A Disguised Scum Alpha Marked Her Aloof Ex-Wife - Chapter 12

The young woman pressed her lips together and stopped talking. Leaning against the door, she slowly slid down, her eyes full of wariness as she looked at Nangong.

She looked exactly like a startled little animal, curled up at the entrance of its den.

Nangong was amused to no end. She kept feeling that if Zhu Yu curled up any farther, she was about to transform. Empire people were like fascinating blind boxes. Some gentle beauty might suddenly turn into a giant raven with a pop, while a strong, sturdy girl might abruptly become a little snake.

The scents on Zhu Yu were too mixed, making it impossible to tell what species she was.

Nangong curved her lips into a wicked smile. She was just about to take advantage of Zhu Yu being drunk to coax out her beast form and pet her a few more times when she saw a few tears gather in Zhu Yu’s eyes, slowly welling up.

She looked terribly pitiful.

“…”

Nangong sucked in a breath. “I didn’t do anything to you, did I?”

“Why are you crying? This is extortion!”

“Enough already. I won’t tease you anymore, okay?”

“Are you crying because your stomach hurts, or what? Should I take you to the hospital?”

The young woman clutched her stomach and stubbornly lifted her face, her voice carrying a sob. “My family didn’t abandon me!”

“All right, all right.”

Nangong was too lazy to argue with her. With one hand, she reached to turn the key. With the other, she raised her hand, preparing to knock. She could not just leave this drunkard curled up here.

Click.

This time, the key turned lightly, and the lock opened with ease.

Nangong simply assumed Zhu Yu was too drunk to have any strength left. She bent down, preparing to help her up.

But the moment the door opened, the young woman immediately wiped her face messily with her sleeve and scrambled to her feet with a speed that left Nangong amazed.

This was definitely extortion!

Zhu Yu first smiled foolishly, then straightened her face, pretending to be melancholy at such a young age. Standing at the doorway, she took a deep breath.

Nangong glanced at her sideways, unable to bear it. “What now?”

Zhu Yu said, “She doesn’t like it when I smile. It’s too frivolous.”

The tear tracks on her face had not yet dried. Zhu Yu continued, “I need to be more mature and become someone she can rely on.”

Nangong: “…”

She did not see it.

A small nightlight was on inside the room.

Nangong easily noticed the devices scattered across the floor, silver-white and faintly reflecting light in the darkness. On the workbench against the wall lay a hand-drawn diagram.

Pretending it was unintentional, Nangong narrowed her eyes and swept her gaze over it. “So you’re that new repair technician?”

Zhu Yu licked her lips and strode forward. She pulled the white gauze curtain in front of the bed closed and fastened it with a little rabbit clip, sealing it so tightly no light could pass through.

She guarded her treasure warily.

Nangong, that annoying flirt, loved seducing people so much. Zhu Yu absolutely could not let her see Bai Shuzhou!!

The more Zhu Yu refused to let her look, the more Nangong insisted on looking.

Almost the instant Zhu Yu raised her leg, Nangong’s gaze had already drifted toward the destination first.

White gauze curtain.

Jeweled pupils.

Reflected coldly in the darkness.

For one instant, Nangong’s smile stiffened. She instinctively reached toward her waist. Her powerful intuition for danger almost made her want to turn and run, as if some enormous creature were hidden inside that darkness.

But it lasted only an instant.

Those eyes, filled with overwhelming pressure, disappeared. The white gauze swayed lightly, and the pink rabbit clip leapt up into place.

After Zhu Yu drew the curtain properly, that silly smile appeared on her face again.

Nangong said, “…You didn’t see that?”

Zhu Yu asked, “See what?”

She looked far too natural. Nangong cursed under her breath, “What the hell.”

The young woman immediately scolded her in a small voice. “Shh, keep it down. She’s sleeping.”

Nangong walked closer and carefully surveyed the shabby environment. Her gaze drifted toward the white gauze, intentionally or not, and she sneered. “What, are you imitating people who hide beauties in golden houses? At least change it to a golden cage.”

The young woman, who had just been curled up like a shrimp, instantly straightened. Like a small beast, she glared angrily. “Don’t talk nonsense!”

For some unknown reason, this person with an endlessly good temper suddenly displayed an iron will. She poured herself a cup of cold water, sat down, and swallowed the medicine with several gulps.

