During her first week of living with Zhang Lian, Zhou Mi confirmed one thing.

That in front of Zhang Lian, acting like strangers or maintaining immunity was practically impossible. He had an irresistible attraction.

When it came to personal desires, he was always forthright and straightforward, thus not repulsive; but he was also skilled at making the boundaries of male-female relationships vague and ambiguous, like a perforated line in handcrafted paper—impossible to cut cleanly. At most, one could fold it, thinking this would create separation, but the edges of the paper would reunite on the other side, even adhering together.

Perhaps it was also because of her somewhat light-averse personality that his style of dealing with things—sometimes transparent, sometimes obscure—completely struck her personal preference.

She couldn’t discard the feeling Zhang Lian gave her.

Zhou Mi sat at her workstation, absentmindedly daydreaming, thinking about a person who was less than a hundred meters away.

As soon as Ye Yan arrived, she eagerly gossiped: “Mi, so you have a boyfriend now? You’ve kept it quite hidden.”

Zhou Mi came back to reality and asked in surprise: “What?”

Ye Yan, holding a takeout bowl of hot dry noodles—a high-carb food that usually looked like a formidable enemy in her eyes—said: “That night when we were singing?”

Zhou Mi realized and maintained the same story: “Oh.”

Ye Yan opened the plastic bag and peered at her: “I remember now, is it the one who called you when we were having lunch with Zoe at 7-11?”

Zhou Mi was slightly stunned but continued to be ambiguous: “I guess so.”

Ye Yan smiled: “What do you mean ‘I guess so’? Either it is or it isn’t.”

Zhou Mi lowered her eyes: “It’s hard to say…”

Ye Yan saw through it immediately: “Not official yet?”

Zhou Mi couldn’t answer. How should she describe it to others—former monthly hookup partner, now contract spouse? Both identities seemed unreliable and inappropriate to reveal.

She scratched her head, making something up: “He’s been pursuing me for a long time… I plan to get to know him for three months first, so I didn’t want people to misunderstand that I’m single, since his boyfriend content is already about 60% anyway.”

Ye Yan laughed at her description: “Boyfriend content 60%, is that some kind of juice?”

Zhou Mi fell silent.

It feels more like some kind of perfume or cocktail, she thought to herself.

Ye Yan began slurping her noodles, and Zhou Mi quickly changed the subject: “What about you? How are things with your boyfriend?”

Ye Yan, chewing and speaking indistinctly: “I’ve resumed normal eating, what do you think?”

Zhou Mi was momentarily speechless.

Ye Yan swallowed and waved her chopsticks: “My ex-boyfriend particularly liked that paper-thin, fish-bone kind of figure, which made me act like I was crazy too. Now I think, why bother? How did I survive eating like this for three or four years? Giving up junk food for a man, I was really stupid.”

Hearing that she had already changed her terminology to “ex-boyfriend,” Zhou Mi felt there was no need to inquire further and encouraged her: “Bye bye means bye bye, the next one will be better.”

Ye Yan glanced at her and snorted: “I’m just afraid that bye bye means bye bye, the next one will be worse.”

This laugh was weak, like a shop assistant who hadn’t rested for seven days and nights, exhausted to the extreme but still having to put on a cheerful face.

Ye Yan lowered her head again, slowly picking up a noodle, and sucked it into her mouth bit by bit as if in a trance.

Zhou Mi didn’t respond anymore, picking up her cup that was still more than half full and leaving her seat.

Those who have experienced long love and separation know.

It’s not the kind that collapses with one blow, heart-wrenching, but a chronic illness with a long recovery period. Familiar scenes, conversations, songs, movies—they all become one bruise after another under the skin. Whether touched intentionally or unintentionally, they all trigger pain.

Zhou Mi emptied her water and stood behind the counter selecting coffee capsules, wanting to kill some time, giving her leader a private moment to digest her sadness.

The capsules were gathered in a black tray, colorful and bright, like a rainbow broken into equal pieces.

Zhou Mi took them out one by one to look, struggling for quite a while. She preferred tea bags or plain water at the company, so she couldn’t distinguish the flavors.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

Zhou Mi took it out and saw a WeChat message from Zhang Lian, just two brief words:

“Gold one”

Zhou Mi was startled and looked around, spotting Zhang Lian standing in the Creative Department area. He was always tall and prominent, visible at a glance.

