◎ Merits ◎

At that moment, Gu Qiao felt anything but relaxed.

Inside the confined, still air of the car, each of them breathed in what the other breathed out. Perhaps the mint scent that had been accumulating earlier was still too strong — it hadn’t dissipated yet.

The new year was just around the corner, and the streets carried a festive atmosphere. Though it was night, the lights outside pressed relentlessly into her eyes.

Gu Qiao’s mobile phone rang. It was her mother calling. Gu Qiao told her about what she had seen in Shanghai, and everything she said was true — she had simply selectively filtered out certain information. For instance, the fact that she had caught a cold at the “Hujiang Grand Hotel.” And the fact that she was at Luo Peiyin’s side. Lou Deyu joined the call and said that in the future, her store’s raffle prizes could include homemade preserves — guaranteed in abundance, and free of charge. Lou Deyu thought of Lin Haichuan and lamented not having hired him to shoot a preserves advertisement when his ad rates were still cheap.

Lou Deyu asked Gu Qiao: “What are Lin Haichuan’s ad rates these days?”

Gu Qiao nearly laughed. “You’d better find someone else — let’s not keep hounding the same person.”

“I still have no idea how that kid managed to get so famous.”

“With his looks, how could he not? And he’s hardworking too. The first time I met him, I thought he’d make something of himself.” Back then, the person standing beside Gu Qiao had been a certain unpaid helping hand — and that was exactly what she had said to that unpaid helper at the time.

Without warning, the car window opened slightly. The cold, damp outside air drifted in, expanding the breathing space between them — they were no longer confined to each other’s breath alone. The car sped on, as if carrying them somewhere unknown. After hanging up the phone, Gu Qiao’s throat itched badly. Mindful of others, she covered her nose and mouth and coughed toward the window.

The car window rose again, sealing out the outside air. The atmosphere inside seemed to be gathering itself toward something — but all the way to the hotel entrance, nothing happened after all.

From outside into the hotel, passing through the revolving door, the brightness suddenly shifted up through many layers. Light fell in cascades over Gu Qiao. The colors of her clothes were too vivid, too unwilling to lurk in the corners — they had to claim a place in the world. In that instant of shifting light and shadow, Luo Peiyin suddenly remembered the sight of her at eighteen, wearing her second aunt’s clothes. That noon, he had invited her to lunch, and she had deliberately changed out of her second aunt’s outfit, putting back on the yellow shirt she’d been wearing the first time they met. She was always wearing that yellow shirt — she must have washed it every day, and if it hadn’t dried by the next morning, she would have had to borrow someone else’s clothes.

Her red earrings swayed before his eyes. He looked at her the way one looks at an old friend from five years ago. The past turned page after page in his mind. He remembered her sitting on the back of his bicycle, singing. That singing voice grew more and more distant until it vanished entirely, transforming into the face in front of him now. Every trace of youthful naivety had long since disappeared from her features — if it weren’t for photographs fixing them in time, one might doubt they had ever existed at all.

“Why don’t we go to the lounge and continue talking about your business.”

Luo Peiyin spoke formally. Gu Qiao sensed the difference between how these words felt and how words at the restaurant and in the car had felt.

Meeting again after all this time, she had always felt that Luo Peiyin carried a slight undercurrent of grievance toward her. If that second relationship had gone well, he ought to have no such grievance toward an ex-girlfriend — he should have been grateful she’d broken things off when she did. But now even that grievance was gone.

When Luo Peiyin viewed Gu Qiao purely as a potential investment prospect, every quality that had once been a source of friction in their relationship became an asset. Prioritizing work over a boyfriend; never letting emotional fluctuations affect decisions; possessing a fierce and burning ambition for success — all of these were exceptional strengths. Investing in someone who let emotions rule them was a very risky undertaking. Even the fact that she had kept her business travel costs low during the startup phase was a point in her favor. He had just turned down someone who’d announced that the moment he received funding, he would immediately move into a premium office building.

Put a person in the wrong position, and strengths become weaknesses. Luo Peiyin had decided to place Gu Qiao in the right position: a potential future investment prospect, and nothing else.

He had never doubted that she would go from strength to strength. In that conviction, he was perhaps even more certain than she was.

