Shang Zhitao had no idea what Luan Nian meant by "finding someone," not until she went to his place and saw it for herself. He was like an addict.
Too exhausted to move, Shang Zhitao sprawled on the bed and complained, "Isn't this basically trading sex for favors?"
Luan Nian looked her over. "Where exactly is the sex?"
"Hmph!"
Unconvinced, Shang Zhitao turned her back to him. Her personality was soft, but she was still a girl from Ice City, and she carried a bit of that look about her. Tall enough, with smooth lines, actually quite good-looking. Just not quite good-looking enough to make Luan Nian's eyes light up.
After all, Luan Nian was blind.
That was what Shang Zhitao told herself.
But her mind was still on the promotion, so she sat up, hugged her knees, and looked at him with a smile. "So will you give me a green light this time around?" she asked him.
"No."
"...Then why send me to find someone?"
Luan Nian shrugged. "I won't give you a green light, but fairly speaking, you'll succeed on your own. I'll approve you."
"Why?"
"Because you've genuinely delivered results, your work attitude has been excellent, and your head, well, works better than it used to."
Shang Zhitao giggled and hooked her finger around his. "You're complimenting me."
"Didn't you tell me to compliment you once in a while?"
Time really was a strange thing. Shang Zhitao felt that it changed people, shaped them, and had even shaped the relationship between the two of them. That relationship couldn't be spoken of in polite terms, but to Shang Zhitao it was a comfortable one. Luan Nian was still a sharp person, but the softness he occasionally let show fascinated her.
Shang Zhitao had no grand ambitions. She thought the present was good enough.
Luan Nian really did set up a meeting between Sun Yu and an investor.
The day they met, Sun Yu asked Shang Zhitao if she wanted to come along. She shook her head, then said to Sun Yu, "Can you pretend you don't know about the relationship between him and me?"
"Why?"
"Because no one knows except you."
Sun Yu studied Shang Zhitao for a while, then sighed. "You mean you want me to be polite to him? You're afraid I'll say something out of line and set him off, and then we both lose."
Shang Zhitao nodded. "Yes. I'm afraid you won't get the investment, and I'm afraid he'll get angry." She was being so sensible it made Sun Yu's heart ache for her.
"Don't worry, I won't say a word."
"Then good luck." Shang Zhitao hugged her, then turned to Luke. "Bark twice for Sister Sun Yu, she's going to have great fortune today!"
Luke: Woof! Woof!
They met at Luan Nian's bar. Sun Yu drove her newly bought used Geely up the mountain. She pushed open the bar door and saw a man standing behind the counter mixing a drink, a cold, aloof face. That had to be Luan Nian. Shang Zhitao had mentioned him more times than she could count.
She walked up to the bar and greeted him. "Hello, Luan Nian, I'm Sun Yu."
"Sit." Luan Nian tilted his chin toward a barstool. "What'll you have?"
"Something alcoholic."
Luan Nian glanced up at her. He had seen her once before, from a distance, the day Shang Zhitao reported Dony and Sun Yu came to pick her up. Other than that, she was just the Guizhou beauty Shang Zhitao never stopped talking about, an independent, clear-headed, sharp, loyal marvel of a woman.
Did Shang Zhitao even know what "marvel of a woman" actually meant? Luan Nian thought her taste was questionable. Once, in the car, she'd suddenly pointed at a girl in a down jacket on the roadside and said, "Wow, so pretty." Luan Nian had looked over and found nothing worth the "wow."
Sun Yu was a step up from that, at least fair-skinned and clean-looking.
He set the finished drink in front of Sun Yu. "Enjoy. The other party will be here in about half an hour."
"Well, at least I'm not late, I just got here too early." Sun Yu didn't mention that Shang Zhitao had exaggerated how far the mountain was and how winding the roads were, telling her to leave early. So she didn't bring it up.
"Did Shang Zhitao make the mountain road sound worse than it is?" Luan Nian took a sip of water, his clean hand tapping lightly on the bar. There was nothing particular in his tone, just the sense that he was clearly difficult to get along with.
