After Transmigrating Into a Scummy Alpha, I Have Unlimited Krypton Gold (GL) - Chapter 21

What should have belonged to Xue Cheng had always been kept in trust by the old matriarch. Now that she saw Xue Cheng showing promise, the old lady was finally moved to nurture her properly.

Standing dutifully behind the old matriarch, Xue Cheng kept up her obedient act. This was the first time she had been allowed to sit in on clan affairs. The original Xue Cheng had never shown any interest in such matters, nor did she have the ability to meddle in them.

So when people saw her here today, quite a few were startled. And hearing the old lady’s words, they began to suspect she intended to pave the way for Xue Cheng’s future—expressions around the room shifted.

Although each branch of the Xue family had its own share of the family assets, for years the main branch’s businesses had been in the old matriarch’s hands. With age catching up to her, she had inevitably relied on members of the other two branches to help manage them.

And since the main branch’s share was the largest, it was no surprise many had long coveted it.

The peace of past years had only lasted because they’d been able to take advantage, quietly reaping the benefits while Xue Cheng herself received nothing more than a modest monthly allowance for her expenses.

Now that the old lady saw her granddaughter striving to improve, she began thinking seriously about grooming her.

She was also well aware that the second and third branches had grown greedy over the years, harboring ambitions of claiming the main branch’s heir position. Many of the idle wastrels who once surrounded Xue Cheng had been pushed toward her by those branches, their goal to drag her down.

Second Uncle Xue Tingwei, clearly uneasy, spoke up in protest.
“She’s wasted so many years—how could she possibly learn everything overnight? Surely someone is coaching her from behind the scenes?”

It was a thinly veiled jab, implying Xue Cheng was hopeless on her own and couldn’t possibly have answered the old matriarch’s test questions without outside help.

Xue Cheng kept her gaze lowered, her expression calm. In truth, her second uncle wasn’t entirely wrong. She did have good learning ability, but little real-world experience, and she was naturally more suited to research than commerce.

Being suddenly thrown into learning the family trade was a stretch for her. What saved her was her excellent memory—anything the old lady taught her, she could repeat word-for-word to Liu Wuyuan.

And Liu Wuyuan was frighteningly clever. Compared to her, Xue Cheng sometimes thought she might be the true prodigy—quick to grasp anything, no matter the subject. More often than not, the perfect, thorough answers to the old matriarch’s questions came from Liu Wuyuan.

It wasn’t that Xue Cheng couldn’t answer—just that her answers rarely matched Liu Wuyuan’s precision.

Sometimes she even wondered if Liu Wuyuan had truly been born into some powerful, aristocratic family before the original Xue Cheng found her. Even without her memories, that air of refined elegance seemed etched into her very bones.

While Xue Cheng’s thoughts drifted, the old matriarch shot back at Xue Tingwei, her displeasure was clear.
“Do you really begrudge your own niece any success?”

Her palm came down hard on the table.
“Do you still remember the family precepts?”

Xue Tingwei’s lips moved, but in the end he dared not oppose his mother. His eyes flicked toward his daughter instead—Xue Bai Guang, the one person he considered the smartest in the family.

His young wife, however, couldn’t bear to watch any longer. Unlike her husband, she wasn’t cowed by the old lady’s presence. She spoke out directly:
“Mother-in-law, aren’t you being too biased? There are plenty of capable grandchildren in this family. Just because Xue Cheng has been playing the obedient girl for a few days, must you be ready to hand her the entire family estate?”

Her name was Lu Wanniang, sixteen years younger than Xue Tingwei and barely older than Xue Cheng herself.

She wasn’t Xue Bai Guang’s biological mother. Xue Tingwei’s first wife had died young, leaving behind a half-grown daughter, and within months he’d married Lu Wanniang as his second wife.

She treated her stepdaughter neither particularly well nor particularly badly—if only to avoid gossip about being a “vicious stepmother.”

Things had been cordial enough until Lu Wanniang bore a child of her own. A physician predicted the child would likely differentiate into a Qianyuan in the future.

With the second branch owning few businesses of their own, and Xue Tingwei bent on grooming his talented daughter for the imperial exams, everything good in the household was poured into Xue Bai Guang.

Naturally, Lu Wanniang had to think about her own son’s future—though he was only three and can barely talk. Parents plan ahead, after all.

That was why the second branch had long set their sights on the main branch’s assets under the old lady’s care. So long as Xue Cheng remained useless, they could bide their time until the old lady passed, then divide them up.

By speaking so rudely to the head of the family, Lu Wanniang inevitably drew the old matriarch’s disapproval.

