The first day of work had gone almost smoothly, except for Luan Nian telling her she should change jobs. But who was Shang Zhitao? She had built a strong, positive mindset since she was a child. Her gloom faded fast, and she simply filed Luan Nian away under "difficult," "strange," and "a little annoying." Hmph, she thought. I'm not quitting.
It was nearly midnight by the time Shang Zhitao got home, and the complex was dark. Behind her came the clatter of suitcase wheels rolling over the pavement, a sound that trailed her the whole way, like something out of a horror movie.
She hurried into the dark stairwell, climbed the stairs in one burst of nervous energy, ran into her room, and locked the door. She had barely gotten her dress off and her pajamas on when she heard a soft click at the door, which made her jump. Then came the faint roll of suitcase wheels somewhere inside the apartment, and after that, nothing.
It was one of her roommates. One she had never actually met.
Shang Zhitao waited a while to make sure he wasn't going to shower, then pulled on an oversized T-shirt and slipped into the bathroom. She surprised herself with how fast she washed up. She was already lying in bed when she heard the bedroom door open and someone go into the bathroom.
The next morning she opened her eyes, picked up her wash basin, and pushed open her door. The door across the hall was open too. A tall, thin young man stood there. She wasn't wearing her contacts and couldn't make out his face clearly, but she smiled at him anyway, politely.
"You go ahead and use the bathroom. I'll go make breakfast," the young man said quietly. He turned and headed for the kitchen, leaving the bathroom to her without waiting to be thanked.
When Shang Zhitao finished getting ready and picked up her bag to leave, she ran into him again. This time she finally got a good look at him. He had the bookish look of someone who read a lot, and he seemed far gentler than Luan Nian.
Luan Nian? Shang Zhitao startled herself. Why was she thinking about the Plague God first thing in the morning?
"Off to work?" the young man asked, smiling, and spoke to her first.
"Yes. You're up early too?"
"Yeah. I like to get to the office a little early." Shang Zhitao noticed the company logo printed on his backpack. Wow, that's a good company. He caught her looking and smiled, a little shy. "It's not that great, honestly. We work overtime a lot and travel a lot for work, it's pretty rough. What about you? Where do you work?"
"Lingmei."
"Lingmei... a lot of our company's ads are made by Lingmei."
Shang Zhitao felt a little shy herself. "That one wasn't me though." That one had been Luan Nian's work, the Plague God's.
She looked so sincere and honest that the young man found himself glancing at her again. A silence fell between them, sudden and easy. They walked together to the bus stop and waited in the early morning drizzle.
"I'm Sun Yuanzhu. What's your name?"
"Lofty ambitions and eyes on the horizon, is that what your name means?" Shang Zhitao asked him, smiling.
"You actually knew that?"
"My dad made me memorize it. I'm Shang Zhitao."
She finished speaking, hopped onto the bus, and once she'd found a window seat, waved goodbye to Sun Yuanzhu.
When Shang Zhitao was young, her father, Lao Shang, had poured a lot of effort into raising a literary prodigy, making her memorize poems and reading to her every day. She could recite poems and books by heart, but in the end she turned out to be exactly the kind of hopeless case no amount of propping up could save. "No talent for it..." Lao Shang would sigh quietly to Dazhai.
It was another rickety bus ride, and she pulled out a book to read. Young people have all that energy, she thought. Even running on five hours of sleep, they can still look fresh in the morning. She had brought along a thin Business English book. At the contract signing the day before, she had heard people from her cohort mixing English into their conversation, and it had taken her a while to even remember what some of the words meant. She had suddenly felt how far behind she was, so she went home and dug out her old textbook.
Some things really were strange. In school she had lived in a different world, comfortably in the middle of the pack, never once feeling any real sense of crisis. After just one day of work, that sense of crisis had shown up at her door. Shang Zhitao couldn't quite explain it, but it was probably Luan Nian's words, "I'd advise you to change jobs," that had hit a nerve.
