A Stand-in Alpha Awakens - Chapter 36

Exiting the station, Bai Yue headed straight for the paid parking lot by the roadside. To make her back-and-forth trips easier, she always left her car nearby whenever she departed.

Having returned early today, she was in an exceptionally good mood. After scanning the QR code on her watch to pay the parking fee, she leaned back in her seat and rested for a few minutes while listening to music. Through the sunroof, the electric sunshade slowly retracted, revealing the green leaves swaying in the wind outside.

This was currently the most comfortable temperature in Liancheng—neither too hot nor too cold. The sky was high and the clouds were light. If one could quiet their mind, it was pleasant to see the sky from anywhere.

Her phone had run out of power and shut down automatically when she left the station. She didn’t know what Jiang Lu had replied just now; she had a vague memory of seeing her say “Yes”?

Thinking of the girl who was so well-behaved that she even replied to WeChat messages in a formal manner with proper punctuation, Bai Yue raised her seat back and found a charging cable in the center console. She recalled Zhang Yi mentioning that they could install wireless charging in the car. She hadn’t had time for it then, but it seemed she really needed to make a trip to the shop—having too few power sources was indeed inconvenient.

Bai Yue shook her head with a hint of regret, shifted gears, and turned the car out of the parking lot. Before she had gotten off the train, Auntie Lu had sent a WeChat saying the medication they took previously was all gone; she needed to stop by the hospital before going home.

Using voice commands to set the navigation destination, Bai Yue’s expression changed the instant she looked at the center console screen.

In the top right corner of the photo Jiang Lu had sent, a small piece of glass was visible, and framed within the glass was a curved flowerbed she knew very well.

Her attention had previously been focused on the blooming jasmine, but now she realized the flowerbed looked exactly like the one at the private hospital she frequently visited!

Why did the little sister go to the hospital? Is she unwell? Or injured?

Beside her, the phone connected to the power source vibrated briefly as it automatically turned on. Bai Yue immediately grabbed it, unlocked it, logged into WeChat, and opened the photo again.

The moment she zoomed in, the screen suddenly flickered into an incoming call alert. Bai Yue’s thumb hovered over the “Decline” button, but just as she was about to press it, she remembered something and decisively swiped right to answer.

The voice on the other end was respectful: “Boss, Su Mengrui just returned from B-University and headed straight for Rongsheng Medical. Do you want me to follow her inside?”

“Rongsheng? She went to Rongsheng too?” Bai Yue’s tone rose, filled with displeasure. “Follow her. I’m almost there.”

Hanging up, Bai Yue didn’t bother looking at her phone further. She floored the accelerator and followed the navigation toward her destination. She wasn’t sure why Jiang Lu was at the hospital, but she knew exactly why Su Mengrui was there.

That crazy girl—she absolutely could not be allowed to cause trouble.

The silver car was like a flexible fish in the sunlight, moving forward and picking up speed.

In front of the brightly lit consultation table, Jiang Lu had taken off her short-sleeved shirt, leaving only a black camisole.

The chief physician adjusted his medical gloves, took an iodophor-soaked cotton swab to disinfect the scent gland, and after repeatedly telling Jiang Lu not to move, administered three injections in a row under Jiang Wen’s supervision.

As the last injection was finished, the Alpha girl, who had been bracing her back on the table for a long time, instantly collapsed.

Jiang Wen, witnessing the entire process, saw clearly that by the time the first shot was done, the stray hairs near her daughter’s face and neck were soaked with sweat from the pain. By the end of the three shots, her child looked as if she had been drenched from head to toe with a bucket of water. Jiang Wen’s heart trembled with pain.

The doctor was also tensed. After applying pressure to stop the bleeding and disposing of the used syringes, he let out a light sigh. A faint mist had formed on his glasses. “Good child, truly impressive. To not make a sound through such pain—you are bound for great things!”

Jiang Wen draped a jacket over her daughter’s back. Hearing the doctor’s comfort, she forced a smile. As she turned, she used her fingertips to wipe away an uncontrollable tear. Jiang Lu hadn’t made a sound, but mother and daughter shared a heart; she knew the girl must be hurting terribly.

The powerful Alpha pheromones that had surged in the air were retracted in an instant. Seeing the girl’s weakened state, the doctor sighed, took off his gloves, and walked over to release some soothing pheromones for her.

Jiang Wen, being an Omega, felt chest tightness from the sudden burst and rapid retraction of the Alpha pheromones. She managed to say a few words to Jiang Lu before having to step out and send her Beta assistant in to take her place.

Jiang Lu lay on the table, a buzzing ringing in her ears. She felt like a large glob of non-Newtonian fluid; if she moved even slightly, she might slide right off the table. Fortunately, the intense discomfort wasn’t progressively worsening.

She heard the sound of the door opening through the ringing in her ears. She wanted to turn her head but couldn’t. She tiredly opened her sweat-soaked eyes and gave up weakly. The doctor said this feeling would last about five to ten minutes, and she would be fine once she got through it.

At most ten minutes. It’ll be over soon.

The assistant, unaffected by pheromones, walked over to the damp Alpha girl with eyes full of heartache. She had been with the company for eight years. When she first met Jiang Lu, she was a fourth-grader. In what felt like the blink of an eye… Sigh, if President Cheng could see her daughter being so strong, she would be both heartbroken and proud.

A wet wipe gently dabbed across the girl’s face, wiping away the damp, sticky sweat. Jiang Lu let out a sigh of relief.