But before the old lady could respond, the long-silent Third Uncle, Xue Tinghui, finally stepped in.
“Since when is this your place to speak?”

Xue Cheng’s eyes flicked toward him. He had never shown her outright hostility before, but that hardly made him trustworthy.

To her, his words now were nothing more than an attempt to curry favor with the old lady. No matter how unseemly Lu Wanniang was, she was still his sister-in-law—yet he spoke as though rebuking a servant.

It only showed that he looked down on her in his bones, using the chance to score points with the matriarch.

The younger aunt, Xue Lingyu, seemed to think the scene wasn’t chaotic enough and stepped in to stir the pot further.

She hid her smile behind a silk scarf, but her words were pointed.
“Third Brother, no need to lose your temper. However ill-mannered she may be, we still have to call her ‘Sister-in-law.’”

Everyone knew Lu Wanniang came from a poor farming family with only a few acres to their name. Most assumed she’d married into the Xue family for the money, agreeing to be a stepmother at such a young age.

Within the family, few held her in any regard.

Although all branches opposed the idea of Xue Cheng inheriting the family business, that didn’t mean they were united—each was only in it for their own benefit.

Xue Tingwei could not stand others mocking his wife. No matter how useless he was, he still understood that an insult to his wife was an insult to himself.

“My wife isn’t wrong. If my third brother and little sister keep ganging up on her, do you even recognize me as your elder brother anymore?”

Respect for seniority was ingrained in them. To be known for slighting one’s elder brother and sister-in-law was a bad look.

Seeing that, Xue Tinghui backed off, saying mildly,
“You take it too seriously, Second Brother. But as the second sister-in-law, to speak so directly against the family elder—it seems you’ve been too busy to manage your household.”

It was a sly remark. Everyone knew Xue Tingwei lacked ability, and implying his wife’s rudeness was due to poor household management was an indirect way of questioning his fitness to run the family business.

If the old lady ever considered giving the second branch more responsibility, such doubts could make her think twice.

After all, with the main branch gone, it would naturally fall to the second branch before the third’s turn came.

Xue Cheng simply sat back, watching the tigers fight, knowing she had no part in such schemes.

The old matriarch remained silent as well, sipping her tea at leisure.

Xue Lingyu, having just mocked the second branch, now changed her tone, glancing at the matriarch before smoothing things over with a smile.
“Of course, the second sister-in-law’s background means she’s not as versed in etiquette as the daughters of noble families. Still, she wasn’t entirely wrong…”

After a moment’s thought, she added,
“A’Cheng has indeed improved, but business is tricky. Even those of us with a decade or more of experience can’t guarantee we’ll never lose money. She’s only been learning from Mother for a month or two—perhaps we should give her more time to be trained?”

It was a polite way of saying Xue Cheng wasn’t qualified yet.

Xue Cheng herself felt no need to prove otherwise. In the end, it was the old lady’s decision—none of these petty calculations mattered if the matriarch had already made up her mind.

If anything, she thought, the worst thing you could do in front of a person in power was to act as though they were already dead, scheming openly over their legacy.

Watching her children snipe at one another, the old matriarch’s lips curved in a cold smile. The granddaughter she had personally taught, and personally approved of, was being belittled—an insult not just to Xue Cheng, but to herself.

To claim Xue Cheng was unworthy was to imply the teacher was unworthy as well.

The family elders were all shrewd enough to know better than to embarrass her openly. But her own children… fools, the lot of them.

Setting down her teacup, she began to turn the sandalwood prayer beads around her wrist, her sharp gaze sweeping over her sons.

Calmly, she said, “I took over this household at twenty-seven. Nearly forty years have passed since then. By rights, I should have been able to set this burden down long ago and enjoy my old age. If Tingfu and his wife had not passed so young, the head of this family would already be the eldest’s by now.”

The “Tingfu” she spoke of was her eldest son—and the original Xue Cheng’s father.

You could say the original owner was like a bad shoot growing from good bamboo. Both her parents were remarkably capable. Back in the day, Xue Tingfu had managed the Xue family’s businesses with precision and skill while still very young, and under his watch, profits rose steadily year after year.

Even after Tingfu’s passing, the old madam had taken over the main branch’s businesses without much effort, and they had remained profitable.

Hearing her words now, the second and third branches, as well as Xue Lingyu, all looked displeased.

It wasn’t entirely unfair that the old madam favored the main branch—it was also the siblings’ own doing. Eldest son Xue Tingfu had been by far the most accomplished among them, and the other three hadn’t even measured up to half his ability.

