When you really need to get familiar with a business, you have to work through an overwhelming amount of information. At this stage, Shang Zhitao asked only one thing of her team: to learn. At a meeting she said, "Besides Fang Ke and the girls in operations, nobody else on this team really understands this business. So what do we do when we don't understand something? We learn. That's why I asked Fang Ke to help put together a study plan. For the next two weeks, we'll be doing closed-door training at the office. Starting next Monday, so everyone should enjoy the weekend first."
"I'll put the study plan up on the screen, then," Fang Ke said.
"Good. I have one more requirement. Since none of us knows anything right now, we let the person who does understand make the decisions. For the time being, everyone listens to Fang Ke."
Shang Zhitao had always been willing to delegate and hand over authority. She still remembered Ling Mei's rule: whoever's capable steps up.
While she was in the meeting, Luke lay curled up beside her. The moment it ended, he became her shadow, following her everywhere, tongue out, looking pleased with himself.
"Are you happy?" Shang Zhitao asked him.
"Woof!"
"All right, I get it. You old traitor, you really like him that much? Oh right, you two are alike, both old 'men.'" She poked Luke's forehead with her finger. Luke seemed to sense this wasn't a compliment and nipped gently at her fingertip, playing with her.
"I'll come see Luke once more before I leave tomorrow," Luan Nian texted her.
"All right."
Shang Zhitao scrolled back through their message history. Luan Nian had always been a man of few words, he never liked rambling. Over nearly half a year, they'd exchanged fewer than fifty messages, most of them along the lines of: "Sent, please check for it."
He never said what he'd sent.
Shang Zhitao would reply: "Got it."
"How's your health?"
"Fine."
The frequency and content of their messages made it feel almost like a player checking in on someone from his backup list.
Shang Zhitao had never asked about Luan Nian's love life. A man like him, how could there be a shortage of women around him? Luke seemed to be the only thread still connecting them. The reason they could still talk and meet so calmly was that Luan Nian loved Luke too much.
But it wasn't only that.
Shang Zhitao couldn't quite put it into words. She felt an invisible string had drawn taut between her and Luan Nian again. Usually you couldn't see it, but she knew it was there. Only this string was different from before. Before, she'd known it would eventually snap. This time it had more give in it, and neither of them dared pull too hard, afraid the rebound would hurt them.
The next day, when Luan Nian came to walk Luke, Shang Zhitao had just gotten out of bed.
She opened the door and let Luan Nian take Luke downstairs, then turned to rummage up something to eat. She still couldn't cook, so there was always bread and milk in the house.
She tore off a piece of bread and stuffed it in her mouth, then suddenly thought of the good breakfasts she used to eat at Luan Nian's place, and the bread instantly tasted like nothing at all. She set it down and dug through her cabinets looking for something else, but found nothing.
When Luan Nian came back and saw her sitting there in a daze, he unclipped Luke's leash. "What's wrong?"
"I'm hungry." Shang Zhitao looked at him. "Have you eaten?"
"No."
"Want to go out for breakfast? My treat."
"No need. I don't really like eating out."
Luan Nian's tastes were as particular as ever. There was so little he actually liked to eat that he preferred cooking for himself.
He rolled up his shirt sleeves and went into the kitchen, only to find she didn't even have an egg in the house.
"This is how you live?" he asked her. He was actually a little angry. Her home looked spotless, and yet there wasn't a scrap of food in it. If this kept up, she could starve to death alone in this apartment and no one would even notice. It would probably make the news: Unmarried Woman Past Prime Age Can't Cook, Found Dead of Starvation at Home.
"I can eat at my mom's."
"You could also learn to cook for yourself."
"I can't. I tried seriously once. I failed."
Luan Nian looked at her. "So you can't tell oil from salt from soy sauce from vinegar?"
"You don't even know you're supposed to add water when boiling eggs?"
"Or maybe you don't even know how to shop at a grocery store?"
