Shang Zhitao was starting to think that work was a kind of spiritual trial. Kitty had reined in her attitude and was actually pulling her weight now, which made things a little easier, though only a little.
In the half month she'd spent up in the mountains, she felt like she'd gone through more than her four years of college combined. New problems came up every single day, and every single day she leveled up just to survive them. By the time she dragged her suitcase back into Beijing, she felt like a different person.
Beijing had settled into autumn.
She had four days off to make up for the overtime, which felt like pure luxury. The only shame was that her roommates were gone. Sun Yu had gone back to Guizhou for a wedding, and Zhang Lei and Sun Yuanzhu were both away on business trips. Zhitao slept the entire first day away and didn't open her eyes until evening, when she saw several missed calls from Yao Bei. She called back right away.
"Senior."
"Dinner tonight?"
"Don't you have work?"
"We had a team outing today, so I got off early. I'll drive over and pick you up. What do you want to eat?" Yao Bei asked.
"Sure, sure, I'll get up right now. I'm not picky, anything's fine. Let me treat you, actually. My company gave me a bonus this month out of nowhere. It's not much, but it's worth celebrating."
"Save your money. If you're not picky, let's do barbecue, right by the university."
"Sounds good."
It had been a while since Zhitao had seen Yao Bei, three years by her count. They hadn't seen each other since Yao Bei graduated, though they'd stayed in touch. She waited by the roadside, and when a small car pulled up in front of her, Yao Bei hopped out. "Little Tao Tao!"
Zhitao threw her arms around her. "Senior." She was so happy she almost cried. It wasn't easy, running into family in a city this big.
They held onto each other for a while before Yao Bei let go and said, "Come on, if we're late we'll be standing in line."
"Okay!"
Yao Bei had changed a lot. Her hair was pinned up with a single hairpin, and a good-looking trench coat gave her a tall, graceful silhouette. Zhitao couldn't look away. Yao Bei reached over and patted her on the head. "Keep staring like that and I'll start wondering if your taste has changed."
Zhitao just laughed.
Yao Bei glanced at her while driving. "Still in touch with Xin Zhaozhou?"
"No."
Zhitao always felt her breakup with Xin Zhaozhou hadn't been like other people's. They'd parted with each other's blessing. Back then, she'd cried on her roommate's shoulder and asked through her tears, "Why do we have to grow up? Wouldn't it be nice if we could just stay in our junior year forever?"
Junior year had been the best year she and Xin Zhaozhou ever had.
That was the year, on a night they'd gone out to look at the stars, that Xin Zhaozhou and she had crossed a certain threshold together. She still remembered the nervousness between them, the surprise, the sweat on both their faces. She'd thought herself terribly brave.
"Is he in Shenzhen now?" Yao Bei asked.
"Yeah. His parents are both there. His family were recent transplants, there was a government policy for it. Better than staying in Beijing."
Zhitao thought that this was just how life worked. He went south, she went north, and neither of them had really chosen it.
"Do you still think about him?" Yao Bei asked.
Zhitao thought it over and shook her head. "Not for a long time now. It's been almost a year since we broke up." The sadness had been real, but so was her own thick skin. They'd been so good together, and after the breakup she'd cried a few times, felt down for a month or so, and then went right back to being her usual carefree self. Sometimes she still ran into Xin Zhaozhou on campus, and he'd stubbornly turn his face away, never quite forgiving her for refusing to go with him.
Go where, though? The boy had been selfish, assuming that if a girl loved him she ought to follow him to the ends of the earth. He'd forgotten he had legs of his own. He could have followed her just as easily.
Yao Bei looked at Zhitao and suddenly laughed.
"What?" Zhitao asked, her voice sweet and soft.
"Date around more," Yao Bei said seriously.
"Hm?"
"What else are you going to do with your time when you're not working? You've got your best years right now, and you're not spending your nights tangled up with some guy. What's the point of that?"
"Senior, you're a rocket scientist..." Zhitao reminded her. It felt strange hearing this kind of talk from a woman who worked in aerospace research.
"Since when do rocket scientists not have sex lives?" Yao Bei laughed. "Let me ask you something. You've been in Beijing a few months now. Is there any man who's made you a little hungry?"
