After Being Transmigrated into a Cannon Fodder Scum Alpha - Chapter 32

Perhaps it was because the military Alpha who appeared later kept Kong Ying and the man beside her in check, but Yun Qi encountered no further obstacles during the rest of the banquet, and no more strange people disturbed Lin Chen.

Lin Jue acted somewhat peculiar. In the past, she would always approach the moment she saw Yun Qi, but at this banquet, she remained in the corner, acting very quiet. Occasionally, Yun Qi caught her gaze drifting toward the Omega by her side.

Yun Qi felt that Lin Jue’s health had likely begun to fail; in the original plot, she didn’t even survive long enough for Lin Chen and Mu Yu to meet.

As for Lin Yaoyao, she had returned to her mother’s side after the earlier farce, not mingling with the Omegas of her own age. Perhaps she was being ostracized?

Regardless, Yun Qi didn’t take it to heart, nor did she plan to tell Lin Chen about her observations, lest a bad name ruin the Omega’s good mood.

“It’s about time.” Bai Mingshu glanced at the clock on the wall.

Upon hearing this, the servants brought out a square blanket and spread it on the floor, scattered with small pieces of paper. On these slips were nicknames that Yun Ye, Bai Mingshu, and others had chosen for Nuannuan.

The Yun family had a tradition: when a child is born, the parents give them a temporary nickname. When the child turns one, the elders write names they like on slips of paper and let the child choose for themselves.

“Our Nuannuan is going to choose her own name now.” Bai Mingshu coaxed the child in her arms, gently placing her on the floor.

“Nuannuan, go to the left, go to the left.” The five slips of paper on the left were all names written by Bai Mingshu. She liked them all, so she put them all down together.

Even Grand Duke Yun Lan’s expression was more animated than usual as he watched his granddaughter’s movements closely. He didn’t particularly like any of the names Bai Mingshu had chosen, feeling they were too delicate for an Alpha’s name.

Once placed on the carpet, Nuannuan didn’t go for the papers on the floor as the elders expected. Instead, she crawled toward Yun Qi. Reaching Yun Qi’s feet, she even tried to pull herself up by Yun Qi’s trousers.

Fearing the child might fall, Yun Qi picked Nuannuan up and placed her back on the carpet, but Nuannuan persisted in crawling back toward her.

Yun Qi wasn’t very familiar with holding children. In her past life, she was always busy with work and had few opportunities to interact with them. Holding Nuannuan, Yun Qi felt like she didn’t know how much strength to use; the sensation was far too soft, and she feared she might hurt the baby if she held her too tightly. When Bai Mingshu handed her the child earlier, she hadn’t quite understood how to hold an infant.

Fortunately, Bai Mingshu came to the rescue and took Nuannuan back.

“Tell Grandma, why do you keep crawling toward your Aunt?” Bai Mingshu patiently coaxed Nuannuan.

“Sister… pretty…” The little Alpha’s childish words made the ladies nearby chuckle. Some of them, like Madam Fang, had watched Yun Qi grow up.

“Our Nuannuan is a little flirt already, just like her grandfather.” Grand Duke Yun Lan felt as if he had taken an arrow to the knee for no reason.

As a child, Yun Qi had been well-behaved and polite, as exquisite as a doll, yet she insisted on keeping a stern face just like her father. The elders loved to tease such a child, laughing when other little Alphas mistook Yun Qi for an Omega, watching Yun Qi get angry but remain silent due to her upbringing—though they never knew how Yun Qi retaliated against those loose-tongued little Alphas behind their backs.

Yun Qi lacked the original host’s childhood memories, so she didn’t understand why the ladies burst into laughter at Nuannuan’s words, nor why even Lin Chen had a smile in the corners of her eyes.

Childhood memories are beautiful, and Lin Chen was clearly reminiscing about those times.

Her mother had dressed her in her finest dress, saying she was taking her to play with an older sister, and then brought her to a beautiful mansion. When they arrived, a beautiful aunt was standing at the door, holding a girl who looked very much like her. At the time, she assumed the other child was an Omega like herself and treated her as a sister.

Whenever her mother played with that beautiful aunt, she would share her favorite dresses and jewelry with this new friend. The other girl’s reaction was somewhat cold, but she only thought the girl was shy—until one time, she shared some private Omega topics, fantasizing about what kind of person her future Alpha would be. The girl had stopped her with a red face, saying Omegas should share such things with other Omegas, not an Alpha. Only then did she realize her “sister” was actually an Alpha.

Her mother and that beautiful aunt had known all along that she had mistaken Yun Qi for an Omega, yet they said nothing, laughing as they watched the fun.

The Alpha she first met was very shy, and she loved to tease her just to see her face turn red.

When she grew a bit older, her mother told her she was betrothed to that older sister, and she became too embarrassed to tease her. But the Alpha changed too; she became fond of bullying her. In front of her mother, she was still the polite and stern figure she had always known, but behind her back, she was always bullying her—muffling her hair after she’d spent ages styling it, or walking over after she played with others to tell her sternly not to let anyone hold her so closely, or mocking her for eating like a little pig…

But no matter how much she changed then, it was nothing compared to the change after reaching adulthood.

