After Differentiation, My Arch-nemesis Thinks I’m Fragrant - Chapter 28

“What are you busy with over there?”

In the living room, Shu Yu, who had just finished work, unbuttoned her heavy military overcoat as she walked toward the kitchen. Upon seeing that her wife wasn’t busy with cooking at all—having left the meal preparation to the servants while she played on her phone—Shu Yu couldn’t help but ask out of curiosity.

Wei Shuangchi had a smile on her face, looking a bit smug. Seeing Shu Yu return, she waved her phone triumphantly: “You know, Youyou performed exceptionally well in the physical training at school today.”

Shu Yu knit her brows and thought carefully: “I didn’t notice.”

Wei Shuangchi gave a soft huff, knowing Shu Yu’s attention was never focused on the child. She looked back down to continue contacting media friends and editors, speaking slowly: “Youyou participated in the Alpha group’s physical training today and got a perfect score. She was more impressive than many Alphas at No. 1 High… Before, when she differentiated, those marketing accounts that suck up to the Zhao family were publicizing her becoming an Omega everywhere like they’d caught a scent. The commotion made it seem like she had become some sort of invalid—”

“Well, this is the perfect time. I want them all to see that even if Youyou is an O, she is stronger than most Alphas.”

“Marketing accounts, come and get your paycheck!”

Shu Yu’s lips curled, as if she couldn’t stand her wife boasting about the child so grandly: “Isn’t that normal? If she hears you praising her like this, her tail will wag all the way to the sky. Pride isn’t a good thing.”

Wei Shuangchi was busy “casually” showing off Shu Youzhan’s excellence to relatives and friends in the clan. Knowing that those Shu family relatives were staring at the position of heir like a pack of wolves, she “accidentally” shared an article titled Have You Ever Seen Such an Excellent Omega? into the family group chat.

For three whole minutes, it was as if there were no living souls in the group; not a single reply appeared.

In the living room, Shu Yu, who had picked up an apple to munch on, opened her phone. Seeing her wife’s lonely boasting, she couldn’t help but cooperate by sending a “thumbs up” emoji. A few seconds after her message appeared, the group members seemed like sharks smelling blood and began showering them with flattery.

Laughter came from the kitchen area. Wei Shuangchi walked out with her phone, and as she approached Shu Yu, she noticed the apple wasn’t peeled. She frowned, but thinking of how Shu Yu had just supported her, she snatched the apple away to look for a fruit knife.

“I left this here this morning. Who knows how long it’s been sitting there, and you didn’t even wash it…”

Shu Yu beat her to it, grabbing the fruit knife first: “I know, I’ll peel it now. Don’t move; you cut your hand last time.”

“That time I just accidentally grazed the edge of my nail…”

“Just don’t move.”

Shu Yu was usually a rough person, but to satisfy her wife’s request, she had to honestly peel the apple she had already bitten. Her wife sat down next to her and asked inquisitively: “Hey, what kind of expressions do you think they had when they were agreeing with you in the group? They obviously don’t want to acknowledge Youyou, but they can’t openly offend you, the current head of the house. So, they must have some opinions about me—”

Shu Yu skillfully removed the skin, answering without blinking: “Don’t worry, they wouldn’t dare.”

Slapping the fruit knife back onto the table, she continued eating the apple, comforting Wei Shuangchi in a relaxed tone: “If anyone dares to have an opinion about you, I’ll tell them to get lost.”

Wei Shuangchi smiled sweetly: “It’s okay. I like the way they look when they’re annoyed with me but can’t do anything about it.”

Having said that, she hummed a tune and lowered her head to fiddle with her phone, continuing to contact the media to publish the articles.

Shu Youzhan had no idea of the huge contribution her mother was making to propagate her glorious deeds.

Her breathing was so tense it nearly stopped.

After asking that awkward question, she realized she couldn’t quite bear the outcome. If Zhao Qinglan denied it, it would mean she had completely humiliated herself in front of her rival. And if Zhao Qinglan admitted it… then, how were they supposed to interact in the future?

Currently, as deskmates, they saw each other every day. The moment Shu Youzhan thought about an atmosphere called “ambiguity” surrounding her at all times, she felt a pre-emptive sense of suffocation.

The person on the other end of the phone was breathing noticeably. After a long silence, she finally seemed to intend to give an answer.

