White skirt by the water 'SEE YOU MORNING' 064: The White Hem by the Water

It had been nearly a month since Li Haojun started working at the Aquatic BioTech company, and he had already gotten a good grasp of the company's situation and operations. The only problem was that this company didn't seem to belong to any of the corporate groups he had previously served, nor did it seem to be a client. He didn't know why he had been assigned to work here. The work assignments here weren't delivered through the personal terminal system he had used before. The line managers here weren't the same people as before, and they didn't seem to be human at all—or maybe they were human managers using AI to assist with their work. Whatever. A line manager who didn't cause him trouble was a good line manager. It left him alone in undisturbed solitude, missing Kesiya, missing her past, feeling the uncertainty of whether there would be a future with her.

Sitting in his office, reviewing project and operational status, Li Haojun felt as though he had been placed in a dead-end position. Aquaculture wasn't his specialty, and there was no promising future in this industry. The work he did was nothing more than mindlessly processing documents in a routine. Li Haojun even felt this company could keep running without any human employees. The only thing that piqued his interest was a laboratory facility the company had extended deep into the mountains. He didn't even have clearance to enter or learn any internal information about it.

Li Haojun could only glean information about it from the employees who worked there. Ella Stevenson—her specialty was molecular biology and artificial intelligence. Fair-skinned with auburn hair, she didn't usually talk to anyone. She had pale green eyes and even seemed a bit aloof, simply keeping to herself, coming and going each day. Ariana Snyder—her specialty was astronomy and high-energy physics. He really couldn't fathom why she would come work at an aquaculture company. Luckily, her personality was more lively. She had big pale blue eyes and long, wavy, light golden hair, and she often chatted with her colleagues. Aniya Joyce—black hair, black eyes, with a quiet and mysterious air. She had wide-set big eyes. She studied molecular bioengineering, but Li Haojun preferred to think of her as a shaman or a prophetess.

Looking at their resumes, he could imagine what they might be doing in that lab—genetically modified fish, maybe even creating mermaids. Some pervert or philanthropist might like that, wanting to live with one. In this age of diversity, there was nothing you could imagine that couldn't be done. Why not? As long as no one got hurt, someone would pay for it.

Just as he was bored and his mind was wandering, Li Haojun happened to glance up through his open office door. Lunchtime was approaching. These young, beautiful women—most of them had little work enthusiasm to begin with—were already chatting in twos and threes in the staff lounge in the lobby, waiting for their meals to be delivered.

Because the company's office buildings were all old structures with solid walls, and with so many female employees, Li Haojun always kept his office door open to avoid any misunderstandings or controversy. After all, an old man like him had no privacy worth protecting anyway.

In the midst of this leisurely ease, Sienna happened to come in to ask about his lunch arrangements. Li Haojun took the opportunity to call her over to his computer and show her. She had archived the program files in the wrong location, and he explained to her the potential harm such an error could cause to downstream positions.

Sienna looked at it for a while, said nothing, turned and left. He didn't know if she had understood. After all, Li Haojun had only just arrived here, and all these employees were newly hired. Everyone had just come together, and Li Haojun wanted to maintain good relationships from the start. Watching Sienna's retreating figure, he still found himself making excuses for her, saying,

"Don't take it to heart. I made the same mistake when I first started. This system is designed in a way that's easy to misunderstand,"

Sienna had already walked out of the office without responding. Li Haojun wondered to himself what was wrong with her.

While he was pondering, Sienna came back. She walked to the wall beneath the sunny-side window of Li Haojun's office, pulled the piano stool that was placed there to the open space in the middle of the office, lifted the cushion, and took out a black leather whip—short-handled, braided from multiple thin leather strips.

Li Haojun was wondering why there would be something like that in the piano stool in his office, and how did Sienna even know about it? She had already walked up to Li Haojun, handed him the whip, and said,

"I made a mistake. Punish me. Spank my bottom," she said, then turned and walked toward the piano stool.

Li Haojun looked down at the whip in his hand, thinking, who had used this? He looked up again and saw that Sienna had already bent over the piano stool, her face turned toward him, her hands lifting her skirt and pulling down her underwear.

Seeing this, Li Haojun's eyes widened for less than a second before he bounced up from his seat like a spring. He glanced outside—no one was looking this way yet. He strode two steps to the office door, slammed it shut, and just as the door was about to close against the frame, Li Haojun quickly caught it and gently eased it shut.

He turned back and saw Sienna still quietly lying on the piano stool. Li Haojun walked over, couldn't help but glance at her body, then gently pulled down her lifted skirt to cover it. He squatted down, face to face with Sienna, and asked,

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because I did something wrong," she answered calmly, her eyes looking at Li Haojun with perfect calm, as if her heart were undisturbed.

"Who told you that making a mistake means you have to be punished like this?"

"Company rules,"

"Oh," Li Haojun replied, but he was puzzled. What kind of company would have rules like this?

"Sienna, listen to me. The mistake you just made was a very small one, but this punishment is a very big one. It doesn't match, understand?"

"Oh, then what should be done?"

"Get up first. I'll explain the punishment thing to you later," Li Haojun said, then took her arm and helped Sienna to her feet.

Seeing her standing there not moving, Li Haojun wanted to remind her to fix her clothes. He signaled with his eyes, then turned around. After a moment, he turned back and found she hadn't moved.

