After the alias "Little Fish" was exposed, Yu Zhiwan and Pei Yujang began addressing each other by name. At work, when they occasionally ran into each other, Yu Zhiwan, like everyone else, would call Pei Yujang "Little Pei" or "Minister Pei."
Pei Yujang's relatives usually called her "Little Yu," and both Liu Huanran and Zhao Manlin called Yu Zhiwan "Wanwan," showing that they both had nicknames.
But Yu Zhiwan's question prompted Pei Yujang to think quickly.
Yu Zhiwan's inquiry clearly indicated that she wanted a unique nickname for them to use with each other—something special. Otherwise, she could've just called her "Little Yu," so why bother with anything else?
The light snowfall in Ningxiang seemed to awaken Pei Yujang's emotional intelligence, making her mind work quickly.
"How about you call me Fish Sauce?"
"Fish Sauce" was a homophone for her name "Yujang." Calling her by "Yujang" felt a bit like how elders address youngsters, which wasn't really in style anymore.
Plus, "Fish Sauce" sounded delicious and playful. Feeling pleased with herself, Pei Yujang then asked Yu Zhiwan:
"And what should I call you? Zhiwan?"
Talking about "Fish Sauce" naturally made Pei Yujang think of food-related nicknames, though there wasn't a food called "Zhiwan," which should've been something like "Cuttlefish Ball."
Yu Zhiwan, having never heard of "Zhiwan" as a food, couldn't help but chuckle when Pei Yujang explained. But Pei Yujang just licked her lips:
"It's so cold. I wish we had fish sauce cuttlefish balls to eat right now."
When she said this, she wasn't thinking about any "couple nickname" ideas—her mind was entirely on the delicious foods she had tasted recently.
Pei Jinhuai had taken her to a foreign restaurant before, and Pei Yujang couldn't forget the taste—fragrant, chewy, with a perfect texture and sauce.
Pei Yujang's stomach had long started growling. They had only eaten a few snacks and tea on the plane, hadn't eaten dinner after returning to the guesthouse, and then the barbecue plans were derailed by the incident. By the time they got back, she was starving.
But in Ningxiang, there weren't many stores open at night. The city moved at a slow pace, and 24-hour convenience stores were only in the city center—not even worth considering in the suburbs.
Ordering delivery wasn't an issue, though the delivery fee didn't matter; the problem was that no delivery services were available at this hour.
When they returned to the guesthouse, Yu Zhiwan was a bit tired, but Pei Yujang still had plenty of energy.
She had been busy for so long and wouldn't sleep well without rewarding her stomach.
After wandering around the guesthouse for a while, Pei Yujang suddenly had an idea. She walked into the kitchen, opened the cabinets, and found an unopened pack of noodles and several bags of instant ramen—both cup and bagged versions.
The fridge had eggs, sausages, and luncheon meat, as well as some vegetables. While the ingredients were simple and not ideal for a proper meal, they were perfect for a late-night snack.
In her past life, Pei Yujang had eaten roots and survived on nutrient fluids during military campaigns, so she wasn't particularly picky about food. But after crossing over and enjoying better meals, she became more particular about what she ate.
As Yu Zhiwan went to wash her hands, Pei Yujang poked her head out of the kitchen and called:
"Zhiwan, how about I make you a bowl of longevity noodles?"
"Sure."
Hearing her positive response, Pei Yujang happily went back to the kitchen to start cooking.
After washing her hands, Yu Zhiwan turned off the faucet but didn't leave the bathroom right away.
The phone in her pocket buzzed with a vibrating ringtone, just like it had earlier outside, but she had quickly set it to vibrate mode.
Yu Zhiwan put on a Bluetooth earpiece, remaining alert to the sounds outside as she answered:
"What's up?"
"Miss Pei hasn't visited any bars or clubs since that day. She and her sister, Jiang Wenxiu, don't get along. She used to live alone outside and didn't want to go home, but she moved back a while ago and recently moved into that neighborhood."
