Lingmei showed the government client what a truly professional team looked like. From how the attendees dressed to how they spoke, everything left a strong impression.
As the project lead, Shang Zhitao had already visited the government officials on her own several times and communicated with them online many more times besides. She worked with care and responsibility, and had left them with a good impression. So instead of feeling that Lingmei had sent someone whose seniority didn't match the occasion, they felt Lingmei had sent its best.
Luan Nian knew that behind every bit of recognition Shang Zhitao received lay a great deal of effort on her part. In his opening remarks, he said, "Today's three-party meeting is a meaningful one, since it's the first formal meeting since the contract was finalized. Ms. Shang Zhitao was sent here by the company for a long-term posting, and she was chosen after careful consideration. I'd like to properly introduce her. She is already well known in the industry, and has served as project manager for several major business transformations at Lingmei. We described this in detail in the profile submitted to the government leadership earlier. Thank you all for the trust you've placed in Ms. Shang and in Lingmei. As for today's agenda, our main purpose is to deepen the creative direction. We'd like to hear your suggestions and share our own thoughts, so that we can settle on a course of action going forward."
"Thank you, Mr. Luan," the meeting host said. "Let's move on to today's agenda."
That Luan Nian had come in person for this occasion pleased both of the other two parties.
The talks, which should have been formal and tense, grew a little more relaxed, and proceeded step by step, until the government officials said they wanted to reposition the tone of the project and put forward new requirements.
Shang Zhitao wanted to speak up and share her thoughts, her ideas about the Longji people's dedication to preserving their cultural heritage, thoughts backed by a great deal of historical fact and theory. She had done a lot of homework on this.
But Luan Nian spoke first. "After receiving your requirements, we did some further thinking as well. I'll have Song Ying speak on our behalf." He then nodded to Song Ying. "Go ahead."
Shang Zhitao said nothing as she listened to Song Ying speak of Longji, cultural heritage, the spirit of the northwest. Song Ying hadn't stolen her ideas; the two of them had never exchanged views. The real difference between them was that Luan Nian trusted Song Ying, believed she would come up with something excellent, while he didn't think Shang Zhitao capable of the same.
Perhaps Luan Nian had never believed she had that kind of ability, not even the occasional spark of inspiration.
The government officials, surprised that Lingmei had a second strategy ready this quickly, and such a good one, praised them sincerely. "You really are a professional team." After the meeting ended, they returned to the office for a brief debrief, and Luan Nian quickly laid out the work ahead. "Once we're back, yilia will share the new ideas with the team and pick two people to come here and spend a week deepening the concept with you. flora, coordinate the material collection. But all of this work must follow one principle: everyone defers to the project manager's arrangements. Any creative direction that gets finalized has to be approved by flora first, before moving to the next step. flora is the person primarily responsible for this project, and everyone answers to her."
"Understood." Everyone nodded.
"flora did well today. You had complete control of the room. I'm at ease leaving this project in your hands. Thank you for your hard work."
"Thank you. And thanks to yilia for the creative support too. Thank you." Shang Zhitao didn't know what else to say, so she made a point of thanking Song Ying as well. But she felt just a little tired.
"I need to talk to flora privately about the next steps." Their colleagues nodded and left, leaving the two of them alone in the office.
Luan Nian looked at her for a long time. There was a trace of dejection in her eyes, and he saw it.
"Shang Zhitao." Luan Nian pulled a chair over and sat beside her, then turned her chair to face him. They sat across from each other. Shang Zhitao avoided his gaze, until he took hold of her cheek and turned her face toward him.
"A project manager's job is to be responsible for the project as a whole, not to produce the creative work. Leave the specialized tasks to the specialists. Do you agree with that?"
"I do."
"I noticed that when the officials brought up the creative concept, you looked like you had a lot to say. You can show me your thoughts now."
Shang Zhitao was thinking about whether this was the right moment to speak.
Luan Nian pinched her cheek again. "Are you going to tell me or not?"
"I actually have given it some thought." Shang Zhitao finally spoke. "But I hope you don't misunderstand. I'm not trying to outshine our creative colleague. I'm just approaching it from the standpoint of being responsible for the project."
"I won't misunderstand."
Shang Zhitao stood, picked up a thick stack of documents from the desk, the material she and her team had gathered on their field visits, and sat back down to explain it to Luan Nian. "I have to say, yilia is impressive. She'd been here less than two days and already grasped the core of it. Our conclusions line up. Let me start with the local geography."
Shang Zhitao walked him through everything they had prepared. On the last page was the printed version of the new cultural concept, since the government officials preferred hard copies.
Luan Nian listened quietly, and little by little, a smile crept into his eyes.
