Annotation 3: Their breaths intertwined, the hot and the cold.
Pei Yuan’s foster mother used to sigh that she had picked up a living ancestor the day she took Pei Yuan home.
This Pei Yuan was a born curious cat. She had to touch, twist, squeeze, and pry open everything just to see how it worked.
Take right now, for instance. She was slacking off at her workstation, pondering how to get her hands on the “Eye of Order.”
For example, could she just copy this thing into a storage device and slip out of the city with the backup?
However, this plan had one fatal flaw.
She didn’t know how.
Pei Yuan’s knowledge of information technology stopped right at the level of: “If the computer freezes, smack it once and reboot.”
Well, what about sneaking into the White Tower’s confidential area, uprooting the “Eye of Order,” and packing it away?
Pei Yuan remembered that the tracking device Mole made for the team could only track a single signal source, yet it required several large black boxes to operate.
If the “Eye of Order”—a city-level AI—was converted into physical hardware, it would take about three to four buildings, right?
How was she supposed to move that?
“Ugh, this is so hard.” Pei Yuan deflated, her head leaning sideways onto her desk as she let out a sigh.
Suddenly remembering something, she snapped back upright. “System, speaking of which, my rut period is coming up soon.”
“I heard the White Tower provides free suppressants for employees. Is that true?”
The System replied: “Yes, it is mentioned in Article 73 of the basic benefits. It seems you didn’t read through your contract carefully when you were hired.”
Pei Yuan felt a pang of guilt. Article 73? She hadn’t even finished reading Article 3 before signing.
The System said: “However, according to my monitoring, your pheromones have always been stable. Are you sure you haven’t miscalculated the cycle?”
Pei Yuan waved to a colleague and took the elevator upward.
“Stability is just because I control it well,” Pei Yuan said, “but a heat period isn’t something you can get through with willpower alone.”
The medical area was located on the sixty-first floor, divided into a public zone for all employees and an exclusive zone for internal personnel.
In the middle was a spacious waiting hall where employees waited for their numbers to be called, and internal personnel occasionally passed through.
Pei Yuan took a number and was just about to look for a chair when she suddenly caught a wisp of faint fragrance.
White iris.
Cold and secluded, like petals washed by rain, carrying a hint of wet sweetness.
Pei Yuan stopped in her tracks.
That fragrance drifted from the right side, appearing and vanishing, like a thread tugging at the corner of her clothes.
A narrow door on the right was pushed open.
A Beta assistant was pushing a wheelchair, heading precisely in Pei Yuan’s direction.
Cen Zhixu was curled up in the wheelchair, draped in a thin blanket, her body turned slightly to one side with her knees pressed together.
With her eyelashes lowered, she seemed to be asleep, curled into a soft, tiny ball.
The two of them bumped right into each other.
The assistant paused her steps, the wheelchair rocked slightly, and Cen Zhixu jolted awake, suddenly opening her eyes.
Her long eyelashes fluttered as she slowly raised her head.
Her eyes resembled two gemstones veiled by mist, stained with a shallow circle of red, looking at Pei Yuan in a dazed, damp manner.
“Ms. Cen?”
Pei Yuan spoke tentatively.
Cen Zhixu blinked shut, and when she looked back over, she wore the lazy smile familiar to Pei Yuan:
“Ms. Pei, what a coincidence.”
The iris fragrance grew stronger. No longer as distant and cold as before, it had been warmed and crushed, oozing with a trace of scorching sweetness.
Just by sniffing it, Pei Yuan knew what was going on. She came to a stop right in front of the two of them. “Are you also here to pick up suppressants?”
“Mhm.”
Cen Zhixu curved her eyelashes, her voice holding a trace of hoversomeness due to drowsiness. “I wonder if Ms. Pei would be willing to lend a hand?”
Pei Yuan glanced at the young Beta assistant, who looked like a protective mother bird guarding her chick, staring at her with extreme vigilance, and smiled.
“It would be my absolute honor.”
She stepped forward, stood behind the wheelchair, and calmly reached out.
The young Beta assistant had chubby, fleshy cheeks and a facial expression that clearly suggested she thought a villain was about to devour Cen Zhixu alive, making her reluctance to let go of the handles glaringly obvious.
