I’m Allergic to Pheromones - Chapter 33

The car stopped in front of the villa, and a woman dressed in black stepped out holding a transparent document folder.

A light drizzle had left the path damp. Nan Ju hadn’t walked far when she spotted Bai Cha sitting alone on a stone bench beneath the crabapple tree, propping her chin in her hands, her expression clearly distracted.

The crisp sound of a snapped twig made the child jerk her head up. There stood Nan Ju in the courtyard, her delicate beauty like a painting.

“Mm.” Bai Cha tensed, unsure whether to stand or remain seated. Her small legs dangled from the stone bench, tangled together as her face flushed red. She called out softly,

“Young Miss.”

Nan Ju raised the corners of her eyes slightly, the amusement in them slowly spreading as she walked over. “What did you call me?”

As she drew closer, her striking beauty was almost overwhelming. Bai Cha’s gaze wavered uncertainly before she repeated, “Young Miss?”

She had heard the villa’s staff address Nan Ju this way—surely she wasn’t mistaken.

“But just the night before last, you were still calling me ‘sister.'” Nan Ju pouted with exaggerated sorrow as she sat on a stool beside the stone table, her long lashes lowering in feigned disappointment. “How cold, little kitten.”

The sight of such a beauty frowning in sadness was both captivating and pitiable. Bai Cha, young and inexperienced, had no idea the world contained someone so shameless. Thinking she had misspoken, she bit her lip nervously, fingers fidgeting. After a long pause, a whisper escaped into the air.

“…Sister.”

Nan Ju’s hand lifted slightly, her eyes now brimming with nothing but sparkling delight.

Mimicking Bai Cha’s earlier pose, she propped her chin in her hands and cooed sweetly, “I didn’t hear you. Call me again, little kitten.”

Bai Cha met her gaze, watching the shimmering light in those eyes until she recognized the indulgence and expectation within.

Gathering her courage, she called out once more.

“S-Sister.”

Nan Ju responded cheerfully before suddenly puffing her cheeks in realization. “I never told you my name, did I?”

Bai Cha blinked, then shook her head.

Before this, they had only met three times.

The first time, neither had paid the other much attention. The second, Bai Cha had just finished fighting with the orphanage kids and, ashamed, had asked to meet again the following spring. And now, upon their reunion, she had presented as an Omega.

She had forgotten to ask Nan Ju’s name but had firmly memorized that she lived at No. 1 Tanghua Road.

In Bai Cha’s mind, Nan Ju had always been a stunning Beta woman who resembled a crabapple blossom.

She had once wondered—how could a Beta be even more beautiful than the delicate Omegas she had seen?

Now, the truth mocked her. The confusion had become reality, and in her daze, Bai Cha felt an odd sense of calm acceptance.

She seemed to be adjusting to her new identity as an Omega faster than she had expected. Disgust and fear were buried deep, hidden from sight.

Bai Cha couldn’t help but feel it was unfair.

She had given her name during their first meeting, yet Nan Ju had never offered hers. Bai Cha refused to believe it was simply forgotten.

Nan Ju noticed her reluctance and sighed with slight frustration: “I didn’t mention it earlier because my name might cause some complications.”

Everyone in the flower market knew the Nan family had a daughter named Nan Ju—an S-class talent, a wealthy and beautiful Omega. She hadn’t revealed her name before to avoid bringing trouble to Bai Cha.

Now, clearly, that concern no longer existed.

“Give me your hand.”

The girl’s hand was small, her fingers slender. It was said that after differentiation, the body would undergo secondary development—height and physique would change. Bai Cha’s current childlike appearance would likely transform within a year or two.

A little kitten could grow into a graceful, long-limbed cat, and Nan Ju looked forward to seeing her mature form. But for now, she still enjoyed teasing the petite Bai Cha.

Soft fingertips traced the name stroke by stroke in her palm. Bai Cha shivered slightly at the sensation but was gently held in place by Nan Ju’s fingers. The woman’s neatly trimmed nails occasionally brushed against her skin, like willow branches skimming water, sending ripples through her.

Even her sister’s nails were beautiful—a translucent pink.

Bai Cha’s mind wandered until she heard the question: “Did you see it clearly?”

She stammered, unable to respond, and Nan Ju chuckled. “I’ll write it again. Remember it, okay?”

Bai Cha nodded hastily.

“My name is Nan Ju,” the woman said slowly as she wrote. “Nan as in ‘south with rain,’ Ju as in ‘oranges grow south of the Huai.’ They say my mother gave me this name.”

Bai Cha caught a subtle detail but hesitated to ask.

“Remembered?”