When she finished, he asked her, "Why didn't you add any of this in the meeting?"
"For one thing, there was no rush to draw conclusions, and just presenting the core idea worked fine. For another, the company has people who are more skilled at the creative and cultural side, and we can pull the material together later without any trouble. And finally, I think yilia deserves recognition too."
"Then why did you look so down?"
"You think I believed you had no ideas of your own, is that it?"
Shang Zhitao nodded, like a student being lectured by a teacher.
Luan Nian hadn't slept the night before. His thoughts had never been so tangled. He had taken in everything Shang Zhitao said yesterday about her breakthroughs and her frustrations. He realized once again that he had actually treated her quite badly. This was just how it was with Shang Zhitao; little by little, she was turning him into someone he didn't recognize.
"Shang Zhitao, I want you to understand that of the decisions I make, eighty percent are right and twenty percent are wrong. Having yilia present the creative concept in the meeting today was probably the wrong call, because I hadn't aligned with you on the information beforehand. But you're not blameless either. In yesterday afternoon's meeting, you never shared this with me. Were you trying to surprise me?"
Shang Zhitao's face turned red. She suddenly felt she still hadn't seen the bigger picture.
"All right, I got my surprise. It really was surprising." Luan Nian touched her lips.
"Our flight is this afternoon. Could you arrange a car to take us to the airport?" Luan Nian said.
"I'll have shelly take you."
"Thanks for the trouble."
Luan Nian didn't make a point of saying goodbye to Shang Zhitao. Before he left, he only glanced at her, lightly.
Shang Zhitao had no real experience quarreling with Luan Nian. She wasn't even sure whether what had happened between them counted as a fight, or whether this counted as making up. She hadn't gone to see him off at the airport, but when shelly called to say his flight had taken off, she was suddenly filled with regret.
It had been so hard to see him, and he'd just left like that. What was there to fight about, when they'd gone so long without seeing each other?
She opened her phone to check on Luke. He seemed a little lonely. After his walk, the housekeeper had made him his food, but he hadn't even gotten up the way he usually did, just lay there. Shang Zhitao's heart ached for him, and she called out, "Luke."
Luke whined once but didn't move. It suddenly occurred to Shang Zhitao that maybe she could bring Luke out to the northwest. Life there was hard for her, but at least Luke would have her. She pulled up her phone to check driving routes, and started planning to rent a car and drive from Beijing to bring Luke along, and let him be a traveling dog.
Late into the night, Shang Zhitao watched as Luke suddenly stood up, ran to the door, tilted his head to listen carefully, and then leapt into Luan Nian's arms as he came through the door.
It took Luan Nian a long while to calm him down. He pointed at the food bowl and asked, "Hunger strike?"
Luke barked once and ran over to his bowl, burying his head in it. With Luan Nian home, his appetite had returned. Shang Zhitao could even hear the smacking sounds of his mouth in the bowl and the drops of drool hitting the floor. Finally she couldn't help but tell him, "Slow down!"
"Why do you have so much to say about it?" Luan Nian sat on the couch, giving Shang Zhitao the back of his head, though she knew that remark was aimed at her. She muttered under her breath, "He's my dog."
Luan Nian turned around and looked at the camera. "Say that again?"
"He's our... dog."
Luan Nian turned back around, giving her the back of his head again. Shang Zhitao called out to him. "Luan Nian."
"Mm?"
"Can I come back at the end of September?"
"To see which friend of yours?"
"My boyfriend." Shang Zhitao said. "To see you once before you leave for the Netherlands. Is that all right?"
Every year, without fail, Luan Nian took a trip or two with his friends. This year's destination was the Netherlands.
Luan Nian still didn't answer. Shang Zhitao waited a long time. She hated it when he did this.
"Luan Nian, after I go back to the company next month and resume my post, I'm thinking of renting a car and bringing Luke out to the northwest. That way I won't trouble you to look after him anymore. It's getting late. I'm going to sleep."
Shang Zhitao turned off the camera feed and tossed her phone aside. She was betting Luan Nian would call. Sure enough, his call came in. He asked her, "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean I'm going to bring Luke to stay with me, so you'll have more free time and won't always have to worry about taking care of him. It'll be easier on you."
"I'll throw him out right now, then. You can come back and put up lost dog flyers yourself!"
"Fine."
Shang Zhitao hung up. Luan Nian called back. She declined the call. This went on, back and forth, many times.
She'd learned to be difficult. She wanted Luan Nian to taste that feeling too, the feeling of being shut out. She quietly opened the camera feed and saw him make a call, but her own phone didn't ring. He was calling someone else. He'd put it on speaker, cutting straight to the heart.
Shang Zhitao heard him say, "Want to come out for a bit?"
