How could she describe this?
Right now, Yun Chuji was indeed both happy and flustered.
The two emotions fed off each other, causing the words on the screen to morph into meaningless patterns.
She couldn’t read a thing.
It was truly shameful.
Her mind was entirely consumed by something else. Was Miss Tang currently in the “hot” phase of her hot-and-cold behavior?
Or would she never turn cold again?
From time to time, Yun Chuji would glance at Tang Jianxi out of the corner of her eye. Tang Jianxi seemed completely absorbed in her work, the total opposite of Yun Chuji. She didn’t seem to feel the weight of a gaze at all, whereas a single look from her was enough to make Yun Chuji stop whatever she was doing and yield to her completely.
Yun Chuji suddenly felt a bit pathetic. In a safe environment, her emotions were always written all over her face. She could no longer maintain the pretense of reading seriously, and her expression crumpled into a miserable, aggrieved little face.
Tang Jianxi raised an eyebrow slightly, issued a series of instructions, then turned off her terminal. Turning her head, she propped her chin on her hand and asked, “Is there a problem?”
Startled, Yun Chuji shot up from the sofa, waving her hands frantically. “No!”
“Oh.” Tang Jianxi seemed to accept this, but before Yun Chuji could even catch her breath, she posed a much more difficult question. “Then why do you keep looking at me?”
What! So she’d noticed long ago!
Yun Chuji was a little annoyed, feeling as if she’d been played with. And it seemed Miss Tang always took pleasure in toying with her.
She composed her expression, thinking that this couldn’t go on. Summoning the full air of a well-bred lady, Yun Chuji said directly, “I was wondering how long it will be this time before you find me a nuisance.”
And then leave me.
The smile on Tang Jianxi’s lips instantly froze.
The situation was difficult. This girl, whose actual life experience was only sixteen years, was not as innocent and romantic as a typical sixteen-year-old.
Oh, right. In her time, that was nearly the age of marriage.
So, should I communicate with her like an adult?
Tang Jianxi’s hand still supported her chin. On that exquisitely delicate face, beauty always managed to overshadow everything else, making it impossible for Yun Chuji to discern her true emotions.
“I’m very afraid, because you are an alpha.”
That was Tang Jianxi’s explanation.
Yun Chuji didn’t understand.
So Tang Jianxi told her the story that Winona had told her.
Did Yun Chuji understand now? Tang Jianxi didn’t know.
But the takeout had arrived.
Tang Jianxi took the food from the delivery AI and set it out on the dining table, one dish at a time. The novelty of doing such a domestic chore herself was quite refreshing, and it even eased some of the gloom in her heart.
Tang Jianxi ladled out a bowl of soup.
She finished the soup, but Yun Chuji was still sitting on the living room sofa, head bowed in deep thought. She cast a small shadow on the wall, a shadow whose head was pressed tightly to its knees, like an infant still in the womb.
Tang Jianxi sighed. She wondered if her words had been too harsh. To be honest, Yun Chuji was not a typical alpha. She just happened to possess an alpha’s body; the soul within was not an alpha’s. To heap all of alpha-kind’s original sins upon her simply because she had an alpha’s shell was not fair at all.
And it was precisely this self-awareness of the unfairness that drove Tang Jianxi’s vacillation.
She was different, Tang Jianxi knew, but just how different was she?
No one knew.
Still, one had to eat. A twenty-one-year-old needed to grow, after all.
Having found her reason, Tang Jianxi spoke up. “Let’s eat. I ordered you some maocai. You should like it.”
At the sound of her voice, Yun Chuji lifted her head. She looked as if she had just woken from a nightmare, her forehead beaded with cold sweat.
She said loudly, “Miss Tang, I know where Helen is.”
The soup spoon fell from Tang Jianxi’s hand with a clatter. “How is that possible?”
Helen had disappeared six months ago. And six months ago, ignoring the bizarre rules of time and space, Yun Chuji was still in Qingling County, waiting to be matched with a future husband!
But Tang Jianxi quickly thought of someone else, her eyes widening. “It was the original Yun Chuji?!”
Yun Chuji nodded with difficulty.
As Tang Jianxi was telling her the story, a vague sense of familiarity had stirred in her mind. This kind of transaction, this kind of trade, this form of openly selling omegas… she felt like she had seen it somewhere before.
In the original owner’s terminal!
Yes, among those disgusting and unbearable videos, there were a few that showed omegas tied up, posed like commodities, and put up for sale.
At the time, Yun Chuji had dismissed it as just another way for the original owner to vent her perverted tastes. She assumed it was fictional, just like the other videos. From the original owner’s memories, Yun Chuji knew she had been obsessed with such videos since her differentiation and had even been caught by her parents multiple times, but she never showed any remorse.
But what if they were real?
What if the beatings, the verbal abuse, and the cruelty were real?
What if they weren’t just “21+ pornographic videos,” as Yun Cheng had angrily called them in her memories? What if they weren’t actors, but real, innocent people?
Worse, out of disgust, Yun Chuji had deleted all the videos from the terminal.
The source of these videos was a StarNet ID that would send her this kind of content every three days. Annoyed, Yun Chuji had deleted that too.
