Zhu Lexing figured that with Qiao Qiao’s silver tongue, she would’ve been a pyramid scheme legend by now. Why bother grinding away at ballet?
The crowd’s rowdy cheers hadn’t died down yet. Zhu Lexing reacted fast. “Fine, you’ve pushed it this far, so before I sing, there’s one thing I want to say.”
Qiao Qiao had no idea what ploy this was, but she was too caught up in the moment to care. “What?”
Zhu Lexing said gravely, “Qiao Qiao, I’ve liked you for a long time. Will you sing this song with me?”
It wasn’t like whoever sang the love song had to be a couple.
Three minutes as pretend lovers didn’t make them real ones. So why pick on Yan Mian?
Couldn’t Qiao Qiao be the target instead?
Qiao Qiao had never expected Zhu Lexing to clap back like that. She froze for a second. In that brief moment, the room exploded with even wilder cheers. In everyone’s eyes, Qiao Qiao was even more of an outsider than Zhu Lexing, and she rarely embarrassed herself. This was prime gossip fuel, and they were eating it up.
As the words hung in the air, it wasn’t just Qiao Qiao who paused. Yan Mian, who had instinctively started to stand, halted too.
Zhu Lexing was obviously joking—she could tell. But for her to do this… Did it mean she’d completely shifted her attention away from Yan Mian?
The thought brought Yan Mian an inexplicable sense of relief.
So she gave a small smile and set the microphone down next to Qiao Qiao.
Qiao Qiao wasn’t one to shy away from a joke. She snatched up the mic right away. “You’ve put it out there like that. It’d be rude not to play along.”
Half a minute later.
Zhu Lexing had barely started singing when Qiao Qiao knew it sounded awful. But she refused to believe it and kept listening.
She wasn’t the only one. Everyone else in the room looked subtly uncomfortable too, like they were seconds from reaching out to stop her.
Halfway through the four-minute love ballad, Qiao Qiao threw in the towel. “Sorry, your singing’s too rough. I can’t take it anymore.”
Anyone with ears could tell who was butchering the song. But they were the ones who’d egged Zhu Lexing on in the first place. No matter how cocky they usually were, none of them could bring themselves to say it now. They just nodded stiffly.
Zhu Lexing seemed almost disappointed. “Aw, no big deal. Singing’s all about practice. You’ll get there eventually.”
Qiao Qiao: “…Have you ever practiced?”
Zhu Lexing: “Of course!”
In her previous life, whenever she had free time, Zhu Lexing would hole up at home belting out tunes.
Sure, she was terrible, but off-key singing was human nature. She only tortured herself, so she never felt embarrassed.
Qiao Qiao got a crash course in the power of confidence. She bit down on her straw, exhaled deeply, then asked, “How do you think you’ll score this time? My mom said if I do well, she’ll buy me a car. We could road trip somewhere.”
She was much warmer toward Zhu Lexing now, clearly adding her to the friends list.
Zhu Lexing appreciated the gesture, but—
“Do you even have a license?”
Qiao Qiao: “I’ll be eighteen in two months. I’ll get one eventually. What’s the rush?”
The conversation veered off in a new direction. Everyone started swapping stories about rewards their parents had promised, but Zhu Lexing and Yan Mian stayed quiet. They just listened with sidelong glances.
Zhu Lin would never deny Zhu Lexing anything. He worried that setting goals might backfire and make her resent him, so he never brought it up.
Just ask if she wanted something.
Yan Mian’s situation was different. Jiang Yue didn’t operate on that wavelength.
For Yan Mian, good grades were an obligation—the only way to repay Jiang Yue. Why ask for more?
Mid-conversation, Yan Mian’s phone buzzed. She glanced down. It was a text from Li Nian saying she was almost there.
She paused for a beat. “I’ll go pick up Li Nian first.”
She directed the words at Qiao Qiao, who nodded readily.
But for some reason, the moment Yan Mian stepped out, she suddenly stopped. She stared at her phone for a few seconds, then glanced back at Zhu Lexing in the cabin.
Zhu Lexing hadn’t expected her to turn around. Terrified Yan Mian might catch her staring, she quickly dropped her eyes to her own phone, pretending to scroll.
Qiao Qiao nudged her with an elbow. “She’s gone. What, no chasing after her this time?”
Zhu Lexing chomped her straw. “Did I say I wasn’t going? Why are you in such a hurry?”
Qiao Qiao sighed dramatically. “Obviously, I’m thrilled to finally have a classmate crushing on me. Wouldn’t want you coming to your senses.”
Zhu Lexing thought that was pure false modesty on Qiao Qiao’s part—peak humblebrag. She ignored it, said her goodbyes, and left.
As she exited the cabin, she bumped right into Xu He. Xu He claimed she was grabbing takeout, and sure enough, a couple of servers trailed behind her with bags of paired cups. “Want one?”
Zhu Lexing passed, but she noticed one bag had only a single cup. Someone had taken the other.
Was it Yan Mian?
Zhu Lexing usually didn’t care about that sort of thing, but now she couldn’t help asking.
Xu He’s answer threw her for a loop. “I ran into Li Nian outside earlier. She took one.”
“…Outside?” Zhu Lexing paused, remembering Yan Mian had just left. “Where’s Li Nian now? Did you see Yan Mian? She went out a minute ago.”
Xu He looked baffled. “Yan Mian? No. Li Nian was right behind me—”
As she spoke, Li Nian rounded the corner. Her hair was down, and she moved awkwardly in this setting. Spotting Zhu Lexing eased her nerves a bit.