Zhitao suddenly thought of Luan Nian, of that night he'd had too much to drink and the heat of his skin against her fingertips at his neck. She remembered the thought that had crossed her mind that day: what would he be like?
Her face went slightly red as she looked out the window. Luan Nian was so cold all the time, surely he wouldn't warm up even with his clothes off. He probably frowned even when he was intimate with someone, no expression at all. Maybe he didn't even bother with foreplay.
What was she thinking? Zhitao shook her head, trying to chase the strange thought out of her mind.
Yao Bei started talking about her own relationship. "He said he wants to get married. My parents said we can't get married without a place of our own."
"What do you think, though?" Zhitao asked.
"His family's under a lot of pressure. His parents are both out in the countryside, and taking care of them when they get old is going to be a real issue. I've gotten a bit more realistic these days, you know? The women in my field all marry well." Yao Bei wasn't like she used to be. At twenty, she'd believed love was everything, but life had worn her down since then, and now she understood that a woman needed more than love. She needed a house, a car, had to worry about her parents' old age and her children's education down the road. There was simply too much for a woman to think about. At a red light, Yao Bei sighed and said quietly, "Tao Tao, I think I'm going to break up with him."
The last one had been Sun Yu, whose boyfriend had cheated on her with a girl who had a better job and better credentials, chasing after his bright future. Now it was Yao Bei, who had seen the world clearly and decided to make her own way through it. Zhitao suddenly felt that once you left campus behind, love became something impossibly out of reach.
She didn't know what to say. She was still muddling her own way through the world, and yet everyone around her seemed to be telling her the same thing: love couldn't survive a single blow, love wasn't worth much at all.
But Zhitao had no time to spare on love and romance anyway. Just staying alive was enough of a job. She had to survive first. She couldn't keep asking Old Shang and Da Zhai for money.
Yao Bei took her out for skewers and insisted on drinking. Zhitao couldn't hold her liquor, but she asked for a glass too, then a second, then a third. Three beers in, before they'd even eaten much, she was drunk. In a last flicker of clarity she called lumi, her words slurring together. "Hello, teacher... I've had too much to drink..."
Lumi shouted into the phone. "Where are you? Who's the bastard who got you drunk?"
Zhitao just giggled. Yao Bei grabbed the phone out of her hand and said to lumi, "You're Tao Tao's coworker, right? We're both pretty drunk. Would you mind coming to get us?" She rattled off the address without a hint of hesitation, like they were already old friends.
Lumi was a good sport about it, threw on a tracksuit, and grabbed a cab over. When she found them, one was slumped over the table and the other had her chin propped on one hand. Not too bad, all things considered, no one was causing a scene.
"You two are something else, I swear." Lumi pointed at Yao Bei. "You're the one who called me, right? Where are your car keys?"
Yao Bei handed them over and let lumi help Zhitao up, trailing along behind them.
"Ha, this little junker of a car," lumi teased as she loaded them both in. Luckily Yao Bei wasn't too far gone and could still tell her where Zhitao lived. Lumi had to dig through Zhitao's overall pockets for a good while before she found the keys, then hauled her home. Her palm landed on Zhitao's chest along the way, and she gave it an idle squeeze. "Damn, girl, you're stacked."
Zhitao, being taken advantage of, still managed to slap her hand away, but that didn't stop lumi from getting her into the apartment, rinsing her mouth out, wiping her face, and setting a glass of water by her bed before heading back out to drop off Yao Bei. Lumi had no idea what she'd done in a past life to get stuck babysitting two drunk women this late at night.
As for Zhitao, she drifted in and out of a heavy sleep, waking twice to drink water, not entirely sure whether she was sober or not. At some point through the haze she heard her phone ring, and some part of her still managed to pick it up and squint at the blurry name on the screen: luke.
Oh, luke. Time to unload on that man.
The next morning Zhitao woke up and, once her head had cleared, tried to piece together what had happened the night before. Everything after lumi dropped her off was a blank. She had a vague memory of answering a call, of picking up her phone and seeing it was luke's number. Yes, she'd answered it. Luke's call.
She couldn't remember a single word of what had been said, and the realization hit her all at once, wide awake now. She thought about it for a long time and finally decided to call him back.
