The Cold And Straight Alpha Is Always Being Flirted With By The Goddess Aunt - Chapter 36

The night deepened, the waning moon hanging like a hook.

The moonlight spilled down, stretching Yan Qing’s shadow long across the ground. After Wei Weizhi departed, Yan Qing revealed herself before Xi Zhaowan.

Though it had only been a few days since they last met, it felt as if an eternity had passed.

Yan Qing reached out, as if wanting to rush forward and hold the woman tightly, just as the woman had embraced Wei Weizhi moments ago. However, the discipline of her cultivation finally made her stop. She quelled her swirling thoughts, her gaze lingering tenderly on the woman in the white dress, who was softly enveloped by the veil like moonlight.

The moon seemed to favor Xi Zhaowan under its glow, she was exceptionally beautiful. No matter how many times they met, she always brought a fresh sense of breathtaking wonder.

For a moment, Yan Qing wanted to look back at the past and praise her beauty, yet she also felt a flare of angry interrogation. A thousand thoughts lashed against her consciousness simultaneously. She felt words she had rehearsed countless times in her mind surging in her throat, only to stick there, unspoken.

Ultimately, she withdrew her reaching hand. Her gaze swept over the curve of the woman’s skirt, and she managed only a dull, whispered question: “Sister Wan, are you cold?”

She took off her outer coat and held it out to Xi Zhaowan.

Xi Zhaowan’s expression was soft and gentle. “Qing’er, I’m not cold.” She looked up at the bright moon. “The night is deep and the dew is heavy. If there is something Qing’er wishes to discuss, shall we do it another day?”

“Be good. Go home early; you have classes tomorrow.”

Yan Qing bit her lip. Again. Always using the guise of “doing what’s best for her” to practice the act of silent avoidance.

She was rejecting her. Flickering with annoyance, Yan Qing disregarded the refusal, draped the coat over Xi Zhaowan’s shoulders, and tightened her grip even as she felt the woman’s subtle, graceful attempt to push her away.

Through the fabric of the coat, Yan Qing wrapped her arms around her from behind.

“I’m worried you’ll catch a cold. Please, don’t make me worry.”

“And don’t refuse to let me near you. You were so close to me before.”

“Qing’er, we are family. This is too close…” Xi Zhaowan replied.

“Can family not be close to you?” Yan Qing did not understand.

But family members wouldn’t do the intimate things they did during the healing sessions. Xi Zhaowan’s mind was in disarray. She brushed away Yan Qing’s hands from her waist. “When you grow up, you will understand. Everything that happened between us was just a moment of confusion and a delusion.”

“So, your acceptance of Wei Weizhi, your silent permission for her to approach you, that isn’t a delusion?” Yan Qing asked sharply, facing her after being pushed away.

Xi Zhaowan closed her eyes. “Yes, you can think of it that way.”

“Then your feelings for me, the way you allowed me to treat you during healing… was that also just a moment of confusion for you?”

Xi Zhaowan turned her back. In the long, scorching wait, she felt like a gambler staking everything on a single, desperate bet.

“Yes!” she heard herself answer.

“Then what do you take me for? A healer? A tool to calm your pheromone disorder?” Yan Qing pressed.

“Just family. Qing’er, I am your elder.” Stop talking, Xi Zhaowan thought, turning away again.

“An elder?” Was age really that important? By the count of her previous life, she was actually much older than Xi Zhaowan.

“Yes. I only see you as a junior, just like Qianqian.”

Xi Zhaowan listened to herself speak these foreign words while another version of herself screamed in frantic defense. Not a junior. She was the most special person in the untouchable, private corners of her heart. Yet her words remained icy:

“I know Qianqian likes you very much, and you clearly liked her a lot before, too.”

“It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have lost control during the healing. I overstepped my bounds.”

“So, you simply lost control? It wasn’t your own conscious will at all?” Yan Qing asked.

“Yes. It was all controlled by pheromones and toxins. Qing’er, you know that as an Omega, it’s hard to avoid periods of losing control.”

“So, if it had been Wei Weizhi who appeared that day, you would have accepted her mark too?” Yan Qing’s throat felt bitter and dry. Once again, Xi Zhaowan was hiding behind the title of “Auntie Wan.”

Xi Zhaowan stiffened. Looking at the girl’s persistent sincerity, she felt a pang of pity. But remembering a certain knot in her heart, she couldn’t hold back. “Qing’er, you are an Alpha. Just as you could mark Qianqian, you could mark me as well.”

Yan Qing’s face turned pale. Ah, she finally knew.

But Xi Zhaowan’s next words left her without the strength to even explain.

“Since I am an Omega, if I can be marked by you, I can just as easily be marked by Wei Weizhi. After all, she is also an Alpha.”

No. The first person to mark Ji Qianqian was Yan Qinghe, and the second was her but it wasn’t by her choice.

She wanted to explain that it was because Ji Qianqian was in danger, a victim of a potent heat-inducing reagent. But Xi Zhaowan’s sentence stripped her of all desire to defend herself.