Looking out through the window, they could see the ferries on the Huangpu River. Luo Peiyin ordered Gu Qiao a glass of warm milk. Gu Qiao thought drinking warm milk in a cocktail lounge was a little absurd — rather like ordering hot chocolate and eating popcorn at a bar, which she had once done in her youth.

But it was quite clear that this time, he was not treating her like a child.

Luo Peiyin had a cup of coffee in front of him rather than alcohol — a clear signal that he intended to discuss business, not feelings.

So Gu Qiao didn’t order alcohol either. She ordered coffee and added a generous amount of milk to it.

At first, when Luo Peiyin listened to Gu Qiao speak, the point wasn’t what she was saying but simply that she was speaking. Gu Qiao’s data wasn’t his only channel for gathering information — not even a necessary one — but talking business was the only thing that made Gu Qiao recover the cadence she’d once had: a near-fervent way of speaking about her new life.

But now he had changed his mind. He had always kept work and personal feelings sharply separated — he disliked the two being tangled together. Now he was prepared to talk about work.

“Do you have any knowledge of software chain stores abroad?”

“Still looking into it.”

Gu Qiao sensed the difference between the man in front of her and the man he had been before. When he was truly all business, she realized that his “all business” manner from the past had in fact been a facade.

Luo Peiyin caught the subtext in Gu Qiao’s words: she hadn’t looked deeply into it yet. If Gu Qiao were to visit American software chain stores, she would discover that these chains generally didn’t have locations as favorable or spaces as large as hardware retailers, and foot traffic was also lower than at computer specialty stores.

“Do you truly believe a pure software specialty store has great potential?”

Luo Peiyin shared his observations and his thinking. In Gu Qiao’s eyes, he saw defiance. Her lashes fanned wide open, and her eyes were very bright — that was the look she wore when she was filled with hope for the future or burning with a fighting spirit.

It was obvious that his words had ignited something in her.

“Perhaps my earlier comments led you to think I’m biased against you. I’m not trying to make things difficult for you right now — I’m waiting for you to convince me. If you go out looking for investment, you’ll inevitably face questions like this. For now, think of me as Peter, or whoever you like.”

He waited for her to give him an answer.

When he looked at her like this, his words carried real persuasive weight. Gu Qiao distinguished between the tone Luo Peiyin had used the last time he brought up Peter and the tone he used now, when talking about her business. This time, it was entirely free of any personal grievance. No warmth — and no resentment either.

Gu Qiao lowered her head and took a large sip of coffee. Even with milk added, it was still a little bitter. She drew a deep breath and quickly assembled a smile.

“Perhaps the stage of development is simply different — someone else’s period of decline might be exactly our period of growth. I don’t know about the overseas market, but domestic software manufacturers have a tremendous need for a nationwide distribution and promotional network. A software company like Changyou, which mainly serves institutional clients, has a big backer to lean on — but most software manufacturers targeting individual consumers are selling their own products themselves. In the critical three months before a product launches, if they fail to make a name for themselves, they basically disappear. Distribution channels across the country are largely not interconnected. Breaking into those channels not only takes too long, but the cost of vetting distributors is very high, and the risk of not recovering payments is significant. But if there’s a national chain store handling large-scale promotion and sales, a manufacturer would only need to deal with that chain’s headquarters — not only would it shorten the timeline, it would also reduce risk.”

Gu Qiao fixed her eyes on Luo Peiyin’s, watching to see whether she had managed to convince him.

When Gu Qiao wanted to convince someone, her eyes would look directly at the other person, pressing forward into their gaze without limit — like a hunter taking aim at her quarry. Luo Peiyin sat with his hands crossed, watching her. His mind was like a precision instrument running calculations. He was scrutinizing every word that came out of her mouth, evaluating exactly how much value she could create, how much profit she could generate.

The speed of his role shift had caught her a little off guard.

“Even granting that a software chain fits the market need — why you? After all, right now you only have one store.”

Gu Qiao remembered that Luo Peiyin had already given her this reminder once before.

She leaned her body forward. Her earrings swayed. Her eyes held his. “Cousin, from what position are you asking me that question?” What she left unsaid was: even if she were looking for investment, she hadn’t come to him for it.

Luo Peiyin looked at her with a slight smile — using that smile to remind her that she was letting feelings get into this, and that he was not discussing feelings with her.

