After Differentiation, My Arch-nemesis Thinks I’m Fragrant - Chapter 22

“You’re back, You-You?”

The moment the sound of a car stopping came from the entrance, Wei Shuangchi knew Shu Youzhan was home from school. Wearing a gentle-colored long dress with a thin knit cardigan draped over her shoulders, her mild and graceful face instantly brightened Shu Youzhan’s mood as she smiled and walked toward the foyer.

“Mom!” Shu Youzhan headed toward Wei Shuangchi happily, instinctively raising her arms for a hug, but a cold snort echoed from the direction of the living room.

Shu Youzhan’s reaching movement hesitated for a second, but she persisted in giving Wei Shuangchi a warm embrace. While leaning into her mother’s arms, she whispered toward the living room, humming out a question like a buzzing mosquito: “Mother is back too?”

After a thought, she added: “Weren’t you finished with your vacation?”

Shu Yu had been having far too much fun traveling with her wife. Since returning to Planet Blue, she had been swamped by a backlog of work. Having just sat down on the sofa upon arriving home, she hadn’t found the time to get back up. Now, having finally finished her last video conference, she had just closed the communication channel when she realized the family’s biggest “lightbulb” (third wheel) had returned.

Like a lazy leopard, Shu Yu leaned back against the sofa with squinted eyes. she picked up the water prepared by the butler to moisten her throat, her voice carrying a hint of a cold, mocking smile: “What, do I need to report to you whether I’m on vacation or off the clock?”

“Go to your room and do your homework. Don’t cling to your mother all day over nothing.”

Shu Youzhan gave a mechanical “Oh,” smiled at Wei Shuangchi again, and asked if she had brought back any local specialties or what was for dinner in a soft voice.

Only when she felt Shu Yu’s gaze growing increasingly cold did she sluggishly prepare to head toward her bedroom.

After taking two steps, she remembered something and whispered to Wei Shuangchi: “By the way, Mom, about me differentiating into an O… some friends found out. It’ll probably be noticed by others in a while, so it’s fine for the family to announce it first.”

Wei Shuangchi was taken aback.

Before she could press for more details, Shu Youzhan had already walked away quickly, disappearing into the hallway upstairs. Nothing unusual could be seen from her retreating back.

The scent of cold cedar approached unnoticed. Wei Shuangchi turned around to see Shu Yu standing beside her. She gave a helpless smile and turned to head toward the kitchen. “Did you hear what You-You just said?”

Shu Yu raised an eyebrow noncommittally.

Following her wife’s footsteps into the kitchen, she expertly rolled up her sleeves, signaling the busy servants to disperse. Ignoring her brand-new, crisp military uniform, she squatted down to help peel the green leafy vegetables.

Her tone remained lazy, as if she couldn’t be bothered: “Announce it whenever you like, but I won’t help her hide it, nor will I give her any special treatment.”

“The heir to the Shu family must be the strongest; that is an unchangeable rule. A-Chi, you know this.”

Wei Shuangchi, with her back to her, was beating eggs. She reached into the cabinet above to find a bag of starch. Hearing this, she looked back at the figure half-squatting on the floor. After a few seconds of silence, she said sincerely: “I understand the logic, but she’s still my daughter and I feel for her. Shu Yu, maybe you should just go back to the military headquarters to work overtime? It seems you aren’t really needed at home.”

Shu Yu: “…”

The commander of the Fourth Legion, who struck terror into others outside, now cautiously and carefully replayed her choice of words several times in her head.

Though she didn’t know where she had gone wrong, she clearly felt that her wife’s mood was not particularly pleasant. Thus, she tried to coax her: “Bu-but I need you.”

A hint of heat rose to her tanned face, looking like a steamed chocolate bun. Shu Yu emphasized: “Really. Every time I’m at headquarters facing those old fogies like Zhao Xi, there isn’t a moment I don’t miss you… If I said something wrong, I’ll change it now, okay?”