Luan Nian rejected the call.
She tried again. He rejected it again.
Damn it.
She swore under her breath. What did I say on that call? She pressed a hand to her forehead, told herself not to panic, then spent a long time wording a message before sending it: "Hi luke, I had some drinks with a friend last night. I woke up and saw you'd called. I just wanted to check, did you give me any work assignments last night? If you did, what was it? Sorry, I honestly can't remember."
Luan Nian glanced at the message, tossed his phone aside, and went back to his meeting. Zhitao only grew more anxious, and sent another one: "Was it something urgent?"
Luan Nian still didn't reply.
That phone call last night had convinced Luan Nian that Shang Zhitao had rocks for brains. How could she not know what she'd said herself?
Today's meeting was a tedious business review, page after page of numbers and reports, long stretches of dry recitation. Things like that put Luan Nian in a foul mood. He liked things simple. Anything overly complicated set him on edge.
He finally cut in. "I'm not calling anyone out, but this business review has been pointless so far." He gestured at alex. "Alex, what did Doris just say the South China region's projected Q3 completion rate was?"
Caught off guard, alex hesitated. "Ninety... something percent?"
Luan Nian didn't press him further and turned to Doris instead. "What did alex just say about the marketing department's budget rejection rate?"
"Around seventy percent?"
Luan Nian spread his hands. "The numbers that actually matter are buried under all this padding. If we spend a whole day in a meeting like this, how much of it is anyone actually going to remember? There's no point. It's a waste of time. We're done with the business update for today. Everyone go back, redo your materials, and we'll meet again tomorrow. My expectations are simple. State what matters clearly. Everyone needs to understand core progress. Every cross-department collaboration needs to reach consensus. Every problem needs a solution attached to it. Understood?"
"Yes, of course, understood," people around the table murmured, nodding.
Sensing the tension in the room, Tracy jumped in to move things along. "Let's move to the next item then, finalizing the schedule for the China office's anniversary celebration. Before this meeting we already talked to marketing and planning. We'll be asking a vendor to select a high end venue, bringing in some performers we've worked with before, and we'll be shooting a promotional video as well. As with previous years, we're keeping the executive performance segment, so everyone can start thinking about what to do for this year."
When Luan Nian said nothing, Tracy pressed on. "Luke, you were in a band back in school, weren't you? How about doing a solo number this year?" At Lingmei, Tracy was the only one who dared put Luan Nian on the spot like that, and sure enough his brow furrowed. But she didn't give him a chance to object before continuing. "This is your first year running the whole show, luke. Introducing yourself properly to everyone matters."
Luan Nian had no interest in performing. He'd rented a rehearsal space with some friends and occasionally went to sing, but that was just to blow off steam.
"Then it's settled," Tracy said, deciding for him, and shot him a wink. "So everyone, please think about what you'll be performing and what you'll need from us. HR and marketing will be setting up a project team for the anniversary shortly and reaching out to each of you individually."
Once everyone had cleared out, Tracy said to Luan Nian, "The reason I brought up you performing is that this is your first year, and people still feel a distance from you. That kind of distance isn't good for your work here. I hope you understand."
"How considerate of you," Luan Nian said dryly. "Fine, I'll sort something out."
"What will you perform?"
"A striptease."
"I'll let the female staff know they have something to look forward to, then." Tracy laughed and walked out.
Luan Nian picked up his phone and saw a message from Zhitao sent three minutes earlier: "luke... I... I didn't say anything I shouldn't have yesterday, did I..." Clearly, his silence and unanswered calls had rattled her. Let her be rattled. Not his problem. He set the phone down again and went back to work.
Every second of his silence was agony for the naturally anxious Zhitao. She tossed and turned in bed, thoughts racing. Did I hold up work somehow? Did I tell him off, like who does he think he is, telling me to quit? Did I fall asleep in the middle of talking?
Forget it, one more try. She dialed him again, hands trembling, and to her surprise he actually picked up. "What is it?"
"I..."
"You what?"
"I had a few drinks yesterday... I woke up today and saw you'd called..."
"Right, I needed the shooting project budget sheet yesterday and it wasn't ready."