“Yes.” Bai Cha nodded, feeling the warmth of Nan Ju’s hand withdraw. Unwilling to let go, she instinctively reached out and grasped it.

Under Nan Ju’s surprised gaze, she blurted, “Let me write it for you.”

Nan Ju didn’t pull away, allowing Bai Cha to hold her fingers—one indulgent, the other clinging.

With utmost care, Bai Cha rewrote Nan Ju’s name on her palm. She moved deliberately, her expression serious, as if performing a solemn ritual. Her pounding heart, far from calming in the cool breeze, only burned fiercer, like wildfire.

Youth knows not love—yet with a single gust, roots spread across the land.

Nan Ju rested her chin on her hand, watching as memories surfaced.

“Nan Ju”—the name was given by the original host’s mother. Her own name in her past life was one she had chosen for herself.

In that life, she grew up in an orphanage, her parents unknown, her name nonexistent. The orphanage had a rule: children found without any identifying items would take the director’s surname.

Nan Ju had renamed herself upon adulthood.

She couldn’t recall why she had chosen it—only that she disliked her original name for being too plain. It hadn’t held much meaning then.

But seeing Bai Cha trace each stroke with such reverence filled her with an odd, swelling warmth. Something she had treated lightly was being cherished by another—and suddenly, it seemed precious.

“Do you like my name?”

Nan Jue lowered her head to ask, the softness in her eyes overflowing, making one’s heart tremble at the sight.

Bai Cha fluttered her lashes, reluctantly letting go as she answered softly, “It sounds lovely.”

Nan Jue felt a surge of happiness, curving her lips as she returned the compliment, “The name Bai Cha is beautiful too.”

Bai Cha blinked in surprise, remaining silent.

They sat beneath the crabapple tree for a long while, petals dusting their shoulders as golden sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting small, round spots on the ground.

Nan Jue brushed the petals from her shoulder and said, “I’ve brought back your differentiation data and report. You need the suppressant shot today, alright?”

The suppressant had to be administered for three consecutive days after differentiation. Bai Cha had missed yesterday’s dose due to her overwhelming distress, and today, Nan Jue was determined to give it to her—even if she had to pin her down.

“If you don’t take it, your hormones will start to destabilize. Be good.”

Bai Cha stubbornly kept her face down, strands of hair slipping from behind her ear—the stark contrast of jet-black against porcelain-white framing her silent, bowed head like a painting.

Nan Jue sighed helplessly at the sulking girl, unable to fathom why she was being so obstinate. She forced her tone to harden. “Do you want to ruin your body?”

Bai Cha immediately bit her lip, her eyes reddening as she shook her head. “The suppressant has Alpha hormones in it. I don’t want that.”

She despised Omegas and loathed Alphas. The thought of injecting suppressants laced with Alpha hormones made her skin crawl—she couldn’t suppress her revulsion.

Nan Jue froze. She hadn’t expected that to be the reason.

Suppressants came in only two types: for Alphas and for Omegas, further divided into adult and adolescent doses.

Bai Cha was a newly differentiated Omega with no familial pheromones to stabilize her. The suppressant was her only option—unfortunately, the adolescent Omega variant did contain concentrated synthetic Alpha hormones.

Having crammed ABO physiology over the past two days, Nan Jue tried to reason with her. “It’s just a synthetic compound, not from some random Alpha.”

“But it’s still disgusting.”

The kitten-like girl gazed up at her, pitiful and aggrieved, and Nan Jue could no longer maintain her clinical detachment.

She reached out, pinching Bai Cha’s ear gently. “You really can’t skip it. How about this—we won’t call the doctor. I’ll give you the shot myself, okay?”

Bai Cha remained upset. She didn’t fully understand why she was like this—since differentiating, she’d become fragile, sensitive, prone to tears. Just being scolded by Nan Jue had made her nose sting.

She felt like nothing but a nuisance. The thought only deepened her misery, and she couldn’t bring herself to look up at Nan Jue, who was clearly racking her brain to console her.

But then Nan Jue crouched down, cupping Bai Cha’s lowered face in her hands, her fingers brushing away the dampness at the corners of her eyes. There wasn’t a trace of annoyance on her face.

“I learned injection techniques at the institute. I’ll give you the suppressant. We’ll go to your room where no one can see—will that make it a little easier?”

Bai Cha stared at her, then finally whispered, “Okay.”

In Nan Ju’s bedroom, Bai Cha sat quietly by the bed, watching as Nan Ju nervously held the suppressants and alcohol swabs with an expression of grave seriousness, as if facing a formidable enemy.

In truth, Nan Ju had maintained this posture for ten minutes already.

