A Stand-in Alpha Awakens - Chapter 1

“Lulu, just giving you a heads-up!”

“I invited a few upperclassmen tonight. They’re all top students from our days at Liancheng No. 1 High, so I’m sure you’ll get along. Anyway… wait, where are you now? Do you need me to come pick you up?”

The sweet, familiar voice drifted through the phone receiver. Leaning against the back window of the car, the young girl listened to the urging—which matched the dialogue in the novel word-for-word—while staring blankly at two cars that had just collided in the adjacent lane.

“No need. I’m not coming.”

The person on the other end went silent for a second before exploding: “Huh?! Why? Didn’t we already agree on this? Jiang Lu, I’m warning you, you can’t go back on your word. Today is my birthday! Hello? Jiang Lu? Say something!”

“Hey! Do you hear me? Jiang Lu—”

Watching the sky outside turn pitch black, Jiang Lu shut off her phone with a single click.

The red light at the intersection ahead had thirty seconds left on the countdown. Auntie Liu, who was holding the steering wheel, looked curiously into the rearview mirror, her tone tentative: “Lulu?”

The last rays of the setting sun were dazzlingly red, blending with the orange streetlights to hit the girl’s cold profile, making her deep features appear more defined.

“Mm,” Jiang Lu responded. As she withdrew her gaze, she let out a quick, sharp curl of her lips toward the mirror. “Let’s go home, Auntie Liu. My mom is probably waiting anxiously.”

School was starting tomorrow. Today was the last day of summer break, and according to Ms. Jiang Wen’s arrangements, Jiang Lu wasn’t supposed to go out tonight at all.

Liancheng No. 1 High held placement exams at the start of every semester. These were especially crucial for high school sophomores who had just chosen their specialized tracks.

Jiang Lu took this seriously, but because today was her “best friend” Song Wushuang’s birthday—and in Song Wushuang’s words, she only got to have a birthday during a school break once every eight hundred years—it wasn’t like the College Entrance Exam was tomorrow. She insisted they had to celebrate properly tonight.

So, Jiang Lu had agreed.

She had prepared a gift as promised and left the house as promised. If the contents of a novel featuring her name hadn’t suddenly appeared in her mind just now, she would have arrived as promised.

And then, she would have become a “dish” prepared by Song Wushuang for Su Mengrui—an upperclassman who had just graduated.

“In a pitch-black basement, only a few dim yellow lamps would light up when the owner, Su Mengrui, arrived. To get more light, the Alpha trapped inside had no choice but to please her as much as possible.

Unfortunately, the girl’s scent glands could no longer release much pheromone.

Of course, Su Mengrui, who had been pampered since childhood, had her ways. She pulled out her usual small knife and skillfully sliced open the Alpha’s fair skin.

In an instant, pheromones with a 100% match filled the entire room.

‘Still unwilling to eat?’ Su Mengrui inhaled the bloody, sweet, yet intense strawberry scent in the air with satisfaction. She sat by the bed, her burning gaze like that of someone looking at a pet dog.

The girl was pinned to the bed, unable to move. Her exposed arms and legs were covered in scars of various sizes.

‘What exactly do you want?’ The girl’s voice was hoarse and weak, whimpering like a newborn puppy.

There wasn’t a hint of pity in Su Mengrui’s eyes. Her playful expression looked as if she had heard a hilarious joke. She laughed as she leaned closer to the bleeding wound.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be smart? You don’t even know this?’

‘It’s for your pheromones.’ As her words fell along with her wet, hot tongue, the Alpha’s body jerked as if splashed by boiling oil, trembling uncontrollably from the pain.

The Omega, however, took what she wanted without restraint, like a vampire.

Time passed in a blur of agony. The girl was drowned in sweat. Su Mengrui finally left, looking like a sated devil.

Only a tall Alpha doctor remained to treat the drowning girl’s wounds and inject nutritional supplements.

Looking at the girl, who was about the same age as his own child, the doctor by the basement bed showed a look of unbearable pity. He wanted to whisper a few words of comfort, but the words died in his throat.

