I Heard I’m the Scumbag Alpha of a Top-Tier Leading Actress? - Chapter 16

At this moment, Gu Xin still did not know that the greatest accident of her life was already on its way.

In the blink of an eye, the weekend arrived. They had agreed to meet at the entrance of the theater.

Professor Ma was dressed neatly, her hair pinned up properly, not a single strand escaping. Her black outfit was extremely low-key.

The moment she saw Gu Xin, the elegant Professor Ma gave a sharp comment on her outfit. “Why are you dressed so plainly?”

Gu Xin looked at her own light, convenient clothes and did not understand what was plain about them. “A classic style isn’t good?”

By classic style, she meant the safest combination of a shirt and wide-leg trousers, casual enough to suit any entertainment venue.

Professor Ma laughed. “How can that be the same? Let’s go in first.”

Gu Xin followed Professor Ma inside. It was her first time entering a theater, and she discovered that it was not quite as solemn as she had imagined. The ceiling here was very high, decorated with radiating, undulating shapes that looked like enlarged starfruit. Yet countless little stars clung to it, forming a three-dimensional starry sky, carrying a strange sense of liveliness.

In contrast, the stage below was very small and spread outward in all directions. The audience seats were almost embedded into it, becoming part of the stage itself. In the closest spots, the audience could even reach out and touch the actors onstage.

The entire design told people that the stage and the audience were one.

Enjoy it properly.

Professor Ma’s tickets were in the middle rows, slightly distanced from the stage. After sitting down, she said softly to Gu Xin, “These seats are the best. They aren’t so close that they disturb the performance, but they also aren’t so far that you can’t appreciate it.”

Gu Xin asked, “This is my first time watching a stage play. It feels so strange. Director Ma, how many years have you been watching plays?”

Professor Ma chuckled softly. Although her hair was already gray and there were long since wrinkles on her face, her voice and bearing were both calm and elegant. This was the compensation time had given her after taking away her youth.

“I’ve lost count. Perhaps half my life.”

That was truly a very, very long time.

They had only exchanged a few words when the lights went out, and a single spotlight shone on the announcer.

Today’s play was newly staged and did not have any famous actors, but the attendance rate was very high. After the announcement ended, applause rang through the hall for a long time, and everyone looked very excited.

Gu Xin did not understand why. Director Ma whispered that most of the audience had come for the director and screenwriter. Both of them were extremely talented people, and their last collaboration had been twelve years ago. Back then, the first time they worked together, they had produced a classic out of nowhere and set off a wave. Even now, it would occasionally return to stages in various regions, and the several actors who had performed in it had, without exception, become famous and turned into pillars of today’s entertainment industry.

Even more wonderfully, the director and screenwriter were a classic pairing of talented scholar and beautiful lady. The love, hate, grudges, and entanglements between them were enough to be written into another play. But no matter how much of a storm they had caused back then, the people involved had always kept their mouths shut. The public’s curiosity had not faded with time. Instead, it had only burned hotter.

Until this classic duo’s second collaboration detonated the news.

Gu Xin thought that if that was really the case, then the tickets should have been quite difficult to buy. Professor Ma was generous indeed.

Very soon, the play began.

The opening went straight to the point. The protagonist was speaking to himself in front of a mirror. He was a handsome Alpha who had recently fallen for a young lady. After asking around in many places, he discovered that this girl was the Omega in town who had come from the central district.

Although the handsome protagonist had a fine appearance, his head was empty, he did no proper work, and he was a playboy who lived off others. The townspeople all laughed at him, saying that perhaps one day, useless as he was, he would sell off his ancestral property.

The protagonist did not care about other people’s mockery. He continued being a butterfly among flowers. His empty shell needed equally empty emotions to fill it. He disdained the mediocre lives of others and wholeheartedly wished to pursue the freedom he wanted.

But love attacked him without warning. For the first time, the playboy settled his heart. He thought that no matter what, he had to obtain this young lady. Even if this feeling could only be as fleeting as morning dew, even if he could only possess one night, he would still be satisfied.

Nothing new, but also impossible to fault as an opening, Gu Xin thought.

The scene changed, and the second protagonist appeared.

This beautiful Omega had a lovely face and a gentle temperament. Everyone thought she had come here to relax and incidentally choose a husband for herself. But also facing a mirror, the Omega gently combed her hair while softly asking her maid whether her uncle’s days were numbered. Beneath that gentle exterior was a ruthless heart. It turned out her ultimate goal was to seize the fief in her uncle’s hands and become the master of this town from then on.

The lights fell. The two protagonists looked at the mirror together, but behind the mirror was the other person. If the mirror were removed, they would look as though they were facing each other.

On the Alpha’s face was the dazed intoxication of falling into love. On the Omega’s face was ambition longing for power.

Similar, yet different.

