Conquering The Love Rival Alpha - Chapter 3

Xia Lu was someone who loved lively places, but for the sake of keeping her daughter company, she had actually stayed at home for half a month.

According to her original vision, this half month should have been the perfect opportunity to add some beautiful mother-daughter memories. Who would have thought that human plans could not compare to heaven’s plans? For a full fifteen days, her precious daughter only came out to see her during meals.

The rest of the time, Feng Qingyu locked herself in her room to read.

Not a single scene Xia Lu had been looking forward to happened. She was so bored that she could only gather the household helpers together for mahjong.

And she still had nearly another half month of these boring days to get through.

Just thinking about it made Xia Lu feel as if her future had turned gray.

Sigh. Who told her to be such an understanding mother who loved her child? Forget it.

Coming downstairs, she looked at the empty, quiet living room and numbly greeted the butler standing to the side. “Qingyu still hasn’t come down?”

Hearing her voice, the butler raised her head and looked toward the stairs. Noticing the figure that had appeared at the stairway, she smiled faintly.

Seeing the shift in the butler’s gaze, Xia Lu guessed that her daughter was behind her. Leaning against the handrail, she turned back. “You’re up?”

“Mom.” Feng Qingyu answered and came to her side. Rarely taking the initiative, she linked her arm with Xia Lu’s and walked with her toward the living room. “Mom, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“Oh?” This was a different opening. Xia Lu’s calm, rippleless eyes immediately lit up. “What is it?”

No matter what, Feng Qingyu’s soul belonged to an office worker with two years of experience. Her skill in reading people’s expressions had long since maxed out. Seeing Xia Lu’s reaction, she knew that no matter what she said, she probably would not be refused, so she said directly, “Mom, my classmates want to come over and play today. Could you avoid them for a while?”

“Avoid them? Why?” Xia Lu could not understand.

Feng Qingyu answered, “Everyone coming is an Alpha.”

Over the past half month, she had frantically made up for lost knowledge by reading several old textbooks from the bookcase, especially the biology-related ones. She had learned that there were many taboos when Alphas and Omegas interacted, and necessary avoidance could reduce a lot of unnecessary trouble.

Of course, it was also because she had confirmed that everyone coming was an Alpha that she had agreed.

“What, are Alphas so impressive?” Xia Lu did not understand what she was trying to do. Hearing her emphasize gender, she looked at this daughter of hers with great dissatisfaction. From childhood to adulthood, she and Qingyu’s father had never taught her gender discrimination.

“No.” Feng Qingyu was amused by Xia Lu’s constantly changing expressions. Pressing the corners of her mouth together, she said, “They’re mainly coming over because they want to try our family’s swimming pool, so…”

Xia Lu understood. When Alphas soaked in water for a long time, their suppressant patches could easily lose effectiveness. The small amount of pheromones that leaked might be insignificant to them, but for Xia Lu, an Omega, it would more or less be inconvenient. She immediately changed her tune. “Oh, oh, I get it. Then I’ll go out and won’t disturb you. What time are they coming?”

“Around nine-thirty.”

After getting the specific time, the butler personally went to check the pool on the east side of the villa to make sure the little boss’s guests would not be neglected.

As for Madam Xia Lu, she took a car and left half an hour early, leaving the entire house to her daughter to entertain her classmates.

Standing in the front yard and watching Xia Lu leave, Feng Qingyu turned to face the impressive building and could not help sighing again. “This really is a castle, isn’t it?”

Beside her, the butler raised a hand and adjusted the glasses on the bridge of her nose, letting out an extremely light sound. “Mm.”

Feng Qingyu: “…”

All right. She understood that the Feng family was rich now.

But she had not known they were this rich!

Standing before a swimming pool as large as half a mu of land, Feng Qingyu’s pupils shook, then her heart shook too.

No wonder the original owner had invited classmates over to play in the family pool!

If this had belonged to the old her, she might have sold tickets for people to come and visit!

And she had even been worried before going to sleep last night that too many people might come. Forget a few classmates—the whole class could come over, and this place would still fit them.

Speaking of which, the pool looked really deep. Considering that she had been injured, if she did not get into the water, that should be explainable, right?

Feng Qingyu felt a little uneasy. She could only secretly place her hopes on the twin sisters who knew the secret, praying that everyone coming today was truly a classmate and not an enemy.

