What Should I Do If My Ex-Girlfriend's Pheromones Smell Too Good? - Chapter 36

Chapter 36: Cake

On the fourth day of intensive training, Shu Qiong, whose body had not fully recovered, received a special sick note from the medical officer and decided to stay in the dormitory all day.

When she woke up in the morning, she sat lazily on her bed, watching her three roommates walk past below. Wrapped in her quilt and sitting steadily, she looked like a newly enthroned emperor gazing down at her subjects.

Yan Xiangyu stood before the full-length mirror tying her hair, looking at her through the reflection: “Not going to sleep a bit longer?”

Shu Qiong shook her head and was about to speak when she was interrupted by Jin Yan.

Jin Yan returned from the communal washroom looking very mysterious: “Xin Xiuyun is leaving the base. Word is the instructor had a talk with her last night.”

Shu Qiong wasn’t surprised at all. She let out a small yawn and said as she got out of bed, “Since trouble was stirred up, the base authorities will definitely negotiate with Superior Military Academy. The Xin family probably knows about it by now too; they likely feel they can’t afford the loss of face and want her back. Hmm, I wonder if this was actually an outcome Xin Xiuyun wanted to achieve?”

Jin Yan asked in confusion: “What? What’s the benefit of being abandoned by your family?”

Shu Qiong pondered for a moment: “I still feel that she wouldn’t put all her hopes on a single, high-risk plan like ‘luring me with pheromones.’ To have lived in an environment like the Xin family until now and successfully entered Superior is proof enough that she isn’t a short-sighted fool. Since she took the initiative to release her pheromones, she must have considered the possibility of failure.”

“If she had succeeded and I had been led to mark her, she would have used that as leverage to latch onto the Shu family—that would naturally be the ideal result.”

Shu Qiong voiced the conclusions she had reached from her reflections last night. “And if she failed, as she has now, she offends us and her reputation in the circle turns sour. The Xin family will view her as a pawn that has lost its value. Paradoxically, this might give her more freedom, as they’ll shift their developmental focus back to that ‘expelled’ Xin Zhize.”

Shu Qiong gave a mocking smile, finding the Xin family’s behavior of picking between two offspring to be like trying to find a tall person in a pile of short ones.

“In short, regardless of the method, she can achieve her goal of escaping their control to varying degrees. I was just unfortunately the one being utilized.”

Jin Yan stopped what she was doing: “When you put it that way, this Xin Xiuyun isn’t just being purely stupid—she actually has the courage of a gecko cutting off its own tail?”

Shu Qiong gave a light “Mhm,” then shrugged: “But she provoked me, and the feeling of pheromone intolerance flaring up wasn’t pleasant at all. I’m not in the mood to attach a positive word like ‘courage’ to her right now.”

The group chatted casually for a bit longer. Shu Qiong watched her companions leave for training and then tidied herself up, preparing to use her day off to finish the remaining mecha modeling.

Gotta grind, Shu Qiong thought with a mix of gloom and self-deprecation. Grinding is good.

She hadn’t touched a mecha for a few days, but her touch hadn’t grown rusty. Shu Qiong stretched her wrists and knuckles and tapped her wristband. She already had mature ideas regarding the concepts of speed and pilot comfort, but the model still lacked several key parameters. It required extensive testing and modification until every metric of the virtual mecha reached her expectations.

This was quite tedious work. After staring at the light screen for a long time, Shu Qiong felt her eyes grow dizzy. She pressed her temples and stood up to stretch.

She decided to switch things up. Wasn’t the Inter-Collegiate League starting soon? As the team’s mecha engineer, she hadn’t seemingly done much of her actual job yet. Taking this opportunity to conceptualize mecha models for her teammates seemed like a good idea.

Before coming to Base Star, she had been given a data package by the lead instructor, Chu Yimeng. It contained the mecha parameters for He Xuchou and the others. Shu Qiong hadn’t had time to look at them until now; finally, she had time to browse through them and do her duty as a data worker.

He Xuchou was an excellent warrior with strong explosive power and rich scouting experience; her mecha was a lightweight reconnaissance type.

Chang Xichun was a typical mecha sniper. Her mecha was light, sacrificing other sections of the chassis to equip more artillery and ammunition—a “glass cannon” build with high attack and low defense. Her beloved machine was beautiful and fluid, with a lean frame and a rich variety of sniper-class thermal weapons.

Both of the above had already formed mature combat styles, possessed top-tier qualities, and were well-integrated with their mecha. Shu Qiong didn’t need to worry much about them.

The main concern was Qin Liang’s mecha. She was a substitute last year and had successfully become a regular this year; her usual mecha was geared toward being a vanguard. However, after several days of interaction, Shu Qiong had a grasp on her style. She thought about it and concluded that this steady teammate with few weaknesses was a reliable warrior with decent explosive power but excellent endurance and a solid tactical foundation.

With the “all-rounder” Yan Xiangyu already filling the assault position, Qin Liang could perhaps pivot toward a support role. In that case, the mecha would need a certain degree of modification. The arsenal would undoubtedly need expansion, and the weight wouldn’t be as light as before, but it would be able to handle more varied combat situations.

Shu Qiong recorded all her thoughts. Feeling that her brain cells were nearly spent, she closed her wristband and prepared to go find the doctor for a follow-up check.

Using her right hand to rub her temples and her left to pull open the dorm door, she paused as the door opened softly. She squinted at an exquisite cake box that had appeared at the doorstep at some unknown time, feeling momentarily bewildered.

Who sent this?

She squatted down curiously to check. It was a beautifully packaged eight-inch cream cake with a large purple satin bow pinning down a card. Shu Qiong pulled out the card; only two words were written on it: “Sorry.”

