Mistakenly Marked – Chapter 10

by Little Panda

Indifference

‘How do I do it?’

Amid the drifting steam, a figure of pale jade flickered in and out of view.

Residual hair dye dissolved into the water and slid away along porcelain-white skin.

After a long while, she slowly sank into a crouch, wrapped her arms around her knees, and curled into a small ball.

The small, strangled sounds in her throat were swallowed by the rush of the water.

About half an hour later, the whir of a hair dryer rose from the bathroom.

Ten minutes after that, the bathroom door swung open.

The washing done, the woman stood in the doorway with the clothes she’d changed out of bundled in her arms.

With the dye rinsed away, her waist-length curls had returned to their natural cool brown.

The silk blouse was one size too big, draping in soft folds against her slender frame.

The slacks ran a few centimeters long as well, their gently flared pale hems settling over smooth white feet — the uncovered toes glistening a pretty, translucent pink.

And where skin met the cold floor, it had blanched under the pressure.

Only then did Xu Jialuo remember she’d forgotten to find her guest a pair of slippers.

Trouble.

Xu Jialuo’s brow creased. She got up, crossed to the shoe cabinet by the door in a few strides, and dug out a pair of unworn sneakers.

She turned and tossed them at Bo Suiqing’s feet. “Put them on.”

It looked like a careless, offhand throw, but they never so much as grazed her — the soles landed flat and steady.

She’d shown no fear of being hit either; the woman in the bathroom doorway spared the shoes not a single flicker of attention.

She only tipped her head back to meet Xu Jialuo’s eyes.

This close, the details came into focus.

Perhaps from the fresh shower, the woman’s face was flushed — the skin around her eyes, and the eyes themselves, even redder.

Like the hot water had scalded them red.

More like she’d been crying where no one could see.

Xu Jialuo looked once, then slid her gaze away.

Did this woman seriously have to—

carry the act this far?

Had her words earlier really been that harsh?

Had the bathroom been uncomfortable to use?

A moment later, Bo Suiqing called to her, voice slightly hoarse. “Xu Jialuo.”

The words telling her to hurry up and leave ran a few seconds late, and Bo Suiqing went on. “My colored contact slipped. I can’t get it out.”

“Help me.”

So the contact had slipped. No wonder her eye color was already back to its usual pale silver.

So she hadn’t been secretly crying after all. The contact was just uncomfortable, that was all.

Xu Jialuo turned to refuse. “I don’t know how to help.”

She’d had excellent eyesight her whole life — deep-toned eyes, large and beautiful. She’d yet to try contact lenses or cosmetic lenses, and she had even less idea how to get out one that had slipped.

Bo Suiqing reached out and caught her sleeve. “Xu Jialuo. Try.”

Because it was “don’t know how.” Not “don’t want to.”

Bo Suiqing’s voice dropped. “I’m begging you.”

“…”

The hand about to slip free paused. Xu Jialuo turned back.

Her gaze swept over that hand — it had released her sleeve the instant she turned — then climbed up to Bo Suiqing’s makeup-free face.

Nothing like the face that so often filled the big screen: with no color intervening, no polish enhancing it, that almost too-sharp beauty had gentled by a few degrees.

Delicate, graceful, warm — a rare sight to behold. Unchanged was how effortlessly she could still dazzle.

Spring water brimmed and shimmered in the reddened depths of her eyes, a soundless invitation—

Xu Jialuo asked, “Do you have no dignity?”

The invitation failed.

The hand fisted in the borrowed clothes abruptly tightened.

Xu Jialuo looked at her, bold brows lowering. “Are the terms Xu Shangning offered you really that tempting?”

“…”

Bo Suiqing held her chin high, her mouth stiffer than her neck. “Yes.”

Xu Jialuo’s brow creased. She strode past her, trailing a gust of air.

The room was warm.

It felt cold all the same.

Behind her came the sound of running water.

Bo Suiqing lowered her head, bent down, and quietly put on the shoes.

When she straightened, a freshly washed, faintly cool hand pressed suddenly against her face.

Xu Jialuo pinned Bo Suiqing’s cheek with one hand, long fingers easily cradling half the woman’s face to keep her still.

Her fingertip braced at the reddened eye socket. She watched the eyes widen slightly, trembling faintly, eased her grip a fraction, and said coolly, “How do I do it?”

A musician versed in every instrument, with uncommonly nimble fingers, controlled the fine work of her fingertips far more deftly and precisely than one would expect.

The contact, slipped loose from crying, came out in moments; she stuffed it into Bo Suiqing’s palm without ceremony.

“Thank you.”

“Now you can go.”

Bo Suiqing nodded. “Mm.”

Bo Suiqing turned toward the door, found her sunglasses and put them on, then raked her hair forward to hide as much of her face as she could.

The second before she stepped across the threshold, something swung into her path.

Bo Suiqing froze, and looked back.

Xu Jialuo stood behind her, wrist lifted, expressionless as she pressed the black umbrella in her hand to Bo’s.

