After Differentiation, My Arch-nemesis Thinks I’m Fragrant - Chapter 9

A spark of cold light fell into the center of Zhao Qinglan’s deep black eyes as she lazily swept her gaze over Shu Mi and Shu Hua.

Then, as if thinking of something, the fingers of her other hand—hanging at her side—pinched a small, light-green glass bottle, waving it in front of the nearby Shu Youzhan.

“I just found a perfume in your room that smells quite nice…”

“Is there any other scent? I want to go buy one.”

As she spoke, her fingertips moved, directly pressing down on the nozzle of the perfume bottle—

With a few pssh-pssh sounds, a fine mist dispersed into the air. The different notes of the top, middle, and base drifted out, and a rich floral fragrance reached their noses.

Shu Youzhan looked closely and realized that Zhao Qinglan was holding the gardenia-scented perfume she had recently taken from Wei Shuangchi. This type of perfume took inspiration from Omega pheromones and was extracted to help an Omega become more charming, yet it wouldn’t cause an Alpha to act impulsively.

Of course, Shu Youzhan only kept a bottle in her room because she liked her mother’s scent; she had never actually used it.

Now, that plain fragrance of gardenia spread silently through the surroundings. The scent grew from faint to thick, unknowingly masking the pheromones emitting from near the back of her neck.

The more sensitive a sense of smell was, the easier it was to be deceived by a more intense odor.

The buzz-cut boy’s nose twitched. He was hit full in the face by the gardenia scent; he already couldn’t clearly distinguish that original faint fragrance, and now his brow furrowed even deeper.

Seeing Zhao Qinglan, a hint of disgust appeared in his eyes. Afterward, he slanted his gaze to peer at Shu Youzhan.

“Have you become so useless that you need to find someone from the Zhao family to back you up?”

“But… a waste like this who doesn’t even have pheromones probably can’t help you much, can she?”

Hearing these words, Zhao Qinglan—who had been enthusiastically playing with Shu Youzhan’s perfume—paused her movements. She lowered her head to lean into Shu Youzhan’s ear, smiling with feigned intimacy: “He’s humiliating you. He’s even insulting the guest you invited.”

“You-You, if I were you, I wouldn’t endure this.”

The joke was fake, but the instigation was real.

Shu Youzhan raised her hand to brush away Zhao Qinglan’s arm from her shoulder. Hidden by the thick fragrance, she stared fixedly at Shu Hua, though she was answering Zhao Qinglan’s words.

“What a coincidence. I never had a good temper to begin with.”

Shu Hua watched her with his arms crossed. The scent of rum pheromones retracted slightly, and his eyes were full of contempt and mockery, as if he had heard a colossal joke.

He had never seen a Beta dare to challenge an Alpha. Although Betas couldn’t smell pheromones and weren’t subject to that kind of threat and influence, Alphas were utterly dominant over the other genders in terms of physical constitution and reaction speed.

Shu Youzhan was truly overestimating herself…

Shu Hua hadn’t even finished that thought when he took a heavy punch to the face, causing him to stagger back several steps.

Shu Mi had been unable to get a word in for a long while. Seeing their movements now, she finally couldn’t help but cry out, “Brother! Sister! You guys…”

“Don’t fight here.”

The latter half of her sentence was inevitably weaker because the boy glared at her with reddened eyes: “Get lost! Don’t get in the way here!”

Shu Youzhan, however, used a gentle tone: “Mi-Mi, this has nothing to do with you. Hide further away so you don’t get caught in the crossfire.”

Shu Hua had likely never suffered such a humiliation. After all, he was also a member of the Shu family.

Now that he had differentiated into an Alpha, no one outside dared to look for trouble with him. Yet, the sharp pain in his cheekbone was clearly exposing a fact:

He had been beaten.

With a loud roar, he rushed quickly toward Shu Youzhan. However, Shu Youzhan was faster than him. Almost before his fist could extend, she had closed the distance and delivered an uppercut from below!

Zhao Qinglan clapped her hands from the side, adding fuel to the fire.

This clattering commotion finally drew over several parents from the other side of the partitioned hall—

“What are you doing…”

“Shu Youzhan, how many times have I said it? If you want to spar, go to the basement. If you mess up the house like this, are you going to be the one to clean it?”

Amidst the grand-uncle’s startled voice, Shu Yu held a flickering cigarette between her lips. She took over the conversation somewhat unclearly, her gaze circling the area once before defining the matter as a “spar.”

Shu Youzhan released her foot, which was stepping on Shu Hua’s waist, and turned around obediently to apologize to her mother. Then, she said to the person still lying on the floor, “I’m sorry, Cousin Hua.”

“Then the one just now doesn’t count. Shall we go to the basement and ‘seriously’ spar again?”

