Who Says the Director Is Frigid? (Lily ABO) - Chapter 1

The results of the annual JMA International Jewelry Design Competition were posted on its official website on Friday morning. Xu Mengyan deliberately arrived at the office half an hour early. She did not even touch the breakfast she had bought before immediately pulling out her phone and checking the website.

She had never expected to win first place when she was still a newcomer, but no matter how many times she searched, she could not find her name anywhere. Instead, among the winning entries displayed on the official website, the design that had taken third place looked almost identical to hers.

She opened the entry’s details and saw that its designer was listed as her superior, Li Zhongguang.

Xu Mengyan instantly flew into a rage.

She had entered the JMA competition secretly under her own name. She had not even told her closest colleague at the company about it. How had Li Zhongguang obtained her design, changed only a few details, and submitted it to the competition?

And what had happened to her own entry? She had submitted her work too. How could Li Zhongguang win an award without the organizers finding it strange that two entries looked so similar?

Xu Mengyan’s Omega instincts told her that something was wrong. She opened the final file she had submitted and discovered that it had been completely replaced. The overall design was incredibly tacky, and she could immediately recognize Li Zhongguang’s usual vulgar design style in it.

When had he switched her design?!

Li Zhongguang arrived at exactly nine o’clock. He had already seen the competition results on his way to work. When he entered the department, he raised an eyebrow at Xu Mengyan, who was glaring furiously at him. Wearing an expression that clearly said she could do nothing to him, he turned and walked toward his office.

The moment he closed the door, Xu Mengyan stormed inside.

Having her design stolen was already enough to make her furious, but he had also butchered the work submitted under her name beyond recognition. Pointing at the man leisurely removing his suit jacket, she demanded, “Director Li, what the hell is the meaning of this? You stole my design and entered it into the competition! How did you replace the file I submitted?”

Li Zhongguang naturally would not tell her the truth.

One night a month ago, he had happened to forget an important document and returned to the office to retrieve it. When he saw Xu Mengyan asleep with her head resting on her desk, he curiously walked over to see what had kept her working so late.

On her computer screen was a design for a necklace. He carefully clicked around to get a better look, only to accidentally open a browser page for the JMA competition. That was when he discovered that Xu Mengyan intended to enter.

He had entered the competition too, at the company’s request. He had already completed his design, but no matter how he looked at it, his work could not compare to Xu Mengyan’s.

He immediately used his phone to photograph several images on her computer screen. After returning home, he took her already nearly perfect draft and added a few touches in his own distinctive style. He then deliberately arranged for one of his trusted lackeys to sit beside Xu Mengyan and constantly monitor her movements. If she attempted to email her finished design to the competition website, the lackey was to notify him immediately.

Two days before the submission deadline, his lackey told him that Xu Mengyan seemed to have compressed her files and was preparing to submit them. Li Zhongguang immediately called her into his office under the pretext that a client wanted revisions made to a design. He deliberately kept her there for half an hour, giving his lackey enough time to replace the files in her compressed folder with a crude design he had thrown together.

Xu Mengyan had also been slightly careless. She believed there could not possibly be a problem after checking her work so many times. Since she had already prepared everything for submission, she sent the compressed file without opening it to check again.

Li Zhongguang’s own tacky design had ultimately only passed the preliminary selection and had not come anywhere close to winning even an excellence award. Yet he still had the nerve to serve as the company’s design director!

Li Zhongguang gave her a shameless smile. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. What do you mean, I stole your work and submitted it? So you entered the competition too? My goodness, your own design wasn’t good enough, and now you’re blaming me? According to company policy, employees must report to their superiors before entering an international competition. You violated company regulations. I’ll be reporting this matter to the boss.”

A large part of the reason he had become director of the design department was his older sister—the company’s owner was his brother-in-law.

“You’d better pray I don’t find any evidence. If I do, I’ll see you at the police station!”

Xu Mengyan’s face was bright red with fury. The pressure in her chest grew heavier until she could barely breathe. What upset her even more was that Li Zhongguang’s altered version of her design had still won third place. If her original design had been submitted, she might have brought home the championship.

After delivering her threat, Xu Mengyan stormed out of Li Zhongguang’s office. Everyone outside watched strangely as she left with reddened eyes.

