After Differentiation, My Arch-nemesis Thinks I’m Fragrant - Chapter 37

Ever since she followed Shu Yu to this military camp, Shu Youzhan had actually been thinking about Zhao Qinglan even more than before. Whenever she couldn’t keep up with the training pace, she would think that if it were Zhao Qinglan, she would definitely finish it easily—perhaps even glance at her with that calm yet faintly provocative look.

When things felt unbearably hard, and she thought about how Zhao Qinglan might be somewhere unknown, the gap between them growing wider and wider, an indescribable fear would rise from the depths of her heart. Those emotions were unraveled thread by thread, seeping into her blood, entering every cell of her body, and then squeezing out every last bit of her hidden potential…

Even after training herself to exhaustion every day—so tired she was like a dead dog—when she lay down in the room next to Shu Yu’s, so sleepy she would fall asleep the instant her head touched the pillow, she would still steal a moment to think, just before losing consciousness:

Is Zhao Qinglan living just as tiredly as I am?

Probably not.

She was so capable. No matter what kind of situation she was in, she would certainly be doing better than herself.

And yet, the person she had been constantly thinking about, whom she didn’t know when she would ever see again, now suddenly appeared right in front of her like this. Shu Youzhan felt her heartbeat speed up unconsciously, her mind going completely blank. All those reunion scenarios she had imagined countless times, along with all the words she thought she would say under different circumstances, vanished without a trace.

She only followed orders mechanically, leading her team through the crowd, step by step, until she stopped in front of Zhao Qinglan.

Zhao Qinglan had grown taller again.

Back when school started, she had only been a little more than half a head taller than Shu Youzhan. Now she was like a scallion from the northern lands, shooting up so much that even standing half a meter away, Shu Youzhan could vaguely feel the sharp, unrestrained pressure radiating from her.

And there was also her pheromone.

A faint hint of floral fragrance rolled subtly beneath the surface, hidden within the red, blood-scented soil. It was the kind of smell that, once you closed your eyes, could easily construct a world drenched in blood.

But Shu Youzhan simply stood there quietly, doing her utmost to suppress the countless thoughts in her heart. Her dark brown eyes, amber-like, lifted slightly, reflecting Zhao Qinglan’s figure.

Instead, Zhao Qinglan’s military boots retreated half an inch.

A voice came from behind, carrying a flippant, amused tone. It was one of Zhao Qinglan’s teammates from this period:
“Hey, is this a Beta? So small and cute… Is the Fourth Army really that short on people?”

Zhao Qinglan’s gaze never left Shu Youzhan. She only turned her head slightly and curled her lips faintly at her teammate, as if already used to these guys who had been stationed on frontier planets for years, lacking entertainment and common sense.

She did not clarify Shu Youzhan’s identity.

Instead, a star-ranked officer from the Fourth Army stepped forward and clapped his hands. “Alright, same old rules. If you win, you can be as arrogant as you like. If you lose, get the hell out immediately. Understood?”

“Our Fourth Army brats, the dark-skinned lot in front of you just came over from the Sixth Army. They’re stopping on this planet temporarily tonight. They’re not professional snipers. If you can’t even handle these amateurs, then don’t eat dinner tonight. Two hours of drills on the training field. Got it?”

Shu Youzhan tensed reflexively.

Someone beside her shouted loudly, “Yes, sir!”

Several hundred meters beyond the flat grassland lay a patch of uneven artificial woodland. At first glance, the trees inside grew densely, branches tangled in disarray. Since this was a sniper competition, it tested both dynamic and static targets. Randomly, some colored flags would appear inside, and mechanical birds would also be released from the forest.

It sounded similar to physical training in difficulty.

In reality, the distance alone crushed physical training completely. From the grassland to the forest was at least five hundred meters. Combined with the randomness of the targets inside the woods and the lack of any high-ground visual advantage, the difficulty was on a completely different level.

The equipment distributed was the same for everyone, but when Shu Youzhan saw it, her gaze darkened.

This was the military’s latest-developed rifle. Though it claimed to combine the advantages of assault rifles and sniper rifles, and its bullets could theoretically reach beyond one kilometer, in practice it was inferior to other rifles in close combat and completely outclassed by professional sniper rifles at long range. Its effective range maxed out at eight hundred meters, and that was only in the hands of highly skilled professionals. In reality, she had heard that after six hundred meters, the bullet trajectory would deviate very noticeably.