"Oh, oh, oh, I'll send it right over."
"No need. Alex already gave it to me."
"So I... didn't say anything else, did I..."
"Such as?"
"I don't know..."
Luan Nian couldn't be bothered talking to her anymore and hung up without another word. Zhitao stared at her phone, utterly baffled. All thought of vacation gone, she canceled the rest of her leave that same day and rushed into the office the following morning, stepping into the elevator only to find Luan Nian already there, coffee in hand.
"Morning, luke." Zhitao tucked herself carefully into a corner, sneaking glances at him. Why was his expression so blank? Was he... turning to look at her? Before she could avert her eyes, her nervous gaze met his.
Luan Nian's brow lifted slightly, his eyes drifting down for a moment to land on her chest, then he shrugged. That look made no sense to her at all, and her whole face flushed red. What was that about?
Not bad, Luan Nian thought to himself. About what she'd bragged about, then. What exactly had she said that day, again?
"I told you, I've got a great body, you won't be at a loss."
Luan Nian had never met anyone quite so shameless about offering herself up before. If she hadn't been drunk out of her mind, he would have fired her on the spot that same day. All that nonsense pouring out of her mouth, one sip of cat piss and she couldn't even remember her own name. You think I'd be interested if you stripped naked in front of me? Everyone wants a spot in my bed, apparently.
The elevator doors opened, and Luan Nian strode out with his long legs, Zhitao trailing behind him like a wilted eggplant. She dropped listlessly into her seat and knocked herself on the head. "Come on, think, remember what happened!" She looked up at Luan Nian, who had already turned on his computer and gotten to work.
Her ending her leave early sent the marketing department into celebration. There was so much work backed up that her arrival felt like the sun coming out. After a quick discussion, the team handed her the coordination work for the anniversary celebration.
Lumi rolled her chair over next to Zhitao's and sat down. "Why'd you cut your vacation short? You could've had a nice long weekend."
"My roommates were all gone. Wasn't much fun on my own."
"Oh... you should stop drinking from now on," lumi said, a little smug. "You can't even hold your liquor and you're out there showing off."
"No more drinking, no more drinking." God knows what could happen if she kept it up. Zhitao hesitated, then asked quietly, "That night you took me home... I didn't say anything... weird, did I?"
"Does saying you're good in bed count as weird?" Lumi lowered her voice. "Shang Zhitao, I never would have guessed. You're always so proper, and then you get a few drinks in you and turn into a whole different person."
"That can't be right..."
"Tell you what, next time you drink, give me a heads up, I'll bring a camera." Lumi shook her head and rolled back to her own desk, leaving Zhitao pale and mortified behind her.
A moment later lumi remembered she still had something to say and rolled her chair back over. "That anniversary project is actually a good opportunity. It's a lot of small stuff and won't count much toward your KPIs, but it's a chance to get to know the department heads. This year they're all doing a joint performance, and luke's doing a solo number too."
"Luke? A solo number?" What could luke possibly perform, a corpse impression? Zhitao thought to herself.
"No idea. He's turned down performing every year before this. Apparently Tracy pushed him into it this time."
"Oh, I see. So what should I do?"
"Tracy's going to set up a project group on the internal network in a bit. I can't take you on for this one, but if you need anything you can go straight to Tracy."
"Got it. Thanks, lumi."
"No problem."
Once the work talk was over, lumi's expression shifted, and she leaned in to whisper to Zhitao. "Did you see it?"
"See what?"
"Ohh, it's a real show." Lumi pulled her laptop over and draped an arm across Zhitao's shoulders. "Shh."
Zhitao looked down at the screen. God, this really was something. The email read, in plain text, that Lingmei's newly appointed CEO had openly toyed with a woman's feelings, driving his ex-girlfriend to suicide. Zhitao's eyes went wide, and her first thought was, "Why didn't I get this?"
"Whoever sent it probably grabbed the employee email list from somewhere and only mass-sent it to some of us," lumi said, closing her laptop and pursing her lips. "There's a mole in this company, that's for sure." Company culture in full swing, apparently. Luan Nian had barely been appointed and already someone was reporting misconduct straight to the company inbox. How else would anyone get a hold of the whole staff directory without inside help?
