Part 4: Biting the little orange cake.
Pei Yuan could actually swim.
Not only could she swim, but she swam very well.
The Rusty Tooth squad once accepted a mission whose target was a pirate gang entrenched in the coastal ruins.
During the melee, Pei Yuan’s shoulder was grazed by a grenade fragment, and she plunged headfirst from a thirty-meter-high ship’s side into the angry sea under a howling storm.
Huge waves smashed down overhead, and seawater poured into her mouth and nose, tasting as salty as swallowing an entire jar of salt.
After struggling for nearly five minutes, Pei Yuan finally grabbed a piece of blast-blown wreckage, climbed onto a life raft, and casually knocked two pirates off it and into the sea.
This falling into the water,
of course, was carefully designed by her.
Bounding, labeling, archiving. Pei Yuan once felt that this job was boring to the extreme, tedious, and completely meaningless.
It was not until yesterday that she understood what the things she did every day represented to the machine, or rather, the Eye of Order.
Humans divided areas for pixels and gave meaning to blurred patches of color. When humans named similar pixels cat over and over again, the machine learned what a cat was.
Millions of repetitions poured the world into that colossal, eternally open eye.
[The Eye of Order]
Pei Yuan wanted to understand it, to understand its analytical methods, operating system, sensing range, response speed, and so on.
Only by figuring out how every single gear meshed could she find the gaps within it and discover the possibility of snatching it away from the hands of the White Tower.
Pei Yuan knew nothing about information technology, and with Mole absent, she could only proceed according to her own train of thought.
The most direct method she could think of was to manufacture an incident for the Eye of Order and observe its response process.
For example, an unlucky outsider accidentally twisted her ankle while running and rolled into a lake.
The heating in the reception area was turned up high, and Pei Yuan was wrapped in a towel, eating and drinking comfortably.
She pursued the question: “Then how does the Eye of Order judge that I fell into the water instead of taking a bath in the lake?”
The team member patiently explained: “The Eye of Order analyzes surveillance footage. Incidents like falling into water, tumbling, fighting, and pheromone loss of control all have corresponding behavioral models.”
“Once an abnormality is identified, it triggers an alarm and pushes it to the nearest guard unit.”
As the team member spoke, she subconsciously glanced at the communication ring on her wrist:
▌Incident: Accidental fall into water ▌Location: Mirror Lake Greenbelt, West Bank No. 12 ▌Danger Level: F-3 (Low) ▌Suggested Response: 1 person, unarmed ▌Status: [Completed]
The team member casually dimmed the light screen; there was no need for ordinary citizens to see these contents.
Pei Yuan let out an oh, leaned forward, lowered her voice, and asked mysteriously: “Then do you guys usually get to chat with it?”
The team member looked confused: “What?”
“I mean asking it questions,” Pei Yuan said, “such as ‘Are there any suspicious people in the city’ or ‘I am tracking someone, what was her last known location’ and things like that.”
The team member frowned slightly.
“The Eye of Order is not an artificial intelligence,” she earnestly corrected. “It is a closed, unidirectional output monitoring system.”
“It does not receive any external commands, does not conduct two-way communication, and possesses no conversation function.”
“We can only receive the alarms and data it emits, but no one can access its interior, let alone chat with it.”
Pei Yuan tilted her head: “Is that so? I thought it was pretty much the same as those chatbot things.”
“Completely different,” the team member shook her head. “Chatbots are interactive, but the Eye of Order is not. It is simply a tool.”
“A tool?” Pei Yuan picked up.
“Yes, a tool.”
The team member said: “An automated, high-precision urban monitoring tool. It analyzes data, identifies risks, and issues alarms; we execute them. That is all.”
Pei Yuan said thoughtfully: “Then what if it judges wrong? Is there no way to feed it back upward and correct the error?”
“Impossible,” the team member said decisively. “The Eye of Order can never make a mistake.”
She handed the report to Pei Yuan: “Alright, please sign here.”
As Pei Yuan took the electronic pen and signed, questions bubbled up one after another:
“Then what is the exact form of the alarm? Is it a pop-up window or voice? If you run into an emergency situation…”
The team member took a deep breath.
Her head hurt so much.
She was starting to regret why she had been out of her mind to apply for the position of a patrol guard.
At the same time, a silver hover car stopped in front of the door of the No. 73 Maintenance and Law Bureau.
Without any logos or license plate numbers, the car windows were completely opaque, thoroughly isolating the inside from the outside.
The car door slid open, and the tip of a boot poked out first, lightly stepping onto a fallen leaf.
The woman steadied herself against the door frame and stood up.
She wore a high-collared coat with a thin silver ring belt buckled around her waist, cinching it slightly to outline a slender and soft waistline.
Her silver hair was swept up by the wind, lingeringly kissing her lips. The woman seemed unconcerned, letting the strands stay by the side of her lips as she adjusted her collar and walked forward.
The Eye of Order turned silently, aligning with her face. It looked at her.
[Identification successful]
[Access authorization: Granted.]
The door slid open to both sides, and the woman walked in.
Warm air rushed over her face. The lighting in the reception area was bright and uniform, filling every corner.
The on-duty guard heard the movement, stepped out from behind the counter, and prepared to inquire.
The woman had already raised her hand.
The badge between her fingers flashed under the light, the gemstones sparkling and refracting multiple shards of light.
