The Cold Alpha's Black Lotus O Strategy Plan (GL) - Chapter 1

“How could this happen so suddenly… when they informed me… I…”

Outside the operating room, a slender young woman with dark, curly hair draped over her shoulders was sobbing, buried in the arms of another woman, who looked to be around sixty years old.

The older woman, Guo Yi, restrained her grief and tried hard to comfort the younger woman, Jin Sique, who had just rushed to the hospital: “Sique, don’t be too sad… it was an accident…”

“Aunt Guo…” The young woman choked out two sobs, buried her face in her hands, her shoulders trembling slightly, and nodded with difficulty.

“Mrs. Jin.”

A nurse hurried over: “Mrs. Jin, the surgery requires a family member’s signature.”

Aunt Guo quickly helped Jin Sique stand up.

Jin Sique froze for a moment, but it was very brief. She quickly wiped her eyes and cheeks with her hands, then turned around with red eyes. She took the surgery consent form, swiftly signed her name, and looked at the nurse with sorrow and sincerity: “I beg you.”

“We will do our best, it’s our duty,” the nurse nodded, then quickly left.

Jin Sique bowed slightly towards the nurse’s retreating back—a gesture that was genuinely moving. Aunt Guo sighed, wiping string after string of tears from her face, lamenting non-stop.

Aunt Guo was the Lü family’s housekeeper. She had looked after Lü Zhongcai’s daily life for several years, and Lü Zhongcai treated her well, so they had built up some affection.

That long, drawn-out sigh, laced with worry, fear, and confusion, barely registered any ripple in Jin Sique’s heart.

She straightened up, her pale face showing the appropriate amount of pallor and fragility. Jin Sique’s skin was very fair, so white that one could almost see the bluish veins hidden beneath.

She was an Omega, and like one of the stereotypes society had for Omegas, she looked beautiful and frail.

But because of her exceptional beauty and unique temperament that surpassed most Omegas, this softness was adorned with a certain ineffable charm.

Like a small blade of grass beaten down and drooping in a rainy night, a crystal dewdrop hanging from its delicate, emerald tip, reflecting a clear, transparent light.

Swaying and trembling slightly, it scratched at the heart, making one wonder when this drop of dew would fall, when it would soak into the soil, getting stained with dust and mud.

The operating room door opened and closed. The glaring red “In Surgery” lights came on.

Jin Sique tightly furrowed her brow, slightly tilting her head, carefully studying the characters, and gently pressing the corners of her eyes to keep them slightly red, making it look as if she had just been crying.

Aunt Guo finally composed herself, gently put her arm around Jin Sique, and whispered, “Sique, let’s go sit down for a while.”

Jin Sique offered a slight smile. She looked truly too delicate; even her smile carried a sense of strained exhaustion. “You go sit for a while.”

Aunt Guo sighed. She had sighed too many times today. Jin Sique slightly frowned, ensuring her expression remained unreadable and impenetrable.

Aunt Guo worriedly said: “A fractured tibia. I heard the nurse say that if it’s severe, it might leave a chronic condition… Will she have to use a crutch from now on?”

“How could this happen? Why did she get into a car accident?” Aunt Guo lamented.

Jin Sique’s voice was slightly hoarse as she asked, “Have you notified the family about Zhongcai’s car accident?”

Aunt Guo shook her head. Lü Zhongcai was still conscious when she was rushed to the hospital from the accident scene and specifically instructed not to inform her family.

The Lü family home was far away in Taiyuan, Shanxi. Lü Zhongcai did not want to worry her family, and since her parents each had their own work, they didn’t need to make the difficult trip.

This matter was originally not supposed to be relayed to Jin Sique either; Lü Zhongcai had specifically given that instruction beforehand.

However, the surgery required a family member’s signature, and before Aunt Guo arrived, the hospital had already contacted Lü Zhongcai’s legal partner through the police.

Jin Sique’s long eyelashes fluttered and lowered, casting a small shadow on her face.

Lü Zhongcai found herself standing in a torrential rain. It was a dark night, and amidst the blackness, some slightly noisy conversations echoed.

“The surgery has started, the patient’s family please wait patiently.”

The gates were tightly closed, the noise faded away, replaced by a few scornful giggles.

“Someone who was so glorious before, now can’t even find someone to sign for her surgery?”

“Shhh, keep your voice down, what if she suddenly wakes up and hears you?”

A look of confusion crossed Lü Zhongcai’s face. She looked down and found she was holding a book in her hand. Using the faint streetlight, she made out the title—The Canary.

The Canary?

A gust of wind came, making the pages rustle and flip non-stop. Lü Zhongcai frowned and looked around, nervously surveying the pitch-black surroundings under the rainy night.

