As a Scummy Omega, I Ran Away with the Baby - Chapter 41

Thinking this, Gu Yining still kept her expression perfectly composed—at least Director Qian, already pleasantly tipsy, noticed nothing amiss. Gu Yining swirled the red wine in her glass, tipped her head back, and drained it in one go.

Only then did she finally manage to extricate herself from that notorious drinker.

“Being able to chat with you today was wonderful,” she said with a smile. “But I still have a few things to take care of. Let’s pick another day to really get together—I’ll treat you properly then.”

“Go on, go on. I know you’re busy,” Director Qian said, squinting as she waved her off. “I’ll let you off this time.”

Gu Yining nodded with an apologetic smile and quickly turned away. The moment she was out of Director Qian’s sight, the ingratiating curve of her lips fell flat.

She lifted her gaze. Bai Qingqiu was still there, holding the same glass of champagne as before. She couldn’t drink—Gu Yining knew that.

She also knew that Bai Qingqiu barely touched alcohol in daily life because she couldn’t handle it.

She had even seen what Bai Qingqiu was like when she got drunk at home.

What she had never expected was that the one and only time Bai Qingqiu lost control would be because of her.

Such a huge debt of gratitude.

The most ironic part was that she didn’t even know whether she should repay it. Rationally speaking, she ought to—she was the one who benefited, and outcomes mattered more than intentions. Emotionally, however, she knew all of this stemmed from one thing only: Bai Qingqiu couldn’t let go of Bei Nanyan. And she herself had been able to “enjoy” this treatment solely because she happened to have a face that resembled Bei Nanyan’s—something she could never, ever accept.

Bai Qingqiu stood ahead, only a few dozen meters away, practically within arm’s reach. Yet since learning of Bei Nanyan’s existence, Gu Yining had never once felt closer to her.

She took a deep breath, straightened her emotions, and walked toward her—slowly, but with resolve.

The sharp tips of her high heels struck the floor. Clack. Clack. Clack.

She was getting closer and closer to Bai Qingqiu.

Hearing the sound, Bai Qingqiu turned around. A flicker of surprise crossed her otherwise impassive face, disappearing in the next second. She turned back to the directors and producers, exchanged brief farewells, then glanced sideways at Gu Yining, signaling her to follow. Without another word, she headed toward the banquet hall’s exit.

It seemed Bai Qingqiu had long anticipated her coming.

The two moved with an unexpected tacit understanding. Neither spoke. They walked one behind the other down the corridor, separated by half an arm’s length, Bai Qingqiu in front. She was wearing pants—far more convenient than a dress. In fact, it had always been this way. Bai Qingqiu never liked wearing skirts. For a workaholic like her, someone who might need to rush to the company or attend meetings at any moment, skirts were simply too impractical.

Gu Yining was the complete opposite. Her wardrobe was always full of dresses.

She used to wear pants sometimes, too. But after getting together with Bai Qingqiu, Bai Qingqiu once said she looked especially cute in dresses, and little by little, she stopped wearing pants altogether.

Now she had no choice. Attending various events, dresses were always the optimal solution.

Bai Qingqiu led her into the elevator and pressed a button. As Gu Yining took out her phone, she stole a glance—guestroom floor. She was taking her back to her room.

Ding.

The elevator arrived. Bai Qingqiu stepped out first, looking almost impatient. Gu Yining struggled to keep up. High heels were unsteady on the carpet; she had to brace herself against the wall just to keep her balance. Watching Bai Qingqiu’s figure ahead grow smaller and more distant, a rush of complicated emotions welled up inside her—sour, aching, indescribable.

She had always been used to following behind Bai Qingqiu, long accustomed to that back view.

Five years later, that habit seemed to have returned.

She had been so confident that five years were enough to change her—that even if she hadn’t fully moved on, she could at least face Bai Qingqiu with more composure than before.

Yet ever since their reunion, in front of Bai Qingqiu she was no different from the Gu Yining of the past.

Immature. Impulsive. Jealous. And even attached.

The moment she learned from Director Qian that her chance to act had been earned glass by glass, she couldn’t think of anything else. Her first reaction was exactly the same as it had been five years ago.

The Gu Yining who clearly knew she was Bei Nanyan’s substitute, yet as long as Bai Qingqiu was willing to lie to her, she was willing to keep lying to herself, pretending she knew nothing.

