Word Segmentation 2: Pointed High Heels.
The white iris silently spread, wrapping around the chill oozing from the night, pressing against the neck and sinking inward inch by inch.
Cen Zhixu tugged at her tie, raising her chin.
The dark tie wound between her palms, making her knuckles appear even whiter. Her wristbones were taut, resembling cold porcelain, thin and delicate.
Pei Yuan’s breath hitched slightly.
The tie pressed closely against her carotid artery. Every heartbeat was transmitted straight to Cen Zhixu’s fingertips, whether a bit hurried, a bit slower, or a bit disordered, completely exposed.
There was no hiding it.
Yet Pei Yuan still refused to lose verbally, putting on a nonchalant smile: “Ms. Cen, you are really wronging me here. I was clearly working hard and fulfilling my duties.”
“Working hard?”
Cen Zhixu wore a half-smile, her fingers tightening slightly as she pulled the tie downward, forcing Pei Yuan to bend even lower.
“Is moving the things I arranged around and messing them up also considered part of your job description?”
“This is called spatial optimization,” Pei Yuan spouted nonsense. “Moderate changes help enhance the resident’s sense of freshness and happiness index.”
The System chimed in: “Clearly, Ms. Cen does not think so. As early as when you moved the first potted plant, I reminded you that this behavior had a very high probability of incurring her displeasure.”
Pei Yuan: “Thank you so much. Your reminder was truly helpful, and I am deeply enlightened. Now, could you please tell me how to make Ms. Cen dispel her anger and let me off the hook?”
The System: “I am terribly sorry, but my duties only include risk warning, not after-treatment or survival guides.”
Pei Yuan: “…”
Survival?
Cen Zhixu surely would not go so far as to dump her on a deserted island to act out a gloomy, twisted romance of epic proportions with a coconut.
Pei Yuan had no choice but to hunch lower. Their posture could hardly be called decent, yet beneath the awkwardness lingered a certain unnameable, lingering intimacy.
The next second, however, Cen Zhixu suddenly let go.
Losing its restraint, the tie fell back against Pei Yuan’s chest. Cen Zhixu pressed her palm over Pei Yuan’s chest, her fingertips tracing upward along the tie, pausing at the neckline to unbutton the very top button.
Cen Zhixu pressed against the soft, tender hollow between her collarbones, grinding down neither too lightly nor too heavily.
“Hiss.” A short, hoarse gasp slipped from Pei Yuan’s throat.
Fingertips pressed flat against the fabric, lightly and slowly massaging. The subtle sound brushed against her heart, whispering softly.
“Freshness and a happiness index, right?”
Cen Zhixu ground against her. Every slight rise and fall of Pei Yuan’s chest and every quiver during a swallow fell right beneath her fingertips.
“It seems I will have to learn to adapt.”
As she lifted her long eyelashes, she continued: “Adapt to having a strange little puppy appear in my space, messing up my things and disrupting my order.”
“Right?”
Pei Yuan felt her heart go numb from the teasing, and she let out a dry, awkward laugh: “Then Ms. Cen is taking a huge loss. Raising a puppy at least means it can guard the house.”
“Raising me will only result in maxing out your card to buy a bunch of things and then eating all the fruit you left on the table.”
Cen Zhixu watched her, curling a finger to flick Pei Yuan’s lips: “Alright, newly appointed housekeeper Pei.”
“Now, let’s talk about the rules.”
“First, everything you touched or moved must be put back in its original place.”
“Second,” Cen Zhixu tugged lightly on the button at Pei Yuan’s neckline, “wear your clothes properly and button up your collar.”
Pei Yuan blinked: “What if I accidentally break both rules?”
Cen Zhixu did not answer, only re-hooking the tie and pulling Pei Yuan closer toward her by another inch.
She gazed closely at Pei Yuan.
Her grayish-blue eyes reflected a speck of moonlight, a speck of night, and a hint of clingy, overbearing amusement.
Cen Zhixu tilted her head close, her nose brushing against Pei Yuan’s cheek, her trailing tone drawn out and lingering: “Then I will simply…”
“Have to discipline you myself.”
In the end, under the stern personal supervision of the cold-faced Boss, Pei Yuan pouted and reluctantly moved everything she had secretly shifted back to its original spot.
The room Cen Zhixu arranged for her was next to the master bedroom, likely to make it easier for her to fulfill her duties under the agreement.
Pei Yuan walked into the bathroom, cupped some water in her hands, and splashed her face.
Water droplets trickled down from her bangs and jawline. Resting her hands on the edges of the sink, Pei Yuan looked into the mirror.
She saw her own reflection.
Her cheeks were flushed, her hair disheveled, her tie crooked, and the topmost button of her shirt unfastened, revealing a small stretch of collarbone and the base of her neck.
Talk about looking a mess.
She thought to herself.
Pei Yuan reached up, loosened the tie, pulled it off from around her neck, and tossed it casually aside.
Then, she pressed her hand against her larynx, sliding downward to rest in the hollow between her collarbones.
That was the exact spot Cen Zhixu had touched.
There was actually nothing left on her skin, no red marks, no fingerprint impressions, completely clean.
Yet as Pei Yuan pressed down, she felt as though that small patch of skin was still burning, setting her heart ablaze and leaving her numb.
What a strange feeling.
Pei Yuan cupped another handful of water to splash on her face. The droplets scattered, but the heat refused to subside.
Worse still, she faintly caught another whiff of the subtle white iris fragrance lingering around her collar, impossible to shake off.
Pei Yuan paused, turning her hand to touch the back of her neck. Sure enough, her gland was faintly burning.
The pheromone was suppressed deep within the gland, eager to surge forth yet held back, needing only a tiny spark to completely break the dam.
This was…
Not looking good.
