The Heartless Alpha Just Wants to Follow the Plot - Chapter 74

When Pu Ying had stumbled to the door back then, Su Mo was waiting there with a haughty, arrogant expression. “I just, I just happened to be walking by and hummed a bit,” she said, her voice dripping with mock condescension. “Don’t go thinking I did it on purpose.”

But Pu Ying had clearly seen the tips of the girl’s ears flushing a bright crimson.

Su Mo tilted her chin up and fished a pink fruit gummy from her pocket, handing it over like a grand favor. She averted her eyes, muttering, “This isn’t for you. I just don’t like the taste.”

As she spoke, she used a clean silk handkerchief to wipe the sweat from Pu Ying’s pale face with an air of feigned disgust. Seeing how sickly Pu Ying looked, Su Mo pursed her lips and barked an order: “Go to sleep, now. What are you doing wandering around in the middle of the night?”

She shoved the handkerchief into Pu Ying’s arms and strode away impatiently, as if she truly had just been passing through.

Clutching the fabric, Pu Ying inhaled the scent—a fragrance she loved and a faint, genuine smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

Perhaps that was the moment the seeds of both her deep-seated inferiority and her unrequited love began to sprout.

Once she passed the most dangerous stage of her recovery, she moved into the Su estate permanently. She soon discovered that Su Mo was surprisingly “clueless” when it came to daily life; in some ways, her personality was almost endearingly simple. Pu Ying began to learn how to care for Su Mo, returning the kindness she had once received.

Qiu Fu sat holding her bowl in silence, listening to the history between the two women. In Pu Ying’s memories, Su Mo was radiant, possessing a charm and grace that was a world apart from the woman Qiu Fu knew today.

With her cheeks flushed from the wine and her eyes hazy, Pu Ying whispered, “She told me I was the most important person in her life. She said she needed me. So, I followed her. Every task she found inconvenient, I did for her.”

Pu Ying let out a soft, hollow laugh. “I thought I would be healed. I thought I would adapt. But the closer I got to her, the heavier my heart became. I didn’t dare hope for her to return my feelings and I didn’t dare accept them if she did.”

Her broken body was a constant reminder: she was not the person Su Mo truly needed.

“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind using IVF or artificial gestation.” Qiu Fu said, her heart aching for the woman.

“No,” Pu Ying cut her off instantly. “There isn’t enough time.”

“Not enough time?”

Qiu Fu didn’t understand. How could there not be enough time? To raise a child only takes ten months.

Pu Ying smiled bitterly. “Sometimes, I truly envy you. You understand nothing; you can just focus on being yourself.”

Having barely touched her dumplings, Pu Ying stood up and swayed as she left the room. Qiu Fu wanted to follow and press for answers, but seeing the grim determination in Pu Ying’s gait, she hesitated.

After a moment, she followed at a distance to ensure Pu Ying reached her room safely. Back in her own room, Qiu Fu couldn’t shake the unease. She had to know the truth. If Su Mo and Pu Ying had once been that close, then she had no right to be the third wheel coming between them.

Amidst the distant cheers of the New Year celebrations outside, Chou Fu dialed Su Mo’s light-brain.

Su Mo stared at the incoming call notification, her expression flat, as if she were slow to process the prompt.

[Host, you have a call,] the System whispered.

“Mmhmm,” Su Mo responded lazily.

[Should I connect?]

“Connect it.”

Just as Qiu Fu was about to give up, the call went through.

Seeing Su Mo’s exquisite, striking features rendered soft and mysterious by the ambient lighting, Qiu Fu felt a pang of realization. She had never truly seen through this woman. Just as the Old Master had once asked: which side of Su Mo was the real one?

Or more accurately, had Su Mo ever shown her true heart to any of them?

“Su Mo.”

“Yes.”

They stared at each other through the holographic display, a long silence stretching between them. Finally, Su Mo spoke first. “Is something the matter?”

Qiu Fu found herself tongue-tied. Should she ask? This was Su Mo’s business; what did it have to do with her? The woman had never once said she liked her, nor had they ever defined their relationship. It was all her own obsession.

“If there’s nothing else, I’ll hang—”

“Wait!” Qiu Fu blurted out, thinking of Pu Ying’s shattered expression.

“Go on.” Su Mo’s face remained indifferent, as if nothing in this world could truly move her.

Qiu Fu took a deep breath. “Pu Ying, her past. Do you still remember it?”

Pu Ying’s past? What about it?

Su Mo searched her memory for Pu Ying’s plot points. There were many gaps; the original narrative rarely touched on her history.

Seeing Su Mo struggling so hard to remember, Qiu Fu felt a wave of indignation on Pu Ying’s behalf.

“Do you even know what she—”

Qiu Fu grit her teeth, stopping herself from letting the secret slip. Her body trembled with a mix of pity and anger. They were both Omegas; she knew that a destroyed gland and a ruined body meant a future where one could never truly be with a loved one. The mere thought was unbearable.

