After Transmigrating into a Book, I Was Marked by the Beautiful Mad Villain - Chapter 9

For a fleeting moment, Su Mi wanted to turn around and leave.

The elevator leading to the underground garage was in the opposite direction; as long as she turned her head quickly enough, Secretary Zhuang wouldn’t see her.

However, Secretary Zhuang had already spotted her, offering a flawless smile and a polite nod.

Fine.

Su Mi walked forward and greeted him politely, “Secretary Zhuang, good afternoon. May I ask why you are here…?”

Both wore smiles thick with social etiquette as they stared at each other for a long while.

Secretary Zhuang said, “President Shen said that the matter you entrusted to her last time has been resolved, and she asked me to bring you over.”

Su Mi was stunned. Why was he bringing her over?

Xu Nanqiao was the one who had been bullied. If the antagonist wanted to show off her power, she should have brought Xu Nanqiao along to see it, right?

She asked as much.

Secretary Zhuang replied, “These are President Shen’s instructions. You can ask President Shen for the specific details once you arrive.”

Su Mi could only agree.

She sent a message to her parents saying she would be back late due to some business, then followed Secretary Zhuang into the business sedan he had driven.

Secretary Zhuang was the type who preferred manual driving; he drove very smoothly, on par with the driving technology of an AI optical brain.

After sitting for a while, Su Mi suddenly noticed that the scenery along the way was unfamiliar—it wasn’t the road to Nanyuan that she had been to before.

“Secretary Zhuang, are we going to Nanyuan?”

She knew that in the plot, this Secretary Zhuang stood by Shen Han’s side from beginning to end, so she was merely curious about her destination.

Secretary Zhuang said, “We are going to another place. You’ll know when you get there.”

Su Mi lowered her head and opened the navigation on her optical brain. She discovered they were heading west.

Nightlife in the Capital was never particularly rich, but the west side of the city was an exception. Most entertainment venues were located there. As the streetscape changed, the presence of neon lights among the rows upon rows of buildings became increasingly prominent.

Su Mi remembered that in the plot, after Xu Nanqiao started university, her family suddenly incurred a massive debt. At that time, she already intended to break ties with Shen Han, so she went alone to a bar in the west city to work, where many dog-blood plot points occurred.

Secretary Zhuang wound through the complex buildings and finally stopped in front of a high-end club.

He was clearly a familiar face here—or rather, this was likely a Shen family property that he helped Shen Han manage.

Su Mi followed Secretary Zhuang into the club. Bypassing the various areas of howling revelry and feasting, they crossed through the building and entered another structure behind it, which was only about three stories high.

The decoration of the small building was entirely different from the sensual club in the front; instead, it looked more like a research institute or a hospital. The intermingling colors of pale blue and icy white made the temperature feel several degrees colder the moment they stepped inside.

From the entrance to the upstairs, there was a black-clad bodyguard stationed almost every few meters, maintaining strict security.

Su Mi walked this path with a trembling heart.

Why does this look like I’ve entered some secret underground research base of the Shen Corporation…? Is Shen Han researching something shameful here? It wasn’t mentioned in the original plot; at most, it mentioned a few times that the Shen family dominated the Capital, having a hand in both the legal and illegal worlds.

Suppressing her pounding heart, Su Mi bit the tip of her tongue and quickened her pace to keep up with Secretary Zhuang.

When they reached the second floor, Secretary Zhuang led Su Mi to a metallic door that seemed to be made of high-tech materials. He whispered a few words to the bodyguards at the door, then turned back and said to Su Mi, “Miss Su, President Shen is waiting for you inside.”

Su Mi: “…Alright.”

The bodyguard opened the door. Inside was a vast darkness, where only a faint, flickering blue light could be seen.

Su Mi took a soft breath and steeled herself to walk in.

She had recently read many novels recommended by the system, in which many antagonists suffered from claustrophobia.

An antagonist like Shen Han, who huddled in darkness every time they met, was quite rare.

After Su Mi entered, Shen Han actually turned on the lights… and the screen in front of her.

It couldn’t exactly be called a screen; it was a large piece of one-way glass.

After the lights came on, Su Mi realized this was a place similar to an observation room.