…Being locked up and treated like this, he couldn’t think of any words that would be useful.

Except for the one sentence his boss had ordered him to say: ‘Jiang Lu, your mother is fine.’

…

If being “alive” counted as being “fine.”

Jiang Lu, who had been buried in mountains of test prep for nearly two years, closed her eyes. She recalled the content she had seen with difficulty, subconsciously grasping the key points.

It was obvious: she was now a character in a novel.

This novel was, generally speaking, a “sweet romance” story—but she wasn’t the protagonist.

The protagonist was Chu Ziyan, a senior at Liancheng No. 1 High. The other was Su Mengrui, who was currently waiting for her at Song Wushuang’s birthday party.

In their world—or rather, in this book—she was a tool character to be toyed with at will.

In the early stages, because her pheromones were a high match for the lead, Su Mengrui, she was imprisoned to serve as a stand-in for the fiancée, Chu Ziyan. She became the “remedy” for Su Mengrui’s heat cycles.

In the later stages—after her glands were gouged out by Su Mengrui—she was successfully “upgraded” from a stand-in to a villain. She became the emotional litmus test for the relationship between the two leads, Su Mengrui and Chu Ziyan.

Ultimately, she died on their wedding day. Her blood stained the white roses Su Mengrui had planted for Chu Ziyan, making her one of the sacrifices for their “sweet love.”

That day was the first day the College Entrance Exam results were released.

It was also her eighteenth birthday.

She wouldn’t even have made it to twenty. To be precise, she would have died young.

It was utterly absurd.

Jiang Lu opened her eyes and looked at the heavy traffic outside. There wasn’t a shred of doubt in her chaotic heart; instead, there was a lingering sense of dread.

Today wasn’t even Song Wushuang’s birthday, neither by the Gregorian nor the Lunar calendar.

In the year they first became friends, Jiang Lu had checked: Song Wushuang’s lunar birthday should be two days from now.

They had met in the eighth grade and were now about to enter the eleventh. Having spent three full years together, Jiang Lu knew Song Wushuang’s situation.

Objectively speaking, Song Wushuang’s family was well-off. She had an Alpha younger brother, and her parents were biased toward the son; they didn’t exactly dote on her.

Because they went to a boarding school, Song Wushuang’s parents would buy a cake for her birthday every year to make it “lively,” but every time they cut and ate the cake, it was for her brother, Song Jie.

As a friend, Jiang Lu understood her to some extent, so she knew the truth but never exposed it.

But looking back now, the details were terrifying.

The restaurant and KTV Song Wushuang had booked tonight were high-end venues with high consumption rates. Song Wushuang’s parents gave her almost no pocket money during breaks, and her living expenses during school were strictly controlled. Since Song Wushuang was vain and spent her holidays at home tutoring her brother, where did she get the money?

Jiang Lu had originally thought it would just be the two of them—the minimum spend wouldn’t be much, and at worst, she could just foot the bill herself. But the dialogue on the phone just now was identical to the script in the book.

Even the timing was perfectly aligned.

Jiang Lu clenched her fingers. Thinking about how Song Wushuang claimed “Liang Shuang wouldn’t give her face and refused to come,” her throat moved. She suddenly felt her mouth go terribly dry.

The back of her neck and her chest also tightened and burned uncontrollably. Her scent gland, in particular, felt as if it were being pierced by a needle heated red by fire, the pain reaching deep into her brain and heart.

She had been so good to Song Wushuang. She never imagined that one day she would be betrayed by her. And in such a manner…

“Under the azure sky, a cool breeze brushed past. Song Wushuang, dressed in luxury brands, looked down from a height at her former friend, who was now skin and bones.

She smiled gently: ‘Jiang Lu, let it go. Come back to class and review properly. Don’t punish yourself for other people’s mistakes. What’s past is past. We can talk about everything after the College Entrance Exam, okay?’

‘Don’t give up on your future.’”

Other people’s mistakes? Talk later? Okay? Don’t give up on your future?!

How could a person who had seized everything from her and caused the destruction of her family possibly be qualified to say such words?