Perhaps he had been called over to review something; Creative Director Teddy was also standing beside him.

He looked at the monitor for a while, then turned his head to talk to Teddy, sometimes with a reserved expression, sometimes smiling, natural but focused.

How did he notice she was having decision paralysis here?

Zhou Mi lowered her eyelids, her head warming slightly as she took out a gold capsule, inserted it into the coffee machine, and started operating it.

Brown liquid gurgled out, the rich aroma spreading widely in the air.

After preparing the coffee, Zhou Mi glanced at Zhang Lian’s position again, then picked up the cup and left the counter.

Back at her workstation, Ye Yan was already typing at a steady rhythm, seemingly temporarily recovered.

Zhou Mi clasped the cup with both hands, took a small sip, and found it was indeed the type she preferred, with a sweet aroma similar to cookies or fruit.

She took out her phone with some surprise, looked at Zhang Lian’s message again, and stubbornly replied: I can choose for myself.

After a while, Zhang Lian replied: How long were you planning to choose? Others get paid to use the bathroom, you get paid to choose coffee.

Zhou Mi: “…”

She replied through gritted teeth: Yes, I was getting paid to choose coffee, and now I’m getting paid to chat with the boss. What about it?

Zhang Lian: Chatting is fine.

Zhang Lian: Positive interaction between superiors and subordinates helps enhance company cohesion.

Zhou Mi almost burst out laughing, quickly glanced around, and covered her mouth for a moment to suppress her smile.

She asked: What’s positive about it?

Zhang Lian: What’s negative about it?

Zhou Mi paused.

Since that Saturday night, she felt her ability to overthink had doubled. Otherwise, why would these five words of his question make her sense a suggestive meaning?

Zhou Mi directly pointed out: Your question is very negative.

Zhang Lian: You’re an AE with more expanded thinking than a Creative.

Zhou Mi quibbled: See, you were thinking about it too.

Zhang Lian said: I just wanted to say a few words to you initially.

Zhou Mi’s cheeks unconsciously rose: We’ve already said more than a few words, quite a few words. We’re done.

Zhang Lian: Okay.

Zhou Mi suddenly didn’t want to end it and insisted on clarifying: Then why did you want to talk to me?

Zhang Lian replied: I saw you, thought of you, what’s wrong with saying a few words?

Why was he always so righteous and open?

Zhou Mi resisted and resisted, barely preventing herself from making a somewhat cringey “giao” sound in her heart.

It was affecting her concentration too much, so she immediately stopped chatting with Zhang Lian: I need to work now, goodbye.

Zhang Lian: Mm.

Zhang Lian: Goodbye.

—

In the afternoon, the Dragon Boat Festival snack bucket pitch team for K was assembled, and Zhou Mi was pulled in by Ye Yan without any mental preparation.

She first checked the member list, confirming Jiang Shi wasn’t included, and then breathed a sigh of relief.

Ye Yan noticed her changing expressions and teased from the side: “Don’t worry, certain people haven’t been arranged to join.”

Zhou Mi gave her a knowing smile: “Yan, thank you.”

“I know, I know,” Ye Yan propped her chin with one hand while scrolling through the brief with the mouse. “Jiang Shi has a lot on his plate, he can’t catch this hearse.”

Zhou Mi looked at her: “Why call it a hearse?”

Ye Yan sighed: “It’s killing me. It’s annoying enough with unfamiliar people, and we can’t even add the new director.”

Zhou Mi asked: “Do we need to contact the client before the pitch?”

Ye Yan said, “Of course, we need to be proactive. Before the pitch, we need to figure out the client’s preferences and tendencies so we can be more targeted in our approach. That increases our chances of success.”

Zhou Mi said, “You’re so serious about facing this project even though you don’t want to do it at all. Yan, your attitude is so good.”

Ye Yan scoffed: “Does it matter if I don’t want to do it? Can I mess around and expect Fabian to let me off?”

Hearing Zhang Lian’s name suddenly, Zhou Mi’s mind wandered, and she probed: “He seems pretty easy to talk to.”

Ye Yan: “Fake, it’s all fake. He’s a smiling tiger.”