"Jiang Wenxiu also rarely goes to bars or clubs now. Pei Jinhuai and Fan Zhaozhao are acting normally. Before, Karen hacked into her computer and found that she was searching for whether buying pheromone extraction fluids on the black market would result in criminal charges. Other than that, there's nothing unusual."
The person's report was brief but conveyed the information clearly.
Yu Zhiwan paused for a moment before nodding:
"Got it. I'm hanging up."
Although she had already suspected it, when it was confirmed, Yu Zhiwan felt even more excited than she had anticipated.
Yes, excited.
The emotions long buried deep within her, like a stagnant pool of water, had remained still and unperturbed—until now, when they were stirred up repeatedly.
Yu Zhiwan felt like a wolf mingling among sheep, trying to catch its prey, and suddenly encountering another of its kind. Or like a sailor on a planned voyage, suddenly faced with a storm, her fighting spirit ignited.
Yu Zhiwan first realized she was the so-called "main character shou" in a novel after one of her "cohabitations" with Liu Huanran, where a drunken Liu Huanran forcibly pinned her against the wall. Frustrated, she slapped Liu Huanran and then had a long dream that night, revealing her role.
The novel was centered on Liu Huanran as the protagonist from a dominant perspective, torturing Yu Zhiwan both physically and emotionally.
For over a decade, Yu Zhiwan lived her life according to the novel's plot. Her parents, both researchers, were confined to a massive underground facility, never seeing the light of day.
When Yu Zhiwan was young, all she knew was that her parents were very busy. She inherited their genes, showing a strong interest in experimental equipment from a young age. Despite her parents' reluctance, she started learning related knowledge, gradually uncovering the dark secrets they regretted revealing.
The place she lived in was a blood-soaked hell.
A constant stream of test subjects was sent down, starting with small lab animals like mice, but eventually becoming larger animals and even live humans.
These disfigured, tortured people would stare at her through glass oxygen tanks, sometimes silently, sometimes suddenly thrashing wildly, leaving bloody smears on the glass as they clawed at it in desperation.
Pregnant women, near labor, would press their swollen bellies against the glass, their eyes mostly white, with red veins creeping into the irises, creating a terrifying sight.
Without warning, one pregnant woman's belly exploded in front of her, blood quickly dissolving into the water. The entire glass tank shook as the baby's deformed, pale face contorted in a grimace, its eyes mostly white, pressing against the glass, staring directly at her.
From that moment, Yu Zhiwan refused to participate in any more experiments, even though her projects didn't involve live subjects.
But the price of refusing was her eyesight.
Her parents needed to carry out the procedure themselves.
Her mother eventually softened and, after injecting her with a drug, only caused her vision to blur, gradually resembling blindness. She later learned it was called "functional blindness."
Once, Yu Zhiwan accidentally got lost and stumbled into a room, hearing unfamiliar footsteps, which she knew meant trouble. Her parents had warned her that if these people discovered she wasn't truly blind, she would be in great danger.
She hid between two strange glass tanks, so close to the deformed, pale-skinned creature inside that she could almost smell the rot, even through the overpowering scent of disinfectant.
The experiments failed repeatedly, and it seemed the underground project was about to be abandoned. Her parents sacrificed their freedom, remaining imprisoned underground, to secure her release, giving her a fabricated identity and sending her to a well-off orphanage.
In her first year of university, Yu Zhiwan lost her legs but managed to escape most of their control.
But those people never completely relaxed their surveillance of her.
She knew from the moment she left the underground facility that she had to pretend to have no ambitions, to act like a typical Omega, marrying young, having children, dedicating her life to raising the next generation, and becoming a model wife and mother.
So she turned to Liu Huanran, letting others believe they were a couple.
While with Liu Huanran, she often felt lost, even though she didn't like many of Liu Huanran's actions and Liu Huanran wasn't her type.
After noticing the change, a few of her close friends advised her, and those around her thought Liu Huanran was a good Alpha—attractive, a bit romantic, clingy—so they believed she should be grateful and marry Liu Huanran.
In that dream, she did as they said, slowly accepting the changes in Liu Huanran. Zhao Manlin never approved of Liu Huanran, thinking she only cared about Omega's beauty, repeatedly speaking ill of her. Eventually, they had a falling out.
