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

The girl bit her lip and fell silent, sliding slowly down against the door, her eyes fixed on Nan Gong with total wariness.

She looked exactly like a startled small animal huddling at the entrance of its burrow.

Nan Gong was delighted. She felt that if the girl curled up any further, she might actually transform. People from the Empire were like fascinating blind boxes: a gentle beauty might suddenly pop into a giant raven, while a sturdy lass might abruptly turn into a small snake.

The scent on Zhu Yu was too muddled; it was impossible to tell what species she was.

Nan Gong flashed a wicked grin, intending to take advantage of her drunken state to get a few good “pats” in if she shifted. But then she saw tears welling up in Zhu Yu’s eyes, slowly pooling.

She looked incredibly pitiful.

“…”

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

“Why are you crying? This is a total shakedown!”

“Fine, fine. I’ll stop teasing you, okay?”

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

The girl clutched her stomach and tilted her face up stubbornly, her voice thick with tears: “My family didn’t throw me away!”

“Alright, alright,” Nan Gong couldn’t be bothered to argue. She reached out to turn the key with one hand and raised the other to knock on the door; she couldn’t just leave this drunkard balled up here.

Click. This time, the key turned smoothly, and the latch opened easily. Nan Gong assumed Zhu Yu was simply too drunk to have any strength left, so she leaned down to help her up.

However, the moment the door opened, the girl scrambled to her feet and wiped her face haphazardly with her sleeve. Her speed was so impressive it left Nan Gong speechless.

She was totally faking it!

Zhu Yu started with a silly grin, then immediately pulled a stiff face, pretending to be a brooding youth. She took a deep breath at the threshold. Nan Gong looked at her from the side, finally losing her patience: “Now what’s wrong with you?”

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

With tear tracks still wet on her face, Zhu Yu continued, “I need to be more mature. I need to be someone she can lean on.”

Nan Gong: “…”

I don’t see it.

A dim nightlight was on inside. Nan Gong easily spotted the mechanical parts scattered on the floor—silver-white, reflecting bits of light in the darkness. On the workbench against the wall, a hand-drawn blueprint was spread out.

Nan Gong squinted at it, feigning nonchalance. “So you’re that new repair technician?”

Zhu Yu licked her lips and strode forward. She pulled the white gauze curtain shut in front of the bed and secured it with a little pink rabbit clip. It was now light-proof, vigilantly hiding her treasure.

Nan Gong, that annoying flirt, loved “shooting sparks” with her eyes. She absolutely could not let her see Bai Shuzhou!!

Because she was forbidden from looking, Nan Gong made a point to do so. Almost the instant Zhu Yu moved her leg, Nan Gong’s gaze had already drifted to the destination.

White gauze. Gemstone pupils. Coldly reflected in the darkness.

Nan Gong’s smile stiffened for a fraction of a second. Her hand instinctively moved toward her waist; a powerful instinct for danger made her almost want to bolt, as if some gargantuan beast were hidden in that darkness.

But it lasted only an instant. Those oppressive eyes vanished, the white gauze swayed, and the pink rabbit clip sat perched atop it.

Zhu Yu finished pulling the curtain and resumed her silly grin.

Nan Gong: “…Are you blind?”

Zhu Yu: “What?”

She looked so perfectly natural that Nan Gong cursed “ghosts” under her breath. The girl immediately hissed a reprimand: “Shh! Quiet down. People are sleeping.”

Nan Gong walked closer, scanning the dilapidated surroundings. Her gaze drifted toward the white gauze with a sneer. “What’s this? Are you playing ‘Golden House, Hidden Beauty’? You should at least get her a gold cage first.”

The girl, who had been curled up like a shrimp moments ago, bristled. Like a small beast, she glared: “Don’t you dare talk nonsense!”

Who knew what had gotten into this usually good-tempered kid? She suddenly displayed a will of iron, poured herself a glass of cold water, and sat down to gulp her medicine.

Nan Gong crossed her arms, watching coldly as Zhu Yu dug out the pills and swallowed them with a numb efficiency. She was even quiet while drinking the water; despite being in her own home, she projected the aura of a thief with a guilty conscience.

