After Dumping the Female Lead, It's My Turn to Cry - Chapter 36.2

The freesia pheromones intensified tenfold, filling the enclosed space.

Ruan Yubai felt like she had become a tool. Not only did she have to hold the heroine’s gland to help her through the heat cycle, but her own neck had become a piece of slime in the heroine’s hands.

Yes, the kind of slime that gets rolled and pinched into different shapes.

Qing Ling’s fingers were long and beautiful, but her fingertips had thin calluses. As they moved against the girl’s tender skin, the sensation was vivid, a strange itch that seemed to travel along her cervical bone.

It was very odd. In certain moments, Ruan Yubai felt like Qing Ling was touching a non-existent gland, or perhaps petting a fat cat like Heipi, slowly kneading the back of her neck.

Why was she being treated like this? Was this the heroine’s private torture?

If Qing Ling weren’t holding her waist, Ruan Yubai wouldn’t even be able to stand. Helping someone through a marking was exhausting, and being manhandled on top of it was too much. She really was going to cry: “Stop pinching, stop it… how can I get you to let me go?”

The girl carried a quiet, sweet fragrance that grew warmer as their skin touched. Her small teeth ground against her lightly—a very gentle force. A few times, Qing Ling felt the illusion that she wasn’t the one being marked, but that she was marking the girl instead.

She was truly, truly adorable.

So adorable that Qing Ling abandoned her original plan.

Qing Ling stroked the girl’s soft hair soothingly, though her arm around her waist tightened. Her voice was no longer cold, but infinitely tender:

“A little lower, sweetheart. Be good.”

Ruan Yubai bit down with resentment, but tears kept falling pitter-patter down her face.

Poor Beta. Ruan Yubai was far too dull regarding the shifts in pheromones; she didn’t even realize when the cool, elegant scent had begun to dissipate. Not only was she working hard to provide a marking, but she also had to ask in a small, sobbing voice, “Is it enough? Do you still feel bad? Is it even a little bit better?”

It was tragic. It was the kind of scene that would make a “salted fish” ancestor leap out of the water in pure sympathy.

Qing Ling was naturally a cold person, but in front of this girl, she always found herself giving in to uncontrollable, wicked whims. She whispered, “It still feels terrible. Your technique is truly lacking, Miss Ruan.”

Ruan Yubai thought: Waaah! What am I supposed to do! I’m just a cannon fodder side character destined for a bad end. Isn’t it a bit much to ask a bit-part player to do what the male lead is supposed to do?

Yet, Ruan Yubai possessed an ill-timed sense of responsibility. Believing it was her own unwarranted curiosity that caused the heroine’s suffering, she kept tilting her head to adjust her angle. She used her soft lips to gently brush against the gland, pressing tentatively to hold it. “How about this? Does this still not work?”

When the Young Lady finally showed mercy and let her go, Ruan Yubai felt like her lips were completely numb. They were swollen a bright red and looked moist and pink; she was the one who looked like she had been bullied.

Ruan Yubai bit her lip and pleaded, “I was really wrong. I won’t tell anyone about this. Please forgive me just this once, okay?”

Her teeth were small and white, leaving faint marks where she bit her lip, making the contrast between pink and white even more obvious. Was this how Ruan Yubai bit my gland just now?

Qing Ling gave a small smile, but the movement was so slight that the anxious, head-bowed Ruan Yubai didn’t notice. Then, the heroine’s gentle voice slowly rose: “This was my first heat cycle. Do you think I should forgive you?”

You didn’t say that just now! Didn’t you say you’d forgive me if I marked you properly?

Ruan Yubai grew frantic. “I’m a Beta! Even though it’s technically a marking, there aren’t any pheromones involved. No one will ever find out!”

She really was the type to turn her back on someone the moment they were no longer useful. The numbness in Ruan Yubai’s lips hadn’t even faded yet! How could she be like this?

Qing Ling remained leisurely. “Just because it hasn’t been discovered, does that mean it didn’t happen?”

Well, what else! Only the two of us know about this. Can’t you just turn a blind eye? I never realized the heroine was such a stickler for details.

Regardless, Ruan Yubai realized the heroine wasn’t going to let her off easy. She covered her face in agony, feeling her heart literally shatter into eight pieces. Being toyed with by the heroine was a hundred times more painful than a breakup. “I already agreed to not mention the engagement. If you want to call it off later, that’s fine too. I really have nothing else I can do for you.”

“Call it off?”

Ruan Yubai was too flustered to notice the subtle deepening of the other’s voice. Hearing the doubt, she acted as if she had reached an epiphany. “Fine, fine. If you think calling it off in the future will hurt your reputation, you can push all the blame onto me. I promise I won’t say a word. My mouth is shut tighter than Heipi’s.”

Qing Ling reached out, her gesture of wiping away the tears almost tender. “Who told you I was going to call it off?”

This is never ending!

Ruan Yubai felt she was on the verge of a breakdown. Her round eyes were swollen. “Didn’t you say it? Ms. Ruan told me that the Qing family is very dissatisfied with me. You really don’t have to do this; it’s not like I’m going to hit you.”