“I…”

“Stop! Wait, wait, wait!”

Shu Youzhan suddenly raised her voice, as if she had no intention of giving Zhao Qinglan a chance to speak or hearing any answer from that side. Her voice was as rapid as a machine gun: “I don’t want to know anymore! Don’t say it, don’t say it! Just pretend I never asked that question, my brain just had a sudden cramp…”

Without a single stutter, Shu Youzhan spoke for over twenty seconds in one breath. Her voice was so loud it echoed in the room. When she stopped, her chest was thumping; her heart felt like it was jumping out of her throat. It was unclear whether it was hypoxia from talking too much or genuine fear of the answer.

Both sides of the phone fell into silence simultaneously.

It was so quiet that her toes curled, almost digging out another villa on the spot. Racking her brain, she made up an excuse: “Ah, the signal here is a bit bad, I’m hanging up—”

Hearing her clumsy excuse, the other side couldn’t help but let out a laugh.

The signal could be bad anywhere on Planet Blue, except for the Shu and Zhao families, who shared a network directly with the military. If these two places lost internet, it would be about the same as the entire galaxy entering a state of wartime readiness.

Zhao Qinglan called her name helplessly: “Youyou.”

Shu Youzhan felt flushed by the “electric” sound of her name. Her face turned red; she raised a hand to fan herself and couldn’t help but pull at her collar to wipe her neck. She couldn’t resist correcting: “Don’t… don’t call me that, it’s strange.”

Zhao Qinglan didn’t continue arguing about the nickname, but simply said one thing plainly: “Whether one likes someone or not is very easy to see. Even if it’s not mentioned, the eyes can’t hide it.”

After saying that, she hung up the phone faster than Shu Youzhan.

The girl at the desk listened to the ‘beep’ from the phone as it returned to the chat page. She was dazed, still in a trance, not yet having reacted.

12:30 AM.

In the dark and quiet room, there was a slight movement from the bed.

Shu Youzhan tossed and turned for the fifteenth time, discovering that for the first time in her life, she had insomnia. As soon as she closed her eyes, her mind was filled with those messy images related to Zhao Qinglan.

And that sentence: Whether one likes someone or not is very easy to see…

What does that even mean? How do you see it? It’s not like it’s carved on her face!

Shu Youzhan pressed down on the quilt and exhaled a long, frustrated breath, wanting to cast these thoughts aside. She tried counting sheep to calm down, but as she counted, a pair of exceptionally calm, deep black eyes appeared in her mind again.

Shu Youzhan: “!”

Fed up, she got up and paced around the room like a headless fly. She even felt the gland on the back of her neck getting hot. She wished she could beat Zhao Qinglan up, but then thought that making a phone call in the middle of the night just to scold her would make it seem like she missed the other person too much.

After thinking wildly for a long time, Shu Youzhan remembered the pack of scented sticky notes in her pencil case.

She took them out of her backpack, treated the scent of the sticky notes as Zhao Qinglan herself, and scolded them fiercely. Only then did she finally feel sleepy, falling asleep while clutching a sticky note.

“Sis?”

“Sister?”

“Sister Shu?!”

The continuous calling finally brought Shu Youzhan back to her senses. Sitting in the VIP lounge of the mall, she looked up blankly at Pei Yi and subconsciously said: “Beautiful!”

Pei Yi: “…”

She raised a hand to her forehead in exasperation: “Beautiful? What’s beautiful? I haven’t even changed clothes yet; it’s Mimi who changed into a new dress, okay?”

Shu Youzhan’s throat moved as she looked apologetically at Shu Mi-Mi. She wanted to say something to save face, but Shu Mi-Mi was already shaking her head at her: “You’re zoning out way too much today. Besides, didn’t you ask us out saying you wanted to buy clothes?”

Shu Youzhan: “Huh?”

Did that happen? Why didn’t she remember?

Ever since that voice call with Zhao Qinglan, to prevent herself from continuing to lose sleep, she basically ignored the other girl at school. She especially avoided looking at that face, afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from searching for the emotions in those black eyes.

Even though Zhao Qinglan had tried to talk to her several times yesterday, she had always interrupted her.

But at night, she would toss and turn, unable to sleep, obsessively trying to recall if Zhao Qinglan had any unusual behavior during their interactions during the day, wishing she could use a magnifying glass to flip through every inch of her memory.

