I Heard I’m the Scumbag Alpha of a Top-Tier Leading Actress? - Chapter 29

The violent storm battered everything in the world. Gu Xin had only gone out for a short while before her whole body was soaked. She took a plastic raincoat out of her pocket, draped it over herself, then switched on her flashlight. The trembling beam lit the road ahead for her.

In Gu Xin’s arms, there was also a clean denim jacket, protected very carefully.

After coming out of Yan Shuangshuang’s room that day, Gu Xin had never worn this jacket again. But she also did not want to put it back into her suitcase. Unable to find anywhere to place it, she temporarily hung it over the back of a chair.

From then on, it was as if it had been forgotten. It had quietly drooped over the chair all this time, without the slightest presence.

When Gu Xin went out in the afternoon, she looked at the sky outside and kept feeling a faint chill. After hesitating for a while, she casually brought this jacket with her.

It was like some kind of firm signal.

Gu Xin chose this piece of clothing, and she also chose to come out and save someone.

The jacket Yan Shuangshuang had once touched was carried by Gu Xin into the rain, taken in her direction.

A lonely figure stepped through mud that covered the ground. Every step was difficult, every step a struggle against the heavens.

No matter who saw it, going out in such circumstances was no different from seeking death.

But Gu Xin truly was just as she said. She never did anything she was not confident in. Although the road was muddy and the natural disaster made every step nearly impossible, she had a near-beastlike intuition for where she could walk and where she could not.

She avoided all the dangerous areas and could also discover shortcuts that had appeared after the terrain changed.

Even though her walking speed had slowed, her progress was actually about the same as when they had gone up the mountain before.

Even the most experienced wilderness expert would not be able to nitpick her route. No one could have done it more perfectly than her.

Gu Xin walked in silence. Her breathing gradually grew heavier and faster. She was continuously calculating and judging, to the point where she completely ignored the pain at the back of her neck.

Adrenaline climbed higher and higher. Her heart pounded. In this moment, her brain became focused to the extreme.

After who knew how long, Gu Xin suddenly realized that some changes had appeared in her body. Her limbs moved more nimbly, the strength she used to push aside obstacles grew greater, and in the darkness, her eyes could actually faintly make things out.

But the most powerful change was her hearing. Every sound around her seemed to have been fitted with a loudspeaker, abruptly amplified. As a receiver, Gu Xin did not immediately recover her senses, but processing information had already become instinct to her brain. It directly analyzed the situation and immediately pointed Gu Xin toward an easier path.

It was as if she had truly become a beast with only instinct left.

But during such a gap, Gu Xin remembered something from long ago.

On the day of the divorce, which happened to be Qingming Festival, after she and Yan Shuangshuang separated, she went to the cemetery and saw her two unfamiliar mothers and elder brother.

The photos had been preserved very well. Every person in them smiled brightly, as if they still existed vividly somewhere in this world. Perhaps one day, after returning from a trip, they would give her a surprise.

Gu Xin knelt before the tombstones where flowers had been placed and looked for a very, very long time. She firmly memorized the names, the years of birth and death, even the smallest crack on the stone.

It was only when fine rain began pattering down and soaked the hems of her kneeling pants that Gu Xin realized tears had long since streamed down her face.

Rainwater mixed with tears and dripped down. If someone had seen her then, they would have discovered that Gu Xin’s crying was unexpectedly empty. She seemed to have lost the emotion of grief, yet still retained the instinct to weep.

The bewildered beast did not know why it shed tears, but the key to those tears was hidden in some unknown place, and the entire world was its map.

She seemed to have become a kite whose string had been released, no longer tied to anything, with only regret left behind.

From that day on, Gu Xin would occasionally feel a cold, dark loneliness.

It was silent and unremarkable, yet when she was about to forget it, it would suddenly stab painfully, warning her that it still existed.

And like maggots clinging to bone, it repeatedly reappeared in every nightmare.

At this moment, on this apocalyptic rainy night, the only person in the world who still remained and could hold her string had disappeared. Gone missing.

Loneliness was something colder than rain.

If Yan Shuangshuang was still alive, then Gu Xin would definitely find her and protect her.

If she was dead…

When Gu Xin thought this far, her thoughts paused. The night wind howled and roared, blowing past her ears, flinging human emotion very, very far away.

Gu Xin calmly decided that if Yan Shuangshuang was dead, then she would return this one life she had left to her.

This was what she owed her.

Yan Shuangshuang had fallen into that inconspicuous crack nearly three hours ago.

