Moonlight Allure - Chapter 14

“I’m alright,” Jiang Xueyin said, instinctively wanting to spare Xiao Nianru from worry. But as tears blurred her vision, her voice faltered, overtaken by a sudden wave of vulnerability. “Okay, actually it’s incredibly painful.”

Yet, compared to the wreckage the original Alpha would have caused Xiao Nianru, this physical pain was trivial. In the original plot, the divorce triggered a campaign of petty revenge: the Alpha leaked rumors of “diva behavior” and “infidelity,” conspiring with marketing accounts to systematically dismantle Nianru’s career. Even Nianru’s parents, blinded by the Alpha’s wealth, betrayed her by publicly branding her “unfilial.” Eventually, under the guise of a “talk,” the Alpha kidnapped her to a foreign country, initiating a dark “forced love” arc. Broken by the double torment of mind and body, Nianru eventually slit her wrists in a bathtub only to be saved by the female lead in a “rebirth” climax.

Coming back to the present, a thought flashed through Jiang Xueyin’s mind. She asked softly, “Niannian, is your heat starting?”

Xiao Nianru gave a faint, distracted “mm.” Her gaze was fixed on the ceiling light, her expression dazed as a tidal wave of heat threatened to submerge her sanity. She hung up abruptly, unwilling to let Jiang Xueyin hear the ragged sounds she could no longer suppress.

Outside, the rain had slowed to a drizzle, trailing like tears down the windowpane. Jiang Xueyin gripped the dead phone, her heart torn. She hated that Nianru was in pain, yet she was powerless to go to her. That helpless frustration transformed into a cold, focused hatred toward those who had harmed Nianru. As her rut wound down, she meticulously cataloged every antagonist in her mind.

She picked up the empty extraction vial and inhaled deeply. A ghost of a scent remained—a fleeting comfort that felt like drinking poison to quench thirst; it soothed her nerves for a second only to leave her craving more. She opened her phone and sent the address of the safe house to Xiao Nianru. She sent nothing else.

She knew Nianru wouldn’t come. Xiao Nianru was as resolute as she was gentle.

Sighing, Jiang Xueyin took a disposable towel from the cabinet and bit down on it hard. An Alpha’s rut manifested differently for everyone; some became violent, smashing everything in sight. For others, it was purely physical agony.

When the pain in the body is that intense, one loses the sensation of biting their own tongue—an accidental injury she was determined to avoid. She lay on her side, eyes closed, enduring the final, scorching waves of the cycle.

After injecting herself with a suppressant, Xiao Nianru’s mind cleared, but she knew the relief was temporary. For a marked Omega, the effectiveness of suppressants was drastically reduced.

She checked her messages, handling urgent work matters before finally clicking on her chat with Jiang Xueyin. Seeing the address, she let out a soft sigh. “How can she be so completely unguarded?”

In their three years together, the original Jiang Xueyin had never disclosed the location of her safe houses because she had always demanded Nianru be by her side. Xiao Nianru set her phone to charge and retreated to the bedroom.

In the dead of night, the fever returned, dragging her through a disorienting haze of longing. Each time she surfaced into semi-consciousness, she struggled to inject another dose. She spent the rest of her heat in a half-awake state, battling the boundless ache of her own biology.

By the time Jiang Xueyin’s rut ended, her mind was sharp once more. Seeing the message she had sent, disclosing her secret location, she buried her face in her covers out of sheer embarrassment. She was relieved Nianru hadn’t shown up, yet a small, treacherous part of her heart felt a pang of disappointment.

On the day the rut ended, Jiang Xueyin’s mother arrived to pick her up.

“The Shengyun Group has been very aggressive lately,” Song Zhia mentioned on the way home. “Your father and brother are working themselves to the bone. When your brother was your age, he was already in the company. Would you like to join and help them out?”

“I studied directing in college; I know nothing about business,” Jiang Xueyin replied. “I’d probably just get in the way.”

In truth, she wasn’t entirely clueless. In her past life, she had studied Financial Management—a major she had hated, chosen only because of her mother’s constant nagging about “stable employment.” She had spent her days miserable in an office, haunted by unbalanced ledgers and year-end reports. Now that she had a choice, she refused to jump back into the same fire. In the novel, the Jiang family remained powerful even after the Alpha went to prison; her presence in the company wouldn’t change their fate.

“I see,” Song Zhia sighed. “By the way, Song Siyuan’s case is going to trial soon. Do you want to attend?”

“Will my presence make the sentence heavier?”

Song Zhia sat beside her on the sofa with a helpless smile. “No. The judge will rule according to the law.”

“Then I’ll pass. I have too much to catch up on. Since the evidence is airtight, he won’t be escaping justice anyway.” Jiang Xueyin smiled, though the warmth didn’t reach her eyes.

Back in her room, she opened her notebook and crossed out Song Siyuan’s name. Her finger drifted to the next entry: Xu Wei.

Should I strike at the root, or handle the catalyst? she wondered, circling the name.

She had already removed herself as the primary catalyst for Xu Wei’s betrayal, but the other key factor was Xu Wei’s Alpha boyfriend. The original novel barely mentioned him, and since he was connected to Song Siyuan, tracking him down among a sea of wealthy playboys would be difficult. Even without him, someone else might take his place.

The best solution was to convince Xu Wei to leave Xiao Nianru voluntarily. But beyond “throwing a check at her,” Jiang Xueyin couldn’t think of a better method yet. She decided to shift her focus to Song Siyuan’s inner circle.

His friends were mostly vacuous, wealthy second-generation Alphas. Those arrested at the bar were mere sycophants. Then, a name from the novel’s deeper lore surfaced in her mind: Li Jiannan. He was the sole Alpha heir of the Li family, a conglomerate that rivaled the Jiangs in the capital. Solving the problem of Li Jiannan wouldn’t just protect Nianru; it would remove a predator from the path of every Omega in the city.

A smirk played on her lips. Suddenly, her new phone vibrated. It could only be one person.