A Stand-in Alpha Awakens - Chapter 2

Inside the brightly lit villa, Jiang Wen sat at a long table behind the first-floor living room, wearing her glasses as she reviewed documents.

Jiang Lu stood by the cabinet at the far end of the foyer, watching her Omega mother from a distance. Her heart felt as if it were being threaded with wire, twitching with sharp, rhythmic tugs of pain.

Jiang Wen was only twenty-three when she gave birth to her; she was not yet forty this year. Theoretically, she wasn’t old, but the fine lines at the corners of her eyes had deepened significantly compared to the year her Alpha mother had passed away.

It had only been five years. In those five years, she had carried the weight of the household alone. It must have been more exhausting than Jiang Lu had ever imagined.

If Mama Cheng knew how much trouble I’d caused—that I not only failed my promise to look after her wife but nearly led her to such a tragic end—she’d probably beat me to death all over again when we meet in the afterlife.

Thinking of the perpetually fiery Ms. Cheng, Jiang Lu’s nose prickled, and a sour ache rose in her throat.

“Since you’re back, wash your hands and eat. What are you doing standing there like a statue?” While she was lost in her melancholy, the woman at the long table took off her glasses. With a casual wave of her well-defined right hand, her expression and mannerisms were a perfect reflection of the departed Ms. Cheng.

Warmth flooded Jiang Lu’s eyes. She hurriedly lowered her head in response and turned toward the sink to wash her hands before she could actually start crying.

The sink near the foyer was some distance from the dining room. Once Jiang Lu stepped inside, Jiang Wen picked up her phone and called Auntie Liu, the driver she had just sent away.

Jiang Wen had been confident that Jiang Lu would return early, but she truly hadn’t expected her to turn back halfway.

After listening to Auntie Liu’s detailed report, Jiang Wen smiled faintly into the phone, stood up, and went to reheat the soup she had kept warm.

She didn’t have much of an opinion on that girl, Song Wushuang. She had sensed they weren’t kindred spirits from the first meeting, but since she wasn’t the one making the friend, she didn’t feel it was her place to interfere in her daughter’s business. Now that a conflict had arisen, as a mother, she didn’t see it as a bad thing—regardless of whether they reconciled later or not.

Jiang Lu didn’t hear the phone call. After washing her face and adjusting her mood in the mirror, she walked toward the dining room, wondering what excuse she should use to explain her sudden return.

However, when she saw the five dishes and one soup laid out on the round dining table, she didn’t want to use an excuse anymore.

The five dishes and the stew were exactly as described in the book, down to their placement on the table.

Jiang Wen sat behind the small soup pot. Her clothes, and the inadvertent trace of fatigue in her eyes, were identical to the descriptions in the novel.

The difference was that in the novel, Jiang Wen never got to see her daughter return from the birthday party.

Now, Jiang Lu was standing right across from her, pulling out a chair to sit down and eat.

“Daydreaming again? What’s going on?” Jiang Wen placed a bowl of hot soup in front of Jiang Lu, clapping her hands sharply to snap her out of it. “It’s already 8:00 PM. Eat up. When you’re done, go over your comprehensive practice exams again. I heard that your placement test won’t just cover what you learned in the tenth grade.”

“Mm, a notice was sent to the class group chat.” Jiang Lu distractedly took a sip from the half-glass of water by her cutlery. Suppressing the lingering ache in her heart, she lowered her head and ate in silence.

By the time the meal ended, the interrogation she had anticipated never happened.

It was as if the friction they’d had earlier regarding her going out had never occurred.

But this was fine. Right now, Jiang Lu didn’t want to mention the name “Song Wushuang” at all.

After dinner, Jiang Lu—trained by her Alpha mother, Cheng Yu—habitually cleared the dishes and put them in the dishwasher.

Afterward, mother and daughter sat on opposite sides of the long table in the living room, tending to their own work. It was as peaceful and warm as countless nights before.

At 10:00 PM, the alarm rang right on schedule. Jiang Wen closed her laptop and tapped the table. “Alright, go wash up and sleep. I have a meeting tomorrow morning and won’t be able to drive you to school. Auntie Liu will be here thirty minutes early to pick you up. If you’re missing anything, go buy it yourself. I’ll transfer your allowance for the new semester to your card in a bit.”

Jiang Lu didn’t look up, her eyes fixed on the final major problem of her exam prep. “Okay. I’ll head to bed as soon as I finish this question. It’ll be quick, ten minutes.”

