After Differentiation, My Arch-nemesis Thinks I’m Fragrant - Chapter 15

The weather had gradually warmed up a bit, but the chill of the early mornings and late evenings still lingered.

Shu Youzhan wore a thin plaid overcoat and took a car early in the morning to the Zhao family’s main residence in the same city. Compared to the Shu family’s garden-style design, which was balanced and grand, the Zhao family’s house design considered the integration of mountains and water more. The villa was built facing a lake; standing at a high vantage point, one could sometimes appreciate the magnificent scenery of the vast sky and the setting sun over the surging waters.

Now, standing alone at the entrance waiting for the butler to announce her arrival, she absentmindedly thought that there seemed to be several crabapple trees in the Zhao family’s courtyard. It was about the time for them to bloom, and the scenery should be quite beautiful.

After dazing for a while, she saw the door open. Zhao Qinglan, dressed in a snow-white formal suit, took a step forward into the sunlight. The front part of her jet-black, shiny long hair was pinned back, while the rest fell over her shoulders like a pile of silk clouds. This formed a sharp black-and-white contrast with her stiff, thin suit jacket, brightening her face by three degrees.

The iris-patterned ornament in her hair shone even more brilliantly.

Shu Youzhan was momentarily dazzled by her aura and blinked. “You… this is quite a grand way to receive me?”

She looked Zhao Qinglan’s white small suit up and down, feeling as if this person was about to attend a major cocktail party or accept an interview in the next second. Her gaze lingered on every exquisite detail.

Zhao Qinglan pressed her tongue against her upper palate, too lazy to explain to her that she had just returned from the military headquarters this morning. She simply led the way inside. “Come in. Have you eaten breakfast?”

Shu Youzhan followed behind her, looking around and making conversation familiarly. “I’ve eaten, but I can eat another meal… Huh? I remember there used to be a patch of roses here. Why has it been changed to so many large vats now? Are you planning to pickle salted vegetables?”

Zhao Qinglan: “…”

Her footsteps paused. Shu Youzhan wasn’t really looking where she was going and almost crashed directly into her. After stopping just in time, her slightly curly short hair made her face look rounder, making those eyes appear clear and round, giving an illusion of docility.

At this moment, she heard Zhao Qinglan answer irritably, “Pickling mutton…”

Shu Youzhan: “?” Pickling meat in spring? That doesn’t seem right.

She wanted to ask more about this unique way of eating, but when she glanced into the nearest water vat by the roadside, she discovered bright green, round leaves floating on top, cradling a tender yellow, half-blooming lotus flower.

A faint fragrance unexpectedly drifted into her nose.

Realizing she had asked the wrong thing, the girl raised her hand to rub her nose. “If you’re growing flowers, just say so. Why didn’t you explain? Are you looking down on my knowledge of botany?”

Zhao Qinglan was momentarily choked by the speed at which the other girl shifted the blame. Just as she was about to retort, a polite voice sounded from the side: “Miss, the snacks freshly made in the kitchen are ready. Shall I bring them up for you now?”

Before she could respond, Shu Youzhan spoke up first: “What snacks?”

Zhao Qinglan looked helpless but waved her hand at the person. “Send them directly to the training room…”

Then, while walking forward, she answered Shu Youzhan’s question: “It’s those roses from before. It was a hassle to sell them after picking, so we just made them into flower cakes.”

“Wow! Is it the kind I said was delicious last time?”

“Shu Youzhan, are you here to train with me, or are you here to freeload food and drinks?”

“I’ll eat and drink while I’m tired from training; they don’t conflict. Oh right, which Alpha with a powerful pheromone do you plan to introduce to help me train?”

Between their questions and answers, Shu Youzhan had already followed Zhao Qinglan into the elevator and arrived at the first basement level.

Compared to the Shu family’s empty martial arts field style, the layout of the Zhao family made one suddenly feel as if they had entered some secret scientific research base. The cool white texture gave off an icy technological vibe, and there were various rooms entered by fingerprint scans and instruments inside transparent windows, all of which left one dumbfounded.

Shu Youzhan had many opportunities to visit the Zhao family, but she had indeed never seen the inner workings of this basement. Now, she felt like Grandma Liu entering the Grand View Garden, impressed without quite understanding why.

“This place…”

Zhao Qinglan stood in front of the innermost door. Turning back, she saw Shu Youzhan still leaning against a window in the corridor, staring without blinking, so she had to speak up to remind her.