The story began to develop. The Alpha carefully designed multiple chance encounters. His makeup and clothing grew increasingly handsome. He expressed his love without the slightest restraint, pursuing his romance with madness and obsession. The Omega went from disgust at first to surprise and then being moved. Anyone could see that she was wavering. Finally, after he saved the beauty like a hero, the Omega agreed to his proposal.

Her uncle was very gratified. He agreed to their marriage and decided to hand both the fief and the Omega over to this young Alpha.

It was a win-win situation.

But at this point, the play was only one-third of the way through. The earlier portion seemed very clichéd. If not for the actors’ excellent performances, Gu Xin would already have been drowsy.

Very soon, the wedding began. The Omega’s face overflowed with a happy smile as her uncle held her hand and placed it into the Alpha’s. The handsome young man’s face was full of excitement and happiness, as if he dared not imagine that he could truly possess such a love.

The priest asked the Alpha, “Are you willing to take her as your wife? Whether in poverty or wealth, sickness or health, will you cherish her forever?”

The Alpha impatiently said, “I do.”

The priest asked the Omega, “Are you willing to take him as your husband?”

Just as the Omega was about to say “I do,” the lights suddenly went dark. The lively wedding scene plunged abruptly into darkness, leaving only the female lead illuminated by a single beam of light. Her movement stopped. Time froze.

With a crash, the mirror behind the priest shattered, breaking the silence.

A figure rushed out from inside. Their voice was hoarse and unpleasant, making people unable to resist covering their ears. In despair, she—or he—roared angrily, “I don’t!”

What an ugly face that was. Bloodstained, hideously deformed, covered in dense pits and yellow-black pus that obscured their entire appearance. Beneath disheveled hair, only their nearly crazed eyes could be seen.

Quite a few audience members were startled by the realistic makeup. Gasps rang throughout the seats.

They rushed toward the Omega like a lunatic. “I don’t! I don’t!”

The Omega abruptly came awake. Losing her composure, she retreated two steps and said in terror, “Who are you? Why are you here?”

But that person could only say, “I don’t.” After the two argued for a while, the Omega shoved them hard. The lights went dark again. When they lit once more, everything was as before. The wedding continued. Everyone was looking at her, waiting for the bride’s answer.

The Omega looked around blankly. As if it had been an illusion, there was not the slightest trace of that ugly person appearing.

In the end, she still said, “I do.” Everyone burst into cheers, and the wedding proceeded smoothly. No one noticed that the mirror fragments were quietly lying behind them all.

The story continued.

But Gu Xin’s entire body had already gone stiff.

Her right hand twitched uncontrollably. A kind of illusory pain pressed tightly against her nerves, stimulating her brain. A buzzing rang beside her ears, making her unable to hear what the actors were saying.

Gu Xin quickly placed her other hand over the disobedient one, trying to restrain the spasms and ease the physiological abnormality, but no matter what she tried, she could not stop it.

Her body was trembling on instinct, and instinct was not controlled by reason.

The first moment that strange person appeared, Gu Xin knew who she was.

While everyone else could not distinguish whether that person was male or female, there was a voice in Gu Xin’s mind screaming. It was shouting, Yan Shuangshuang, Yan Shuangshuang!

Was that her own voice?

Yes, and also seemingly not.

Because Gu Xin had never shouted Yan Shuangshuang’s name so hoarsely, so desperately.

Yan Shuangshuang had lost the appearance she was so proud of and the sexy voice she possessed. She wore terrifyingly ugly makeup and appeared onstage in a body covered with tatters and ruin. No one knew she was Yan Shuangshuang. Without the slightest restraint, shattered and broken, she performed a mad soul, as though this madness had grown out of her own body. The despair she brought seized the audience’s nerves like a landslide and a tsunami. Everyone heard the wail deep within her heart.

What domineering emotion.

Everyone held their breath.

Gu Xin’s nerves were somewhat disordered. Yan Shuangshuang’s brief appearance flashed back again and again in her mind—her every word and action, her eyes and face. Such ugly makeup. But that was Yan Shuangshuang. Her despair was so familiar, as if Gu Xin had once seen an even deeper despair with her own eyes.

Tears abruptly soaked Gu Xin’s eyes. Her hand was still trembling, but she still touched her own tears—wet and warm.

An iceberg forcibly suppressed a volcano. No matter how the magma below surged, it firmly blocked the outlet.

But as Gu Xin’s tears flowed more and more, a tiny crack quietly opened in that enormous iceberg.

Gu Xin still could not remember how she had once loved Yan Shuangshuang. The emotions from the past were always separated from her by a thin film. Although she was pulled by them, they were like flowers in a mirror and the moon in water. She could not scoop up even a little reality.

Occasionally, she would feel frustrated too, staring blankly because she could not find the source of her palpitations and longing.

But she thought that if she had seen this Yan Shuangshuang a little earlier, then perhaps from their very first meeting, she would have willingly believed that this was the person she would fall in love with.

Because in midair, it was as if someone were laughing softly in mockery—

Look how much pain you’re in.