“Fine.” Jiang Wen didn’t object. She set her tomato-shaped timer for a ten-minute countdown, left it on the table, and turned to go to her room.

Jiang Lu finished the problem with single-minded focus, checked her answer, rubbed her eyes, and turned off the timer with less than three minutes to spare.

As she rounded the long table to head upstairs, she caught sight of her phone lying on the sofa. After a moment’s thought, she leaned over to grab it.

Since she hadn’t shown up tonight, given Su Mengrui’s temperament as described in the novel, Song Wushuang certainly wouldn’t be having a good time.

Unfortunately, whether she was beaten or humiliated, it was far too insignificant compared to what Su Mengrui had done to Jiang Lu in the book.

The sensor lights on the stairs flickered on one by one. Jiang Lu climbed them with long strides, a sudden spark of anticipation for tomorrow rising in her heart.

She wondered if she would see her at school. If they met, what would she say?

A self-righteous interrogation? Or would she come up with some new excuse to lure her back into the trap?

Lying on her comfortable bed, Jiang Lu saw that her phone screen was covered in red unread notifications.

There were over a dozen missed calls: five from Song Wushuang, four from unknown numbers, and three from local landlines.

There were also dozens of WeChat messages, all from Song Wushuang. Jiang Lu didn’t even need to open them to know what they said.

Having known her for three years and spent over eight hundred days together, she knew Song Wushuang’s texting habits all too well.

In such a dense message bombardment, at least two-thirds would be emotional stickers. Of the remaining third, the truly “useful” information would be reduced by another two-thirds.

She didn’t want to scroll through the history; looking at the last three was enough.

She tapped the profile. The latest message was from 9:30 PM: a GIF of someone wailing, a text message demanding to know why she didn’t show up, and a sticker of a person stomping their feet with their arms crossed in anger.

9:30 PM. Sent half an hour ago, with no video call requests. It looked like she was already home.

Su Mengrui let her go that early? How disappointing.

Jiang Lu turned onto her side in the dark. She tossed her silenced phone onto a large rabbit plushie in the corner, let out a long breath, and closed her dry eyes with the back of her hand as a pillow.

She thought calmly: I absolutely cannot let this go.

Perhaps stimulated by the contents of the novel, her falling-asleep speed and sleep quality were both affected. Her mind whirled in a mess until late into the night. By the time she opened her eyes again, Auntie Liu was already downstairs.

The school required students to be in by 10:00 AM at the latest. It was now nearly 9:00 AM. Jiang Lu slapped her forehead, took a deep breath, rolled off the bed, and ducked into the bathroom to wash up.

She hadn’t been late for anything since leaving kindergarten. Her perfect attendance record couldn’t be broken that easily.

After wolfing down her breakfast, Jiang Lu dragged her suitcase—which she had packed the day before—out the door and into the car.

Auntie Liu was nearly ten years older than Jiang Wen, but her driving skills were much better. With a series of expert turns, she managed to shave fifteen minutes off the estimated travel time.

At 9:40 AM, Jiang Lu got out of the car at the crowded school gate. Squinting against the biting sunlight, she walked through the grand North Gate of Liancheng No. 1 High.

The early autumn weather in Liancheng was still scorching. Every returning sophomore was dressed in the white summer school uniform.

From a distance, the teenagers under the sun seemed to be glowing, radiating a vigorous, youthful energy.

She was one of them. But she had come so close—so close to never being able to set foot here again.

Jiang Lu lowered the hand she used to shield her head and took a deep breath of the sun-warmed air. She strode toward the Mingzhi Building, where she had spent her freshman year.

The seniors had started school a month early and were currently in classes in their exclusive Zhaixing Building. The incoming freshmen wouldn’t start until the sophomores finished their placement exams and moved to the Xiuyuan Building.

Right now, everyone wandering the campus was a sophomore.

Thus, as Jiang Lu passed the flowerbed in front of the teaching building, she was startled to see Chu Ziyan walking down the path toward her.

She didn’t know why Chu Ziyan, the model student with excellent grades and conduct, was here during class hours, but she knew this was a golden opportunity.

The novel made it clear: Chu Ziyan and Su Mengrui had a rare, bidirectional 100% pheromone match. A match made in heaven.

As taught in tenth-grade biology, a pheromone match of 85% or higher between an Alpha and an Omega is a prerequisite for “true love.”

