Transmigrated as the Cannon Fodder Boss of the Disabled Heroine - Chapter 29

After Yu Zhiwan’s online alias “Little Fish” was exposed, she and Pei Yujiang started addressing each other directly by name. The only exception was at the company, where Yu Zhiwan would call Pei Yujiang “Little Pei” or “Director Pei” like everyone else.

Pei Yujiang’s family usually called her “Xiao Yu,” while Liu Huanran and Zhao Manlin referred to Yu Zhiwan as “Wanwan”, both clearly had affectionate nicknames.

But when Yu Zhiwan posed this question, Pei Yujiang quickly started thinking.

The implication was obvious: Yu Zhiwan wanted a special name between them, something different from the usual. Otherwise, she could just call her “Xiao Yu”, why bother with all this?

The crisp, cool snowfall in Ningxiang seemed to awaken Pei Yujiang’s emotional intelligence, making her mind race.

“How about you call me ‘Fish Sauce’?”

“Fish Sauce” was a playful homophone of her real name, “Yujiang.” Calling her “Yujiang” outright sounded a bit too formal, like something an elder would say not the trend these days.

Plus, “Fish Sauce” sounded delicious and cheeky. Feeling rather pleased with herself, Pei Yujiang then asked Yu Zhiwan:

“Then what should I call you? ‘Squid Ball’?”

Once she landed on “Fish Sauce,” Pei Yujiang couldn’t help but lean into food-themed nicknames. Though “Squid Ball” wasn’t quite right, it should’ve been “Cuttlefish Ball.”

Yu Zhiwan had never heard of “Squid Ball” before, and after Pei Yujiang explained, she couldn’t help but laugh. Meanwhile, Pei Yujiang licked her lips.

“It’s so cold. I wish we had some fish sauce and cuttlefish balls right now.”

When she said this, she wasn’t thinking about any “couple nickname” implications her mind was entirely occupied by the delicious food she’d been enjoying lately.

Pei Jinhuai had once taken her to a foreign restaurant, and Pei Yujiang still couldn’t forget the taste fragrant, bouncy, with an amazing texture, especially when paired with broth.

Her stomach had long been growling. They’d only eaten some snacks and tea on the plane, and after returning to the homestay, they hadn’t had dinner. They’d been about to grill when that whole incident happened, and by the time they got back, she was starving.

The problem was, Ningxiang had very few places open at night. It was a slow-paced city, with 24-hour convenience stores only in the downtown area forget about the suburbs.

Ordering takeout wasn’t an option either. The high delivery fee wasn’t the issue, it was the fact that no deliveries were available at this hour.

By the time they returned to the homestay, Yu Zhiwan was exhausted, but Pei Yujiang was still full of energy.

After working so hard, if she didn’t reward her stomach properly, she wouldn’t be able to sleep well.

After pacing around the homestay, Pei Yujiang suddenly had an idea. She went into the kitchen, opened the cabinets, and found an unopened bundle of noodles and a few packs of instant ramen both cup and bag varieties.

The fridge had eggs, ham, luncheon meat, and some vegetables. Though the ingredients weren’t abundant making for a rather simple meal it was more than enough for a late-night snack.

In her past life, Pei Yujiang had survived on roots and nutrient paste during military campaigns, so she shouldn’t have been picky about food. But after crossing over and indulging in good meals for a while, her standards had risen especially when it came to eating.

As Yu Zhiwan went to wash up, Pei Yujiang poked her head out from the kitchen and called:

“‘Squid Ball,’ want me to make you a bowl of longevity noodles?”

“Sure.”

Hearing the affirmative answer, Pei Yujiang happily got to work in the kitchen.

After washing her hands, Yu Zhiwan turned off the bathroom faucet but remained seated in her wheelchair for a long time without moving up the step to exit.

“Buzz!”

Her phone vibrated with an incoming call, it had rung once earlier outside, prompting her to quickly switch it to silent mode.

Yu Zhiwan put on a Bluetooth earpiece while staying alert to any sounds from beyond the door:

“What is it?”

“After that day, Ms. Pei hasn’t visited any bars or nightclubs. Her relationship with her younger sister Jiang Wenxiu has always been strained. She originally lived separately, unwilling to return home, but for some reason, she went back recently before moving into that residential complex.”