"Do you believe it?" lumi asked her.
Zhitao nodded without hesitation. Of course I believe it! She wanted so badly to tell lumi, I've overheard luke break up with someone on the phone! I've heard him ask a woman to a concert! I saw a woman go into his hotel room in Guangzhou! But in the end she said nothing, just shook her head. "I don't really know him that well..."
"Doesn't matter anyway, it's not our business. If it gets to Tracy she'll open an internal investigation. This company doesn't go easy on that kind of thing." Lumi tapped Zhitao's arm and tipped her chin toward Luan Nian's office. "Look, there she goes."
Zhitao looked up and saw Tracy walking into Luan Nian's office.
"What is it?" Luan Nian asked, looking up.
Tracy set a printed copy of the email down in front of him. "Take a look. Didn't expect this much excitement first thing on a workday."
Luke saw the email, sent under Zhang Xin's real name, complete with photos that were, admittedly, quite something, a man and woman caught in a rather intimate moment. Luan Nian shrugged. "Not really my type of thing."
"I don't care whether it's your thing or not. This is out there now, and it needs to be dealt with today. Give me a solution." Tracy really did have a headache brewing. If this wasn't handled, Luan Nian risked getting shown the door entirely.
Luan Nian tossed the printout into the trash. "Did anyone besides you get it?"
"I had IT check. Thirty percent of the staff received it."
"So how did she get her hands on the employee list? That sounds like a mistake on your end." He leaned back in his chair, watching Tracy. "You're not selling employee information on the side, are you?"
"We're talking about your problem here, don't try to pin this on me. Anyone could have leaked that information."
"Then shouldn't someone be looking into it?"
"Right now we're talking about your problem. Can you fix it or not?"
"Sure I can." Luan Nian smiled. "Get another woman to come forward and send a follow up email saying this one's fake. That my body's not actually that bad."
Tracy laughed despite herself, out of pure exasperation. "If you're not going to take this seriously, I'll have internal audit and legal look into it instead."
"Fine by me." Luan Nian nodded. "Go ahead and investigate, quickly. And if this counts as damage to my reputation, tell the company to sue whoever needs suing."
"Alright." Tracy sighed and left.
Luan Nian watched her go, and when he turned back he caught an employee passing his office giving him a meaningful look. He didn't much care, and got ready to return to work. But then there was Zhitao, of all people. She'd sent him a message: "luke, I believe you."
Zhitao's thinking was straightforward, managing up meant standing behind your boss when he was in trouble, even if she suspected every word in that email was true. Though, honestly, the photo had been a bit of a letdown. Luke always looked so good in his clothes, but apparently it didn't amount to much once they came off.
Luan Nian caught the full measure of her hollow sympathy for exactly what it was, an ungrateful stray you feed and feed and it still bites the hand. He shot a cold glance toward her desk and went back to his work.
Zhitao assumed her bit of managing up was done and turned her attention back to her actual job. Alex had asked her to finish collecting each department head's performance plans by the end of the day. Everyone else was cooperative, six department heads, two performance numbers, done in under five minutes. That left only Luan Nian.
So she messaged him again. "luke, I know you're probably not in a great mood right now, but I'm always in your corner. So, about the anniversary celebration, we need to confirm what you'll be performing today. Could you give me a rough idea?"
"Shang Zhitao."
"Yes boss, I'm here, what can I do for you?"
"Pack your things and get out."
By now Zhitao knew Luan Nian well enough that the line didn't rattle her the way it once might have. He'd threatened to fire her more times than she could count, and never once actually done it. He'd forget all about it soon enough.
Besides, he was in a bad mood today, it made sense he'd take it out on her, and she was perfectly willing to accept that.
"So what are you performing?" she pressed on, fearless as ever.
Damn it. Luan Nian swore internally. What was wrong with this woman? Why was she so infuriating? He was usually the one driving other people up the wall, and now here he was, half driven mad by this one clueless girl.
Setting his jaw and staying silent was rare for him, strange even. He hadn't so much as blinked at Zhang Xin's crude, half-coherent email, and yet a couple of idle lines from Zhitao had actually gotten under his skin.