“Oh, oh, oh, coming! Let me see who today’s opponent is—”

The girl struggled to pull her gaze away from the weapons in the room. As she approached Zhao Qinglan, her soft and harmless aura changed. With the movement of taking off her thin trench coat, her gaze gradually became sharp.

However…

“Eh? Why is there no one?”

Shu Youzhan, who was already prepared to spar with someone, looked at the empty room with a trace of confusion in her eyes.

Zhao Qinglan went inside and tapped somewhere on the silver-white wall. Soon, the wall separated, and a mechanical arm came out carrying a tray. The scent of flower cakes immediately filled the air. Simultaneously, an operation panel appeared before her eyes.

While lowering her head to set the mode on it, she said casually: “There is no opponent. The pheromone simulator can record the scents of Alphas who have fought here. Once recorded, the intensity can be logged and simulated. People coming in for training can freely choose opponents with different pheromone intensities for resistance training.”

Shu Youzhan nodded as if she understood. She used chopsticks to pick up a piece of cake and sent it to her mouth. Biting into the thin crust along with the freshly ground and marinated sweet flower petal filling, she said indistinctly, “Then let’s start?”

Zhao Qinglan’s hand movements paused. She turned to look at her. “What level of difficulty do you want? There are also sparring robots here. To improve reaction speed and combat capability, you can choose to fight the robot while facing pheromone suppression.”

“What level do you use for training?” Shu Youzhan finished an entire cake and asked her curiously and eagerly while patting the crumbs off her hands.

Zhao Qinglan locked eyes with her for a few seconds.

After a long while, she took the initiative to lower her head and continued to move her fingertips over the mode settings. “I’m different from you. Try this first?”

“You look down on—”

Before Shu Youzhan could finish her sentence, her entire body stiffened in place.

In an instant, she felt as if she were placed in the deep sea. Water pressure from all directions squeezed toward her, and she couldn’t even maintain her breathing. Her vocal cords tightened directly, making her lose her voice.

She hadn’t even distinguished what the scent of this pheromone was.

It wasn’t until she heard a mechanical “beep” that she regained control over her body. Having taken off her coat and wearing only a black short-sleeved shirt, the fabric on her back was clinging tightly to her skin, and sweat had broken out on her neck.

The ventilation vents in the room sprayed a mist to decompose the pheromones, lowering the concentration in the air.

Shu Youzhan smelled a very familiar…

A scent she seemed to have encountered before.

It seemed to be a floral fragrance from the same source as hers.

Yet she didn’t know what it was.

She could only look at Zhao Qinglan subconsciously. However, the gaze she previously used to tease the other person was gone, replaced by a serious and earnest one. “This pheromone… whose is it?”

“You want to know?” Zhao Qinglan’s voice in response had an inexplicable sense of an impending storm.

Shu Youzhan thought for a bit. “Never mind. Your bodyguard isn’t someone easy for me to get to know. I just want to know if all Alpha pheromones are this strong?”

“No…” Zhao Qinglan lowered her eyelashes slightly and said very softly, “Her pheromone is outstanding among Alphas. If you can move autonomously under her suppression, this resistance will be enough to help you withstand the pheromone threats of most Alphas.”

“Then let’s go with this one,” Shu Youzhan said nonchalantly.

Half an hour later, Zhao Qinglan walked out of the training room.

Her neck was slightly flushed. She couldn’t help but unbutton her suit jacket and loosen the buttons of her shirt a bit, revealing her collarbones and skin that were somewhat damp with sweat.

Zhao Qinglan found she had overestimated herself.

She simply couldn’t stay to accompany Shu Youzhan in her training.

An Omega’s sweet pheromones would involuntarily emanate along with the intimidation of an Alpha’s pheromones. It was a hundred times sweeter than the water lilies she grew in the garden outside; she thought she had grown accustomed to those floral scents by smelling them every day.

However, those scents simply couldn’t be compared with Shu Youzhan’s pheromones.

Now, as long as she closed her eyes slightly, her mind was filled with those delicate flower stalks swaying out of the water, and the budding, drooping heads leaning in front of her, with layer upon layer of blooming, bashful petals.

Even the thin vines of the companion aquatic plants seemed to brush against her skin from time to time, following the direction of the wind.

It just made one’s mind full of that line of poetry from the textbook…

When the flower is in bloom and ready to be plucked, one must pluck it.

Thinking thus, the flush on Zhao Qinglan’s cheeks climbed all the way to her ears.