Lemma 3: Call Her Girlfriend
To be honest, Pei Yuan’s mind had wandered, and she did not hear much of what Cen Zhixu said afterward.
The pointed toe of a silver-white high heel was currently stepping on her.
The shoe toe was narrow and slender, encasing her foot, with the instep pulled taut into a cold, white arc. Further up, there was a lonely, beautiful ankle bone.
The fabric was pressed into fine wrinkles, and the shoe toe, separated by the material, pushed the skin into shallow, slightly feverish indentations, one by one.
Pei Yuan pressed against her canine tooth, the sharp tip grating against her tongue.
There was a slight sting.
She needed this sting to pull herself back from that continuously warming, sticky, and entwining iris fragrance.
Pei Yuan, oh Pei Yuan, you are an adult female, an Alpha, and, well, a mercenary with a thirty-million bounty.
Being stepped on like this by a beautiful woman, by all accounts, she should feel very annoyed.
Yet, Pei Yuan did not feel offended.
On the contrary, as she pressed against her canine tooth, her heart itched faintly, and inexplicably, an absurd thought arose:
She wanted to encircle her; she wanted to grasp that thin, white ankle bone; she wanted to drag that high-and-mighty, noble, and composed person down.
She wanted to see her disheveled.
She wanted to see her beg for mercy.
She wanted to see her shed tears.
The toe of the shoe shifted an angle, brushing against Pei Yuan hesitantly. As the fabric moved, it produced a faint, rubbing sound.
Cen Zhixu’s tone was lazy, laced with a trace of careless gentleness: “The toe of the shoe is a bit hard.”
Her eyelashes drooped slightly: “Does it hurt?”
Pei Yuan did not speak, so the shoe toe crushed down again, sliding along the contour and stopping at a delicate position.
“Did I step on you too hard?”
She asked softly.
Pei Yuan pursed her lips, her heartbeat thumping against her eardrums, and her finger bones slowly clenched.
Cen Zhixu called her name, soft and lingering, like a cat’s tail scratching the tip of her ear: “Pei Yuan?”
“Mhm.”
Pei Yuan’s voice was somewhat hoarse.
The shoe toe pressed inward a little, then relaxed its force and retracted. However, the spot she had stepped on did not recover for a long time.
The indentation seemed to be imprinted deeper, slowly spreading and causing a dull, lingering, numbing sensation.
The ankle lifted up an inch.
Then, it stopped.
Cen Zhixu’s expression shifted slightly.
Pei Yuan closed her five fingers, encircling her ankle bone. Her palm was dry and burning hot, the heat pressing against the skin and searing all the way into the joints.
Pei Yuan’s thumb pressed against the inner ankle; beneath her fingertip was a thin, pulsing vein.
Cen Zhixu’s eyelashes trembled.
She subconsciously wanted to pull back, and her ankle moved slightly, but Pei Yuan held it firmly.
Her knuckles tightened, her thumb hooked into that circle of the finest indentation, neither loosening nor letting go.
“You scoundrel!”
Cen Zhixu lost her balance slightly and slid forward. She subconsciously braced herself against the edge of the table: “Let go!”
Her suit jacket slid off, falling onto the tabletop with a soft thud and piling into messy folds.
That ankle bone was even thinner than Pei Yuan had imagined. The bone structure rose and fell, beautiful and soft, just the right size to be encircled by one hand.
The joints rubbed against her palm urgently, small and cool, and the pulse beat faster and stronger, one pulse after another.
Pei Yuan pressed against her, and her thumb stroked the inner side of the ankle bone. Just once.
“Ugh!”
Cen Zhixu bit her lip tightly, but a gasp still escaped. Her eye corners turned red, and she trembled in Pei Yuan’s palm.
Pei Yuan glanced at her.
Her knuckles loosened.
As her palm withdrew, a faint red mark remained on the ankle bone. It would fade in a few seconds, but for now, it looked like a kiss mark she had not had time to wipe away.
Pei Yuan withdrew her hand and returned to her wooden, honest, and somewhat cowardly persona: “Sorry, sorry.”
She spoke dismissively: “I was just spacing out.”
Cen Zhixu pursed her lips, her cheeks flushed with a thin layer of red, spreading from her cheekbones to her earlobes, mostly hidden by her silver hair.
However, the tips of her ears could not hide it.
She did not answer, nor did she look at Pei Yuan. Bracing herself against the table, she pulled her long legs back and stepped back onto the floor with a clack.
Cen Zhixu picked up her fallen suit jacket, draped it over her shoulders, and turned to walk away.
Her heels tapped on the floor, step by step, orderly and uniform, gradually receding.
Looking at her back, Cen Zhixu appeared no different than usual: cold, noble, upright, and orderly.
Except.
Pei Yuan clearly saw that when her feet touched the ground, the ankle that had been held was visibly unsteady, wobbling once.
So sensitive, Pei Yuan thought to herself.
Cen Zhixu is avoiding her.
Pei Yuan could be certain of that. From the time she arrived home that night until she went to work the next day, she had not seen the other woman’s shadow.
Either Cen Zhixu was avoiding her, or the Chief had pressing matters and worked overtime through the night until the next day.
Regardless, it was a new day.
Pei Yuan still had not finished her quota, but the good news was that her supervisor was not there.
When the workday ended, Pei Yuan grabbed her backpack from the back of the chair and slipped away.
She took the cloud ladder down to the ground level, passed facial recognition, and the gate slid open.
The evening air, wrapped in a warm dampness, flowed in.
The main thoroughfare was wide and straight, lined with silver-leaf phoenix trees. There were few fallen leaves, likely because cleaning robots patrolled regularly.