Before leaving, Shang Zhitao had told Sun Yu not to mention her, and now here was Luan Nian breaking that rule the moment he opened his mouth. Sun Yu smiled at him. "She said the roads weren't easy to drive."
"For a road menace like her, they wouldn't be."
"..."
Sun Yu had heard from Shang Zhitao that Luan Nian had a sharp tongue and had braced herself for it, but hearing that jab in person still made her want to hit him.
Luan Nian was doing it on purpose.
Whatever those ridiculous events were that Sun Yu kept organizing, just thinking about them irritated him.
Neither of them spoke. Sun Yu thought to herself that a man like Luan Nian only had his looks going for him. If she were ever with someone like him, she'd cut out his tongue first just to shut him up. Without the ability to talk, he might actually be tolerable.
She had no idea how Taotao put up with him.
The two of them stayed silent like that until the person from the investment bank arrived.
He was a young man in his thirties, wearing glasses, in a heavy wool coat that, once removed, revealed a sharply tailored suit underneath. He spotted Luan Nian and offered his hand first. "Hello, Master Luke."
The title amused Luan Nian. "Did Song Qiuhan tell you to say that?"
The investor, whose name was Xin Ji, shook his head. "No, I've seen your award-winning work. I really admire it."
"That's in the past." Luan Nian was uncharacteristically modest. "Let me introduce everyone. This is Ms. Sun Yu, a partner at the startup, in charge of sales and operations. And this is Xin Ji, project manager at a top investment bank. What would you like to drink, Xin Ji?"
"Something alcoholic." Xin Ji was easygoing. "I heard Luke's drinks are good, and since I'm already here..."
"Then let me show off a little. Shall we talk at the bar?"
"Sure."
Sun Yu hadn't said much the whole time. Luan Nian handled everything that needed to be said on her behalf, and he'd turned unexpectedly friendly, so different from his usual self that she simply kept quiet and watched to see exactly how far he intended to go to help her.
Sun Yu never imagined Luan Nian would put in this much effort. He had clearly studied their business model inside and out, and even reworked it to improve it. From start to finish, she barely said a word. Luan Nian said it all for her.
Shang Zhitao had told her Luan Nian was a man of few words, closed off like a sealed jar.
Shang Zhitao had also told her Luan Nian had a bad temper, that he'd turn cold after a few sentences and flip moods faster than turning a page.
Shang Zhitao had also told her Luan Nian had terrible emotional intelligence, that he never read the room and said whatever he wanted regardless of whether it pleased anyone.
The Luan Nian Shang Zhitao described didn't match the Luan Nian Sun Yu was seeing at all. She even began to wonder if Shang Zhitao was biased against him.
By the end, Luan Nian clapped Xin Ji on the shoulder and said, "Better decide quickly. We've got two more companies lined up after this."
Sun Yu nearly wanted to get down on her knees in front of Luan Nian. We can't get meetings with any better companies than this. If this project doesn't get funding, it's finished.
But Xin Ji just nodded. "No issues on my end. I'll start the evaluation as soon as I'm back."
"When will you have a result?"
"Within a week."
"That's a bit long."
"Within three days, then."
"Good."
And that was that. Sun Yu and Luan Nian saw Xin Ji out, watched him get into his car, and drove off with his driver.
Luan Nian went back to his usual half-dead look. Talking that much wore him out, and he'd spent the whole meeting talking for the sake of Shang Zhitao and her friend's project. He wasn't even sure what he'd gotten out of it.
Sun Yu said to him, "Thanks, seriously, for answering all those questions for me." Though the unspoken part of that was, I didn't actually need you to. She'd come up through sales; talking was the last thing she was afraid of.
"Get the investment quickly, then you'll have money sooner to hire extras for those strange offline events of yours."
Luan Nian said this out of nowhere, leaving Sun Yu completely baffled.
"How are you getting home after drinking?" Luan Nian suddenly asked her. Shang Zhitao's dog was just like her, and so were her friends. The moment they walked through the door, it was straight to the alcohol, forgetting she'd driven herself here. He couldn't be bothered to remind her. Not his problem.
... Shit. Only then did Sun Yu remember she'd driven today. She looked at her car, then at Luan Nian. He hadn't been drinking. Maybe he could give her a ride.