Hearing her good attitude of admitting fault without even asking why, Wei Shuangchi felt a bit helpless. Stopping her egg-beating, she sighed and said: “I’m just worried about You-You. Being an Omega is easy, but everything we’ve taught her since she was a child was how to be an excellent leader. If her mindset hasn’t changed and she wants to be a leader as an O… she will suffer a lot.”

Shu Yu reflexively wanted to say something, but as the words reached her lips, she remembered that her previous evaluation of their daughter had upset Wei Shuangchi.

So, knitting her brows and hesitating for a long time, she squeezed out a sentence as if unwillingly: “She isn’t that fragile.”

Glancing at Wei Shuangchi’s expression, her survival instinct kicked in and she added: “She is our child, after all.”

Catching her look of total dissatisfaction, Wei Shuangchi finally broke into a brighter smile, teasing her: “I really don’t get it. You two mother and daughter spend plenty of time together, and it’s not like we have an ‘absentee parent’ education style, so how can your relationship be so stiff? Look at you—asking you to praise your child makes your face look worse than hearing about a war breaking out.”

Shu Yu felt greatly wronged. Holding a vegetable stalk, she shamelessly complained to her wife about the child despite being an adult: “You haven’t seen that little brat. Every time I’m around, she gets extra clingy with you. She’s treated me like a class enemy since she was in the womb, always trying to steal your attention. I think she’s just asking for a beating.”

Wei Shuangchi felt a headache coming on, but she still had to work hard to mend the relationship between this mother and daughter. The curve of her lips became more helpless. “Isn’t it a good thing that You-You is close to us? I think her personality is very cute. What kind of personality do you like? Someone like Qinglan, who is exceptionally mature at such a young age?”

Shu Yu placed the freshly picked leaves into a clean basket and shook her head in refusal: “I’ll pass. It’s enough for me to deal with Zhao Xi’s sour face in meetings every day. If I came home to another small face with the same vibe, I’d have a nervous breakdown.”

“So, stop being ungrateful. With a gentle and considerate partner like me, and a cute and frank daughter like You-You, Commander Shu, be content.”

Shu Yu didn’t dare refute her—mainly she didn’t dare refute the string of adjectives before “partner”—so she just put her head down to pick vegetables. Then she heard Wei Shuangchi change the subject: “By the way, speaking of Little Zhao, why did you have to drag her off to spar when she visited last time? Didn’t you say she doesn’t have pheromones? If you bully her like that, aren’t you afraid her parents will come to settle the score with you?”

“No pheromones?” Shu Yu raised an eyebrow, recalling the previous incident as a sharp light flashed in her eyes: “That’s only enough to fool ordinary people.”

“Huh?” Wei Shuangchi didn’t understand for a moment.

Shu Yu thought of the scent of Zhao Qinglan’s pheromones after differentiation, then thought of the content in Shu Youzhan’s registration files. After a long while, she commented cryptically: “Among those who can become formal heirs in the Zhao family, not many are easy to bully.”

“Instead of worrying about her, you should worry about your precious daughter being snatched away by a little wolf cub one day while she’s still foolishly helping them count the money.”

Wei Shuangchi set the starch and egg mixture aside and went to the freezer to get some meat. After straightening up, she reacted: “What you mean is… Qinglan likes You-You?”

In the bedroom upstairs…

Shu Youzhan leaned back in her chair, tilting it so only the back two legs touched the ground while the front ones hung in the air. She crossed her legs and swayed for a bit, holding a pen in her mouth, thinking about the logic of the problem she was solving, but she couldn’t find a starting point.

She was even subconsciously distracted, constantly wanting to touch the wound on the back of her neck.

It was as if she hadn’t just been simply marked by an Alpha, but had been infected with the rabies virus; she felt a bit apprehensive and restless.

