After A Crazy Omega Took Me In - Chapter 5

People with fevers were especially obedient.

Jin Xu simply sat there quietly, well-behaved and deeply dependent on her.

Shi Lian could not describe what she felt.

Even before Jin Mu died, she had already stopped loving her. Nor did she feel anything toward Jin Xu, who looked almost exactly like Jin Mu, aside from hatred.

But Jin Xu resembled Jin Mu too much.

Even the way she looked when she was sick was exactly the same.

They both gazed at Shi Lian with dependence, dazed and barely conscious, as though she were their entire world.

Shi Lian had still been very young when she fell in love with Jin Mu.

She knew she was an Omega, and she also knew that she could never take the dominant role.

A mere exchange of glances, or the faint glimpse of skin beneath her lover’s clothes, would make her legs go weak. Her waist and abdomen would ache as she melted into the sofa, wet beyond reason.

She could never be the one to take the initiative.

Yet during the year she loved Jin Mu most, she had once spent an entire night seriously wondering whether she should practice her technique or keep their relationship purely platonic.

Being platonic felt unbearably frustrating.

Not being filled felt unbearable too.

But she and Jin Mu never reached that point.

Before Shi Lian had even finished watching the instructional videos saved in her cloud drive, she received news that company secrets had been stolen and her mother had been hospitalized with a serious illness.

Had that never happened, Jin Mu would have remained the most wonderful lover from the year Shi Lian first awakened to love.

She would have been Shi Lian’s introduction to romance.

Together, they would have tried so many things.

Even if they eventually fell out of love, those memories would have settled with time and gradually faded.

How had things reached this point?

Even after Jin Mu’s death, Shi Lian still locked all her displaced hatred onto Jin Xu.

The child before her looked increasingly unwell.

Her breathing grew heavy in the air, each breath like a helpless gasp forced from someone being crushed and slowly suffocating from lack of oxygen.

Like a plea for help.

Patiently and with great interest, Shi Lian watched her with those beautiful peach-blossom eyes.

What should she do?

It seemed Jin Xu truly could not endure this one on her own.

What would she do?

Would she kneel and beg Shi Lian to take her to a doctor?

Or would she continue acting foolish and pitiful, trying to trick Shi Lian into softening?

In truth, Shi Lian had never really intended to let Jin Xu die.

A child only needed to lower her head.

Only needed to cry.

Why did Jin Xu never cry?

If she would simply submit, if she would stop clinging to such pride, she could obtain a far better life under Shi Lian’s care.

She would not have to shiver from the cold.

She would not have to become this sick while refusing to spend money on medicine.

Two restrained, polite knocks sounded at the door.

Shi Lian turned her head and saw two police officers in uniform.

They told her that Xu Cheng was dead. According to the surveillance footage, Shi Lian and Jin Xu had been the last people to see the deceased, so they needed to come to the station and give statements.

Jin Xu was still ill.

She raised those soft, damp eyes, every breath carrying scorching heat like a burning tide.

By the time they finished giving their statements and left, the wet clothes on the child’s body had already been dried by her feverish temperature.

She slumped weakly across the back seat of the taxi.

When they returned to the hospital and opened the door, the sharp clicks of countless cameras exploded through Jin Xu’s sluggish mind.

Yet her first reaction was still to force herself upright and shield Shi Lian.

Popular singer detained after getting drunk?

Public opinion like that could kill someone.

Especially now, when Shi Lian looked utterly lost, as though she still had not reacted to the news of Xu Cheng’s death.

During their dozens of minutes at the police station, Shi Lian had calmly explained everything.

Xu Cheng was her Alpha mother.

Her Omega mommy had died three years ago, less than six months apart from Jin Mu’s death.

Shi Lian should have hated Xu Cheng.

Otherwise, how could she have accepted her death so calmly, without even claiming the body?

Yet she must also have been caught completely off guard.

Otherwise, how could she still be so rigid and unresponsive now?

Jin Xu understood that feeling.

She had not loved Jin Mu all that much either. But when she learned of her death, she had still fallen into a rare daze.

It was not grief.

It was simply that some part of her heart had suddenly become hollow.

She would never see that person again.

From then on, even her hatred had nowhere to belong.

Late that night, Jin Xu developed a dangerously high fever.

At the same time, public opinion erupted online, followed by overwhelming abuse.

People accused Shi Lian of abandoning her own mother and allowing her to despair until she took her own life.

They accused Shi Lian of taking revenge on her friend’s daughter, forcing the girl to wear such thin clothing in the freezing cold until she became pale and frail.

Shi Lian leaned against the white pillows of the hospital bed.

Her gaze rested on the other bed not far away, where Jin Xu lay unconscious with an IV after collapsing from the fever.

She did not know how long she had been watching.

Suddenly, the sleeping child trembled all over.

Then she opened her eyes in confusion and met Shi Lian’s calm, unreadable gaze.

“Sister.”

She called out instinctively.

Her voice was slightly hoarse at the end, soft and weak, as though she naturally placed herself in the more vulnerable position.

Shi Lian looked away and turned her head to the other side.

She did not want to deal with Jin Xu at all.

The feverish Alpha lacked any sense of security.

When she saw Shi Lian turn away, she pulled the needle directly from her hand, climbed onto Shi Lian’s bed, and rudely burrowed beneath the blankets.

“Sister…”

Her voice became even more clinging, so soft it nearly dripped.

“Was it Sister who called the doctor for me and changed us to a double room?”