Thinking about it now, she had no impression at all of what she had said or chatted about with Pei Yi and Shu Mi-Mi recently.

Pei Yi asked her good-naturedly: “How long have you been soul-searching like this? What’s worrying you so much? You’re spacing out again…”

Shu Youzhan was deep in self-reflection and didn’t want to leave her friends with the impression of being neglected. She squeezed out some mental energy to react to their words, her mouth moving faster than her brain: “Thinking about Zhao Qinglan…”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she sensed something was wrong. Her eyes subconsciously searched around and saw a giant LED screen through a gap in the VIP room curtains, cycling through a celebrity’s birthday. She quickly added: “…’s birthday. Isn’t her birthday coming up? I was thinking about what to get her.”

Pei Yi, Shu Mi-Mi: “…”

The two of them looked at each other with fake smiles.

Pei Yi: “That excuse is really lame.”

Shu Mi-Mi stroked her chin thoughtfully, exposing her: “Sis, first of all, her birthday is today. Secondly, in previous years, you never attended her birthday party, the reason being you didn’t want to see her acting smug and showing off. Also, you never sent her a gift because the Shu family already sent one, and you felt that sending another would be letting her take too much advantage.”

Shu Youzhan blinked: “Is… is that so?”

She didn’t know whether to be shocked that today was Zhao Qinglan’s birthday or shocked that she used to be so stingy.

Then her mind jumped to Zhao Qinglan trying to talk to her yesterday. At that time… what did she want to say? Could it be she wanted to invite her to the birthday party? This should be her first important birthday since becoming the heir of the Zhao family; it would definitely be more grand than before. She must have really wanted to show off to her…

In a state of immense complexity, she still subconsciously tried to save face: “But it’s not like she’s given me anything, right?”

Pei Yi put her fingers on her philtrum, almost performing a live death on the spot, unable to speak for a long time.

“It’s starting. Rich people are once again triggering my painful memories of evil capital…”

Shu Mi-Mi straightened her dress and looked at her with an expression that suggested she was beyond saving, mixed with a bit of inexplicable pity and some amusement: “Go back and ask Aunt Shuangchi; she’s definitely recorded it in the books for you.”

As if afraid she wouldn’t want to check, Pei Yi added painfully: “Last year! Just look at the birthday gift list video you recorded for yourself last year. Even I remember there were things sent by Zhao Qinglan in there!!!”

Shu Youzhan licked her lips, a complex sense of guilt rising within her.

Just then.

The phone rang.

It was a call from her mother. Shu Youzhan hurried to give her two friends an apologetic gesture and went to a corner to answer: “Mom?”

“This afternoon, your mother and I are heading to the Zhao house. The servants will handle dinner for you. You stay at home and—”

Before the voice on the other side could finish, Shu Youzhan interrupted—a rare occurrence: “Wait! Are you going to Zhao Qinglan’s birthday banquet?”

Wei Shuangchi was stunned for a moment: “Yes. Didn’t I ask you last night? I asked if you were still not going, and you nodded ‘mm-hmm’… Alright, Mom won’t talk to you anymore, I’m going to change my look.”

Shu Youzhan didn’t know what she was thinking at that moment, but she felt a sense of urgency as if someone was holding a knife to her throat. Her voice tightened: “I-I-I changed my mind! I misheard you then! I’m going, I’m going! Mom, take me with you!”

Not far away, standing in front of the red background silk and the lit-up large mirror of the supreme VIP lounge, the two girls were shoulder to shoulder, their heads touching.

“So abnormal. She’s really acting abnormal.” Pei Yi propped up her chin, looking at Shu Youzhan’s back, and whispered her observations to Shu Mi-Mi.

Shu Mi-Mi thought of the matter Shu Youzhan had asked her about before, and then thought of the other protagonist, Zhao Qinglan. She crossed her arms, her tone quite complex:

“I don’t know who to pity anymore.”

“For a moment, I think that Zhao person is quite pitiable. But when I think about how the stronger an Alpha’s pheromones are, the stronger that function is… I feel a bit sorry for my sister. She’s still so small.”

Pei Yi: “?”

Pei Yi: “Wait a minute, did I just smell some exhaust fumes (R-rated undertones)?”