“Jiang Wenxiu has also been rarely seen in bars or clubs lately. Pei Jinhuai and Fan Zhaozhao are acting as usual. Previously, Kalian hacked into her computer and found searches about whether purchasing ‘black-market pheromone extract’ would incur criminal liability. Other than that, there’s been nothing unusual.”

The report was concise but precise.

Yu Zhiwan fell silent for a moment before finally nodding.

“Understood. I’m hanging up.”

Though she had long suspected it, the confirmation still excited her more than she had anticipated.

Yes, excited.

The emotions buried deep in her blood had been stagnant, utterly calm until they were forcibly stirred up again and again.

Yu Zhiwan felt like a wolf disguised among sheep, suddenly encountering a kindred predator in the midst of the hunt. Or like a sailor on a charted course, abruptly caught in a storm, her fighting spirit ignited.

It was during one of her “cohabitation” periods with Liu Huanran after being drunkenly pinned against a wall and retaliating with a slap that Yu Zhiwan had a long dream that night and realized she was the so-called “shou protagonist” of a novel.

A novel told from the perspective of the gong protagonist, Liu Huanran, yet one that tormented her both emotionally and physically.

For over a decade, she had obediently followed the novel’s plotline. Her parents, both researchers, were confined to a vast underground facility, never seeing daylight.

Back then, Yu Zhiwan was still young, only aware that her parents were always busy. Inheriting their genes, she was instinctively drawn to lab equipment. As she grew older, despite her parents’ reluctance, she began studying related subjects, gradually uncovering the darkness behind their work through their reluctant explanations and regrets.

The place she lived in was nothing short of a blood-soaked hell.

Test subjects were continuously delivered from above first lab mice, then other living creatures, and eventually, full-grown humans.

Those people, varied in form but united in agony, would press against the glass oxygen chambers, watching her. Sometimes silent, sometimes suddenly erupting into frenzied madness, smearing the unyielding glass with blood as they clawed desperately, leaving dense scratch marks.

A pregnant woman near labor would arch her back in pain, her swollen, pale belly pressed against the glass, stretch marks clearly visible. Her eyes, already more white than black, showed the whites slowly overtaking the pupils, veins of crimson spreading in vivid, horrifying patterns.

The pregnant woman’s belly burst open abruptly before her eyes, blood rapidly dissolving into the water. The entire massive glass container trembled violently as the baby’s already-formed bluish-gray face contorted grotesquely, its features mangled into a pulpy mess. Only those eerie eyes mostly white with scant black pressed against the transparent glass, locking gazes with her.

From that moment on, Yu Zhiwan refused to participate in any more experiments, even though the projects assigned to her were relatively safe, involving no living subjects.

But abstaining came at the cost of her vision.

Her parents had to personally carry out the procedure.

In a moment of mercy, her mother injected her with a drug that merely blurred Yu Zhiwan’s sight, gradually rendering her vision akin to that of a blind person though with the possibility of recovery. She later learned it was called “pseudoblindness.”

Once, she accidentally got lost and stumbled into a room. Hearing unfamiliar footsteps, she knew things had taken a bad turn. Her parents had warned her: if these people discovered she wasn’t truly blind, there would be serious consequences.

Yu Zhiwan hid between two strange glass tanks, pressed almost flush against the containers housing deformed figures with bluish-gray skin and bulging veins. The stench of decay seeped through even the overpowering antiseptic odor.

Later, as experiments repeatedly failed, the underground project seemed on the verge of abandonment. Her parents secured her escape at the price of their own imprisonment underground, fabricating a normal identity for her and sending her to a well-equipped orphanage.

In her first year of university, Yu Zhiwan broke free from most of their control but at the cost of losing both her legs.

Yet those people never fully relaxed their vigilance or surveillance over her.

From the moment she emerged from the underground facility, she knew she had to feign complete resignation preferably behaving like most Omegas, choosing early courtship with an Alpha, preparing for marriage and motherhood, dedicating her life to raising the next generation as a virtuous wife and mother.

So she attached herself to Liu Huanran, allowing outsiders to assume they were a couple.

Around Liu Huanran, she often felt dazed. Though she disliked many of Liu’s behaviors and the Alpha wasn’t her type at all, she played along.