Cen Zhixu leaned back against the backrest, her hands resting over the blanket: “Please go inside, turn right at the third intersection.”
“Got it.”
Pei Yuan pushed the wheelchair into the medical area. Her movements were steady, and the wheelchair glided across the floor with almost no sound.
In the hallway, the lighting was cold-white and uniform, instruments hummed as they operated, and the air was permeated with the scent of disinfectant.
After pushing her for a short distance, Pei Yuan suddenly spoke: “Does Ms. Cen trust me just like that?”
With a lazy and mischievous smile, she added, “Aren’t you afraid I’ll push you all the way out of the White Tower and dump you straight into the outer city among the wolves and tigers?”
Cen Zhixu chuckled softly: “How terrible of you.”
Turning her head slightly with her long eyelashes half-drooped, her profile was rendered soft and quiet by the corridor lighting. “I won’t treat you to coffee next time.”
“Aww, how heartbreaking,” Pei Yuan smiled. “Don’t worry, Ms. Cen, for the sake of your coffee, I will definitely be on my best behavior.”
The testing room arrived shortly.
The doctor glanced at Pei Yuan, deftly adjusted the instruments, and began the examination for Cen Zhixu.
Pei Yuan crossed her arms and leaned against the wall.
Cen Zhixu’s examination was much more complicated than anticipated. Needles repeatedly punctured her skin, data piled up item by item, and the low humming of the instruments pressed heavily on one’s nerves, stirring irritation.
Once the procedure was complete, Cen Zhixu’s complexion looked even worse. Leaning against the backrest, her lips were pale and her eyes were heavy with fatigue drooping at the corners.
“This is your test report, and then…” The doctor’s gaze landed on Pei Yuan, pausing slightly.
Cen Zhixu shook her head: “It’s fine, go ahead and say it.”
“Alright,” the doctor began cautiously. “Your symptoms have worsened further. If you still need to rely on suppressants during your next rut, I’m afraid you will have to increase the dosage by two to three times.”
“However, the dosage you are currently using already exceeds the safety threshold. Continuing to increase it will cause irreversible damage to your glands.”
“Mhm, I understand.”
Cen Zhixu opened the light-screen right in front of Pei Yuan. The charts were densely packed, among which the red text reading [Glandular Failure Pheromone Disorder] was particularly striking.
Pei Yuan’s understanding of medical science was about on par with her understanding of information technology: completely clueless.
Yet, just looking at the text and Cen Zhixu’s occasional weak appearance, it was clearly a terrifying and seemingly insoluble disease.
“When is the next rut?” Cen Zhixu scanned the data, pressing her fingertips against her temple.
The doctor answered, “Hard to say. It could be two weeks, or it could be tomorrow; an outbreak could happen at any time. You had better prepare as soon as possible.”
Cen Zhixu nodded and beckoned to Pei Yuan, who was sitting obediently to the side: “Pei Yuan, come push me.”
Pei Yuan: “…”
Pei Yuan always felt that this person was getting more and more natural at bossing her around, and she herself was truly incorrigible for actually walking over.
Descending the elevator, their destination was the mid-level terrace.
Sunlight filtered through the curved glass, slanting into the elevator and sweeping across the two of them in layers.
The footage flickered slightly, tiny specks of noise flashing past and vanishing. The camera focused, watching them both, framing the two figures inside the elevator:
[Zone: White Tower Elevator No. 3]
[Recording]
Pei Yuan bent forward, her arms crossed and resting on the wheelchair handles, leaning against Cen Zhixu’s shoulder and blowing softly at her stray hairs.
“What?” Cen Zhixu stroked the small blanket across her lap, her long eyelashes lifting slightly. “Getting this close.”
Pei Yuan replied, “Mm, just curious whether there’s actually any difference between looking at someone as pretty as you up close versus from afar.”
Tilting her head, she said with a deadpan expression: “My conclusion is: equally gorgeous.”
Cen Zhixu gave a faint smile: “How utterly discourteous.”