Wei Weizhi again. It turned out that in her heart, Yan Qing was merely a junior, and their supposed feelings were just a “delusion.” Only someone like Wei Weizhi was an Alpha who could “rightfully” mark her.

Yan Qing’s fingernails dug into her palms. She let out a low sigh, like a drifting autumn leaf of sorrow. “If I said I never liked Ji Qianqian, you wouldn’t believe me, would you?”

“If you don’t believe that, can you at least believe this: even if ‘I’ once liked her, I no longer do. Instead, all my gaze is now fixed on someone else.”

The other person who had taken residence in her heart.

“Aren’t you curious who that person is?”

“Right now, this heart does not beat for Ji Qianqian, and it never will again.”

She reached out, took Xi Zhaowan’s hand, spread her palm open, and pressed it against her own chest.

“It beats only for this person.”

The girl looked up in the moonlight, her eyes as sincere and clear as a deer drinking at dawn, gazing deeply into her.

Beneath Xi Zhaowan’s palm was the girl’s heartbeat. One throb, then another, as she held it close, the rhythm accelerated much like her rare, fiery confession. Each beat echoed in her ears. Xi Zhaowan felt half-joy and half-sorrow, but she forced herself to pull away as if she had been burned.

Seeing Xi Zhaowan’s silence, Yan Qing mustered her courage. Don’t let me down, Sister Wan. Speaking these words today was a first in her life.

At this moment, the weight of the words “Great Dao” inscribed on the jade pendant she wore felt equal to the weight of Xi Zhaowan herself.

She had come before Xi Zhaowan with a heart that sought a truth in this ABO world that could rival the Heavens and endure as long as the universe.

On the surface, she had waited for two and a half hours after school, but Yan Qing felt she had been waiting for this moment in secret for a very long time.

Yet, Xi Zhaowan’s answer was as cold as the frost gathered on her skin.

“Qing’er, you have grown up, but you haven’t fully matured yet. It’s understandable to take the wrong path sometimes.”

“If the path is wrong from the start, then the people you meet on that path should be abandoned.”

“If it is difficult to let go for a time, you must control yourself.”

“Control what?” Yan Qing’s palms stung. She suppressed the pain to ask. A strange, aching sensation began to crawl from her fingertips toward her limbs.

“Control your desire to get close,” Xi Zhaowan replied, forcing her voice to remain harsh despite the stinging in her eyes. “To stay away from people you shouldn’t be close to.”

Those words were like a barrage of needles, carrying the pain from her limbs straight to her heart.

Yan Qing took a deep breath, deciding to let this unfamiliar emotion run wild one last time. Like a child who had lived a sheltered life only to be plagued by love in adulthood, she spoke the words hidden in the depths of her soul:

“Now, I can control the chaos of my pheromones, I can control myself so I no longer have nightmares, and I can control myself from messaging you. But the only thing I cannot control is my heartbeat when I am near you.”

Xi Zhaowan: “Qing’er, don’t say any more.”

Yan Qing: “But I can’t control the low mood when you don’t reply to my messages. I can’t control how much I miss you when I don’t see you.”

And I can’t control the heartbreak when you run away from me.

The corners of the girl’s eyes were crimson, and bitter tears threatened to fall. She clutched the jade pendant at her chest, desperate to find a sliver of peace from the “Great Dao.”

Xi Zhaowan’s expression was one of misery. “Qing’er, I don’t want you to be sad.”

“Why is Qing’er sad?” Xi Zhaowan whispered to herself, the pain piercing her core, as if both denying and affirming the truth.

Yes, Qing’er must like her. She liked her. How wonderful!

But also, how terrible. Because she had already decided to let her go, regardless of whether Yan Qing liked Ji Qianqian or not.

The thought of those diaries caused a blockage in her heart.

But thinking of their social standing, and of her friendship with Yan Manxing, especially after Manxing had visited to look after and protect her, the guilt in her heart had piled up into a massive chasm.

She could no longer trick herself into ignoring it. She could no longer use a heat cycle or poisoning as an excuse to indulge in a moment of abandonment and surrender.

Hearing the woman actually ask why she was sad, Yan Qing replied hatefully:

“Because you are not sad.”

Sister Wan has no heart. The moonlight made her face appear blurred and unreal.

While waiting, the moonlight had covered the ground.

But as the time for parting came, the night donned a black robe, swallowing the earth. The dark clouds merged into one with the sky.

In the darkness, it felt as though there were a pair of pitch-black eyes, hidden in the shadows and veiled in white, watching Yan Qing intently.

Yan Qing returned alone to the sprawling Yan residence. The butler and servants had already retired for the night, and she did not disturb them.

Her footsteps were heavy as she walked toward the large rooftop terrace. She collapsed onto the open-air floor, where high-end plush carpets cut the chill of the night and softened the mountain-like weight pressing on her heart.

She placed the star globe on a round table and let herself sink into the soft cushions of the carpet. The globe rotated, its flickering, faint light casting alternating shadows across her exquisite features.