“Take it. Don’t get mistaken for a lunatic by property management again.”

Bo Suiqing took the umbrella. “Thank you.”

“Miss, I’ve arrived.”

The wipers swept back and forth. The driver stayed on the line, craning for a look through the window — but the figure she expected wasn’t anywhere in sight. “Miss, I can’t see you…”

The rear door was suddenly pulled open. Someone slid in.

The driver blinked and turned to find a woman in completely different clothes.

“My apologies, Miss. You’ve changed — I didn’t recognize you for a moment.”

“Mm. It’s fine.”

Head lowered, the woman in the back seat said nothing about a destination. First, she carefully straightened out the umbrella in her hands and put it away.

Then, seeming about to lay it on the floor, she stopped halfway and drew it back — placing it lengthwise across the rear seat instead.

Hm?

Baffled, the driver couldn’t help sneaking a few extra glances at the black umbrella.

It looked low-key enough, but the logo on the handle was some name brand or other.

The driver noted it privately: so this was a label the Miss was awfully fond of.

“Beep—beep beep beep!”

The detector at the apartment entrance sounded its alarm.

The attendant in the gatehouse glanced at the screen, grabbed a handheld unit, and jogged out.

“Sorry to trouble you, ma’am — your pheromone concentration is too high. You’ve set off our pheromone detector. Please step over to the side first and let us scan you to assess your condition.”

The woman who’d stopped looked back, raising the umbrella in her hand a little higher. “I’m a beta.”

“…Huh?” The attendant faltered, his gaze sliding of its own accord from top to bottom over the tall, beautifully proportioned figure before him.

It flicked past the cool, striking features that not even a black mask could hide.

Just a beta, huh.

It took him a few seconds to catch up. “Then… you may have picked it up somewhere else. We’d still like your cooperation, please.”

“…”

“Mm.” Xu Jialuo raised her arm.

The attendant waved the handheld unit quickly up and down.

It beeped again.

“You see, ma’am — your pheromone concentration really is over the limit.”

He turned and jogged back. “One moment, please. I’ll take care of it right away.”

In recent years, with the Pheromone Regulatory Bureau penalizing incidents born of pheromone loss of control, public venues had grown stricter and stricter.

Xu Jialuo followed him to the gatehouse, ducked her head, and hunched her right shoulder up to her nose.

Nothing. She couldn’t smell a thing.

Behind the clear glass, the attendant hunted for the spray, grumbling back and forth with his beta colleague as they searched.

“Strange, isn’t it — another one. Why are over-limit pheromones coming in bunches today? We usually go ten days, half a month, without seeing a single case.”

“No kidding. But that last one left so fast we didn’t react in time — clean forgot to stop her.”

“Hope nothing comes of it…”

“Ah — found it, the spray’s here!”

The attendant ran back out, cracked open the brand-new spray, aimed it at Xu Jialuo, and misted her down from head to toe, thoroughly.

He swept the unit over her again. This time, no beeping.

Xu Jialuo tilted her head. “Just now — was someone else over the pheromone limit too?”

“Yes. A woman as well.”

“What was she wearing?”

“She was wearing—” The attendant caught himself in time. “Sorry, that could touch on resident privacy. I can’t tell you that.”

“A pale blue blouse.”

“Ah, how did you— no, wait, I mean — no comment!”

Because that blouse was the one she’d handed to Bo Suiqing with her own two hands.

“Hey, little darling!”

A Land Rover in flashy iridescent wrap braked hard up ahead. Zou Wan dropped the window, a head of eye-popping berry-red waves stacked atop her, and stuck an arm out to wave.

“This sky’s really been showing off lately, hasn’t it? I was following the GPS, and Chunhui Road was flooded so badly — I was stuck for ages before I got here.”

“Mm,” Xu Jialuo answered. “My fault. I forgot to tell you it often floods there after heavy rain.”

The car pulled out of the complex. “Liang Xiao is already at Chunshu Residence — we’ll head straight over—”

“When an omega runs a fever, does her pheromone concentration go over the limit?”

The two lines landed on top of each other. Zou Wan blinked. “Hm?”

“Why ask that all of a sudden?”

“Liang Xiao and I are both alphas, you know.”

They caught a red light. Zou Wan twisted around, cupped her face in both hands, and arranged her features into heartbreak. “Baby, you’ve got yourself another baby now.”

Xu Jialuo looked at her, and the wounded-pufferfish face coaxed out a laugh. “I don’t.”

“It just crossed my mind. Curiosity, nothing more.”

The light turned green.

Zou Wan blinked, faced the road again, and answered seriously as she drove. “It could, I suppose. With omegas — if their body’s in a really bad state, like when they’re ill or in serious discomfort — that kind of thing does happen.”

So at least the claim that she felt awful hadn’t been a lie.

“Mm.”

Xu Jialuo turned her head, heavy-lidded, watching the greenbelts stream backward past the window.

That was still a certain someone bringing it on herself.

The author has something to say:

Talk about stubborn mouths — now whose is the more stubborn?

Good night, sweet dreams.