Later that night, Long Zhentian called Shang Zhitao, drunk and eager to tell her a Christmas story.
"I didn't ask for a lesson today. This one's not getting paid for," Shang Zhitao teased him.
"No charge. Today's volunteer teaching."
"But I don't want to learn slurred English." Shang Zhitao laughed at how drunk he sounded, and the two of them went back and forth joking.
Then Long Zhentian suddenly turned serious. "Taotao, come to America with me."
The abruptness startled her, and she didn't know how to respond.
"Did you hear me? Come with me."
"Sober up, Long Zhentian." Shang Zhitao hung up. Why did Christmas make everyone act so strange?
"What's wrong?"
Shang Zhitao shook her head. Had everyone gone mad?
When they got home, Sun Yu took a small gift box from her bag and placed it in Shang Zhitao's palm, saying with rare gentleness, "Shang Zhitao, Merry Christmas."
Shang Zhitao took the gift, ran into her room, and came back out. "I got you something too." She put the wrapped box into Sun Yu's hands and hugged her.
She had gotten Sun Yu a building block house, and Sun Yu had gotten her an everlasting flower. In these ordinary days, this small sweetness was something to remember, a season of friendship worth keeping.
Shang Zhitao had started borrowing books from Sun Yuanzhu. Having something like a small library at home was nice. But she knew how to hold back and stay polite, and only went to his room when everyone else was around too. In her mind, Sun Yuanzhu was almost otherworldly, and she couldn't bear the thought of tarnishing that image.
When she borrowed books, she would exchange a few words with him. She always sensed a trace of sadness in him. But he was always so composed that she wondered if she had only imagined it.
When she read his books, she followed his habits carefully, turning the pages gently and taking care not to leave a single mark.
Over New Year's, while everyone else went out, she curled up in bed and read. Not just read. She took notes too.
Only once did she go out, hiking with Long Zhentian. Once he'd sobered up, he apologized again and again for how he'd acted on the phone that night. The apology was sincere, sincere enough to sound like a confession. He said Shang Zhitao was exactly his idea of a Chinese girl: gentle, sweet, and resilient. That was why he'd said what he did, and he asked her to forgive him.
Foreigners were really something. She had no idea what went on in their heads.
Shang Zhitao blushed listening to him praise her, and finally said, "Long Zhentian, I can't go to America with you. I still have my parents. Do you know the old Chinese saying, while your parents are alive, you shouldn't travel far? Working in Beijing already feels a little unfilial. I really can't leave the country with you. Besides, I think you're a wonderful teacher and friend, but you're not my type."
"I'm heartbroken!" Long Zhentian clutched his chest and groaned, and Shang Zhitao burst out laughing.
On the last day of the New Year holiday, Shang Zhitao came down with a bad cold.
She had always been healthy as a child, rarely getting sick. Back when her classmates were constantly coming down with runny noses, she alone stayed as sturdy as a little tank. Old Shang used to say his daughter's greatest strength was her strong constitution.
Now that same sturdy Shang Zhitao had a bad cold. Her nose was so stuffed up half her head felt useless, her eyes were watery, making her look like she'd suffered some terrible wrong, and she couldn't stop coughing, running a fever on top of it. Even so, she got up early and went to work. She didn't want to take sick leave. The New Year was coming, and she wanted to save her days off to go home and spend time with Old Shang and Da Zhai.
She sniffled her way out of the elevator and ran into Luan Nian coming out of his office in the hallway. She didn't want to talk to him, but she rubbed her nose and greeted him anyway. "Morning, Luke."
Luan Nian walked past her without so much as a glance, his expression cold.
Miserable with her cold, Shang Zhitao had no energy to guess what he was thinking. She understood well enough that for Luan Nian, once something ended, it ended. He'd always thought her foolish and had no interest in talking to her further. Her head felt foggy. She took a pill, and since it was still early, she put her head down on her desk to sleep for a bit. This cold had hit hard, and by afternoon her fever had spiked. Her face burned red.
When Lumi came back with water and saw her sitting blankly in front of her computer, she put a hand to her forehead. "Good lord, your head's hot enough to fry an egg on!"
"Huh?" Shang Zhitao's reaction was slow. She touched her own forehead. "I guess it is a little warm."
"Go home. Take sick leave."
"Sick leave... does that count against my annual leave?"
"Are you dumb? It's paid sick leave. If it's more than two days, remember to get a doctor's note."
"Okay."
Shang Zhitao packed up her things and stood. Lumi bundled her up carefully and walked her out, asking with some concern, "Are your roommates home?"
"I don't think so."
The two of them got into the elevator, and just as the doors were closing, Luan Nian and a few women from the Creative Center stepped in too, heading down to the ground floor café for a meeting.
Lumi smiled at everyone, then leaned in and asked Shang Zhitao quietly, "If no one's home, what are you going to do? Never mind, I'll take you back myself."
Lumi, the first friend Shang Zhitao had made in Beijing, was the sort who acted without hesitation. Even standing in the elevator with the CEO, she said openly, "Wait for me on the ground floor. I'll go grab my coat and drive you home."
Shang Zhitao secretly tugged at her sleeve, warning her to be careful, but Lumi just made a face. Kitty had once been caught red-handed by Lumi, out buying shoes at the mall next door on a weekday afternoon, when Lumi came down to meet a supplier. None of them had any room to talk. Everyone acted proper enough on the surface, but the moment they skipped work, they were all just as sneaky as anyone else.
