Once their thinking broadened, the solutions followed.
It had to be said that their previous idea of staking all their chances of victory on their own efforts and sacrifices was far too limited and dangerous. The moment they tried to add a few elements of scheming and plotting to the plan, everything became twice as effective with half the effort.
Johnsen had taken too many shortcuts on his path to power. Both his mother-in-law and the Third Princess had rewarded him for his loyalty, but now, he had already betrayed his mother-in-law. As for the Third Princess, judging by his frequent activity within the Glory system, he appeared to be maintaining an enthusiastic loyalty.
But for an egoist like Johnsen, the true extent of his loyalty to the Third Princess, and the sincerity of his proclaimed affection for his alpha brothers and sisters, could be glimpsed from the fact that he had kicked all the business partners who had been with him from the start out of the company’s decision-making circle.
Qi Sheng’s strange behavior at the banquet more or less indicated that he wasn’t entirely ignorant of Johnsen’s dealings behind the scenes. In any case, as his closest husband, especially in a marriage supposedly founded on love, Johnsen’s unusual actions could hardly be hidden from the person he lived with day in and day out.
And if he refused to spend time with Qi Sheng, it would be even more obvious.
As it happened, they were scheduled to have dinner with Qi Sheng and Johnsen in two days. It was an excellent opportunity for some probing.
Of course, if the path with Qi Sheng didn’t work out and they couldn’t team up to set a trap for Johnsen, they could always use a more direct method: forcefully pinning the evidence on him. They could use minor tricks like a light brain information leak to blow the situation wide open.
However, the latter approach could easily be detected by the Third Princess and her faction, which would be detrimental to Yun Chuji’s efforts to remain hidden afterward.
It was best to hope that Qi Sheng hated Johnsen enough. After all, the Tang family’s roots on Cangxing were not deep. Although Tang Jianxi was on good terms with Marco, this matter was of great importance. Besides, while Yun Chuji couldn’t see the full list of Glory’s members, she had recorded every person who had spoken in the relevant sections of the Glory system.
Among them was a member of the Davis family.
Marco’s older cousin.
A famous and eligible bachelorette alpha on the Imperial Capital Star.
It was said the two of them were quite close.
Because they didn’t know who they could trust, they trusted no one. This was Tang Jianxi and Yun Chuji’s current principle of operation. If, in the end, the matter was still suppressed, then their only option would be for Yun Chuji to use her list and personally go find the evidence herself. In short, neither Tang Jianxi nor Yun Chuji could bear the burden of 5,500 omegas a month.
But there were two people they could trust.
One was the genius omega from a commoner family, Xie Xiaoxiao.
The other was Tang Jianxi’s human-computer brother.
Xie Xiaoxiao had secretly packed them a large batch of drugs that danced on the edge of being contraband. They were byproducts of her research projects. Though the variety was extensive, their function was rather singular: all were focused on how to instantly render an alpha weak and helpless.
Tang Jianshen, on the other hand, was unusually silent. After providing them with a large amount of detailed information on Johnsen at the beginning, he hadn’t asked about their plan, acting as if the pressure on the omega support network didn’t exist at all.
Based on a sibling’s intuition, Tang Jianxi guessed that Tang Jianshen was probably planning something big in private. But Tang Jianshen was the kind of person who had a natural talent for driving people mad, especially when he wanted to play dumb. He often made people feel like he was treating them like an idiot—which, in fact, he was.
Tang Jianshen’s abnormality gave Tang Jianxi a sense of urgency. She believed he would absolutely not let this opportunity to cut off the Third Princess’s funding slip by. His silence could only mean that what he wanted to do was something she would never agree to.
They had to be faster.
Tang Jianxi frowned, reviewing the plan over and over on her light brain, until a familiar orchid scent reached her. She immediately snapped out of her thoughts of conspiracy and intrigue and looked up to see Yun Chuji dressed in a thick bathrobe.