Who would have thought she would get stuck at the very first hurdle?

Facing the twin sisters who arrived on time and surrounded her, Feng Qingyu stood by the pool and awkwardly leaned backward. Testing the waters, she called the one on her right, “Xiang Wan?”

“I’m Xiang Chen! You got it wrong during the voice call last night, and now you’re getting it wrong in person too!” Wearing a black one-piece swimsuit, Xiang Chen glared fiercely at her deskmate. Her complaining voice lowered. “You hurt your head, not your eyes. How can you still get us wrong?”

Feng Qingyu’s uneasy gaze moved back and forth across their faces several times. Aside from their expressions, there was no difference at all. In her heart, she thought, Is it really that hard to mix you up? Do the two of you never look in the mirror?

On the other side, Xiang Wan, who was wearing the same style of one-piece swimsuit in white, looked at her happily. “What does this prove? It proves Qingyu likes playing with me more. Next semester, I’ll be Qingyu’s deskmate.”

“You’ll be my ass!” Xiang Chen cut her a sharp look. “Beat me in the exam first, then talk!”

Xiang Wan gave a cold little laugh. Her eyes were terribly dark. “Just you wait. I’ll leave you eight streets behind in the next exam.”

“Eight streets? If you score eight points higher than me, I’ll call you Sister!” Xiang Chen curled her lip in disdain and turned toward the pool, starting to stretch in preparation to get into the water.

Feng Qingyu silently observed the two of them and recalled their previous two interactions. She concluded that if their personalities had always been this stable, then they actually seemed quite easy to tell apart.

The older sister was like a firecracker. The younger sister was relatively much more steady—

With a splash, Xiang Wan, in the white one-piece swimsuit, withdrew the foot she had just lifted high and kicked out. Her smile was bright, and her voice was clear and crisp. “Down you go.”

Feng Qingyu: “…”

She had judged too hastily.

The splashed water landed on the two people above. Xiang Chen surfaced from under the water and cursed loudly, “Xiang Wan! You dare kick me! Get down here, I’m going to kill you!”

“Come on, come on. Let’s see who kills who.” Xiang Wan shook her head without caring, then put an arm around Feng Qingyu’s shoulders with a smile. “Since you forgot, I’ll remind you one more time.”

Feng Qingyu, still immersed in shock, stiffly turned her head to look at her. In her vision, the additional index finger lightly tapped beside the earlobe in front of her. “Xiang Chen has a little black mole here. Xiang Wan doesn’t. Don’t forget again.”

As soon as her words fell, the warmth on Feng Qingyu’s shoulder disappeared. With a splash, a streak of white drew a downward arc before her eyes, and Xiang Wan also dove into the water.

Feng Qingyu froze for a moment. She watched the black and white figures tangle underwater before swimming farther away. Recalling their earlobes, she turned and walked toward the lounge chair farthest from the pool before sitting down.

Her half of the pool was separated indoors by huge floor-to-ceiling glass. Since it was not yet noon, the sunlight that could come in was limited, and her seat happened to be out of the sun.

Relaxing against the back of the chair, she looked at the classmates either standing or sitting by the pool. She had no impression of most of them. Silently, Feng Qingyu took out her phone, opened the class group chat, and continued checking the remaining members’ social feeds from last night. When she found someone familiar, she carefully matched their face to their name and then forcibly memorized them.

Yet her head kept drifting off uncontrollably. There was no helping it. The body proportions of these Alpha classmates of hers were simply too good.

Tall bodies, long legs, broad shoulders, narrow waists, firm muscles, and clear lines. The key point was that not a single one of them was shorter than 1.7 meters. If this were the world she used to live in…

Her hypothetical scenario was only halfway through when a blurry face reflected on the darkened screen. Feng Qingyu instinctively raised her eyes and looked back, only to unexpectedly meet a pair of sharp, distinctly unfriendly eyes.

They looked like the eyes of an angry owl.

“?”

Was there really an enemy?

Feng Qingyu withdrew her gaze, sat upright, and waited for the other person to speak first.

The other person did indeed speak first, but the very first sentence was unexpectedly unpleasant. “How come I never noticed before that you had a hobby of eye-raping people?”