"Honestly, I really don't see what's so hard about it," Shang Zhitao said. Luan Nian couldn't understand it. Were data formulas hard? She input them all by hand. Were project proposals hard to write? She could write dozens, even a hundred pages of one. Was cooking really that much harder?
"Why should I learn to cook? I can order takeout, I can eat at my mom's, or I can find a boyfriend who knows how to cook."
The line about a boyfriend who could cook slipped out without her thinking. When Luan Nian's eyes flicked toward her, she felt a chill in them.
Luan Nian didn't like that sentence. All of Tan Mian's lecturing had gone to waste, he couldn't manage a decent expression when she said something so absurd. His mouth twitched, and he walked out of the kitchen. He rolled up his forearm and used his thumb and forefinger to fasten his cufflink with the other hand. All these years later, he still dressed with the same precision, down to every cufflink, each one chosen because he liked it himself.
A man who never settled for anything less must get tired sometimes.
Shang Zhitao sat watching him straighten his shirt and asked, "Leaving?"
Luan Nian didn't answer, just walked toward the door. Luke followed him, wanting to go out too. He stopped and crouched down. "I have to go back to work. Go play with your mother."
"Sister," Shang Zhitao corrected him.
"Go play with your sister in her thirties," Luan Nian said, then stood and walked out.
He'd only taken two steps when he heard Shang Zhitao say to Luke, "Say goodbye to your brother in his forties."
Luan Nian turned back. She held her chin up stubbornly, still refusing to admit defeat, unwilling to lose this little exchange. His mouth twitched into something like a smile, though it carried a trace of mockery. "Good luck with your second startup."
"Thanks."
Shang Zhitao and Luke watched from the window as Luan Nian disappeared, then went back to eating bread and milk without much thought.
By Monday, a delivery driver called her. "You've got a cold-chain package."
"Huh?" Shang Zhitao was a little puzzled. She took a taxi home from work and picked up a foam box. When she opened it, it really was cold-chain, the ice hadn't even fully melted. Inside was fresh milk and a small box of osmanthus.
Luan Nian's osmanthus milk tasted so good because he'd drizzle syrup over dried osmanthus flowers and dry them again, then sprinkle them over the milk. Drinking it, you got the sweetness of the syrup along with the faint, almost imperceptible fragrance of osmanthus, a rich, sweet texture that was addictive.
Shang Zhitao had tried making it herself before, but she never got it right. She couldn't wait, so she heated up the milk, poured it out, sprinkled the osmanthus on top, and took a sip. It felt like being back years ago, on those mornings she woke up at his place, when he'd make breakfast and slide a glass of osmanthus milk in front of her.
Her heart softened, just a little, just for a moment.
She took out her phone and added him as a friend.
Luan Nian was in the middle of a tedious, endless board meeting when a new friend request notification popped up. The note on the request read Shang Zhitao, and it felt like a patch of light had broken through somewhere inside his chest, a good mood he couldn't hide spreading from his heart to the corners of his mouth.
He smiled.
He accepted her request, then opened her profile photo. It looked like it had been taken while she was out traveling, a close-up in the snow, her cheeks flushed red, smiling happily. He looked at her moments feed next, and it was empty, spotless, nothing there at all.
Around 2017, the chat app had rolled out a year-in-review feature, and Luan Nian, bored, had clicked to take part. The first item in the review was who your very first friend was, and whether you were still in touch. He'd seen Shang Zhitao's tiny profile picture from back then. He remembered the day they'd added each other, she'd seemed to be away on a business trip and sent him the invite.
He'd asked her, "What's this?"
"Just download it."
Luan Nian had added her.
That year-in-review had nearly killed him. He thought, the very first person I ever added has disappeared.
I looked for her. I know where she is. I'm waiting for the right moment to show up, but the right moment never seems to come.
Sitting in the conference room now, he sent Shang Zhitao a message, just a question mark.
"Thanks for the osmanthus milk," she wrote back.
"Don't mention it. I hope you find a boyfriend who can cook soon," he replied. It was said out of spite.
