Is it that when a woman falls in love with a man, she falls into endless fantasy? At least that was true for Shang Zhitao. In her fantasies, Luan Nian liked her, just a little. Even if that fondness left no trace, she preferred to believe it anyway.
Her work didn't end particularly late that Friday, but she lingered at her desk, unwilling to leave. Maybe, like before, if she went out late enough, Luan Nian would take pity on her and give her a ride. In her mind she rehearsed countless versions of what she would say once she got into his car, or maybe she wouldn't say anything at all. They had enough understanding between them that Luan Nian would just take her home.
But Luan Nian left. He walked out of the office without so much as a glance in her direction. Something clawed at Shang Zhitao's heart, a faint itch of pain she could bear, but the feeling was never a pleasant one.
She sat a while longer before finally shouldering her bag and heading out, catching the last bus. On the way, her bus passed through an intersection and stopped right beside Luan Nian's car. She saw him laughing on the phone, talking to someone. Shang Zhitao put on her earphones and turned her head away. She thought falling for a man she couldn't hold onto was truly painful. She didn't have the foresight to see beyond the moment; all she could see was herself, right now, suffering because of one person's coming and going.
That difficult night stripped away her ability to think clearly. The night bus wound through the city, and that rootless, adrift feeling crushed the twenty-two-year-old Shang Zhitao, stirring up her rebellious streak.
She announced she'd treat her roommates to dinner over the weekend. When she got home, everyone happened to be there, so she came out with a little notebook to take orders. "What does everyone want to eat?"
"Beef! Beef!" said Sun Yu.
"Pork belly!" said Zhang Lei.
"Chicken wings!" Zhang Lei added.
"Live shrimp!" Sun Yu chimed in right after.
Everyone called out dishes, one after another, all meat. Sun Yuanzhu sat off to the side, worrying about Shang Zhitao's wallet on her behalf. He added onions and lettuce leaves as a token gesture, then offered, "I'll go with you tomorrow."
"Huh?"
"In case you can't carry it all."
Sun Yu watched them and gave a little laugh. "Let's all go. It'll be lively."
Shang Zhitao had always been someone who didn't dwell on things; whatever happened to her, it passed quickly. The night before she'd been miserable over her uncertain feelings for Luan Nian, but the next morning she woke up as if nothing had happened. The four of them went to the farmers' market together, laughing and chatting. A few times Sun Yuanzhu tried to pay, and Shang Zhitao knocked his hand away. "No! I'll get mad."
"Then I'll treat you next time," Sun Yuanzhu said sincerely. He thought a girl like Shang Zhitao had it hard, coming to this city alone with so few cards in her hand, walking on thin ice every day.
"Sure." Shang Zhitao smiled at him. "I'll treat you and Long Zhentian to roast duck sometime. Every time after class Long Zhentian treats me to dinner. My tuition barely covers his meals."
"He just likes making friends, you don't need to feel like you owe him. When he's overcharging someone else, he's ruthless about it."
"That's a lot of friend-making." Shang Zhitao laughed.
"How's your studying coming along?" Sun Yuanzhu walked beside her and took the bags from her hands, leaving her only a small one to carry as a gesture. Shang Zhitao gave him a grateful look. "Long Zhentian says I'm making great progress. He says at this rate, I'll be able to go out on my own in another year."
"You're really something." Sun Yuanzhu praised her, as if he'd never met a capable girl before. He was surrounded by people who were good at their studies, people who'd graduated from top schools at home and abroad, people who, when they got together, talked about nothing less than the stars and the sea.
Shang Zhitao felt a little embarrassed.
The two of them walked and talked, Sun Yuanzhu on the outer side of the path, letting Shang Zhitao walk closer to the buildings. When they crossed an intersection, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back, keeping her from being clipped by a car.
Zhang Lei saw it from behind and asked Sun Yu, "Does Shang Zhitao have a boyfriend?"
Sun Yu almost said yes, but then thought about it. That boss of hers was probably a bastard, the kind who'd pull his pants up and pretend he didn't know her. Sun Yuanzhu was far better than a man like that, so she shook her head. "No."
"Well, that works out. They could make a pair, they'd suit each other."
"They really would," Sun Yu agreed.
Young people together find it easy to be happy. Everyone washed vegetables and chatted, filling the place with noise. Zhang Lei and Sun Yu were the type who couldn't sit still for a second, so much so that Shang Zhitao's phone rang for a long time before anyone noticed. It was Sun Yuanzhu who went to get drinks and saw the phone lighting up. He called out, "Your phone's ringing."
"Can you answer it for me?" Shang Zhitao was washing vegetables, her hands too wet to free up.
"Sure."
Sun Yuanzhu picked up the phone and said gently, "Hello?" He was the sort of person who sounded warm even saying just that one word.
Luan Nian paused, pulled the phone away from his ear to check the screen. He hadn't dialed wrong. "I'm looking for Shang Zhitao."
"All right. Please hold on a moment," Sun Yuanzhu said quietly. Just then Zhang Lei told a joke and everyone burst out laughing. Sun Yuanzhu walked over to Shang Zhitao. "Sounds like something's up, do you want to take it?"
"Can you help me with it?" Shang Zhitao turned her face away. "My hands are wet."