This was also why, even after all these years, the old madam still hadn’t given up on Xue Cheng. She simply refused to believe that such an outstanding son of hers could have fathered nothing more than a simple-minded fool.

Of all her four children, it was the eldest to whom she had devoted the most time and effort. Her feelings for him ran deepest, and naturally, her hopes for his line were the highest.

Thinking of him again, she couldn’t help but sigh inwardly. If that child were still alive, would she still be struggling so hard at her age?

But the old madam quickly composed herself and continued, “When Ah Cheng was young and ignorant, I took charge of the main branch’s businesses in her stead. Now that she’s married and has grown, it’s time for me to hand the burden back to her.”

By naming it outright, she made it clear—this was merely returning the main branch’s property to its rightful owner. Much of it had been painstakingly built up by Xue Cheng’s parents in their youth. The Xue family had indeed provided support, but without Tingfu and his wife’s efforts, those businesses wouldn’t have flourished.

It was also a warning to everyone present: this was Xue Cheng’s rightful inheritance, left to her by her parents. No one else was to interfere.

Still, the old madam softened the statement with, “I will continue to assist from the sidelines. Only when Ah Cheng is capable of managing everything on her own will I step back completely.”

That sealed the matter—Xue Cheng would be taking over the main branch’s businesses, and no one could change it.

*****

The old madam’s decision was final. The very next day, someone came to hand over the accounts to Xue Cheng. This time, she was given a small teahouse and a bookshop to manage.

These weren’t the sort of businesses that allowed for grand schemes, but as long as one worked diligently and followed the rules, they could run smoothly—no great fortune to be made, but little risk of loss either.

Xue Cheng was curious about bookshops in this era. A glance at the ledgers showed they were straightforward to run—likely the old madam had deliberately chosen something small in case she couldn’t handle it.

The Xue Bookshop had arrangements with several students from the Tongji Academy, who wrote original works—similar to modern novelists. The shop bought the manuscripts outright for a set fee.

Once acquired, they were copied by the shop’s assistants—no printing presses here, so everything was handwritten.

What puzzled Xue Cheng was the complete absence of movable type printing.

Don’t underestimate these hand-copied storybooks. In a county town, they were luxury goods for the wealthy, often selling for one to three taels of silver per volume.

Prices depended on the author’s fame. Well-known writers commanded more than a one-time purchase fee; they also received a share of the profits.

No such big-name writers lived in their county, but in the Western Capital, there was a pen name that everyone knew—Zhuxue Jushi, the “Hermit Who Boils Snow.”

This author was a mystery—no one knew their gender or even their secondary s3x classification.

Some insisted it must be a female Kunze, given the delicacy and elegance in the love scenes.

Others argued the author had to be a male Qianyuan, because of the intricate, unexpected twists in the more cerebral plots—logic so meticulous only a man, they said, could produce it.

A single volume of Zhuxue Jushi’s work could sell for five taels of silver. And stories often ran longer than one book—completing a tale could cost dozens of taels.

Their most famous work, The Hidden Gold Chronicles, was said to have sold ten thousand copies across the Chu Kingdom—bringing in hundreds of thousands of taels in sales. The actual cost of materials, labor, and promotion for each book? Barely a few dozen copper coins.

Zhuxue Jushi was so famous that no shop needed to hawk their works; any bookstore lucky enough to carry them was guaranteed to turn a hefty profit.

All this, Xue Cheng had learned in her own investigation before taking over the bookshop.

******

On her first day at the Xue Bookshop, she checked what was selling best.

But page after page, it was all the same tired themes—poor scholars rising in the world through romance.

Essentially, the classic “phoenix man” success story.

In this small county, literacy was rare. Those who could read were mostly scholars, and they loved tales where a destitute student rescued a lost heiress, gained her patronage, and ascended to glory.

Or they favored stories where a beautiful spirit, having taken human form, offered herself in gratitude for a kindness in a past life.

In the end, it was all a dream spun for the frustrated and the fallen.

There were “positive” stories too, but their sales were modest. Most buyers were struggling scholars using them to kill time between failed examinations.

Coming from the modern era, Xue Cheng knew there were also cloistered young ladies who enjoyed novels to pass the time. But most story writers were male Qianyuan, working within the same narrow range of plots.

Even when they tried to write something different, they lacked the emotional nuance to capture what would truly stir a young lady’s heart.

In this county, families that could afford to educate a child to adulthood were few—and most chose to give that chance to their Qianyuan sons.

That meant *Kunze and *Zhongyong children rarely had access to good schooling. In rural areas, they often never learned to read at all.

