Shang Zhitao stood below the stage watching Luan Nian give his speech. It was not the first time, but he still made her a little dizzy. He didn't look small on a stage that large. He carried himself with a rare kind of composure. He talked about Lingmei's new strategy for the domestic market this year: digging deep into local culture, honoring the spirit of craftsmanship, connecting the domestic and international markets, letting the brand put down roots at home while still reaching outward.
The creative center had worked with the marketing department on research and a promotional video, and it was also unveiled during his speech, polished and rich with substance.
That was the kind of person Luan Nian was. In an industry like this, he never let material desire or popular taste steer him. He always held to himself. That was his nerve, and it was also his charm.
During rehearsal he had simply walked the stage to find his marks, not saying a single word. Today was the first time he'd delivered the actual content, and Shang Zhitao had listened to every bit of it.
She had barely slept these past few days, all for this final presentation. The event had drained nearly all her strength for weeks, and she was running on fumes now. Once the guest speeches wrapped up, the event would be all but done.
"When does the press release go out?" Lumi asked Shang Zhitao.
"The first round goes out twenty minutes after the event officially ends. The second round is after the interviews. The third batch goes out tomorrow afternoon."
"Thorough as always." Lumi gave her a thumbs up.
"I learned from the best." Shang Zhitao smiled at her and leaned her head against Lumi's shoulder for a moment.
"Tired? If you're tired, you can head to Xi'an a little later next week. I'll cover it myself."
Lumi felt for her a little. Shang Zhitao worked like she had nothing to lose, and Lumi worried she'd work herself into the ground.
"No, there are still two satellite venues in Xi'an. You can't handle it alone, it's too much. I'll help you out, it won't be that tiring."
"Fine, then. I'll treat you to paomo when we get there."
"Deal."
Luan Nian stepped off the stage. Shang Zhitao spoke into her handheld radio. "The host is on stage. Next guest is Ms. Jiang Lan. Have the ushers ready." She didn't know how many times she'd gone over the event schedule. It was all in her head by now, timing down to the second, positions marked out to the centimeter, everyone's roles clearly assigned. When Luan Nian learned she'd be handling the first stop on the tour, he'd told her: only thorough preparation lets you handle whatever the event throws at you.
Jiang Lan was striking, a powerhouse shaped by years in the business world, completely at ease in a setting like this. She opened with a line in Suzhou dialect, saying how good it felt to be home.
Lumi clicked her tongue and nudged Shang Zhitao with her elbow. "Did you hear?"
"Hear what?"
"This association president. Our Luke's the one who landed her."
"How'd he land her?"
"What do you think?"
The implication needed no explanation. A woman like Jiang Lan had seen every kind of scene, every kind of thing there was to see. What could she possibly want out of this? Nothing but a good time.
Shang Zhitao nodded. She understood.
"You think it's true?" she asked Lumi.
"Rumors are rumors, but I still think Luke has some backbone. I doubt he'd actually go that far with her. More likely he's just been laying on the charm." Lumi laughed a couple of times. "There's also been talk these past few days that he's gay."
"What?"
"There's a rumor going around lately that nine out of ten people in creative work are gay. People say our Luke grew up abroad, works in an industry like this, and carries himself so sharply that he seems to appeal to both men and women."
Shang Zhitao burst out laughing. She pictured Luan Nian as gay for a moment, then cleared her throat. "We need to be serious. You keep teasing me and I'm going to forget what's next on the schedule."
"Prejudice, prejudice. Just industry bias," Lumi went on.
The two of them kept joking around until Jiang Lan finished speaking. Shang Zhitao watched Luan Nian stand and applaud, then step forward to show her to her seat, attentive and courteous. It was rare for him to make such an effort. She pulled her attention back to the rest of the schedule, and finally, when the speeches were over, she let out a long breath.
"Have the ushers guide the guests out in order. There are fifteen negotiation booths set up to the side for the sales team to use. Escort the VIPs to the first floor VIP hall to wait for the dinner. Luke has an interview to give, I'll go get him."
