The graduate student who had come along was rooted to the spot, paralyzed with fear and breaking out in a cold sweat.
She couldn’t understand why this notoriously strict and fastidious titan of the industry had suddenly decided to pick a fight with the perfect, genius junior whom everyone else adored.
Just then, Shen Yi’s gaze swept over her. That icy indifference snapped the student back to her senses.
“Did I ask you to come over and pick it up?” Shen Yi’s voice was like a frost-laden wind. “One would think I was making a habit of bullying and exploiting my students.”
Shen Ruoshuang’s patience was clearly reaching its limit. She came to a halt, her eyes meeting Shen Yi’s.
The atmosphere between the two women turned instantly hostile. Daggers were drawn, making the ensuing silence feel agonizingly long.
Watching her usually calm and mature junior suddenly become headstrong and confrontational at such a critical moment, the graduate student felt like she was about to die of a heart attack.
Of all the people to provoke, you don’t provoke this Buddha! the student thought hysterically. Do you ever want to work in academia again?
She scrambled forward to play the mediator, hurriedly pulling the junior away.
Shen Ruoshuang had no desire to have any further involvement with that woman regarding academic matters. If this confrontation continued, there was a chance their true relationship might be exposed.
A sharp glint flickered in the depths of her eyes, but she allowed her teammate to push her down onto the sofa. She didn’t utter another word.
Even though the others had moved away, the fingers gripping Shen Yi’s leg under the desk didn’t loosen. That slight trembling transmitted through the fabric of her trousers.
It was hard to tell if Xu Yinian was afraid Shen Yi would suddenly change her mind—or if she was using this forced contact to secretly seek a shred of security.
It seemed she had been truly frightened this time. This was when she needed “affection” the most.
Shen Yi was a master of the carrot and the stick, knowing exactly when to tighten the leash and when to let go. In the past, the most she had ever done was grant a few favors; she had never needed to expend effort to personally soothe or comfort someone.
Shen Yi leaned down. In the eyes of the onlookers, she was merely reaching for the fallen pen.
Only she knew what kind of intoxicating, sensual scenery was hidden beneath the desk.
As she descended, she locked eyes with those Almond Eyes.
In her state of extreme terror, Shen Yi’s simple act of leaning down acted as a signal for Xu Yinian to relax. Finally, she had a pillar she could lean on.
A moment ago, those eyes were filled with panic, but now that she could see Shen Yi’s face, her grievances transformed into physiological tears that brimmed over.
Flushed and radiating heat, Xu Yinian tried her best to hold them back, her eyes glistening and pitiful as she looked up.
Shen Yi was reminded of the girl from that night—delirious from the drugs, practically soaked in water. Back then, even a slightly raised voice would startle her so much that her tears would stain Shen Yi’s lapels and shawl into a dark, damp mess.
It turned out she was a crybaby even when sober; she was just stubborn and refused to let the tears fall.
…It was strange.
Shen Yi found it pleasing when the girl cried. But seeing her hold back her tears so pitifully was also pleasing.
It was illogical. It shared no common ground with the habits and preferences Shen Yi had followed for decades.
It was the chaotic disorder that followed being entangled by such a little succubus.
Logically, she was a threat that needed to be cut off, yet under the girl’s harmless and submissive exterior, Shen Yi always felt she could be easily controlled.
The facts proved that she was indeed easily controlled.
As her gaze drifted lower, Shen Yi suddenly frowned.
The pen, which Shen Yi had blocked to prevent it from hitting or startling Xu Yinian, was now lying quietly in front of the girl’s knees. Those knees were flushed a deep red from kneeling.
She looked like she had been severely bullied.
…But “bullying” would only result in a light pink. This was clearly because she had been pressing against the cold, hard floor for too long.
Can’t she feel the discomfort?
The girl hadn’t even thought to pull up her socks. But then again, Shen Yi was the one who had told her to take them off.
Xu Yinian grew anxious again. She didn’t know what the figure blurred by her tears was about to do.
In the next second, she saw Shen Yi’s hand reaching toward her knees.
Her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t dare make a sound, nor did she dare to displease Shen Yi. Her toes curled inside her shoes until they went numb.
With her vision blurred, her sense of touch became hyper-sensitive, recoiling from the fingers sliding under the edge of her socks. The slight friction of Shen Yi’s calloused fingertips brought a tingling numbness that was impossible to ignore. She had experienced this before.
