Guide To Lying Flat And Getting Rich As A Kept Alpha - Chapter 58
58
Thanks to the information provided by Luo Hetu, the Cheng Corporation supplied ample manpower, and Sun Jin provided official authority. Zhang Sheng was sent to prison, likely for life—the only question was how long that life would be.
There was nothing more for Cheng Youqing and Luo Hetu to do but wait.
Finally able to relax a little, Cheng Youqing found herself in the mood to playfully tug at Luo Hetu’s collar, only to notice something off about her.
These past days had been so busy that Cheng Youqing hadn’t realized how long she’d gone without certain indulgences. Every night, Luo Hetu was either occupied in the study or gently urging her to rest early due to exhaustion, never once initiating anything intimate.
Surprised, Cheng Youqing casually asked, “What’s been up with you lately?”
“Nothing,” Luo Hetu replied.
As someone who rarely watched TV dramas, the chairman didn’t recognize this as the classic response couples give when they’re upset with each other. She simply hadn’t encountered anything like this before, so she reacted instinctively, without experience to guide her.
Instinctively, as they sat in the car, Cheng Youqing reached out and brushed her hand against Luo Hetu’s waist.
Luo Hetu flinched.
Her face flushed slightly, and she coughed lightly to explain, “I wasn’t mentally prepared.”
“You never gave me any mental preparation before.” Cheng Youqing teased.
Luo Hetu fell silent but didn’t pull away.
Cheng Youqing’s hand lingered on her waist in the backseat, recalling Zhou Chenghuan’s comment about someone coveting her alpha’s abs.
Hmph.
Back home, after washing up, Cheng Youqing expected Luo Hetu to come to her. Luo Hetu did come, freshly showered, but sat on the bed and asked, “Is Cui Erniu hard to deal with?”
“Mm.” Cheng Youqing replied.
Luo Hetu didn’t say anything more.
Wearing a nightgown, Cheng Youqing sat on the bed, smiling lightly. “Do you want to deal with him for me?”
The atmosphere was intimate, and Cheng Youqing naturally leaned closer, her fingers brushing Luo Hetu’s collar. “Cui Erniu is in his sixties, a male Omega with a volatile and sinister personality, unpredictable in his moods. He’s one of Jiang City’s old-guard business tycoons. Even in the Cheng Corporation’s best years, we ranked several places behind him. We don’t usually have any direct conflicts of interest, but he’s an odd character who enjoys watching others fail. He meddles in things on a whim, with no moral ground. It’s not that he’s hard to deal with—it’s that you shouldn’t deal with him lightly.”
Luo Hetu nodded. “He won’t hold a grudge against you because of Zhang Sheng, will he?”
“Probably not. He enjoys watching drama, but he’s extremely shrewd and selfish. Zhang Sheng is his dog—he’ll pamper a dog that bites and harms others for him, but he won’t tolerate one that might turn on him. He doesn’t care if Zhang Sheng harms me because of his twisted sense of amusement, and he doesn’t take me seriously.”
Her collar was tugged closer, and Luo Hetu was now very close to Cheng Youqing.
“Anything else you want to know?” Cheng Youqing asked, her voice soft and teasing, carrying an ambiguous tone, as if her pheromones, like sun-warmed fabric in the snow, enveloped Luo Hetu entirely.
Luo Hetu’s breathing quickened, but after a moment’s pause, she abruptly changed the subject. “There’s one thing I’ve been thinking about for a long time but didn’t know how to ask.”
“What is it?”
“What Zhang Sheng mentioned that day—about the hotel. I don’t remember it, so I wanted to ask if it’s true.”
The topic shift was so sudden that Cheng Youqing took a moment to steady her breathing, pulling back slightly and brushing her hair aside. “Mm.”
“Why don’t you remember? Was it something external? Should I take you to a hospital?” she asked.
Luo Hetu quickly brushed it off, saying it wasn’t amnesia, just that her childhood memories were vague. She’d already been checked at a hospital, and there was no issue.
Cheng Youqing had known about Luo Hetu’s memory issues before they married. She was the type to thoroughly investigate a potential spouse, and Luo Hetu’s background was clean. Her former coworker Chen Fang and the construction site foreman had both mentioned that Luo Hetu had always said she couldn’t remember her past. At that time, she and Cheng Youqing didn’t even know each other, so there was no reason for her to have been scheming back then.
Cheng Youqing had also checked Luo Hetu’s intelligence, which was above average. After spending so much time together, she saw no signs of cognitive issues, so she accepted it as a quirky, inconsequential fact.