Shang Zhitao muted her radio and walked over to Luan Nian. "Luke, next up is your thirty minute interview. You'll be taking questions from two TV stations, five online outlets, and ten print outlets after that. It should take about fifty minutes."
"Sure, thanks." He turned to Jiang Lan. "Join me?"
"I haven't prepared any talking points."
"You? Not prepared?" Luan Nian laughed. "After you."
Shang Zhitao listened to them trade pleasantries and thought to herself that being a boss was hard work. Even someone as proud as Luan Nian had to play at being warm.
She led them to the interview hall, and since there'd been a change in guests, she gave Lumi a heads up and went off to handle other things. A little while later she got a message from Lumi. "I can't take this!"
"What's wrong?"
"Why is Jiang Lan so disgusting? Why does she keep standing so close to my stubborn mule?"
Lumi called Luan Nian her stubborn mule. Over the past six months, her greatest joy had been watching him lose his composure.
"..."
"After the interview I'm cutting that woman's hair off!" Lumi joked.
"No, no, no, spare me. If something like that actually happens, Luke will fire me on the spot." Shang Zhitao begged off.
With Lumi's message as a warning, she was braced for whatever was happening between Luan Nian and Jiang Lan. When she led them to the VIP hall and saw Jiang Lan give Luan Nian a soft smile, Shang Zhitao felt nothing out of place. She calmly showed them to the hall, handed them off to the wait staff for seating, and let the rest go on without her. Her last task for the day was to take care of the bosses in the VIP hall.
Lingmei was strict about these things. The dinner menu had been settled well in advance, with everyone's dietary restrictions and allergies, along with their preferences, already surveyed by the sales team beforehand. The dishes ordered blended a variety of flavors, with an emphasis on refinement. Since East China's main battleground was Suzhou, squirrel-shaped mandarin fish, cherry meat, and braised river eel were must-haves. This hotel's banquets were also well known for being good, and Shang Zhitao had tasted the food ahead of time herself, so she wasn't worried.
She stood at the entrance to the VIP hall, checking the dishes one by one as they went out. After a while she got a message from Luan Nian. "Which room is Jiang Lan in?"
"Alex arranged for her to be next to yours," Shang Zhitao wrote back, saying nothing about anything she'd heard that day about the two of them.
"Next to mine?" Luan Nian checked with her again.
"Yes, they said it's more convenient."
"Convenient for what?"
"That, I wouldn't know."
Shang Zhitao put her phone away and decided not to reply to him again. You're asking me what's convenient about it? Don't you already know perfectly well? She let out a long breath and told herself she didn't care. Whoever cared was the real fool. Then she went back to keeping an eye on the rest of the dinner.
Half an hour later, the noise from inside had picked up, and Shang Zhitao heard the sound of a piano. When the staff went in to serve another course, she glanced through the open door and saw Jiang Lan playing the piano while everyone else listened closely. Shang Zhitao found herself thinking back to her childhood. If she'd been asked to perform something in a setting like this, she probably would have had to drag out her brush and ink again.
Luan Nian was watching too.
Luan Nian liked things that shone, and Jiang Lan shone brightly just then. He admired any woman bold enough to show off her own charm. It made him feel the world was open minded, that the times were moving forward.
Shang Zhitao didn't get to watch for long before the door swung shut, and after that she could only make out the loudest fragments of whatever was being said inside. Whatever it was, the room sounded lively.
She found herself guessing what kind of contract might get signed in there tonight, what kind of understanding might be reached.
Another hour passed. Shang Zhitao's legs had started to ache from standing, so she found a chair and sat down. That was when she saw a message from Alex. "Luke's had a bit too much to drink."
"Luke's drunk? How bad?"
"Dead drunk."
Shang Zhitao didn't believe Luan Nian could actually get that drunk. The first time she'd seen him drink, he'd had a great deal and still remembered to have the security guard flag her a car. The idea that a man like that could be reduced to a puddle within the first hour, she wasn't buying it, not even under threat.