It was a long and narrow deep pit. Based on initial estimates, it was at least three meters deep. When she had stepped into empty air and rolled down, she only felt the world spin around her. She reached out but could not grab hold of anything that could save her. A few seconds later, pain shot through her back, and she was already lying at the bottom of the pit.

After recovering and becoming able to move, the first thing Yan Shuangshuang did in the darkness was confirm that, aside from some abrasions on her legs and pain in her back, she had no external injuries anywhere on her body and was not bleeding.

A blessing amid misfortune.

After that, Yan Shuangshuang tried to understand her situation.

At the bottom of the deep pit, there were many damp, withered branches and fallen leaves. But because the angle of the pit opening was tricky and many plants covered it above, the rain had instead all been guided outside.

The risk of being flooded was greatly reduced. This counted as her second stroke of luck.

But when Yan Shuangshuang remembered the horror of the debris flow rolling down, her face abruptly turned pale.

In a pit like this, once a debris flow passed over it, she would have no chance of surviving. She would only be buried and drowned by the mud constantly pouring down.

No one could say for certain whether, with rain this heavy, there would be a second wave.

She had to save herself.

But immediately after, Yan Shuangshuang discovered the bad part—the walls on both sides were covered in slick moss. It was completely impossible for her to climb up by stepping on the moss without external help.

Because the moment her foot stepped onto it, she would fall again due to insufficient friction.

And when she tentatively pushed her hand into the moss, she discovered that beneath it was hard rock. She could not move it with her hands. At the bottom, there were only some soaked, limp branches. She could not even find fallen stones of similar hardness.

The situation reached a deadlock.

For the next hour or so, Yan Shuangshuang tried all sorts of methods to save herself. But the result of those attempts was that relying on herself alone to climb up in such a limited space was nothing short of a fool’s dream.

From time to time, tremors came from the ground. Yan Shuangshuang did not know where exactly something had collapsed, or whether the next round of debris flow had come again.

As the number of times her heart leapt in fear increased, her nervousness was also exhausted. Yan Shuangshuang no longer had the energy to spare for fear. When human strength could not resist the current situation, the only thing Yan Shuangshuang could do was work hard to call for help.

More importantly, she had already begun to feel hungry. If she did not want to exhaust her strength and starve to death, then while things were still relatively safe, it was best to preserve her remaining energy and wait for the night to pass.

Inside Yan Shuangshuang’s inner pocket was a small, hard object. She wiped her hands and took it out.

It was a yellow plastic whistle, already marked with signs of wear.

Yan Shuangshuang gazed at it in the darkness and slowly wiped it with a relatively clean piece of fabric on her body.

After hesitating for a very long time, she brought it to her lips and blew a note she had not sounded in many years.

Along with the sound came a long string of memories.

This whistle was the first gift Gu Xin had given her when pursuing her.

Yan Shuangshuang still remembered that Gu Xin had still been a little brat back then, not even having reached her differentiation period yet. With a stiff expression on her face, she blocked Yan Shuangshuang at the school gate and asked for her phone number.

Yan Shuangshuang stopped with her suitcase in hand. From high school to university, she had encountered many people trying to strike up conversations with her. She had given out quite a few WeChat IDs, but never her phone number.

It was a very novel experience.

Of course, Yan Shuangshuang refused.

Back when Gu Xin was a little brat, she was still a competitive minor. She continued blocking Yan Shuangshuang and asked why.

Yan Shuangshuang was nineteen then, and when she looked at sixteen-year-old Gu Xin, it was like looking at a little sister.

At that time, she said faintly to Gu Xin, “A child should go back to high school properly and study hard. Coming to a university to date—you’ve gotten the wrong place, haven’t you?”

Gu Xin froze for a moment. Taking advantage of that moment, Yan Shuangshuang simply brushed past her and left.

The next time Yan Shuangshuang saw Gu Xin was when she went to the gym she often visited outside the university. Beside the gym was a children’s playground.

Yan Shuangshuang came out covered in sweat and saw a cute little yellow chick mascot handing out flyers at the entrance of the children’s playground.

The weather was hot, and the little yellow chick mascot was visibly wilting.

Yan Shuangshuang drank mineral water while leaning at the entrance to rest. She watched it walk back and forth diligently handing out flyers whenever people came. When someone accepted a flyer, it would politely bow. When no one was around, it would sneakily shuffle off to a shady spot and flop there for a short rest.

…A little cute.

Yan Shuangshuang finished the last sip of mineral water, squeezed the bottle flat, then turned and went to the vending machine nearby.