Gathering her courage, Luo Hetu pressed on. “What exactly happened that day? Can you tell me?”
The bedroom fell quiet for a moment. Cheng Youqing shifted into a more comfortable position and began, “That day, my second uncle dragged me to a drinking party.”
“It wasn’t a good one—everyone at the table had ulterior motives. I was under a lot of pressure back then and didn’t give anyone face, snapping at them all. I drank a lot too. When I left, I felt unwell and vomited in the restroom. That’s when I realized my already irregular heat cycle had started early.”
“It was a coincidence, really. Xiao Zhang had been sent on a last-minute business trip, and since I was just attending a family-related drinking party, I didn’t think much of it and hadn’t arranged another assistant. I planned to call my driver, but as I left, I ran into Chun Yuyan. Since we’re both Omegas, she couldn’t sense my condition, and I didn’t want to tell her much, only that I wasn’t feeling well.”
“She enthusiastically booked a room for me and told me to rest.”
“I knew she was my great-grandfather’s newly recognized great-granddaughter, trying to curry favor with me. She didn’t have the status or reason to harm me, and I was too weak to argue, so I stayed in the room she booked, planning to sleep it off.”
She paused there, and Luo Hetu couldn’t help but urge, “And then?”
“And then,” Cheng Youqing looked at her, “the room had inhibitors prepared, but they weren’t suitable for a top-tier Omega like me. So I called room service to bring some.”
She stopped again, and Luo Hetu pressed, “And then?”
Cheng Youqing lowered her eyes, silent for a moment before saying, “If you forgot, just let it go.”
Ugh, how can I let it go?
If she let it drop, Cheng Youqing would probably never bring it up again.
During their recent collaboration to deal with Zhang Sheng, she and Cheng Youqing had been so in sync that a single glance was enough to understand each other. Right now, Luo Hetu could tell Cheng Youqing was a little unhappy for some reason and didn’t want to continue.
Having finally mustered the courage to ask, who knew when she’d get another chance?
“Even if I forgot, you can still tell me.” Luo Hetu insisted.
Cheng Youqing didn’t respond.
Luo Hetu thought for a moment, then took her hand. “Back then, I didn’t embarrass myself, did I?”
“No,” Cheng Youqing said after a few seconds. “You did well.”
Luo Hetu: …Who are you remembering?
That wasn’t a compliment. Her heart was drowning in jealousy.
Unwilling to let it go, she asked, “Was I better back then than I am now?”
Cheng Youqing thought about it. Not really better than now.
After all, that night, she hadn’t actually done much. She was clumsy and proper.
That evening, Cheng Youqing had encountered an alpha whose pheromones were so faint they were barely noticeable yet pleasantly appealing. The woman, dressed in a hotel uniform that accentuated her broad shoulders, slim waist, and long legs, had a soothing voice.
She said, “Miss, here’s the top-tier inhibitor you requested. I’ll leave it here.”
She placed the inhibitor by the door and turned to leave.
At the drinking party, Cheng Youqing had just berated a group of relatives who, thinking her young and vulnerable after recently taking over the Cheng Corporation, tried to pressure her into marriage arrangements. Her alpha mother had passed away only a few months prior, and though she’d been mentally prepared and her mother had paved the way as best she could, the weight of the corporation’s mess fell entirely on her. With people constantly scheming against her, her already taut nerves, exacerbated by the sudden onset of her heat, were on the verge of snapping.
Yet this alpha server turned to leave.
In that moment, Cheng Youqing felt that in her life, there were only those who schemed against her and those who ignored her. Was it true that, aside from her mother, everyone saw her only as a top-tier Omega—a beautiful, wealthy object to be exploited, never as a living, breathing person?
Without knowing why, she grabbed the alpha’s wrist and pulled her inside.
She regretted it almost immediately. She, who usually despised pheromones, hadn’t expected to be so swayed by them that she’d consider using a random alpha to ease her urges. Realizing she was forcing the alpha, she let go, curled up on the bed, apologized, and told her to leave quickly.
But she wasn’t sure if the alpha would listen.
After all, she’d pulled her in, and as a top-tier Omega in heat, she was weak and irresistibly alluring. Her pheromones were the strongest aphrodisiac to any alpha.
The alpha approached.
Holding the inhibitor, she injected it into the gland near Cheng Youqing’s neck without hesitation.