Shu Hua’s face was swollen like a pig’s head. Hearing this, his eyes glared at her fiercely through the slits, looking as if he wanted to curse her out but didn’t dare.

The Shu family grand-uncle’s face was pulled very long. He asked Shu Mi, “You girl, what happened here? You just watched your brother get bullied? Didn’t you know to call for someone?”

Shu Mi’s gaze flickered; she could only mumble an apology.

“Pff…”

At that moment, Zhao Qinglan couldn’t help but laugh from the side, drawing everyone’s attention to her.

The grand-uncle had glimpsed an unfamiliar junior and wanted to direct his anger toward her, but when his gaze swept over the iris flower hair accessory on top of Zhao Qinglan’s head, the words stuck in his throat.

Zhao Qinglan also maintained a good attitude, politely bowing her head to apologize to Shu Yu: “My apologies, Auntie Shu.”

“I originally wanted to stop them…”

“But, well, I’ve never seen an Alpha beaten like this by a normal person who hasn’t even differentiated yet. I couldn’t help but be a bit stunned.”

The grand-uncle’s face turned green.

Shu Youzhan chimed in with her: “Yeah, Cousin just said he recently differentiated into an Alpha and wanted to have a go with me. I saw how enthusiastic he was and couldn’t refuse. Who would have thought he’d be this weak?”

“At this rate, even if I were an Omega, I could take down ten of him.”

Amusement flashed in Shu Yu’s light-brown phoenix eyes. Hearing this, she interrupted with a trailing tone: “Alright, feeling proud of yourself now, are you?”

“Is your homework done? Are you brats not going to hurry up and study? Are you planning to go out and take a beating from society right now?”

This meant the matter was dismissed. As if receiving a general amnesty, Shu Youzhan casually grabbed Zhao Qinglan’s sleeve as she left, using her other hand to snatch the medicine from the nearby bar, and vanished like a rabbit.

On the spot…

The grand-uncle still wanted to demand an explanation from Shu Yu. Shu Yu took the cigarette from her mouth, slowly blew out a small smoke ring, and said lazily, “That’s enough…”

“How can this be enough? Youzhan acts so overbearingly; now she’s openly bullying her own brother. If she really inherits the position of Family Head in the future, we relatives won’t even know—”

Shu Yu raised an eyebrow.

“Overbearing?”

She stood a bit straighter, and the prestige of a superior radiated outward. The smile in her eyes vanished, and her light-brown phoenix eyes narrowed slightly as she said softly, “You mean an Alpha was foolish enough to challenge the family heir and lost, and I’m supposed to uphold justice for him?”

“You should be glad I defined what just happened as ‘sparring.'”

“Trash should have the self-awareness of trash…” She walked forward a couple of steps and pressed the glowing cigarette into the ashtray on the table, looking back nonchalantly: “After all, if this had happened in the old days, the loser wouldn’t even be qualified to stay alive.”

Inside the room…

Shu Youzhan threw the medicine to Zhao Qinglan and then held her phone, feeling conflicted—

She had just seen several crying emojis and a string of apologies sent by Shu Mi. She wanted to comfort her but was truly not good at such things.

Zhao Qinglan sat at the desk, watching her look flustered over there. She tossed the medicine bottle up and down in her hand, lazily calling out to her, “Shu Youzhan, what about the promise to help me apply the medicine?”

Without even looking back, Shu Youzhan replied coldly, “I never agreed to that. Stop giving yourself extra lines.”

“Tsk, is this how you treat your savior? Just now, I don’t know which little ‘O’…”

Shu Youzhan dropped her phone and dashed over to cover her mouth: “Stop! Shut up!”

She put on a fierce expression: “Applying medicine, right? Fine, just you wait!”

As she spoke, Shu Youzhan started to pull at Zhao Qinglan’s school uniform jacket. Her exceptionally bold movements made Zhao Qinglan surprised for a moment, and she belatedly pulled at her own collar.

“No way, even you can get shy?”

Shu Youzhan teased as she tugged at her collar, leaning in as if discovering something novel.

Zhao Qinglan met her gaze without changing her expression: “I’m mainly afraid you won’t be willing to take responsibility for me.”

Shu Youzhan laughed: “You guessed right. An Alpha without pheromones isn’t worth it. I hope you have some self-awareness.”

While the two were bickering, Zhao Qinglan’s jacket collar had been pulled open a bit, and the shirt collar inside was also loosened, revealing the exquisite and slender lines of her neck.

Shu Youzhan suddenly lowered her head curiously, leaning in close to the back of the other’s neck. Her nose twitched, and her warm breath puffed against the skin, triggering a wave of tremors.

“Hey, do you really not have pheromones? Let me smell—”