Unlike the casual home attire of their last meeting, Shen Han was wearing a cream-colored embroidered silk shirt today. From the straight collarbones exposed by two unbuttoned buttons, a pendant that looked like a Bodhi seed could be seen.

Her ink-black long hair was entirely pinned up with a wooden hairpin adorned with green jade. Her fine eyebrows were like hooks, and a small section of hair hung down at her temples, concealing a faint, ink-dot-like tear mole at the corner of her eye.

She sat facing the glass, quietly watching the brightly lit side beyond. Between two slender fingers of her left hand, she casually held something that looked like a cigarette, its tip emitting a faint, glowing blue light.

Shen Han pointed to the side: “Sit down.”

Su Mi obediently sat in the chair beside Shen Han.

A very faint floral fragrance lingered in the air.

Su Mi looked toward the other side of the mirror. That side looked very much like a dormitory… or a ward?

There were six partitioned beds inside, and a person in a hospital gown lay on each bed. Su Mi squinted her eyes to look closer, then discovered with surprise that the people lying there were the Alpha thugs who had cornered Xu Nanqiao and herself that day.

“Recognize them?” Shen Han asked.

Su Mi nodded blankly.

Since handing the matter over to Shen Han, Su Mi hadn’t paid much attention to how these people were handled.

She had researched some of the laws of this world. This ABO world provided very thorough protection for pheromones. Therefore, an Alpha intentionally releasing pheromones to induce an Omega’s heat with ill intentions was basically treated as the crime of rape from her original world.

She had thought these people were already in detention under the supervision of the authorities, awaiting trial. She didn’t expect them to be here with Shen Han.

Shen Han gave a hum, stood up lazily from her seat, tapped a few times on the control screen in front of her, and then shared a data-filled panel and several documents with Su Mi.

The panel showed the pheromone concentration in the room across from them, while the documents seemed to be the physical reports of those Alphas.

No… perhaps they couldn’t be called Alphas anymore.

On the panel monitoring pheromone concentrations, the Alpha pheromone values belonging to them had completely dropped to zero.

If she wasn’t mistaken, those Alphas who had been so arrogant that day were now… Betas?

It took Su Mi a long time to regain her composure.

She said with some hesitation, “…Sister, these people, could it be…?”

While Su Mi was studying the panel and data reports, Shen Han was fiddling with the cigarette-like object between her fingers.

Hearing this, she said indifferently, “The Capital Inspectorate tested the pheromone concentration at the time; it had reached 40%. For Alphas who can’t control their own lower bodies, pheromones are useless anyway.”

Su Mi looked up at Shen Han in a daze and asked, “Is… is this legal?”

She tried hard to recall the Omega Protection Act she had looked into before. It seemed it was indeed quite strict; if it was a serious case of attempted assault on an Omega, removing the secretory function of the glands wasn’t impossible.

Even so, why were they here with Shen Han…?

Shen Han glanced back at her, a faint curl appearing at the corners of her pale lips.

“More or less,” she said lazily.

What an answer.

Su Mi looked at Shen Han strangely.

The latter showed no expression, leaning half-lazily against the chair.

She was somewhat like one of those feline creatures hidden in the darkness; when she narrowed her eyes to look at someone, it was as if she were scrutinizing them before a hunt.

Or perhaps she simply didn’t take people seriously.

Shen Han tilted her head and suddenly asked, “Do you think this treatment is too light? Now that these people are in my hands, if you wish, transforming them into Omegas is also possible. It only requires a simple minor surgery.”

Su Mi: ??

Her eyes widened, and she shook her head violently.

“No, no need, this is enough!”

That sounds like something completely illegal!

“Ah, well then.”

Shen Han sighed and leaned to the side.

Her expression clearly showed no real regret, but she also clearly didn’t intend to give any further explanation.

Su Mi figured she would ask Secretary Zhuang what was really going on with these people once she got out.

As she was seriously pondering, she heard Shen Han let out a soft chuckle.

When Su Mi looked up, that crescent-like smile was just flattening out.

Shen Han suddenly asked her, “Do you want to see the pheromone concentration in this room?”

Su Mi felt she had no right to say no: “Okay.”