Yet Pu Ying had endured it all alone.

How strong did she have to be? And how could Su Mo the very person who had forged that strength and once offered such kindness forget that girl so easily?

Qiu Fu’s eyes reddened with conflicted emotion. Seeing this, Su Mo realized something was fundamentally wrong.

System, is Pu Ying’s backstory incomplete in my files?

[No, it isn’t,] the System replied.

What about her past with the original host? What happened when she first entered the industry? Where is the data for that period?

System: [“…” ]

Give it to me.

[I can’t, Host. ]

Don’t give me that, Su Mo snapped internally. Hand it over.

The System hesitated for a long beat before finally pulling up the hidden data of the “forgotten” plot.

[According to the protocols, the moment you designated your primary target, the pasts of all others became irrelevant. You don’t need to know them, and you don’t need to understand them. Your only duty is to assist the heroine, Tan Ya.]

[Pu Ying is merely a stepping stone in the grand design. Her past has no meaning.]

As Su Mo’s expression darkened, the System’s voice grew progressively weaker until it faded into nothingness.

Su Mo stared at the detailed storyline now unfolding before her. Her fingers trembled slightly, and her mind went momentarily blank.

Why didn’t you tell me this from the start?

The System, caught off guard, scrambled to justify itself: [Because she, she isn’t a key character. The mission parameters didn’t include much of her profile. Her past, even if you didn’t know it, wouldn’t—]

The words “matter at all” died in the System’s throat as it sensed a surge of furious mental energy radiating from Su Mo. It didn’t understand human emotions; it merely processed tasks according to the main objective. Anything unrelated was simply never brought up.

But Su Mo seemed genuinely enraged.

It appeared Pu Ying occupied a much larger space in Su Mo’s heart than the System had calculated.

[Host, even if you had known, the primary mission would not have allowed you to involve yourself too deeply with Pu Ying. Since that’s the case, isn’t it better to simply ignore it from the beginning?]

Su Mo bit her lower lip. While that was logically true, the reality felt far more brutal.

She pressed a hand against her chest, which throbbed with a dull, heavy ache. She lacked the original host’s memories, but this body, it remembered. It remembered everything that had happened all those years ago. Every time she tried to forget, the body found a way to remind her.

“Su Mo? Su Mo, what’s wrong?”

Seeing Su Mo turn pale, her lips losing all color, Qiu Fu panicked. Had she brought up something she shouldn’t have?

“Are you okay?” Qiu Fu paced restlessly, wanting to reach out to her, but the digital barrier between them made it impossible. She could only watch in frantic helplessness.

Su Mo took a deep breath, trying to ease the suffocating pressure in her chest, as if a heavy fist were crushing her heart. After a long moment, she shook her head with difficulty.

“I’m fine.”

The words were forced out through grit teeth, and Qiu Fu didn’t believe her for a second. “I’ll call Pu—”

“Don’t!” Su Mo snapped, her voice sharp. “Don’t call her.”

“But you look—”

Qiu Fu’s eyes were red. She felt paralyzed, torn between two wrong choices.

Su Mo took two long, heavy breaths until she felt somewhat steady. Looking at Qiu Fu whose eyes were wet and who seemed entirely unaware she was crying, Su Mo’s voice softened. “What are you crying for? You’ll get wrinkles.”

The tender consolation only made Qiu Fu think of Pu Ying. Did Pu Ying once receive this same warmth from Su Mo?

The more she thought, the more she felt the injustice of Pu Ying’s position. The bitterness that had been building in her heart finally overflowed. She broke down, sobbing openly. “Is it my fault? Did I do something to make things like this between you two?”

“If I hadn’t intervened, you two would surely still be together.”

“It has nothing to do with you.”

Su Mo’s tone was unusually firm. Perhaps from the moment the Old Master had told her to make her own choice, she had already decided.

“It’s not your fault.”

Su Mo watched Qiu Fu, a sudden wave of warmth surging through her. She spoke slowly: “Do you believe in parallel universes?”

“Or rather, do you believe it’s possible for the ‘past’ version of a person and the ‘present’ version to be two completely different people?”

[Host.]

Shut up.

The System looked at Su Mo with a sense of dejected helplessness. It knew what she was about to say, but it could no longer intervene. From the moment the plot began to collapse, the System had lost its grip on the narrative.

Qiu Fu stared at her blankly. “Parallel universes?”

Then, she began to cry even harder. “You’re still lying to me! You’re even using sci-fi nonsense to trick me now!”

Su Mo, who had finally decided to tell the truth twice in one night: “…”

“I’m not lying to you.” She paused, letting out a soft sigh. “Stop crying. I can’t reach through the screen to wipe your tears away.”

Qiu Fu hiccupped. She knew it was the truth, but it sounded so cold and distant. She choked out a small, “I don’t need you to—”

Su Mo looked at her with an indulgent, fond gaze. “I know. But for now, just listen to a story.”

A story from a very distant place.

A story about who she really was.