Shen Ruoshuang is still here…
How… how can she do this under the desk?
Xu Yinian could only weakly clutch Shen Yi’s trousers. She wrinkled the expensive, custom-made, crisp suit fabric until it was as disheveled as the hem of her own skirt. It felt as if this noble, high-status figure had been brought down to her level.
It wasn’t until those fingertips pulled the socks up, completely covering and protecting the knees that were so cold they had lost all sensation, that Xu Yinian froze.
She opened her misty eyes. Only then did she realize that Shen Yi was merely putting her socks back on.
She put them on beautifully.
It was Shen Yi’s usual obsessive-compulsive meticulousness; the socks were pulled up to meet the hem of the skirt perfectly. It was as if the disheveled evidence of her being bullied just moments ago had never existed.
Shen Yi was maintaining her dignity.
Shen Yi stared at Xu Yinian, her red lips moving soundlessly. With a flick of her long, slender fingers, she retrieved the pen.
Xu Yinian read her lips.
The cold, elegant, and noble woman had already sat back up, leaving Xu Yinian to be drowned in a shame that made her want to disappear.
“What were you expecting?”
…
Shen Yi’s face showed no sign of anything unusual as she began flipping through the documents.
Under such a stern and disciplined facade, who could have guessed that the cold, pale, and noble fingertips holding the pen were stained with a scorching body heat that didn’t belong to her?
Listening to Shen Yi recite professional terminology and instructions she couldn’t understand, Xu Yinian thought the torture was finally over.
But in the next second, she saw that even in the midst of her “busy schedule,” Shen Yi was tapping the pen against her own knee.
What… what does that mean?
Inevitably, Xu Yinian recalled the scene in the car under the influence of the drugs. Shen Yi had made the same tapping motion before saying:
“Don’t you want me? Then come up yourself.”
Naturally, she didn’t mean sitting on her lap in the usual way…
“Professor, for the alkaline electrolyzer load response indicators, can we not use the generally accepted data for this year…”
There were too many numbers to remember. The graduate student didn’t dare to use her phone to make a Recording in front of an Academician, so she tried to use a bit of cleverness to bypass the data.
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
There was a strange depth to Shen Yi’s words. She paused before adding, “If you knew you couldn’t remember it, you should have prepared earlier.”
Xu Yinian heard the hidden meaning directed at her. She couldn’t delay any longer.
She tried to move, but her legs had long since gone numb from kneeling. She nearly collapsed back down. No matter how hard she tried to control herself, her waist almost slammed into the underside of the desk.
Xu Yinian was scared out of her wits, but a leg moved firmly to brace her, stopping her fall.
Shen Yi didn’t even look down. It was as if, as long as she didn’t want it to happen, no “accident” would ever occur.
The contradiction of being firmly controlled and feeling a sense of security surged within Xu Yinian.
Stockholm Syndrome…
Xu Yinian suddenly snapped to her senses.
Clearly, all of these circumstances had been orchestrated by Shen Yi. She had almost lost herself in the woman’s schemes.
But whether she liked it or not, she could only comply. She had to show that woman her sincerity in “begging” for help.
While Shen Ruoshuang was calmly stating, “I’ve noted it down,” Xu Yinian, with her brow lowered, slowly shuffled her way to Shen Yi’s knees.
She bit her lip. She finally utilized the “talent” she had instinctively discovered in the car when she was trying to apologize for her cold behavior.
She rested her arms and neck against Shen Yi’s thighs, watching her own hair slide across the smooth suit trousers in a messy tangle.
That familiar cold fragrance washed over her again.
She felt a dizzying trance.
It’s so similar…
However, this time, she knew exactly who she was dealing with. She was perfectly sober. And yet, she still leaned into her.
It might have been a whim for Shen Yi, but when that soft weight obediently settled on her lap, she truly felt a stir of desire.
Her desire to keep Shen Ruoshuang there just to pressure Xu Yinian vanished.
“That will be all for today,” Shen Yi announced.
Both Xu Yinian and the graduate student breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it was over.
They never realized that Shen Ruoshuang had been Xu Yinian’s only protection.
As the sound of the door locking echoed through the room, Xu Yinian tried to sit up, only to hear that woman’s voice—haughty and husky—from above:
“How many times do I have to teach you what ‘come up on your own’ means?”