She threw away the empty bottle and, after some hesitation, still bought two bottles of the same mineral water. This time, however, she chose refrigerated ones.

When she walked out, the little yellow chick happened to be running over with thumping steps to hand a flyer to a parent. But the parent did not even glance at it and coldly led the child away.

The little yellow chick, miserably rejected, froze in place, visibly dejected.

Yan Shuangshuang could not help herself. She held the mineral water out in front of the little yellow chick. “Hi.”

The little yellow chick turned its head. The instant it saw Yan Shuangshuang, it stood still and stopped moving.

Yan Shuangshuang said, “I was buying water from the vending machine over there and pressed one extra bottle. The weather is so hot today, and I saw that you’re still handing out flyers. Why don’t you take off the headpiece and drink some water first?”

The little yellow chick first nodded. Yan Shuangshuang was just about to hand the water over, but who would have thought it would suddenly clutch its headpiece and shake its head desperately.

Yan Shuangshuang looked blankly at its movements. She saw the little yellow chick spinning around anxiously, wanting to accept the water, but also clutching its headpiece tightly and refusing to take it off.

Yan Shuangshuang watched for a while and felt that she seemed to understand. She tentatively placed the water in the shady spot where the little yellow chick had flopped down to rest and said, “I’ll leave the water here for you. When there’s no one around—cough, when it’s convenient for you, drink it then.”

The little yellow chick immediately nodded again and again. Yan Shuangshuang somehow saw gratitude in that cute headpiece’s expression.

Then the little hand wearing a cute glove rummaged and rummaged in the pocket beside it, before suddenly pulling out a yellow whistle and handing it to her. It was the same yellow as the little yellow chick.

Yan Shuangshuang said, “Is this an exchange with me?”

The little yellow chick nodded and nodded.

“Thank you. It’s very cute.” Although it was only an ordinary, small whistle, Yan Shuangshuang still accepted it very seriously and thanked it sincerely.

In the end, Yan Shuangshuang thought for a while, then took a few flyers from it and said with a soft laugh, “Your gift is very cute. One bottle of water isn’t enough to exchange for it, so this makes it fair.”

The little yellow chick froze again.

Yan Shuangshuang gently touched its head and said, “If you can’t hold on, go inside and tell the boss in time. Don’t ruin your health for work. It isn’t worth it. Nothing is more important than yourself.”

The little yellow chick stared blankly as Yan Shuangshuang withdrew her hand, then made a cheering gesture at it. It stared blankly again as she put on her sun-protective jacket, waved goodbye to it, and finally watched blankly as she walked away, her hair drifting in the wind.

The boss came out from inside and discovered that the little yellow chick was motionless, as if someone had pressed its acupoint. He asked strangely, “What are you looking at? Why aren’t you working?”

The little yellow chick abruptly took off the headpiece, revealing a face flushed bright red from being steamed inside. Sweat-soaked hair stuck strand by strand to her cheeks, making her look very wretched.

That face was none other than a young Gu Xin. The corners of her lips carried an unconscious smile as she stuffed both the headpiece and the flyers into the boss’s hands.

“Boss, I quit!”

“What the hell?!” The boss stared in shock as Gu Xin quickly took off the mascot costume too. The sweat-drenched girl’s face was full of a happy smile, and the boss finally realized that the situation seemed to have changed.

He shouted anxiously, “If you throw down the work and leave now, how am I supposed to find someone else to hand out all these flyers? Kid, when doing a job, you have to see things through from start to finish. You can’t give up halfway!”

“I already handed out a lot. There actually aren’t many left. Boss, I believe in you. You’re definitely more impressive than me, and you’ll finish handing them out very soon. The main thing is that this costume is really too hot. Someone cared about me and was afraid I’d get heatstroke. She even gave me water.”

“Huh?” What did the second half of that have to do with him? But seeing that his cheap labor really was about to leave, the boss immediately said, “Fine, fine, fine. You don’t have to wear the mascot costume. Just hand out the flyers like this, okay?”

“No.” Gu Xin ran over with thumping steps and hugged the water in her arms.

Seeing this, the boss immediately turned hostile and threatened her. “If you leave, don’t even think about getting a single cent of your wages!”

Gu Xin raised the mineral water in her hand at him, her face full of happiness. “It’s fine. Having this is enough. Bye-bye, Boss~”

“Hey!” She actually left!

Later, when Gu Xin described this past incident to Yan Shuangshuang, Yan Shuangshuang laughed until tears nearly came out.

She said, “That boss was definitely thinking, Is she insane? She quit just for a lousy bottle of mineral water?”

