The Scumbag’s Redemption: Kept by Her (GL) - Chapter 22

It was only a fleeting glimpse, but the curves were fully exposed, clear and vivid. Shen Yuwei’s throat went dry, and her gaze became unsteady. She quickly turned her head and muttered in a low voice,
“I… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to look.”

Ling Jiao waved it off casually, clearly not bothered.
“Just change clothes later. It’s fine.”

Right now, she was in a hurry to use the bathroom.

Shen Yuwei stumbled out of the room, her mind still replaying that earlier scene. The soft, fair skin, the clearly defined contours, and the slightly foggy bathroom air had made it all feel unreal. It was a beauty so vivid that it made one want to reach out and touch it.

She had been engaged to Guan Qing for so long but had never crossed the line. Shen Yuwei was conservative and still quite young. The most intimate things they had done were holding hands and kissing on the forehead. She hadn’t entered a heat cycle yet, and not even a temporary mark had been placed. Last time when she was drugged, it was only Ling Jiao’s timely intervention that helped her resist. Now, after suddenly seeing so much of Ling Jiao’s body, Shen Yuwei felt her face burning and her thoughts a mess, as if a lingering fever had returned all at once.

There are three things a person cannot hold in: hunger, tiredness, and the urge to pee.

Ling Jiao rushed out of the bathroom afterward, letting out a long breath of relief. She pulled up her underwear, washed her hands, and stepped back into the room.

Shen Yuwei was sitting on a chair, sipping water.

The nightdress that had been torn by the hanger was hanging off Ling Jiao’s shoulders in tatters, with parts of her body faintly visible. Clearly, she couldn’t wear it any longer. She crouched down and searched for another set of pajamas.

At the bottom of the wardrobe were more unused nightclothes. Every summer or autumn set had some degree of exposure. The housekeeper had chosen them with the idea that in a private Omega room, one could wear whatever they liked. Even if there was a roommate, they were also an Omega, so there would be no issue. Everything had been arranged very thoughtfully.

Shen Yuwei’s own pajamas, by contrast, were very modest. They covered her arms and legs completely, and even if it got a little hot sometimes, the air conditioning took care of that.

She hesitated for a moment.
“You can wear mine instead.”

Her state of mind had been strange just now. Deep down, there was a thought she could not shake. She didn’t want Ling Jiao walking around in something so revealing in front of her.

She couldn’t explain why. It just felt wrong.

Ling Jiao didn’t think much of it.
“Sure. As long as you don’t mind.”

That night, Ling Jiao slept soundly. Shen Yuwei, however, woke up with faint dark circles under her eyes. After washing up, Ling Jiao left the Omega dormitory.

Wan Qing was already waiting for her outside. When she saw Ling Jiao, she rushed forward eagerly.
“Boss, how was your night?” she asked, wearing a teasing expression.

Ling Jiao gave her a side-eye.
“What are you imagining? She’s my younger sister.”

Wan Qing nodded quickly like a pecking chicken.
“Yes, yes. Sister. Totally.”

Ling Jiao still found her annoying to look at.

Wan Qing said,
“About what you asked me to check last night, I’ve already looked into it. Lou Xiaoyu and Wang Ruo aren’t together. Lou Xiaoyu went home to the Lou family. Wang Ruo made plans to go out with a friend at 11. Shen Xiaoxiao returned to the Shen family early this morning.”

None of the three were together.

That was exactly what Ling Jiao had hoped for.

Wan Qing was practically bouncing with excitement.
“So who are we catching today?”

As her loyal strategist, reading her boss’s mind was a top priority. And right now, Ling Jiao looked ready to stir up trouble.

Wan Qing’s hands were itching. She hadn’t gotten into any real action in a while.

“Wang Ruo,” Ling Jiao said, spitting out the name.

Inside a moving car, Wang Ruo sneezed hard and wiped her nose with a tissue.
“Maybe I didn’t sleep well last night. Am I catching a cold?”

The driver asked,
“Would you like to pick up some medicine?”