In other words, the lower the compatibility, the lower the chance of falling in love; the higher the compatibility, the higher the chance.

A 100% match represents a “fated person”—someone you want to be near, indulge in, and sink into the moment you meet.

When it is 100% for both sides, it is something that cannot be ended once it begins.

If there was a downside, compared to average AO couples, their “dependency period” after exchanging pheromones was extremely long.

Long enough to interfere with their normal lives.

This was a critical period for Chu Ziyan. Su Mengrui loved her to death. Until the College Entrance Exam ended next year, even if they had an engagement and the blessing of both families, Su Mengrui wouldn’t do anything to affect her.

But having indulged in and tasted the pheromones of a high-compatibility Alpha, how could Su Mengrui ever be willing to use suppressants to quench her “heat” again?

Finding a substitute was her first choice.

In Su Mengrui’s words: If that unlucky brat Jiang Lu was chosen by me, she can only blame her bad luck. Who told her to grow the exact scent gland I wanted?

Luck? Hmph.

Jiang Lu pressed her lips thin and forced herself to relax. She surreptitiously slipped her student ID from her pocket onto the top of her suitcase and strode past Chu Ziyan toward the long corridor behind the steps.

She wasn’t sure if Chu Ziyan had any impression of her; the novel didn’t describe it. It only mentioned that Su Mengrui was extremely cautious—even after gouging out Jiang Lu’s glands and washing away her pheromones, she strictly forbade the name “Jiang Lu” from being mentioned around Chu Ziyan.

Regardless of Su Mengrui’s motives, Jiang Lu felt it was necessary to make her presence known to Chu Ziyan.

In short, she was interested in anything that went against Su Mengrui’s wishes.

The moment the wheels of her suitcase left the ground, a clean voice came from behind. “Student from Class 1-3… Jiang Lu! You dropped your student ID!”

Jiang Lu didn’t respond immediately. She lifted her suitcase onto the corridor and then slowly turned around, pointing a finger at herself.

Chu Ziyan was only a few steps away. Seeing her carrying luggage, Chu Ziyan simply waved the ID card and walked over to hand it to her. “Here you go.”

“Thank you.” Jiang Lu reached out to take it. Her eyes darkened as she spotted a small red mole on the back of Chu Ziyan’s hand.

In the novel, during the second week of her imprisonment, Su Mengrui had been out drinking with friends when she suddenly craved Jiang Lu’s pheromones. Drunk, she brought barbecue and beer to the basement and forced a skewer of meat into the hands of the girl bound in chains.

When Jiang Lu recoiled in disgust and threw it away, a bleary-eyed Su Mengrui noticed her right hand and insisted that something was missing from the back of it. Smiling, she had stabbed her with the sharp wooden skewer.

It seemed the “missing thing” she was talking about was this mole.

“Even though you’ll get a new one soon, you’ll still need this card before the classes are finalized. It’s a hassle if you lose it,” Chu Ziyan said, glancing back toward the school gate.

Jiang Lu’s eyes were ice-cold as she stared at the back of the girl’s hand, but her tone was full of gratitude: “Thank you for the reminder, Senior Chu. I’ll be careful.”

Chu Ziyan was about to turn and leave, but she paused when she heard her name. Her smiling eyes showed a trace of curiosity. “You know me?”

Jiang Lu flashed a bright smile. “At the freshman orientation when I first entered, you were the student representative who gave the speech on stage.”

Chu Ziyan’s expression faltered for a moment, and her cheeks flushed slightly. Her grades had been unstable since that speech—especially last semester when she failed several tests. This year’s student representative had already been replaced.

But considering that everyone at No. 1 High was the “best of the best,” having a junior remember her highlight moment was a point of pride. Her vanity was satisfied.

She smiled and patted Jiang Lu’s shoulder, offering encouragement like an experienced mentor. “Work hard. Everyone who gets into No. 1 High is talented. As long as you aren’t lazy, you’ll be the next student representative on that stage! Good luck!”

“Mm, good luck to you too, Senior Chu.” Jiang Lu watched Chu Ziyan run off toward the North Gate, her smile dropping instantly.

She looked down at the spot where the hand with the red mole had patted her, then turned and continued forward.

As expected, Chu Ziyan didn’t remember her.

But that was normal; it had been a year, after all.

Hopefully, when Jiang Lu went up there in a few days, she would recognize her then.

But if she didn’t, it didn’t matter.