Shang Zhitao saw the message in the taxi and laughed.
The driver asked her, "Something good happen, miss?"
"No. Just ran into someone pretty funny."
Shang Zhitao threw herself into studying, working from morning to night.
The logic behind online advertising was extremely complex, but the core of it was mastering the data metrics inside and out, and the methodology would follow naturally from there. She required everyone at the company to be able to do the math and to memorize all the industry terminology.
CPM, CPC, CPA, CTR, she'd throw out a hundred abbreviations, and whoever she pointed to had to explain exactly what it meant. When she put numbers on the table, everyone had to be able to calculate them. The women on the team had no trouble with this, they'd always been the ones buried in the back-end systems, working with materials and studying data. The young men complained endlessly, a group of guys used to working the room who suddenly had to deal with data metrics, their brains short-circuiting.
Watching them look so miserable, Shang Zhitao couldn't help laughing for a good while, thinking to herself: you bunch of little fools.
It suddenly reminded her of how Luan Nian always used to say to her:
"Did you bring your brain with you today?"
"Could you try using your brain for once?"
"What's the point of keeping a brain if you never use it?"
She'd never talk to her own employees like that. Luan Nian was far too harsh on people.
At noon she went up to the company rooftop to eat, and Lumi sent her a video: Luan Nian tearing into someone in a meeting, everyone else in the room too scared to speak. It instantly brought Shang Zhitao back to the terror of sitting in meetings with Luan Nian.
"See that? A stubborn mule just gets more stubborn, turns into the most stubborn old mule of a man there ever was. But a mule's still a mule."
"Aren't you worried he'll find out you said that?"
"I'm not scared of him." Lumi sent back a picture captioned "Who's this old lady ever been scared of." "I'll say it straight, I'm the second person in this company brave enough to mess with him. Tracy's the first."
"Outside the company, I think the only person brave enough to mess with him is someone named Shang Zhitao."
"No way, not me." Shang Zhitao immediately backed down.
The wind on the rooftop felt good, lulling her into drowsiness. With a glass of osmanthus milk backing her up, she felt today had gone pretty well. She kept up this exhausting pace of study until the weekend, when she suddenly felt like getting out for a while.
So she rented a car and drove out to the outskirts of the city, with Luke along for the ride.
She found a farmstay to check into on a whim, then took Luke out for a run. Luke loved these countryside outings, and the two of them, one woman and one dog, had a wonderful time. Luan Nian called three times before she finally picked up. "What's wrong?"
"Where are you?"
"I'm out having fun."
"I came to see Luke."
"Luke's with me."
Luan Nian hadn't expected to fly all the way over first thing in the morning for nothing. "Next time you go out, can you tell me ahead of time?"
"Did you tell me ahead of time that you were coming to see Luke?"
The next time, Luan Nian gave her notice first, so Shang Zhitao left Luke with him and went out to have her own fun. The two of them didn't even cross paths.
"If it's too much of a hassle going back and forth between the hotel and my place, you could stay in the spare room. That way you'd get more time with him," she told Luan Nian.
"Aren't you worried about what the neighbors will say?"
"What's there to worry about?"
Were there not already enough rumors flying around? An older single woman running her own business had been slapped with plenty of labels, and people had even filled in the details of a whole story, describing the man supposedly keeping her: mid-fifties, balding, with a paunch, wearing a gold watch, looking like money, leaving her apartment early in the morning.
If the neighbors saw Luan Nian, maybe the story would sound a little better. Early thirties, handsome, carrying himself with arrogant ease, an unmistakable air about him, probably a young man kept on the money of some old lover of hers.
So Luan Nian really did move into the spare room.
His suitcase had everything in it, he'd turned Shang Zhitao's apartment into a hotel. Her place was fine in every other way, except there was never any food in it. Luan Nian couldn't understand why a woman would live like this, and he went out to the grocery store and bought fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, eggs, and seafood, filling up her refrigerator.
