Chapter 15
Su Linye no longer knew how many times she had woken up in a hospital.
She stared at the white ceiling, her heart very calm. There was even the faintest hint of a smile at the corner of her lips.
The members of Room 416 standing guard beside her all wore different expressions.
Gu Feng was pale with shock, her glasses almost falling off her face. If Su Linye had not been lying in bed, she would have wanted to grab her and shake her directly. “Desk mate, what’s wrong with you, desk mate? Did oxygen deprivation in the elevator damage your brain stem?”
Lin Xiaoxiao was holding a large insulated food container, worried sick. “Can Linye still eat by herself? I’m not very good at feeding people. Last time I fed my little niece, I nearly choked her to death.”
Chen Qinglang’s expression was grave. “All things have changed, and all affairs are over. Before one can speak, tears flow first.”
The three of them advanced layer by layer, as if Su Linye had already become stupid and unable to take care of herself. After taking turns speaking, they all let out a deep sigh together.
Su Linye: …
She slowly withdrew her smile.
Turning her head, she silently stared at the three of them.
Gu Feng met her clear gaze. “Desk mate, you’re fine?”
Su Linye said faintly, “You sound like you were really looking forward to something being wrong with me.”
Gu Feng denied it. “How could that be? I’m the person in the world who most hopes you can be healthy and well.”
Su Linye chuckled coldly.
Chen Qinglang asked, “How does your body feel?”
Her calm, steady appearance almost made Su Linye think that the chuunibyou girl reciting poetry just now had not been her.
“I’m fine.” Su Linye sat up, tugging at the wound on the back of her neck. She raised a hand to cover it. “What happened to me?”
Gu Feng said, “You fainted.”
“…” Su Linye lowered her hand and really wanted to check whether her desk mate’s forehead temperature was normal.
“I know. I want to know why I fainted.”
Gu Feng froze. “You don’t know?”
Su Linye doubted herself. “Am I supposed to know?”
Her memory only stopped at Lu Jiang’s heat becoming unbearable, then Lu Jiang biting her neck. Her neck had been unusually sensitive, and she had actually been bitten into a feeling of pleasure—why did that sound a little masochistic?
But that was impossible. How could she possibly pass out from pleasure just because someone bit her neck? So she would absolutely not admit that. There had to be some other reason.
Right. Speaking of heat, she wondered how Lu Jiang was doing. As she thought this, she asked it out loud too.
Lin Xiaoxiao said, “Lu God is fine. She got better after taking a suppressant shot. It’s just that apparently, when Lu God was first rescued, she was holding you and refused to let go no matter what. Whoever tried to take you, she stared at them gloomily.”
She sighed. “I’ve never seen such a dark Lu God before. So thrilling.”
As she spoke, she handed over the food in her arms. Gu Feng moved over the little bed table, and Chen Qinglang opened the food container and set everything out.
Su Linye enjoyed her roommates’ care with a guilty conscience.
She understood what Lin Xiaoxiao had said. After all, she had comforted Lu Jiang when the omega was at her most vulnerable. It was normal to develop a little possessiveness over food.
Not to mention, she had even been bitten.
Speaking of that, after eating, she had to go visit Lu Jiang.
High school students still had classes, so the others did not stay for long. They left with the food containers.
Su Linye was just about to sort through her thoughts, but before she could make sense of anything, the door to the hospital room was knocked on.
She looked over. Lu Jiang stood at the doorway in a hospital gown, her right hand wrapped in bandages, her gaze calm.
Su Linye smiled. “I was just saying I’d go look for you later, but you came first. How are you? Is your heat—cough, susceptible period all right?”
Lu Jiang did not notice the truthful slip that had come out naturally. She shut the door and walked in. “It’s fine. A shot suppressed it.”
“And you?” Her gaze swept toward Su Linye’s wrapped neck and paused slightly. “Does it still hurt?”
“A little.” Su Linye sighed. “You really showed no mercy when you bit down.”
Lu Jiang froze. “Sorry.”
Su Linye said generously, “It’s fine. Who told me to put my neck right in front of you? If I’d offered my arm, it probably wouldn’t have been this serious.”
Lu Jiang sensed that something was wrong and frowned as she repeated, “Offered your arm?”
“You think that if you hadn’t lowered your head and had exposed your arm instead, I would have bitten your arm?”
Su Linye nodded. “Isn’t that right?”
Lu Jiang pressed her brow with a headache. “I’m an alpha. Do you know what biting the neck represents?”
Su Linye looked at her with compassion.
Seriously, she was still hiding it. Su Linye had already seen through all the secrets. She was a woman who possessed the god’s-eye view.
But this did involve family interests. She could understand the conviction of refusing to reveal the truth until the final moment. She was very considerate.
So Su Linye said firmly, “I know. It means venting.”
Lu Jiang’s expression became difficult to describe. “Did everything you learned from comics go straight into a dog’s stomach?”
Su Linye: …
She grew gloomy. “I helped you, so why are you still being sarcastic?”
Lu Jiang closed her eyes and apologized again.
“There was something wrong with your water.”
Su Linye’s fingers curled against the blanket.
Lu Jiang glanced at them. “An inducer was added to it.”
“An inducer?”
