The last time Shang Zhitao had cried in front of Luan Nian was years ago.
That day she had broken down, taken Luke, and left his place, walking for a long, long time in the snow. Luan Nian remembered that day. He had followed behind her, but never once stepped forward.
Afterward he regretted it countless times. Why hadn't he stepped up and held her while she cried?
Luan Nian walked over to her, sighed, and pulled her into his arms. Shang Zhitao pressed her forehead against his chest, though there was still space between them, and cried like that for a while. Her tears soaked through his shirt, wetting his chest. He wanted to hold her tightly, but he felt her resist, so he let go and simply let her rest her head there.
When she finished wiping her tears, she felt a little embarrassed. She thanked him, gently pushed him back, and stepped away.
"Are you here to see Luke?"
"Yes. I meant to come as soon as the restrictions lifted, but I got held up by a lot of things."
"All right. I'll bring him down. Wait a moment."
Shang Zhitao went upstairs and brought Luke down. He and Luan Nian hadn't seen each other in months, and Luke went wild with excitement, picking up his own leash in his mouth and handing it to Luan Nian, urging him to walk him around and around. Shang Zhitao said twice that it was time to go home, but Luke either sat down or twisted his neck back, refusing to budge.
"It's fine. I'll walk him a bit longer."
"No need. Come up and play with him instead."
"Is that all right?" Luan Nian asked her.
When had Luan Nian ever asked her if something was all right before? He used to do whatever he wanted, always willful. Shang Zhitao thought it over seriously. "It's fine. Come up."
Hearing this, Luke pulled Luan Nian forward, as if to say, hurry, let's go home.
The moment he got through the door he drank half a basin of water. All that time outside must have left him parched. When he finished, he let out a grunt and flopped down on the floor, watching Luan Nian and Shang Zhitao.
Shang Zhitao got Luan Nian a pair of slippers and pointed at the sofa. "Sit."
"Sure."
This was the first time Luan Nian had come to Shang Zhitao's home. It was decorated warmly, especially the wall of books in the living room, which felt especially cozy.
"Mind if I look around?" he asked her.
"Sure."
Shang Zhitao showed Luan Nian around her home. She had converted one of the bedrooms into a gym. The other two, the master and the guest room, were both simply furnished.
"Sit for a bit. I'll boil some water," Shang Zhitao told him, then went to put the kettle on.
Luan Nian stood in front of the bookshelf and pulled out a book at random. Tucked into the first page was a reading note, the handwriting strong and forceful, but not Shang Zhitao's.
Shang Zhitao's handwriting wasn't like that. Luan Nian quietly put the book back.
"Is warm water all right? There's nothing cold in the house, I haven't had time to buy any. Besides, we're not getting any younger, better not drink anything too cold."
...
Luan Nian instinctively wanted to say something back, but he remembered how Tan Mian and the others had warned him over and over before he came. Don't mess this up. He swallowed his words and took the water from Shang Zhitao.
"What was wrong with you earlier?"
"Nothing, really. I just mortgaged the property and got the money, and it left me feeling a little uneasy, I guess?"
"Why mortgage the property?"
"Because our company can barely hang on anymore. Fewer companies are running events this year, and we still need money for staff salaries and rent, plus there's several hundred thousand in outstanding payments we haven't collected."
"Mm." Luan Nian made a low sound and lowered his head to drink.
"What do you want to say? Go ahead."
"What I want to say is, what's wrong with you? You run a company and you don't have a backup plan? You're just running down one road with your eyes closed? Oh, so you want to do agency work, then why didn't you start earlier?" Luan Nian still couldn't hold it in. When he was serious, he could be frightening.
"I didn't have the startup capital."
"I do."
Luan Nian's I do made Shang Zhitao go quiet. She looked at him. She used to depend on him completely. Whatever happened, she would think, I need to go ask Luke, Luke will know what to do. But she had grown past that kind of dependence now, had built her own way of thinking, and didn't even like that kind of reliance anymore.
She took out her bank card and set it on the table. "I mortgaged the property, sold the car, and I still have some savings. I can start over."
"Luan Nian, I don't need your help. I know you mean well, and thank you, but this time I want to rely on myself. From now on, I want to rely on myself."
Shang Zhitao didn't like depending on others.
Since she had burned her boats, she'd already prepared herself for having nothing left, but she also wanted to see things through. After all, there were more than a dozen people waiting on her decisions.
"Then why were you crying just now?"
"I don't know. I cried because I wanted to. Do I need a reason to cry?"
Sensing the tension between them, Luke suddenly stood up, trotted between them, sat down facing Luan Nian, and stuck out his tongue.
"You don't need a reason to cry, but right now you need to think about what I'm going to do without any clothes."
"What do you mean? Aren't you wearing clothes right now?"
"I don't like going out in dirty clothes."
"I'll buy you some now."
Shang Zhitao stood up and headed out, and Luan Nian followed her through the door.
"Didn't you say you don't like going out in dirty clothes?"
"You don't need to try clothes on? Do you even know my size?"
"Can't you just buy whatever?"
"I never do things carelessly."
Shang Zhitao no longer had a car, and Luan Nian hadn't driven over, so the two of them stood on the roadside after stepping outside. Luan Nian, hands in his pockets, watched Shang Zhitao hail a cab, a bead of sweat still on the tip of her nose. He suddenly remembered the first time they'd gone on a business trip to Guangzhou, the moment over dinner when his eyes had swept across her face and he'd lost himself for an instant.
"How does it feel to have nothing?" Luan Nian asked her.