It seemed she didn't have the sense of shame that a normal person would have, or the sensitivity of having one's privacy exposed or being taken advantage of by the opposite sex. Li Haojun had to step forward and help her fix her clothes himself, to end this as quickly as possible. Then he looked into her eyes and said,

"This matter is over. Pretend nothing happened. You didn't make a mistake, and you don't need to be punished. Walk out of this office and continue doing whatever you were doing. Pretend nothing happened. Can you do that?"

"Yes,"

"Good. This period of time is blank. Are you calm right now?"

"Yes,"

"Promise me you'll continue living your life well and doing your job well, okay?"

"Okay, I promise you,"

After this string of questions, Li Haojun looked at her reaction and seemed somewhat relieved. He said,

"Alright, then leave the office and get ready for lunch. You don't need to close the door when you leave, okay?"

"Okay,"

With that, Sienna left quietly.

Watching her retreating figure, Li Haojun reconstructed in his mind his understanding of Sienna. It was truly hard to understand how she would handle what most people considered common sense—personal privacy, dignity and shame, the stress response to personal humiliation. It wasn't until he saw her sitting with other colleagues, chatting and waiting for lunch, that he finally let go of his worried heart.

He turned around and walked back to his seat, only to find the whip still sitting on his chair. Li Haojun smiled contemptuously. He had no choice but to clean up the mess himself. Blocking the direction of the open office door with his body, he rolled up the whip and put it back in the piano stool. Curiosity drove him to look inside—sure enough, there were other various SM toys as well.

During lunch, Li Haojun's eyes would occasionally drift toward Sienna. She, sitting across from him, seemed to notice, sometimes responding with a slight smile. Li Haojun hoped she had correctly understood his concern, rather than interpreting it as lechery or voyeurism. But based on her understanding of ordinary social norms, Li Haojun wasn't sure.

After the lunch break, Li Haojun called Sienna back to his office to check on her mental state. The door was still open. Li Haojun pulled a chair over for her to sit beside him and asked,

"This morning, you mentioned company rules. Where did you see them?" he asked, while watching her facial expressions carefully, afraid that some moment of vulnerability in her heart might be hurt.

"Here," Sienna said, handing her employee terminal device to Li Haojun.

Taking it in his hand, he saw clearly: work mistake punishment, "spank bottom," along with an instruction number. Punishment location: supervisor Li Haojun's office. Tool: self-selected black whip from inside the piano stool. Clicking on detailed instructions revealed even more explanations—describing the physical sensation differences between various whips, and requiring the punished person to mindfully feel the sense of responsibility for accepting punishment due to their own mistake, and to experience the intrinsic connection between the punisher's striking force and their personal emotions, and how it changes through the process.

Scrolling further, there were different hypothetical follow-up scenario tasks—experiencing the trend of personal relationship changes with the punisher after the incident. If the process was witnessed by other colleagues, experience the impact of the incident spreading among other employees in the company on one's interpersonal relationships, and consider whether one needs to, and how to, repair relationships or situations.

What is all this? Li Haojun looked at Sienna's work content prompts in amazement. It felt like a role-playing game. How had an aquaculture company become a live-action version of a girl's workplace role-play?

Li Haojun had wanted to ask about her experience—how she ended up here, or why she came to this company—but the thought just flashed by. He didn't know her well enough, and he was afraid of triggering some sensitive aspect of hers.

He had to ask in a different way.

"Oh, this work instruction, it's kind of like—" Li Haojun paused, as if thinking of a vivid metaphor.

"Sigh, I saw your resume. You grew up in this town your whole life. During school, was there any classmate who was a little shit? Someone who annoyed you?"

Sienna thought for a moment, rolled her eyes upward, and said somewhat hesitantly,

"I don't seem to remember much about when I was in school,"

"Oh," Li Haojun replied, seeming a bit awkward. He had to think of another way to ask.

"Then was there ever a time when your parents stood up for you, supported you in facing injustice?"

Sienna looked left and right, thought for a moment, and said,

"I don't remember that either. It seems like I never experienced that,"

"Oh, well, it seems pretty hard to find examples to compare," Li Haojun said with a self-deprecating laugh.

Seeing this, Sienna also giggled, a trace of a smile on her face.

Li Haojun thought to himself, after all this time, it hadn't been for nothing. She finally had some emotional reaction. It seemed the morning's incident hadn't caused any deep negative impact on her.

"Actually, I left them a long time ago. Now it's just me,"

"Ah, sorry, I didn't know that. Maybe I shouldn't have brought up your past," Li Haojun quickly said.

"It's fine. It was a long time ago. I don't remember much of it anyway,"

"Then are you satisfied with your life now?" Li Haojun quickly brought the topic back to the present.

"I'm not too sure either," Sienna said, pouting her little lips, looking left and right, her big rolling eyes seeming to search for an answer within her own feelings.

A knock at the door—knock knock knock—interrupted everything. Kathy walked into the office holding documents.

"Ethan, sorry to bother you, there's a batch of fish fry shipment that needs your approval," she said, then glanced at Sienna and said to her,

"Sorry to interrupt you two. The customer's truck is waiting outside, so..."

Before she could finish, Sienna got up tactfully, said her goodbyes, and left.

"You two handle work first then, Ethan. I'll come back when you're free," she said, then turned and left.

Watching her retreating figure, that sentence of hers—"I'll come back when you're free"—put Li Haojun completely at ease about her.