She caught this year's red leaves just before autumn ended. They looked nothing like the ones back in Nanjing, carrying instead the sweeping grandeur of mountains and rivers. Whatever disappointment she'd been carrying simply dissolved.
Coming down from the mountain, the group leader suggested dinner at Guijie.
Guijie wasn't actually far from Shang Zhitao's office, though she'd never been. She signed up for the group dinner along with Sun Yu. Beijing was such an open city. None of them really knew each other, having only traded a few glances up on the mountain, but the moment they sat down at the same table, everyone turned instantly familiar.
Sun Yu loved a lively crowd and drank with the men. A whole table of strangers chatting about everything under the sun turned out to be a novel experience in itself.
Shang Zhitao only had eyes for the crawfish in front of her. Back when she was studying in Nanjing, crawfish had been her favorite, cheaper there, shipped in fresh from Xuyi, the meat still tender from the short trip. Sometimes she and her roommates would buy a batch at the market and bring it to a little restaurant nearby to have it cooked, never costing much but always hitting the spot. She hadn't eaten crawfish in a long time, and the first bite made her feel like her life these past few months had finally reconnected with her student days.
She ate quietly, listening to the chatter around her, and missed several calls on her phone without noticing. Only when she stepped away to the restroom did she see they were from Alex. Alex didn't usually call on weekends. He liked to say that when you worked, you worked hard, and when you lived, you lived well, and after hours he played harder than anyone. If he was calling her, it had to be something.
Shang Zhitao called him right back. "Sorry, Alex, I didn't hear it ring."
"It's fine. Are you free to work this weekend?" Alex asked.
"I'm still out. I might not get home until around eleven. Is that in time?"
"You won't need your laptop. Our company and a big client are doing a basketball match, and both sides need to bring cheerleading squads. The job landed on our department. Can you organize it?" Alex figured Shang Zhitao was young and fresh out of school, that something like a cheerleading squad wouldn't be much of a stretch for her, and that she'd handle it without trouble.
"Okay." Shang Zhitao had been on a cheerleading squad in college, dragged into it against her will. Not entirely unfamiliar territory, so she agreed.
Once she said yes, Alex sounded delighted. "This isn't really a KPI thing, not even really work, so it means a lot that you're willing. Flora, you're a lifesaver. I'll have Luke reach out to you right away, he's the captain of our basketball team."
"Who?"
"Luke. He's a great player, and this client is actually his connection..."
"Oh."
Shang Zhitao thought that if she didn't quit this job, she'd probably never escape the law of small worlds. She went back to the table and kept working on the crawfish. When Luan Nian's call came in, she'd just pulled off her gloves. She stood and stepped aside to answer.
Luan Nian heard the noise around her, men and women laughing over each other, and said nothing at first. Young women loved a lively night out. Spending the weekend with friends was only natural.
"It's too loud here, let me step outside." Shang Zhitao hurried out and asked, "Is it quieter now?"
"It's fine now. Tomorrow at three we're meeting Mita at the gym. Come along and take a look at the venue."
"Okay."
"I'll send you the address later."
"Okay."
"Keep it simple, three minutes is enough. Take the NBA cheerleaders as a reference."
That was a fairly high bar. NBA. Shang Zhitao resisted the urge to argue and said, "Okay," anyway.
She said okay several more times, never once bringing up the bag. She'd slept on it and made peace with it. Whatever anyone thought didn't matter. As long as she never carried it, it wasn't something that had bought her body or her pride. The bag had just been a way for both of them to save face that night. He gave it, she took it, and that was the end of it. Luan Nian could think whatever he wanted of her.
"Luke, just send me the address whenever, I'll be there on time tomorrow. If there's nothing else, I'll go ahead and hang up?"
"Sure. See you."
"Bye." This time Shang Zhitao skipped the usual workplace courtesy and hung up first, then hurried back to catch the tail end of the table's conversation. One of the men had been staring at Sun Yu the whole meal, and Sun Yu hadn't shied away, staring right back without embarrassment. When dinner wrapped up, the man walked over to her. "Can we swap numbers? We could all hang out again sometime."
"Sure."
Shang Zhitao stood off to the side watching them trade numbers, gave the man a polite smile, and left with Sun Yu.
"I think he likes you," Shang Zhitao said while they waited for a car.
"Please. At most he's interested, or maybe he just wants to sleep with me." Sun Yu shrugged. Ever since the breakup she seemed to have become a different person entirely. The girl who had fallen apart that night now talked about relationships like they were nothing at all.
Sun Yu had taken a real hit. She wasn't over it yet. Some nights she cried on her own, but the next day she carried on as if nothing had happened.
"They say the fastest way to get over heartbreak is to find someone new right away. I'm testing the theory," Sun Yu said, half mocking herself.
"Want me to introduce you to my boss?" Shang Zhitao joked. With her close friends, nothing was really off limits. "He's... decent."
"Decent, or especially good?" Sun Yu leaned in close, studying her face.
Shang Zhitao thought it over, then burst out laughing. "Especially good. Sleep with him and he'll even buy you a bag afterward. I had no idea what I was doing, so learn from me, pick out your bag in advance."
They both cracked up, laughing off what should have been an awkward subject entirely.