She had tried it once before. Finding it awkward, she had put it aside, never having calculated its deviation angle or its precise parameters under different wind conditions.

A thin layer of sweat seeped into her palms as she held the rifle.

Even the person next to her muttered quietly, “Little Fatty? Why did they issue this thing? Heavy and clumsy… and the wind’s pretty strong today too. This is bad. Are we really going to go hungry tonight?”

At the same time, on the other side, Zhao Qinglan clicked her tongue as she checked the number of marked bullets, then examined the wear on the firearm in her hands, as if already familiar with it. She raised it and recalibrated the scope.

Shu Youzhan knew she couldn’t panic at a time like this. She worked hard to suppress the clamoring desire to win in her mind. At moments like this, letting those messy emotions takeover would only ruin her feel. In a discipline where even a millimeter of deviation could cause a discrepancy of over a hundred meters, a lack of focus was fatal.

She crouched down, casually plucked a long, lush foxtail grass from beside her foot, and put the root in her mouth.

A bitter taste spread.

She pressed her tongue against it, lightly biting the root. Tilting her head slightly, she raised her weapon and aimed into the distance. After several deep breaths, she made an “OK” gesture.

The dense grass tips pricked her collarbone and neck as she lay prone. Just adjusting her angle a few times left faint red marks on her fair skin. Zhao Qinglan, who had appeared particularly calm, happened to glance over, and her breathing stalled for a moment.

Then—

Zhao Qinglan focused intently on the front, listening to the wind. Her dark eyes narrowed slightly, yet she suddenly called out softly to the teammate beside her, “061.”

“Huh?” The teammate thought she needed something and turned his head to give her a look.

“Punch me,” Zhao Qinglan said hoarsely, licking her lower lip.

Teammate: “???”

She had never heard such an outrageous request. Full of question marks, and urged by Zhao Qinglan’s low voice, she had no choice but to set her rifle down, swing her arm, and land a punch on Zhao Qinglan’s back.

The Fourth Army soldiers watching: “?!”

They stared in shock at the Sixth Army. Someone whispered, “What the hell? Hitting your own teammate? The match hasn’t even started and you’re already sending someone off?”

“So scary… what kind of lunatics are these?”

“The Sixth Army is terrifying. They’re already this deranged just to win!”

“We can’t lose either. Gotta build some momentum. Psychological warfare! I’ll start the cheer—blow them away! Make them sleep on the streets outside camp tonight!”

…

“Bang!”

The first gunshot rang out.

Shu Youzhan’s ears were filled with the deafening sound, yet her expression did not change at all. Even her shoulder, slammed by the strong recoil, didn’t tremble. From that single shot, she had already roughly judged the parameters at this distance.

The target was around seven hundred meters away.

Next time, it wouldn’t miss.

The thought had just formed when her finger, resting on the trigger, was about to pull—

Another shot rang out right beside her, striking first the red triangular flag she had just spotted emerging in the forest.

The flag was slowly retracted back into the trees, carrying the color marking a hit.

Shu Youzhan bit down harder on the grass root, but she remained steady in the face of such a provocation. At the same time, when there was the slightest movement above the forest, her pupils shifted. Instinctively judging the trajectory, she decisively pulled the trigger.

“Bang!”

Soon after, her ears were filled with successive shots from teammates and opponents alike.

Back and forth, the smell of gunpowder spread through the air.

Later, Shu Youzhan couldn’t even count how many bullets she had left, let alone think about how many targets Zhao Qinglan had hit. All her attention was focused on how to quickly find prey and hit it more precisely. She pulled the trigger again and again, almost turning it into instinct, forgetting the passage of time and completely unaware of the sweat sliding down her temple.

Until—

“Click.”

The empty trigger sound reminded her.

She was out of bullets.

Only then did Shu Youzhan snap out of her extreme focus. She stood up and handed her weapon to the person beside her. It was only then that she noticed Zhao Qinglan was already standing off to the side, who knew how long she had been done.

The foxtail grass in her mouth tilted askew.