Eventually, she simply threw the pen onto the desk and got up to open the wardrobe door. Using the large full-length mirror embedded inside, she pulled down her collar and struggled to find different angles, trying to see the bite mark on the back of her neck clearly.

She even went to get another small hand mirror, trying to glimpse the whole thing through the reflection.

When she finally saw it, she found that it looked a bit better than she had imagined. Zhao Qinglan hadn’t bitten down too hard. Furthermore, relying on the special recovery power of an Omega’s gland area, there was now only a slight surface injury, like a scratch. It would likely scab over and return to normal before long.

Thinking about her physical reactions during class that afternoon, Shu Youzhan patted her face and head, brainwashing herself: “This time was an accident, an accident…”

She would never again rely on an Alpha’s pheromones to suppress her heat!

She swore it!

After calming down for a while and making sure she wouldn’t dwell on it anymore, she returned to her desk, picked up her pen, and looked at the questions seriously, finally truly immersing herself in the world of academics.

Ten minutes later.

Buzz…

The phone vibrated.

Shu Youzhan thought it was Shu Mi looking for her, since she had heard a bunch of nonsensical apologies on the car earlier.

So she grabbed the phone and glanced at it, only to find it was from someone else. The content was just three words: “Still hurt?”

Shu Youzhan’s newly settled thoughts fluctuated slightly again.

What did Zhao Qinglan mean by this? Why did she have to remind her of this afternoon?

For a moment, Shu Youzhan’s mind was filled with the things Shu Mi had said about “Scumbag Alphas,” and she eventually made a bold assumption:

Was Zhao Qinglan trying to treat her as a fish in her pond?

After all, now that Shu Youzhan had differentiated into an O, according to the rules of the great families in the Fourth Galaxy, she was basically excluded from inheritance rights.

So, did Zhao Qinglan want to humiliate her former rival from another angle?

After going through a complex mental journey, Shu Youzhan picked up her phone and typed a reply with a look of disdain: “You call this hurting?”

“It’s like a mosquito bite. If you had asked a bit later, I would have been fully healed. This was just a pure accident today, forget it. Don’t carry any psychological burden.”

On the other side of the phone.

Zhao Qinglan stared at the lines of text, the emotions in her eyes deepening.

For some reason, she now had a strange feeling of being “used” by Shu Youzhan for free…

It was as if she was still feeling apologetic because she hadn’t been able to get the inhibitor in time and had impulsively chosen to mark her in such a place, yet the party who should have felt at a disadvantage was even more heartless than her, even magnanimously comforting her in return.

Forget it.

Forget?

Zhao Qinglan’s eyes were full of coldness, like a snow-capped mountain under the sunset—the darker the sky, the colder the temperature, as if frozen into ice. Grinding her back teeth, she thought darkly: If I had known, I shouldn’t have lightened my strength out of pity. I should have followed my heart and bitten as hard as I wanted.

It would be best to make that fellow remember it for a lifetime.

A breath of frustration was stuck in her throat, neither rising nor falling, making Zhao Qinglan uncomfortable. She tossed the phone aside and brooded for a few seconds, constantly reciting to herself not to get angry with the ungrateful little thing. Once she calmed down, she sent a picture over, along with a line of text.

Buzz…

Shu Youzhan picked up her phone to look again. What came into view was that pale wrist she saw every day; the slightly bloodless skin made the faint blue veins very prominent.

More eye-catching than those…

Was a tooth mark on it, deep enough to have a raised red ring around it.

Annoying Person: “But I’m hurting…”

Seeing this rare sentence that seemed like a show of weakness and was exceptionally pitiful, Shu Youzhan imagined Zhao Qinglan saying this with that cold expression. Then she looked back at the wound on the photo, which looked particularly exaggerated because the base skin was so white.

She belatedly felt a hint of strange guilt, and a sense of being on pins and needles that was hard to describe.

It was as if she was the scumbag who had toyed with someone’s feelings and refused to take responsibility.