It took time for the inhibitor to work. In her daze, Cheng Youqing vaguely realized she was clinging tightly to the alpha, whose physiological signs confirmed she was a “useless alpha.”
Her guard dropped. Tormented by her heat and slowed by the inhibitor’s delayed effect, she didn’t let go.
She was already opening her heart to a descent into chaos, unsure if this useless alpha posed any danger.
Until the alpha said, “Can I try to help you?”
That night’s “Platonic” encounter wasn’t even truly Platonic. The useless alpha clumsily did her best to ease Cheng Youqing’s discomfort, at most gently stroking her body. It was more that Cheng Youqing, soothed by the faint, pleasant pheromones and the inhibitor’s effect, gradually fell into a deep sleep.
Her comment about “doing well” was praise for the alpha’s restraint—she hadn’t been swayed by an Omega’s pheromones or acted inappropriately, as some unstable useless alphas might. She was courteous, respectful, and didn’t cross any lines.
The seed of admiration was planted then. When they later reunited and Cheng Youqing found her to be someone who matched her preferences in every way—especially when she was looking to marry—it sparked her interest.
Snapping back to the present, Cheng Youqing saw Luo Hetu’s complicated expression and patted her head. “It’s fine. You forgot, and I don’t mind.”
Luo Hetu’s emotions were a tangled mess, tinged with grievance. Jealousy was inevitable, but her real pain wasn’t about what “Xiao Luo” and Cheng Youqing had shared. She didn’t mind her partner having a past. Her grievance stemmed from something deeper.
She asked, “So, because ‘I’ did well that day, you liked ‘me’? Because you recognized ‘me,’ that’s why you married me?”
“No.” Cheng Youqing replied.
Luo Hetu stood up, hopping in place out of frustration.
When would Cheng Youqing’s habit of clamming up end? What did “no” mean?
After her outburst, she sat back down, looking earnestly at Cheng Youqing. “Don’t take advantage of my memory gaps to brush me off. I want to hear the truth.”
Cheng Youqing met her gaze silently.
“Keeping this from me isn’t fair. It makes me feel bad, and you’re not happy either. It creates a rift between us. I held off on this talk while we dealt with that toad Zhang Sheng, but I’ve been struggling with my memory issues, and you hiding things makes me feel like a fool.”
Cheng Youqing’s gaze softened. She touched Luo Hetu’s ear and finally spoke more. “Don’t overthink it. Back then, I didn’t like you—I just thought you were special. I was already looking for a useless alpha, but I didn’t go searching for you afterward. Years later, we met by chance, and as I said before, everything just fell into place. I recognized you, I liked your pheromone scent, I liked that you’re a useless alpha—clean, with a simple background, smart, respectful of Omegas, and not the type to pounce on one. There aren’t many people who meet my criteria.”
Luo Hetu fell silent.
Cheng Youqing touched her cheek. “Anything else you’re confused about?”
“You must’ve had some fondness for ‘me’ back then. That’s why we have this story now. If you didn’t like me at all initially, even if I was perfect later, you’d have pretended not to know me.”
In an ABO world, as a powerful chairman, Cheng Youqing wouldn’t be swayed by a single encounter.
Cheng Youqing didn’t understand why she was so hung up on this but went along with it. “Maybe.”
Her decision to marry Luo Hetu wasn’t because of that long-ago incident. If she’d truly liked her then, she could’ve tracked down the server and kept her close.
It was only after reuniting years later, getting to know her again, that she slowly considered marriage. Luo Hetu was lively, interesting, attractive, and had a pleasant scent. After marriage, learning more about her only made her more appealing.
Cheng Youqing saw no issue with her decision and didn’t understand why Luo Hetu was so troubled. Since they were married now, a proper explanation should’ve been enough to move past it.
But Luo Hetu pouted.
If Cheng Youqing didn’t like her, fine—but liking “Xiao Luo”? What did that make her, a substitute for some idealized past? Either she was pining for a white moonlight or choosing the best option based on criteria, with no real affection for Luo Hetu herself.
She felt like a pitiful alpha.
Standing up, she said, “I’m sleeping in my own room.”
Cheng Youqing was confused. She’d explained everything as requested, so why was Luo Hetu still upset?
“It’s Saturday,” she said quietly, a subtle invitation.
Luo Hetu replied, “Yeah, so let’s sleep early. It’s a rare day off.”
She returned to her own room.
Cheng Youqing thought she might sneak back in the middle of the night, as she’d done before, but she didn’t come.