After I Picked Up the Movie Queen Who Was Pretending to Be an Alpha - Chapter 20

Hiking was extremely physically demanding, so Pei Suyuan slept soundly that night and woke up full of energy. Since she exercised regularly, she didn’t feel any aches or pains, and she even ate a little more breakfast than usual.

Today’s original plan included games, deduction, and scene filming, followed by a dinner chat session in the evening. However, because too many fans had gathered at the scenic area, the production team made a temporary adjustment, turning the morning game session into a small fan interaction event.

Pei Suyuan didn’t mind at all; after all, she was so “low-tier” that she barely had any fans.

Sure enough, Qiao Yaning had the most fans on-site—mostly young and very lively. Wei Jinzhi had a significant following as well, and Jiang Zhan had a decent number, while the fan counts for everyone else were easy to tally.

The investigation game involved drawing fan numbers to pair them with guests for interactive challenges. Among the seven fans drawn, three were Qiao Yaning’s fans, two were Wei Jinzhi’s, and one was Jiang Zhan’s. There was also a particularly shy female Beta fan who stood in front of Pei Suyuan, claiming to be her supporter.

Pei Suyuan was surprised and delighted. Together with the fan, she managed a respectable second-place finish. After the activity, the fan wanted to give her a gift. Pei Suyuan, naturally, didn’t dare to accept. While she cherished the bond with fans, she couldn’t take gifts—especially since she had previously been stalked by anti-fans, giving her a lingering fear of receiving packages. Once, a “fan” said they had a gift for her, but when she opened the box, it was full of rotten eggs that splattered all over her. Naturally, she refused now.

The female fan looked upset for a moment, then pulled out a bottle of water and handed it to Pei Suyuan, saying she was worried Pei would be too tired from the hike and should drink more.

It was just a bottle of water. Although cautious, Pei Suyuan felt it would be rude to refuse, so she took it. The water was icy cold and slightly damp in her hand. She didn’t think much of it at the time, but after holding it for a while, she handed it to Mu Xinyi to handle. Anything intended for consumption required extra caution.

When the final clues were gathered, Pei Suyuan finally noticed something was wrong. It turned out the murderer wasn’t An Chu, but Qi Yuan.

After her rebirth, Qi Yuan had taken a hardline stance, constantly fighting with her father, eventually accidentally killing him during their final argument. This plot point wasn’t in the initial script; it required repeated evidence collection to deduce. Obviously, the evidence couldn’t just be the one piece in her own hand.

Sure enough, during the final deduction phase, the hidden evidence held by Wei Jinzhi (An Chu) almost all pointed toward Qi Yuan. They were the closest of lovers, and though the timeline in the script was short, Qi Yuan seemed to know many things about An Chu that she shouldn’t have known yet—details that slipped out inadvertently.

The final piece of evidence: In the middle of the night, Qi Yuan had a violent argument with you and left on bad terms. She didn’t contact you again until noon the next day. The time of that argument coincided roughly with the time of Father Qi’s death.

Qi Yuan shouldn’t have had this memory; it happened right as she was reborn, during the argument at home…

In the afternoon, the deduction filming officially ended, and everyone changed costumes for the original drama shoot. The roles in the game were the same as the roles in the drama. As the original lead, Wei Jinzhi should have found the acting easy, but the shoot was riddled with issues.

Ultimately, there was no other way—Wei Jinzhi appeared as a narrator, and the scenes originally meant for Qi Yuan and An Chu were filmed as solo performances. It was filmed from An Chu’s perspective, a change suggested by Wei Jinzhi herself. Everyone could see that Wei Jinzhi truly didn’t want to perform the scenes.

Pei Suyuan knew it too, though performing a monologue wasn’t easy. Fortunately, since it wasn’t a real film shoot, Lin Ling’s standards weren’t overly high, and Pei Suyuan barely passed.

After filming, the group returned to the guesthouse. Pei Suyuan felt intensely hot. She took a quick shower during the break before heading outdoors to join the others for the final segment.

The goal of this segment was sentimentality—pure, unadulterated sentimentality. They were to talk about their career experiences, childhood stories, or how hard their families had worked. Since it would be edited later, there was no specific order; whoever thought of something spoke up. The point was naturalness.

Wang Pei, Zhai Linna, and Qiao Yaning spoke the most—the former two were trying to set the mood, while the latter just had a lot to say. They were all experts at being sentimental and built up a great atmosphere. Wang Shiming chimed in with a few sighs, sharing stories from his era. Jiang Zhan, being younger, shared stories about his parents that mirrored the era Wang Shiming described.

Even Wei Jinzhi spoke quite a bit, but not about family; she spoke about her mentor in the industry, Elder Hong.

Pei Suyuan sat hugging her knees. Though she spoke little, she listened intently. However, toward the end of Wei Jinzhi’s speech, she started feeling off. She stared at Wei Jinzhi’s red lips—moving as she described a dangerous shoot—but Pei’s mind was filled with the thought: Her lips look so soft, like marshmallows.