Malice surged toward her. Feng Qingyu looked back again. After once more colliding with that undisguised hostility, she took a deep breath and decided that, as a soul several years older, she would not lower herself to the level of a minor. “I was only looking through social feeds. Isn’t ‘eye-raping’ a bit too harsh?”

The other person let out a cold laugh of unclear meaning and walked up in front of her. She looked Feng Qingyu up and down with an unfriendly gaze, and both her eyes and expression were as offensive as they could possibly be.

“…”

Unable to endure it anymore, Feng Qingyu leaned back against the chair and stared straight back at her. “You seem more suited to that word.”

She could not understand why the original owner would invite someone like this over. Even less could she understand why this person hated her so much and still came.

Also, who exactly was she? How could she be so arrogant as to come into someone else’s house to provoke them?

Was her brain broken, or did she truly look down on the original owner’s family that much? Wasn’t she being a little too proud? What? Did her family also have a castle?!

This was simply unbe—

“Xun Zhou! Hey, you’re here! I saw that you didn’t reply to my WeChat this morning and thought you weren’t coming! Hurry, come down and swim a couple laps! Last time, losing to you was because I was careless. This time, I can definitely beat you!” Xiang Chen, who had swum back at some unknown point, was lying at the edge of the pool and looking at them excitedly. The hand she had resting on the poolside was wound up like a spring, waving back and forth at the provoker.

Hearing the two words “Xun Zhou,” Feng Qingyu’s eyelids jumped three times in a row. All the thoughts she had been unable to figure out just now instantly made sense.

So it was the love rival. Pardon the disrespect.

She understood the attitude problem now. Then why had the original owner invited her over?

Was it to show off her family assets and try to strike a blow against her opponent?

That did make sense. But why would the person opposite her be willing to come? Today was an Alpha-only gathering. Ding Xueyao had not been invited.

After Xiang Chen was sent away, she received her answer.

Xun Zhou bent down and stared at her with a smile that was not quite a smile. “Xueyao said you were injured and insisted that I come see how you were doing. Looks to me like you’re doing very well. Feng Qingyu, don’t tell me you’re so shameless that you’re using a self-injury scheme on Xueyao. That would be truly disgusting.”

Feng Qingyu’s breath caught. In her heart, she roared: What had she said? What had she said! That car accident really was related to the female lead, Ding Xueyao!

Xun Zhou seemed unsatisfied even after cursing at her. Seeing that Feng Qingyu did not make a sound, she continued attacking. “Feng Qingyu, I’m warning you. If you’re smart, stop doing unnecessary things. Xueyao is mine. Don’t indulge in wishful thinking. She could never like you. She would never be interested in a schemer like you.”

To this day, Feng Qingyu still did not know what kind of person Ding Xueyao was. But hearing this person in front of her get so furious, she could not help wanting to pour oil over her head. “Is that so? You say she isn’t interested in me, so why would she ask you to come see me? Wait a second. I’ll video call her right now and let her feel reassured.”

“You dare!” As Xun Zhou spoke, she reached out to snatch the phone.

Feng Qingyu swung her hand to the side, got off the lounge chair, and pulled open a safe distance. “Xun Zhou, get this straight. This is my house, not yours. Are you insane, threatening me here?”

Not far away, some people noticed the strange atmosphere between them and turned their gazes over. The one least afraid of trouble, Xiang Wan, called out loudly, “Qingyu? Xun Zhou? What are you two doing?”

Xun Zhou: “…”

Feng Qingyu smiled and waved her hand. “Nothing. Don’t mind us.”

Xun Zhou gritted her teeth. “You’re not allowed to contact her.”

“You think I’ll listen to you?” Feng Qingyu rolled her eyes and was just about to look through her friend list when a familiar set of footsteps came from behind her.

Xiong Jie, who had not been on duty for almost a month, was wearing work pants and a racerback tank top as she returned to work carrying a tray full of fruit juice.

Having secretly observed for half the day and finally unable to hold herself back, she glanced warily at that “guest” whose whole body carried hostility. She stepped in sideways, blocked Feng Qingyu behind her, and placed the tray in the very center of the round table with a loud clatter.

How much emotion was contained in that sound? She knew. The two people in front of and behind her knew as well.

Feng Qingyu peeked out from behind Xiong Jie and gave the green-faced Xun Zhou an infuriating smile. “A wise person submits to circumstances.”