There was an old-fashioned timer on the table. Zhu Yu tapped it and then slumped over onto the table.

She looked soft. Nan Gong began to wonder if she was some kind of aquatic creature, like a salted fish… oh, wait, that was food.

“You really can drink,” Nan Gong remarked sincerely. “Is that how you get all your sales? Choosing money over your life. It wouldn’t kill you to just back down once in a while.”

Seeing that Zhu Yu wasn’t talking, Nan Gong made herself right at home. She walked over to the blueprints, studied them for a moment, and then crouched down to flip through a half-repaired circuit board.

“Not bad craftsmanship. Where’d you learn it?”

“You’re not a local, are you? How did you end up in a place like this? Tell me about it, maybe I can help you.”

“Since you have a skill that can put food on the table, why bother working as a hostess? You don’t know how to make money. You’re not suited for that job.”

You’re the hostess! You…!

Thinking about how Nan Gong had also suffered her share of grievances there, Zhu Yu’s hand clutched her stomach until her knuckles turned white, stifling her angry retort. “It’s not hostessing. I’m a server who just happens to sell wine. You’re the one not suited for this; you almost got carried off by bad people.”

Nan Gong shrugged and sat down with her legs crossed. She glanced at the bizarre hand-written label on the medicine bag and arched an eyebrow. “Are you that short on money?”

“Mhm. Can’t let us go hungry. My family is sick; we need a lot of money. And then I’m going to send her home.”

“What kind of sickness?”

“Legs. Injured. It’s very sad.”

She looked quite obedient now, her black hair falling submissively—a far cry from her persona at the drinking table.

“I could actually introduce you to some business, if you think you can handle it,” Nan Gong said, propping up her chin. “Can you fix engine motors?”

“Yes.”

“Large-scale machinery too? I don’t mean small household junk like electric cookers.”

“Bear.”

Nan Gong: “?”

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

“Fine. I’ll bring something over tomorrow. If you can fix it, I’ll give you this much.” Nan Gong spread out a hand, making a specific gesture used for business deals in the nightlife scene. Zhu Yu had seen it before, but she wasn’t sure of the exact amount.

People in the bars used these gestures for deals. Zhu Yu had a feeling it wasn’t a small amount. At the very least, it had to be… five hundred?

She cautiously remained silent.

If Nan Gong knew that was Zhu Yu’s internal estimate, she’d probably laugh herself awake in the middle of the night.

Nan Gong had known for a while that a high-quality, low-cost repair technician had arrived in town. Once the reputation spread, many thought she was “fishing for big fish,” but no one suspected this outsider simply had no idea what the market rates were.

“Do a good job. This line of work has much more of a future than the bar. If you aren’t so desperate for money that you’re literally dying, you should quit while you can. Once you start losing your dignity, there’s no going back.”

Before leaving, Nan Gong patted Zhu Yu’s shoulder. “Don’t work until you get a stomach perforation or alcohol poisoning. What you earn in a night won’t cover your medical bills. If you take too many painkillers, you’ll be ruined.”

Zhu Yu thought Nan Gong had a point. She seemed to have already developed a certain immunity to her “Fever-Reducing-Pain-Relieving-Anti-Inflammatory-Sleeping-Pill.”

It wasn’t working.

It hurt so much.

Her stomach throbbed in waves, like an organ trapped in a plastic bag on a sweltering summer day; every breath made the thin film stick to her flesh—viscous and suffocating.

She slumped on the table, thinking about the parts she was disassembling. An iron wrench twisted a few times in her mind as her consciousness began to peel away.

Vines silently reached over. They boiled a bottle of water, mixed it into a half-cup of stone-cold water, and pushed it to the girl’s side.

Zhu Yu blinked. She vaguely smelled that warm rose fragrance again. Her receding consciousness was jolted back by a force wrapping tightly around her waist, as if she were being held in an embrace.

Pinned by the neck.

Her chin was tilted up, and the warm water was poured down her throat—gentle, powerful, and irresistible.

“Zhu Yu, where did you go?”