Zhou Mi deeply agreed: “Right, right, right.”

Ye Yan glanced at her: “You’ve only been here for three months, and you already think that?”

Zhou Mi paused, lowering her voice: “Mm, a little… I think he’s quite mysterious.”

“When I first joined Aoxing, I wasn’t as perceptive as you. Every time I saw him at the company, I felt like he had a halo, tall, fair, and handsome, like a male god shining over the earth.” Ye Yan showed the admiring smile common among girls, which quickly disappeared. “Later, after experiencing a company meeting, I didn’t feel that way anymore.”

Zhou Mi was curious: “Company meeting?”

Ye Yan was still holding her phone like she was praying for the client’s approval: “Yes, we call it the reflection meeting, once every four or five months. Everyone has to attend, it’s held in the pantry. Each group sends someone to talk about work progress, to see if there are any scheduling issues or inadequate work. Anyway, when he criticizes people, he becomes a completely different person.”

Ye Yan glanced at Zhou Mi again: “But don’t worry, he’s never given interns trouble.”

Zhou Mi curved her lips in a smile, swallowing more curiosity back into her heart.

—

Around four in the afternoon, Zhou Mi compiled the data from last week’s Enmei milk on Weibo, WeChat, Little Red Book, and Douyin, compressed it, sent it to Ye Yan, and informed her.

Ye Yan must have finally been approved by K’s client; her face, which had been dark all afternoon, finally brightened, though she was still cursing: “It’s so hard to add this guy, what a buddha…”

She suddenly froze, and her angry keyboard pounding stopped abruptly.

“Wow.”

She exclaimed, “What a handsome guy.”

Hearing this, Zhou Mi’s eyes immediately brightened three degrees: “What handsome guy? Where’s a handsome guy?”

Ye Yan flipped her phone around, holding it up to share the good stuff: “The Buddha’s WeChat Moments photo.”

On the screen was a man squatting and taking a picture with a dog. Using “boy” as a description didn’t seem quite appropriate, because his face wasn’t purely full of collagen, but his smile had a very youthful feel to it, blurring his age. He wore a white short-sleeved T-shirt, his hair slightly disheveled by the wind, but this wasn’t a flaw—more like a finishing touch, like rolling grasslands or swaying treetops.

Zhou Mi was momentarily dazed: “Is this the client? He looks so young.”

Ye Yan, worldly-wise: “Not really, there are some who look younger than they are. But he has such a comfortable appearance.”

Ye Yan’s description was very accurate.

Comfortable.

A non-aggressive, gentle breeze kind of look.

Zhou Mi couldn’t help but glance a few more times. The man’s entire face, especially the eyes and eyebrows, gave her a strong sense of déjà vu—almost like a fair-skinned version of Lu Ming.

Ye Yan put her phone back down, chattering: “What’s going on? Seeing this face that looks like it will never lose its virginity in a lifetime, I instantly lost my temper. I’ll figure out if this person is him or his son… Well, there are other photos, it is him—how can I collaborate without personal interest? Is heaven trying to send me a love □□ because it sees I’ve broken up?”

Ye Yan put this photo in the K pitch group chat, ceremoniously introducing it. Like disturbing afternoon pond fish, the women and gay men who had entered the group but remained ghostly suddenly emerged.

Zhou Mi stared at the rapidly scrolling chat messages and laughed for half an hour.

After enough laughter, Zhou Mi left her workstation again. Today, the number of times she went to get water increased to twice her usual.

It reminded her of high school, where each trip to get water seemed like an excuse to pass by the window of the boy she had a crush on—appearing to look straight ahead, but her peripheral vision was like a runaway horse, wildly searching for him everywhere.

Unfortunately, Zhang Lian had gone out again.

The cup was full, but her heart felt a bit empty.

She took a big gulp, thought for a while, and sent Zhang Lian a WeChat message: I want to go back by myself tonight.

There was no response from the other end.

Zhou Mi waited for a long time, becoming increasingly distracted, her keyboard strokes accelerating in agitation. Around five-thirty, Zhang Lian finally replied. Just a glance, and Zhou Mi’s heart was once again filled with a fluttering, shining joy.

He might genuinely have some innate mind-reading ability: I’m at the bottom of the company building.