Those lines of text felt like they were embedded with sharp blades, slicing through Jiang Lu’s very soul.

Jiang Lu pounded her chest hard, tilting her head back to gasp for air. A profound sense of suffocation made her nose and mouth feel bitter and painful.

She had been truly blind to consider such a person a friend—feeding her exam questions, helping her with tutoring, and preparing gifts for every holiday.

Gifts… Jiang Lu looked at the gift box wrapped with a bow on the seat beside her. The mist finally rose in her reddened eyes.

Song Wushuang, oh Song Wushuang… you don’t deserve this at all.

Jiang Lu wiped her eyes forcefully, untied the ribbon, took out the chocolates inside, unwrapped them, and stuffed them into her mouth. Then, she took out the unopened smartwatch and placed it on the front armrest box. “Auntie Liu, you can have this watch.”

Auntie Liu, who was driving, felt her heart skip a beat. She realized Lulu must have had a falling out with her little friend. Thinking of that face she had never liked, she didn’t refuse: “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Jiang Lu shook her head. She recalled the indifferent way Song Wushuang had received these items in the novel.

Thinking carefully, it seemed that since last year, she hadn’t heard Song Wushuang say “thank you” once.

Previously, she thought the girl just didn’t want to act like a stranger. Looking at it now, it was more likely she truly looked down on Jiang Lu’s “charity.”

Jiang Lu’s expression darkened further.

It was sickening. What kind of person was this, exactly?

The moderately sweet chocolate melted in her mouth, but for some reason, it carried a bitterness that was hard to swallow.

Jiang Lu tossed the remaining half into the trash bin by her feet. She watched the villa—the one “she” in the book would never return to after tonight—grow closer through the windshield. The bitterness at the back of her tongue slowly faded.

At the same time.

Inside a themed restaurant in the center of Liancheng City, Song Wushuang stood anxiously by the floor-to-ceiling window, frantically pressing buttons on her phone. Her thumbs were moving so fast they were practically leaving afterimages, but she received no response to her calls or messages.

The “VIP guest” for tonight, Su Mengrui, had already arrived. If Jiang Lu didn’t show up, Song Wushuang was afraid she was truly finished.

Strange. They had agreed long ago, and half an hour ago Jiang Lu had messaged saying she had already left the house. Why did she suddenly change her mind just as she was about to arrive?

Did someone say something to her?

Who else knew about their plans for tonight?

Song Wushuang couldn’t find a lead, but the more she thought, the more uneasy she became. She frequently looked back toward the hallway not far away. Finally, unable to hold back, she called Liang Shuang—whom she usually kept on her blocklist.

The first call didn’t go through.

Song Wushuang’s heart hammered even harder. Fortunately, just as the second call was about to end, the line connected.

Liang Shuang’s voice sounded as impatient as usual: “Why are you calling me at this hour?”

“Liang Shuang, is Jiang Lu with you right now?” Song Wushuang couldn’t be bothered to maintain her usual persona; her tone was frantic.

Liang Shuang wasn’t surprised by her lapse in character. Her tone turned cold: “No. If that’s all, I’m hanging up.”

“Hey, wait, Liang Shuang! Can you help me contact Jiang Lu? I can’t get through to her phone right now—” Song Wushuang’s tone softened.

Hearing her soften her voice to the point of pleading, Liang Shuang gave a dismissive scoff. “If even you can’t reach her, why do you think I can? I’m eating. Don’t bother me. If there’s something, talk about it at school tomorrow.”

The call clicked off. Song Wushuang cursed at the screen. When she looked up, she saw a face reflecting in the glass with a half-smile, which startled her back to reality.

“Se—President Su, why did you come out?”

Su Mengrui took half a step forward, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Song Wushuang by the window. She looked down at the street below. “Junior Song, don’t tell me Jiang Lu isn’t coming.”

“No… no, she won’t do that. We have the best relationship. It’s my birthday; there’s no way she won’t show up.” Song Wushuang forced a smile, her throat feeling hot and dry from the wine she had just drunk.