"Come out where?"
"Anywhere. Does it matter?"
"It does. What I wear depends on where we're going."
It was flirting, plain and open.
"Come sit at your place, then. Send me your address." Luan Nian hung up, then spoke to the empty air. "Shang Zhitao, I'm going to go sit at a friend's place. We're just ordinary friends, and nothing is going to happen tonight. Also, don't bother calling me. You know I won't pick up."
"Luan Nian!" Shang Zhitao called out.
"What is it, flora? Something wrong? Coming to get the dog? Right now?"
"You're not allowed to go out!"
"What right do you have to tell me what to do?"
"I'm your girlfriend!" When Shang Zhitao got angry, her voice shook, and the word girlfriend came out especially shaky this time. Luan Nian's anger suddenly vanished. He raised his eyebrows at Luke. Luke tilted his head and stuck out his tongue, as if to say, Dad's really something.
"You're flying back first thing tomorrow morning to report for duty." Luan Nian kept a stern face toward the camera. "Buy the ticket right now."
"Okay."
It wasn't until Shang Zhitao got home that she understood what he meant by reporting for duty. It meant the two of them holed up at home together, on a workday. Luan Nian told his secretary he had something important to deal with, and to call him in three hours if anything came up.
The important thing was Shang Zhitao.
Neither of them had ever been this reckless before; they had always put work ahead of each other. But the fight had taken too much of a toll on them, and if it wasn't fully resolved, neither of them could work.
Luan Nian focused entirely on Shang Zhitao. Her eyes were bright with light, and looking at them unsettled him, so he turned her body around abruptly to avoid her gaze. With one hand, he teased her, and murmured in her ear, "Satisfied with my service that day?"
"I would be, if you hadn't said that last thing."
"I'll make it up to you double today, and I'm sorry for what I said. I'm sorry, Shang Zhitao." Luan Nian's sweat dripped onto her back. He moved her hair aside and pressed a kiss to the side of her face.
Shang Zhitao sank into the bedding. Everywhere felt full, without gaps, on the verge of bursting. She bit down on Luan Nian's finger to keep from crying out too loud, though her body trembled violently, as if she'd never known anything this intense before.
"Shang Zhitao."
"Mm?"
"If you don't pick up my calls again, I'll kill you." Luan Nian pinched her cheek. "And if you hug another man again, I'll kill you too."
Shang Zhitao cupped his face in her hands. "If you have dinner alone with another woman again, I'll let you have your wish."
Ever since she'd grown up, whenever Shang Zhitao told friends who were fighting that couples always make up in bed, she never really understood what it meant. After making up with Luan Nian in bed just once, she was full of praise for the wisdom of the ancients.
Neither of them brought up the fight again. Shang Zhitao threw herself diligently into her project, and Luan Nian ran his company with equal care. In that time, he flew out to the northwest twice, spending two weekends with Shang Zhitao. They stayed holed up in the small rented apartment, eating, sleeping, talking, making love. Luan Nian arrived late at night and left on the early morning flight, without a trace.
lumi still kept sending Shang Zhitao updates about Luan Nian. She thought her stubborn mule seemed to be in love, since he was in a good mood; then she thought he'd been dumped again, since he wore a scowl all day. Shang Zhitao wasn't by his side, but she had a rough sense of what caused his moods. Both times lumi said he wasn't happy, it turned out to be because he and Shang Zhitao had fought. She tried asking him about it once, and Luan Nian said, "What, is your lumi mentor spying on me for you?"
Shang Zhitao immediately backed off, afraid of getting lumi into trouble.
Though she didn't go into the office, news about Luan Nian and Song Ying kept reaching her ears. The most outrageous thing she heard was that Luan Nian's parents had come back to the country and had dinner with Song Ying's parents.
Shang Zhitao thought that was ridiculous. But she was the only one who thought so. Her colleagues didn't see it that way, and the next time Song Ying came, the project team suddenly treated her with new respect.
Shang Zhitao asked shelly privately, "Why does it feel like you're afraid of her?"
shelly thought about it. "Maybe because she represents luke."
Shang Zhitao wanted to tell shelly that rumors stop with the wise, but she understood that being so far from Beijing, they had no way of knowing what was really going on there, and didn't really know Luan Nian either. Their anxious deference was only natural.
The day Shang Zhitao truly realized Song Ying was serious was when she was driving her back from a field trip. In the car, Song Ying suddenly said to her, "Sister flora."
It was said the same way Shang Zhitao herself called someone Sister Grace, close and natural. That single word, sister, laid their age gap bare, plain for anyone to see.
Shang Zhitao turned her head and looked at Song Ying's twenty-two-year-old face, and felt something she couldn't put into words. She asked softly, "What is it, yilia?"