This state of unquietness continued until Pei Yuan went to work the next day.
Sitting at her workstation, propping her chin in her hand, Pei Yuan had been staring at the exact same image for nearly four minutes.
In her mind, one moment she felt the tightening grip of the tie around her neck, and the next, she felt fingertips gliding across her throat, that warm, slow sensation grinding against her bones.
“Little Pei?”
Pei Yuan did not react at all.
“Little Pei!”
Pei Yuan snapped her head up, nearly flinging her marking stylus away: “Ah?”
A colleague holding a coffee cup gave her a strange look: “I have been calling you for ages. What are you daydreaming about? The coffee machine got new beans. Want to try some?”
Pei Yuan blinked for a second, hurriedly forcing a smile: “Sure, thanks. I can go grab some myself.”
She rubbed her face, took a deep breath, dragged her focus back to the screen, and chanted silently in her mind:
You are an ordinary little employee, you are working hard, and you have no messy thoughts in your head.
Box, label, submit.
Box, label, submit.
Good.
She survived the afternoon like that.
As quitting time approached, Pei Yuan happily closed her interface and prepared to make a run for it. To her dismay, an uninvited guest appeared by her workstation.
Her supervisor materialized like a ghost, slamming a folder onto the desk: “You have taken too many leave days this week. Work overtime today and finish the backlog.”
Pei Yuan nodded submissively: “Got it, Supervisor.”
Her colleagues left one by one.
Chairs pushed back under desks, handbags zipped up, goodbyes, footsteps, and the elevator doors sliding shut with a ding.
The sprawling rows of workstations sank into dimness, leaving only Pei Yuan’s area illuminated. Supporting her temples, she stared at the screen as her eyelids drooped heavier and heavier.
So sleepy.
Too sleepy.
Just as Pei Yuan was nodding off while battling the final set of photos, her sharp ears caught a faint sound.
At the office entrance, a figure had appeared.
The surroundings were dim, save for a sliver of faint light spilling from the long hallway, casting a slanted beam near the door.
Cen Zhixu crossed her arms, leaning against the doorframe, framed by a thin silver outline from the light behind her.
She tilted her head, having likely been there for a moment already, a hint of a smile resting on her lips.
“It seems our poor little employee is forced to stay late for overtime.” Cen Zhixu’s voice drifted softly through the empty office.
Pei Yuan chose to ignore her.
She continued clicking away at her screen. Unfazed, Cen Zhixu walked over slowly.
Pei Yuan pretended to be absorbed in work while actually drifting to the side, her peripheral vision catching Cen Zhixu stopping beside her and looking down.
A hand rested on the crown of Pei Yuan’s head, cool fingertips sinking into her hair, brushing against her scalp and gently tousling it.
The black curls wrapped around Cen Zhixu’s knuckles, dense, soft, and fluffy, carrying a trace of overtime frustration.
“So pitiful,” Cen Zhixu lowered her long eyelashes, her tone lingering and soft, “let me pet your head.”
Pei Yuan’s ears burned. “Ms. Cen, I am not a three-year-old child. Are you retaliating against me because of the housekeeper incident?”
Mimicking her posture, Cen Zhixu tilted her head as well: “Do not like it?”
Pei Yuan: “…”
Tch.
With a faint smile, Cen Zhixu withdrew her hand, propping her palm against the edge of the desk to sit right on top of Pei Yuan’s workspace.
The silver-white suit jacket draped over her shoulders slid an inch lower due to the movement, revealing the sharp shoulder lines outlined by her fog-gray draped dress.
A fully ripened fruit wrapped in cool silk, hiding a scorching heat beneath its aloof exterior.
Sitting on the desk, she crossed her legs.
Her trouser seams pulled taut, the fabric hugging and pressing, squeezing out a plump curve between her thighs.
Only then did Pei Yuan notice that Cen Zhixu was wearing a pair of gray-silver pointed high heels, featuring slender heels, sharp toes, and a dainty flash of white.
The shoe tip hovered right beside Pei Yuan’s knee.
Swinging. Swiveling.
Cen Zhixu studied the screen, which displayed an overhead street view featuring pedestrians, vehicles, street signs, trees, and more.
“Image annotation?” she asked.
“Yeah, just boxing out the objects in the picture and slapping labels on them. Super boring,” Pei Yuan replied.
Resting her chin in her hand, Cen Zhixu asked a strange question: “Pei Yuan, have you ever had children?”
“As if that is possible,” Pei Yuan muttered.
Turning sideways toward the screen, Cen Zhixu said softly: “A child is born a blank slate, and everything they perceive stems from the teachings of others.”
She tapped the street scene image.
“We teach them: this is a person, this is a car, this is a street sign, a flower, a white cloud, a little bird, and so on.”
“We tell them this over and over again until one day, they can recognize it on their own.”
Pei Yuan started. “Wait, you mean…”
Looking at her with slightly curved, long eyelashes, Cen Zhixu said: “Mhm, this is what you do every day.”
“You are teaching the Eye of Order.”
Pei Yuan’s heartbeat spiked abruptly. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, she suddenly felt weight pressing onto her lap.
That silver high heel was stepping right on her.
The shoe tip, hard and narrow, ground through the thin fabric, sliding downward little by little to sink into the soft flesh of her thigh.
Pei Yuan’s breath hitched, her body going rigid.
The faint iris fragrance grew heavier, thick like melting sugar, washing over her and rising inch by inch.
Cen Zhixu leaned down, her long hair cascading with the motion. She raised a finger to tuck it back, yet a few rebellious strands still spilled loose, brushing against Pei Yuan’s cheek.
Light, soft, and ticklish.
The woman’s smiling voice slipped into her ears like a tiny insect: “So?”
“Teacher Pei, have you been teaching her well?”