I Heard I’m the Scumbag Alpha of a Top-Tier Leading Actress? - Chapter 8

Gu Xin stuffed the test report into her bag and called a car.

During the ride from the entrance of the residential compound to the airport, Gu Xin did not sit idle.

Every word on the test report had carved itself into her heart. Gu Xin closed her eyes and pulled the “recording” back to the night when she had searched through the clues on her phone. The film froze on a strange text message.

On March 28, an unfamiliar number had sent a message: [The money has been transferred.]

The image flipped. Her bank card transaction records also froze on the night of March 28, and a transfer of 150,000 yuan from ICBC slowly emerged.

She had used something to make a deal with someone and earned 150,000 yuan in profit.

What did “Gu Xin” have that could bring in pure profit without any capital? Nothing.

And among the people around “Gu Xin,” who had that kind of value? Yan Shuangshuang.

Gu Xin thought, Which channel could be used to contact paparazzi and leak material, but had such a massive workload that she had not had time to check everything one by one?

Only Weibo.

That account was filled with garbage information. Just filtering through its following list had already consumed most of her energy. She had only skimmed the top layer of private messages before stopping, never expecting that this would make her miss an important piece of information.

Her hand clenched into a fist. Gu Xin propped her head against the car window frame, her temples throbbing with pain. The driver in front saw through the rearview mirror that her face looked awful and could not help striking up a conversation. “Miss, what time is your flight?”

Gu Xin forced herself to perk up. “Seven o’clock. Sir, can you drive a little faster? I have something urgent.”

“Sure thing.” Without another word, the driver began accelerating. “You can make it for seven. Don’t be too anxious. But where are you flying this late?”

“The capital.”

“The capital is good. My daughter’s in the capital too. She just went there with her husband two days ago to get their child treated.”

Gu Xin followed the topic. “What illness? Is it serious?”

“It has to do with pheromones. You could say it’s serious, or you could say it’s not serious. My granddaughter is an Omega, only fourteen. Last week, a Beta boy in her class brought a strong inhibitor from home to play with and accidentally opened a bottle. In the end, quite a few kids in the class entered their differentiation period early.” The driver was clearly a master storyteller. With a few crisp words, he explained the whole cause and effect without needing his passenger to ask follow-up questions.

“Ah, can it be treated?”

“Send them to a big hospital to test their hormone levels.” The driver turned the steering wheel smoothly. “First test the hormones, then prescribe medicine depending on the situation and see if they can be regulated. If they can’t be regulated, then you can only leave it up to fate.”

“There’s no special medicine?”

“Of course not.” The driver curled his lip. “People really are troublesome. Every differentiation period, lots of kids get into trouble. Underdeveloped glands, pheromone deficiency, hormone imbalance—there are too many of them, a whole pile. Hospitals practically live off differentiation periods. Luckily, ours isn’t serious. I heard they just need to prescribe some kind of O-hormone supplement.”

“That’s still all right.” Gu Xin’s tightly furrowed brows finally relaxed. Suddenly thinking of something, she hesitated before asking, “So once someone enters their differentiation period, does the hospital issue a test report for children who differentiate early or late?”

“No, they have to wait until the differentiation period is over. If the hormone levels are unstable, how can they accurately test what sex you are?” The driver teased, “At a glance, I can tell your differentiation period went too smoothly. You didn’t worry about it at all. Differentiation periods are hard. Some people are done in a day or two, while some get tortured for months.”

Gu Xin answered vaguely. She looked at the scenery flashing past outside the window and thought, The last time Yan Shuangshuang had work was during Spring Festival, from late January to late March. A two-month differentiation period?

Where had she been during those two months?

When the driver said he would be fast, he really was fast. In less than an hour, she arrived at the airport. By the time she passed security and reached the waiting area, there were still fifty minutes before the plane took off.

Her phone screen went dark, then lit up again. Lit up, then went dark. In the end, Gu Xin still sent Yan Shuangshuang a WeChat message: [Something came up. I’m going to the capital. I’ll be back on Monday.]

Then, with a snap, she took a picture of her plane ticket and sent it along.

But even when it was time to board and the flight attendant asked everyone to switch their phones to airplane mode, Yan Shuangshuang still had not replied.

11:30 p.m., the capital.

In recent years, the capital’s environmental problems had become increasingly severe. Smog in spring was perfectly normal. At this time of night, even if Gu Xin wanted to look at the stars, there was nothing she could do.

The place Gu Xin had booked was a small inn beside the university, just around the corner from the research institute. She took a taxi from the airport, and the driver raced all the way there like the wind. After dropping Gu Xin off at the inn’s entrance, he quickly drove away, as if afraid of being contaminated by something, leaving Gu Xin standing frozen in place with a confused expression.

This confusion finally received an answer when Gu Xin stepped into the inn named “Waiting for Love.”

The moment Gu Xin entered, she wished she had no sense of smell, because the scent of inhibitors inside was far too mixed and far too strong. It was like a crude hospital that had splashed disinfectant everywhere at a lethal dose; anyone who entered this inn would wish they could simply pass out.

