"Alex is just doing the ordinary thing, switching jobs. That won't change how he feels about Lingmei or any of you. When there's time, we can still grab a drink together." Luan Nian was unusually warm today. "So before the meeting starts, let's wish Alex well. I'm personally grateful for the support Alex and the whole marketing department gave me after I took this position. He really built a strong team. Thank you, Alex."
"It's what I should do." Alex was as amiable as ever, pressing his palms together and giving a small bow. "This really is just an ordinary job change. I've been at Lingmei too many years, and I wanted a change of scenery. Who knows, maybe I'll come charging back one day."
"You'd be welcome."
Luan Nian said he'd be welcome, but everyone in the room knew he would never actually allow Alex to come charging back. Every boss hated betrayal.
"Shall we start the meeting, then?" Luke asked Alex's permission, giving him every bit of the respect he was due.
"Whatever Luke decides. I'll just sit in. If something comes up that needs me, I'll handle it."
"All right, let's begin."
Luan Nian had called this meeting mainly to get a full picture of what the marketing department was working on, to understand what each person actually did. Losing a senior executive was bound to shake up the team, and he needed a backup plan, along with a clear sense of what kind of person Tracy should be looking for on the market. With that goal in mind, he wasn't nitpicking today. He just listened carefully, occasionally asking a question about someone's work, but nothing sharp.
The tension in the room gradually eased, and the atmosphere grew more relaxed. By the time it was Lumi's turn, everyone had loosened up. Lumi was the kind of person who said whatever came to mind, and partway through her report she remarked, "This client is a real piece of work!" Everyone laughed.
Shang Zhitao laughed too. That was just how Lumi was. She'd never switch jobs for money, and she had no grand ambitions. As long as she had something to do, she was content. She wouldn't go out of her way to hurt anyone, but you didn't want to provoke her, because if you did, she wouldn't hold back. Lumi had taught Zhitao a great deal.
Luan Nian smiled too, and asked Lumi, "What if we route all these clients through you from now on?" Luan Nian was good at reading people. Lumi might seem careless, but she was steady, and her steadiness came purely from the fact that she had the confidence to back it up. That was why, years later, even after the marketing department went through several bosses and Lingmei's org chart was restructured again and again, and many employees whose growth had stalled were let go, Lumi was still there, holding her ground as a rank and file worker. Later still, everyone at Lingmei knew there was a living Buddha in marketing. The rest of the company might not survive, but that Buddha would.
Letting go was its own kind of wisdom.
"No, thanks." Lumi waved her hands quickly. "I'd like to live a few more years!"
The room burst into laughter. Luan Nian's gaze swept past Shang Zhitao. She was laughing too, though he couldn't tell what she was thinking.
When it was Zhitao's turn to report, she summarized the new budget management project she'd been working on, the one the marketing department had prepared most carefully for this meeting.
Everyone listened attentively. Luan Nian asked her, "Has the efficiency gain from the new budget process actually been calculated?"
"We've tested it on two projects. Twenty percent improvement."
"It would be good if it could reach twenty five percent." Luan Nian looked at Zhitao. He was handing her an opportunity, not because he expected her to seize it, and not because he expected her to understand what it meant. She was steady and hardworking, but she was also young and impulsive, easily swayed by others. Budget management was core work for the marketing department, and whoever oversaw it needed strict self-discipline. Zhitao was honest and careful. She was suited for it. He was offering her this chance the night after they'd had a huge fight.
There was always something that kept the timing wrong between Luan Nian and Zhitao. This decision had been made before, and yet he was announcing it now, at a moment when it looked like he was handing her charity.
"If it reaches twenty five percent, it would make a real difference to the company's overall business management." Luan Nian added, "Can you do it?"
Zhitao looked at him. She rarely met his eyes directly at work, in front of everyone else. She knew she was ordinary, fragile, that she looked easily crushed standing among all these sharp, capable people, but she'd hoped, however unreasonably, that Luan Nian could speak to her as an equal. She hadn't worked this hard for this long just to be told she was cheap and obedient.
"I probably can. But I won't." She turned down the opportunity he was offering her. She didn't want it.
When love got tangled up with work, it threw off the order things were supposed to have. She could have been more clear-headed when she made that decision, but she'd been young then, and she hadn't understood any of that yet.
Luan Nian shrugged, his eyes creasing before he smiled. "You can tell Flora has put a lot of thought and effort into her work. I've heard Alex and Tracy mention your dedication more than once, and after hearing this report today, I think their praise was too modest. You're not just hardworking, you're sharp. Keep it up."
Zhitao smiled back at him. She filed his praise away as nothing more than polite talk for the room. She didn't believe it.
After the meeting ended, Luan Nian went back to his office, where Tracy was waiting for him. "Did what we talked about the other day get settled?"
"What thing?"
"Having Flora help Lumi manage the budget."
"Flora turned it down. And Lumi's the useless prince who can't be propped up." Luan Nian rarely trusted anyone, and he mocked himself quietly for the two options he'd been counting on.
Tracy nearly choked on her water. "Flora turned it down?"
"Yes." The matter was closed as far as he was concerned, and he didn't want to bring it up again. He opened his email to look at the names Tracy had sent him, a list of prominent figures in marketing, all with impressive resumes.
