I Am Her Secret Beauty - Chapter 20

It was as if she had unknowingly descended into hell. Flames licked at Mu Xi’s body from every direction, tormenting her in the most excruciating way.

The moment she realized her rut had arrived early, Mu Xi immediately submitted a leave request and explanation to Nan Zhiya before locking herself in her room to administer suppressants.

The Nan household was filled with omegas, even among the staff, so continuing to work was out of the question. Not only would it be disastrous for the omegas, but for herself as well.

Especially since among them was the most dangerous one of all, the young lady Nan Xi, who carried herself with careless allure, the very person Mu Xi should never provoke.

…

The mere thought of Nan Xi intensified Mu Xi’s torment.

Since presenting as an alpha, Mu Xi had endured many ruts, but this one filled her with shame too deep to voice.

This was a disgraceful, sinful rut. She knew exactly why it had come early and why it was tearing her apart like this.

Some desires were simply beyond her ability to bear.

…

When Nan Xi had stolen a kiss from her, Mu Xi had been fast asleep, completely unaware.

It was the bite that followed, delivered with enough force, that had dragged Mu Xi from dreams into wakefulness.

Even then, she had only been half-conscious. Had she been fully awake, her poor acting would never have fooled Nan Xi. At the time, all Mu Xi had sensed was something impossibly soft brushing against her lips, then suddenly, as if teasing her, striking, leaving behind a sweet, stinging pain.

In her dazed state, Mu Xi had smiled.

This was the memory that now filled her with shame.

Somewhere deep in her subconscious, she had known. Only Nan Xi could have done such a thing to her. Yet she had smiled anyway, and Nan Xi had definitely seen it.

Later, after Nan Xi left the car, Mu Xi had opened her eyes, sitting alone in the vehicle for a long time, her gaze hollow, as if her soul had been drained away.

Eventually, she had looked into the rearview mirror, her fingers lifting unconsciously to touch her lips.

They looked no different from usual, yet Mu Xi was certain they had changed, more vivid, more flushed, burning hotter than before.

She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d last dared to lick them, even when they were painfully dry. As if doing so would break some unspoken taboo.

She had kept checking her reflection, obsessively studying her lips in the front camera. Back then, they had filled her with delight. Now, they only brought her shame. Who knew a single mouth could carry such a burden?

In a daze, she had driven back to the Nan residence and resumed her duties, though she found herself lowering her head or covering her mouth whenever she spoke, as if afraid someone might notice something amiss.

She was guilty, she knew it herself.

Even though she hadn’t initiated anything. Even though she had done nothing at all.

The busyness of work had helped distract her, until noon, when she returned to her quarters for lunch and glanced at her phone.

A message from Nan Xi.

Nan Xi had never texted her before. If she needed anything, she always called.

Yet today, of all days, Nan Xi had sent her first message…

Mu Xi nearly flung her phone away, as though it carried something terrifying.

She opened her eyes wide, took deep breaths, and mustered all her courage before daring to open the chat window with Nan Xi, terrified that she might discover she had nearly woken up that morning and bring up that heart-stopping touch of lips.

Fortunately, Nan Xi only asked if she had eaten lunch.

Wait.

Lunch… she had eaten lunch.

Eating lunch meant Mu Xi had inevitably licked her own lips. The resolve she had nervously maintained all morning crumbled in an instant. Unintentionally, she had already… with Nan Xi…

Two more hours passed before Mu Xi mechanically replied to Nan Xi’s message:

“Thank you, Miss. I slept very well and had lunch.”

It was too late now.

The strange sensation from her lips that morning kept replaying in her mind. Mu Xi hadn’t seen the actual scene at the time, her eyes had been closed, but she couldn’t stop herself from imagining it, conjuring countless possible scenarios. Those scenes intertwined and randomly surfaced in her thoughts, occupying every corner of her mind.

Luckily, the afternoon only required her to accompany Nan Lian. Otherwise, given Mu Xi’s state, she would have been full of blunders.

