In the early hours of the morning, Zhu Yun received a phone call — it was Gao Jianhong’s father.

The old man wept on the phone like a child.

“The surgery is done. It was a success. Thank you, thank you so much, child…”

Zhu Yun had just woken from a deep sleep and was still groggy. She registered only that she had heard good news, and murmured her response over and over.

She hung up and forced her heavy eyes open, then turned her head. Li Xun had woken too.

He was still in the same position, holding her, not yet fully alert, eyes half-open, looking at her. The sky at the horizon was just beginning to lighten with the faintest grey glow, and the world was still and quiet, broken only by the occasional sound of birdsong.

“Gao Jianhong’s surgery was a success,” Zhu Yun said softly.

Li Xun said nothing. His expression was sluggish, as though his mind had not yet fully pulled free of sleep. Zhu Yun turned toward him and wrapped her arms around him — it took a bit of effort. He looked trim and lean, but his frame was actually quite broad. Zhu Yun pressed her cheek against his chest, eyes closed. “I had already looked it up beforehand. The success rate for that kind of surgery is very high.”

She felt a faint tremor pass through his chest. He seemed to laugh.

That small movement brought him all the way back to life. Zhu Yun tilted her head up and gave his chin a little nuzzle, then a small kiss. The kiss woke Li Xun up in another way entirely — his hands began to wander, moving toward the curve of her lower back. Zhu Yun shifted her angle and pulled him in closer.

They had slept a full night and both had energy to spare. They moved against each other, leisurely and lingering, on the verge of something.

And then there was a knock at the door.

Hou Ning hammered at it and hollered from outside: “Li Xun, get up! I’ve been more than patient for an entire night! This is our shared apartment! I have rights! You can’t be this unreasonable!”

Li Xun’s face immediately darkened. Zhu Yun extricated herself from him. “Get up.”

She went to let Hou Ning in. He looked haggard and thoroughly defeated. Zhu Yun frowned. “Where did you end up last night?”

Hou Ning said, with poorly suppressed indignation, “An internet café!”

“Why didn’t you just book a hotel room?”

Hou Ning glared at her. “Is it any of your business?” He pushed past her into the apartment, glancing around nervously, checking on all his electronic equipment with painstaking care. “You didn’t touch my stuff, did you?”

Zhu Yun sniffed. “As if I’d bother.”

Li Xun got dressed. Zhu Yun asked him, “Are you hungry?”

From across the room, Hou Ning answered: “I am!”

Zhu Yun glanced at him, picked up her bag. “Come on then. Let’s go eat, then head over to the office and see how things are coming along.”

They had a simple breakfast at a stall downstairs. Li Xun’s appetite had grown since his earlier days — two steamed buns, several side dishes of pickles, a tea egg, and a cup of soy milk. Zhu Yun had a bowl of eight-treasure congee. Hou Ning had fried dough sticks. After breakfast, Zhu Yun drove the two of them — neither of whom had a driver’s license — to the office.

They arrived right in the middle of the morning rush. The elevator queue resembled a backed-up drain pipe. The three of them took the stairs. From the ninth floor up, the stairwell was packed with renovation debris. As they climbed, Zhu Yun asked: “This isn’t all from our company, is it?”

Hou Ning gave a dry laugh. “It is. Dong Siyang went all out.”

When they reached the office entrance, the corridor was filled with the sound of hammering and clanging. Zhu Yun stepped inside carefully and looked over to find Dong Siyang’s enormous leather executive chair dragged out into the hallway. A pot of chrysanthemum tea sat beside him. He was seated in it with his legs crossed, overseeing the work like the landlord of an ancient estate. Zhu Yun picked her way past the debris and looked around. Dong Siyang had merged the spaces of the two neighboring companies, knocked everything through and started fresh. The basic structure was already taking shape.

What surprised Zhu Yun enormously was that this blunt, rough-edged man had overseen a renovation that actually looked extraordinarily polished. The overall aesthetic was decidedly modern and technological — a white base palette offset by shades of charcoal grey and black, with backlighting in a sophisticated silver-mercury tone, all flowing lines and a sense of crisp, seamless movement. It looked sleek and refined, without a trace of clutter.

There was no way Dong Siyang had designed this himself. Zhu Yun quietly leaned toward Li Xun. “How much did all this cost?”

“Don’t worry about the cost,” Li Xun said. “What does it look like to you?”

“Very impressive.”

Zhang Fang, a large mask covering his face, was directing the work crew inside. Zhao Teng and Guo Shijie were nowhere to be seen.

“I gave them leave,” Dong Siyang told Zhu Yun and Li Xun. “You two are on leave too. Come back when the renovation is done.”

Zhu Yun complimented him, “You’ve done a great job with this renovation.”

Dong Siyang looked sideways at her and said, with sharp authority, “Where are your manners? Is that how you speak to your boss?”

“…”

Dong Siyang fished a USB drive from his pocket. “Since you’re here being so diligent, let me give you something to do.” He held it out to her. “Here.”

Zhu Yun took it. “What’s this?”