"So? See anyone you like?" Tracy asked him. "Or do you want to go find someone yourself?"
"No need. The people I actually want won't come, and I can't be bothered chasing the ones I don't want. Just run the normal hiring process, look at more resumes." Luan Nian thought for a moment. "No rush. There's going to be turnover in marketing regardless. Once things settle down, there'll be plenty of time to bring in someone new."
"All right."
"Are you going to do a review of where HR dropped the ball? Someone poached one of our executives and you didn't hear a whisper about it?" Luan Nian pressed her.
"I've already started an internal review with my team. This one's on us, and I'll own it. It won't happen again." Tracy, as a seasoned professional, had always been direct and forthright, laying blame exactly where it belonged and never dodging responsibility. This executive's departure had left them with plenty to clean up, not just on the hiring side, but in PR direction, brand direction, and a string of leftover internal issues.
"Talk to Alex. Keep the messaging under control." Luan Nian was no pushover, and Alex had crossed lines before, lines Luan Nian had evidence of. He'd made that clear enough during their private talk on a beach in Phuket. Alex had climbed the ladder at Lingmei, owned three properties in Beijing and two good cars, and the company hadn't treated him poorly. Better to part on good terms than let greed drag this into an ugly fight.
If it turned ugly, Luan Nian would make sure Alex went down with it.
"And I know it was you who leaked employee emails to Zhang Xin," Luan Nian had told Alex that day. "But I'm not pursuing it, because I respect you, and because I'm grateful to you."
The workplace was far more complicated than anyone imagined.
For the first time in her life, Shang Zhitao found herself at the center of a workplace storm, her mind full of unanswered questions. She didn't stay late that evening. Instead she slung her bag over her shoulder and left, wanting to walk for a while.
The same questions kept circling back. Had Luan Nian gotten to where he was today by attaching himself to the right people? What was Alex's real reason for wanting to take her with him? He could bring someone far more capable. She walked from evening until nine at night, until she finally reached the entrance to her apartment complex.
So many people lived in her neighborhood that a lot of residents called it the "sleep city." Night had fallen, and people who lived there were trickling back home, bringing noise and life to the streets. She thought about every day of the past year and more, days that had been half bitter, half sweet. Hard as it had been, looking back, there had been something gained in each of them.
Sun Yu got out of a rideshare and startled at the sight of Zhitao sitting there. "Hey? Why are you sitting out here?"
"I don't want to go home."
"Why not?"
"Because it's noisy out here."
The first lesson anyone learns when they come to live alone in Beijing is how to endure loneliness. Zhitao wasn't a particularly sensitive person, and she'd been lucky enough to land good roommates and good coworkers, so her loneliness had never been that obvious. But tonight, she felt it. There was a place inside a person that roommates and friends could never quite fill.
Sun Yu sat down beside her, grabbed her hand, and hissed. "Why are you so cold?"
"I walked home from the office."
"That's almost twenty kilometers."
"Yeah."
Sun Yu didn't say anything else. She just sat there with her, watching the streetlights and the people hurrying past. Zhitao thought back to her first day in Beijing, the rain falling as she unpacked her things in that cramped, cluttered little room. She'd been simple back then. All she'd wanted was to grow, to keep learning her whole life and become someone through it.
Both their stomachs growled at once, breaking the strange mood Zhitao had built up, and they looked at each other and laughed.
"Forget it, sadness doesn't suit you. Getting food with me does," Sun Yu teased.
"I really am hungry." Zhitao patted her stomach and stood up. Once hunger set in, every other feeling disappeared, replaced by the urge to eat. The two of them walked hand in hand toward the malatang stall behind the complex. Sun Yu kept sneaking glances at her, and when Zhitao caught her at it, she asked, "What?"
"Things went badly with your boss?" Sun Yu was sharp. Zhitao was an upbeat person who rarely fell apart over anyone, and the few times she had, it had always been because of Luan Nian.
Zhitao told her everything that had happened. To Sun Yu, none of it sounded minor. She was running her own startup, and people on her team seemed to rotate through like a revolving door. Too few people believed in what they were building.
"Do you want to hear what I think?" Sun Yu asked. "Your company's in such good shape, not like our startup where nothing's guaranteed past next month. My advice probably isn't worth much."
"I want to hear it."
"My advice is just this. Ask yourself why you came here in the first place, and then ask yourself if you're really good enough to walk away." Sun Yu put an arm around her shoulders. "Thinking it through is the painful part. The decision itself happens in an instant."
"But thinking it through helps you see yourself more clearly. There's no shame in feeling lost. Nobody's born strong." Sun Yu laughed at herself. "Look at me, I was crying today too!"
"Why?"
"A premium member wasn't happy with the matches our system recommended. He decided our algorithm was broken, started a fight with customer service, then threatened to blow up our company. In the end it landed on me, and he tore into me something awful." Sun Yu laughed. "Everybody's somebody's precious baby growing up, and here I am getting cursed out down eight generations by these bastards."
Zhitao suddenly felt that whatever she'd been through was nothing next to what Sun Yu had just described, and yet she'd gone on complaining to her for this long. Sun Yu was the one who actually needed comforting.
I really am not strong enough, she thought. Not resolute enough either.
She pulled Sun Yu into a solemn hug. "You've had such a rough day. Let me take you for grilled fish."