But she did not leave the company. Instead, she went to the security department and requested access to the office surveillance footage from the past month. The head of security, however, seemed determined to make things difficult for her. He gave her a form to fill out and told her that the request would need approval from senior management.

Xu Mengyan left in disappointment. She already knew there was no chance of obtaining the footage.

Everyone in the company knew that Li Zhongguang was the younger brother of the president’s wife. He had connections and status. Besides, the head of security had probably been bribed by him long ago.

Still, she refused to give up. She went to the IT department and asked if they could determine whether someone had tampered with her computer. However, Li Zhongguang seemed to have already gotten to every department in the company. The IT supervisor dismissed her with a simple, “That’s impossible.”

After visiting several departments and getting nowhere, Xu Mengyan returned to her desk with reddened eyes and sat there in a daze.

When she returned from lunch, everyone in the department looked at her strangely. A colleague named Xiao Li, with whom she was somewhat friendly in private, secretly sent her a message on WeChat.

Little Li: [Quick, look at the company announcement!]

Xu Mengyan felt as though she already knew what had happened. She opened the company homepage and read the announcement.

It accused her of making a serious mistake at work, though fortunately, it claimed, the mistake had not damaged the company’s reputation. She was to be dismissed effective immediately. At the end, as though the company were exceptionally compassionate, the announcement acknowledged that she had made considerable contributions and stated that she would receive compensation in accordance with labor laws.

Xu Mengyan had expected Li Zhongguang to force her out, but she had not imagined he would be cruel enough to make her leave that very day. It seemed he was afraid she might obtain evidence if she stayed any longer.

Suppressing the bitter urge to cry, she took out a large bag and silently packed her personal belongings under everyone’s watchful gazes. There was not much—only her usual drinking cup, a seat cushion, and a few other things. She rarely brought personal belongings to the office.

Everything fit inside a single bag.

Although several hours remained before the end of the workday, Xu Mengyan carried the bag to the human resources department, returned her employee ID, and left the company.

Since carrying the bag around would be inconvenient, she went home first and put everything away. Afterward, she sat silently in the living room, hugging a cushion as she watched a comedy variety show.

Whenever something funny happened, she laughed loudly along with it. But as she continued laughing, tears began to spill from her eyes.

Eventually, she cried herself to sleep.

By the time she woke up, it was already dark.

It was eight o’clock in the evening. Since she no longer had to work the next day, she thought about inviting her girlfriends out for drinks. Unfortunately, they already had plans by the time she contacted them. They could tell from her voice that something seemed to have happened and tried asking her about it, but she brushed off their questions.

If her friends were unavailable, she could simply go by herself. As long as she did not drink too much, it would be fine. She only wanted a little alcohol to ease the misery in her heart.

She chose a quiet bar she had visited with her friends before and took a table in the corner, where she ordered several beers.

Xu Mengyan was quite attractive, with delicate and charming features. Since she had cried earlier, she had removed her makeup. When she learned that none of her friends could accompany her, she had been too lazy to apply it again.

Now she looked like an innocent college student pretending to be an adult and sneaking out for a drink.

Her pure appearance attracted quite a few Alphas who came over to hit on her, but she drove each of them away with a few curt words. Two of the Alphas became hostile after she rejected them. They accused her of being an ungrateful bitch and asked why she was pretending to be so pure when she had come out to have fun.

Xu Mengyan ignored them and continued drinking.

She had already drunk enough, and all the beer had left a bitter taste in her mouth. She called a server over and ordered an iced Coke.

The bartender poured the drink and handed it to a server. On the way to her table, the two Alphas from earlier used a trick to stop him. One pretended to ask him a question while the other quickly dripped several drops of an aphrodisiac into the Coke.

When the iced Coke arrived, Xu Mengyan gulped down more than half of it in one go. She burped and felt the bitterness in her mouth fade. The distinct taste of the Coke also cleared away some of her drunkenness.

But after sitting there for a while, she gradually felt the gland on the back of her neck begin to burn. Even the scent-blocking patch she wore could not stop the fragrance of pinecones from escaping.

Shit. Had her heat arrived?

That was impossible. It should still have been around nine days away!