After noticing Liu’s changes, the few friends she still had urged her to reconsider. Everyone around her insisted Liu Huanran was a good Alpha beautiful, somewhat romantic, clingy in an endearing way so she should be grateful and marry Liu, settling into a peaceful life.

In that prophetic dream, she did exactly as they advised, gradually accepting the changed Liu Huanran. Zhao Manlin, who had always disapproved of Liu, believing the Alpha was only after an Omega’s beauty, repeatedly badmouthed Liu in front of her. Eventually, Yu Zhiwan cut ties with Zhao completely.

So much so that when Zhao later became paralyzed in a plane crash, Yu Zhiwan still resentful over Liu Huanran refused to even visit.

Pei Yujiang in the dream was also vastly different from the present version outwardly a proper young lady, but inwardly depraved, scheming relentlessly to possess her.

Later, after the Pei family went bankrupt, Yu Zhiwan would torment Pei Yujiang to vent Liu Huanran’s frustrations, ensuring Liu enjoyed a blissful domestic life with a devoted wife and child.

After waking from that dark and chaotic dream, Yu Zhiwan felt so nauseated she rushed to the bathroom to vomit, but with an empty stomach, nothing came up.

Liu Huanran, hearing the commotion outside, came to check on her. Seeing she was fine, he attempted a “joke” he thought was humorous:

“I thought you might be pregnant with my child.”

Yet this disgusting joke would one day become reality. Even though she had no such intentions, the entire world seemed determined to treat her as nothing more than an appendage to Liu Huanran, this Alpha.

The orphanage director who raised her earnestly urged her to bear Liu Huanran a child, since she had married into his family, she owed them offspring, regardless of her own wishes.

Liu Huanran’s parents’ “kindness” came with a price tag. Just because she was blind, just because she was disabled, she was expected to surrender her entire life to him.

She was to be the virtuous wife, the devoted mother, to tie her heart entirely to him yet never allowed to be herself.

She had to endure Liu Huanran’s inexplicable, ever-bursting desires. His way of expressing love was limited to physical intimacy kissing and sex, anytime, anywhere, even bragging about it to others.

She was to be Liu Huanran’s perfect helpmate, securing his foothold in Yicheng’s elite circles, using the skills she had honed through pain and hardship as stepping stones for his ambition.

And in the prophetic dream, she had accepted it all willingly.

Learning the truth, Yu Zhiwan felt an icy chill seep from head to toe. After days of despair, she thought of the underground engineering evidence she held and suddenly, the will to expose it all withered away.

Her days became about mere survival. Sooner or later, these people would destroy themselves through their endless greed, dragging the world down with them.

Secretly, she almost looked forward to that day arriving sooner. Even when Liu Huanran, smug in his own cleverness, tied her up in the factory, she played along obediently.

Until the unexpected variable appeared.

Pei Yujiang’s voice imitation was actually quite good just a little strained, carrying a tension she herself didn’t seem to notice. Probably her first time doing something like this.

Yu Zhiwan realized immediately: this wasn’t the real Pei Yujiang. Likely a transmigrator of some sort, because the real Pei Yujiang never bothered hiding her motives, nor would she resort to such a clumsy disguise, even making up a ridiculous alias “Little Fish.”

Ever since discovering her world was a novel, Yu Zhiwan’s tolerance for the absurd had grown. If she could awaken as a self-aware character, why not a transmigrator?

So she played along, feigning ignorance.

Playing along with Pei Yujiang was far more entertaining than humoring Liu Huanran, that trash Alpha whose brain was filled with nothing but vulgar fantasies and freeloading ambitions.

This new Pei Yujiang was innocent, even a little endearing. At first, Yu Zhiwan disliked the meddlesome transmigrator, but gradually, she sensed Pei Yujiang might actually like her.

Otherwise, who would deliberately create such an easily exposed alt account just to chat with her, listen to her vent, indulge her whims, and coax her with sweet words?

Even after a few deliberate tests, Pei Yujiang showed no ulterior motives so pure it surprised Yu Zhiwan.

This time when she came to Ningxiang with her, Yu Zhiwan could also sense that Pei Yujiang wasn’t looking for some romantic encounter alone with her, but simply wanted to take her south for some sightseeing during their business trip.

Yu Zhiwan’s heart unexpectedly softened at the thought. In high spirits, she pushed open the door to look for Pei Yujiang, only to catch a whiff of something burnt.

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