Nangong crossed her arms and watched coldly as Zhu Yu dug out the pills and downed them neatly and numbingly. Even when drinking water, she was very quiet. Though she was clearly in her own home, she gave off a strangely guilty air, like a thief.

There was an old timer on the table. Zhu Yu slapped it once, then simply slumped forward onto the table.

Softly.

Nangong began to suspect she might be some kind of aquatic product. Like salted fish…

Oh. That was food.

“You really can drink,” Nangong said with genuine admiration. “Don’t tell me all your sales come from doing this? You want money but not your life? Acting soft wouldn’t kill you.”

Seeing that Zhu Yu was not speaking, Nangong did not treat herself as an outsider at all. She walked over to the diagram on her own and studied it for a moment, then crouched down to examine a half-repaired circuit board.

“Not bad craftsmanship. Where did you learn?”

“You’re not local, are you? How did you end up like this? Tell me. Maybe I can help you.”

“Since you have a skill you can use to make a living, why do you still need to sell drinks? You don’t even know how to earn money properly. This job doesn’t suit you.”

You’re the one selling drinks, you…!

Thinking of all the grievances Nangong had suffered there too, Zhu Yu’s hand went pale where it pressed against her abdomen. She swallowed back the angry retort.

“It’s not selling drinks. I’m a server who sells drinks on the side. You’re the one who doesn’t suit this line of work. You almost got taken away by bad people.”

Nangong shrugged and sat down with her legs crossed. She looked at the inexplicable handwritten label on the medicine bag and raised a brow. “Are you badly short of money?”

“Mm. We can’t go hungry. My family is sick and needs a lot of money. Then I have to send her home.”

“What illness?”

“Her legs. She’s hurt. Very sad.”

At this moment, Zhu Yu looked very obedient. Her black hair fell softly, a complete contrast to how she had been at the drinking table.

“I can introduce you to some business,” Nangong said, propping her chin on her hand. “It depends on whether you can handle it. Can you repair engines?”

“Yes.”

“Large machinery too? I’m not talking about little household appliances like electric pots.”

“I can.”

Nangong: ?

Zhu Yu rubbed her fingers together. “If the price is right, I can do a little, little, little bit more than ‘can.’”

“Good. I’ll bring something over tomorrow. If you can fix it, I’ll give you this amount.”

Nangong spread out one hand and made a specific gesture used when discussing business in nightclubs. Zhu Yu had seen it before, but she did not know how much it meant.

People negotiating in bars all made gestures like this. Zhu Yu’s intuition told her it was not a small sum. At the very least, it had to be…

Five hundred?

She prudently kept silent.

If Nangong knew that was Zhu Yu’s initial guess, she would probably wake up laughing from her dreams.

She had known very early on that a cheap and skilled repair technician had appeared locally. Once the reputation spread, many people thought Zhu Yu was waiting to hook a big fish. No one expected that this outsider simply had no idea what the market prices were.

“Work well. You have a much better future in this line than drinking with customers. If you aren’t that desperate for money, quit as soon as possible. Once you start losing your dignity, you can never go back.”

Before leaving, Nangong patted Zhu Yu on the shoulder. “Don’t keep pushing until you get a perforated stomach or alcohol poisoning. What you earn in one night won’t even be enough to cover the medical bills. Take too many painkillers and you’ll ruin yourself too.”

Zhu Yu felt that Nangong made some sense.

She seemed to have already developed a certain immunity to the fever-reducing, pain-relieving, anti-inflammatory sleeping pills.

They were useless.

It hurt so much.

Her stomach cramped and spasmed, as if on a blazing summer day, her organs had been wrapped in a plastic bag. Every breath made that thin film cling to flesh and blood, sticky and suffocating.

She lay on the table, thinking of the parts she had been dismantling. A silver wrench twisted several times, and her consciousness peeled away bit by bit.

Vines silently wound over, boiled a bottle of water, mixed it into half a cup of cold water, and pushed it to the young woman’s side.

Zhu Yu blinked. Vaguely, she smelled that warm, gentle rose fragrance again.

Her drifting consciousness was awakened by the strength tightening around her waist, as though someone had pulled her into an embrace.

Her throat was gripped.

Her chin was lifted, and warm water was poured down entirely, gentle, powerful, and impossible to refuse.

“Zhu Yu, where did you go?”

The woman’s icy voice formed a stark contrast with the hot water. Together, they flowed past Zhu Yu’s parched throat. She choked, and a few drops splashed onto her lips, slid downward, disappeared into her slender neck, and dampened the dark green vines wrapped around it.