If it had not been so late, and if it had not been Saturday, such an ambiguous date, Gu Xin would have wanted nothing more than to book another place to stay.

The receptionist was already used to seeing guests with greenish expressions like Gu Xin’s. After completing the registration, she held both hands palm-up and said, “Better-quality inhibitors have to be purchased separately.”

“I’m alone.”

This time, the receptionist finally looked a little surprised. She looked Gu Xin up and down and muttered, “How strange.”

After making the room card in a few quick motions, the receptionist led her upstairs. “If you feel any discomfort, please open an inhibitor as soon as possible. Otherwise, not only will our inn blacklist you, we’ll also report to the police that you released pheromones indiscriminately in a public place. At that point, whether you spend a few days locked up won’t be something we can control.”

Gu Xin was somewhat shocked. “Does your place not accept couples?”

The receptionist pointed at the slogan in the stairwell—Pheromone-Free Premises. Behind it was also a prohibition sign.

For an inn to post something like that had a bit of dark humor to it.

However, Gu Xin was too tired and had no mental energy left to think about what was strange. After arriving in her room, she hurriedly took a shower. When she came out, her eyelids were already fighting each other, but there were still things weighing on her mind, so she could not sleep well.

She repeatedly pulled up Yan Shuangshuang’s WeChat. From her WeChat name and profile picture to her signature, Gu Xin had already memorized them backward, yet the message she had sent a few hours ago still had no response.

So waiting for an answer was this torturous.

As Gu Xin kept looking, her eyes finally slowly closed. Sleep came gently yet fiercely, so much so that Gu Xin forgot she was someone who had nightmares.

Half an hour after she fell asleep, at 12:22, the screen lit up.

[What are you going to the capital for?]

Gu Xin knew clearly that this was a dream.

Everything was hazy and blurry. In the dream, Gu Xin felt as if she were playing a first-person RPG game, clear-headed yet immersed, her emotions rising and falling along with it.

Her first sensation was pain.

She had never experienced such tormenting pain before. Even ten thousand arrows piercing the heart were not enough to describe it. When the pain reached its depths, Gu Xin thought that it turned out people really could have no tears and no wounds, yet hurt so badly they could not speak.

Dry eyes stared at the ceiling, but within her blurred vision, an equally haggard yet beautiful face suddenly appeared.

Yan Shuangshuang’s mouth opened and closed, as if she were saying something, but Gu Xin could not hear her. She lay on the bed like a corpse, without the slightest reaction to the outside world. Those strange, bizarre things in her mind were bombing her wildly, blasting her reason until not even a shred remained. No matter what Yan Shuangshuang said to her, she was indifferent, uncaring. She was like a broken puppet, caring about no one.

This attitude ignited Yan Shuangshuang’s anger.

With a slap, numb, piercing pain spread across her face.

Only belatedly did Gu Xin realize that she had been hit.

The person who had hit her was kneeling beside her, covering her face as she cried loudly. Crystal-clear tears fell in streams, drawing what little attention Gu Xin had left.

Her rusted mind reluctantly began turning.

Who was this?

So unfamiliar.

Did she know her?

And what was falling from her eyes? It was so beautiful. Why didn’t she remember?

So tired. So tired.

A gentle, hoarse voice sounded beside her ear, carrying endless temptation. It said, If you’re tired, then sleep. Once you fall asleep, it won’t hurt anymore.

Gu Xin was tempted. The clamor in her mind gradually quieted. She slowly closed her eyes, her hands resting steadily over her lower abdomen, dignified as if she were about to enter a coffin.

The sound of crying beside her grew louder, but her thoughts were sinking unstoppably downward. Along with them, the crying gradually drifted away as well. Every cell seemed to sink into the peace of a dream.

Before losing consciousness, Gu Xin thought—

It would have been better if she were the one who had died.

Gu Xin woke with a violent start!

She gasped for air in great mouthfuls. Cold sweat clung to her forehead like a waterfall, and her palms were sticky.

The night wind howled outside, striking the window until it rattled, yet Gu Xin felt that her world was deathly silent.

Was she dead? Or alive?

Was she still in the dream?

If this was reality, why was she suffering the same suffocating pain as in the dream?

If this was a dream, then how was she supposed to wake up?

Cold air struck her face, freezing Gu Xin until she shivered. Her eyes were blank as she hugged the blanket. One moment, her body seemed to crack open like it was burning in flames; the next, it was as cold as a glacier. Amid fire and water, she drifted in a daze, not knowing where she had come from or where she was going.

Gu Xin slowly thought, Where was she?

Was she at home?

Her hearing slowly returned. Outside, the occasional sound of passing cars mingled with faint voices, working together softly to begin melting away her nightmare. Gu Xin’s feverish, muddled mind was finally granted a trace of clarity.

She was in the capital.

On the road to finding her past.

With trembling hands, Gu Xin opened her contacts. As if by muscle memory, she entered a number. From the other end of the line came a cold female voice—

Sorry, the number you have dialed does not exist.

With a soft thud, the phone fell onto the blanket. Gu Xin sat frozen in place as if she had lost all sensation.

So it turned out they were all gone.

Mom. Mother. Brother.

They were dead.