I couldn’t win even if I tried, she added silently in her head.

Silence fell for a few seconds. Just as Ruan Yubai thought the heroine would guiltily dodge the topic, she received an unexpected answer.

“I am not ‘the Qing family’.”

Those words were enough to make even a saint lose their temper.

“Then what are you, a Ruan?” Ruan Yubai let out an angry laugh. Suddenly, she remembered something that had been stuck in her throat lately. Since things couldn’t get any worse, she decided to speak her mind. “A few days ago, Sheng Yusheng came to find me.”

Seeing the heroine’s expression, Ruan Yubai knew they were indeed acquaintances. Her heart sank further, and she failed to notice that Qing Ling didn’t refute her angry remark about being a “Ruan.”

Ruan Yubai bit her lip. “She told me that the person who passed away was your eldest uncle—the Alpha who brought you to our house last time. That’s not true, is it?”

Even after the heroine bullied her like this, Ruan Yubai didn’t want it to be true. Not from any angle.

The moment she saw Qing Ling give a slight shake of her head, Ruan Yubai felt a mysterious sense of relief. She was about to say that Sheng Yusheng was talking nonsense when she heard the cold reply: “The person who passed away was an Omega.”

What does that mean?

Ruan Yubai’s thin brows furrowed. “Then your uncle…”

“He died.” The Young Lady, having just finished her heat cycle, leaned against the wall. She looked perfectly composed, showing no sign of the ordeal, maintaining the same gentle and elegant demeanor as when they first met. “Are you very afraid?”

It wasn’t fear—or rather, not just fear. It was more…

Ruan Yubai shook her head. The blood beneath her skin roiled violently. A pain she hadn’t felt in a long time flared in her abdomen—a subtle, hidden sensation that followed the lines of her muscles and pierced her soft palate. Crimson was about to surge before she could even bite her tongue.

The pink flush on her cheeks turned pale instantly. Ruan Yubai covered her mouth, missing the hand Qing Ling reached out to grab her arm. As she turned and pulled the door open in a rush, she collided directly with Nan Zhuti’s stunned gaze.

Ruan Yubai gave a bitter, ironic smile. Great. As expected, the plot wouldn’t deviate too much because of one small ripple; it was rejoining the original track. It was just her being overly concerned.

Ruan Yubai stumbled into the restroom. The blood on her lips was like tiny, pervasive red petals, falling through the gaps of her fingers onto the old sink, gradually spreading into a deep pink.

This scene was too familiar—so familiar she didn’t even bother to feel terrified. This was like a fixed route in an RPG. She wasn’t a player who could make choices, but a game character who could only head toward the same ending no matter what.

I hate it. I really hate it.

The comms on her wrist buzzed at an inconvenient time. Ruan Yubai wiped the blood from her lips and checked it. It was her childhood friend Lin Yi, with whom she hadn’t spoken in a long time.

Lin Yi: Baibai, I’ve reflected on what happened last time. It was my fault for not respecting your words. Can we meet one more time? Lin Yi: I’m very worried about you.

Ruan Yubai blinked, a soft emotion surfacing in her eyes, but she ultimately gritted her teeth and closed the interface. If the novel’s plot continued this way, she couldn’t escape no matter what. If that was the case, she hoped her friends could escape the fate of being marginalized cannon fodder.

At least, she didn’t want them to suffer like her. If this novel required a dog-blood sacrifice, and she couldn’t avoid it, she hoped she would be the only one.

When she stepped out, Ruan Yubai was surprised to see someone waiting at the door. She frowned and asked softly, “Are you looking for me?”

Logically, the tender scene between the male and female leads shouldn’t have ended this quickly.

“Why are you coughing up blood again?” Slender fingers brushed against her lips, Qing Ling’s expression unreadable.

Ruan Yubai brushed her hand away, not wanting to investigate the word “again” for the moment. She snapped, “Because you made me angry! When are you moving your stuff out?”

Without her realizing it, more and more of the heroine’s miscellaneous daily items had appeared in the house not just in the room that originally belonged to Qing Ling, but in her own room as well.

It was maddening. Even when she slept at night, the air was filled with that faint, tempting scent of freesia. It was an omnipresent nightmare.

Hurried footsteps echoed in the corridor. Staff members in student council uniforms appeared with bright eyes, surrounding the Young Lady. “President! A group of Alphas rioted due to a pheromone scent, but the source Omega hasn’t been found. How should we handle this?”

Ruan Yubai curled her lips in schadenfreude. For a second, she had the urge to tell these trusting staff members: The Omega you’re looking for is right in front of you!

While lost in her fantasy, Ruan Yubai met the heroine’s beautiful eyes. She shrugged, signaling she wouldn’t be so malicious as to speak out, and turned to leave to avoid suspicion.

Why does she keep using a ‘honey trap’ on me?

It wasn’t until she arrived home with her cheeks puffed out that Ruan Yubai realized she had forgotten the most important question.

Could her substitute slot for the Super-A Games be transferred to someone who actually needed it!

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