Before she could say anything, Zhu Lexing frowned. “Have you seen Yan Mian?”
Yan Mian had only been gone two minutes. Zhu Lexing tried to calm herself—probably just nerves, overthinking it. But with those two lunatics from the Lin Family around, and the bar being such a chaotic spot, who knew what might happen to her?
She fixed Li Nian with a stare, hoping for a reassuring answer.
What she got instead was an equally bewildered gaze.
“I didn’t see Mianmian. What’s wrong with her?”
Zhu Lexing wasted no more words with her and headed straight for the door. “Call her.”
Li Nian hurried after her, dialing the number and putting it on speaker. The cold silence of no one picking up was especially grating.
Zhu Lexing quickly asked the System: 【Do you know where Yan Mian is?】
System: 【I’m very sorry, but the System can only detect characters within 20 meters of the Host.】
That meant Yan Mian was no longer in the bar.
Xu He didn’t understand what had the two of them so on edge, but she could sense their anxiety. She turned to the server. “Where’s your boss? Can we check the surveillance footage right now? One of our friends is missing.”
The man looked extremely troubled. “The bar’s cameras have been broken recently.”
This time, even Xu He realized something was off. “Broken?”
Last time, with the stage play incident at No. 1 High School, they’d brushed it off with a flimsy excuse about broken surveillance too.
Once might be a coincidence. But twice?
In the private booth, Qiao Qiao fell silent for several seconds after hearing the news. Then she suddenly asked, “Does anyone know Yan Mian’s expected differentiation gender?”
“…No idea.”
“But given Yan Mian’s physical condition… she should be an Omega, right?”
Xu He suddenly realized something. “Is she about to differentiate?”
Qiao Qiao found Zhu Lin’s number in her contacts and said coldly, “If we don’t find her soon, we can drop that ‘about to’.”
The dance floor was a riot of flashing colored lights, dazzling to the eyes.
The System had confirmed Yan Mian wasn’t in the bar anymore, but other patrons might know something. Just as they stepped out of the booth, Zhu Lexing and Li Nian split up to ask around about Yan Mian’s whereabouts.
Some people answered their questions seriously, others brushed them off lazily, and a few even tried to flirt. One man, a Male Beta with a face full of brutish flesh, loomed in front of Li Nian like a silent wall.
It was the first time Li Nian had faced someone like this. She froze in place, unsure what to do.
Zhu Lexing had been keeping an eye on Li Nian and noticed she hadn’t followed. Glancing over, she immediately realized what was happening.
Without hesitation, she grabbed a glass of liquor from the bar and splashed it right in the Male Beta’s face as she approached.
The Beta froze. The others hadn’t expected Zhu Lexing to burst in from the side like that—her movements were swift and decisive, like dumping a basin of dirty water.
Zhu Lexing said coldly, “Watch your mouth. Otherwise, I won’t mind covering your hospital bills for the rest of your life.”
“You—”
The Male Beta flew into a rage, but the bartender had already rushed over and grabbed him. Glancing at Zhu Lexing and Li Nian, both dressed casually with no sign of designer labels, he couldn’t help looking down on them. “You two misses should watch your words and actions when you’re out.”
Li Nian snapped out of her daze. “What do you mean? Didn’t you hear it was him who—”
Zhu Lexing and Li Nian had gone straight to the booth after entering the bar, so the bartender assumed they were trying to sneak in. Having already opened his mouth, he felt even more justified and grew more contemptuous. “If you hadn’t gotten all up in his face yourself, Miss, would he have said that? Why not start by looking at your own behavior?”
Zhu Lexing thought this guy was utterly shameless, but finding Yan Mian was the priority right now.
Li Nian clearly realized it too and gritted her teeth to hold back. Just then, a female voice came from behind them. “Lexing.”
It was Lin Yang.
She was dressed especially vibrantly tonight, with a faint scent of rosemary perfume on her.
Once they saw Lin Yang’s face, every question had a perfectly scripted answer.
For the sake of so-called love, she was willing to put others in danger.
Zhu Lexing couldn’t comprehend it and felt even more repulsed. “Where’s Yan Mian?”
Lin Yang didn’t answer Zhu Lexing’s question. Instead, she turned to the bartender. “What are you waiting for? Throw him out.”
“Yes, Miss Lin,” the bartender said hurriedly.
The Beta was tossed out, along with the other gawkers who were dragged off to the seating areas.
“Lexing, this is a bar my brother bought a couple days ago. It’s under my name now.” Lin Yang smiled faintly. “It’s been so long. Don’t you miss me? I’ve thought of you every single day.”
Zhu Lexing repeated herself. “Where’s Yan Mian?”
In those few minutes of delay, who knew where Yan Mian might have been taken? To a lunatic, morals didn’t apply, and logic was nonexistent. Zhu Lexing wouldn’t be surprised by anything they did.
But when the target was Yan Mian, a chill ran down Zhu Lexing’s spine.
The smile faded slightly from Lin Yang’s face. “I can guarantee she’s safe. I won’t do anything immoral. There’s no need.”
“I just want to make a deal with you.”
Zhu Lexing stared at her face. “What?”
Lin Yang said, “Give me a mark.”
~~~
From the moment she stepped into the room, Yan Mian had felt deeply uncomfortable.
The air was thick with a repulsive scent. She instantly realized it was pheromones from another Alpha permeating the space.
In the past, this wouldn’t have been an issue. But in an enclosed room, it was enough to force her—already nearing her differentiation period—to differentiate early.
She tried to leave, but the door had been locked from the outside. As she struggled to open it, her body grew weaker, and she collapsed in front of it.
