After Mistakenly Marking My Ex’s Older Sister, the Disabled Alpha Stood Up - Chapter 59

The morning light of Yatran pierced through the floor-to-ceiling windows, gilding the files spread across Yan Qingruo’s desk.

To her left lay the confidential documents detailing the Jin Corporation’s struggle with Lin Ruxi. To her right was a stack of urgent reports from Qingyue Corp awaiting her approval.

Since Shu Xiyue’s shares had been stripped away, she no longer handled Qingyue’s core affairs. The weight of every major and minor decision now rested on Yan Qingruo’s shoulders upon her return to the country.

A faint sound drifted up from downstairs. Rubbing her temples, Yan Qingruo rose from her chair.

Through the carved railing of the study, she saw in the garden below—Ah Lai, standing on tiptoe to water the newly planted roses. Morning sunlight brushed across her wheat-toned skin, outlining a silhouette that overlapped perfectly with Jin Yunxi in her memory.

She recalled their days of contractual marriage: back then, it had been herself watering the flowers. Now their roles were reversed, and Yan Qingruo finally understood how hard it must have been for Jin Yunxi.

Last night, after working late, she had returned home to find Jin Yunxi curled up on the sofa, dozing. A table of food sat before her, the dishes still carrying warmth and fragrance.

The Alpha had waited for her to finish work so they could eat together. That moment of simple tenderness had drowned Yan Qingruo in warmth.

“Miss Yan!” Ah Lai looked up and waved, a petal tangled in her hair. “The tomatoes are extra fresh today. I’ll make something delicious for you tonight!”

A smile softened Yan Qingruo’s lips.

No matter how busy she was, the sight of Ah Lai tending flowers in the garden or cooking in the kitchen always filled her with peace.

And sometimes… the amnesiac Jin Yunxi would get jealous of herself, leaving Yan Qingruo both speechless and amused.

When Ah Lai went out grocery shopping, Yan Qingruo always made her wear a mask and sunglasses, wary of prying eyes. She couldn’t let anyone discover that her Alpha had returned so soon.

After all, the people who had tried to kill Jin Yunxi were still at large.

At the market—

“Mrs. Jin, good morning! Buying groceries?”

Yan Qingruo smiled politely. “Yes.”

Beside her, Ah Lai perked up her ears. Mrs. Jin? She remembered Miss Yan’s late spouse had the surname Jin.

“Mrs. Jin, out for a walk?”

Piece by piece, through casual chatter, Ah Lai pieced together the truth: Miss Yan’s late partner wasn’t a husband, but a wife—an Alpha at that. A renowned CEO and the Queen’s secretary-general. Powerful, impressive. But six months ago, a car accident had taken her life, leaving Miss Yan a widow.

Ah Lai thought to herself: Such an extraordinary partner… Miss Yan must miss her terribly.

Suddenly, a wave of inferiority washed over her. Compared to Miss Yan’s late wife, she had no status, no job, not even the same Alpha rank.

Ugh…

“Miss Yan, do you still miss her?”

“Yes.”

The Alpha’s lips immediately pouted like she could hang a soy sauce bottle from them.

Yan Qingruo’s eyes curved with laughter. She leaned close and kissed the sulking woman on the lips. “But right now, I miss you most.”

Ah Lai never knew: her return to the country had been hidden away by Yan Qingruo with utmost care. She herself was Jin Yunxi, and she had no idea.

Yet the hands of memory’s clock ticked steadily forward. The more one tried to hide, the easier it was to be found.

Strangers might be deceived. Family could not.

The change came without warning.

Because she missed her mother, little Yan Xining begged Song Mei to bring her back home. The moment the child flung herself into Yan Qingruo’s arms like a sparrow, she turned her head and saw Ah Lai carrying a strawberry cake to the table.

“Jiejie! You brought me something yummy again!”

Her bright eyes sparkled, and her laughter rang through the living room.

But Ah Lai froze as if struck by lightning. Again?

When had she ever brought this child cotton candy? Wait—did the baby just call Miss Yan Mommy?

Perhaps it was the natural pull of blood, but baby Xining felt an uncanny closeness to Ah Lai.

The two of them got along delightfully, and Yan Qingruo’s heart swelled with joy and contentment at the sight.

“You called me jiejie?” Ah Lai stroked the child’s cheek. “Have we met before?”