“No need,” Wang Ruo replied coldly.

Her expression was tense. She was in a bad mood. They had failed to frame Shen Yuwei, and now Yang Li had been thrown under the bus. If Yang Li lost control and named both her and Lou Xiaoyu, it would be a huge problem.

However, Guan Qing, Shen Yuwei’s fiancée, had some connections in the police department. With her help, they could probably silence Yang Li.

Wang Ruo had arranged to meet Guan Qing at a bar.

She was on her way there now.

What she didn’t realize was that the hotel the bar was in belonged to the Ling family. The moment she walked into the building, Ling Jiao received an alert.

The elevator to the third floor was under maintenance, so she had to take the stairs.

Wang Ruo, in high heels, clacked her way up the stairs. Just as she reached the landing, a damp cloth suddenly covered her mouth and nose. She immediately struggled, kicking and flailing, but as an Omega, her strength was no match for a Beta. Before she could even see who it was, the drug took effect. Her eyes rolled back, and she passed out.

Wan Qing caught her and flashed a victory sign up the stairs toward Ling Jiao.

Mission complete.

Ling Jiao took Wang Ruo’s phone, used her unconscious finger to unlock it, then scrolled through her chat history. She found Guan Qing’s contact and sent a message:
“Let’s reschedule.”

A long while later, Wang Ruo woke up with a splash of red wine on her face.

The first thing she saw was Wan Qing’s menacing expression hovering over her.

Red wine dripped steadily down her cheeks. Wang Ruo’s eyes widened in shock.
“Mmmph!”

Her mouth had been stuffed.

“Looks like our young lady has something to say,” came a voice from the sofa.

Ling Jiao was lounging there comfortably in casual clothes. She clapped her hands lightly and smiled.
“Let her speak.”

Wan Qing unfastened the gag, still scowling.

The second her mouth was free, Wang Ruo screamed,
“Are you insane, Ling Jiao? You kidnapped an Omega! This kind of behavior will get you court-martialed!”

Ling Jiao flicked her fingers lazily.
“You think the military will punish an Alpha seeking justice over a misbehaving Omega? Your identity doesn’t give you the right to do whatever you want, Wang Ruo.”

“You’re talking nonsense! I don’t know anything!” Wang Ruo snapped, panicked by Ling Jiao’s confidence.
“I had nothing to do with what happened to Shen Yuwei!”

Ling Jiao raised an eyebrow and slowly lowered her crossed leg to the floor.

Her expression was amused.
“Did I mention Shen Yuwei? That sounds a lot like a confession to me.”

Wang Ruo’s face froze. She wished she could slap herself.

Ling Jiao shrugged.
“If you confess now and tell me who else was involved, I won’t hold you responsible. I’ll even ask little Yuwei to let it go.”

“You have no proof,” Wang Ruo yelled.
“You’re making things up. You’re framing me. It was all Yang Li. She was jealous of Shen Yuwei and wanted to drag her down. What does that have to do with me?”

Ling Jiao snorted.
“Save it. Yang Li was very cooperative with the police. She told them everything, even about what you and Lou Xiaoyu did.”

Wang Ruo’s eyes flickered.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ling Jiao clapped her hands and smiled.
“Fine. Let me show you the evidence. I pulled some strings and got a copy of her confession. Wan Qing, play it for her.”

Wan Qing blinked in confusion.
“Play what?”

Her eyes widened in panic. Every time Ling Jiao did something shady, it was always her doing the dirty work. This time, Ling Jiao had only asked her to gather some of Yang Li’s voice messages and had handed her a recorder not long after.

Could it be that she was really going to play the recording?

Wan Qing pulled the recorder from her pocket, her face calm but her heart in full panic.
Her boss had actually gotten ahold of Yang Li’s recorded confession. That was insane.

The voice on the recording was low and unfamiliar, firm but almost pleading.

“Think carefully. If this becomes a criminal case, your future is over. Your family will be humiliated. The company, already barely holding on, will collapse overnight. Bankruptcy, liquidation, that’s not just a threat. By the time you get out of prison, you’ll have nothing left. Your fiancée will have married someone else.”