She could no longer function normally. A bizarre mix of joy, worry, and fear lingered in her heart, a course not typically taught in domestic service universities.

…Actually, there might have been one. The university had offered an ethics class, something about avoiding or managing relationships within households or between families and domestic staff. Mu Xi hadn’t taken that course.

If she could do it all over, she would have studied that class diligently. She’d have aimed for an A+ before daring to work for the Nan family.

This tangled mess of emotions persisted until Nan Xi returned home.

The moment she saw Nan Xi, calm, graceful, as if nothing had happened at all, Mu Xi’s heart, though still complicated, settled strangely into place. Like an anchor finally dropping to the seabed, her endlessly drifting thoughts came to a standstill.

She still looked so perfect.

Mu Xi thought, Let’s just let this pass. If Nan Xi pretended not to know, then she would do the same. That… kiss in the morning was just an accident. From now on, she’d be more careful to keep her distance. Everything would fade with time.

That was why Mu Xi kept her distance from Nan Xi for the next three days, and why she should have continued doing so.

She carefully weighed every response to Nan Xi, ensuring each word was respectful, sincere, and inoffensive. She maintained absolute physical distance, eliminating any chance of contact. She even deliberately reduced their interactions. If she had tried, she could have made time to accompany Nan Xi to and from work, but she left that task to the driver as much as possible.

Unexpectedly, all this effort only angered Nan Xi.

That morning, Nan Xi had confronted her directly, asking if she knew about the stolen kiss. And Mu Xi simply couldn’t lie.

…Nan Xi hadn’t left her any room to lie, either.

Nan Xi’s advances had always been relentless, as if she was determined to have her, as if Mu Xi was already hers. Despite her denials, anyone with eyes could see her lingering devotion to her ex.

Even setting aside the vast social chasm that had once separated Nan Xi from herself, Mu Xi found the fact that she was being treated as someone else lodged in her throat like a fishbone.

So, what was happening now?

Could it be that, even knowing this emotion was twisted and distorted, she still felt… moved by it?

The morning after Nan Xi had forced herself upon her, the moment Nan Xi stepped out of the car, Mu Xi slumped over the steering wheel, feeling a scorching heat surging upward inside her.

She had thought it was just humiliation.

And she should feel humiliated, shouldn’t she? Wasn’t Nan Xi’s every word a clear message that she wouldn’t let her off? Yet for the sake of her position, Mu Xi had no choice but to swallow her pride, wasn’t that humiliation enough?

How, then, had this so-called “humiliation” mutated and festered as it grew, until it became a raging fire that burned her from within?

That afternoon, while supervising the household staff with their cleaning, Mu Xi’s mind wandered for just a moment, she recalled Nan Xi’s words, and then, inevitably, the kiss from days before.

Her body reacted instantly, as if triggered. Mu Xi’s legs gave way, and she nearly collapsed on the spot.

Everyone was startled. Xiao Jiang and Xiao Ji rushed to support her, asking if she was feeling unwell.

Dizzy and weak-legged, Mu Xi pushed herself up from the floor using the sofa. But her face remained unnervingly flushed.

Her body burned, and the discomfort was unbearable. Yet she didn’t immediately consider that it might be her rut. After all, Xiao Jiang was an omega, but Mu Xi felt no desire for her whatsoever.

“It’s nothing, I just slipped,” Mu Xi reassured them with a smile. The two trusted the housekeeper’s words without question and returned to their tasks.

Two hours later.

Mu Xi staggered into her quarters, rushed to the bathroom, and splashed cold water on her face over and over.

Her cheeks felt feverish, and worse, she could smell the pheromones of the staff in the air. Normally, everyone wore scent patches, which were more than enough to suppress most pheromones under ordinary circumstances.

That left only one possibility: her rut had arrived.

After a brief attempt to cool down with water, Mu Xi immediately stepped out, retrieved the suppressants she had prepared in advance from her bedside, and injected herself.