Gu Xin lightly snorted and lifted her head with a little pride. “It wasn’t for the money in the first place.”

Yan Shuangshuang pinched her face with a smile that was not quite a smile. “Mm-hm? In such hot weather, just to see me once?”

Gu Xin leaned her face over with Yan Shuangshuang’s movement and said indistinctly, “Yeah.”

“How come I don’t see you working this hard on other things?”

Gu Xin widened her innocent puppy eyes and looked at her damply. “Who says I don’t work hard? I work super hard at everything. The professor even praised me today.”

Yan Shuangshuang gave a soft laugh, released the soft flesh between her fingers, and touched the reddened spot again. “Smug little brat.”

Later, Yan Shuangshuang would often use that cheap whistle to tease Gu Xin, but Gu Xin did not feel embarrassed at all.

She said, “This was the first step that this century’s greatest genius—Teacher Gu Xin!—took on her own initiative toward this century’s most beautiful actress—Film Queen Yan Shuangshuang! Although it was cheap, it has great commemorative significance. Miss Yan must keep it properly! When we grow old together, when I retire after achieving success and you’ve become a beautiful old lady, you can still take it out and show it off to others, saying: Look, this Gu Xin was so hardworking when she pursued Yan Shuangshuang back then. Even more hardworking than when she published papers.”

The deliberately mischievous tone of Gu Xin in her memories was still echoing, but Yan Shuangshuang’s lips were already trembling as she blew it a second time.

The yellow whistle that the little yellow chick had given her—she had kept her promise and preserved it properly until now. Carrying the whistle with her had even already become a habit.

But if she had not blown it again today, she would not have known that her memory was actually no worse than Gu Xin’s. Every movement of the little yellow chick, every cute moment of it, Yan Shuangshuang remembered so clearly.

But the little yellow chick that had made the promise of “growing old together” no longer remembered.

Mechanically, Yan Shuangshuang counted the beats in her heart. Every half minute, she blew the whistle once.

The regular whistle sound traveled farther and farther. At the edge of the limit where sound could reach, a shadow suddenly turned back.

Her eyes abruptly lit up in the darkness.

The whistle sounded again and again. Yan Shuangshuang’s lips were almost numb from blowing, but she could hear that the rain outside was gradually growing lighter.

Even though she was exhausted, she did not dare stop. After all, the longer she persisted, the higher the possibility of being discovered.

After one whistle ended, Yan Shuangshuang was counting the seconds when suddenly, a rustling sound came from outside.

Yan Shuangshuang carefully distinguished it and discovered that it sounded very much like a human slowly feeling their way over step by step.

A rescue team?

But if it was a rescue team, why did it sound like there was only one person? And why was no one calling out?

Could it be a wild animal?

Out of caution, when it was time for the whistle to sound again, Yan Shuangshuang chose silence.

The footsteps above also stopped.

A hoarse voice sounded. “Is anyone there?”

It was a human!

Yan Shuangshuang immediately blew the whistle again, desperately indicating her location to the person above. As she blew, she shouted, “Here! There’s a pit! Watch your step!”

“Yan Shuangshuang?!” The newcomer’s voice became urgent. “Is that you, Yan Shuangshuang?”

“It’s me!”

In her excitement, Yan Shuangshuang desperately waved upward. “This is very deep! Be careful not to fall in!”

“Okay.”

There was another rustling sound. That person finally found the hidden crack and pushed aside the layers of shrubs above.

At the same time as Yan Shuangshuang saw the sky again, the rain also fell noisily onto her face. She wiped her face and said with her eyes closed, “The bottom is all covered in moss. I can’t climb up by myself. Do you have rope? Lower it down and tie the other end to a tree. I’ll try to see if I can climb up on my own.”

That person crouched on the ground, carefully surveyed the surrounding terrain, then glanced at Yan Shuangshuang at the bottom of the pit. “I don’t have rope, but there’s a clump of vines nearby. Wait for me to go get a few sturdy ones.”

“Then be careful!” Yan Shuangshuang’s heart was now split into two kinds of urgency. Half was anxious over her own situation, and the other half was anxious that the person who had come must stay safe and sound.

The night was too dark. She had not even clearly seen the face of her future lifesaver.

After more than ten minutes, that person finally returned. She carried a huge clump of vines over and dismantled it with her bare hands, leaving Yan Shuangshuang dumbfounded. “Did you uproot their whole family, old and young?”

That person even thought about it carefully before making an mm sound. “More or less.”