“You’ll go to jail, but the people who used you will get away with it. Those promises they made you, do you really think they’ll still be good for anything once you’re out?”

Yang Li’s voice cracked. She sounded scared, nearly in tears.
“No. No way!”

“She promised me. She swore if something happened and I took the fall alone, she’d give my family a big order. She said my father would protect me. No one died. There’s still time to fix everything.”

“And who is ‘she’? When did this plan start?”

The man’s voice remained slow and steady.

A slight electric buzz filled the background. The audio wasn’t completely clear, but the emotion in the voices still came through.

“That day… someone texted me, asking if I hated Shen Yuwei. If I did, she said she could help me get back at her.”

Buzzing continued.

“I have two phones. They sent the message to the one I don’t use often. Then they started talking about the plan…”

Yang Li began sobbing.
“She told me to get someone to call Shen Yuwei to the library. Said the teacher needed help grading papers… and that this time, Shen Yuwei would pay.”

“They told me to meet on the rooftop. It was dark. I was a little scared, but I went.”

The plan became clearer and clearer. It matched almost exactly what they had suspected. But when the last line played, Wang Ruo’s face changed dramatically. She shouted before she could stop herself,
“That’s nonsense! It was the teahouse!”

Oops.

Ling Jiao raised an eyebrow and casually motioned for Wan Qing to pause the recording.

“So, it was the teahouse, huh?” she said, clicking her tongue.

Wang Ruo realized she had just outed herself. Her face turned pale, then flushed with rage as she ground her teeth and glared at Ling Jiao.
“Don’t get too smug, Ling Jiao. I’ve heard about problems inside your family’s company. If you keep pushing things this far and offend both the Wang and Lou families, do you think the Ling family, no matter how powerful, can stand against us working together? I, Wang Ruo, am not someone to be messed with.”

Wan Qing calmly continued playing the recording.

“I told her I lost something in the third-floor meeting room and asked her to help me find it. She went in. There was a basin above the door, filled with ice water.”

“I heard a loud crash. I knew then it had worked.”

The recording ended there.

The electric buzz from the recorder continued, broken now and then, but anyone familiar with Yang Li’s voice would recognize it clearly.

Ling Jiao stood up and walked toward Wang Ruo. Her expression was calm, but her smile was chilling, like that of a predator playing with its prey.

Wang Ruo trembled in fear, suddenly unraveling.
“Get away from me! Stay back!”

Ling Jiao gently wiped a trail of red wine off Wang Ruo’s cheek with the pad of her finger. She smiled sweetly.
“I keep my word. If you turn yourself in and expose Lou Xiaoyu, I won’t let Yuwei make things hard for you. But if not… you’ve heard the story, haven’t you? About how I almost killed a Beta once. Do you think covering up the death of an Omega and making it look like an accident would be that difficult?”

Wang Ruo flinched from the chill of Ling Jiao’s fingertip and shuddered.
“Alright, alright! I’ll do it!”

Ling Jiao walked out of the basement, her legs suddenly going weak. Wan Qing rushed forward to steady her.
“Boss, are you okay?”

Her eyes sparkled.
“You were so cool just now. Like a movie star!”

Ling Jiao, who had grown up in a proper and orderly home, raised on socialist values and who had never done anything shady in her life, felt at a loss for words.

She had only ever seen this kind of thing in crime dramas.

Wan Qing then asked,
“So where did that recording come from?”

A soft voice suddenly chimed in.
“I’d like to know that too.”

Startled, Wan Qing looked around in horror, thinking they were haunted, until she turned to the person she was helping to hold up.

Yang Li’s delicate voice had come from her.

“In the capital,” Ling Jiao said in a low, dramatic tone,
“There are masters of vocal mimicry…”

As a teenager, she had once gone through a very dramatic phase and picked up a few voice impersonation tricks. She could do little girl voices, mature woman tones, anything really.

At that moment, she had no idea that this strange little skill would one day be used for something so shady.