Song Ying's face flushed slightly. She seemed to have something difficult to say. Shang Zhitao waited quietly for her to speak. It felt like a long time passed, and their car crossed over a ridge, before Song Ying continued. "You've worked with luke for a long time. I wanted to ask you, does luke have a girlfriend?"
Shang Zhitao didn't know how to answer. She just kept driving in silence over another ridge before saying, "I doubt luke's short on girlfriends. Someone like him probably has no shortage of women interested in him. Why do you ask?"
Song Ying's face flushed even redder. "Because I've realized I like him."
Shang Zhitao felt herself pushed onto the moral high ground. She couldn't say nothing after a girl had just confided that she liked Luan Nian. But she didn't know what to say, or what she could say. What came out of her mouth surprised even her. She said, "You're young. If you like someone, go for it."
"Really?" Song Ying was clearly delighted.
"Really."
"Then I'm going to go after him! Do you know what luke likes?"
"Sorry, yilia. I don't really know him that well."
"That's all right, I'll figure it out myself." Song Ying looked happy. She shifted in her seat and looked out the window. After a while, she said, "I know the company doesn't allow employees to date. If I win him over, I'll definitely tell you in secret. I've liked Sister flora since my very first day. You seem so gentle and easygoing, and... your skin is so nice."
Shang Zhitao smiled and said, "Thank you. But please don't tell me how things are going with luke. I'm afraid I have a big mouth and won't be able to keep your secret."
Song Ying giggled.
That night, when Luan Nian called her, there were several moments she wanted to bring up Song Ying, but each time she held her tongue. It felt a little underhanded, somehow, that a girl had confided in her about liking someone, and then she'd turn around and confront the man about it. It seemed strange, since nothing had even happened yet.
Luan Nian finally noticed she was distracted and asked, "Something wrong?"
"No."
"But you keep starting to say something and stopping."
"I forgot what I wanted to ask you, but I just remembered. I wanted to ask, for the October holiday, what if I go somewhere in Southeast Asia? There isn't time to get a visa anywhere else."
"Sounds good. With your friends again?" Luan Nian asked.
"Yes."
Shang Zhitao thought this arrangement worked well. Neither of their routines was disrupted. It seemed like they both wanted to deliberately preserve their independence and their own space.
At the end of September, in line with the company's rotation policy, she flew back to Beijing on the company's expense.
It had been summer when she left, and autumn when she returned. A few fallen leaves had begun to appear along the road from the airport to Luan Nian's place, and Shang Zhitao found herself staring at them, lost in thought.
The security guard at Luan Nian's compound drove her to the door in a small cart. She entered the door code and let herself in. Luke was overjoyed, jumping up and down more than a dozen times in front of her. She kept patting his head to calm him down, then scooped him up into her arms. "Okay, okay, I know you missed me. I missed you too. I love you the most."
Luan Nian coughed from the side. Shang Zhitao caught the sharp look he shot her way and quickly corrected herself. "I love you second most. I love Luke the most."
Luke had no idea what was being said anyway, but luke was pleased.
His luggage, one large case and one small, sat packed in the living room.
"What time's your flight tomorrow?" Shang Zhitao asked him.
"Two in the afternoon."
"Then you'll need to leave by ten in the morning."
"About that, yes."
Over dinner, Luan Nian mentioned that a residential area about five kilometers from the compound had a steamed bun shop that had opened recently, and their halal buns were really good.
"How good?"
"I can eat five of them." Luan Nian didn't usually eat much, so buns that could get him to eat five had to be good.
The two of them spent a peaceful night together. The next morning, when Shang Zhitao left, Luan Nian felt a little down, though he couldn't have said why. He stood in the doorway and watched her leave with Luke, and something tugged at his chest.
He'd just loaded his luggage into the car and driven out of the compound when Shang Zhitao's call came in. "Was that steamed bun place you mentioned the one by the back entrance, ground floor, green sign?"
"Yes."
"I found it. Should I bring some back for your breakfast? You won't be able to get it once you're abroad."
Something warm stirred in Luan Nian, like a faint current of heat trickling in. "All right. I'll wait for you at the compound gate."
"Will there be time? Will it make you miss your flight?"
"There's time." That's what Luan Nian said, though it might not really be true. He just wanted the buns.
Shang Zhitao got out of the car with Luke and her luggage. Luan Nian took Luke's leash and her bags and set them by the car, then slowly ate all five buns.
Shang Zhitao took a tissue and wiped the corner of his mouth, then handed him a bottle of water. When Luan Nian finished the buns, he suddenly asked her:
"Shang Zhitao, do you want to go on the trip together?"