She had left a few old, weak, sick, and disabled ones behind. The useless ones had not been uprooted.

Yan Shuangshuang sincerely sighed. “You’re really strong.”

That person did not speak again.

Yan Shuangshuang listened as she quickly wound the thick vines together one after another. Then, after testing how tight they were, she slowly, slowly lowered them down.

Every time she lowered them a little, she would ask, “Can you reach it?”

Yan Shuangshuang also answered tirelessly, “Not yet. Lower it a little more.”

This kind of conversation repeated five or six times. After confirming that the vine’s height was just right and that it had not hit Yan Shuangshuang, that person asked Yan Shuangshuang to grab the vine while she took the other end and wove it across to reach a tree stump.

Another long twenty-plus minutes passed. Yan Shuangshuang could hear that person stepping on the ground, repeatedly confirming whether the vine was sturdy enough.

The rain was not as ferocious as before, but it could still be called heavy rain.

Yan Shuangshuang’s mood suffered in this weather, until that person stood at the top of the pit, holding the vine, and said, “Come. Climb up. I’ll pull you.”

Yan Shuangshuang immediately grabbed the vine and was just about to climb when she heard a thud—the person who had just said she would pull her up had fallen in herself.

Caught off guard, she crashed down beside Yan Shuangshuang.

Yan Shuangshuang was startled and immediately released the vine to check on her.

When she turned the person over, the shock in Yan Shuangshuang’s heart reached its maximum.

No wonder it had not been a rescue team. No wonder there had only been one person’s footsteps.

The yellow whistle given to her by the little yellow chick had really brought the little yellow chick to her side.

The person who had fallen down had her eyes half-closed and looked dazed. Seeing Yan Shuangshuang’s face close at hand, she was still a little stunned. “I haven’t pulled yet. How did you get up already?”

Yan Shuangshuang’s eyes grew wet and hot. The moment her hand touched Gu Xin’s face, she was burned back by the scalding temperature.

She immediately asked, “Why are you running a fever? You fell down. Don’t you know that?”

Gu Xin touched her forehead and answered half a beat slowly, “Seems like it. Did I fall? But I don’t feel anything at all.”

Yan Shuangshuang could no longer care about anything else. She felt along the places Gu Xin had landed. “Does it hurt when I press here?”

“Doesn’t hurt.”

“What about here?”

“Doesn’t hurt.”

“What about your leg?”

This time, Gu Xin thought for a while. She moved her leg and honestly said, “It doesn’t hurt, but it seems like I can’t move it.”

Yan Shuangshuang’s voice was hoarse. “You have a fracture.”

“Ah?”

Gu Xin’s head was dizzy and muddled. Right now, not only could she not feel even the slightest bit of pain, her mind was not very clear either.

Yan Shuangshuang said, “And your hands. They’re cut with so many wounds, and you’ve lost so much blood. Can’t you feel it?”

“…Mm.”

“You!” Yan Shuangshuang was both anxious and angry. “Do you think I’ll feel better if you torture yourself like this just to come save me? Look at what state you’re in right now!”

Gu Xin did not answer. But in the darkness, her hand groped around, trembling as it slowly moved upward, before finally touching Yan Shuangshuang’s face lightly.

Gu Xin’s hand was very dirty, but Yan Shuangshuang did not dodge. She felt Gu Xin’s unimaginably gentle touch move from her eyes to her nose, and finally to the corner of her lips.

Gu Xin said, “When you see me, smile a little.”

“…” Yan Shuangshuang barely curved the corner of her mouth.

Gu Xin said again, “It was actually pretty easy for me to come over. See? Nothing happened. Everything went smoothly, and I found you just like that.”

“…You’re just lucky your life is tough.”

“My life has always been tough.”

Violent pain belatedly spread through her nerves.

Gu Xin’s voice weakened. She closed her eyes and curled up her body, gradually releasing pained gasps. Her voice trembled.

“It hurts…”

Yan Shuangshuang immediately called to her. “Don’t sleep. Where does it hurt? Tell me first!”

The tinnitus brought on by high fever and pain threw Gu Xin’s thoughts into complete chaos. She could not hear any sound clearly, nor could she distinguish between fantasy and reality.

In this moment, she could only face Yan Shuangshuang, who smiled serenely in her memories, and say softly, mournfully:

“Wife, I’m in so much pain…”

Author’s Note:

Xin Xin and Shuangshuang cuddle, and I’ll cuddle with my reader wives too!

As for the next chapter’s content, I’ll only say one phrase: susceptible period. Wives, you understand what I mean!