Assuming she had simply drunk too much, she finished the rest of the Coke. She then picked up her bag and paid her bill, intending to visit the restroom and replace her scent-blocking patch before leaving.

When Xu Mengyan emerged from the stall, she was startled to discover two Alphas standing there. Worse, they were the same Alphas who had tried hitting on her earlier.

This was an Omega restroom. Why had they come inside?

“What are you doing in here? This is the Omega restroom!”

She backed away warily, intending to retreat into the stall. Just as she turned around, however, her legs suddenly went weak, and her gland released an even stronger burst of fragrance.

“Fuck, bro, she smells so good,” one Alpha said impatiently. “You’d better make your turn quick later. I bet she’ll be a filthy little slut when she gets fucked.”

He strode over and seized her. His hand immediately began groping Xu Mengyan’s breasts while his tongue licked her neck.

“Fuck, she smells amazing. Why don’t we fuck her once right here? We only need to lock the door.”

“No! What are you doing? Let go of me! I’m going to call for help!” Xu Mengyan shouted. “What you’re doing is illegal! The maximum punishment for raping an Omega is having your glands removed!”

She felt utterly disgusted. But for some reason, her body had become too weak to resist. Worse still, her lower body was reacting, and the space between her thighs was soaking wet.

Xu Mengyan quickly realized that she had been drugged.

“Don’t be impatient,” the older Alpha said. “We can’t cause trouble in Brother Li’s club. We’ll take her out through the back door. Once she’s inside the car, we can fuck her senseless.”

The younger Alpha agreed, but he still could not resist shoving his hand into Xu Mengyan’s pants and groping her. When he felt how wet she was between her legs, he grabbed her hand and forced it toward his crotch.

Xu Mengyan grew increasingly weak. She used every last ounce of her strength to struggle, but the Alphas maliciously released their pheromones to stimulate her.

Remembering everything that had happened, she wondered how she could possibly be this unlucky.

First, she had discovered that her design had been stolen and used to win an award. Then she had been fired. Now she had been drugged and was about to be raped.

“Quit playing around. Hurry up and help me get her out of here.”

The two Alphas dragged the struggling Xu Mengyan toward the exit. She desperately clung to the sink, but as the aphrodisiac took effect, her consciousness grew increasingly hazy. It was not long before her hands stopped obeying her, and she no longer had enough strength to hold on.

Pretending to be her friends, the two Alphas supported her from either side and led her outside.

Halfway across the bar, Xu Mengyan managed to cling to the last shred of her consciousness. She noticed a woman drinking alone and desperately tried to call for help. Summoning what little strength she had left, she broke free from the two Alphas and lunged toward the bar, collapsing directly onto the woman.

“Save… me…”

After saying those words, Xu Mengyan completely lost consciousness. She wrapped her arms around the woman and rubbed herself against her body.

In her drugged state, she was extremely sensitive to Alpha pheromones. The faint scent emanating from the woman was like plum wine, and it irresistibly attracted her.

“Sorry, sorry. She’s our friend, and she’s drunk,” the older Alpha said with a polite yet sleazy smile as he reached out to pull Xu Mengyan back.

His hand nearly reached her, but before he could grab her, he caught nothing but air.

The woman pulled Xu Mengyan into her arms and raised an eyebrow, fixing the Alpha with an icy stare.

“Your friend? She just asked me to save her.”

The woman lowered her head and inhaled the rich pinecone fragrance coming from the person in her arms. Heat instantly surged below her stomach. She squeezed her thighs together, suppressing the reaction Xu Mengyan had aroused.

This was the first time an Omega’s pheromones had provoked such an intense sexual urge in her.

Originally, she had no intention of playing the hero or involving herself in something that happened so often in bars. However, the pheromones released by the young woman in her arms were simply too enticing.

Many Omegas had thrown themselves at her in the past. At most, their pheromones had made her groin feel slightly warm. None had ever stirred the cock between her legs to life like this.

The concentration of the Omega’s pheromones was also unusually strong.

The woman released a trace of her Alpha dominance and stared coldly at the two men.

“You drugged her? She’s in heat. Under criminal law, the maximum punishment for giving an Omega an aphrodisiac is ten years in prison.”