Since Yun Qi woke up, she hadn’t come looking for her. When her mother first died, she had secretly gone to find her “older sister,” only for the other person to tell her to “get lost” with disgust. Later, the things she did to her only became more and more excessive…

Yun Qi sensed the mood of the Omega beside her had changed. Just a moment ago, she was like a little fox secretly laughing, but in an instant, the curve of her lips flattened, and she became expressionless.

“What are you laughing at? I haven’t forgotten what happened earlier,” the Grand Duke muttered. She couldn’t say much to the elders, but couldn’t she say something to Lin Chen, her supposedly “dispensable” partner?

Seeing everyone laughing except herself, the Grand Duke felt as if she were the only one being kept in the dark, so she vented her irritation on the Omega beside her.

The voice pulled Lin Chen back from her memories. The person before her overlapped somewhat with the Alpha from the “second stage” of her memory—the same harsh tone, yet eyes full of concern. As a child, she had taken it only as bullying, but now she understood the underlying emotion.

Perhaps she had understood it as a child too; otherwise, why would she, while claiming to be bullied, run straight to her “older sister” the moment her mother died?

Returning to her senses, she felt a gaze. She thought it might be her “dear sister” or Kong Ying, but it was Lin Jue. She seemed… worried about her?

Impossible! When Lin Chen looked again, she saw Lin Jue talking to Lin Yaoyao. It must have been an illusion after all.

Lin Chen withdrew her gaze.

“Why lose your temper on such a happy day?” Yun Ye looked at his cousin with disapproval. He thought Yun Qi had changed, but it seemed she still needed improvement.

[Scum Value +30.]

He had once been like Yun Qi, breaking the heart of the person he loved most. It took a great deal of effort to win her back—or rather, if it weren’t for Nuannuan’s birth, he might have lost his Omega forever. Seeing Yun Qi’s actions, which mirrored his own past, reminded him of his younger self who couldn’t see his own heart—the version of himself he wanted to punch.

The Grand Duke pouted and, under her uncle’s gaze, didn’t talk back to her cousin. The atmosphere stiffened slightly.

“Alright, alright, Nuannuan hasn’t chosen her name yet,” Bai Mingshu said to smooth things over.

The Nuannuan in her arms was very cooperative, chirping and crying to be put on the carpet, refusing to be restrained.

“You have to pick up a little slip of paper, and then you can let your Aunt hold you for as long as you want. You can’t just crawl straight to her, understand?” Grand Duke Yun Lan spoke to his granddaughter, his stern expression successfully scaring the one-year-old Alpha.

When Nuannuan was placed on the blanket, she grabbed the nearest slip and handed it to her grandfather. Yun Song—the name Grand Duke Yun Lan had written. He smiled with satisfaction.

“That doesn’t count. Our Nuannuan was scared by you. The closest slip was the one you wrote; how can that count?”

Despite Bai Mingshu’s unhappiness, Nuannuan’s formal name was settled. Yun Ye could only give his father a meaningful look, mentally calling him a “cunning old fox.”

With the name settled, the banquet was essentially over, and Yun Qi took Lin Chen back.

In the car—

“Kong Ying is a senior of mine. She entered the lab before me, and the teacher had her mentor me,” Lin Chen explained as soon as they got into the car, despite Yun Qi not asking.

“At the time, it was just an ordinary senior-junior relationship. Later, she met Yaoyao through me and fell in love with her. When her confession was rejected, she thought I had made Yaoyao refuse her. There was some unpleasantness in the lab because of it, and we lost contact afterward. I don’t know why she sought me out.”

“That’s not how it sounded in the lounge,” the Grand Duke said sarcastically. “‘You clearly weren’t like this before,'” she repeated, mimicking Kong Ying’s tone.

“Back then, she found a love letter with my name on it addressed to her. But I didn’t write it. She misunderstood and thought I liked her, believing I kept Yaoyao from agreeing out of jealousy. I don’t know why she came back recently, claiming that she actually still likes me and only mistook her feelings for Yaoyao as those for a sister,” Lin Chen continued.

In truth, there were more entanglements; Kong Ying had once stolen her ideas, which led to their complete break. But perhaps that wasn’t important to Yun Qi, so she didn’t mention it. She feared Yun Qi might misunderstand and think she had given them to Kong Ying voluntarily.

Some Omegas are blinded by love, believing they won’t need to work after marriage, so they give their achievements to an Alpha to bolster their career, only to be abandoned. After the Alpha achieves fame, they marry a second Omega—young, beautiful, and obedient. The abandoned Omega then tries to reclaim the rights to the academic achievements but lacks evidence, and the matter is dropped.

Lin Chen knew her chances were slim, and with the love letter incident preceding it, others might think she was just being unreasonable, so she hadn’t pursued it. Of course, there was a more important reason: certain ideas in her drafts had fatal flaws. Following her logic, the developed drugs would have side effects—invisible at first, but surfacing later. So, she let Kong Ying steal that useless draft.

As for why Kong Ying was looking for her now, she had a faint inkling of the reason.

Yun Qi believed Lin Chen. Though the plot the system gave her was incomplete, it focused on the two leads. Lin Chen’s romantic line had always been simple: aside from the early Scum Alpha partner “Yun Qi,” there was only Mu Yu later—no other Alphas.

Seeing Yun Qi close her eyes without asking more, Lin Chen assumed she believed her and slowly leaned over, resting against Yun Qi.

Silence returned to the car.