That evening he ground some meat and steamed meat dumplings for Luke, just like the old days.
Luke had never imagined he'd get to eat this again in his lifetime. He sat off to the side with his tongue out, waiting, drool dripping steadily onto the floor. Luan Nian heard the sound and turned to look at him. "Isn't that embarrassing?"
"Have you never had meat before?"
"Look how pathetic you are!"
Luan Nian scolded Luke while pulling him over to brush his coat. "That bathing card I bought years ago still hasn't run out, I've renewed it four times already. Will I still get the chance to carry you off for a bath in this lifetime?"
Luke rubbed his head against him, as if to say: I think you will.
By the time Luan Nian left, Shang Zhitao was still stuck in traffic on the edge of the city. She saw his message: "I'm off."
"Safe travels."
When she got home, she opened the fridge looking for something to eat and found it packed with fruit and vegetables, everything you could want. She opened the freezer and saw the seafood, fish, and meat inside.
There was also a note: "Luke's meat dumplings are on the top shelf. Heat up three at a time for him."
She called him, heard the boarding announcement in the background, and asked, "Are you coming to see Luke again next week?"
"If time allows."
"Did you run into my neighbors while you were walking the dog?"
"I did."
"What did they say?"
"They asked if I was your boyfriend."
"Oh."
Shang Zhitao made a small sound, and after a moment, heard Luan Nian say, "I told them yes."
"Fine either way. My reputation's already ruined anyway." Shang Zhitao hung up after saying that.
The next day while walking the dog, she saw her neighbor, who nodded at her. "Your boyfriend's not walking the dog today?"
"Which boyfriend?" Shang Zhitao teased the gossipy neighbor.
"How many do you have? Which one do you think? The one who looks like a movie star!"
"Oh, oh, oh!" Shang Zhitao nodded. "He's gone, back to work."
She brushed it off with a laugh, not taking it seriously.
Over a holiday she'd talked to Shang Zhishu about it, and they'd both agreed the gossip about single women didn't amount to much. Some people would even slap the label of "kept woman" on you, and there was no washing that off.
"How much better off is my bald, potbellied, gold-watch-wearing uncle, anyway?" Shang Zhishu said with a laugh.
By July, once Shang Zhitao had everything ready, the channel manager from Zhang Lei's company came for a site visit, and Zhang Lei came along too.
When Sun Yu heard that Zhang Lei was flying to Ice City to inspect Shang Zhitao's company, she made time to fly over as well.
Sun Yu's company was now a key account client of Zhang Lei's company, putting 150 million yuan in advertising spend into it every year.
The group of them sat in Shang Zhitao's office, glancing at each other, and suddenly everyone burst out laughing.
Zhang Lei said to the channel manager, "You're probably wondering what we're laughing about, right?"
"Years ago, the few of us used to live together in a rented apartment."
That felt like it had happened many, many years ago now. Back then they'd all been young, pushed forward every day by fate. Looking back on it, it was that innocence of theirs that was most worth remembering.
Zhang Lei said to Shang Zhitao, "I think it's been five or six years since I last saw you. Why haven't you changed at all? I'm jealous."
"I have changed. My mindset has." She smiled. "Let's have you inspect the business first, then I'll treat everyone to a meal. Today, let's all go eat at my family's restaurant, home-style cooking."
"Will we get to see Da Zhai and Old Shang?" Zhang Lei asked.
"You will."
"All right then."
Shang Zhitao personally led the manufacturer's leadership through the inspection. She'd prepared carefully, because she knew they'd write up a report covering the company's office space, staff quality, the boss's financial strength, and network of connections, a report that would determine which initial track Shang Zhitao's company got assigned to.
She brought the channel manager to the office area and clapped her hands. "Everyone, let me introduce the channel manager from our vendor."
The young men and women stood up, their smiles sincere, each carrying their own company's particular character.
"Feel free to ask them anything about the technical side," Shang Zhitao told the channel manager.
"Anything?"
"Yes, anything at all."
