I’m Allergic to Pheromones - Chapter 56

Long after returning to the screening room, the smile still hadn’t faded from Bai Cha’s face.

The chilled cola had left a ring of condensation on the table, cool and damp to the touch. Bai Cong wiped it dry with a tissue and couldn’t help asking, “You seem really happy.”

“Happier than when we first watched the animated movie,” she emphasized quietly, stealing glances at Bai Cha from the corner of her eye.

The projector had been turned off. To protect the equipment from sunlight damage, they hadn’t opened the curtains, only turning on the warm, gentle lighting.

Several homework assignments lay open on the carpet, densely filled with neat yet bold handwriting that retained an air of elegance.

Bai Cong couldn’t help but look, thinking: It’s prettier than mine.

Her own handwriting was quite beautiful too, but different from Bai Cha’s—more delicate and rounded, without sharp strokes, lacking that commanding presence.

Much like herself, possessing a somewhat delicate and charming style.

Bai Cha had a small table before her as well. Having just finished her test papers, she leaned against it with one leg propped up, lazily flipping through a palm-sized English vocabulary book for quick memorization. At the question, she paused, the smile fading from her eyes.

“You’re mistaken.”

Bai Cong…

She felt a surge of frustration, puffing her cheeks briefly before suddenly pressing her hands against them—a reflexive correction of her uncharacteristic expression.

In just half a day, she’d already done so many uncharacteristic things.

Watching cartoons, eating chips, throwing tantrums… None of which were permitted at home.

During these brief hours, Bai Cong had experienced unfamiliar joy and satisfaction, solidifying her resolve.

“Bai Cha, earlier at the door I heard you call Miss Nan Ju ‘sister.’ Are you two…”

“She’s not my sister.” Bai Cha snapped the vocabulary book shut with a heavy thud, cutting her off abruptly.

Startled by the tone, Bai Cong paled, clutching her ballpoint pen nervously. “I was just curious,” she murmured.

The previously harmonious atmosphere in the room instantly grew tense. Seeing Bai Cong’s pursed lips, Bai Cha felt the weight of it all.

Truthfully, she could have rightfully ignored the other’s presence. There was no need to inform Bai Cong about which high school she’d attend. After June’s exams, they’d naturally go their separate ways, following completely different paths.

This debt to Bai Cong—it both was and wasn’t. Bai Cong had been born when she was only three, an innocent child. Back then, Bai Cha couldn’t comprehend what this new life meant for her.

She only sensed the adults’ sudden coldness and scolding. Her mother, who’d always disliked her, now refused to even look at her, often having servants take her to the attic to stay alone.

On rare occasions, she could sneak to the glass greenhouse, hiding there until the servants found her—but never for too long, lest her mother grow furious.

Mother didn’t like disobedient children, yet Bai Cha had never learned obedience.

She was utterly out of place in that household, nothing like a proper young lady of an elite family. No matter how strictly they measured and disciplined her with rules, she always made mistakes.

Every time she made a mistake, she would be locked in the pitch-black attic, somewhat similar to the confinement room at the orphanage but far more miserable because no one would come looking for her there.

There was no Tang Ou, nor the silly tall boy Mo Chuiliu.

But this wasn’t Bai Cong’s fault either. No one could choose their birth—she had merely accelerated the timeline of Bai Cha being utterly cast aside.

A treasured child, deeply loved and anticipated even before birth, could never be compared to Bai Cha, a sin-laden existence who might have perished at any moment after being born and would never receive an ounce of pity.

Bai Cha owed Bai Cong nothing. She just couldn’t help feeling a little sad.

This sadness wasn’t for herself, but for Bai Cong—for the suffocatingly heavy love the other girl had to bear in her stead.

She had been separated from her mother for twelve years, while Bai Cong had lived in that garden house encased in beautiful glass for fourteen.

It was inevitable that she’d feel some unwarranted guilt.

The moment Bai Cha first laid eyes on Bai Cong, she saw the shadow of someone molded by rigid rules. Bai Cong had been raised impeccably by their mother—beautiful, docile, even exceedingly obedient.

She was a slender, lovely Omega with excellent grades, always smiling—but never laughing loudly. She had never watched cartoons, never eaten potato chips or drunk soda, and was full of curiosity about herself.

When Bai Cha met those clear yet strangely resolute eyes, she felt utterly helpless.

Had her tone just now really been that stern?

“Do you want some chips?” Bai Cha picked up a bag of chips from the carpet and held it out, offering an awkward attempt at comfort.

Back at the orphanage, this was how she used to cheer up Tang Ou—just one egg was enough.

The puffed-up chip bag was brightly colored, like a snack meant to placate a child. Bai Cong glanced at it, hesitated for a moment, then reached out and hugged it to her chest.

She liked the tomato-flavored ones.

Once Bai Cong took it, Bai Cha assumed she was fine. The two of them had already spent the entire afternoon in the room—homework done, movie watched—and it was nearly dinnertime.