Cangxing was indeed very cold. The temperature here rarely exceeded five degrees Celsius, and outside the city, it snowed for most of the year.
But that wasn’t why Yun Chuji was dressed so warmly. After all, this was no longer an era where one relied on layers of clothing for warmth.
Is she still scared? Tang Jianxi wondered.
To be so frightened and still obediently come over to comfort her… she really had no idea how many knots were tangled up in this person’s head.
What Tang Jianxi didn’t know was that the moment she looked up and saw Yun Chuji, a bright smile had appeared on her face.
Yun Chuji walked to the desk, her eyes darting left and right, looking everywhere but at Tang Jianxi. She stared at a rectangular object in the room as if it held some rare mystery, but the words that came out of her mouth were on a completely unrelated topic. “Where’s Winona? I didn’t see her.”
“I found a house near where Johnsen was keeping Helen and the others. Winona went there. She wants to see Helen when she goes out for her daily walk.”
Yun Chuji sighed at her words. That pair of ill-fated lovebirds—well, ill-fated female lovebirds—finally had a chance to see each other again.
But there was still a problem. “I heard that pregnant omegas need an alpha’s comfort. Can Miss Helen’s body and her child handle being away from Johnsen?”
Tang Jianxi stood up from her chair and walked over to Yun Chuji, sighing as well. “There are substitute medications available, but because the Empire doesn’t support research in this area, the technology isn’t very mature. She might suffer a bit later on.”
“Is there no way for her to avoid suffering?”
“No. The only solution to this problem is to kidnap Johnsen and have him serve as a tool for them, but that would be mental suffering.”
They stood by the window, where thin white curtains veiled the scenery outside, leaving a hazy, indistinct view. From Yun Chuji’s angle, she could clearly see Tang Jianxi’s profile illuminated by the light. Her expression was still gentle. She suddenly remembered that Tang Jianxi had always been very gentle with her, from a long time ago. Even her departure in the middle had been gentle.
Only during her pursuit was there a hint of urgency, but overall, it was still gentle.
Yun Chuji was no longer an innocent maiden who knew nothing. Her understanding of ABO physiology was no longer half-baked. Tang Jianxi had established a permanent mark with her, which meant she had almost no resistance to her allure.
But she had never deliberately used this fact. Even during their intimate moments, she always stopped at the right point. Yun Chuji knew, however, that this wasn’t entirely due to Tang Jianxi’s moral constraints, but also because she, like herself, hated this inexplicable biological control.
But many people, while hating something, had no problem using it to their advantage. Just as she, despite despising Johnsen, Glory, and that alpha-supremacist ideology, would still use them for her own purposes.
Yun Chuji pressed her lips together, looked at Tang Jianxi’s shoulder, and said suddenly, “Thank you.”
Tang Jianxi leaned back against the windowsill, supporting herself with her arms. She found that she and Yun Chuji shared a kind of tacit understanding that she found very comfortable. It was this understanding that had allowed her to easily grasp Yun Chuji’s inspiration just now and adjust the plan in time.
This understanding also let Tang Jianxi know what Yun Chuji was thanking her for now.
She curved her lips, and S-District’s most brilliant omega revealed a sly smile. “This is how we ‘girls’ pursue someone—very demurely.”
“Actually, it wasn’t that demure.”
“Hm?”
“…It was demure.”
“Good girl.”
“So, um, should we start the comforting?”
“Can I hug you?”
“…You can.”
“Then let’s start the comforting.”
…
“Hey, what’s that poking me?”
“Hey, why are you running?”
“I was just teasing you! You’re wearing so much, you can’t feel anything. I won’t take liberties with you. My quota for taking liberties today is already used up.”
“…But if you did take liberties with me, I wouldn’t resist.”
“Eh? She ran off again?”
Two days later, at a famous luxury restaurant in Cangxing’s G-District.
Two AO couples of extraordinary bearing sat opposite each other. The food before them was exquisitely plated and brightly colored, but the portions were minuscule, serving more as decoration. In fact, the four people who were supposed to be enjoying the food didn’t have their minds on it at all.