For rapid effectiveness, suppressants needed intravenous injection. When Nan Ju had learned the procedure at the research institute, it hadn’t seemed particularly difficult. But now, faced with actually administering it to Bai Cha, she felt a twinge of apprehension.

What if her hand trembled and she missed the vein? Would the little kitten cry pitifully?

Nan Ju’s expression grew increasingly stern, the suppressant in her hand feeling as heavy as Mount Tai. She even considered swallowing her pride and calling the villa’s doctor for guidance.

“Maybe I should do it myself?”

Nan Ju refused instantly: “No, I’ll do it.”

She’d promised to personally administer the suppressant to her kitten—backing out now would be too shameful. Besides, her kitten, despite clearly detesting suppressants, was sitting here obediently waiting for the injection because of her words.

So brave—she loved it!

As a mature and reliable adult, Nan Ju refused to be outdone.

“Roll up your sleeve.”

Bai Cha nodded.

When Nan Ju finished unwrapping the suppressant package and looked up with the alcohol swab, she saw Bai Cha had already rolled his pajama sleeve up high, exposing a slender arm. Oblivious to her internal turmoil, he asked earnestly, “Is this enough?”

Nan Ju fell silent.

“It’s just the back of your hand—no need to be so generous.”

The needle pierced the skin, the cool transparent liquid slowly entering the bloodstream. Bai Cha watched quietly, feeling the restlessness in his body gradually subside, while his psychological aversion only intensified. The stark contrast between physical relief and mental repulsion expanded infinitely in his mind.

For a moment, Bai Cha felt inhumanly cold.

He clearly sensed the suppressant taking rapid effect, subduing the unruly fluctuations of his pheromones. His bones softened, his glands warmed, his body sighing in comfort.

Feeling this pleasure, he was utterly disappointed in his traitorous body and couldn’t help closing his eyes.

How disgusting!

“Does it hurt?” Nan Ju injected the last drop, swiftly removing the needle. A tiny bead of crimson bl00d welled up, which she promptly pressed with a cotton swab.

The pain on his hand was negligible. Bai Cha shook his head. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Nan Ju, long aware of his reluctance to smile, efficiently capped the empty syringe and tossed it in the trash before examining the swab.

“There, now it won’t get bumped.”

Bai Cha looked down at the kitten-patterned bandage on his hand, blinking slowly as his heart softened slightly.

“Will you always be the one to give me the injections? No one else.”

If it was Nan Ju administering the suppressants, he could endure this sense of humiliation.

Until adulthood at eighteen, Bai Cha—as an orphaned underage Omega—was legally required to receive regular suppressant injections to stabilize his pheromones and prevent premature heats. In Nan Ju’s view, this law seemed less about protecting underage Omegas and more about subtly discouraging Alphas from marking underage Omegas.

There was no explicit prohibition or punitive deterrence against marking. Instead, regulations specifically required underage Omegas like her to regularly receive placebo injections to prevent their heats from disrupting public order—it sounded almost laughable.

She disapproved but had no choice. In a way, this was indeed a method to protect Omegas like Bai Cha, who lacked family or guardians.

“Fine. I promise that until you come of age, I’ll personally administer your placebo injections.”

Nan Ju made the vow solemnly before shifting the topic. “Now, let’s talk about how you ran away from the orphanage.”

The kitten-like girl visibly stiffened, her back straightening and eyes widening in an instant.

Nan Ju tidied up the cotton swabs and alcohol by her side, placing them neatly into the medical kit before setting it aside with deliberate calm. She smiled. “Do you realize how dangerous that was?”

The soft clink of the kit against the nightstand made Bai Cha’s heart skip. She met Nan Ju’s questioning gaze with shame, her face paling instantly.

She knows!

Will she send me back?

Fear gripped her instinctively, followed by an overwhelming wave of sorrow.

The stubbornness and defiance ingrained in her bones flared into anger. The loneliness of being misunderstood seized the moment, swelling into an uncontrollable flood. She wanted to say something, yet the thought of voicing it felt humiliating. Torn between conflicting emotions, she could only turn her face away in silent resistance.

This time, Nan Ju didn’t indulge her.

“Do you realize how dangerous that was?”

The repeated question only fueled Bai Cha’s frustration and helplessness. Compounded by the placebo injection messing with her pheromones, she felt utterly miserable.

Biting the soft flesh inside her lip, she whispered, “I didn’t want to be locked up there.”

She refused to be confined to the dark, freezing isolation room by the nuns—where no light reached, where only a dust-covered window offered a glimpse of the outside. She had been locked away since childhood, and even in the orphanage, nothing changed.

They always deemed her too unruly, too disobedient, and shoved her into that room to “reflect.”

Bai Cha hated it!

