I Really Didn't Intend to Pick Up the Black Lotus Omega - Chapter 14

The setting sun cast its reflection across the living room, the clouds hanging low in the sky.

Jiang Nianyu was still asleep, her curled legs drawing a straight line in the fading sunlight.

The line was perfectly even, starkly white, and utterly unadorned.

Yet it was marred by two ill-placed white shirts.

No one asked where Jiang Nianyu’s pajama pants had gone; Yu Qing’s shirt just happened to cover what should have been there.

Yu Qing’s shirt just happened to cling to Jiang Nianyu’s upper thigh, abruptly halting the sun’s prying rays, leaving them unsatisfied.

Yu Qing’s shirt, which Jiang Nianyu was clutching, just happened to be rolled up against the inside of her thigh, pressed tightly by her knee, sparking suggestive thoughts.

The evening light was dimmed, casting Jiang Nianyu’s profile into shadow as she lay on her side, her features obscured by the backlighting.

Beneath her, layers of light-colored fabric billowed in disarray, enveloping her like a celestial being who had fallen to earth and found her sanctuary.

But… why choose my clothes?

Yu Qing frowned slightly.

Not out of displeasure, but out of genuine confusion. Why would Jiang Nianyu choose her clothes?

Her clothes, like herself, were utterly ordinary and uninteresting—a monotonous palette of black, white, and gray.

The loose, oversized clothing seemed to drain the vibrancy from Jiang Nianyu’s usually crisp colors, muting them to a duller hue.

The living room was bathed in the hazy gray of the setting sun.

Yu Qing had never believed she possessed any irreplaceable value. Ordinary and insignificant, she had been scorned since childhood.

Even after transmigrating to the ABO world, she remained the most unremarkable Beta, easily replaceable by anyone.

In stark contrast stood the Omega before her.

The setting sun cast their shadows, overlapping Yu Qing’s lowered lashes with Jiang Nianyu’s.

Yu Qing quietly observed the sleeping figure nestled on her clothes, her gaze tracing the rosy flush of Jiang Nianyu’s cheek and repeatedly tracing the delicate curve of her nose.

She was breathtakingly pure, surpassing any Omega Yu Qing had ever imagined.

This was the kind of person who should be an irreplaceable treasure.

One glance at her, and the day’s accumulated fatigue at work vanished instantly.

With this thought, Yu Qing crouched beside Jiang Nianyu.

Gently cradling her head, Yu Qing carefully and boldly studied Jiang Nianyu in the faint glow of the setting sun.

Is she dreaming?

What good things are happening in her dream?

Jiang Nianyu was indeed dreaming.

But no good things were happening in her dream.

Thump! Thump-thump!

Bright spring sunlight streamed down the staircase, and a frail figure tumbled through the beam, flickering in and out of the light as she rolled down the steps.

Pain radiated from Jiang Nianyu’s joints, spreading throughout her body as she pushed herself up from the ground. Every inch of her ached.

But this wasn’t the pain of an unprepared fall.

It was a pain far beyond what she had mentally braced herself for.

The sharp edges of each step had ground into her flesh, as if crushing something within her heart as well.

Jiang Nianyu didn’t suppress her reaction to the pain, her gaze fixed on the little girl at the foot of the stairs.

When she saw a man in a suit rush out, her eyes visibly reddened.

“Niannian!” the man cried in alarm, his heavy, frantic footsteps echoing down the stairs.

Shadows fell across the side window as the man steadied Jiang Nianyu from behind.

His hands were broad and warm, though she couldn’t feel the heat. Deliberately, she began to tremble in his grip.

“Dad, I’m okay,” the girl said, her voice strained with suppressed pain, though a hint of it slipped out at the end.

The man Jiang Nianyu called “Dad” was instantly stricken with anguish. He turned to the little girl at the top of the stairs. “Jiang Siqing! What have you done?!”

Jiang Siqing rarely heard the man call her by her full name, and she flinched.

But then she clenched her fists, her chin lifting defiantly as she defended herself. “I just bumped her! She lost her balance and fell!”

“You think a single touch could make her fall down the stairs?!” the man scoffed, his voice rising. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed what you’ve been doing to Niannian these past few days!”

“You don’t have to like your sister, but how could you do something so dangerous to her? Bl00d is thicker than water, don’t you understand that?!”

“I don’t understand!” Jiang Siqing screamed, her voice cracking. “Dad, how could you say that? I’m your and Mom’s real daughter! She’s just some wild girl from outside…”

“Siqing!” A woman rushed over from the other end of the corridor and grabbed Jiang Siqing, cutting off her reckless outburst.

The woman scolded Jiang Siqing’s words, her gaze inevitably meeting her husband’s furious stare. “What was that about ‘from outside’? Are you calling her a bastard child of some wild woman?”

“Honey, Siqing is still young. She just repeats things she hears without thinking. Don’t get angry,” the woman smoothed things over.

Jiang Nianyu gently tugged at the man’s sleeve. “Dad, please don’t be mad. Just send me back to the Shelter…”

Though Jiang Nianyu was two years older than Jiang Siqing, she appeared noticeably smaller.