The sounds of the world seemed to begin distorting. Everything in front of her began to solidify. The sound of the heavy rain instantly seemed to break through the constraints of the sky, roaring down like a column of water, nearly sweeping Lü Zhongcai to the ground.

Lü Zhongcai raised her arm, trying to shield herself from the rain, but in a flash, she realized the rainwater was washing against a glass window in front of her. The window reflected her dark face and a scene behind her, like a spotlight-drenched stage of a skit.

And the hollow, distant voices became clear.

Behind her, doctors and nurses were gathered around an operating table, discussing animatedly.

“The gland is severely damaged… emergency excision…”

“The lower limbs have old injuries. I’m afraid she’ll be in a wheelchair for life…”

“…Fortunately, she got divorced, otherwise how much pain would that Omega wife have been in.”

Lü Zhongcai turned and approached the operating table. The people around her seemed to ignore her presence. This time, she saw clearly: this was an Alpha undergoing gland excision surgery.

The Alpha lay on the operating table with her eyes closed, wearing an oxygen mask, her forehead and temples slick with blood and sweat. There was a sense of familiarity yet strangeness to her.

“Should we arrange for post-operative recovery treatment and artificial gland transplantation?”

“She’s already bankrupt. She can’t afford the high cost of an artificial gland transplant.”

Lü Zhongcai noticed a section of a silver chain exposed beneath the patient’s open collar, and her expression grew more puzzled.

The woman on the operating table suddenly opened her eyes and met Lü Zhongcai’s gaze in the void. Lü Zhongcai’s heart immediately pounded like thunder.

“The patient is awake intra-operatively! Give her the anesthetic first.”

“Quick—”

The nurses hurried over. Lü Zhongcai frantically stepped back. The next moment, a piercing, bone-deep pain spread from the back of her neck, a feeling like having a deep chunk gouged out, causing her whole body to spasm in agony.

She instinctively raised her hand to feel the area of her posterior neck gland, then froze. The copious fresh blood on her palm was washed away by the heavy rain. The excised gland seemed to flow away through her fingers like water.

The scene before her gradually faded and blurred, replaced by another.

Lü Zhongcai was in darkness. A streetlight illuminated not far away. She saw a tall figure in the distance—a woman—and her arms seemed to be embracing another person whose face was indistinct.

That woman was Jin Sique.

What was she doing here?

That figure… Lü Zhongcai stepped forward to chase, but her foot missed the ground, and she fell heavily. As the world spun, she tumbled into a ballroom.

The torrential rain, like a curtain closing after a performance, receded like a tide of departing audience, vanishing in an instant.

Lü Zhongcai stood in a corner of the ballroom, staring in shock at a familiar figure ahead, who was drunk and disheveled. And at the white, mocking teeth of the onlookers clustered around, who were laughing and cursing mercilessly.

Lü Zhongcai stood rooted to the spot. When the surging crowd noise subsided and only “Lü Zhongcai” remained in the center of the scene, an elegant figure appeared and poured a glass of wine over Lü Zhongcai’s head.

“…”

“Jin Sique!” Lü Zhongcai recognized the figure.

Jin Sique slowly smiled, then turned and left. Lü Zhongcai stepped forward fiercely, but her legs gave out, and she slumped into the muddy, embarrassing street corner.

She examined her powerless legs in shock. The ballroom scene suddenly collapsed, like peeling paint. She was back in the original rainy alley.

The wheelchair beside her, which had been ignored, was now rolling back due to inertia, silently proclaiming her current predicament.

Her legs were crippled? Lü Zhongcai looked at this scene in horror. Why? Was this a dream or reality? If it was a dream, why didn’t she wake up when she realized it was a dream?

At this moment, the person Jin Sique was holding by the arm not far away suddenly turned her head.

Lü Zhongcai was startled—it was clearly her own face.

Simultaneously, the Jin Sique beside her also slightly turned her head, revealing a still-tender face, curiously sizing up Lü Zhongcai.

A chill ran down Lü Zhongcai’s spine, and her head began to throb violently. She desperately endured the dull pain in her brain, shaking her head frantically. When she opened her eyes again, she finally realized that the surrounding environment and layout, everything, had transitioned from blurry to clear, from illusion to reality.

The noise of the crowd immediately flooded in.

“What are we eating tonight?” A voice at the street corner was real and clear. “Let’s go to the supermarket. We’ll cook at home?”

Lü Zhongcai was swept up in the crowd and walked blindly for a few steps, following the flow. When she reached the opposite side of the road, she snapped to attention, looking sideways at her trembling fingertips and the cigarette burnt down to its end.

A tiny ember of red fire scorched her fingertip.

Lü Zhongcai frowned, casually stubbed out the cigarette, and realized she was still holding the book named The Canary in her other hand.