Luan Nian, however, put on his best good-guy act. "I'll drive you home, then. Get someone to bring your car back another day."
"Thanks, then."
Luan Nian dropped Sun Yu off outside her apartment complex. Feeling she owed him something, she said politely, "I really put you through a lot today, let me treat you to a meal."
"Isn't your company's cash flow supposedly broken?"
Sun Yu thought, this man's mouth was truly vicious. "I can still afford one meal."
"Then go ahead and treat me."
Luan Nian pulled out his phone and called Shang Zhitao. "Come out."
Sun Yu found the relationship between Shang Zhitao and Luan Nian strange. The two of them barely exchanged a word, yet something odd churned between them, charging the air with a kind of tension, making the Japanese restaurant feel a little too warm. Luan Nian ordered sake. Sun Yu kindly reminded him, "You drove here."
"I have a driver." Luan Nian smiled without any real warmth in it, looking thoroughly punchable.
Sun Yu looked at Shang Zhitao: this was the man who had her so hopelessly infatuated? Shang Zhitao pursed her lips: you should see Lumi, he's practically obsessive. Then she broke into a grin: isn't he great, though? I love everything about him.
The three of them drank together. Shang Zhitao's tolerance had improved a little with practice. Three sake flasks sat in front of her, her small face flushed pink. She even raised her glass to clink with Sun Yu's. "This year's almost over. It's been as terrible as ever, but at least, right before it ends, you might land an investment, and I'm about to get transferred to the planning department I've always wanted. Call it a small reward for our otherwise unremarkable lives."
The two of them suddenly remembered that every year around this time, something bad seemed to happen to them, and so they cheered each other up, saying the next year would be better, that they'd finally get the happy year they deserved. But the next year was just as brutal as ever. Life was bitter by nature; bitterness was one of its medicines.
Sun Yu took a drink and suddenly swore. "I don't even know when this shitty life is going to get better."
"Sooner or later."
Luan Nian sat off to the side without saying anything. He'd thought before that maybe Shang Zhitao's life wasn't going as well as it seemed, going by the broken fragments of it she'd unintentionally shown him: getting sick, a shady rental agent, workplace harassment. But there was plenty he never saw, things she and her friends had pulled through on their own. And Shang Zhitao herself, every time she showed up at his place, carried a kind of sunlight with her, like that line of poetry about laughter lighting up the wind from every direction, like April clouds and mist, truly early spring under clear skies.
The two women drank cheerfully. Shang Zhitao took off her sweater, and the smooth, pale skin at her waist, the clean line of her figure, drew the eye. Luan Nian, without any fuss, wrapped the sweater around her waist for her. Sun Yu watched him do it and thought: someone's fallen into this without even realizing it.
After they finished drinking, Luan Nian walked them downstairs. Sun Yu made an excuse to go up first. Shang Zhitao kicked her toe at a patch of leftover snow on the roadside, her words a little slurred from the alcohol. "It would be so nice if we could hug before saying goodbye."
Luan Nian smiled. He didn't know how good-looking he was when he smiled, the kind of good-looking that belonged to April, when everything comes alive. He pulled Shang Zhitao into his arms, though the words out of his mouth weren't gentle at all. "Drink with someone else again and I'll kill you." She'd taken her sweater off that easily, so what exactly was she wearing underneath?
Shang Zhitao giggled against him, teasing him further. "Do you want to take me and Luke to your place?"
They were about to go through another long stretch apart, and she didn't like it.
"I'll call a driver."
The sake hit hard on the way. Shang Zhitao fussed to open the window in the car, let the wind blow on her the whole ride, and started throwing up the moment they got to Luan Nian's place.
Shit. Luan Nian cursed under his breath.
He cleaned up while holding back the urge to strangle her, thinking, you and your dog are both useless, your dog does its business in my house, you throw up in my house, the two of you deserve to be sliced to pieces.
After cleaning up, he took care of getting her to brush her teeth, rinse her mouth, and shower, and things didn't quiet down until well past midnight. Luan Nian pinched Shang Zhitao's cheek and said viciously, "A little cat piss and you're already a mess. See if you ever drink again."