The man hugged the little girl tightly, his heart melting completely. His wavering resolve solidified. “What Shelter? You’re never going back there. Don’t ever say that again.”

“I’ll have Uncle Wan handle the adoption papers right away. From today onward, you’re a Jiang Family child, no different from Jiang Siqing.”

The dream stretched on, long and vivid, as if Jiang Nianyu had been dissected and laid bare before her own eyes.

Jiang Siqing had spoken the truth. Jiang Nianyu had noticed her father was about to pass by when she fell down the stairs.

She had never been the cold, obedient girl others perceived her to be.

She was a hollowed-out person, hidden in dark corners where even the sun refused to shine.

And she knew exactly how to make the sun linger by her side.

“!”

A sudden gasp brushed past Yu Qing’s ear.

Lost in her reckless fantasies, Yu Qing hadn’t noticed Jiang Nianyu’s eyes had opened.

Caught off guard, Yu Qing didn’t have time to retreat before Jiang Nianyu gripped her clothes.

The carefully maintained distance shrank further and further, almost pushing out the setting sun.

As twilight deepened, the sun seemed to be sinking into the earth’s darkening embrace.

Yu Qing’s eyes widened, filled with the panic of being caught red-handed.

With each breath, a clear, pure scent brushed her tongue, guiding her gaze toward its source.

Jiang Nianyu’s lips.

She seemed to have been startled in her sleep, her lips, reddened and slightly bruised by her teeth, were fragmented and scattered.

This glistening, crimson hue was utterly forbidden, sending shivers down one’s spine.

Yu Qing felt a sharp jolt, twice.

An indescribable scent emanated from this place, carrying both scorching heat and lingering tenderness, acting as a cunning invader in place of its owner.

Didn’t they say Betas couldn’t smell pheromones?

Or could it be that even a Beta like her had a chance to savor the taste of an Omega?

Her long hair obscured the Omega’s glands at the nape of her neck.

Yu Qing’s gaze was drawn to Jiang Nianyu’s harmless-looking face, as if she were being invited to taste the hidden flavors within.

“…I’m sorry,” Jiang Nianyu murmured, lowering her head slightly.

Their shadows brushed past each other on the wall, their profiles touching, creating a strange sense of fusion.

It was as if they had truly kissed.

Yet both knew nothing had actually happened.

A cool breeze stirred, lifting the living room curtains.

The sheer fabric billowed ethereally, carrying a desolate sense of loneliness.

“What’s there to apologize for? Just a nightmare, right?” Yu Qing feigned composure, feeling she was the one who should be apologizing.

“Mm,” Jiang Nianyu nodded.

Her hand still clutched Yu Qing’s shirt, a gesture of utter dependence.

Yet it also held a subtle sense of control.

Jiang Nianyu’s shirt, a size too large for her, draped stiffly over her shoulders, the crisp, ironed collar revealing her collarbone with each nod.

Yu Qing’s hand, hidden at her side, clenched tightly, her nails digging into her palm.

Her gaze always strayed, her forbidden desires making her feel like she deserved to die.

I must have been mad, she thought, mentally condemning herself a thousand times for even entertaining such thoughts.

You’re just a Beta, dreaming of tasting an Omega? What delusion is this?

Restraint tightened around Yu Qing’s heart like a constricting band.

She forced her heart to stop racing, forced herself to calm down, forced herself back into her usual state of self-doubt, no less insecure than Jiang Nianyu.

“Don’t sit on the floor, it’s cold,” Yu Qing said, pulling Jiang Nianyu to her feet.

Yu Qing noticed a damp stain spreading across the clothes Jiang Nianyu had been lying on. She wondered if Jiang Nianyu had knocked over the bowl of strawberries when she got up, causing a few berries to roll off the clothes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” Jiang Nianyu said, her bare feet momentarily awkward on the carpet. Before Yu Qing could react, she quickly gathered the clothes from the floor. “I’ll wash them again.”

Jiang Nianyu moved efficiently, leaving Yu Qing with nothing to say.

Still, Yu Qing found it odd that Jiang Nianyu had chosen her clothes as a makeshift blanket. What could she possibly find appealing about them?

Perplexed, Yu Qing probed indirectly, “Jiang Nianyu, you shouldn’t just fall asleep anywhere like that. You’ll catch a cold.”

“I understand,” Jiang Nianyu nodded, her usually cold voice sounding unusually docile.

The washing machine churned, gradually soaking Yu Qing’s clothes one by one.

Jiang Nianyu stared through the small window, her eyes—hidden behind her long hair—flickering with self-loathing. Yet the rhythmic crashing of the water against the clothes tugged at the corner of her lips, lifting one side in a faint, almost imperceptible smile.

Jiang Nianyu didn’t even know what she had just been doing.

A searing flame burned within her, unable to dissipate or be internalized.

The twisted fabric, when rubbed, released even more of Yu Qing’s scent.

She needed that scent.

She would be more careful in the future, she thought. She and Yu Qing would always be like this, forever undiscovered.

But how could fate ever grant Jiang Nianyu her wish?