The protagonist of the book was named Jin Sique.

Lü Zhongcai was slightly stunned, realizing once again she was in a dream, but the dream was chaotic and difficult to grasp the essence of.

Her destination seemed to be the Chunwang Street in front of her. Chunwang Street was the former site of a traditional Peking Opera troupe.

The troupe’s master had passed away half a year ago. Before that, Chunwang Tower had not staged a performance for a long time due to the issue of demolition. With the master gone, the last vestige of Chunwang Tower’s persistence crumbled.

The already fragmented troupe disbanded completely. The yellow timber and ancient lacquer were crushed by roaring excavators, turning the area into the bustling commercial snack street it was now.

Lü Zhongcai watched quietly for a while. Just as she was about to turn and leave, a frail figure brushed past her.

She raised an eyebrow. Just as she was about to flip through the book, a small, frail figure passed by her.

Seventeen-year-old Jin Sique looked slightly malnourished. Her cheeks were sunken, her face was pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

Aside from her undeniably delicate features, she carried a sense of heavy despair. She was wearing a simple white T-shirt and black pants, with her hair tied in a single ponytail. Her posterior neck gland area was covered with four or five layers of messy inhibitor patches.

The edges of the patches were curled and warped, even showing some loose fraying.

At that time, Jin Sique was like those repeatedly used patches that no one dared to throw away, exuding a sense of being frequently worn down or overused.

A faint, fresh scent drifted into the Alpha’s sensitive nostrils. It wasn’t intense or extraordinary, but it acutely stirred a certain restless desire in an Alpha’s alcohol-relaxed nerves.

It was an Omega, so fragile and small. Although she was the one who bumped into her, hitting only her side shoulder, she nearly stumbled and fell to the ground.

Lü Zhongcai looked at Jin Sique with indifference.

And that Omega acutely sensed something. In that momentary brush-past, she probably also caught the highly aggressive scent of the Alpha’s pheromones.

She quickly turned her head to glance at Lü Zhongcai, a look of panic and fear in her eyes. She picked up the novel Lü Zhongcai had dropped on the ground and anxiously handed it to her: “Your book.”

Lü Zhongcai looked at the small figure disappearing into the alley and thought back with confusion, recalling seeing her at Chunwang Tower.

When she was sitting there, the girl seemed to have served tea.

She seemed to be the adopted daughter picked up by the old master of Chunwang Tower.

Lü Zhongcai reached up and pressed the back of her neck. Her Alpha gland pulsed, seemingly stirred into a certain restless desire by that brief scent.

She looked down at her feet. Because of a slight shift, she had stepped on the edge of the green belt, where a few sparse, rebellious green leaves jutted out from the expanse of grass.

They had been trampled by countless passersby and were now being crushed under her own foot.

Lü Zhongcai inhaled slowly, recalling the scent—it seemed to be the smell of green grass, the scent of green grass…

A burst of wild laughter erupted on the other end of the phone. “Oh my, ‘Evil has its own evil to grind’ indeed. How does it feel? Are you ecstatic?”

Jin Sique stood at the end of the corridor, one arm crossed, holding her phone with the other. Hearing the comment, she slightly raised an eyebrow, her tone low and carrying a hint of rebuke: “What are you talking about? That’s my legal partner.”

“Oh,” the voice on the other end also softened, asking mysteriously, “Does your contract include a clause for widowhood? What if…”

Jin Sique pressed a hand against her brow, avoiding a nurse rushing down the corridor, and replied softly: “A broken bone and a moderate concussion. There is no life-threatening danger.”

A disappointed wail came from the other end of the phone.

Just then, a commotion broke out in the corridor. Jin Sique stood in the sheltered corner, a large circular pillar completely obscuring her figure. An uncontrollable, frenzied, low laugh interrupted her conversation with her friend.

“She’s dead. That’s wonderful.”

“I waited ten years, and I finally outlasted that bitch!”

“Yes, I’m free… I’m free.”

Jin Sique stepped out from behind the pillar, wearing a clean white, knee-length semi-long skirt. She silently walked past the hysterical person, unobtrusively glancing at him.

He had inhibitor patches on the back of his neck, and his soft features suggested he might be an Omega, though unfortunately, he looked a bit old.

A roaring laugh came from the phone, snickering: “Hahaha, the three joys of middle age: getting promoted, getting rich, and your wife dying! Well, even if our President Lü is still relatively healthy, you’ll have some peace and quiet for a while, won’t you?”

Jin Sique cut the call and subtly smiled, brushing her earlobe. When she smiled, it was like a fading flower suddenly bursting into full bloom—gorgeous and vibrant, with two precarious drops of clear dew resting on its scarlet branches, contrasting against the fresh green leaves.