After Differentiation, My Arch-nemesis Thinks I’m Fragrant - Chapter 6

The “truancy” plan was ultimately intercepted by the horse-faced Director, who was wandering around the school gate checking discipline. “Morning reading is about to start! What are you few lingering at the gate for? Which class are you from? Hurry up and get inside!”

As a representative of Nancheng No. 1 High School who did not fear authority, Shu Youzhan’s scalp went numb at the memory of Shu Mi being caught by him last time for puppy love and forced to write a self-criticism under the national flag. She hurriedly pushed and shoved Shu Youzhan into the school.

Shu Youzhan sighed deeply in her heart, thinking that her young life was about to die of embarrassment in the middle of these outrageous campus legends. Her face was written over with resistance.

This refusal reached its peak when she saw that leisurely figure sitting next to her desk in the back row of Class 1.

Shu Youzhan walked over and slammed her schoolbag heavily onto her chair, startling the nearby students who turned their heads repeatedly in confusion and bewilderment.

She pulled out her chair forcefully, sat down, and spread her Chinese textbook for morning reading across the desk.

Because of her grand, sweeping movements, half of the thin, long textbook extended onto Zhao Qinglan’s desk.

Zhao Qinglan, who was originally calculating a problem on scratch paper, paused her pen. As if deigning to notice, she lifted her eyelids to glance at her and asked with concern, “Did you eat gunpowder for breakfast?”

Shu Youzhan kept a stiff face and responded coldly, “Don’t talk to me…”

“In my eyes, you are already dead.”

Zhao Qinglan let out a scoff, finding her puffed-up, angry appearance quite interesting. She stared at her for a moment before withdrawing her gaze to continue her work.

She even yielded slightly, moving her things to the side and good-naturedly letting the other party “invade” her territory with such aggressive posture.

Bickering with Zhao Qinglan made Shu Youzhan feel unpleasant, but now that the person had quieted down, she felt something was off. She felt like a firework left on the road by a brat, just waiting for some blind fool to step on her so she could explode in their face and give them a good scare.

Ping Hui arrived just then.

Almost exactly as the class representative stepped onto the podium to lead the reading, and before the Chinese teacher had arrived, he arrogantly walked across most of the classroom to the back row and kicked his seatmate’s chair.

“Hey, move.”

The boy hurriedly stood up and dodged out of the way. Ping Hui, annoyed by the chair being in his path, was about to kick it aside to get in when a pale hand appeared in his field of vision, tapping rhythmically on the desk.

His movements paused. Without touching his seatmate’s chair at all, he silently stepped into his seat.

Only after he was seated did the boy return to his position, trembling.

As soon as he picked up his textbook, Ping Hui nudged him with his elbow. “Hey, the table next to us is passing notes. What are they writing? Let me see.”

The boy pushed up his glasses and looked around awkwardly, whispering, “It’s nothing… just talking about what happened at the gym yesterday.”

Ping Hui: “…”

Dammit, he remembered that pervert in the back row again.

Who said Zhao Qinglan had no pheromones? Could an Alpha without pheromones pin him down and crush him?

That medical report stating “high-concentration pheromone invasion of the central nervous system causing hallucinations” was still in his bag. He swore he would find the grandson who spread those rumors.

Thinking of this, he added ill-temperedly, “Talking nonsense. A bunch of gossips.”

As soon as he finished speaking…

The back of his chair was suddenly jolted by a force.

Ping Hui was caught off guard and hit his chest against the desk. He was silent for a moment, then remembered that the person behind him was the un-differentiated Beta, Shu Youzhan, not Zhao Qinglan.

He turned around irritably: “What are you doing!”

Shu Youzhan propped her chin on one hand and pointed toward the podium, her eyes full of “sincerity.” “Since your voice is so loud, why don’t you go up there and lead the reading?”

Ping Hui didn’t know why she was picking a fight with him. He happened to be in a foul mood; if he couldn’t handle the one named Zhao, could he not handle the one named Shu?

The words “Are you sick?” had just barely started to leave his mouth—

Zhao Qinglan, who was doing problems next to Shu Youzhan, suddenly looked up. Her pitch-black pupils swept over him nonchalantly, and the golden iris on her forehead flickered.

A chill rose from Ping Hui’s tailbone and crackled near his neck.

He instantly thought of the fear of being “buried in the soil” yesterday.

He lost his voice.

He sat there quietly.

Shu Youzhan, having indirectly bullied the guy who had “flirted” with her yesterday, felt her mood brighten instantly. She followed the reading voice and recited the text with much more motivation.

Hearing the lazy, relaxed “Guan guan go the ospreys… on the islet in the river…” from beside her.

Zhao Qinglan was originally a bit tired from grinding science problems and planned to switch to math to refresh her brain, but because she had been listening to the voice beside her for too long, she hadn’t even finished reading one problem during the entire morning reading session.

When it was time for free recitation, Shu Youzhan put down her book out of boredom, flipped through the required ancient poems, and casually traced the strokes of rare characters on the desk with her fingertip.

In her idle moments, she caught a glimpse of the entire page of blank questions on Zhao Qinglan’s desk, and a look of contempt and disdain immediately appeared in her eyes.

