Shang Zhitao sat among more than twenty other new hires at the campus recruitment signing. A thick stack of contracts sat in front of everyone. While her colleagues read through theirs carefully, she flipped straight to the last page and signed. Her movements were so quick they looked almost thoughtless.
What was there to look at? She was just glad to be here at all. Shang Zhitao felt genuinely grateful to Ling Mei. It still amazed her that one of the world's top advertising agencies had given her this chance.
Liang Xin watched her set down her pen after signing and thought to herself how eager this girl was to commit to the company. Shang Zhitao said nothing more, just sat there tapping at her laptop, while Liang Xin patiently fielded everyone else's questions about the contract. It took an hour before she finally finished.
Ling Mei ran a rotation program for its interns, with each placement lasting three months. If an intern confirmed they wanted to stay in a particular department during a given rotation, that rotation would end early. Shang Zhitao's first stop was the marketing department.
The woman sent to collect her was named Lumi, long legged and narrow waisted, with a presence that drew the eye. Shang Zhitao trailed behind her, catching the scent of her perfume.
"Where do you live?" Lumi asked, glancing over Shang Zhitao's pale legs. How was anyone this white?
"North Fifth Ring Road."
"Wow, that's far."
The marketing department occupied the fifteenth floor, next to the planning department. Lumi led Shang Zhitao in to report to Zhang Ling. When the door opened, Shang Zhitao saw the man whose flat, uninterested tone she remembered from that morning, sitting on the sofa. He gave her a brief look, then lowered his head again.
"Alex, Shang Zhitao's here."
Zhang Ling rose from her desk and extended a hand. "Welcome, Shang Zhitao." The warmth of the greeting caught Shang Zhitao off guard. Lumi laughed. "Not used to it yet, huh? Our boss Alex is just like that, always this enthusiastic."
"Hello."
"Don't mind the names. It's company culture, we all go by our English names here." Zhang Ling gestured toward Luan Nian. "This is Luke, head of the planning department."
"Nice to meet you, Luke." Shang Zhitao turned to him and smiled.
Luan Nian glanced at her again and asked Zhang Ling, without much interest, "The one Tracy signed off on?"
Zhang Ling nodded, then turned back to Shang Zhitao without elaborating and pointed to Lumi. "This is your mentor. Your work will be assigned through her. If anything comes up, you can go to her, or to me. We're having a welcome dinner for the department this afternoon so you can meet everyone."
"Thank you, Alex."
Luan Nian closed his laptop and stood up from the sofa. "That's all, then. Call me once the venue's confirmed."
He walked around the sofa, and Shang Zhitao stepped back quickly to let him pass. She couldn't explain it, but she was a little afraid of him. As he passed, his shadow fell over her for a moment, then was gone.
Lumi noticed her tense up and murmured, "Don't feel bad, I've been here two years and I'm still afraid of him. Come on, let's start your first day."
Lumi took her around the company, which looked nothing like what she'd pictured. The whole office had an artistic, almost gallery-like feel: a reading room, capsule rest pods, a gym, freshly ground coffee in the pantry, and its own staff cafeteria.
"Ling Mei's culture is very open, very flexible. As long as you get your work done, nobody cares if you're doing it lying in bed at home." Lumi paused and coughed lightly. "That's the mentor speech, anyway. In reality we work like dogs every single day. Getting off at seven or eight counts as early."
Shang Zhitao smiled at that, a small, catlike smile. Lumi clicked her tongue. "Let's see if you're still smiling in two days."
Once they'd finished the tour and were heading back toward the office area, Lumi pointed to a row of glass-walled offices. "All the department heads sit over there. Steer clear of the one at the far end, that's Luke's office. Creative types have strange tempers."
"Creative?" Shang Zhitao finally got a word in.
"Come on, we're one of the top ad agencies in the world, of course we need creative people. Those campaigns you've seen from us in China the past few years, his team made all of them."
"Oh."
Lumi brought her to her workstation, a large desk with no one else around. Lumi explained the team had a press conference coming up in a few days, so everyone was out at the venue. Shang Zhitao's office equipment had already arrived, a desktop and a laptop for when she needed to work remotely. She had to give up her seat for a moment while IT finished setting it up. While she waited, she looked out across the office and spotted Luan Nian's office. He stood at the window, on the phone, his posture straight, his polo shirt crisp against his frame. Even from behind, he looked composed.
His back looked far calmer than his face ever did.
As if he'd sensed someone watching, Luan Nian turned suddenly and caught her eye through the glass before she had a chance to look away.
Shang Zhitao's face went red, and she couldn't say why.
She dropped her gaze quickly, hoping it hadn't looked like she'd been staring, and asked IT, a little too fast, "Is my computer ready yet?"
"All set. Go ahead and try it."
She sat down quickly and hunched over the desk. She hadn't meant to stare. It was her first day, and everything was new and worth looking at. She'd only lingered on him for a few seconds. She wasn't even sure that counted as rude. She sank lower in her chair, logged in to fill out her onboarding information, worked through the company's network security briefing, and had two mandatory online courses left to finish that day.
Luan Nian was used to women looking at him and hadn't thought much of it at first. It was the way she'd reacted afterward, so obviously flustered, that made it feel like she'd been caught staring at him in a way she shouldn't have been.
"What?" the person on the other end of the call asked.
"Nothing." Luan Nian collected himself. "Has the venue for the department orientation been settled? Send me the address."
"Sure."
Luan Nian rarely attended department dinners, but the orientation dinner wasn't optional. It was one of the company's requirements, not his own choice. Tracy called it corporate culture, and said managers were expected to respect it.
Once he'd finished up, he grabbed his car keys and left the office. Outside, he saw the new campus hire trailing behind Lumi.
"Hi, Luke."
"Hi." Luan Nian nodded and glanced past Lumi to Shang Zhitao.
Shang Zhitao flushed again, remembering the awkward moment from earlier.
Young interns fresh out of school, blushing at nothing. Luan Nian felt a flicker of disappointment in the company. At this rate, might as well start hiring people off the street in bulk. He thought it and let it go, then walked with them to the elevator and stepped in.
In the spacious elevator, the glass walls reflected all three of them clearly. Lumi decided to cut through the silence, partly to look good in front of her new mentee. "Where are you headed?" She was a Beijing girl through and through, her tone as sharp and unfiltered as a street vendor's, and she couldn't resist getting a little playful. Shang Zhitao pressed her lips together to keep from laughing.
"Qing Banquet."
"No way, we're headed there too." Lumi grinned at Luan Nian's reflection in the mirror. Luan Nian, who had no patience for this kind of tedious socializing, accepted it without comment. Lumi's expression fell the moment he looked away, and she shot him a quick glare behind his back.
Once they were out of the elevator and had gone to find their cars, Lumi turned to Shang Zhitao. "See what I mean? Everyone's scared of him."
"I noticed." Shang Zhitao held up her hand to show Lumi. "He gave me a cold sweat. I remembered I'd actually met him before, he was one of my interviewers in the third round, and he didn't say a single word the whole time."
"Jesus. What's his deal?"
Shang Zhitao shook her head. "No idea." As they talked, a car pulled away sharply beside them, a blur of motion as it passed. Lumi shrugged. "He might look like he's carved out of stone, but honestly, he's a genuinely decent person underneath it."
Shang Zhitao finally couldn't hold back her laughter.