against the back of her neck. The look she fixed on Su Qingyue was like a bullet waiting in the chamber.

In that instant, Su Qingyue understood with unprecedented clarity: the person across from her truly was not Chu Zhou. Not that gentle virtual lover of hers.

But she didn’t care what Sang Ling’s nature was. She only needed her to play Chu Zhou, quietly and obediently.

“Your Excellency.” Facing the top-tier pressure of a coiled and ready Alpha, Su Qingyue actually smiled. She abandoned the mask of calm gentleness as well, her words falling like a scalpel, straight to the vitals.

“You may be unmoved by my money and my influence. But I think you should consider your own situation.”

“Major Jiang has been famous since childhood. The people she’s played to death likely outnumber the Zerg she’s killed. She’s interested in you. The last Alpha she took this much interest in was forcibly discharged and committed to a psychiatric facility—locked in a white, padded room for the rest of her life, unable to live, unable to die.”

“Your sister Sang Chi is already dead in battle. I imagine you understand the danger of the battlefield better than anyone. The front between humanity and the Zerg is nothing but a meat grinder now. Countless heaven-favored Alphas go in—and don’t even leave a whole corpse behind.”

“But with my support, you could enter the Task Force with no worries at all. I guarantee you a safe and efficient path to promotion—out of the frontline combat units as early as possible, straight up to Commander.”

Such tempting terms. Terms that seemed to benefit Sang Ling in every way.

But the Alpha’s eyes didn’t waver by so much as a hair, regarding Su Qingyue with the coldness of a blade.

Su Qingyue could barely hold her smile. She forced herself through it and spoke her final card.

“You may not care whether you live or die. But don’t you still have two Omegas to provide for?”

“I hear they very nearly ended up in the Underground Casino.”

Sang Ling surged to her feet, left hand braced on the table, one cartwheel across the space—and her right hand went straight for Su Qingyue’s throat, slamming her back against the wall behind her.

Pain exploded from the back of Su Qingyue’s skull. Her head swam—yet the corner of her mouth curled into a smile of certain victory.

She knew she’d won her gamble. An emotional convulsion this violent was proof of it.

Sang Ling ground her teeth. “Who told you? What do you want?”

Su Qingyue blinked innocently, rubbing her jaw against the hand clamped on it—smiling, saying nothing.

Sang Ling felt her temper ignite all at once, every last ember of it.

This demented, oppressive, twisted world.

This madwoman who had calculated her way into every single one of her weaknesses.

Her hand tightened further and further. Su Qingyue could feel the air in her lungs thinning.

But the next second, she heard the Alpha in front of her begin to laugh, low.

The hand released. Fresh air flooded back into Su Qingyue’s lungs. She restrained herself—didn’t gulp like any ordinary person would—and breathed evenly, watching quietly as the Alpha who had suddenly started laughing.

Sang Ling lifted her head, a smile on her face, those long, narrow eyes curving into crescent moons.

And this—this was her genuine expression.

The Alpha’s hand was still resting on Su Qingyue’s neck, stroking that small patch of reddened skin, unhurried.

“President Su, are you really ‘Little Cyan Bunny’? Or are you just her family, impersonating her?”

“You seem to be very fond of Chu Zhou as well. But you don’t dare let anyone know.”

The Alpha’s voice was clear and bright, deliberately softened now, brushing across Su Qingyue’s heart like a feather, leaving ripple after ripple of tingling.

In the midst of that unfamiliar sensation, Su Qingyue abruptly felt danger—the back of her neck going cold, her skin drawing tight.

She had expected the Alpha to keep threatening her. Instead she watched the expression across from her suddenly change, brows and eyes easing into gentleness.

“Why wouldn’t you want people to know you like me, Qingyue?”

The Alpha leaned in close, her breath falling on the bare skin of Su Qingyue’s throat.

In that instant, it was as if Sang Ling had vanished entirely—and Chu Zhou had descended upon the person before her.

Su Qingyue trembled, raising a faintly shaking hand, wanting to touch that face. “Chu Zhou…”

She could scheme against Sang Ling without reservation. But face to face with the Chu Zhou she truly loved, she seemed to suddenly lose all resistance and reason.

“I’m sorry, I…”

The explanation rose instinctively. As the head of the Su Family, she could not afford weaknesses—and if her love for Chu Zhou became public knowledge, it would bring no end of trouble.

She wanted to explain the tangled roots of it, to explain why Chu Zhou was different from every other virtual AI—but all she could do was open her mouth, uselessly.