The woman’s icy voice was a sharp contrast to the warm water. Both flowed down her parched throat, causing her to choke. A few drops splashed on her lips, sliding down into her slender neck and the deep green vines coiling around it.

The white gauze had been pulled open at some point. The dim yellow light couldn’t fully capture her beauty, but her silver hair shimmered in the darkness.

The girl was forced to tilt her face up. When she opened her eyes, she met those pale blue depths, as if in a dream.

“Paradis… work… drank a little wine.” She felt a bit guilty.

“A little?”

“Just… a tiny bit. Like a few bottles…”

“Liar.” The woman’s beautiful voice grew colder, like shards of ice melting and dripping down.

Coarse vines pressed against her gland, the tiny rose thorns grazing her skin. Zhu Yu couldn’t control the way her fingers curled; her body began to shake violently. “I was wrong! It was two crates, maybe… a dozen bottles… I really, really know I was wrong, ugh…”

The vines ground against her most vulnerable gland. Even at this point, the girl showed no intention of resisting; she only tried to shrink herself smaller to lower her presence.

Unfortunately, the vines wrapped and embraced her irresistibly. Even her stomach, which was contracting rapidly, was bound. She had nowhere to run and could only beg for mercy.

Not like an Alpha at all.

Not like the “Zhu Yu” I knew.

No person would allow their gland to be crushed and humiliated like this, especially not the “Zhu Yu” who sought revenge for the smallest slight—the glib-tongued, manipulative Zhu Yu. Despite possessing the capacity for extreme violence, she was hiding away so cowardly.

A dull ache surged in the back of her neck. Under the catalyst of the rose fragrance, it became tingly and numb. Far from loosening because of her pleas, the slender, tough vines ground against her with malicious repetition.

Pop.

Vivid roses bloomed along the branches.

Zhu Yu’s pheromones began to release uncontrollably—clear, slightly cool, like a summer night’s rain. Crystal dew wetted the vines, and a faint golden glow shimmered between the entwined skin, quickly smoothed over evenly.

Bai Shuzhou frowned slightly, an odd look crossing her indifferent face. “Who exactly are you?”

Zhu Yu could no longer speak.

Bai Shuzhou continued to press against the gland bit by bit, then applied the dew condensed from her spiritual power to the girl’s heaving stomach.

That familiar scar was still there, but the current Zhu Yu’s eyes were no longer sharp; she just lay there dazed and wet, at her mercy.

It was truly… nauseating.

Bai Shuzhou looked away, yet the speed of the vines slowed down, patting the girl’s trembling skin soothingly.

The golden dew warmly enveloped the girl’s stomach, tracing every line of her physique clearly. The initial coolness gradually turned warm, and the cramping pain began to subside.

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

From a deep, frozen pool to a rippling surface, her red lips were slightly pursed, and her long lashes hung down one by one, casting a shallow shadow over her ice-blue eyes.

With every breath and every shift of her gaze, those lashes were like tiny brushes, gently—brush, brush, brush…

Brushing away the pain at the tip of her heart.

The imprisonment was an embrace; the punishment was a reward.

Her entire body began to feel weightless. Zhu Yu couldn’t help it—she laughed.

A cluster of roses irritably blocked her face. A ring was hanging from one of the branches.

“Take it. Sell it.”

“Quit your job. I’m tired of watching your ‘impoverished tragedy’ act.”

The vines pulled away coldly. A priceless Blood Crystal ore ring fell with a clink into the girl’s palm.

The muddled scents on Zhu Yu’s body were completely covered by roses. The wet, faintly scented liquid was like rose nectar; only by leaning extremely close could one detect her own scent within the heavy fragrance.

Yet that single wisp of Zhu Yu’s scent lingered in her hair, burning ever more intensely at Bai Shuzhou’s fingertips.

The rose garden had bloomed overnight just for a mysterious rain. The vines had vanished, but the mingled aura of the two was subtle and ambiguous.

Bai Shuzhou frowned. She pulled out a tissue and wiped her fingertips one by one with force until her snow-white skin was flushed red.

She couldn’t wipe it off.

She never could have wiped it off to begin with.