Without education, few Kunze or Zhongyong could become writers. And as for the young ladies who were educated—how many would risk ridicule, or worse, harming their marriage prospects, by publishing under their own name?

Bored, Xue Cheng flipped through the current bestsellers. They were all about petty romance—nothing passionate, nothing with grand themes of patriotism and honor.

Where were the bold heroines who crushed their enemies and claimed the throne? The cathartic revenge sagas she’d read in the modern world when she couldn’t sleep?

Xue Cheng wasn’t opposed to love stories. But as a former medical student, she had always believed that regardless of gender or secondary s3x, one should focus on their career first.

Making money was fun—why were these fictional characters obsessed with nothing but endless cycles of romance, misunderstandings, reconciliations, and forced happy endings?

To her, such plots felt lifeless—characters were puppets serving the author’s setup, speaking and acting in repetitive patterns.

She wanted something fresh.

She told the shop’s manager to look for new writers, specifically female Kunze.

Only with a sensitive touch could a writer bring out complex inner worlds and create truly three-dimensional characters.

She also wanted to see if anyone could work from her outlines—after all, she had a head full of popular modern tropes. Give a writer the key beats of a revenge-rebirth saga, and they shouldn’t go far wrong.

She had considered writing herself, but it was too time-consuming—and suspicious. How could a useless playgirl who spent her days in brothels suddenly become a novelist?

Running businesses could be explained as “married life has matured her.”

But writing books? No one would believe it. And the other branches were just waiting for her to slip up so they could seize back the main branch’s assets.

Xue Cheng wasn’t about to hand them ammunition.

Her main reason for taking over these businesses, after all, was to have a legitimate way to use her “spend money, earn rebates” system. So within days, she launched a sweeping reform.

She merged the bookshop and the teahouse.

Then she poured in a large sum to expand the premises, relocate, and renovate—creating a new kind of teahouse entirely.

Customers could drink tea while listening to storytellers, or take a private room to read in peace.

To match the upscale concept, she spared no effort in crafting an elegant, tranquil atmosphere.

Every tael she had went into the project. But since her goal was to make money to fund the heroine’s medical treatment—and not to game the system—the system cheerfully gave her several times her spending in rebates.

The eight thousand taels of silver she had painstakingly saved up had, in the blink of an eye, turned into fifty thousand.

She spent it with great satisfaction, utterly unaware that when the Xue family matriarch heard about her splashing money around for renovations, she nearly fainted on the spot. The old lady had thought she was entrusting her with the safest, most foolproof business to manage—yet this girl had stirred up such a huge commotion instead.

It was said the old lady almost lost her breath in anger that very day, and immediately sent someone to drag Xue Cheng back from the construction site.

At that moment, Xue Cheng was standing at the new shop’s site, keeping a close eye on the craftsmen at work, insisting that every detail be done exactly to her specifications.

Xue Bai Guang came rushing over, and the instant she saw her, she grabbed her by the arm without a word, trying to haul her away.

“What are you doing?”

Xue Cheng frowned, pushing her hand away, her voice cool. “If you’ve got something to say, just say it.”

Bai Guang was clearly in no mood to be polite. She shot her a sharp glare, speaking with obvious irritation. “Grandmother heard about your nonsense and was so furious she couldn’t even get out of bed. You’d better come back with me right now to see her.”

“Uh…” Xue Cheng froze, for once looking a little sheepish. She rubbed her nose, turned, and instructed the craftsmen to keep working and not slack off.

Only then did she follow Bai Guang back toward the Xue family’s ancestral home.

*************************************************************************************************************

Footnote:

• • • • 坤泽 (Kunze) Literally: “Earth’s grace” (a poetic term).

Definition:

 A female Alpha who can biologically function like an Omega — meaning she can conceive and bear children.

Role in fiction:

Often used when the author wants an Alpha×Alpha or Alpha×Beta pairing to still allow for pregnancy without mpreg.

Personality trope: 

Sometimes portrayed as softer or more traditionally feminine compared to other Alphas, but this depends on the author.

• • • • 中庸 (Zhongyong) Literally: “The Mean” or “Moderate” (from Confucian philosophy).

Definition:

A female Alpha who’s in between a typical Alpha and a Kunze — she can’t conceive like a Kunze, but may have some biological traits closer to an Omega (e.g., slightly gentler pheromones, less aggressive rut periods).

Role in fiction: 

Used for nuanced gender/role dynamics without full Kunze-level biological changes.

Personality trope:

 Often balanced — not extremely dominant nor overly soft.