But Bai Qingqiu didn’t know how to lie. And Bei Nanyan would never allow her to remain in the dark, repeatedly reminding her—directly or indirectly—of that truth. Even she herself, every time she looked into the mirror, no longer saw her own face, but Bei Nanyan’s instead.

That face—so eerily similar.

The chaos of thoughts nearly drowned her. Gu Yining knew she shouldn’t keep thinking about the past, but whenever she saw Bai Qingqiu, those thoughts followed her like a shadow, offering no escape. She lowered her eyes and quickened her pace to catch up.

Bai Qingqiu was waiting for her at the open doorway. Her expression showed no obvious emotion. Seeing Gu Yining approach, she stepped inside first.

The moment Gu Yining closed the door behind her, Bai Qingqiu’s voice sounded.

“What did you want to see me about?” Bai Qingqiu asked bluntly, her tone calm and distant.

“I just came from Director Qian,” Gu Yining said. “She drank too much and said some things I didn’t know before.” Since that was the case, she didn’t hold back. She sat down on the sofa, slipped off the high heel she’d been wearing all day. Her ankle was already rubbed red. There was nothing to be embarrassed about in front of Bai Qingqiu, so she simply took off the other shoe as well and stepped barefoot onto the floor.

Bai Qingqiu stood there, frowning slightly, clearly waiting for her to continue.

Gu Yining lifted her head and met her gaze directly, trying to find something—any other emotion—on her face.

Bai Qingqiu didn’t avoid her eyes. She returned the look calmly, as if nothing at all had happened.

“She said the reason I was able to act in her film is because of you,” Gu Yining said flatly, without reservation or euphemism, trying to provoke even the slightest ripple in her.

Bai Qingqiu didn’t even lift her brows.

“I know,” she replied.

“She told me to thank you properly. Said I should be grateful,” Gu Yining added.

That finally drew a reaction from Bai Qingqiu—at least a faint change in her tone.

“That’s not necessary.” After a brief pause, Bai Qingqiu continued, “Is that all you came to tell me?” she asked.

The question made Gu Yining suspect that the slight change in tone hadn’t been because of her words at all—but simply because Bai Qingqiu didn’t want to say another sentence to her.

Gu Yining didn’t answer.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Bai Qingqiu fell silent for a moment. There was a faint trace of helplessness in her voice when she finally spoke.

“Gu Yining, do you really think this is that important?”

That tone again. Gu Yining knew it all too well.

Whenever she held an opinion that differed from Bai Qingqiu’s—especially one that wasn’t what Bai Qingqiu wanted—this was how it always went. Even when phrased as a question, Bai Qingqiu believed deep down that only her own judgment was correct. And Gu Yining, by contrast, was always the one being unreasonable, throwing a tantrum, childish.

In the past, Gu Yining would have been furious over this.

Now, she wasn’t.

Now, she only cared about the truth.

“It matters.”

Gu Yining met Bai Qingqiu’s gaze head-on, without flinching. “If I’d known back then that this so-called opportunity was something you drank for—drank until you threw up—while pregnant, just to get it from the director, I would rather have been blacklisted than accept it. If I’d had any right to decide, I wouldn’t have agreed. I wouldn’t have wanted you to go.”

Bai Qingqiu’s expression shifted slightly. Clearly, she hadn’t expected such bluntness.

“I thought five years would’ve made you a bit more mature,” she said.

It had.

If this had been Gu Yining five years ago, that single sentence would have been enough to provoke her into losing her footing entirely, dragged along by Bai Qingqiu’s rhythm, forgetting why she’d even come here in the first place.

“Do you know why I didn’t agree?” Gu Yining asked calmly—calmer than she had ever been. Memories surfaced, one after another.

“Because five years ago, I was your girlfriend. I couldn’t stand seeing you suffer—especially suffering because of me. And it’s not like I needed that opportunity at all. I wasn’t desperate for it. With your approval, as long as I stayed at BaiXing, I never had to worry about not having work.”

Bai Qingqiu showed no reaction.

“Even if you hadn’t harmed yourself,” Gu Yining continued, “as your girlfriend, even if you were merely unhappy, I would be unhappy with you. Back then, I loved you so much that I did everything I could to change myself, to accommodate you—just so that when you came back to the villa after work, you might be a little happier, a little more relaxed.”

She paused briefly.

