Senior, Stop Pretending to be an Alpha - Chapter 3

In the end, Yu Qiao didn’t manage to treat Xie Bufei to lunch.

Before the last class of the morning ended, Xie Bufei was called out of the school gates by a friend’s phone call. The person on the other end was wailing so loudly it sounded as if they needed her to save the world at a bar.

Yu Qiao was stood up, but she wasn’t surprised. For a campus celebrity like Xie Bufei, the fact that their paths had crossed at all was a bit of a miracle. She didn’t hold high expectations for things she couldn’t control, so she wouldn’t be disappointed; it was as simple as that.

Xie Bufei sent a WeChat message specifically, her phrasing sounding quite guilty: “So sorry! A friend needs me for something urgent, I can’t make it this time.”

Yu Qiao was sitting in her dorm, closing a job-hunting thread on the campus forum, when she felt her phone vibrate. She looked down and replied: “It’s okay, Senior, go ahead and handle your business.”

The name “Gary” at the top of the chat had been overwritten with the words “Senior.” No surname was included, which gave it a sense of quiet intimacy for no particular reason. Yu Qiao had considered whether to just use “Xie Bufei” as the contact name, but she felt it wasn’t quite right.

She couldn’t explain why.

Senior: “Mhm. Then you can treat me next time.”

She didn’t even ask for an opinion. Paired with the blue-eyed Ragdoll cat avatar, the message had a certain feline imperiousness. It was as if everyone was supposed to follow her lead, being pulled along until they were dizzy and disoriented.

Strangely, Yu Qiao didn’t dislike this bossy side of her personality. Recalling the way Xie Bufei had stuck her tongue out after being burned that morning, she smiled to herself and slowly typed back: “Okay.”

As noon approached, the bar was deserted and quiet. Xie Bufei stared at her phone screen until her shoulder was suddenly bumped by Cheng Yeli. “What are you smiling at? Is the phone better looking than me?”

Xie Bufei slowly raised her head. Looking at the handsome boy with red-rimmed eyes in front of her, her voice dropped eight degrees in temperature: “You want to die, don’t you?”

Cheng Yeli, teary-eyed after drinking his sorrows away, said, “How can you be like this? I just got dumped, and you’re still being so mean to me!”

Xie Bufei: “Is it my fault you got dumped?”

Cheng Yeli was a picture of misery. “The least you could do is comfort me.”

Xie Bufei glanced at her chat window and gave a perfunctory reply: “Yeah, yeah. Don’t be sad, she wasn’t right for you. Don’t cry over a trashy Alpha, it’s not worth it.”

Cheng Yeli sobbed, “My heart is broken. Fifteen years of childhood friendship… it was all for nothing.” Seeing that Xie Bufei was ignoring him, he added angrily, “Comrade Xie Bufei, if you stay this mean, watch out—no Alpha will ever want you!”

He and Xie Bufei were childhood friends and neighbors. From elementary school to university, they had been in the same schools and classes, competing to be the “model child” and bickering countless times, yet they remained steadfast in keeping each other’s secrets.

After nineteen years of bitter struggle, their competitive streaks remained strong and evenly matched. However, Cheng Yeli considered himself a romance expert. While he might not beat Xie Bufei in other areas, he believed he wouldn’t lose in love—he had experience, whereas Xie Bufei was a complete blank slate!

Who would have thought that an Omega like Xie Bufei, who looked like a heart-stealing enchantress, had never actually been in a serious relationship? People either found her too cold and stayed away, or they ran for the hills after discovering the “spoiled young lady” temper hidden beneath her “flower on a high ridge” exterior.

Not to mention, the lady was currently pretending to be an Alpha, which fundamentally cut off all possibilities.

To his surprise, Xie Bufei looked up, and for some reason, her red lips curled into a faint smile. “Not necessarily.”

Seeing his childhood friend smiling like a peacock showing off its feathers, Cheng Yeli looked as though he’d been struck by lightning. “Something’s actually going on?!” He leaned in, only to be pushed away by Xie Bufei’s hand, yet he kept talking. “Who is it? Where does she live? Does she know you’re an Omega?”

Xie Bufei looked toward the door, her tone chilly. “Watch yourself. If your fangirls find out you’re actually a ‘mother hen’ type, your public image will collapse and they’ll turn on you instantly.”

Cheng Yeli sneered, “Well, your fanboys and fangirls don’t know you’re an Omega pretending to be an Alpha either. Hey, so which ‘cabbage’ is about to be uprooted by a ‘pig’ like you?!”

“Get lost, I’m not telling you.”

Cheng Yeli: “Fine, but you can tell me one thing. Is she pretty?”

In the dim yellow light of the bar, Xie Bufei rested her chin on her hand, her fox-like eyes narrowing slightly as she wore a playful smile. “Quite pretty.”

Yu Qiao pushed open the glass door of a street-corner coffee shop, and a wave of heat came rolling in.

In early autumn, the scorching sun made the asphalt soft and shimmering. Standing on it felt like being wrapped in a wave of heat, with light pressing in from all directions until one felt faint. She took a deep breath, opened her parasol, and walked quickly back toward the school.

Checking the recruitment messages in her part-time job group on her phone, Yu Qiao crossed the coffee shop off her list and started looking for the next option.

The shop wasn’t far from school, and the pay wasn’t bad with daily wages, but they had a strict requirement of at least three consecutive hours of work per day. Yu Qiao couldn’t squeeze that much time out. Her classes were packed for several days in a row, and on her days off, she had to work on designs, run programs, and find time to study in the library.