But this was not the end of all mysteries.
The end of all mysteries, including the original owner’s extreme alpha supremacism, stemmed from a single name: Glory.
The Glory organization, a high-end alpha group that only A-rank alphas and alphas with a net worth of over ten billion star coins could join. This organization provided many conveniences for its self-proclaimed elite members, including business intelligence, information on omegas, and some omegas themselves.
The reason the original owner had succeeded in her scheme against Tang Jianxi was because of a drug provided by Glory. Moreover, Glory was aware of and supported her intention to forcibly mark Tang Jianxi.
These memories had been buried deep in the original owner’s mind, as if she herself knew how shameful they were.
Just now, Yun Chuji had managed to recall them. Now, her face pale, she said to Tang Jianxi, “Miss Tang, do you know about Glory?”
What familiar words. Three days ago, Tang Jianxi had said almost the exact same thing to Winona.
But unlike Winona, she did know about Glory.
It was an elite alpha organization, open only to high-ranking and extremely wealthy alphas. It was something like a club. It was worth noting that the Third Princess was also a member.
Tang Jianxi picked up the spoon, placed it on the table, and rose to walk toward Yun Chuji. Calmly, she said, “Can you tell me about it?”
The original owner was, at best, a small fry on the periphery of Glory. The truly influential members were the high-ranking noble alphas and S-rank alphas. While the original owner might have stood out in a crowd, within Glory, she was just an unremarkable, ordinary A-rank alpha.
What she knew and what she could interfere with did not touch upon Glory’s core. For instance, the original owner never knew how many people were in Glory’s management, or who had founded the organization.
Yun Chuji could only tell Tang Jianxi everything she knew, but it was enough to be shocking. It included the private sharing of information on various high-ranking omegas, such as their whereabouts, heat cycles, and private photos. It included appalling acts of abuse. And it included those auctions.
“This kind of omega trafficking is offered at a discount to Glory members, which means they might sell these omegas to anyone at a high price.”
“When you told me about Helen just now, I thought it’s very likely that Helen was sold through Glory.”
Besides, only an elite alpha organization like this would have the power to control all the gangs in the outermost ring.
Tang Jianxi took a deep breath, the veins on the back of her hand standing out. The gentle demeanor she maintained in front of Yun Chuji had completely vanished. She had to clench her jaw to keep from being overwhelmed by a rage that threatened to shatter her reason.
“Is there evidence?”
If there was evidence, she could make sure those alphas who deserved to be sliced a thousand times were sliced a thousand times.
Yun Chuji shook her head in shame. “I deleted all the videos.”
Tang Jianxi was unconcerned. Data on a terminal could be recovered.
The takeout on the dining table gradually grew cold as the two in the living room buried their heads in data recovery.
An hour and a half later, after a long process of verification and searching, Tang Jianxi finally found what she was looking for.
With a trembling finger, Tang Jianxi opened the video.
The screen showed a recently differentiated male omega. His face was flushed, and he was clearly disoriented, obviously having been injected with some kind of drug.
Standing behind him was a person completely shrouded in a black robe, their voice altered by a modulator, making it impossible to tell if they were male or female. “The goods we have today are quite special. It took a lot of money to tame him.”
“These newly differentiated little O’s are always so fiery. But of course, they taste very good too.”
“Eh? Miss Teddy Bear has offered five hundred thousand star coins. Looks like this little thing is in for a treat today. Miss Teddy Bear is the best at training them.”
“Oh, wait, Mr. Big Tom has offered seven hundred thousand, but he wants to inspect the goods.”
“No problem, the customer is king.”
As soon as the words fell, the black-robed figure stripped the omega bare, leaving only the ropes that bound him. The scene exuded an eroticism born of brutality.
This eroticism seemed to have stimulated the buyers. Several others called out bids, and in the end, the omega was auctioned off for 1.2 million star coins.
After watching, Tang Jianxi was silent for a long time.
Yun Chuji had turned her head away the moment the clothes came off.
“It’s not enough,” Tang Jianxi murmured.
“What’s not enough?” Yun Chuji asked, confused.
Tang Jianxi blinked, then, as if punishing herself, she played the video again. “This evidence isn’t enough,” she replied.
“This can’t even be called evidence. There’s no explicit link to Glory. They could easily push out a scapegoat.”
As she spoke, Tang Jianxi grew more agitated.
She couldn’t bear to imagine how many more omegas from the outermost ring were being tied up and sold like livestock to this group of so-called elite alphas in the few minutes she had been speaking.
Yun Chuji was at a loss. She felt like she couldn’t help. That was the world outside, Tang Jianxi’s world. She, on the other hand, was still immersed in the world of books. A huge barrier stood between these two worlds.
But perhaps she could help—if she could just cross that barrier.
Yun Chuji pressed her lips together. She thought she might have a way to repay Miss Tang.
Not just with her insignificant pheromones. She could do something more useful.
“Miss Tang, you said just now that because I’m an alpha, you can’t truly open up to me.”
“You’re worried I’ll become just like all the other alphas.”
“But I think, perhaps my identity as an alpha can also be of help to you.”
“You see, I’m an S-rank alpha now. If I were to join Glory, I could find the evidence, right?”
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