“Résumés — this is only part of them. More are on Zhang Fang’s computer. Start going through these and see if there’s anyone worth bringing in.” That settled, Dong Siyang rose and turned to Li Xun. “Come on — I finished looking into what you asked me about. Huajiang has been showing signs of interest in investing in IT companies. Probably the second half of the year, though nothing’s been finalized yet…”

Dong Siyang fell into a discussion with Li Xun about attracting investment. Zhu Yun couldn’t stand the dust and chaos of the construction site, so she took the USB drive and headed to a café in the shopping center across the street. The drive held several hundred résumés. Zhu Yun went through them carefully, one by one — and to her genuine surprise, there were quite a few of high quality.

In the early days, when she had first joined Feiyang, something like this would have seemed like pure fantasy.

Once she was absorbed in the work, the better part of the day slipped by. While she was deep in sorting through applications, her mother called.

Zhu Yun stared at the incoming number on her screen and folded her laptop shut.

“Hello, Mom.”

“What are you doing?”

“Working.”

“Working? I told you to resign. You’re just ignoring me, aren’t you?”

Zhu Yun scratched the side of her face and decided not to engage directly.

“Come home right now. I need to talk to you about something.”

“Can’t you say it over the phone?”

“I told you to come home!” her mother said sharply. “If you want me to show up at your office, then keep stalling! See who ends up embarrassed!”

“…”

Truthfully, she wasn’t overly worried about her mother showing up. Her mother would only make a scene in private — she would absolutely never cause a public spectacle. Still, Zhu Yun knew she did need to go back at some point. She had to make things clear with her family; she couldn’t keep pretending the problem didn’t exist.

“All right, I’ll go home tomorrow,” Zhu Yun promised.

She set down the phone and took a long breath, leaning back into the café sofa. She turned to look through the glass wall at the wide open sky. The afternoon was wearing on, the sun beginning its descent, lazy clouds resting at the horizon’s edge.

She wasn’t sure how far Li Xun’s conversation with Dong Siyang had progressed, so she didn’t call — she just sent him a short message.

Dong Siyang and Li Xun were in the middle of a meeting. With no space to sit in the office, Dong Siyang had commandeered the delivery company’s front lobby. He was filling Li Xun in on the investment interest that Huajiang Group had recently signaled.

“Apparently quite a few companies have already approached Huajiang — spanning all kinds of industries. Entertainment, services, internet finance, you name it.” Dong Siyang looked at Li Xun. “Your old rivals are in the mix too. Jili getting through the securities regulator review is only a matter of time — they’ll probably list next year. Their starting position is already higher than ours. Their approach is to bring Huajiang in as a direct investor.”

Li Xun gave a casual sound of acknowledgment.

“So that’s exactly what I can’t figure out,” Dong Siyang went on. “Why would you drop the lawsuit? I can see why Zhu Yun would want to — but you? That I genuinely didn’t see coming.”

Li Xun gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Honestly, neither did I.”

Dong Siyang was about to say something more when Li Xun’s phone buzzed. He pulled it out — a message from Zhu Yun:

“I’ve left. The résumés worth considering have been forwarded to the company email. I need to go home tomorrow for a bit — I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Li Xun typed back a single word: “Okay.”

Dong Siyang continued talking about investment prospects, but after a while he could tell that Li Xun was not quite all there.

“What’s going on?” Dong Siyang asked.

Li Xun shook his head. The words “go home” from Zhu Yun’s message kept surfacing in his mind. They brought back the day they had parted all those years ago — she had been going home that day too. Just like now: light, easy, saying she would be right back.

Li Xun tugged at his collar. “What’s the matter?” Dong Siyang asked again.

“Nothing. Let’s stop here for tonight — we’ll pick it up tomorrow morning.” Li Xun rose, his brow furrowed, muttering under his breath: “Damn residual effects…”

Zhu Yun was at her apartment, packing. She wasn’t planning to be gone long — just a couple of changes of clothes.

There was a knock at the door.

She knew instantly it was Li Xun. His knock was unlike anyone else’s — not loud, but entirely without deference, a steady, purposeful rhythm, as though the knock itself were speaking, urging you to hurry up and answer.

Zhu Yun opened the door. Li Xun walked in and surveyed the apartment with an air of proprietary ease.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Did you finish with Dong Siyang?”

“Done,” he said. He glanced around and his gaze landed on the travel bag she was packing. “How long will you be gone?”

“Not sure yet.”

He made a small, low sound.

“I’ll try to come back soon,” she said.

Li Xun looked at her. “How soon is soon?”

“…”

She studied him for a moment, and slowly began to understand what was written in his expression. She stepped closer and nudged him lightly with her elbow.

“You don’t want me to go?”

She had tried to be playful, but the timing was off — her own face flushed before she could even gauge his reaction. Li Xun watched her eyes slide away in embarrassment, and at last he seemed satisfied. He reached over and grabbed her arm, turned, and pressed her back against the desk.

Zhu Yun’s reflexes kicked in and she tensed — Li Xun was already working at her trousers.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“Making a baby,” Li Xun said.

Three words. That was all it took to ignite her completely. She began to resent how slowly he was undoing the buttons, batted his hands away, and took over herself. She muttered under her breath, “No one’s going to interrupt us this time, right? No calls this time?”

Li Xun said, “Keep your ears plugged. If the phone rings, don’t answer. Whoever comes, don’t care.”

While she was getting undressed, he glanced over at the things on the desk. “What’s this?”

Zhu Yun threw her clothing to one side. “It’s the electronic medical records system I was working on in the States. I paused on it for a while — I wanted to tidy it up and give it to you, in case it’s useful.”