Su Linye knew what that was. In ABO novels, it was a kind of banned drug that often appeared, used to induce the omega protagonist’s heat or the alpha protagonist’s susceptible period. It carried the important role of being an aphrodisiac that advanced the romance.
But why put it in her water?
She was neither the protagonist nor an alpha or omega.
And if the aim had been to use her water to harm Lu Jiang, how could the other person have predicted that Lu Jiang would drink her water?
Su Linye told Lu Jiang her guesses.
From the moment Lu Jiang spoke her first sentence, she had been observing Su Linye without showing it. After hearing everything, she did not say much. Instead, she asked, “Who do you think would give you this kind of drug?”
Su Linye only thought for one second. “Mu Xin.”
Lu Jiang’s brows furrowed slightly. “Who?”
Su Linye briefly described his position in the class. “The last time I was beaten, he was the one who found people to do it. I have reasonable grounds to suspect he did this too.”
Then she grew puzzled again. “But this drug would at most make me so hot I’d want to take a cold shower. It wouldn’t do any real harm.”
Lu Jiang said, “This drug isn’t easy to obtain. When he got it, he might not have known exactly what it was for. At most, he understood that it was banned and harmful to the body.”
Su Linye suddenly understood. “Then that makes sense.”
Her expression turned indignant. “Why is he like a lunatic ghost that just won’t leave?”
Lu Jiang studied her for a while, then suddenly asked, “Xi Panpan gave you that water. You don’t suspect her?”
Su Linye shook her head.
Lu Jiang raised a brow. “Even though she obeys you to your face and opposes you behind your back?”
Su Linye froze. “You even found that out?”
Lu Jiang said lazily, “It wasn’t hard.”
Su Linye: …
As expected of a novel protagonist. She had methods.
Her throat suddenly felt a little itchy, so she picked up the water by the bedside and took a small sip.
The corner of Lu Jiang’s lips lifted slightly, and a fragmented smile once again flashed through her dark eyes.
That smile was familiar. The last time, when the topic at the library had suddenly taken a sharp turn, Lu Jiang had smiled just like this.
Su Linye heard Lu Jiang say in a chilly tone, “She drugged my water.”
Su Linye’s hand trembled around the cup, and droplets splashed onto the bedding.
Lu Jiang lowered her eyes and glanced at it. Very kindly, she pulled out a few tissues and handed them over.
Su Linye thanked her, wiped the water messily a couple of times, then said awkwardly, “That really isn’t right. Are you going to call the police and have her arrested?”
That faint hint of amusement in Lu Jiang’s expression gradually faded. She stared steadily at Su Linye for two seconds. “The little boy today suffered permanent gland damage. In the future, he can only live as a disabled alpha.”
Su Linye was shocked. “It’s that serious? Why would his gland be damaged?”
Lu Jiang lowered her gaze, then raised it again, without answering her question. “He is Xi Panpan’s younger half-brother. Xi family’s parents are both betas and treasure this hard-won alpha very much. No matter where they go, they always accompany him. Only this time, he was alone.”
Su Linye understood. “You think Xi Panpan deliberately brought him there?” She tried to think in a better direction. “Could it be that she just wanted to bring her little brother to play and didn’t expect something like this to happen?”
Lu Jiang neither agreed nor disagreed. “There were a lot of people in the library. Xi Panpan never appeared from beginning to end, nor did she tell you to watch him.”
“She was deliberately letting things unfold on their own. Did she ever tell you she had a younger brother?”
Su Linye shook her head. “Xi Panpan only told me she had a younger sister.”
“Younger sister?” Lu Jiang frowned, a little more scrutiny appearing in her eyes. “She doesn’t have a younger sister.”
Su Linye froze completely. “She doesn’t have a younger sister?”
From her reaction, Lu Jiang judged something. “Did you know that the staged-accident video you two recorded was posted by her?”
Su Linye was stunned. “You knew that video was recorded by us?”
Lu Jiang: …
Her gaze slowly moved to Su Linye’s head, her face full of suspicion.
Su Linye said, “…All right, stop looking down on my IQ.”
Lu Jiang withdrew her gaze and repeated, “Did you know?”
Su Linye sighed and gave up on herself. “I knew. I knew everything. Not only did I know she posted the video, I also knew she was behind the first time I was surrounded. I also knew that she fabricated a younger sister and said she was being abused at home to test me. What do you want to say?”
There was a subtle change in Lu Jiang’s calm, relaxed posture. The fingers casually resting on her knee lightly rubbed together.
In a voice as cold as snow on a high mountain, she said, “If you need it, I can help you resolve all your troubles, including everyone who has bullied you and your part-time jobs.”
Lu Jiang paused. “Five thousand per month. If that isn’t enough, we can discuss it.”
There was no such thing as a free lunch, especially not such generous conditions. This was practically like receiving a life-saving talisman and a powerful backer all at once.
Su Linye somewhat suspected that the protagonist had taken a liking to some valuable thing on her body.
But on second thought, there did not seem to be anything on her worth scheming for. She could not help asking, puzzled, “Why?”
It was currently dusk. The sun was setting, and pedestrians hurried past outside.
Large patches of sunset poured in, brilliant and wide, dyeing the entire room orange-yellow, warm and soft.
In Lu Jiang’s eyes, the green leaves outside the window and the radiant sky were reflected like glittering gemstones, earnest and sincere.
“I need your pheromones.”
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