Shang Zhitao looked up at him. "Pretty awful, but pretty exhilarating too. In the end, I suppose I'm a gambler myself." She laughed to herself after saying it, still that same lively girl.
Then I wish you success.
It seemed they had never gone shopping together before.
Once inside the mall, Shang Zhitao wanted to head straight for the men's clothing store, but Luan Nian turned into a coffee shop instead. He ordered an iced Americano, a bottle of soda water, and a slice of cake, then found a seat by the window.
He slid the soda water over to Shang Zhitao, and the two of them sat facing each other.
The weather in the Ice City as summer approached was pleasant. For once they weren't arguing, and they let go of old grievances, sitting together like this for a while.
Luan Nian told Shang Zhitao about a few things.
He talked about his parents moving back to the country, how he went into the city every week to have dinner with them. He also mentioned Song Qiuhan and Chen Kuannian, whom Shang Zhitao had met before, and talked about Song Qiuhan and Lin Chun'er, Chen Kuannian and Xiaomei.
He spoke on and off, but she listened closely to all of it.
When he mentioned Chen Kuannian, Shang Zhitao said, "I'm grateful to him. He paid the final balance for his collection exhibit right on time, just before payday."
Luan Nian's mouth twitched. Chen Kuannian wouldn't have dared skip out on the payment, since Luan Nian had personally made sure the transfer went through.
"So how are you planning to run this ad agency?" Luan Nian asked her seriously.
"I have a roommate who handles monetization at an internet company now. I've been picking his brain about the industry, and I'm planning to start studying too."
"Studying what?"
"Various advertising certifications." Shang Zhitao thought about it. "Internet advertising is different from what we used to do at Lingmei. The underlying logic is similar, but a lot of the mechanics have changed. So I want the whole company to get certified first. No rushing into it, we get certified, then we get to work."
Luan Nian nodded. "What about clients? Agencies like this do well in lower-tier markets, but the clients there are already getting carved up."
"Some retail and real estate clients I've worked with before have agreed to pay us to run trials. So I'm planning to go after those two sectors first."
"That's good."
"You don't have any other advice?"
"Didn't you say you wanted to rely on yourself?"
"But I can still listen to your advice."
"My advice is, just do it. Believe in yourself." Luan Nian stood up. "Come on, let's go buy clothes."
"All right."
Shang Zhitao took him to the menswear floor. "Pick a store. I don't know what brands you like."
Luan Nian walked into one at random and pointed at a shirt. "This one."
The salesperson, seeing how well he carried himself, tried to talk him into buying more. "There's a discount right now, you could get a few more pieces."
Luan Nian turned to ask Shang Zhitao. "Two?"
To anyone watching, it looked like he was being kept.
Shang Zhitao paused for a moment. "One."
"Then you're paying."
"What?"
"Why else would I ask? I'm supposed to pay? Why?"
Shang Zhitao saw the salesperson's puzzled look and had no interest in arguing with him. She paid and walked out of the store. "Why aren't you changing into it?"
"It hasn't been washed yet."
She had known before that Luan Nian was a bit of a clean freak, and she hadn't expected that after all this time, he'd still be that way. But these days she'd really grown better at respecting other people's quirks, so she just nodded. "Then wash it before you wear it."
"All right."
Evening had fallen. Luan Nian watched her standing there in the dusk, a clean, composed figure, and felt something stir in his heart.
"Shang Zhitao, I'll come by tomorrow to see Luke one more time, then head to the airport. If there's a chance later on, I'll come again."
"You can come see Luke anytime."
"All right."
Luan Nian stepped closer to her, looking her in the eye. "There's something I think I need to tell you myself. Back when you competed for the expert position, there were two unusual evaluation forms. Neither of them was mine. If you still remember, the one with the highest overall score, that one was mine. You always wanted me to be fair, and I was fair. Let me ask you something now. Do you believe me?"
Shang Zhitao's eyes grew warm. She actually already knew. Less than six months after she'd left, Grace had been forced out of Lingmei over bribery and unfair competition. Given Luan Nian's temperament, he should have had her prosecuted, but her child was still young, and he'd felt a moment of mercy. There was another low score too, from a different expert reviewer. The company had sent an email to the whole staff about it, and after she'd reconnected with Lumi, Lumi had sent her a screenshot right away, and told her, "You deserve this."
"So my score reflects how I felt about you. If you think you were bad at your job when you first joined Lingmei, not confident enough, or even that I looked down on you when you left, then I want to make this clear. When you started, you really were bad. But by the time you left, you were the best employee I ever managed."
Shang Zhitao suddenly thought back on those six years, through wind and rain, never daring to stop for even a moment, gritting her teeth through every one of them.
Holding back tears, she said to Luan Nian, "Thank you."
"You can cry now. No need to hold it in. It's not like you haven't already cried today."
Luan Nian really knew how to kill a moment. He could pour cold water on you at any time. Shang Zhitao was so annoyed she laughed, wiping away her tears with her fingertip. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Luan Nian turned and walked away.
Tan Mian and the others had told him, "Between people, you have to trade heart for heart." He was only just beginning to learn that love was a long process of practice. He had simply learned it too late. He had already missed the time when Shang Zhitao loved him.
Shang Zhitao watched Luan Nian go, and once home, set up an online meeting. Her new partners all logged on. Fu Dong was taking a few people over to sales, while the rest were assigned to Fu Dong's classmate Fang Ke, working alongside other girls on media buying and operations.
Shang Zhitao said in the meeting, "I know we're starting late. I know this might not be the best timing. But I've mortgaged my property and sold my car, and I'm not turning back."
"So, comrades, shall we begin the fight?"