ALSACW – Chapter 85

Tang Jianxi had lied to her.

The thought made Yun Chuji miserable.

She had clearly said it was just business, clearly said that back in their old home in S-District, those people wouldn’t dare do anything to her.

No, to be more precise, those were all facts, but not the whole truth. And so, they cleverly created the effect of a lie.

She hadn’t said that the people she was doing business with were the very ones who hated her to the bone. She hadn’t refused to meet with them.

What was Tang Jianxi trying to do? Yun Chuji didn’t know. She always smiled and treated her like a child, never discussing the schemes and plots that churned beneath these turbulent waves.

Yun Chuji hurried back to her room. For the first time, she cast aside her worry about disturbing Tang Jianxi and called her during the morning, a time when everyone was busy.

Tang Jianxi answered.

She was standing on the same balcony where Tang Ji and Yun Chuji had spoken last time, the snow-white woods in the background.

Seeing Yun Chuji’s reddened eyes, the smile on Tang Jianxi’s lips froze. She lowered her gaze, looking a little lost. “You found out?”

She had thought that with Yun Chuji’s personality of not liking to go online, she could at least hide it until they met. Once they were face to face, she would be easy to coax. It wouldn’t be like now, where she felt a stifling sense of helplessness.

“I’m fine. Your pheromones protected me.”

“I just… didn’t want you to worry.”

Yun Chuji sniffled. Today was the celebration, and the Yun family were all in formal attire. At Qin Wan’s arrangement, Yun Chuji was also wearing a loose-fitting women’s suit, which made her look much more mature. But this facade of maturity was thoroughly ruined by her crying.

“You did it on purpose,” she accused, her voice thick with tears. “You can protect yourself. You deliberately let her attack you.”

When they went to Cangxing, Tang Jianxi had brought a large case of anti-alpha drugs and weapons. She had never been an omega incapable of self-defense, but in this matter, she had intentionally let down all her guards.

“What if the other person had been an S-rank alpha too!”

Tang Jianxi didn’t dare answer. Among the alphas she had met, there were indeed two S-rank alphas, but she had met them after the incident with Lin Lu. The probability of an accident was extremely low, and she had brought some things for self-defense.

However, against an S-rank alpha, those things were little more than a token gesture.

She continued to meet with those people to leverage the impact of the Lin Lu incident, hoping to reach a consensus with them as quickly as possible. She wanted to persuade them that rather than stubbornly resisting like Lin Lu, it would be better to change their strategy in a timely manner to win back public favor and reduce the resistance to the list’s publication.

Tang Jianxi hadn’t wanted to say any of this. She knew Yun Chuji would worry, but—see, this was the inconvenience of being so far apart. Something that could have been smoothed over with a kiss now required the whole truth to be laid bare.

Under the gaze of those tear-reddened eyes, Tang Jianxi pressed her lips together and said in a low voice, “I needed this news. It adds weight to the Empire’s announcement of that group of alphas’ names.”

“They shouldn’t be sanctioned in silence. Otherwise, all of this would seem insignificant.”

Yun Chuji stopped crying. As if waking from a dream, she murmured, “Did it really have to go this far?”

Tang Jianxi looked away. “It really had to go this far.”

Only a scandal of this magnitude could pressure those high-and-mighty alphas to back down. That was why the Empress had formally announced a public reckoning for the criminals today. This news had thus transformed from a bombshell into a string of firecrackers set off amidst fireworks.

So far, it had only blown up on this sniffling alpha right here.

Yun Chuji was silent for a moment. Then, as if she had suddenly figured something out, she wiped her tears away in a manner that was not at all befitting a well-bred young lady and said firmly to Tang Jianxi, “I’m coming to find you right now.”

Tang Jianxi’s eyes widened. “But today is the first day of the celebration!”

Yun Chuji sniffled hard. For the first time, she spoke to Tang Jianxi in such a fierce tone. “So what? I’m not an Imperial citizen!”

With that, she hung up and squatted on the floor, crying for a little while longer.

Then she packed her bags and said goodbye to Qin Wan and Yun Cheng. They had also seen the news and didn’t say much, only reminding her not to be too hasty, lest an accident happen.

Yun Chuji didn’t listen to them. She packed her luggage at top speed, bought a ticket, hailed a cab, and took the next train back to S-District.

On the first day of the celebration, everyone was with their families. Yun Chuji was alone in the empty carriage. The AI conductor paced back and forth beside her like a strange clock. She reclined her seat, lying back with her eyes open. The breeze from the ventilation fan brushed past her ear. She was quiet, so quiet, and perfectly still.

When she reached her destination, Yun Chuji picked up her luggage and walked out of the station.

And then she saw her final destination.

Tang Jianxi was wearing a trench coat, her long black hair falling softly over her shoulders and back. She was waiting at the exit, her beautiful eyes locking onto Yun Chuji the moment she appeared, a familiar, gentle smile gracing her lips.

Since there were no other passengers, the train hadn’t stopped at the various stations, and Yun Chuji had arrived three hours earlier than scheduled.

It was five in the morning.

Yun Chuji froze, not knowing what to say as an opening line.

If she had seen Tang Jianxi at home, she could have righteously unleashed the words she had been brewing for nearly a whole day, making sure Tang Jianxi understood just how reckless her actions had been.

But here she was, seeing Tang Jianxi at a station at five in the morning, and there were faint, dark circles under her eyes. And she was still smiling at her.

