Surprise! The Supposed Talent Show Was Actually-?!

Chapter 121.2- Mistress

Two hours later, Vera woke up from her shallow nap and sniffed, “It’s sweet.” She looked at the surface of the card, but it was still as blank as before.

It was Wu Jin’s turn to nap for the next two hours. When it neared evening, Wu Jin rubbed his eyes and almost choked when he woke up. The sweet and sticky smell wafted around the room, smelling like 10 birthday cakes had been knocked over. On the table, the card was still blank––

Vera noticed that Wu Jin was awake and was delighted to watch her idol disentangling himself from the warm quilt. His small round face was red and soft from sleep.

“The scent is coming out of the card. It started around three hours ago.” Vera studied the surface of the card carefully, then pointed to the gap between two stuck-together surfaces. “There’s two layers here, and it’s been coated twice in waterproof coating. It should have been preloaded with a scent, and it would begin to diffuse after receiving certain instructions.”

Wu Jin picked up the card.

There was neither music nor an oil painting on the card. The only clue that this card gave was targeted towards the players’ sense of smell––

“Perfume card.” Wu Jin opened his mouth.

After resting, the two of them quickly walked towards the library before dusk arrived.

Out of the five senses, humans relied on smell the least. They could even live without smell, and there was little information that could be deduced from the perfume card. Even if she had a small collection of perfume, Vera could only distinguish between one or two different scents.

“The middle and base notes contain vanilla, sweet enough to choke on, and the top note of the fragrance appears to be lime. The sourness is gone after a few seconds, and the layering isn’t very good. That’s understandable, given that it was the 17th century...” Vera sniffed analyzed, seeming to instantly enter a sideline beauty blogger mode. A few seconds later, she came to a conclusion, “Floral notes, feminine.”

Wu Jin pushed open the side door to the library and added, “Not necessarily. The perfume used by the King also contained floral notes. Louis XIV’s commonly used ‘Sun King’s Parisian perfume’ had notes of iris, which was the royal symbol.”

Vera was surprised, “The king used floral tones? Not wood?”

Wu Jin recited the supplementary materials from after the class, “Woodsy fragrances became the requirement for mainstream male fragrance aesthetics only after the 20th century. In Louis XIV’s period, they considered bathing an act that was ‘unclean and would lead to disease’. Even the king only took three baths in his lifetime. The French aristocrats relied on the floral fragrances to cover up their body odors.”

Vera covered her stomach, “Ew––”

The two finally found the ‘fragrances’ bookshelves.

Having cooperated twice in library searches already, Wu Jin and Vera had a clear division of labor between them, each starting from opposite ends of the bookshelf.

“’Perfume’ in Sanskrit is the same word as ‘red arsenic’...” Vera pulled the most obvious book off the bookshelf, read one line of it and then tossed it back, complaining, “Meaningless background information. Could this card possibly be about the Sun King’s little poisonous lover?”

Wu Jin looked up and read the name of a title high up on the shelf, “Perfume, the story of a murderer&#k2026; Why is this book here?” He also put the book back, but when he saw that Vera was curious, he read out the brief introduction, “19th century novel, based off the Bourbon royal rule of France, er,” Wu Jin’s ears turned a little red, “The murderer killed 12 attractive young woman in order to create the perfect perfume of desire.”