Bai Cong showed no intention of leaving. She neatly packed away her homework, then unzipped her backpack and pulled out something unexpected, placing it on the soft carpet.

A stone pendant, strung with tiny colored beads, with a flat stone dangling at the bottom. On it, someone had clumsily drawn a smiley face with what looked like a paintbrush.

The beads had long since faded, most of them revealing their pale white undersides, the mottled colors looking rather unappealing under the light.

Bai Cha’s gaze lingered on it, unable to look away.

“Are you looking at this?” Bai Cong, having tucked her homework into her bag, noticed Bai Cha’s stare and picked up the pendant, letting the beads sway gently in the air.

“I found this in the glass greenhouse at home when I was little. I replaced the string and gathered the scattered beads—it was fun, so I kept it. Do you like it?”

Bai Cha shook her head. “No.”

As long as you like it. That was originally made as a gift for Bai Cong. She had thought it had long been tossed into the incinerator with the trash—she never expected to see it again today.

“It’s getting late. Did you tell your family what time you’d be back?”

I don’t know if it’s just my imagination, but whenever home was mentioned, Bai Cong’s expression would subtly change, as if she wasn’t too keen on going back.

She looked up with a soft smile. “I told you, I have to be back by six.”

The Bai family’s dinner was at seven-thirty in the evening. Missing it meant going hungry.

Bai Cha: “Then I’ll take you around the villa first. You can leave when the driver arrives.”

“Okay.” Bai Cong nodded, and together with Bai Cha, they tidied up the screening room before heading out with her backpack.

Underneath the carpet—unnoticed by Bai Cha—Bai Cong had left behind that faded beaded pendant.

When Bai Cong left, Nan Ju was walking the dog in the yard, holding the leash. Eight Million, full of boundless energy, had slept like a log all afternoon and was now tugging at the leash, eager to find Nan Ju.

The villa was spacious. A stroll from the front yard to the pond in the back was usually enough, though sometimes Nan Ju would take the dog for a walk down the street.

The leggy, delicate-looking dog was panting dopily when Bai Cha and Bai Cong approached from a distance, immediately spotting the figure and the dog beneath the tree.

Nan Ju had tied her long hair up with a simple white clip, but a few loose strands fluttered by her ears in the breeze, tracing a mesmerizing arc.

The gaze lingered too long. The Omega, who had been sitting on the bench, suddenly turned her head. Recognizing who it was, her eyes curved into crescents as she silently mouthed, “Kitten.”

Bai Cha couldn’t help but smile, her youthful yet already cool features softening considerably for the day.

“You’re smiling again.” Bai Cong, with almost supernatural perception, always seemed to catch Bai Cha in these rare moments. The latter twitched her eyelid, pretending not to hear.

“Your driver’s probably at the gate. I’ll walk you out.”

Before leaving, Bai Cong bid farewell to Nan Ju. Despite her young age, the girl’s manners were impeccable, leaving no room for criticism.

Bai Cha saw her off to the entrance, where a sleek, understated black private car waited nearby. The uniformed driver stood by the door, posture impeccable.

“Go on. Don’t come back next time.”

Visiting too often wasn’t good for either Bai Cong or herself.

The backpack-laden girl froze for a moment before forcing a smile and replying, “I have extra classes next week, so I really can’t come. We can talk about anything during school.”

After all, they were in the same class. She could see Bai Cha five days a week. Even in high school, as long as they attended the same school, “they wouldn’t drift apart.”

The car gradually disappeared down the tree-lined road. Only when their figures vanished from the rearview mirror did Bai Cong reluctantly tear her gaze away.

Hugging her backpack, her expression was calm—nothing like the way she had been with Bai Cha that afternoon.

The car stopped in front of a small villa. Bai Cong stepped out with her backpack but didn’t see the usual gardener tending to the plants nearby. She immediately sensed that the house wasn’t as quiet as usual.

Walking alone along the gravel path, she soon heard voices in the living room—one soft and clingy, unmistakably her mother Bai Miao’s, and the other sparing with words, low but responding to Bai Miao nonetheless.

Standing outside the living room, Bai Cong raised a finger to her lips at the servant who noticed her, signaling silence, then quietly retreated back outside.

“When did Aunt Bai Zhu arrive?”

Bai Cong stood by the garden and asked, feeling a wave of relief.

As long as Bai Zhu was here, her mother wouldn’t spare a single thought for her—just in time for her to escape having to explain why she was half an hour late.

The servant replied, “The family head just arrived a short while ago.”

Dinner was still an hour away, and Bai Cong wasn’t so tactless as to insert herself into the presence of those two. Glancing at the sky, she said, “I’ll go back to my room and read for a bit. If Mother asks, tell her I’m in my room. Remember to call me when it’s almost time to eat.”

After the servant nodded and left, Bai Cong hesitated for a moment before turning on her heel and heading toward another entrance of the main building, her schoolbag in her arms.

She wanted to search for something in the small attic she had visited once as a child.