The next day Shang Zhitao went out with Sun Yu for grilled fish, went home to shower, then headed to the basketball gym early. She didn't like being late. Old Shang always told her not to pick up those messy social habits people talked about, that showing up a few minutes early was how you respected other people, and yourself along with them. On the bus, Shang Zhitao ran lines from a movie. Long Zhentian had assigned her homework before he left to go out and play, warning her he'd quiz her next time they met.
She ran lines for a while, then switched to music, and the ride passed quickly.
When she arrived, Luan Nian was already there, in the middle of a game. Shang Zhitao picked an unremarkable corner to sit in and kept going over her lines.
Luan Nian sank a shot, and as he turned he caught sight of her tucked into the corner. She always seemed to be like this. Sitting in the second row at meetings. Hiding at the back during toasts. Slipping away after sleeping with him and leaving a note instead of a word, never bringing it up again. Taking whatever loss came her way without ever chasing it down.
He certainly wasn't expecting her to bring him a bottle of water at halftime. It wasn't that she lacked the instinct for it. She just figured someone else would always do it, and she had no interest in competing for the chance.
She kept her head down, focused on nothing but her lines.
Luan Nian saw straight through the indifference she was putting on. He'd seen through her from the very beginning.
There was probably a certain kind of person in this world who never envied what others had, who simply accepted whatever broken things and broken circumstances came their way. Shang Zhitao was that kind of person. Luan Nian felt he'd gone about pursuing her in a way that was almost cruel. There were plenty of women out there who didn't take things seriously, who'd have been happy to play along. Why go after her? It wasn't as if he had any shortage of women. It was rare for him to feel he'd done something wrong. In Hong Kong, the hotel had sat right beside a shopping mall, and he never went shopping on business trips, but for once he'd broken that habit and gone in. The bag he bought hadn't come cheap. Even after the exchange rate, it ran over thirty thousand.
Luan Nian looked away and kept playing until Lingmei's people started trickling in, then came off the court. He was drenched in sweat, hair soaked through, and after wiping himself down with a towel he called out to the group. "Let's gather up."
Shang Zhitao pulled out her earbuds and stuffed her papers into her bag. As the only woman from the company there that day, she found herself completely boxed out by her male colleagues. All she could do was listen quietly while they discussed the venue and the game plan. Xin Zhaozhou used to play basketball too. Back then he'd pull her aside to explain the rules and insist she watch him play.
She listened for a bit, decided none of it really concerned her, and started to drift, until she heard Luan Nian call out. "Flora."
"Hm?"
Only then did the men remember she was standing behind them. They laughed and stepped aside to let her through.
"I've already spoken with Alex. He's recruiting cheerleaders from every department," Luan Nian told her.
"Okay, okay." Running the rehearsals was going to be a headache. Lingmei's women all had strong personalities, each one harder to manage than the last. Shang Zhitao half expected they'd end up fighting.
"But Alex says they're still short on people, so you're joining in too," Luan Nian added.
"Huh?" Shang Zhitao froze like a startled goose, her eyes practically shouting, me? You mean me?
Apollo from sales laughed. "Rough deal, Flora."
"But I can't dance."
"You'll manage." Luan Nian said it without any obvious reason, though she was flexible enough that an aerobics routine would be well within her.
Only Shang Zhitao caught the meaning buried underneath his words, and her face went red in an instant. Was Luan Nian teasing her? But his expression gave away nothing, perfectly composed, as if he'd said the most ordinary thing in the world.
"That's it for today, everyone's worked hard. Flora, stay a moment. The other side's cheerleaders want to coordinate a joint number, I'll call them shortly, and you should sit in on that too."
"Okay."
Everyone else scattered. Shang Zhitao stood there a little stiffly. Luan Nian glanced her way. "Give me a minute, I need to go change."
"Oh." Shang Zhitao caught a glimpse of his biceps and the shape of his chest through his shirt and quickly looked away, not wanting to see more than she should.
Luan Nian really did take his time changing, so long that Shang Zhitao half wondered if he was in there doing a full face of makeup like a woman. She waited until four thirty before he finally came out in casual clothes. People in creative fields really did have an eye for style. The outfit looked expensive on him, expensive enough that even the men still on the court glanced his way as he passed.
"Let's go. We'll call from the car, it's too loud here."
"Oh."
Another oh.
Luan Nian didn't say much more, and led her out to the parking lot. Once they were both in the car, he tried calling and got hung up on. "One second."
They sat there waiting, neither of them talking. In the meantime, Luan Nian took three calls, two from women, both brief before he hung up. The third was from his mother.
Shang Zhitao held her breath, not daring to make a sound, and listened to him talk with his mother with an inexplicable tightness in her chest. His mother sounded like a genuinely kind person, a doctor by the sound of it, and she told Luan Nian about a patient or two she'd treated. At one point she sounded a little sad, and Luan Nian comforted her. "You did everything you could." It was clearly a warm relationship between them.
Near the end of the call, his mother said, "Go meet the girl Auntie Liu introduced you to. It doesn't matter if anything comes of it, just be polite."
"Okay."
So Luke had to go on blind dates too, apparently. Right, he was twenty eight, that was about the age for it. By the time the call ended, Shang Zhitao had grown comfortable enough that she'd tipped her head slightly, clearly listening with interest. Luan Nian happened to notice her ear twitch and reached over without thinking to pinch it. The warmth of his fingertip against her already hot earlobe made her turn her head away, trying to escape the strange, charged feeling, but then she heard him ask, "Want to come home with me?"