Her eyes were sore and burning. She mocked herself with a silent, bitter laugh, relieved that she hadn’t lost face by crying in front of Xi Zhaowan. Yet, now that she was home, her eyes throbbed and the bridge of her nose stung. She blinked rapidly, forcing herself to stare at the sky.

Only she knew how foolish it was to tilt her head back and blink at the stars to hold back tears. If her tens of thousands of disciples were to discover that the Great Master of the Qingyun Sect was weeping, not for the common people, not for her cultivation, but for a woman, what would they think?

But what did it matter? The most important thing was that she had been rejected by the woman she loved.

She tried to comfort herself, it wasn’t as if she had nothing. Without Xi Zhaowan, she still had her cultivation. In the years to come, she would simply devote her entire soul to the path of immortality.

What was so good about Xi Zhaowan anyway? She was so proud, so rational, so utterly heartless.

Yan Qing had bared her soul, she had fallen in love for the first time in her life, only to be avoided like a venomous snake. Her pride and self-respect made it impossible to approach Xi Zhaowan again, yet her affection and longing made it impossible to stop thinking of her.

Yan Qing sniffed, finally forcing the tears back. As the moon faded, the stars began to emerge one by one, forming chains across the night sky.

Taking a deep breath, she merged her consciousness into the sea of stars. Resting her right hand behind her head in a reclining posture, she began to practice the Guangming (Luminous) Mantra.

The human heart is wider than the night sky. As Yan Qing let her mind wander through the vast galaxy, she suddenly felt the immensity of heaven and earth. Her small pangs of pain felt insignificantly soothed within this expansive starlight. She tried to float further, letting the long night and the starry sky dilute the ache in her limbs and bones.

In that instant, she gained a flash of insight regarding the entanglement between the “Great Dao” and the “Beautiful One” residing on opposite sides of her heart. She had always feared that falling in love would hinder her cultivation, but perhaps tempering one’s heart through love was a form of cultivation in itself.

Just as losing one’s balance for love is a way of living a balanced life.

Both love and cultivation require one’s whole heart. Once committed, there is no turning back, no room for half-heartedness. It was a strange realization that the two might actually be integrated.

In the past, she had been too rigid about the purity of the Dao. Yet, the moment she grasped this truth, the woman she loved chose to distance herself.

A gust of wind blew. Amidst the bitterness, Yan Qing chose not to open her eyes, quietly feeling the wind stir the red string and the small bell on her wrist.

“Ding-ling, ding-ling.” The bell chimed.

She suddenly remembered what Xi Zhaowan had once told her: “Qing’er, if you feel scared or uncomfortable, just ring this bell, and I’ll come to stay with you, okay?”

Those warm words, that gentle and concerned face… In a daze, she seemed to see Xi Zhaowan returning to the Yan residence, hurrying with an urgent, regretful expression. Step by step, she drew closer, just like those times during nightmares when they huddled close together under the covers.

Scene after scene played vividly before her. The warmth of the past shattered her meditative state, and the pain returned to her heart like the gouging of a knife. With her eyes closed, under the weight of it all, her defenses crumbled, and a single tear escaped.

Through the haze, long, warm fingertips wiped the tear away. A tender hand, soft as water, brushed against her cheek. It felt as though she had truly appeared.

Yan Qing smiled bitterly. Now even cultivation wasn’t working, she was hallucinating. This realization filled her with sorrow, the thought that even a life dedicated to the Dao couldn’t stop the phantom of Xi Zhaowan from appearing made the tears flow even faster.

Great. She really had nothing left. Even her cultivation had degraded into trash.

The owner of those fingertips seemed startled by Yan Qing’s tears, her touch filled with heartache. As if making a final decision, she brushed her long hair to one side, pulled Yan Qing into her arms, and leaned down.

Yan Qing stiffened. As if in a dream, the familiar, light scent of white gardenia enveloped her. Her tears were being meticulously kissed away by soft lips. She heard the other woman cooing to her like she was a baby: “Qing’er, be good. Stop crying, okay?”

Her eyelids, her cheeks, her jaw, the woman’s red lips pecked at them all as if treating a priceless treasure, kissing away every drop of sorrow.

Ah, was it her? Had she come after all? Because she couldn’t stop worrying? So, it wasn’t an illusion?

Yan Qing opened her eyes. Above her, the woman she loved was looking down with a thousand layers of tenderness. Amidst the sea of stars, she had come, draped in soft light.

They said many things, but there was only one sentence that filled Yan Qing with joy, healing all her bitterness and breaking through like a beam of light in her life.

This woman, the one held closest to her heart, was filled with tenderness. Summoning what seemed like ten thousand measures of courage, she looked into Yan Qing’s eyes with a timid, restless, and heartbreakingly beautiful gaze:

“Qing’er, are you willing to let me be close to you again?”

Not as Auntie Wan, not as an elder sister, but simply as Xi Zhaowan.