The guard instantly widened her eyes. Behind her, the team leader was running over in a panic.
She ran so fast that she nearly tripped, hurriedly steadying herself against the wall. “You, why are you here?”
The team leader was out of breath: “May I ask if a major security threat has appeared, or if there is an emergency mission that requires our cooperation?”
The woman tilted her head, a strand of silver hair sliding from her shoulder to hang across her chest, hooked by a chain ornament and swaying slightly.
“No major threat has appeared,” she said indifferently. “A minor accident, however, has occurred.”
She absentmindedly twirled the badge, its gemstone facets neatly cut, prismatic light flowing and splashing into her eyes.
In her gray-blue eyes, the shattered light fell like stardust into the universe, pulled by gravity into an endless and silent star-track.
“I received a notice.”
Cen Zhixu sighed. “My girlfriend is not very well-behaved, so I have to go pick her up.”
At this moment, Pei Yuan was still pestering the unlucky team member, attempting to pry out more information regarding the Eye of Order.
She had no idea that, led by the terrified team leader, someone had already arrived in front of the reception area.
Cen Zhixu stopped in her steps.
Through a full sheet of floor-to-ceiling glass, she turned her head, her gaze falling inward.
The familiar face was draped in a towel, sitting on the sofa with black curly hair scattered across her shoulders, damply clinging to the side of her neck from the water.
Water droplets meandered along the ends of her hair, sliding down her neck to disappear into the collar.
Pei Yuan’s facial features leaned toward a rich aesthetic, her brows and eyes born with an unbridled and bold disposition, carrying a hint of searing sharpness, an extremely aggressive and invasive beauty.
Pity she was currently using that pretty face to frantically stuff small cakes into her mouth.
The unlucky team member sat opposite Pei Yuan with a deadpan expression, her eyes filled with the despair of letting her go because she wanted to work.
Cen Zhixu curled her fingers and tapped on the glass.
Tap, tap, two light sounds.
Pei Yuan abruptly turned her head and, through the glass, saw Cen Zhixu standing in the hallway, smiling at her.
Pei Yuan: ??!!
Pei Yuan froze in place, frantically calling the system in her mind: “System, system!”
“Why did Cen Zhixu suddenly show up? Why didn’t you remind me?!”
The system stated: “Apologies. I analyzed that you were focused on social activities, which led me to classify Miss Cen’s arrival as a secondary notification item.”
Pei Yuan: “…………”
Oh system, you really killed me!
The guard team leader diligently pushed open the door, Cen Zhixu slowly walked inside, and the unlucky team member bolted away like a released prisoner.
The team leader was sensible enough to pull the door shut behind her and conveniently activated the anti-peeping black window.
Only the two of them remained in the room.
Pei Yuan gave a dry laugh: “Miss Cen, aren’t you very busy? Why did you suddenly come?”
Cen Zhixu smiled and tapped on her communication ring, and an audio clip began to play:
“Hello, this is the White Tower No. 73 Maintenance and Law Bureau. Your girlfriend accidentally fell into the water this afternoon and has now been rescued by the guard unit. Her vital signs are stable, her mood is steady, and her appetite is robust.”
“If you have time, please come pick her up. If you don’t come soon, she’ll finish eating an entire table of small cakes.”
“Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.”
“Wishing you a pleasant life.”
The audio ended, and the room fell silent.
Pei Yuan: “…”
Pei Yuan chuckled awkwardly and picked up another small cake. “This one is actually quite delicious. Would you like to try it?”
Cen Zhixu smiled: “No need.”
She tilted her head toward the door, gesturing to Pei Yuan like teasing a disobedient little animal, and beckoned her: “Shall we go?”
“But these cakes really are delicious. Look, they even have all sorts of flavors: orange, cherry, chocolate, matcha, caramel sea salt…”
As Pei Yuan spoke, she fluently swept the corresponding small cakes into her canvas bag. By the time she finished listing all the flavors, another seven or eight small cakes had been added to the bag.
She skillfully tore open a wrapper, bit half of a cake in her mouth, and mumbled vaguely, “Really not trying one?”
Cen Zhixu looked her over twice: “Are there any orange ones?”
Pei Yuan paused, rummaged through her small cake inventory, and remembered that there indeed was an orange one, but there was only one left.
Currently, it was clamped between her teeth.
“Mmph, this…”
Pei Yuan froze.
Just as she wanted to explain, Cen Zhixu suddenly walked over, gently pressing down on her shoulders. “Don’t move.”
Cen Zhixu was slightly shorter than her. She stood on her tiptoes slightly, bit onto the edge of the little orange cake, and nibbled off a tiny piece.
The two were too close. Pei Yuan could even clearly see her drooping long eyelashes and the gray-blue pupils resembling water flowing quietly beneath ice.
Her lips grazed the cake without touching Pei Yuan, yet it felt as though she were gently licking her, delicately biting into every inch of her panic.
The cream melted between their lips and teeth, collapsing into a soft mass of white that smeared against the corner of her lips.
Cen Zhixu licked away the cream from the corner of her mouth. Her lips were moist, soft, and sweet, carrying a trace of stickiness.
She smiled faintly, twirling a strand of Pei Yuan’s damp black hair and tangling it around her fingertip:
“Mm, a very sweet little orange.”