At some point, the white gauze had been drawn open.

The dim yellow light could not fully illuminate Bai Shuzhou’s beauty. Silver-white strands floated in the darkness.

The young woman was forced to lift her face. The moment she opened her eyes, she met those pale blue eyes, as if in a dream.

“Paradis. Work… I drank a little wine.”

She sounded somewhat guilty.

“A little?”

“Just… a little little. A few bottles or so…”

“Liar.”

The woman’s beautiful voice grew colder, melting like shards of ice, dripping down frostily.

Coarse vines pressed over Zhu Yu’s gland. Tiny rose thorns scraped across it little by little. Zhu Yu could not control the curling of her fingers, and her body began trembling violently.

“I was wrong! It was two crates. Maybe a dozen bottles… Really, I really know I was wrong, wu…”

The vines ground against the most vulnerable gland.

Even after things had reached this point, the young woman still showed no intention of resisting. She only tried hard to shrink herself smaller, using that to lower her presence.

Unfortunately, the vines wrapped and embraced her with no room for resistance. Even her rapidly contracting abdomen was bound in place. There was nowhere to run. She could only beg for mercy.

Completely unlike an Alpha.

Completely unlike Zhu Yu.

No one would allow their gland to be humiliated and crushed like this, much less Zhu Yu. Zhu Yu, who repaid every slight. Zhu Yu, who spoke with honeyed words and pleasing expressions…

Clearly possessing extreme violence, yet now hiding so cowardly.

Wave after wave of soreness and swelling rose at the back of her neck. Under the catalyst of rose fragrance, it became tingling and numb. The thin, tough vines did not loosen because of her begging. Instead, they pressed down again and again with malicious intent.

Pop.

A brilliant rose bloomed at a branch.

Zhu Yu’s pheromones began to release uncontrollably.

Clear, slightly cool, like a summer night shower.

Crystal dew soaked the vines, and a faint golden glow rose between the entwined skin. Very soon, it was spread evenly over her.

Bai Shuzhou frowned lightly. Something unusual appeared on her cold, indifferent face.

“Who exactly are you?”

Zhu Yu could no longer speak.

Bai Shuzhou slowly squeezed the gland, bit by bit, then smeared the mental-power dew onto the rise and fall of Zhu Yu’s abdomen.

That familiar scar was still there.

But the current Zhu Yu no longer had sharp eyes. She only lay there damp-eyed, helpless beneath someone else’s hands.

Truly…

Disgusting.

Bai Shuzhou looked away, but the movement of the vines slowed. Comfortingly, they patted Zhu Yu’s trembling skin.

Golden dew warmly enveloped the young woman’s lower abdomen. Every line was outlined clearly. From the initial coolness, it gradually became warm, and the cramping pain began to ease.

But in Zhu Yu’s vision, there was only that porcelain-white face.

From a cold abyssal pool to faint ripples, with red lips lightly pressed together and long lashes falling one by one, casting a shallow shadow over those icy blue eyes.

With every breath Bai Shuzhou took, with every slight turn of her eyes, her lashes were like tiny brushes.

Lightly, brush, brush, brush…

They swept away the pain at the tip of Zhu Yu’s heart.

Restraint was an embrace.

Punishment was a reward.

Her whole body began to feel light.

Zhu Yu could not hold back. She smiled.

A cluster of roses, embarrassed and angry, blocked her face. On one branch hung a ring.

“Take it. Sell it.”

“Quit your job. I’m tired of watching your tragic poverty drama.”

The vines withdrew coldly.

The priceless blood-crystal ore ring fell with a clear clink into the young woman’s palm.

The messy scents on Zhu Yu’s body were completely covered by roses. The damp, extremely faint liquid also smelled like rose dew. Only by leaning very close could one detect, within the strong floral fragrance, the scent that belonged to Zhu Yu herself.

Yet that single thread of Zhu Yu’s scent lingered around Bai Shuzhou’s hair and burned hotter and hotter at her fingertips.

The rose garden bloomed overnight, all for one inexplicable rain. The vines had already dispersed, but the intermingled scent between the two of them remained subtle and ambiguous.

Bai Shuzhou frowned. She pulled out a tissue and forcefully wiped each fingertip one by one, until her snow-white skin flushed red with blood.

It would not wipe away.

It could not have been wiped away in the first place.