Separated by the door, Jiang Wen leaned against the corridor wall and had a good cry. She used up all the tissues in her bag, and her voice even changed pitch. She cleared her throat, found that her normal tone wouldn’t return, and uneasily rubbed her reddened nose. She followed the signs to head downstairs to the supermarket on the far east side of the second floor to buy water and tissues.

The supermarket was small, but the shelves and products were quite sophisticated. Jiang Wen immediately spotted her usual brand of tissues, grabbed a pack of each, and then bought a hot drink without any additives. There was no one in the supermarket, and the corridor outside was somewhat empty. She took two sips of water, felt her throat improve slightly, and walked back quickly.

At the elevator, she happened to run into medical staff pushing a hospital bed. Jiang Wen didn’t hesitate to step back and walk into the adjacent fire exit.

The doctor said Jiang Lu needed to watch her diet today and tomorrow—no spicy or irritating food, as light as possible, and especially no seafood. Before they came, she had asked the helper at home to buy large shrimp. She had been so busy she forgot; now that she had a moment, she called home.

The call was answered quickly. Jiang Wen explained Jiang Lu’s situation concisely. The helpers were professionals and knew what to eat during such periods. After hanging up, they immediately began revising the dinner menu.

Only a single set of footsteps remained in the fire exit. Jiang Wen didn’t intend to climb the stairs, so she put away her phone and walked toward the nearest exit door.

However, the moment she pulled the door open, she nearly collided with an Omega girl with short-cropped hair. “Little girl, are you alright?”

The girl’s face looked unpleasant, as if she were in a rush or angry. Hearing her voice, the girl rolled her eyes and ran off. Jiang Wen frowned slightly but didn’t take it to heart. She watched the girl frantically duck into the elevator on the right and start pressing buttons rapidly, then she stopped in front of the descending elevator on the left.

The doors opened, and someone stepped out. As she walked into the mirror-like cabin, a face suddenly flashed in her mind.

…That girl just now seemed a bit like someone from the Su family? Su Ying’s only daughter?

It looked like her, yet not quite.

She had seen Su Ying’s precious daughter not long ago; she wasn’t that tanned, nor that rude. Must have been mistaken.

Jiang Wen shook her head and pressed the elevator button. She adjusted her collar and stray hairs by her ears against the polished walls and stepped out when the doors opened. The corridor was as empty as when she left. The curtains over the clinic doors and windows were drawn, hiding the scene inside, but she could still smell two distinctly different Alpha pheromones as she approached.

Not knowing the specific floor, Su Mengrui was searching floor by floor, feeling frantic and distracted. She irritably entered and exited the elevators, and after another fruitless search, she suddenly froze.

By the fire exit door near the third-floor elevator, had she caught a faint scent of strawberry pheromones? That woman was an Omega, and those faint pheromones were clearly from an Alpha!

Su Mengrui’s reddened eyes widened—she looked down at the photo on her phone. In front of Jiang Lu’s back, there was clearly a woman in dark clothes carrying a brown leather bag. Thinking carefully, she recalled seeing a woman with a bag of the same color, in her early thirties, with lips similar to Jiang Lu’s.

Su Mengrui’s gaze sharpened. She frantically slapped the “open” button, and after stepping out, she excitedly pressed for the adjacent elevator. The elevator descended slowly from the seventh floor. She rubbed her hands anxiously, praying the scent was still inside. As long as there wasn’t a stronger pheromone to mask it, she could definitely find where that scent went.

Jiang Lu’s scent gland had a problem; she must be in desperate need of an Omega’s comfort right now! Su Mengrui carefully searched the elevator buttons, but her smile dropped; she didn’t find the answer she wanted.

Not there? Did it dissipate so fast?

She stood in the elevator in disappointment, then pressed for the floor where the elevator had been previously, deciding to take a gamble. If her luck was truly bad, she would just use her own pheromones to search. It was a one-way match anyway; there weren’t many Alphas who could match her, at most it would just disturb the Omegas in the hospital and make them uncomfortable for a short while. It wasn’t much of a price to pay.

Su Mengrui prepared for the worst. With a “ding,” the elevator doors opened.

Bai Yue arrived quickly. After confirming Su Mengrui’s location with the security guard, she headed straight for the eighth floor. She was a regular at Rongsheng Medical, a “VIP among VIPs.” While recognizing the location of the flowerbed in Jiang Lu’s photo, she already had an answer in mind.

The seventh and eighth floors of the hospital specialized in scent glands. At the beginning of the year, when she came for a check-up, she had gifted her doctor a pot of Christmas Cactus. That doctor’s clinic was on the eighth floor. Coincidentally, in the bottom right corner of the jasmine photo Jiang Lu sent her, there was a small branch of wildly growing Christmas Cactus.

The person following Su Mengrui said she was searching floor by floor. To prevent her from disturbing Jiang Lu’s consultation, Bai Yue switched elevators at the eighth floor, went down to the seventh, and waited at the seventh-floor elevator doors.

With a “ding,” the elevator doors opened, and a haughty Su Mengrui stepped out with her arms crossed.

Leaning against a pillar diagonally across, Bai Yue waved cheerfully: “What a coincidence, Cousin.”

“Bai Yue?!” Su Mengrui froze on the spot. “Why are you here?!”

Bai Yue’s expression was innocent and blank: “Am I not allowed to be here?”

Su Mengrui was going crazy: “You’re definitely not allowed to be here!!!”

“Then what should we do?” Bai Yue spread her hands. “Are you going to send me away?”