Pei Suyuan suddenly shuddered, finding her own thoughts perverse, but immediately felt a wave of heat surge through her body.

After Wei Jinzhi finished, Pei Suyuan was the only one left. Everyone looked at her. She opened her mouth, feeling extremely uncomfortable, but pushed through to talk about working alone away from home when she was young, and later participating in the survival show. At the mention of the show, Qiao Yaning joined in, and from then on, Qiao did most of the talking.

Since it would be edited anyway, it didn’t matter who said what. Pei Suyuan kept her head down. Her neck felt even hotter. By the time it ended, the scent-blocking patch felt like it was stifling her glands, making them itchy and hot. Her forehead was covered in a thin layer of sweat.

She walked over to Mu Xinyi, who was startled by her appearance. “Suyuan, what’s wrong?” Mu Xinyi grabbed her arm; it was burning hot, and Pei’s body felt weak. Without waiting for an answer, she led her back to the room.

As a fellow Alpha, Mu Xinyi could naturally tell that Pei Suyuan was entering her rut. But she had the data on Pei’s cycles—it wasn’t supposed to be now! She struggled to get her back to the room and frantically searched for suppressants. She breathed a sigh of relief once she managed to inject one into Pei.

But within minutes, she smelled a sharp, pungent scent of sour yogurt (cheese). What is going on? Why is this sudden rut so violent? Mu Xinyi thought in shock, quickly injecting herself with a suppressant as well.

As the physical discomfort eased, she moved to call for help. Since the suppressant wasn’t working, she had to get her to a hospital. But then, Pei Suyuan suddenly sat up from the bed and began pacing the room erratically. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were a terrifying shade of red.

An Alpha in a rut who has taken a suppressant might still feel miserable, but usually only weak. If the suppressant fails, they become extremely violent and desperate for an Omega’s comfort. Mu Xinyi was an Alpha; she couldn’t provide comfort, and her presence only made Pei Suyuan more agitated.

The “cheese” scent was usually mild, but now it was sharp, salty, and stinging. Mu Xinyi’s head felt like it was splitting, and a primal urge to flee rose in her. But Pei Suyuan had clearly lost her mind; she couldn’t just leave her.

She scrambled toward the door. Before she could close it, she tremblingly pulled out her phone to try the call again, but it was snatched away before she could connect. She looked up and her heart tightened. “Sister Wei, I…”

Wei Jinzhi pursed her lips, looking frantic yet trying to stay calm. “What happened to her?”

Wei Jinzhi had noticed something was wrong with Pei Suyuan before the shoot ended. When she walked upstairs, she smelled the faint scent of cheese mingled with a grassy Alpha pheromone. Because she was an Omega, she wore specialized scent-blocking patches and wasn’t worried about causing a scene; she had just sprayed a neutralizing agent, which gave her the courage to approach.

The Mu Xinyi before her was weak and drenched in sweat, her grassy pheromones incredibly faint. Wei Jinzhi couldn’t believe the level of Alpha pheromones in the room—they had suppressed Mu Xinyi’s scent to this degree.

She didn’t have time to talk. She told Mu Xinyi to go back to her room, inform Tong Lin, and tell the hotel staff to spray cleaning agents in the hallway. She would stay to call for medical help and watch over Pei Suyuan.

The conversation outside caught Pei Suyuan’s attention. She was currently taking a cold shower, trying to lower the feverish heat in her body, but she caught a whiff of a faint marshmallow scent. The sanity she had managed to regain vanished completely. Dazed, she walked out of the room, following the source of the marshmallow scent.

Mu Xinyi stumbled back to her room. Wei Jinzhi was in the hallway on the phone when the door behind her suddenly swung open. The Alpha was soaking wet, water dripping from her hair, her crimson eyes unfocused as she stepped toward her.

Pei Suyuan’s attention was entirely on her sense of smell; her eyes couldn’t focus. By the time Wei Jinzhi tried to say something, it was too late. Pei Suyuan used all her strength to pull the Omega into the room.

Wei Jinzhi felt a jolt of pain, and then she was inside a room saturated with the scent of cheese pheromones. Instantly, her legs went weak. The neutralizing agent was useless against such a violent Alpha presence.

“Xiao Yuan, calm down.”

Her voice was low and carried a hint of grievance. She had intended to soothe Pei with her trembling voice, but the sound only made Pei Suyuan more agitated. Pei ran her hands erratically through her hair, staring at her with those bloodshot eyes.

Wei Jinzhi was backed against the door, but Pei Suyuan grabbed her wrists and forcefully turned her around. Wei Jinzhi flinched. Pei Suyuan began to greedily inhale the Omega pheromones in the air.

A moment later, Pei Suyuan’s strength gradually faded. She practically collapsed against the woman’s back and began to sob softly. Wei Jinzhi’s heart softened instantly. She stroked Pei’s hair, soothing her bit by bit. Pei Suyuan sniffed piteously, her voice thick with a heavy sobbing tone:

“…It hurts so much.”