Yun Chuji remembered her parents’ advice. They had told her not to be too hasty. She hadn’t listened, and sure enough, the unexpected had happened.

If she had chosen a better time, Tang Jianxi wouldn’t have had to come pick her up so early. If she had told Tang Jianxi not to pick her up beforehand, Tang Jianxi wouldn’t have lost sleep.

She must have been exhausted these past few days. She finally had a moment to rest, and now, because of her, she couldn’t even rest properly.

Yun Chuji’s righteous indignation deflated by seventy or eighty percent.

I’m so immature, she thought.

Tang Jianxi, having struck her pose, looked at the person who had suddenly frozen in place. This wasn’t the reaction she had anticipated. She couldn’t help but wonder if she had made another mistake.

Why didn’t Xiao Ji look very surprised?

She had been hoping to use this touching gesture to get the girl to forgive her quickly.

Tang Jianxi sighed, deciding to abandon these little schemes. She would just obediently admit her mistake and make promises.

She walked up to Yun Chuji, but before she could even begin her apology, she saw the little antique’s red-rimmed eyes.

Oh no, Tang Jianxi thought calmly, I’ve really pissed her off.

CEO Tang immediately decided to up the ante on her promises. But before she could even raise her hand to swear an oath, Yun Chuji reached out and hugged her, sobbing, “I’m sorry.”

Huh?

Huh?

Huh?

What was happening?

First, cheating could be ruled out. Yun Chuji wouldn’t cheat even if an AI did.

Could it be that she had made the same mistake she had?

Tang Jianxi’s mind went blank. She immediately tried to push Yun Chuji away to check for any injuries. Her hands had just landed on Yun Chuji’s shoulders when she heard her continue through her tears, “You didn’t have to come pick me up. It’s so early, you didn’t get enough rest.”

Huh?

Even though Tang Jianxi considered herself to be quite knowledgeable about Yun Chuji, her mind still went blank for a second upon hearing this.

Her heart softened completely. The hands on Yun Chuji’s shoulders moved to her back, and she said gently, “I was afraid you’d be too angry, so I came to pick you up. I wanted to make you a little happier.”

As for being tired, it was fine, really. She had been this tired for days now; she was used to it. Besides, the thought that she was working hard for Yun Chuji actually improved her mood.

Still, it seemed her plan had worked after all, and even better than she had imagined.

Tang Jianxi secretly breathed a sigh of relief. This matter could finally be put behind them.

But then again, maybe not?

Yun Chuji hugged her for less than a minute before letting go, taking her hand, and rushing her home.

This time, their destination was Tang Jianxi’s bedroom.

“Sleep,” Yun Chuji said.

“What about the Lin Lu incident?”

“We’ll talk after you wake up.”

After saying this, Yun Chuji left the bedroom. Her retreating figure looked, how should one put it, just a little bit intimidating.

Tang Jianxi lowered her eyes and smiled, changed into her pajamas, and got some proper sleep.

Can being in a relationship make a person grow up?

How strange.

But Yun Chuji did indeed want to be more mature now. She realized that Tang Jianxi was the one accommodating her most of the time, but Yun Chuji didn’t want to become yet another thing Tang Jianxi had to worry about.

She wanted to help her as much as possible, not add to her burdens like she had this time, when she had acted with Tang Jianxi’s best interests at heart but had in fact created more trouble for her.

Yun Chuji racked her brain, trying to figure out how, under the current circumstances, she could make Tang Jianxi safer without getting in her way.

After the incident with Lin Lu, Tang Jianxi had become even more of a thorn in the side of alphas. The funny thing was, even though the Sixth Prince was the leader of Spartacus, people usually only mentioned Tang Jianxi’s name when they cursed the ambitious omegas. Yet, when they praised the beacon of omega rights, they placed the Sixth Prince before Tang Jianxi.

Tang Jianxi had now become a target. Many alphas were rubbing their hands together, eager to teach her a lesson. And what left Yun Chuji at a loss was that Tang Jianxi had willingly become this target. The more people aimed at her, the more people would pay attention to the aftermath of Glory.

Now, the matter of Glory was more or less drawing to a close, but Tang Jianxi, the target, had been placed so high and was so conspicuous that she couldn’t be easily taken down.

Yun Chuji wrote down one answer after another on a piece of paper, only to quickly cross them out.

In the end, only one line remained: Set up a newer target.

Because of Yun Xuan, Yun Chuji had been reading some materials on Western civilization these past two days and had learned a very interesting principle from them: a heretic is more hated than an infidel.

In that case, what was more hateful than a pioneer of omega rights was, of course, an alpha traitor.

After arguing with that group of alphas from the Yun family, Yun Chuji had already given up on the possibility that these alphas could seriously reflect on the theory of A-Virtue. In fact, up until now, alphas had only regarded A-Virtue as a sensationalist marketing ploy.

Since that was the case, Yun Chuji took out her manuscript and continued to refine its contents.

Then she would make these alphas have no choice but to take it seriously.

She would attract their hatred and attention, becoming an even bigger target.

And as an S-rank alpha, she had a slight advantage over Tang Jianxi, at least when it came to personal safety.

When Tang Jianxi woke up, she found Yun Chuji in the study, writing furiously.

She instantly breathed a sigh of relief. From the looks of it, the matter was completely behind them.

Sure enough, as soon as they met, Yun Chuji was so easy to handle.

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