Half-asleep, Shang Zhitao irritably pried his hand off her face, then burrowed back into his arms, mumbling his name over and over. "Luan Nian, Luan Nian, Luan Nian..."
That name was practically a spell, keeping Shang Zhitao firmly trapped within the reach of his gravity. She couldn't get out, and she didn't want to. She liked the walled city he'd built. Aside from the freedom to love, it had everything else.
Another year like this passed. Shang Zhitao took Luke back to Ice City, and Luan Nian went to the US.
Dr. Liang was petty too, and she hadn't forgotten how Luan Nian had lied to her about having a girlfriend. She trailed after him, saying, "I've been looking, and that matchmaking website's not bad either. There are a lot of genuinely good girls on there. Mom thinks the conditions look great, so I went ahead and registered you an account too."
Luan Nian stopped packing and looked over as Dr. Liang held up her phone to show him. "Take a look, how did Mom do filling out your profile?"
Luan Nian took the phone and saw the bio: winner of top-tier international advertising awards, young prodigy, senior executive at a well-known foreign company, annual salary in the millions. Oh, and comes from a good family. Preferred partner: no restrictions. Dr. Liang had even carefully picked out photos, somehow getting hold of a few pictures of handsome men that were obviously fake.
Dr. Liang looked rather pleased with herself. "I worried it might affect your company's stock price, so I swapped out your name and photos. And let me tell you, plenty of girls are into you, some have even sent private messages."
Seeing the question marks all over Luan Nian's face, Dr. Liang thought, you're still too green to outmaneuver your own mother. She laughed and said, "Guess what? It's a small world. One of the messages actually came from the girl whose photo I used without asking. She sent a message too."
At that, Luan Nian's brow furrowed, his mood souring. He opened the messages and saw one sent from Shang Zhitao's account: "Hello, I work in Beijing too. Want to get to know each other?"
...
The room went quiet. Luan Nian wanted to strangle Shang Zhitao. Dr. Liang noticed his anger, grabbed her own phone back, and kept needling him. "That girl seemed pretty sweet, so I said sure, let's meet. She said meeting one-on-one felt a little awkward, why don't we sign up for one of the site's offline events together instead?"
Dr. Liang finished saying this and walked out, barely holding back the urge to burst out laughing, her stomach aching from suppressing it. She'd never realized before how fun it was to mess with her own son.
Luan Nian never expected he'd end up with a stomachache from anger at Shang Zhitao on New Year's Day of all days. He took some stomach medicine and chatted with Song Qiuhan and Chen Kuannian. He told Song Qiuhan, "I've been thinking about that matchmaking project, and it doesn't seem all that reliable. There's too much marriage fraud on those platforms. Maybe you should call off the investment, or at least reassess the risk."
Song Qiuhan, having no idea why he was saying this, answered him earnestly. "I already went over the risk with our domestic colleagues. Real-name verification cuts down on some of it, it's not a major issue. It's actually a good project, giving single people a shot at spring."
...Spring, my ass! That idiot Shang Zhitao was about to become the spokesperson for that website!
Far away in Ice City, Shang Zhitao sneezed, with no idea someone was cursing her out. Old Shang and Big Zhai were busy in the kitchen while Luke sat by the kitchen door waiting for them to toss him scraps of meat now and then.
Shang Zhitao protested, "Don't give him so much meat! It's bad for him!"
Luke barked at Shang Zhitao: Woof! I've got a whole drawer of meat at the bar! I eat it every day!
Shang Zhitao, not understanding a word of it, thought Luke was challenging her and grabbed a slipper to chase him. "Talking back to me after I said no? I'll hit you!"
Old Shang, displeased, snatched the slipper out of her hand. "Just try laying a hand on Luke! I'll throw you out of this house!"
"...I'm your daughter!"
"Don't give me that. Luke matters more."
Hmph!
Outside, firecrackers crackled away. As always, Shang Zhitao sent Luan Nian an email: "Happy New Year, hope everything goes well this year."
Luan Nian wrote back: "Happy New Year. Stop pretending to be a matchmaking scammer."