Shi Lian’s gaze fell upon the blood dripping from the back of Jin Xu’s hand.

Her thick lashes trembled slightly, but she said nothing.

“Thank you, Sister.”

“I like you so much.”

“What do you like about me?”

The woman who had remained silent finally raised her eyes.

Bright red blood stained the white sheets, gradually soaking even the hospital gowns pressed tightly together.

“Sister is beautiful and gentle. You took me in and gave me somewhere to live. When I got sick, you found a doctor for me. Wouldn’t it be unreasonable not to like you?”

Shi Lian exhaled.

Her beautiful peach-blossom eyes gradually darkened as she looked at the Alpha’s pale, fragile profile and the smiling eyes she forced herself to maintain while slowly losing blood.

So pitiful.

So submissive.

So obedient and soft.

As long as she could prove her loyalty, nothing else mattered?

Jin Xu.

Was it really fine to lose every member of her family?

Was it fine to live miserably under someone else’s roof?

Was it fine to be humiliated, belittled, and despised?

Was it fine for every effort she made to be trampled upon, and for anyone to notice her pallor only after she collapsed?

Did none of that matter?

The woman’s soft fingers stroked Jin Xu’s vulnerable neck.

The Alpha looked at her with infatuated dependence, like a child’s most primitive attachment to and trust in her mother.

Then the hand around Jin Xu’s throat gradually tightened.

It continued until the girl’s expression became suffocated and pained, yet she still could not bear to look away from Shi Lian.

Shi Lian laughed softly, her eyes mocking and cold.

To survive, she would do anything.

How ridiculous Shi Lian had been when she first decided to raise Jin Xu and slowly shatter her dignity.

She was clearly a spineless, wretched creature.

“Now that you’re awake, get out.”

“Looking at you makes me sick.”

Using a face identical to Jin Mu’s while wearing that expression of someone willing to be slaughtered.

Hmph.

Shi Lian carelessly wiped the blood from her hand with a silk handkerchief.

Her gaze skimmed rapidly over a message from her friend asking whether she kept Jin Xu at home as Jin Mu’s replacement.

How absurd.

What was there to replace?

Jin Mu would never live by depending wholly upon someone else.

Strictly speaking, Jin Xu did not even qualify as an inferior substitute.

Jin Xu visibly froze.

Before she could even react, the ward door opened, and the nurse standing there let out a piercing shriek.

Several minutes later, Shi Lian lay languidly across the sofa nearby while the cleaning staff replaced the bloodstained sheets.

Jin Xu had the IV inserted again. Her already pale complexion now looked even whiter from blood loss.

As though she could die at any moment.

Shi Lian’s assistant brought them some porridge and seafood buns.

The Omega ate only a few bites before setting hers aside.

Across from her, Jin Xu held a bun in the hand with the IV tube and took a bite. Her eyes lit up as she drank some porridge, finishing every bit of food in front of her.

Even the shadow of grievance that had lingered between her brows disappeared completely.

How unbelievable.

As long as she had even a mouthful of food to eat, she could cast aside every emotion, no matter how devastating.

Shi Lian gave a contemptuous laugh and slowly left the table.

Then let her live like this, if Jin Xu was willing.

How happy a person without dignity must be.

After that day, Shi Lian never paid attention to Jin Xu again.

It was as though she had completely given up on her existence.

There was no more mockery, but there was no concern either.

On the late-night journey home from school, the light Shi Lian used to leave on for her was gone.

There was no longer anyone sitting on the sofa waiting for her return.

By February, the online controversy had become increasingly severe.

Shi Lian considered responding beneath her, so one basin of filth after another was poured over her reputation.

Even the concert she had carefully prepared for so long was postponed.

Tickets were refunded.

There was no further news.

Jin Xu often made small things.

Sometimes it was a flower meant to offer comfort.

Sometimes it was a little comic she had drawn.

Every morning before leaving for school, she taped one to Shi Lian’s door.

In the end, the woman threw every one of them into the trash.

It rarely snowed in Nancheng, especially flakes as large as goose down.

Jin Xu stepped through the thick layer covering the ground, her shoes already soaked through.

The tip of her nose was faintly red from the cold.

She casually rubbed her stiff hands together, then turned her attention to the two people behind her carrying cameras.

“Hey, do you think we can really catch Shi Lian coming out in weather this cold?”

“Whether we catch her or not, we’ll see. But if we do, we won’t have to worry about food or bills for the next six months.”

“Tsk, Shi Lian is strange too. She broke up with her ex, and apparently it ended badly. Why insist on raising that woman’s child? Isn’t she just giving people something to gossip about?”

“You don’t understand. Jin Mu was still a company president, even if she went bankrupt. She must have left something for her only child. There could be an inheritance. Shi Lian only has to raise the girl until she turns eighteen, then take the inheritance. Easy money, right?”

Jin Xu frowned.

The rumors were becoming increasingly ridiculous.

Did outsiders have no idea how wealthy Shi Lian was?

How could she possibly covet an inheritance?

Besides, why would Jin Mu have left Jin Xu anything?

That woman had wanted nothing more than for Jin Xu to die with her.

But eighteen…

Jin Xu looked toward the heavy snow falling from the sky, and a smile appeared on her lips.

She was about to grow up.

She looked forward to adulthood.

It meant she could find better part-time jobs.

She could sell her paintings at studios.

She could stand openly before others instead of living by depending on Shi Lian.

She could stand shoulder to shoulder with her.