She leaned closer to Shen Han—of course, not daring to get too close—lowered her head, and looked at the screen in front of her.

At the first glance of the screen, Su Mi almost thought she had misread it.

Displayed there was a solitary Alpha pheromone value.

The color was close to red.

Su Mi froze, then looked up at Shen Han.

She was somewhat uncertain and asked haltingly, “This… what does this represent?”

Shen Han tilted her head, a strand of hair falling from behind her ear. Her cold eyes held a bit of interest.

“Well, it represents that my pheromones are currently a bit unstable,” Shen Han said.

Su Mi: “…”

Danger.

A sense of alertness, like that of a small animal, rose within her. Su Mi looked up at Shen Han.

The distance between the two at this moment was no more than 30 centimeters. Facing her, Su Mi could clearly see the antagonist’s slightly trembling eyelashes, her clear icy-blue pupils, her snow-white cheeks, and her pale, thin lips.

After meeting Shen Han’s gaze for barely a second, she instinctively averted her eyes and looked at the corner of Shen Han’s mouth.

Su Mi’s throat felt a bit itchy. Perhaps she was too nervous and wanted to swallow… but she held it back.

The smile hanging on the antagonist’s lips was as faint as moonlight as she said, “It’s a good thing you’re a Beta. Otherwise, you’d probably be like Xu Nanqiao that day, stimulated into a rut.”

Su Mi: “…”

Using almost all the willpower she possessed in this life, she put on an equally flawless smile.

“Sister, I also think it’s a good thing I’m a Beta,” Su Mi said brightly. “Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have been able to escape the tiger’s den with Nanqiao that day.”

Shen Han looked at her for a moment and suddenly snorted a laugh.

The air in the room seemed to circulate again with that snort; the phantom pressure from moments ago had vanished.

“Alright, sit up straight. Isn’t your current posture uncomfortable?” she said lazily.

“Okay, Sister.”

Su Mi quickly returned to the embrace of her chair’s backrest.

She was still holding her breath, fearing that Shen Han would detect her guilt.

“I watched the surveillance footage from that day. You performed very well. That set of golf clubs is no longer complete; I had Secretary Zhuang order a new set, and I’ll give it to you next week,” Shen Han said. “However, you also need to catch up on some AO physiological common sense. Otherwise, you wouldn’t even know that Xu Nanqiao was stimulated into a rut.”

Wasn’t that a surveillance blind spot? How did Shen Han get the surveillance footage?

Su Mi steeled herself: “Okay.”

Shen Han asked, “Is there anything else you want?”

She’s still giving?

Su Mi blinked, inwardly marvelling.

Setting aside these terrifying segments of testing, the antagonist was indeed very generous.

“There’s nothing I want for the time being,” Su Mi said honestly.

Shen Han commented, “Rare.”

Su Mi: “…”

What exactly was the original host’s image in the antagonist’s eyes?

In that flicker of time, Su Mi remembered another important matter.

Su Mi said, “Should I go tell Nanqiao about the fate of these people?”

“As you wish,” Shen Han said lazily.

She then noticed Su Mi’s form of address and repeated it, “Nanqiao?”

Su Mi: Oh oh, here it comes, the antagonist’s possessiveness!

She explained obediently, “Mhm, after that incident, we’ve become much more familiar than before. I also told her about my plan to apply for Capital University, and now I often study with her. As expected of someone so important to Sister, Nanqiao is kind and very smart; she’s helped me a lot and is very impressive!”

Seeing no reaction from Shen Han after she finished, Su Mi blinked.

Shen Han snorted a laugh.

With the corners of her lips slightly hooked, the woman’s beautiful profile turned slightly as she scrutinized Su Mi for a moment.

“Su Mi, I have to say, your changes during the differentiation period are quite significant.”

Su Mi quickly put on a smile: “Since I’m a Beta now, I figured I should still improve my own strength and learn things that truly belong to me. That’s what I call a foundation for standing on one’s own feet.”

Shen Han gave an “Mhm.” It was impossible to tell if she believed her or not, but she followed her lead, smiled, and said, “It’s fine. What’s Sister’s is yours; Sister can take care of you.”

Su Mi: “…”

I don’t believe you.