She got a remarkable amount done on that bus ride. She reviewed more than thirty words and read through an English poem, and the bus pulled up to her stop just as she finished. The long ride hadn't been boring at all. It had actually been worth something.
She stuffed the book into her backpack and hopped off the bus. Her apricot-colored dress fluttered with her stride, giving her a sudden burst of youthful energy. She hurried toward the office like a shooting star and slipped nimbly into the elevator just as the doors were closing.
When she looked over, Luan Nian didn't seem surprised to see her. The slow bird has to fly early, she reminded herself. If she was going to be slow and still not put in the effort, she really wouldn't make it through her probation. Luan Nian gave her a smirk that didn't reach his eyes. "HR isn't in yet."
"Huh?" His words cut off the question she had been about to ask, and her eyes filled with confusion.
"You don't need to hand in your resignation letter quite that early," Luan Nian added, guessing she hadn't understood. The elevator doors chimed open, and he walked past her toward the office, all long legs. There was a smile on his lips, though it was hard to say whether it was a joke or a jab, and either way it left her feeling weighed down.
Damn it. Shang Zhitao silently mimicked the tone and the curses from Taiwanese films in her head. Whatever burst of energy she had woken up with had drained right out of her, thanks to Luan Nian's two words, and she suddenly felt a little low. She trailed after him without a word, then turned off silently toward her own desk. Was she really going to get talked into quitting by someone senior two days running?
The workstation area was quiet when she looked around. She had gotten there before eight, and at that hour most of the company was still fast asleep. She dug out the material for the next day's session and found it was an industry primer, explaining various trade terms.
The terms were obscure and hard to follow, and Shang Zhitao had to look things up as she read just to make sense of them. She was about halfway through the manual when her colleagues started trickling in. Kitty, from the same intake as her, looked a little surprised to see her there. "You're here so early!"
"I was a little lost on today's material, so I came in early," Shang Zhitao said, holding up the packet.
"Is that the industry primer?" Kitty asked.
"Yeah."
The moment she said it, she caught the odd look on Kitty's face and realized this stuff must already be old news to everyone else. Still, she was open about it. Not knowing something wasn't anything to be ashamed of, she told herself, even as her face went a little red.
Kitty's sense of superiority only grew. The workplace was never simple. Plenty of people can sense a company's internal pecking order clearly by their very first day, and it didn't take long to figure out that the planning department's recruitment track had a far brighter future ahead of it. The marketing department controlled the budget, sure, but that was only a handful of people. Most people still had to go out into the field to actually execute the work. In mentor Kitty's own words: the bottom of the food chain.
Shang Zhitao had no idea Kitty looked down on her. She was too focused on the manual, trying to absorb it all as fast as she could. She did not even notice when Lumi walked up.
Lumi set a cup of coffee down on her desk and said with a wide grin, "Drink up."
Shang Zhitao jumped, startled, and shot to her feet. Lumi pushed her back down into her chair. "You're the first one to drink your mentor's coffee on the second day of the job!" The Beijing girl had a loud voice and never ran out of things to say. The line landed well, and everyone nearby who had been messing with her stood up too, watching them with grins on their faces.
Lumi wasn't exactly being fair about it either, and she said as much to Shang Zhitao. "There you go, keep it up. Change the whole culture around here. I'd love to try my apprentice's coffee sometime too, but honestly, just knowing we're not that petty about it makes me happy." Lumi was teasing her, but she wasn't actually that particular about it. Other mentors drank their apprentices' coffee and complained behind their backs about how dense they were. Lumi couldn't bring herself to do that. She genuinely liked her clueless apprentice. The girl was silly enough that just looking at her put you in a good mood.
Shang Zhitao laughed it off. "Thanks, Lumi." But she had taken the lesson to heart. When it came to company culture, you respected your mentor. It was like becoming someone's student in the old days: you burned incense, offered tea, kowtowed. Once a teacher, always a father figure. That was probably the rule here too.