“Of course we have~” The child was about to say more when Yan Qingruo hurriedly stuffed a lollipop into her mouth.

“Mmmph… Mommy, you—ooh! Strawberry flavor! So yummy!”

Yan Qingruo smiled nervously, sneaking a glance at Song Mei’s tightly clenched handbag. The older woman’s eyes were like blades as they swept toward Ah Lai.

“So, this is how you plan to hide it?”

Though Song Mei’s stance had softened in recent months, she could not forgive her daughter for dragging Yunxi back into the most dangerous place of all—right under her enemies’ noses—after she had already survived an assassination attempt.

The study door slammed shut. Song Mei’s scathing voice cut through the heavy wood:

“She’s not an ordinary person! Lin Ruxi’s spies are everywhere. Must you stand beside her on the very edge of the storm?”

Yan Qingruo had always obeyed her mother. But now, her nails dug deep into her palm.

Jin Yunxi’s pale face, the smoking wreck of the car, those nights and days hovering on the brink of despair—they surged back like a tide. Her voice trembled:

“Mother, you know I cannot lose her again.”

Song Mei gripped the carved chair and sank into it, her clouded gaze sharp as ice.

“Do you really believe this love can end well?”

She leaned closer, a gnarled finger nearly jabbing her daughter’s brow.

“What happens when she remembers that you approached her for revenge? When she realizes that her love after memory loss was nothing but Shu Xiyue’s hypnosis at play? What will you do then?”

When the roots are false, the fruit must wither crooked.

If the beginning is wrong, how can the ending be right?

Outside, the wind flung dead leaves against the glass with a screech.

Yan Qingruo stared at the veins bulging in her mother’s neck, the metallic taste of blood rising in her throat.

“So what? She loved me once. I love her now. That is enough.”

“Enough?” Song Mei suddenly laughed, her voice jagged with cruelty.

“Aren’t you curious how she became crippled?”

She seized her daughter’s wrist, nails digging deep, her smile twisted.

“It was thanks to your inspiration. You said, ‘Let the wolf bite her.’ I merely followed through!”

Yan Qingruo’s mind went blank, ears ringing, as memories split wide open—

Her mother’s crazed curses, the midnight shredding of business documents… Back then, the young and bewildered Yan Qingruo only knew that her mother harbored an endless, venomous hatred for someone.

At that time, Song Mei had asked her, “If someone comes from a powerful family but is surrounded by wolves on all sides, how would you take your revenge?”

She had replied offhandedly, “Then let those wolves turn on her. Let them tear at her, cripple her legs, and strip her of all that pride and swagger.”

We wouldn’t even need to dirty our own hands.

“At the very moment of her differentiation, the medicine I handed Yan Zhen…” Song Mei’s voice grew hazy, “I merely switched one ingredient, and her glands were ruined. Her legs, too, were destroyed…”

“No! You’re lying to me!” Yan Qingruo staggered back, knocking over the vase behind her. Amid the crash of shattering porcelain, she heard a soft, sweet voice drift in from outside the door: “Ah Lai jiejie, did you find the toy yet?”

Her heart lurched. She turned to leave, but Song Mei’s withered arms clamped onto her like iron pincers.

“If you don’t hear it today, you’ll never have the chance again!”

Yan Qingruo’s gaze fell on her mother’s age-spotted hands, and she suddenly remembered how those same hands had once braided her hair so gently when she was a child. Now, they were the very hands shoving her toward an abyss.

In Song Mei’s heart, hatred had long consumed her. Her husband and parents both gone, devoured by the ruthless expansion of a frighteningly gifted young business prodigy—anyone would have been driven mad. She, too, had fallen into the obsession of vengeance. But she should never have dragged Yan Qingruo into it, never have sacrificed her daughter’s youth and love on that altar.

Though Song Mei’s mind had improved somewhat in recent years, her memories remained fractured. This matter had only just resurfaced, and her heart—softening for a moment—hardened all over again.

“Just now, Ah Lai was here. Huh? Where did she go?” Yan Xining sprawled on the carpet, pudgy little hands pawing through her toys. “Ah Lai jiejie even helped me find my round bear!”

Yan Qingruo crouched down, her throat tight. “When did she leave?”

Outside, the wind billowed the curtains, brushing cool air across her sweat-damp nape.

—A few minutes earlier.