Shu Youzhan puzzled over it. Was this person treating an assault rifle like a submachine gun—emptying a whole magazine at once?

Otherwise, how could she be so fast?

But under all these eyes, amid the background cheers, she couldn’t possibly act “collusive.” She could only suppress her doubts and wait for her teammates to finish.

Half a minute later.

Everyone had emptied their bullets.

Both sides waited for the referee in the forest to present the final results. Hearing her squad leader ask how many targets she’d hit, Zhao Qinglan raised her hand and held up ten fingers.

As if the result were already clear.

Someone clapped admiringly for her. While they were tallying hits on their side, Shu Youzhan’s side was also quietly calculating. Before they could finish, a huge screen rose from the ground in the distance. Twelve different colors appeared, and from both sides toward the center, numbers appeared beneath each color in turn.

This was the hit tally.

Everyone present had excellent eyesight—otherwise they wouldn’t be shooting palm-sized flags from seven or eight hundred meters away. Now, reading the numbers was even easier. One string after another was added up.

9, 9, 8, 9, 10
8, 10, 9, 10, 7

After ten people’s results appeared, everyone had already guessed the outcome. Shu Youzhan even heard a teammate beside her suck in a breath, his expression full of regret and despair as he squatted down holding his head, muttering, “Little Fatty’s feel is insane… This one’s on me, brothers. If we have to run laps tonight, I’ll take half of yours…”

They had all seen Zhao Qinglan hold up ten fingers.

In this situation, even if Shu Youzhan also had ten, their total would still be one target short of the other side.

Zhao Qinglan’s teammates were already smiling happily, one even raising a hand to high-five her. But Zhao Qinglan didn’t notice. Her gaze stayed fixed on Shu Youzhan, watching her stare tensely at the screen—the only person in the entire field who hadn’t given up yet.

At that moment.

Thinking about the possibility that the other side might not get dinner tonight, a trace of regret suddenly surged in Zhao Qinglan’s heart.

If she had known, she would have—

“Wow!”

“Holy shit! That works?!”

“So this doesn’t count as a loss anymore, right?!”

“Ahhh amazing! Xiao Shu is incredible!!!”

The commotion from behind quickly reached Zhao Qinglan’s ears. She turned to look at the big screen and saw that beside her own number “10,” another number appeared:

“11.”

This situation wasn’t unheard of.

It meant that a single bullet had hit two targets.

She instinctively turned back to look at Shu Youzhan, just in time to see her unclench her fists and let out a huge sigh of relief. Then, the person beside her—who had been so despairing he’d squatted in place—suddenly jumped up and slapped Shu Youzhan’s shoulder.

“Ahhh Xiao Shu is amazing! Xiao Shu forever a god!”

“Commander! We didn’t lose!”

Zhao Qinglan stared at the hand slapping Shu Youzhan’s shoulder, nearly knocking her off balance. Yet Shu Youzhan herself didn’t mind at all, breaking into a wide grin—until someone hurried over and kicked the person beside her in the butt.

“Heh, Xiao Shu’s achievement—what does it have to do with you?”

“Today you’re the most embarrassing one! Here’s a deluxe set for you. Now, turn around and run two laps around the base. After that, rejoin the team!”

Amid the departing wails, the man called commander turned back and nodded toward Zhao Qinglan’s team. “A tie. Then by the old rules, you can stay here overnight. But—no noise, no breaking discipline, and no more challenges.”

…

The sun slowly sank below the horizon, leaving only a stream of golden sand flowing through the dusk.

Shu Youzhan was holding her meal tray and eating with determination, her eyes searching around the cafeteria from time to time. At the same time, she lifted her right arm to block a teammate’s chopsticks reaching in from the side.

“Just one bite. Your braised pork looks so good. I haven’t eaten meat in three days, wuwuwu…”

The Alpha put on a shameless expression, stretching her chopsticks forward with force.

Unfortunately, Shu Youzhan didn’t even blink as she blocked her, smiling as she replied, “Senior, before you try to scam food next time, could you at least throw away the chicken leg bone in your bowl?”

“That bone’s been gnawed on since last week! Only the braised pork in your bowl is fresh! I just want one bite. Look at me, little sister. Goddess, I’ll call you goddess, okay?”