Later, when Zhao Manlin was paralyzed in a plane crash, Yu Zhiwan, out of spite toward Liu Huanran, refused to visit Zhao Manlin ever again.
In that premonition dream, Pei Yujang was also very different from how she is now. On the surface, she seemed like a proper young lady, but deep down, she was despicable and constantly plotting to possess Yu Zhiwan.
After the Pei family went bankrupt, Yu Zhiwan would help Liu Huanran vent her anger by abusing Pei Yujang, letting Liu Huanran enjoy a comfortable life with her wife and daughter.
After waking up from that nightmare, Yu Zhiwan was so disgusted that she ran to the bathroom, trying to vomit, but her empty stomach had nothing to offer.
Liu Huanran heard the commotion and came over to check on her, concerned. Thinking she was being funny, Liu Huanran made a "joke":
"I thought you were pregnant with my child."
But this nauseating joke would eventually become a reality. Even though Yu Zhiwan had no intention of it, the whole world seemed determined to make her Liu Huanran's possession.
The head of the orphanage that raised her would earnestly advise her to give Liu Huanran a child, insisting that since she had married into someone else's family, she should bear them a child, regardless of her own wishes.
Liu Huanran's parents treated her "kindness" as a transaction, believing that since she was blind and disabled, she should hand over her life to Liu Huanran.
She was expected to be a dutiful wife and mother, to devote herself entirely to this family, but never allowed to be herself.
She had to endure Liu Huanran's inexplicable, ever-present desires. Liu Huanran's way of showing love was through constant physical contact—kissing and making love, anytime, anywhere. She would even boast about their sex life to others.
Yu Zhiwan was expected to be Liu Huanran's perfect partner, helping her establish a firm foothold in the Wing City social circle, using the skills she had painfully acquired to become a stepping stone for Liu Huanran.
And through it all, the Yu Zhiwan in the premonition dream accepted it all with a smile.
After learning all of this, Yu Zhiwan felt a coldness envelop her from head to toe. She spent several days in a state of dejection before remembering the evidence she held against the underground project. Suddenly, her ambition to expose everything faded.
Her days became ones of passive existence. After all, she thought, at the right time, these people's insatiable greed would eventually lead to their own downfall, and this world would meet its end.
She secretly hoped that day would come sooner. Even when Liu Huanran arrogantly tied her up at the factory, she "played along," following the script.
Until the unexpected variable appeared.
Pei Yujang's attempt to disguise her voice was actually quite good, though it was tense, betraying a nervousness even she didn't notice, probably because it was her first time doing something like this.
Yu Zhiwan immediately realized that this wasn't the original Pei Yujang but probably a transmigrator or something similar, because the real Pei Yujang never bothered to hide her intentions. She had no need to use such clumsy tricks to conceal her identity, especially with a strange alias like "Little Fish."
Ever since discovering that she was living in a novel, Yu Zhiwan's acceptance of the bizarre had grown. If she could awaken to her role, why couldn't someone else transmigrate into the story?
She pretended to be unaware and played along with Pei Yujang.
Acting with Pei Yujang was much more fun than playing along with Liu Huanran, who had nothing in her head but unspeakable thoughts and a desire to be a kept Alpha.
The new Pei Yujang was pure-hearted and even a bit cute. At first, Yu Zhiwan wasn't too fond of this meddlesome transmigrator, but she gradually noticed that Pei Yujang might actually like her.
Otherwise, why would anyone go to the trouble of creating an easily exposed alias just to chat with her, listen to her complaints, and humor her in conversation?
Even after a few tests, Pei Yujang never showed any inappropriate intentions toward her, her innocence surprising Yu Zhiwan.
Coming to Ningxiang with her, Yu Zhiwan could also sense that Pei Yujang didn't have any ulterior motives for wanting to be alone with her. She simply wanted to bring Yu Zhiwan to the south for a little vacation under the pretext of a business trip.
Yu Zhiwan felt her heart soften slightly. Thinking of this, she was in a good mood as she opened the door to find Pei Yujang, only to be greeted by the smell of something burning.