Hmph…

Having missed six months of school, you can’t keep up, can you?

You’ve become a slacker, haven’t you?

The thought of Zhao being crushed by her ruthlessly in academics completely pleased Shu Youzhan. She looked toward Zhao Qinglan with a sense of all-around superiority.

Relying on her good eyesight, she looked at the first question of Zhao Qinglan’s math workbook. Shu Youzhan instinctively took a piece of scratch paper, wrote down the logic, and circled the answer with a red pen.

Then, she pushed the scratch paper over.

Zhao Qinglan was stunned. She looked down to see the most prominent part of the paper: “Choose C! Idiot! :P”

There was also a proud expression with a tongue sticking out.

Zhao Qinglan: “…”

She gave a low laugh and, without even looking, wrote a ‘C’ in the parentheses of the first question, saying casually, “I’ll listen to you…”

Shu Youzhan rolled her eyes at her. “Nonsense, that’s the correct answer.”

After morning reading, Shu Youzhan felt nervous whenever she saw Pei Yi coming her way, fearing she would immediately start a story about “Gym Literature.”

Fortunately, given Zhao Qinglan’s family background, Pei Yi didn’t quite dare to tell those outrageous stories in front of her. She could only wave her phone at Shu Youzhan with a look of slight regret.

Shu Youzhan’s face instantly turned into a mask of pain. She pretended to be calm and took out her phone to look—

Your Sister Pei is the Best: “Did you know? It seems Zhao Qinglan has a fiancée, and apparently, she isn’t very nice to that Omega. Yesterday, the other person came to school looking for her while pregnant, and finally left in anger. She chased after the person all the way to the school gate to coax them.”

Shu Youzhan: “…”

Holy crap, in the time it took for one morning reading session, the rumor has upgraded again?!

She banged her forehead against the desk and typed with trembling fingers:

“Yesterday she was ‘impotent,’ and today she has a fiancée who’s ten months pregnant?”

“Pei Yiyi, can you stop reading those brain-dead novels like ‘Arrogant Love: The CEO’s Spoiled Wife Runs Away with a Baby’?”

Your Sister Pei is the Best: “Eh? But… I heard that the latest technology has already solved infertility. Her being ‘unable’ doesn’t conflict with her wife being pregnant. Doesn’t this story make perfect sense?”

Shu Youzhan: “…”

What kind of “perfect sense” is that?

Thinking about how the rumors had evolved from the “action movie of Zhao Qinglan and a lover in the swimming pool” she heard this morning to the current “Version 2.0 of chasing a fiancée with tears and regret,” Shu Youzhan really didn’t have the courage to admit she was the other protagonist in the story.

She put down her phone and slumped on the desk like a wandering ghost, losing all life and vitality.

Biology class briefly rescued Shu Youzhan.

She finally didn’t have to watch Pei Yi spread those outrageous rumors. She pulled out her biology book and sat up lazily.

“Today we are going to talk about dominant and recessive inheritance of genes…”

Shu Youzhan focused on the lesson, quickly taking notes as she followed the lecture. Her expression was solemn. After brainstorming for half the class, the biology teacher finished today’s content early because she spoke too fast.

She smacked her lips and asked the students below, “Is there anything you don’t understand about today’s lesson, or anything you want to ask?”

The students in Class 1 were all quite smart, and no one spoke up. The biology teacher then lowered the standard: “Other things are fine too. Usual biology exercises, or anything related to biology is okay.”

Ping Hui suddenly spoke up: “Teacher, can Alpha pheromones mutate?”

Hearing his question, Zhao Qinglan didn’t even move her eyebrows, acting as if she were completely uninvolved.

The biology teacher looked over curiously: “Of course they can. Pheromones have been constantly mutating since they first appeared—”

“For example, the most primitive differentiated Alphas had very high pheromone concentration and density. As war machines for maintaining human peace, they had extreme self-discipline and could control their pheromones so they would never leak under normal circumstances. When they needed to fight using pheromones, because the pheromones were too powerful, they could instantly paralyze the opponent’s five senses and nerves, causing hallucinations the moment one was surrounded by them.”

“However, modern society tends toward peace and isn’t as war-torn as before. Therefore, people’s pheromones have become gentler, and Alphas no longer need to suppress themselves to the extreme. They can easily inhibit the effects of pheromone leakage through pheromone enzyme sprays.”

The biology teacher enthusiastically followed this topic, giving several examples of modern pheromone mutations. Finally, thinking of the student who asked the question, she said, “Which aspect of mutation are you interested in?”

Ping Hui hid his face with a book and replied listlessly, “I’m not interested in any of them, teacher. I was just asking randomly.”

In the relaxed, story-like atmosphere, other interested students asked a few more pheromone-related questions.

Zhao Qinglan looked sideways and found Shu Youzhan seriously drawing a turtle in her biology book.

A pointy head, a small tail, and a large gray shell in the middle.

The artist’s profile was full of focus and earnestness. Below her neck was a collar with one button undone, and the lines and shadows of her collarbone were faintly visible.

Zhao Qinglan’s throat moved.

She suddenly felt a bit hungry.

So she wrote a note and passed it over: “What soup is Auntie Chi making tonight? I’ll go back with you.”