Everyone around them looked at the shameless person with disdain.

Shu Youzhan softened for a moment and shifted her hand—only to watch helplessly as the other person scooped away a full third of her meat.

Her face darkened instantly.

With lightning speed, she shoveled all the remaining food into her mouth. Then she glared wide-eyed at the shameless culprit while the others sighed for her.

“Why do you always fall for it, Xiao Shu?”

“So cute. You really can’t tell she’s the daughter of such a cold, ruthless regimental commander.”

Shu Youzhan was about to speak when the meat thief quickly pointed in a direction. “Hey, isn’t that Xiao Shu’s defeated opponent from today? Go on, go humiliate your rival—and steal her food while you’re at it. I’m telling you, these outsiders get slightly bigger portions than us. Anything you grab is profit. Xiao Shu, seize the opportunity!”

“I’ll wash your tray!”

Before she could react, she was pushed by the shoulders and shoved a few steps in that direction.

The others didn’t stop it either, just smiling as they watched, stroking their chins. “Xiao Shu’s so soft. How would she bully anyone?”

“Exactly. The Sixth Army’s hearts are black. Don’t set her up. Be careful they won’t even leave her bones.”

“That’s not necessarily true. Isn’t there Xiao Shu’s nemesis over there? And that one’s an Alpha without pheromones. Xiao Shu fighting her—should be fifty-fifty.”

Shu Youzhan hesitated and glanced over.

Then, under everyone’s gaze, she really did walk a few steps in that direction.

Zhao Qinglan had been discussing rotation to another location in a few days when a teammate—someone who apparently hadn’t gone online in eight hundred years—was engrossed in gossip on her phone and nudged her with an elbow.

“Hey.”

“This one who looks like you—named Zhao Qinglan—pretty interesting.”

“She really has no pheromones. And afterward, I heard the Zhao family wants to marry her off. Wow, rich families are wild.”

Zhao Qinglan nearly choked on her soup.

Frowning, she turned her head. “What?”

She’d only been away from the main base for a few days—had the media’s imagination already run this far?

The teammate shoved the phone in front of her. “Look. They’re saying the Shu family might produce the strongest Omega in history, while the Zhao family’s heir is actually a puppet. So she might lose the family struggle and be sent to the Shu family for an arranged marriage. So tragic. Really tragic.”

Zhao Qinglan: “……”

She raised her left hand, intending to snatch the phone and shut down this ridiculous news.

But at that moment, a figure stopped beside her.

She looked up—and saw Shu Youzhan, licking her lower lip nervously.

Everyone at the table tensed. Zhao Qinglan’s teammates pulled back, guarding themselves. One of them lowered his voice and asked, “Is she here to pick a fight? Did this Beta get a taste of beating you today and come to provoke you again?”

Zhao Qinglan: “……”

If only this teammate had looked for articles with pictures, he wouldn’t have made such a ridiculous guess.

Thinking that he didn’t even know the Beta who’d competed with them all afternoon was the very Shu family Omega from the news—and didn’t even recognize who she herself was, blindly believing the random name “Zhao Xiaofeng” she’d tossed out—Zhao Qinglan sighed inwardly.

Then she set down her spoon, lifted her gaze gently to the person standing beside her, and asked, “What’s up?”

Shu Youzhan herself didn’t really know why she’d come.

A challenge?

Aside from the afternoon match, she didn’t think she could win in close combat right now.

But…

Those old doubts stuck in her throat.

Her gaze wandered, and when she sensed the hostility—and faint intimidation—emanating from Zhao Qinglan’s teammates, she noticed a very obvious wound on Zhao Qinglan’s left hand.

Round.

Pale pink around the edges, deep red in the center, as if it had oozed pus.

She didn’t know how it had happened.

She asked instinctively, “You… are you injured?”

Zhao Qinglan followed her gaze and saw the chilblain on her hand—something that kept flaring up and never seemed to heal. She was about to say it was nothing, but seeing the rare trace of panic and helplessness on Shu Youzhan’s face, she swallowed the words and remained quiet.

Shu Youzhan hesitated, then blurted out, “D-do you want me to take you to the infirmary?”