He was interested in her project but skeptical about her as a person. He kept work and personal matters cleanly separated; she had let herself get muddled just now. If this had been any other potential investor asking that same question, she wouldn’t have had any emotional reaction at all.

“I’ll have stores open in Shanghai and Guangzhou next year.” She had done the calculations. Opening a store in Shanghai would cost no less than four hundred thousand. She wasn’t changing her car or her apartment — all of that was for the stores. She didn’t know much about software specialty stores, but she had done some research on fast food chains and branded specialty stores. Only by establishing direct-run stores in major cities could she attract franchise interest.

“When? Will both stores be operating normally before next May’s Beijing Trade Expo?”

Now it was Gu Qiao’s turn to be taken aback. His expectations for her seemed even greater than her own.

“If you haven’t changed your mind, then prove as quickly as possible that you can replicate your business model in other regions. Think about seeking investment when you have three to five stores. Before that point, even if you find investors, the amount won’t be significant, and diluting your equity too early isn’t necessarily good for you.”

Luo Peiyin immediately caught the flash of surprise crossing Gu Qiao’s face. “The window is short, and this market isn’t that vast. If by next year you haven’t reached ten directly-run stores, then I’ll help put an end to your ambitions of going national. I can see your current store is doing good business — there’s no obligation to scale up. Things are pretty good as they are. Make money and live an easy life.”

“I have no intention of living an easy life. The position I intend to occupy isn’t one anyone else can take from me.”

“Very good.”

Luo Peiyin wasn’t surprised by this answer. He hadn’t guessed wrong — when it came to work, she had never been one to retreat at the first sign of difficulty. Retreating at the first sign of difficulty only applied to certain other areas of her life.

He turned to Gu Qiao with his all-business smile; she returned one of exactly the same kind.

On the other side of the lounge, Annie was having drinks with her boyfriend. She spotted Luo Peiyin again — this time with his female cousin. Then she noticed Luo Peiyin’s cousin rising to leave, leaving him alone at the table, his eyes following her as she walked away step by step.

That gaze was nothing like the way someone looks at a cousin. She certainly would never look at her own relative that way — not unless she had lost her mind entirely.

Then the coffee at his elbow was replaced by whiskey.

Annie did not go to keep her newly solitary friend company. She knew that everyone needed time alone sometimes.

Gu Qiao stood by herself in front of the elevator. She had been talking with Luo Peiyin about future supply chains, and midway through, he had glanced down at his watch and told her they would continue tomorrow. Gu Qiao had noticed that some of his friends were in the lounge and, reading the situation gracefully, had taken her leave.

Walking back into her room, she felt a wave of exhaustion unlike anything she’d experienced before. Whether on the emotional front or the business front, fielding his questions had taken everything she had. In the lounge, it had been quite clear that he was more interested in her project than in her as a person. She supposed she should feel glad about that, shouldn’t she?

Gu Qiao swallowed a tablet. Perhaps it had a sleep-inducing effect — the coffee had done nothing to help — and she fell asleep quickly.

The next morning, the two of them had breakfast together. Luo Peiyin handed her a thick stack of materials, all relating to software specialty stores abroad. The hotel offered complimentary printing services, and it appeared he had made generous use of it. She could see the faint redness in his eyes — the coffee’s doing, most likely.

They had breakfast together, dinner together, and then retreated to the executive lounge after dinner. Every day he brought her a fresh stack of materials. In the lounge, he drank only coffee — no alcohol. When there was no personal dimension to their conversations, the exchanges were not warm and gentle in the slightest. Talking with him was an exhausting drain on both mind and body. Every session, he pulled out whatever she hadn’t fully thought through and forced her to reason through it on the spot.

He seemed like an entirely different person. The man she had known before had appeared almost indifferent to winning and losing. But now, every conversation they had was inseparable from numbers.

He no longer pinned her with his gaze. Instead, it was she who — whenever she was trying to convince him or could no longer stand that formulaic smile of his — would stare at him relentlessly, as if locking onto a piece of quarry, tracking it down, desperate to pursue it all the way into his mind, to split open his heart and see exactly what was inside.

But he didn’t seem affected by her gaze in the slightest. His expression didn’t shift by a fraction.

Gu Qiao had originally planned to leave the day before New Year’s, but she changed it to New Year’s Day itself. She purchased a New Year’s Day flight.

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