Xun Zhou: “…”

The tense atmosphere was not exactly successfully resolved. Watching Xun Zhou leave in a huff, Feng Qingyu sat back down on the lounge chair and looked thoughtfully at the ripples in the pool. She asked Xiong Jie, who still had not left and was standing beside her, “Sister Xiong, if you were an Omega, would you choose her or me?”

Xiong Jie, who had never once imagined herself as an Omega, lowered her head with a blank expression. “Who?”

“That Alpha just now. The one who looks amazing but has very poor emotional control.”

Xiong Jie: “Do I have to choose?”

Feng Qingyu tilted her head up and stared at her face.

Xiong Jie thought about it seriously and said, “I’d choose you.”

“Is there a reason?”

Xiong Jie was very honest. “I don’t know her.”

Feng Qingyu: “.”

“All right, now let me properly introduce her to you.” Xiang Wan, who had walked over wrapped in a towel, plopped down beside Feng Qingyu’s legs. As she cleaned her ears, she said, “Xun Zhou. A top scholarship student who transferred from No. 1 High School in H City to our school last year. She fought you for first place for an entire year, and if nothing unexpected happens, she’ll keep fighting you for it for another two years.”

Feng Qingyu turned her head to look in the direction Xiang Wan had come from. The only thing she cared about was exactly where she had emerged from.

Seeing Feng Qingyu’s lack of interest, Xiang Wan smacked the back of her hand against Feng Qingyu’s knee. “You’re that confident she won’t beat you?”

“From the way you put it, I probably don’t need to care too much,” Feng Qingyu said honestly. After all, the author who created this world had said it: with her setting, aside from suffering in love, she would not have to suffer anything else. In that case, there should definitely be no issue with her studies.

Xiang Wan clearly did not have her confidence. “She took first place in all four monthly exams. I heard she’s been doing practice papers all break. In the school-opening test this time, aren’t you afraid she’ll surpass you? Hey, speaking of that, did you really only lose your memories about us people? It won’t affect your exam, right?”

Feng Qingyu’s gaze fell on the skin near her earlobe. After not finding that little black mole, she withdrew her eyes and thought, That’s hard to say.

At lunchtime, the Alphas in swimsuits each wrapped themselves in a shawl and sat before the long table by the outdoor pool to eat. After eating, they went to the audiovisual room on the basement level to watch a movie. Aside from Xun Zhou, who left early, everyone else played until the sun was setting before leaving.

After forcing herself to see her classmates off, Feng Qingyu, whose heart and mind were both exhausted, collapsed crookedly onto the sofa to rest.

When Xia Lu and Feng Chongan returned and saw this scene, they knowingly sniffed the air. “Qingyu was affected by the pheromones. Where’s Xiong Jie? Come carry her back to her room to sleep.”

The familiar speaking voice and the sensation of weightlessness struck her one after the other. Feng Qingyu, whose sleep was not all that deep, suddenly opened her eyes. “Dad, Mom, you’re back?”

“Mm. Have you eaten?” Feng Chongan asked. In order not to disturb their child while she was playing with her classmates, the two of them had deliberately returned only after eating dinner.

Feng Qingyu’s eyelids were terribly heavy. Her reaction was half a beat slow as she shook her head and said, “I’m not hungry.”

Hearing this answer, Xia Lu knew she had not eaten. She wanted Feng Qingyu to at least eat a little before sleeping, but seeing her in this state, she compromised and gave Xiong Jie a look, signaling for her to carry her upstairs.

Once she was lying in bed, Feng Qingyu’s brain, too tired to turn properly, drifted for a long while before finally catching one important point: when she woke up tomorrow, she absolutely had to try the test papers the original owner had not finished.

As a result, in the next second, just as she was about to fall asleep, a sudden clanging sound rang right beside her ear and scared her so badly that she tumbled off the bed.

Fuck!

Was that irresponsible dog system back?!

“Congratulations! The system has officially activated and bound itself! According to the reward mechanism set by this system, after you and your grandmother successfully complete the tasks, this system will reward each of you with one wish!”

[Please complete the first step first.]

Feng Qingyu, lying painfully before the bed, covered her head. With her eyes closed, she climbed back onto the bed, knocked her head against the pillow, and fell sound asleep.