The entire city was precise and orderly, like a model inside a sterile glass dome.
Pei Yuan swiped on her light screen and tapped on a blue body of water, 2.1 kilometers away, labeled Mirror Lake: Public Greenway.
“Let us go there,” Pei Yuan muttered to herself.
Turning south at two intersections, Mirror Lake appeared at the end of the road. While called a lake, it looked more like an oval mirror embedded into the city.
The water was wide and almost devoid of ripples, reflecting the sky, clouds, and the White Tower.
There were no fences along the lakeshore, only a long, gentle slope between it and the lakeside jogging track.
It was currently evening.
The sunlight sank, burning the sky into layers of orange-red. The silhouettes of buildings began to blur, though the streetlights had not yet lit up.
Pei Yuan did a few simple stretches and began to jog along the greenway.
Her pace was not fast, her breathing was slightly uneven; she was just an ordinary little employee out for exercise after work.
She glanced at the slope along the lakeshore, the blind spot at the curve, and those tiny, non-reflective black dots hidden in every corner.
After finishing one lap, Pei Yuan began the second.
As she reached a curve on the north side, the system’s voice sounded: “Host, there is a hazard two meters ahead.”
Pei Yuan stepped precisely on it, her shoe toe catching on the edge of a stone brick, and her center of gravity pitched forward abruptly.
She let out an ah, waved her arms twice, stumbled, and tumbled onto the ground.
“A raised section of the road,” the system finished its sentence.
Pei Yuan lay on the ground, rolling around while wailing: “My ankle! Ow, ow, ow!”
The system said: “Host, initial assessment is that no fracture occurred, but I suggest you be mindful of your positioning. Do not go toward the right side.”
Pei Yuan howled with her eyes closed, holding her ankle, and rolled another circle down the slope of the ground.
To the right.
Precisely, and without suspense, she crossed the engraved line, rolled over the gentle slope, and dove headlong into the lake.
“Rolling, be careful of falling into the water.”
The system’s uncompleted warning and the sound of her falling into the water occurred almost simultaneously.
With a muffled splash, water sprayed upward. Cold water instantly poured into her collar and sleeves.
“Help! Cough, cough, cough!”
Pei Yuan struggled to lift her head, wet, long hair plastered across her face as she choked repeatedly.
One, two, three.
Pei Yuan counted silently in her heart.
A few pedestrians on the greenway by the lakeside stopped and peered toward them.
Pei Yuan continued to struggle, splashing water everywhere; the commotion was loud enough to be heard within a fifty-meter radius.
Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen.
Footsteps approached from afar, and a silver-gray uniform appeared at the edge of the lakeshore.
The security guard rushed to the bank and, without a moment’s hesitation, jumped straight into the lake.
Twenty-five seconds, Pei Yuan noted secretly.
At this moment, in the duty hall of the White Tower’s 73rd Maintenance Law Bureau, the atmosphere was subtle.
Pei Yuan was soaked through, wrapped in an emergency insulation blanket, enthusiastically grasping the hand of the guard who had pulled her ashore.
“Thank you so much! If you had not appeared in time, I fear I would have drowned!”
The guard felt dizzy from being shaken: “You are fine, that is our duty.”
Pei Yuan said with genuine feeling: “This is a life-saving grace; I must send a banner of gratitude and write a letter of commendation!”
The guard struggled a bit before finally pulling his hand away: “Really, it is unnecessary. If you have no major issues, you may leave.”
“Waaa, it hurts so much.”
Pei Yuan immediately wrinkled her face and limped back to the chair: “I must sit for a while longer. By the way, is there any hot chocolate left?”
The guard replied: “I will pour you another cup.”
“Thank you, please add more milk.”
Soon, Pei Yuan was holding her third cup of hot chocolate and had also picked up a piece of cake to stuff into her mouth.
She said indistinctly: “By the way, I am a bit curious.”
“Hm?” The unlucky guard was hunched over, filling out an accident report without looking up.
Pei Yuan bit into her small cake and mumbled: “Where I fell into the lake, there do not seem to be any guard posts nearby. How did you guys get here so fast?”
“The Eye of Order,” the guard replied, “it detected an anomaly and automatically pushed an alert, so we responded from the nearest location.”
“Wow,” Pei Yuan exclaimed, “then how did it judge that I needed rescuing? I did not even have a way to call for help.”
As she spoke, she took another piece from the dessert plate and stuffed it into her mouth.
At the other end of the hall, in the duty room.
The captain leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, her brows knitted into a knot.
She lowered her voice and asked the deputy captain beside her: “Why has that person not left yet?”
The deputy captain spread her hands: “I do not know. She has already drunk three cups of hot chocolate and eaten five pieces of small cake.”
She added: “I just saw her stuff two boxes of cookies into her canvas bag and swipe a handful of candies meant for the children.”
The captain stared in disbelief.
Both of them looked toward the hall simultaneously.
Pei Yuan was dragging that poor guard, discussing life and ideals, talking endlessly about the Eye of Order; in short, she had no intention of leaving.
The captain rubbed her temples: “Check her records. Does she have any family members?”
The deputy captain pulled up the light screen: “Pei Yuan, Alpha, foreign temporary resident, employed at the White Tower’s Image Annotation Department.”
“No registered relatives and no emergency contacts. Wait, hold on, she has a girlfriend?”
The captain jerked her head over: “What? That person who can fall into a lake while jogging and has eaten half a table of desserts actually has a girlfriend?”
“She really does, but the name is masked,” the deputy captain said, “I can only see the communication number, starting with CZX193.”
“Forget it, just call it.”
The captain waved her hand: “Call her girlfriend over and get this person taken away immediately.”