“That’s not what I’m asking.” Nan Ju remained unmoved, her gaze icy as she watched Bai Cha’s feeble defense. “Climbing out windows, scaling walls, running recklessly in the rain—do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”

The slightest misstep could have cost her life.

Nan Ju understood with painful clarity where the real problem lay: Bai Cha didn’t care about herself.

She was stubborn, resilient—like a weed sprouting from barren land, clinging to the faintest breath of wind and air, determined to survive on her own terms.

She was a flower struggling through mud, unafraid of storms or hardship, fighting to rise and stand in the sunlight.

Nan Ju adored this radiant version of Bai Cha. But she couldn’t condone the girl’s reckless disregard for her own safety, her willingness to gamble with danger just to get what she wanted.

Walking a tightrope of peril would leave scars—lingering fear and unease that would haunt her even with both feet on solid ground, always peering down as if expecting an endless abyss.

She didn’t want Bai Cha to keep living like this.

It was too dangerous.

“Then just send me back to the orphanage,” Bai Cha muttered, turning her back in defiance, teeth clenched. “That’s where I belong anyway.”

Nan Ju watched her from behind, the two of them locked in a stalemate. The atmosphere was cold and stiff, as if they had returned to their first encounter.

Back then, Bai Cha had stood just like this—turned away from her, her slender frame casting a lonely shadow in the darkness. Reluctantly stepping forward under Nan Ju’s threat, foolishly revealing her real name to a stranger.

Even then, Nan Ju had thought: This kid is so honest.

She had intended to be ruthless, to straighten her out and smooth her edges. But seeing the little kitten bristle and hide from her in frustration, Nan Ju couldn’t help but soften. The cold front she had worked so hard to maintain crumbled instantly.

“If anything happened to you, I’d be very upset.”

Bai Cha clenched her fingers tightly, lips pressed into a thin line.

“I called you. You didn’t answer.”

“That’s my fault. I shouldn’t have put my phone on silent.” Nan Ju didn’t defend herself, nor did she explain that she had gone to the orphanage. This was her mistake, and there was no hiding it.

She had no reason to tell Bai Cha what she had done now. Just because an umbrella shielded her from the wind and rain didn’t mean the person already drenched wouldn’t still feel the cold.

She couldn’t help but sigh.

“Did you misunderstand? I don’t mean to send you back to the orphanage.”

The stubborn, slender figure shifted slightly. Nan Ju continued, “I just wanted to say—if anything happened to you, I’d be very upset. Extremely upset.”

Bai Cha turned around, staring at Nan Ju’s face in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

This was how she had always lived. No one had ever taught her to value herself, to protect herself. No one had ever told her they’d be upset if something happened to her.

No one had ever looked at her with such gentle eyes.

The girl’s eyes were beautiful—a light amber, clear like polished resin, holding an untamed purity and honesty. Nan Ju couldn’t resist reaching out to brush her fingertips against the corner of Bai Cha’s eye, her voice soft. “Let me teach you from now on, okay?”

“I’ll teach you everything I know. In exchange, would you be willing to stay at my place?”

The touch against her eyelid tickled. Bai Cha blinked rapidly, taking a long moment to process the words.

“You want to adopt me?”

Nan Ju countered, “Do you want to be adopted?”

Bai Cha was silent for a long time before shaking her head lightly.

“No.”

“I won’t accept adoption from anyone.”

The answer was exactly what Nan Ju had expected. A kitten that had escaped its cage wouldn’t willingly step into another. She wasn’t disappointed—instead, she smiled.

“I won’t adopt you. With only an eight-year age gap, it’d be a little strange.” Nan Ju explained carefully before revealing her true thoughts. “Your talent is remarkable, but your constitution is also unique. The orphanage isn’t equipped to care for a minor Omega who’s undergone differentiation. Aside from Aunt Pei, everyone in the villa is a Beta. I want you to stay here.”

Bai Cha digested this silently before summarizing, “So you want to sponsor me until I come of age?”

“You could put it that way.”

“But I don’t have anything to offer in return.” Bai Cha thought it over calmly, realizing she had nothing of value to Nan Ju except for her little metal box. “What do you want from me?”

Such a cold and rational question left Nan Ju momentarily speechless.

To be honest, she hadn’t thought about what she wanted from Bai Cha.

She just wanted to raise a cat—to feed the little kitten until it was plump and healthy, to groom it until it was beautiful.

The woman’s lips parted slightly as she stared blankly at him, her stunning face filled with bewilderment.

Bai Cha pinched her little finger, her long lashes lowering to conceal the emotions in her eyes as she spoke softly yet earnestly: “If sister hasn’t made up her mind yet, how about we draw up an agreement?”

“An agreement?”