In the toy room next door, Ah Lai had been playing with baby Xining. Suddenly, a toy went missing, and the child grew fussy.

“Yah, Roundy Bear is gone! Ah Lai, help me find it, please?” She tugged at Ah Lai’s hand, pouting sweetly.

Ah Lai laughed, hugging her. “Alright~” She patted the girl’s head, and in doing so, happened to step right in front of the room where the quarrel was happening.

When the baby didn’t see Ah Lai return for a long time, she toddled to the doorway. “Ah Lai, did you find it?”

Ah Lai’s expression was strangely complex, almost dazed, but she still smiled, ruffled the child’s hair, and shook the bear in her hand. “Found it.”

When Yan Qingruo later heard her daughter say Ah Lai had only smiled and left, the taut line of her spine eased slightly. Yet unease still gnawed at her—Even if the amnesiac Jin Yunxi had overheard those words, would she really understand them?

…

That night, the sound of the rising tide swept across the shoreline. Ah Lai stirred awake in the haze, caught by the faint fragrance lingering in the air.

She opened her eyes. Yan Qingruo, draped in a silk nightdress, reclined against the headboard. Moonlight sketched out her alluring silhouette; a diamond pendant shimmered against her collarbone, flashing in and out of the soft valley beneath.

“Baby, did you hear anything outside the door today?” Yan Qingruo’s fingertips trailed across her heated cheek, carrying the fresh scent of narcissus after her bath.

Ah Lai blinked awake. Tonight she was impossibly…sensual, her silk clinging to delicate collarbones and the swell of full curves.

She parted her lips to answer, but a gentle kiss stole her words. The woman’s sigh brushed against her ear, moist and lingering: “If only nothing stood between us…”

The tide’s pull swept through her body. Through the blur, Ah Lai tasted the salt of tears.

Clumsily, she reached to wipe the redness from Yan Qingruo’s eyes. “Mommy, why are you crying?” But instead, the woman burrowed straight into her arms.

Her low, beguiling whisper bled into Ah Lai’s ear: “I beg you, no matter what you’ve heard, stay with me. Don’t leave me.”

Dark, desperate thoughts rose within her—thoughts of binding Jin Yunxi to her, of keeping her by any means.

She admitted it. She was despicable.

Her teeth grazed Jin Yunxi’s glands, half a spell, half a lull. “Baby, don’t you want to return to Mommy’s body…to be with me forever?”

A reversed mark was not enough.

A complete mark was not enough.

Tonight, she wanted more—she wanted a child with Jin Yunxi.

Yan Xining was seven parts her, three parts Jin Yunxi.

Her eyes burned hot. If it was possible, how could she make Jin Yunxi wholly merge into her body?

Even if it meant playing a shameful, forbidden role to bewitch the amnesiac woman—even so, she still longed for a tether binding them in this world.

Even if it meant shackling her cruelly, she would not hesitate.

…

Skin against skin, heat seared away reason. Swept into the rising tide of passion, Ah Lai’s fragmented memories came crashing back—

She saw a woman of extraordinary grace seated in a wheelchair, pale fingers gripping the blanket tightly, her blind eyes staring at the shimmering water like a lifeless pool.

Then came a voice, light and tinkling like windchimes: “I love the Rhine too. Do you?”

Pain surged in her knees, old and raw. Suddenly, Ah Lai felt her soul slip into the body of that woman in the wheelchair. She tilted her head upward—only to meet the falling strands of hair from the pretty sister leaning toward her.

Eyes like peach blossoms curved with laughter, drenched in narcissus scent.

The scene twisted, overturned. On a damp riverbank, she heard her own hoarse voice ask:

“Yan Qingruo, the one who first met me on the banks of the Rhine—it was you, wasn’t it? Not Yan Qingmei?”

“It wasn’t me, President Jin. You’re imagining things.” In her memory, Yan Qingruo stood with her back to the setting sun, peach-blossom eyes dark and unfathomable, hiding every trace of feeling.

Ah Lai clutched her head. Who was this President Jin? And who was she, herself?

In the dream by the Rhine, the gentle woman leaned close, as if meeting her for the first time, and said softly, “Hello. What’s your name?”

And she heard herself answer coolly, “Jin Yunxi.”

When she opened her eyes again, it wasn’t Yan Qingmei standing before her—it was Yan Qingruo.

A faint laugh escaped her lips.

Miss Yan, it’s been a long time.