The world held so many strange and twisted things, and she found she didn’t know where to begin.

She could only say it again and again. “I’m sorry, Chu Zhou. I’m truly sorry. I’m not—”

“How pathetic.” A clear, boyish voice cut through, tone lifting at the end.

Su Qingyue was yanked out of the mire of her emotions—and saw Sang Ling’s face, mockery entirely unrestrained. “I was just putting on an act, and you actually fell for a paper cutout?”

The far-too-young Alpha tilted her head, malice in her smile. “President Su, your dignity doesn’t even need to be bought with money. An illusion is enough.”

She reached out and patted Su Qingyue’s cheek lightly—then her tone abruptly shifted back into Chu Zhou’s gentle steadiness.

“Qingyue, don’t bully me anymore, okay?”

The gentle Alpha voice coaxed, “Help me.”

Su Qingyue felt herself nearly drowning in those black pupils shot through with green, as if they were a deep sea.

“What do you want me to do?”

The words left her mouth before she could stop them.

Sang Ling’s expression snapped back—every trace of performance withdrawn in an instant. “Five dates with you. One million apiece. Time, place, and format are yours to decide. After the fifth, you never come near me or my family again.”

Chu Zhou was gone…

Su Qingyue barely registered what Sang Ling was saying. She only stared, dazed, watching Chu Zhou being wiped from that face.

She almost wanted to grab Sang Ling by the shoulders and shake her—make her bring Chu Zhou back.

It felt like a person freezing to death who had just warmed herself by a fire, only for the fire to be carried away—except this time, the cold was harder to bear than ever.

She stared fixedly at Sang Ling, and in her jet-black pupils, tiny points of light seemed to flicker.

Just as Sang Ling concluded her plan had failed, the Beta suddenly spoke, voice hoarse:

“Deal.”

In the end, the ice cream never got eaten.

But Sang Ling was clearly not the type to waste money. She had the ice cream packed up and brought it home.

Hearing footsteps outside, Lin Jinxu guessed it was Sang Ling and went to open the door ahead of time.

The Alpha carried a plastic bag in one hand, held up her wrist Light Brain with the other, expression blank, mid-phone call.

“I report for duty Monday.”

A wild, arrogant voice came through the receiver. “Ha! This young lady will put you through the devil’s own training!”

Sang Ling hung up directly. Then she saw Lin Jinxu—and her mouth suddenly crumpled.

She held out both hands and collapsed toward her, the hand still carrying the bag of packed ice cream looping around Lin Jinxu’s thin shoulders and landing behind her back.

Sang Ling dumped most of her weight onto Lin Jinxu and wailed in agony,

“Sis! I’m tainted! Corrupted by money!”

“Wuuwuuwuuwuuwuu!”

Lin Jinxu hurriedly patted her back. “What happened?”

“There, there, no crying. Come sit down, I’ll pour you some water. Tell me slowly.”

Sang Ling sat, eating ice cream and drinking tea with Lin Jinxu while cursing Su Qingyue up one side and down the other.

“She’s sick! She is genuinely sick!”

Once she’d finished cursing Su Qingyue, her face turned bitter again. “It’s over. The power of money has corrupted me.”

“I told you this world is too dangerous for Alphas as devastatingly handsome as me. Everyone out there is a wolf or a tiger!”

In front of Su Qingyue she had played the wolf. Home again, her fighting spirit had collapsed—like a silly dog that wins a fight on the street and comes home to present its master with wounds that are barely scratches, wheedling for sympathy.

Lin Jinxu simply listened patiently, offering positive feedback at all the right moments.

Sang Ling talked herself out at last, finally tired, and buried herself in the ice cream.

Lin Jinxu looked at that fluffy head and thought she was watching some small animal at its meal. Something stirred in her heart, and she reached out and patted it.

The next second, Sang Ling’s head snapped up, wary, hands clamped over her skull. “What are you doing?”

“Oh—you had something in your hair. I was getting it off for you.” Lin Jinxu wasn’t flustered in the slightest.

“Oh. Thanks.”

Sang Ling noticed nothing strange and lowered her head to keep eating.

Lin Jinxu: “So what’s your plan from here?”

Sang Ling finished the last of the ice cream and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “What else? I rented that apartment. We move tomorrow. Monday I report to Jiang Yunzhao. And in between, five dates with Su Qingyue—and I’ll pay off what I owe her while I’m at it.”

She looked at Lin Jinxu and smiled. “Don’t worry. I have a plan. I guarantee our quality of life is only going up from here.”