Lumi wasn't afraid of any of that. Shang Zhitao got off the elevator and sat in the lobby waiting for her, while Luan Nian and the others went into the café through the back door. Luan Nian's eyes caught on Shang Zhitao's unnaturally flushed face, and something in him softened, just a little.
That night in Hokkaido, drinking, when Shang Zhitao told him it was over between them, he'd actually felt a flicker of anger. He didn't like getting tangled up with women. After one drink he'd thought about coming back to deal with her properly, but a few more drinks in, he'd decided ending things this way was fine enough. Shang Zhitao couldn't handle things lightly, and he wasn't serious about her, so letting it drag on would probably only cause trouble.
But watching her sit there now, sick as she was and still sitting up straight, something like pity stirred in him.
"Are you sick?" It was rare for him to text her first about something personal.
When Shang Zhitao saw his message, she put her phone in her pocket without answering. Only she knew what had really made her sick. On one side was her hopeless feelings for Luan Nian, on the other the urge to let go, and the two took turns tormenting her. Being unloved felt terrible, terrible enough that a smoldering anger had built up inside her with nowhere to go. If she hadn't gotten sick, she might not have been able to hold it in at all.
While Luan Nian sat in the meeting, he glanced through the café's glass back door and saw her pocket her phone without replying, her posture stubborn.
Then Lumi arrived and took her away.
Luan Nian had always known Shang Zhitao had a stubborn streak in her. It was buried deep, deep enough that people might mistake her for someone who simply endured everything. But every so often her emotions broke through, and that stubbornness showed itself.
Once he'd gone over the plans with the others, he stood up. "Have Grace take over from here." He went upstairs, put on his coat, and drove out of the office. On his way to the elevator he ran into Lumi, just back from dropping off Shang Zhitao, who greeted him. "Hey, Luke."
"Skipping work?"
"Uh... Flora's sick, I took her home." Lumi said it without a hint of guilt.
"Fine. Skipping work means a pay cut. Go report it to HR." Luan Nian's face gave nothing away, whether he was joking or serious.
Behind his back Lumi clicked her tongue, thinking, fine, I'll report your precious Kitty too while I'm at it.
Luan Nian pressed the button to close the doors. Sometimes he thought these people were idiots. Her face was burning red with fever and instead of going to the hospital, she was just going home?
He drove to the entrance of Shang Zhitao's apartment complex and called her. She didn't pick up, maybe asleep, maybe just not wanting to answer.
"Come down." He texted her. "Fill out your leave form."
Luan Nian pulled rank as her boss, and his all-business tone finally took the fight out of her. While she was still thinking how to reply, another message came in. "Bring your ID and medical insurance card down. We'll fill it out on my computer."
Shang Zhitao thought he really was overstepping. Was he going to chase every employee home just because they hadn't filed a leave request? With that many people at the company, was he going to track everyone's attendance one by one? She dragged her feet downstairs, and when she saw he'd driven the car she'd once crashed into, she felt a twinge of guilt.
She got in and said, "Sorry, Luke. I didn't mean to skip filing it. I just forgot."
For some reason her fever, which had gone down for a while, had come back up. Her throat felt raw, like she'd swallowed water wrong, and talking took real effort. She coughed without stopping, like she could barely breathe.
Luan Nian waited until she finished coughing before asking, "Do you have your ID and insurance card?"
"I do."
He said nothing more and started the car. Shang Zhitao looked at him, a little puzzled. "Where are we going?"
He didn't answer, and drove to the hospital near her apartment.
"Get out."
"I'm not going to the hospital." Shang Zhitao had always been healthy, but hospitals were what scared her most. The sight of it now made her knees go weak, and she froze, sitting still in the car. "I want to go home."
Luan Nian raised an eyebrow. "Let me check who you listed as your emergency contact in the system." He reached for his laptop, and Shang Zhitao grabbed his hand in a panic. "Don't."
Her palm burned against the back of his hand. Realizing how that looked, she pulled it back quickly. "I'll go register now. Thank you for the ride." She didn't want to get tangled up with Luan Nian again. Over the past few days she'd thought through a great deal, and she wasn't like him, able to pick things up and set them down so easily. She didn't have that ability. She had seen, without meaning to, what he was like around other women, and she knew that to him she was only a way to meet a physical need. It could be her, or it could be anyone else. She had thought she could keep herself from caring. But she did.
She walked into the outpatient department alone, thinking, no blood draws for me. The lobby was crowded, and she wandered around looking for a quiet spot to wait a while before heading home. When she turned around, Luan Nian was standing right behind her, his tone mocking. "Don't know where the registration window is?"
Shang Zhitao pressed her lips together and said nothing. She didn't know what to say. She couldn't figure out why he was bothering with her at all. That was just how he was. Just when you'd finally given up on him, he'd turn around and be kind to you again, just enough to make you think you might be someone special to him.
Luan Nian didn't waste time talking. He stepped up to her, pulled her ID and insurance card out of her coat pocket, and threw in a threat for good measure. "Your emergency contact is Shang Wenbin, isn't it?"
The threat worked. Shang Zhitao's greatest fear was her parents finding out she was sick. During her four years at school in Nanjing, she'd gotten sick once or twice, and every time she'd kept it carefully hidden.
In the end, she went obediently to see the doctor.