Shang Zhitao had always known learning was useful, she just hadn't expected that in her early thirties she'd be pushed onto an entirely new track again. When you don't know anything, you learn anyway. Learning shows you the way forward.
She felt sure of herself.
The channel manager asked a few questions at random, covering LBS positioning, audience packages, feed advertising, and data algorithms. He'd point randomly to one employee or another to answer, and the young people answered crisply and cleanly, even adding their own insights, holding their own against any operations manager from the vendor's side.
Sitting in Shang Zhitao's office listening to the commotion outside, Sun Yu said to Zhang Lei with a smile, "I knew it. She's always been thorough."
"Shang Zhitao wouldn't be Shang Zhitao if she wasn't thorough."
"And she wouldn't be Shang Zhitao if she admitted defeat, either."
Shang Zhitao took the channel manager to see the company's little break room, small but fully equipped. She ground him a cup of coffee, and the two of them sat and talked for a while.
Shang Zhitao told him, "I think I should properly introduce myself."
"I know you used to work at Ling Mei."
"That's right. I was recognized as an employee of special merit there. My strength is exploring new business lines and building out methodology."
"I can tell. Some of the data concepts your employees mentioned just now, our own internal training barely covers them."
"So what I want is a core track," Shang Zhitao said. "Trust me, I know we can't compete with Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, or Shenzhen here, the internet environment isn't as developed in this city. But I can guarantee two things. First, growth speed, faster than any of those first-tier cities. Second, industry methodology, a benchmark playbook. I know those are exactly the metrics your internal promotions are based on."
The channel manager had seen plenty of agency bosses in his time, most of them middle-aged men throwing their weight and money around, opening with, "I'll put up the capital, I'll put up the people, I guarantee we'll deliver." But if you asked them how exactly they'd deliver, the boss would point to someone else and say, you tell them how we'll deliver.
Shang Zhitao was different. She'd broken the business down with total clarity, and she'd even studied their internal promotion mechanisms.
But he said, "You and Director Zhang go back a long way. You could easily get the core track through him."
"No." Shang Zhitao shook her head. "I promise I will never discuss any work matters privately with Director Zhang. You're my primary partner and the person I report to."
Shang Zhitao thought, this too was part of working life, the give and take of it, and she understood that.
"All right." The channel manager stood up. "That's it for today's inspection. I'll write up the report properly. You should take stock of the resources you have on hand, then let me know which track you want to move into."
"Will do. I'll have a decision by next week."
That evening, over dinner at the old tavern, the channel manager praised her. "I've never met an agency boss this professional."
"Then you never saw the projects she used to run," Zhang Lei said. "Back then I wanted to poach her to head up our planning team, but she decided to come back to Ice City instead."
"Stop it, don't praise me." Shang Zhitao covered her face. "I can't handle compliments!"
The group of them hadn't had a drink together in years, and that night they drank enough to make up for lost time. By the time they wrapped up, none of them felt like calling it a night. Shang Zhitao invited them, "Come sit at my place for a while?"
So the whole group went back to her apartment.
Sun Yu got to see Luke again, and Zhang Lei took in the wall of books. He stood in front of it, pulled out a book at random, and found the reading notes tucked inside. His eyes suddenly went red, and he cursed under his breath. "Fuck."
"You should have this one," Shang Zhitao told him. "A book finds its own reader."
Zhang Lei wiped his eyes. "I'll be damned, I actually envy him. The rest of us just keep getting older, ending up as old farts eventually. He's the only one who stays young forever."
"Isn't that the truth," Shang Zhitao said. She walked over to the wall of books, pulled one out, and inside was a photo tucked between the pages, clouds swirling behind them, the four of them grinning like fools at the camera.
It had been the best year, the best version of all of them, standing on Mount Tai, looking down over the towering mountains, their shouts cutting through heaven and earth, a thread connecting those old days to now.
Shang Zhitao quietly asked Sun Yu, "Have you let it go?"
"I have. And somehow I haven't, too. What about you?"
"I have."