Oh, except for Yun Chuji, who couldn’t taste anything.
Yun Chuji picked up a piece of what was said to be Cangxing’s unique Cthulhu meat. With her sense of taste, she couldn’t detect the inherent sweet flavor Johnsen described, but she could feel its juiciness. A tiny piece of meat could actually be bitten into with the texture of a soup dumpling, which truly made her marvel at the wonders of the universe.
Tang Jianxi was sparring verbally with Johnsen, their sentences filled with business jargon and industry terms. They went back and forth over the same few points, nearly talking in circles, which showed that their progress was truly poor. But it wasn’t as if they were genuinely trying to give Johnsen an order; this outcome was largely due to Tang Jianxi’s own subtle manipulations.
Yun Chuji had little interest in this. For one, she didn’t understand it, and for another, she knew it wasn’t the main point of today’s meeting.
However, Qi Sheng’s gaze from diagonally across the table was indeed a bit too intense, leaving her at a loss for what to do.
Perhaps he admires me?
The mere thought of this possibility made Yun Chuji’s whole body tingle. She lowered her head even further, focusing all her senses on the plate in front of her, as if she could actually taste some peerless delicacy.
Qi Sheng’s odd behavior caught the attention of the other two. Johnsen’s expression stiffened slightly. He hadn’t managed to probe anything of value in the past two days; Qi Sheng seemed completely unaware of his clandestine activities. And his inexplicable enthusiasm for Yun Chuji seemed to stem less from an inquiry and interest in A-Virtue and more from an inquiry and interest in Yun Chuji herself.
Johnsen himself cheated with righteous indignation, but when faced with his husband’s similar inclinations, he couldn’t help but fly into a rage. At the same time, he secretly scorned the shallowness of omegas, to be so taken with a pretty boy who was so skilled at living off others.
He took Qi Sheng’s hand, which was hanging by his side, and said with a smile, “Sheng and I used to come to this restaurant often when we were dating. Coming back to this old place, I feel like the past few years have flown by.”
Johnsen waited for Qi Sheng to respond, but Qi Sheng ignored him, using his other hand to scoop up the dessert on his plate as if Johnsen didn’t exist. Johnsen couldn’t help but squeeze his hand a little harder. Qi Sheng glanced at him, his placid features showing no clear expression, but he pulled his hand away.
The smile on Johnsen’s face almost faltered. Fortunately, Yun Chuji interjected at that moment, “The food here is delicious. No wonder Mr. Kerry and Mr. Qi were able to form such a happy union.”
The two of them talked at cross-purposes about the food for a while, finally dispelling the awkward atmosphere.
Then, as if he had found a kindred spirit, Johnsen said to Tang Jianxi, “To fulfill my duties as a host, I must properly treat Miss Yun to the delicacies of our G-District today.”
Tang Jianxi smiled, seemingly grateful. “That would be wonderful, of course. I was also thinking of having Mr. Qi show me around the area.”
After a round of light pleasantries, Johnsen led Yun Chuji to the location they had agreed upon the day before.
Meanwhile, Tang Jianxi and Qi Sheng walked together through the famous shopping city on G-District’s second ring.
The two walked and talked with the bland politeness of omega friends who weren’t particularly close, but their shared upper-class upbringing managed to package the less-than-stellar conversational atmosphere into something cordial and friendly. They bought a large pile of things. In the ABO era, shopping had become a form of exercise. The advanced transportation systems meant people no longer had to carry heavy shopping bags, but the winding, circuitous paths of the shopping centers were still physically draining.
After about two hours of shopping, the two rested at a coffee shop, exchanging recent interesting news from Cangxing and the Imperial Capital Star.
As they chatted, just when Tang Jianxi felt the time was right to begin her probing, Qi Sheng suddenly said something out of the blue: “Your alpha has a problem.”
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