He didn't reply to her message for the rest of the day. Alex checked in three times before Zhitao finally couldn't stand it anymore and decided to go find him herself. She asked his secretary at the door, "Is luke free right now?"
The secretary called through to him, then said to Zhitao, a little awkwardly, "Luke says anyone but you can come in." The call hadn't even ended before Luan Nian added to the secretary, "Tell her exactly what I said, word for word." That took a special kind of dislike for someone, the secretary thought, almost feeling sorry for her.
"Oh, okay, thank you." Zhitao went back to her desk and waited it out. It was past midnight by the time Luan Nian left his office, and the floor was empty. She saw him heading out and grabbed her bag to follow. "luke, heading home?"
"Don't you have anything better to do all day?" Luan Nian said without turning around, his pace not slowing in the slightest.
Zhitao jogged to keep up, laughing a little as she caught her breath. "That's not it, I've got plenty of work, but Tracy and alex asked about your performance a few times today."
They got into the elevator together, and Zhitao, a little out of breath from chasing him down.
"Luke, you..."
"Shang Zhitao." Luan Nian cut her off. "You want to know what you said to me the other night?"
"Uh..."
"You said you wanted to sleep with me. You said you're not much to look at, but you've got a great body, and your ex told you that you're a hidden gem. You suggested I give it a try, sleeping with you."
The elevator opened, and Luan Nian stepped out, then turned back after a couple of steps, stuck a hand out to stop the closing doors, and looked at Zhitao, her face gone as red as a ripe peach. "Not getting off?"
Zhitao wished the ground would open up and swallow her whole. That night, drinking, Yao Bei had kept telling her never to hold back when you wanted someone, everyone's an adult, as long as it doesn't cross any real lines it doesn't matter, enjoy it while you're young. Every time she said it, Zhitao's mind had gone straight to Luan Nian.
Luan Nian, in an excellent mood now, found the whole thing far too easy. Teaching this fool a lesson had barely taken any effort at all. She'd made her own bed, and she had plenty to regret. He watched her flee the elevator, face burning, and couldn't hold back a low laugh under his breath.
They parted ways, him heading off to get his car. Zhitao, predictably, couldn't hail a cab. He hit the brakes right in front of her. "Get in."
"No, no, that's alright." Zhitao waved him off in a hurry. Luan Nian didn't argue and drove off. Get in or don't, not his problem. In the rearview mirror he watched her figure grow smaller, the autumn wind picking up around her, making her look a little pitiful, and he turned the car around and drove back. "Are you getting in or not?"
"Yes!" She was underdressed. The last thing she needed was to catch a cold.
Sitting in Luan Nian's car, Zhitao felt a little short of breath and wanted to explain herself. "luke, so, the thing is... I had too much to drink that night... I might have said some nonsense, please don't take it seriously."
"So I'm your fantasy, then?" Luan Nian turned to look at her. "Is it me you think about when you touch yourself?" He'd spent enough years abroad that a topic like this didn't strike him as anything he couldn't say out loud. Besides, this little fool looked so proper and well behaved on the surface, and underneath it all was apparently a mind full of filth. He found it a little funny.
"I..."
"You what? Want to come home with me?" Luan Nian kept needling her. "I've been single a while myself, as it happens. We could keep it casual, no strings. What do you say?"
"No, no, that's not necessary." Zhitao waved her hands. "No need to trouble your treasured self."
"I'm just helping you get what you want. A thank you would do."
"This is you harassing your subordinate, and it's not okay."
"Is that right?"
Luan Nian pulled out his phone and hit play on a voice recording. Zhitao heard her own slurred voice come through the speaker: "I really wanted to sleep with you once..." She lunged for the phone and hit pause, then shoved it back at him.
"So who's harassing who, exactly?"
"Me, it's me, I'm harassing you, I'm sorry." Zhitao threw her hands up in surrender. "I admit I was a little worked up that night, but I don't think anything like that when I'm sober. Please believe me."
"People only tell the truth when they're drunk."
"That's not true, that's really not true." Zhitao waved her hands again. "Luke, could you pull over up ahead somewhere? I'm meeting someone around here..."
Luan Nian spotted the subway station up ahead and pulled over. He watched Zhitao make her escape and burst out laughing.