At the same time, she sent a leave request to Nan Zhiya, explaining that her rut had come early, and delegated her duties to others.

Once everything was settled, Mu Xi turned the air conditioning to its lowest setting, stripped off her suit jacket, and lay on the bed, trying to calm herself.

The suppressants took effect quickly, and the heat in her body gradually subsided.

She needed to steady her mind, so she pulled a book from the shelf: poetry, essays, anything with a dull, heavy narrative.

The damnable thing was, no matter what she read, it always circled back to love, to desire.

When Mu Xi encountered words like “lips” or “kiss,” she knew she was in trouble.

The barely suppressed cravings gathered and surged anew, rising from her abdomen to her brain, scorching her until she had to throw the book aside, strip off her shirt and trousers, and lie half-naked on the bed, gasping.

Her mind was a battlefield of conflicting thoughts, each one colliding violently, pushing Mu Xi to the brink of collapse.

When she felt slightly better, she struggled to get up, took a cold shower in the bathroom to clean herself, then casually threw on a robe and curled back into bed, continuing to endure the torment of desire.

Mu Xi wasn’t entirely sure what time it was. Just as she was on the verge of losing control, she injected herself with a second dose of suppressants, buying herself a brief moment of clarity. She leaned weakly against the headboard, barely holding on.

Her senses were heightened to an unbearable degree. Even with the door locked, she could faintly detect the pheromones of the servants outside. She overheard someone discussing how her rut had come early, speculating that it might be due to overwork.

Mu Xi felt ashamed. Others thought she was exhausted, but she knew the truth, she didn’t dare tell anyone the real reason.

Just a fleeting contact, one that could barely even be called a kiss, had reduced her to this state. She was utterly incompetent, an alpha who couldn’t even control her own desires.

All she could do was lie alone in this empty room, replaying that kiss, the one that tormented her yet secretly thrilled her, over and over in her mind. And then, she pleasured herself.

Lost in waves of delirium, Mu Xi curled tightly against the headboard. It must already be the next day, as she hadn’t heard any voices for a long time, likely everyone had gone to sleep.

Before long, Mu Xi also drifted off, completely drained.

What woke her again was something dangerous.

The moment her consciousness returned, alarm bells rang in her mind.

Because she caught a scent in the air, one that absolutely should not be here, not now. It was Nan Xi’s pheromones.

The last time Nan Xi had lost control, Mu Xi had accidentally caught a whiff of her scent. Back then, she’d had to knock herself unconscious to restrain her instincts, but she’d never forgotten Nan Xi’s pheromones.

…If she could smell Nan Xi’s scent now, then there was no need to explain further. Nan Xi was somewhere very, very close.

In the living room…?

The moment Nan Xi’s pheromones reached her, the burning desire inside Mu Xi surged violently, making her body ache with an unbearable itch.

She… she needed to inject the third suppressant immediately, the stronger one.

Mu Xi reached for the neatly arranged suppressants in the bedside drawer.

Just then,

Knock, knock, knock.

A calm, composed knocking sounded from outside.

The soft floral scent grew even more distinct. Mu Xi’s fingers trembled, too afraid to even consider the possibility.

But the person outside was waiting for her response.

Mu Xi forced herself to speak, her voice hoarse. “Who is it?”

The familiar voice that answered was gentle, almost teasing, or perhaps that was just Mu Xi’s fevered imagination playing tricks on her. “Butler Mu, it’s Nan Xi.”

“Butler Mu, I heard your rut came early. We’re all worried about you… Could you open the door? I’d like to check on you.”

Mu Xi bit down hard on her lower lip.

What should she do?

It took her a long moment to steady herself before she could reply, “That won’t be necessary.”

At the same time, she finally managed to grab the high-potency suppressant she needed, though the effort sent her tumbling to the floor, robe and all.

A startled gasp came from outside. “Oh! Butler Mu, what happened? Don’t worry, I’ll come in right away to help you.”