“Putting all that aside—just as a person, as someone with her own thoughts and pride—I also couldn’t accept that my success came not from myself, but because a director was looking past something else and giving me an opportunity for reasons that had nothing to do with my ability.”

As she spoke of the past, Gu Yining deliberately framed everything in the past tense.

As if doing so might deceive Bai Qingqiu—or herself—into believing she no longer thought that way.

But how could she be happy, knowing Bai Qingqiu had humiliated herself like that?

She couldn’t.

Not from any angle.

“Gu Yining,” Bai Qingqiu said at last, calling her by name. “Sometimes, not everything needs to be known.” Her tone finally softened.

“No. I need to know. I have the right to know.” Gu Yining didn’t retreat even a step.

“Just like I needed to know that the reason you were with me in the first place was because I looked like Bei Nanyan—because my pheromones smelled like hers. If I looked nothing like her, if I wasn’t an Alpha, if I didn’t have rose-scented pheromones, would you have still been with me?”

For a long time, Bai Qingqiu didn’t answer.

She didn’t need to.

The answer already existed—in both of their hearts.

“No,” Bai Qingqiu finally said, taking a deep breath. “I wouldn’t have. I didn’t need to.”

Gu Yining couldn’t feel any satisfaction at having guessed correctly. On the contrary, a familiar, excruciating dull pain spread through her chest, like being slowly flayed alive.

“Do you know,” Gu Yining said quietly, her voice trembling despite her effort to control it,

“back then, when I pretended in front of you that I knew nothing, every time I turned to face myself in the mirror, I would ask—this face, does it belong to me, or does it belong to Bei Nanyan? I couldn’t even be sure whether I belonged to myself.”

Five years later, Gu Yining was lying to her again.

Not entirely.

It was just that she had done so back then, and she was still doing it now.

Bai Qingqiu’s gaze flickered when she heard that, but she still said nothing.

“I once tried so hard to convince myself that none of this mattered—that your feelings for me were real,” Gu Yining went on, bitterness seeping into her voice.

“But every time you looked at me, even my own pheromones were reminding me that the person you saw wasn’t me—it was someone else. All this kindness of yours wasn’t meant for me.”

“The feelings were real, but they weren’t for me. They existed because I resembled her. Five years together amounted to nothing. It was simply another five years of Bei Nanyan and Bai Qingqiu—not five years of Gu Yining and Bai Qingqiu.”

Bai Qingqiu let her speak, offering no rebuttal. She knew Gu Yining was telling the truth.

If Gu Yining was simply Gu Yining—setting aside her looks and her pheromones—she would never have fallen within Bai Qingqiu’s criteria for a partner. From the very beginning, nothing would have started.

She had spoiled her, loved her, stayed with her—only because she resembled Bei Nanyan.

Even though she knew perfectly well that Gu Yining was Gu Yining, not Bei Nanyan—if it was Bei Nanyan, at the very least, she wouldn’t care the way Gu Yining did. She wouldn’t worry about her going out drinking. What she would care about was why everything had been arranged for her. Likewise, she wouldn’t concern herself with how the opportunity had come about.

Bei Nanyan would have accepted it without hesitation.

Both she and Bei Nanyan believed in profit above all else. If there was no benefit, no gain, neither of them would ever do it.

Gu Yining said that if she had known, she wouldn’t have accepted Director Qian’s offer.

Conversely, if Bai Qingqiu had known Gu Yining was this kind of person—if she had known they would end up here—then back when they first met at their alma mater, she would never have chosen to approach her, let alone be with her.

Bai Qingqiu rarely regretted anything.

Being with Gu Yining was one of those rare regrets.

But what was done was done, and the ending had already arrived—unchangeable. She wouldn’t dwell on it anymore.

She wasn’t like Gu Yining, dragging the past back into the present.

When Gu Yining spoke again, however, she wasn’t talking about the past. Her eyes were still misted with tears as she stared at Bai Qingqiu and revealed something she hadn’t expected.

“I didn’t come to you today to say all this. As for who’s really pulling the strings behind this incident—I think I have a suspect.”

“Who?” Bai Qingqiu frowned. She didn’t question how Gu Yining knew. Compared to that, identifying the mastermind mattered more. At least then the company wouldn’t be reacting blindly, and the damage from public opinion could be minimized.

“Bei Nanyan.”

Gu Yining smiled at her.