The surveillance camera zoomed in, adjusting its aperture. The recognition program initiated and calibration completed:
[Name: Pei Yuan]
[ID: RS-2187-T (Foreign Temporary Residence)]
[Gender: Female | Type: Alpha]
[Danger Rating: Negligible]
“Right, Ms. Cen,” Pei Yuan leaned over the back of the wheelchair. “I have a question.”
“Hmm?”
Pei Yuan said, “Glandular failure and pheromone disorder are all your weaknesses and handles, the White Tower’s highest secrets.”
“If this leaked to the outer city, the consequences would be unimaginable.”
“This isn’t information an ordinary little employee like me should have access to. Why do you trust me so much?”
Shrugging with an innocent expression, Pei Yuan added, “You don’t happen to find me an eyesore and plan to silence me permanently, do you?”
Cen Zhixu turned to the side, her grayish-blue eyes gazing out from between strands of hair, shallow and clear like a pool of melted ice.
“Ms. Pei, it’s not that I trust you. Rather, I want to gain your trust.”
She said.
The knuckles of Pei Yuan’s fingers gripping the wheelchair handles tightened imperceptibly for a fraction of a second.
The analysis module responded instantly, three low-weight signals overlapping to trigger a re-evaluation of the rating:
[Name: Pei Yuan]
[Danger Rating: Low]
“Trust requires bargaining chips,” Cen Zhixu lowered her long eyelashes halfway, “and this is my sincerity.”
“Everyone who comes to White Tower City has their own motives. What your motive is, I don’t know, and I won’t pry.”
She raised a hand, tapping Pei Yuan’s cheek, hooking a strand of long hair that draped over her shoulder bone and twisting it around her fingertips.
“But given my current position within the White Tower, I might be able to help you.”
Ding-dong.
The elevator chime interrupted the conversation, and the elevator doors slid open silently to both sides.
Pei Yuan straightened up, gripped the wheelchair handles, and pushed Cen Zhixu out.
Outside the door lay a hollow mid-level terrace. Vines crawled and spread along the corridor frame, weaving together a green dome.
The vines cast mottled shadows, leaves rustling softly. The wheelchair rolled over the stone-brick ground, making a faint, crisp sound.
Cen Zhixu raised her head.
Sunlight fell upon her face, casting a layer of warmth over her excessive pallor.
Within their field of vision, the White Tower continued stretching upward.
Disappearing into the clouds.
“Look.”
Cen Zhixu’s voice dissipated into the wind. “This is a very, very tall tower.”
“I want to reach the very top of the tower, and positions up there are limited.”
Clouds drifted slowly by, obscuring a corner of the sunlight, and at that exact moment, Cen Zhixu looked toward her.
“So, Ms. Pei.”
“Let’s set a clear price for our transaction. You help me stabilize my pheromones, and I provide convenience for you. Each takes what they need, without interfering with the other.”
With a gentle smile, Cen Zhixu asked: “How does that sound?”
The wind swept past, stirring Pei Yuan’s dyed black, curly long hair. A moment later, she smiled as well.
“Ms. Cen, I suddenly feel that you are even more charming than when we met at the coffee shop.”
Cen Zhixu gave a light smile: “Is that so?”
She hooked her fingertips toward her, lingering and indulgent: “Pei Yuan, bend down.”
For some inexplicable reason, Pei Yuan recalled how her foster mother used to repeat warnings to her when she was little:
Never touch a sharp blade or a burning flame. They look pretty, but they will cut your skin and scorch your fingers. Beautiful, yet dangerous.
Casually, she thought to herself:
Mother, I’m truly sorry.
I was never a well-behaved child.
Pei Yuan leaned down. The next second, her collar was grabbed by Cen Zhixu, inch by inch, dragging her downward.
She was pulled forward until their nose tips were barely a centimeter apart, close enough to feel like a lingering kiss.
Their breaths intertwined, the hot and the cold, citrus and alcohol, and the secluded white iris.
Click.
Then, something cold and hard pressed against Pei Yuan’s jawline.
The metallic touch, a circular cross-section, slid upward along the curve of her neck, embedding itself into a soft hollow of her jawbone.
A gun muzzle.
Cen Zhixu pressed the trigger and smiled softly: “Then, my citrus-scented little puppy?”
“What do you think of this proposal?”