She raised an eyebrow, guessing whose handiwork this was. The card carried the scent of cream—a very sweet smell. Shu Qiong’s teeth ached as she recalled the cloyingly thick, sugary sweetness in that cramped, sealed lounge last night. Holding the card, she looked left and right, unsure of what to do with the cake.

It was still morning training time, so the hallway was deserted. Shu Qiong’s thoughts wandered, thinking that Base Star didn’t seem to have any dessert shops or bakeries. But then she remembered that Superior Military Academy had specifically brought their own chefs along.

She hesitated for a moment but eventually brought the cake back into the dorm. Wasting food wasn’t her style.

Sending a gift with the scent of one’s own pheromones… this habit…

Is just like Yan Xiangyu’s.

Shu Qiong let out an “Ugh,” thinking that the half-sisters Xin Xiuyun and Lin Mi were truly interesting—both coming to give gifts without coordination. Should she say they really had a tacit understanding?

At noon, Shu Qiong took the cake to the cafeteria to wait for Yan Xiangyu and the others to finish training and eat together.

Jin Yan’s eyes went straight when she saw the big cake on the table, and she ran over at a jog. The young miss was a total sweet-tooth, and eating the bland, healthy food at the base for the past few days had been pure agony. The base food emphasized being healthy and tasteless—no spices, and let’s not even mention the cooking techniques. After a day of hard training, eating a couple of bites of dry, paper-like meat made her mouth feel like it could grow a bird (idiom for being extremely bored of bland food).

“Where did this come from?” Yan Xiangyu naturally took the seat next to Shu Qiong.

Shu Qiong replied while watching Jin Yan unbox it: “Picked it up on the road. It’s wild.”

Yan Xiangyu spoke in a flat tone: “Sent by that Xin Xiuyun?”

“…” Shu Qiong glanced at her. “There’s really no surprise talking to you!”

Yan Xiangyu knew her too well. No matter what happened, she could guess eighty or ninety percent of the truth just by looking at Shu Qiong’s expression.

“Is that so?”

Since last night, Yan Xiangyu had somewhat returned to the “Yan B-King” state she had at the start of the semester—acting poised and aloof. In Jin Yan’s words, she was “acting fake,” and in Shu Qiong’s words, she had started maintaining her “cool girl” persona with a heavy burden again, likely triggered by something.

Yan Xiangyu met Shu Qiong’s gaze and asked: “Is receiving a cake from her a big surprise?”

Shu Qiong clicked her tongue, finding that Yan Xiangyu was being particularly pedantic. She almost laughed but forced a serious expression. Under the table, however, she groped around until she found Yan Xiangyu’s hand and scratched the other’s palm.

Yan Xiangyu’s expression softened. She squeezed Shu Qiong’s hand back, only then reluctantly turning her gaze to the cake. She had smelled it last night; Xin Xiuyun’s pheromones were a similar cream scent. The fact that the girl had specifically sent a cream cake to Shu Qiong today made her intentions crystal clear.

She understood this routine all too well—because Yan Xiangyu had played it long ago.

Yan Xiangyu was particularly hostile toward the sisters Xin Xiuyun and Lin Mi. She realized these two shared a certain tactical consistency with herself; their threat level was incomparable to an emotional simpleton like Jin Yan. What made her most unable to suppress her worry and jealousy was that Shu Qiong truly fell for the “Green Tea” act of playing cute and obedient.

Yan Xiangyu was the first to explore this path. She was the pioneer, and now she wished she could block the road entirely.

Seeing her expression change eight hundred times in a second, Shu Qiong felt like teasing her. She leaned in a bit closer and whispered: “Did you notice any changes in me today?”

Yan Xiangyu indeed shifted her attention, tilting her head to observe Shu Qiong carefully. After a long while, she said hesitantly: “Um, on your neck there’s…”

“Stop!” Shu Qiong called a halt immediately. “Not that kind of change. Can you think of something appropriate for minors?”

Yan Xiangyu smiled: “I noticed a long time ago. It smells good. It’s my scent.”

“I used the soap you gave me when I showered yesterday. That way, everyone will know we are together.” Shu Qiong’s voice was very soft. She thought, this should give her a bit more of a sense of security, right?

Yan Xiangyu was indeed stunned by her blunt words, but her focus was slightly skewed as she instinctively muttered: “But Lin Mi is a Beta. Should I remind her what my pheromones smell like?”

“…”

Shu Qiong withdrew her hand with a fake smile, looking at this person who was always ready to push her luck.

Jin Yan put a lot of effort into opening the cake box perfectly intact. Because it was so exquisite, none of them were willing to tear it apart violently. Once they had it completely open, they were surprised to find that the box itself held a hidden secret. The inner walls were engraved with a beautiful pattern that felt textured to the touch.

“Is this… gold-traced green bamboo leaves?” Chang Xichun made a hesitant guess.

Shu Qiong suddenly had a suspicion. She opened her mouth, then closed it.

The cake frosting was very stylized, with a purple and green color clash that hit the visual nerves. The purple parts had a distinct berry aroma, while the green parts were either made with matcha powder or pandan flavor.

Yan Xiangyu frowned ever so slightly. She didn’t know if it was her imagination, but she felt she smelled a hint of green tea when the box opened. Was it because she was sitting too close to Shu Qiong?

Shu Qiong expressionlessly accepted a slice of cake cut by Jin Yan. Poking the sponge with a small fork, she numbly swallowed the truth along with the cake.

Did this Xin Xiuyun mistake the green tea scent lingering on Yan Xiangyu’s jacket that day for my pheromones?