Xu Mengyan’s cheeks were flushed bright red. She kept murmuring that she was hot while trying to remove her clothes.

“Which one of your eyes saw us drug her?” the younger Alpha shouted anxiously. Was the prize they had nearly gotten their hands on about to slip away? “I already told you that she’s our friend! She’s drunk and doesn’t know what she’s saying!”

“Is that so? The owner of this bar is my friend. I can call her now and ask her to show me the surveillance footage. If you choose to leave immediately, I might decide not to pursue this. But if the footage proves that you did something you shouldn’t have to this Omega, you can wash your asses and prepare to sit in prison.”

The two Alphas decided that one Omega was not worth gambling on whether the surveillance cameras had caught them. What if the cameras really had recorded them drugging the Coke? They could genuinely end up spending ten years in prison.

They rubbed their noses resentfully and left. Still unwilling to give up on getting laid, they headed to another establishment to prey on an Omega who really was drunk—someone they could “corpse-pick,” carry home, and use.

Unaware that the danger had passed, Xu Mengyan was tormented by the unbearable heat in her body. She forced her eyes open, trying to see what the person holding her looked like, but her vision was too blurry.

All she could tell was that the stranger was a female Alpha with long hair who seemed quite beautiful.

She felt even worse than she normally did during her heat. After enduring one blow after another throughout the day, Xu Mengyan finally broke down completely.

Too many terrible things had happened at once. Surely nothing worse could happen now.

Throwing caution to the wind, she wrapped her arms tightly around the woman and refused to let go.

“They’re gone. Hurry up and release me.”

The woman frowned. The Omega’s pheromones were incredibly seductive. A bulge had already formed in the center of her loose sweatpants. For the first time in her life, the cock between her legs had become hard.

“No… Don’t…” Xu Mengyan pleaded. “Please… help me one more time… I feel terrible… Could you… mark me?”

The woman was not some rutting dog of an Alpha who would lose control the instant she smelled an Omega.

Her cock might have become hard, but she had cultivated tremendous self-control over the years. Even when faced with an Omega in heat who perfectly suited her tastes, she suppressed her desire. She pulled Xu Mengyan away and created some distance between them.

“Miss, do you understand what you’re saying? You aren’t trying to set me up and blackmail me, are you?”

She had only recently returned to the country, and her friend had warned her to be careful. There had been many cases of Omegas setting Alphas up in domestic bars.

“No… Please help me! I can’t stand it anymore! Please!”

Xu Mengyan felt another wave of slick about to gush from between her thighs. She squeezed her legs together, twisted her waist, and wrapped herself around the woman once more. She rubbed her breasts against her and desperately kissed her.

Soft lips pressed against the woman’s mouth, followed by a moist, sweet tongue slipping between them.

Most importantly, Xu Mengyan’s pheromones were far too alluring.

Unable to resist any longer, the woman wrapped an arm around her waist and returned the kiss. They kissed passionately in the middle of the bar for some time. When their lips finally separated, a glistening thread of saliva stretched between them.

The woman lifted Xu Mengyan’s chin and rubbed her thumb across her soft lips. Her eyes were filled with hunger and desire.

“Just don’t regret this when you wake up tomorrow.”

Satisfied by the kiss, Xu Mengyan smiled sweetly. She wrapped her arms around the woman again, buried herself against her shoulder, and murmured in agreement.

The woman took that as Xu Mengyan’s promise that she would not regret it. After leaving money for her drink, she supported Xu Mengyan out of the bar and took her to the nearest hotel.

Author’s Note:

Hello! Long time no see!

The story over on my serious channel has dragged on for so long that I haven’t had much time to start a new smutty story over here. I hope everyone still remembers this little Tomato!

As the synopsis says, this is an office romance between a superior and her subordinate. It uses all the familiar tropes, but this is the smutty version! I hope everyone enjoys it.

A lot of people seem to like NP stories, but this one is a mutually exclusive one-on-one romance. Perhaps I’ll consider writing another NP story next time.

If you like it, please remember to vote with your pearls!

P.S. The first chapter is relatively long because it needs to establish the backstory. I didn’t want to split it into two chapters and cheat everyone like some other authors do. Am I going to offend a lot of people by saying that? Haha! I’ll control the chapter lengths afterward.