Despite working like a machine, she tried her best not to miss her shifts at the cafeteria. However, the workload for a freshman was heavy. Sometimes she couldn’t fully coordinate with the cafeteria’s schedule; if a teacher ran a bit late, she wouldn’t make it back in time.

From the increasingly disdainful looks given by the kitchen aunties, Yu Qiao knew the cafeteria job wouldn’t last long. She could only search everywhere for a job with shorter hours to stabilize her situation first.

After spending the afternoon interviewing for a few positions, Yu Qiao had a few ideas in mind. She grabbed a simple dinner at a spicy hotpot stall outside the school and headed back.

The evening campus felt as if it were encased in amber; time seemed to slow down, and the sunset glow dyed everything in sight a beautiful orange-red. Since the sun wasn’t as fierce, Yu Qiao folded her umbrella and took the small path from the back gate toward the female dorms.

The path passed through a garden, a favorite spot for young couples. As Yu Qiao walked by, she suddenly heard the faint sound of an argument.

“Wahhh…”

“You, fucking that’s enough!”

Yu Qiao originally didn’t want to mind other people’s business, but the crying and shouting grew louder, sounding particularly piercing on the quiet path. She paused, knit her brows, and walked toward the source of the sound.

The voices grew closer. Passing through several blooming jasmine bushes, Yu Qiao saw a man and a woman standing face-to-face, appearing to be a couple. The man was very impatient, wearing a suit with slicked-back hair—dressed like a so-called “high-quality male.” The girl was dressed simply, sobbing into her hands.

Yu Qiao listened quietly. It seemed they were arguing because their relationship had fallen apart. As the argument grew more heated, the man’s face suddenly turned red, and he abruptly raised his hand toward the girl—

But his hand didn’t land. It was caught mid-air, unable to move forward or back.

“Who… who are you?” The man’s expression changed when he saw the figure that had suddenly appeared behind him.

Yu Qiao gripped his wrist firmly and said coldly, “Stay away from her.”

The man tried to break free but felt as if his wrist were being squeezed by an iron vice. The strength was terrifying. This girl looked ordinary, so how was she so strong?!

Feeling he had lost face, his face turned pale with anger. “Fuck, where did this Alpha come from? Are you involved with this woman too?” His tone was a complete mismatch for his refined appearance.

The girl standing to the side widened her eyes in terror. “You… don’t talk nonsense!”

Yu Qiao didn’t reveal that she was just a Beta. She glanced at the girl and said, “I don’t know her.”

The man snapped, “Then what the fuck are you meddling for?!”

“Because hitting people is wrong.”

Looking at his distorted expression, memories of a certain moment surged in Yu Qiao’s mind. Blood, shimmering glass shards, the silent silhouette of a man, and her mother’s bruised, weeping face flashed by in a chaotic blur. At night, the piercing screams were inescapable, and shadows crawled like mist over the moonlit city, seeping into her exhausted body.

“Xiao Qiao is so good, don’t grow up to be like your father.”

Yu Qiao’s fingers convulsed instinctively. Her face went pale, and her gaze darkened bit by bit.

“I’m teaching my woman a lesson, you have a problem with that?!”

Enraged by her simple sentence, the man’s Alpha pheromone switch was flipped. Like a bomb with a lit fuse, the pheromones poured out violently, spreading through the air with destructive force. He glared at Yu Qiao provocatively, waiting to see her get flustered under the influence of the pheromones, but to his surprise, Yu Qiao remained grim-faced; even her blinking frequency didn’t change.

What’s going on? Isn’t she an Alpha? The man froze.

Yu Qiao suddenly looked up at him, and the man shuddered violently. Shaking off the man’s hand, Yu Qiao said to the girl, “Go, quickly.”

The Omega girl nodded, her face flushed with an unnatural redness from the pheromones. She stammered a warning: “Thank you… be careful, he released his pheromones on purpose just now, probably to provoke you.”

No wonder…

Yu Qiao’s tone softened. “Okay, I know.”

The girl thanked her repeatedly and ran off, looking back with every few steps.

The man suddenly snapped out of his fear, his face turning red with rage. “Fuck! What exactly do you want? What does it have to do with you! You…”

In his desperation, he actually raised his hand again.

Thump!

An unidentified object struck his forehead at what felt like the speed of light. Before Yu Qiao even had a chance to act, the man let out a scream, clutched his forehead, and slumped down. At the same time, the object fell to the ground, its pages fluttering open like snowflakes—”The History of Chinese Music Development…”

It was actually a professional textbook, looking as thick as a brick. Being hit by that likely caused a concussion.

A familiar chuckle came from the end of the path. “Heh, a precision headshot.”

Yu Qiao’s breath hitched. She turned her head and saw Xie Bufei standing deep among the shadows of the flowers, a casual smile on her face. With her curved eyes, white teeth, snowy skin, and jet-black hair, she looked even more vibrant than the trembling flower branches beside her.

Meeting her gaze, Xie Bufei walked toward her with long strides and winked. “Qiaoqiao, we meet again.”

Qiaoqiao…

When that name came from her mouth, the breath was soft and the tone was rising, sounding peculiarly teasing to Yu Qiao’s ears. The coldness in Yu Qiao’s eyes gradually faded, and she curled her fingers awkwardly, feeling a bit lost.

Every time Xie Bufei appeared, it made her feel as though things were slowly slipping out of her control.

…How could it be such a coincidence again?

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