She called the hotel's sales manager. "Can you lend me two strong male colleagues?"
The hotel moved fast and sent people right away. She knocked and went in to find everyone scattered around the room in various corners, none of them exactly sober, hardly a clear head among them. Alex spotted her coming in and got up unsteadily, patting her shoulder. "Thank you, Flora."
"Happy to help. Should I take you back first?"
"Take Luke." Alex gave her a wink. Shang Zhitao felt a little thrown, not sure what the wink was supposed to mean.
The staff carried Luan Nian out of the VIP hall, and they ran straight into Lumi, who looked startled. "Luke?"
"Yeah." Shang Zhitao nodded.
"Luke got this drunk?"
Shang Zhitao nodded again.
"No way."
The two of them followed the staff to help get Luan Nian back to his room. The staff excused themselves politely, and Shang Zhitao poured a glass of water and set it by his bedside. As she straightened up, she saw Luan Nian open his eyes and push himself up against the headboard, blinking at her.
Luan Nian let out a quiet laugh.
Lumi's eyes went wide. She said, low, "Luke's not actually drunk?"
Luan Nian sat up further. "No fun in it, didn't want to drink. Apollo can handle it. Is there any noodles?"
"There is, let me call it in for you." Lumi called the hotel to order him a bowl of noodles, then hung up and said, "I'll go check on it and pick it up while I'm at it. They said tonight's been packed because of our event, so room service is running slow. I'll go grab it myself. Flora, stay with him for now."
"I'll head back to the VIP hall then." Shang Zhitao turned to go, but Lumi stopped her. "Don't. If we leave a man who's dead drunk without anyone watching him, that looks bad. Leave the door open and stay here, nobody can say a word about it." Then she winked at Shang Zhitao again, meaning, are you an idiot, Luke can't stand you and you're not going to take the chance to show him otherwise?
Caught between the two, Shang Zhitao did as Lumi suggested and left the door open, standing near it.
"Is it a problem for me to be in here?" she messaged Luan Nian.
"?"
"In case Miss Jiang comes looking for you later."
Luan Nian tossed his phone aside and looked at her for a long moment before speaking. "The hotel only had one condom, and I used it the night before last. Are you going to stock up a few for me now?"
"Sure."
Shang Zhitao's answer made Luan Nian laugh despite himself, and he nodded. "Ultra thin, no sensation loss. Appreciate it."
"Fine."
Shang Zhitao stayed where she was, head down, replying to messages from the event company, not saying another word about the condoms. Luan Nian crossed his arms behind his head against the headboard and watched her. After a while he asked, "Not going?"
"Not going."
"Why not?"
"My boss isn't a working boy." She lowered her phone and smiled at him, needling him on purpose. "My boss isn't for sale."
"My boss really isn't a working boy. Then why does my boss sleep with his own employee for free?"
She had no comeback for that. Her face went red with anger.
After a while, voices started drifting in from the hallway. Luan Nian crooked a finger at her. "Come here."
"Hm?"
"Is this how you take care of someone?"
"Fine."
Shang Zhitao wrung out a towel by his bed and crouched down to wipe his face, playing the part of the dutiful employee looking after her boss. Luan Nian turned onto his side, hooking a finger around hers. When she tried to pull free and couldn't, she said quietly, "Careful, someone might see."
Luan Nian didn't let go. He said her name, barely above a whisper. "Shang Zhitao."
"You're showing."
Luan Nian's eyes dropped to her chest, where a hint of skin was visible through the gap in her collar. His throat moved. "Did you do that on purpose?"
Shang Zhitao started to say something, but a knock at the door made her pull her hand back and stand up quickly to answer it. "Miss Jiang."
"How drunk did he get?"
"He threw up once already, he's asleep now."
Jiang Lan stepped further in and saw Luan Nian sound asleep in bed. She smiled at Shang Zhitao. "Luke could stand to work on his tolerance."
"This is the first time I've seen him drunk too."
Jiang Lan nodded and turned to leave, then stopped and asked, "What's your name?"