"Sure." Sun Yuanzhu held the phone up to Shang Zhitao's ear. Her voice still carried a trace of laughter. "Who is this?"
"It's me," Luan Nian said, then, without giving her time to respond, "The supplier reported on all the project timelines today. Take a look at the brief you submitted."
"Okay."
Luan Nian hung up first. Shang Zhitao wiped her hands and took the phone, seeing a message from him: "If you can't even get a basic brief right, what do we need you for?"
Shang Zhitao rushed back to her room, opened her laptop, and looked at the email she'd sent. She'd gotten it wrong, the data channel and the data model were both mistaken. The supplier had already started pulling back the data.
She'd never made a mistake this big before. For a moment she didn't know what to do.
Luan Nian, still furious, sent her another message: "This counts as a level one incident. I've already told Tracy and Alex. No promotion or raise for a year, and your bonus this quarter is cut in half. Come up with a fix now."
Shang Zhitao sat in front of her computer and suddenly started crying.
She felt terribly wronged. That day she'd been distracted because of Luan Nian, and it had led to a critical mistake. She felt she'd been treated so unfairly that she began to regret ever starting things with him. If nothing had happened between them, she'd still be the same diligent, hardworking Shang Zhitao, and none of this would have happened.
Sun Yu knocked and came in, saw her crying, and asked, "What's wrong?"
"It's nothing." Shang Zhitao wiped away her tears. "I need to make a call." Things needed to be dealt with; she couldn't afford to freeze. She called Alex first and explained her mistake. Alex was understanding and comforted her. "Everyone makes mistakes. Don't take what Luke said to heart, he was just talking, he's not really going to withhold your raise."
"It's not about the raise." What hurt Shang Zhitao was his businesslike manner, the harshness in his tone that hadn't softened at all after the two nights they'd spent so intimately together, if anything it had gotten worse.
"Then there's nothing to worry about, is there? I've already spoken with the supplier, they won't be paid separately for this round, and we'll cut them out of future projects instead. Just send them the correct brief and it'll be fine."
"Thank you, Alex."
"Don't mention it. Just don't make a mistake like that again." Even Alex probably wouldn't tolerate a subordinate making mistakes forever, but this was Shang Zhitao's first offense and not a serious one. Luke was overreacting. Alex couldn't quite understand why Luan Nian was so angry about it. Maybe, as people at the company said, Luan Nian really couldn't stand having Shang Zhitao around.
Shang Zhitao quickly corrected the brief and sent it to the supplier.
Then she sat holding her phone for a long time, wondering whether to reply to Luan Nian. In the end she put the phone down. She didn't reply to him.
Shang Zhitao didn't want to reply.
Fine, no promotion. Fine, no raise. Fine, cut her bonus. When it came to work, she had nothing to lose in the first place.
She'd never had anything to begin with.
She couldn't tell whether she was fighting with her boss or with her sex partner. She just knew she didn't want to say a single word to Luan Nian. So she left her phone in her room and went out to eat. She wasn't going to let this ruin her entire weekend.
Good food and friends could rescue anyone from a bad mood.
Shang Zhitao ate with the others. Sun Yu talked about the matchmaking project she was working on, telling stories from the men and women who used the online dating platform. She mentioned one male user who used a photo of his bald head as his profile picture and opened every message to every girl the same way: "Hey, I have two apartments in Mudanyuan, want to grab a meal together?" She told the story with a playful edge, then asked Shang Zhitao, "If he messaged you, would you reply?"
"I... my mom told me to find someone tall who isn't bald," Shang Zhitao answered earnestly, and everyone burst out laughing again.
"Should I make a fake female account and chat with him?" Zhang Lei laughed. "I'm just curious what his apartments look like..."
Everyone dissolved into laughter. Then Sun Yu sighed. "Our problem is we don't have enough quality users. Can you all register accounts, help raise our user quality?"
"Sure, sure, sure." Shang Zhitao agreed right away, grabbing the laptop, and the group huddled together registering profiles on the site. The profile required uploading a photo, which posed a bit of a problem. Shang Zhitao asked Sun Yu, "Does it need to be a real photo?"
"Yeah."
"Doesn't your system use virtual users?" Zhang Lei suddenly asked Sun Yu. He worked in monetization and knew every trick in the book.
"We made a few... but..."
"Let me and Yuanzhu take a look sometime."
"Deal!" Sun Yu was thrilled. "My career depends on you three now. And naturally, I can handle your love lives in return."
"Let me check out your female members first." Zhang Lei's monetization instincts kicked in, and he started seriously studying the business model behind Sun Yu's project. He asked her, "Are you taking this offline?"
"Of course. But there's no time this year, we'll probably just do one event at Christmas and expand next year."
"That's good. When you do it offline, bring me along, let me meet some women."
"Me too. I'll help you play the shill. Think I'd be good at it?" Shang Zhitao raised her hand.
"You'd be perfect. You're exactly the kind of girl successful men like: early twenties, good job, decent looks. I'm putting you all front and center!" Sun Yu teased her.
"Isn't that basically a marriage scam?" Sun Yuanzhu suddenly said.
"Not really... you're all single, after all..."
The meal went on, lively and loud, for a long time, and Shang Zhitao left Luan Nian and his criticism far behind her.