“You can?”

Dong Siyang looked as though he had just heard the funniest joke of his life. He changed course and came to stand in front of Zhu Yun instead.

Zhu Yun suppressed the urge to step back. In her heels she was actually about the same height as Dong Siyang, but the sheer mass of him, the force of his presence — it felt like standing in front of a mountain.

The menacing air around Dong Siyang had eased somewhat. Perhaps he didn’t think a woman was worth all that effort. His whole manner shifted, becoming almost flippant.

“You can handle this project on your own?” he asked, his voice a leisurely drawl.

She had been put on the spot.

“Yes,” Zhu Yun answered.

Dong Siyang chuckled. He stood with one hand on his hip, chin raised, looking down at her. He turned back to Zhang Fang: “What’s her name again?”

Zhang Fang hurried to answer: “Zhu Yun.”

“Ah, Zhu Yun.” Dong Siyang spoke at a measured, unhurried pace. “You may not be familiar with the culture here at our company.”

You call this a culture?

Dong Siyang: “Our rule is that you don’t just go around speaking up when the boss says something.” He addressed her as though talking to a child. “When you do, it becomes a binding pledge. Do you know what a binding pledge is? Back in ancient times, when armies went to war—”

“I know what a binding pledge is,” Zhu Yun said.

“Good.” Dong Siyang asked amiably: “So you’d still like to go ahead?”

Zhu Yun accepted it without a word.

Dong Siyang laughed again. He pointed at Zhu Yun and addressed the others: “I’ve always had a soft spot for this kind of bold, charge-ahead woman. Know why?”

Nobody took the bait.

Dong Siyang declared openly: “Because after they fail, they tend to become more of a woman than any woman — they finally understand where they truly belong. That’s when they’ve truly found their place!”

Nobody knew what to say to that.

Dong Siyang looked back at Zhu Yun and continued: “Actually, there’s a position in this company for an executive secretary — reserved specifically for women who’ve been through exactly that kind of tempering. But you’re not ready for it yet. You still need seasoning.”

With that, he was so amused by himself that he broke into a hearty laugh.

Even Zhu Yun, who felt she had weathered enough storms in recent years to be unflappable, couldn’t help but marvel that truly, there were people in this world beyond all imagining.

“Truly a remarkable corporate culture.”

“High praise!” Dong Siyang was in excellent spirits. “Starting today, the Unrivalled Warlords project is yours.” His tone shifted, his gaze sharpening.

“If you can’t show results when the time comes, you know what to do.”

A clap of the hands.

“Meeting adjourned!”

After that little episode, Dong Siyang’s mood improved considerably. He hummed softly to himself as he worked.

“I honestly don’t know what you were thinking.”

After the workday ended, Zhu Yun sought out Zhao Teng to talk through a revised plan for Unrivalled Warlords. Zhao Teng frowned and said: “Aren’t you just creating problems for yourself?”

Zhu Yun: “What do you mean, creating problems for myself?”

Zhao Teng’s frown deepened. He picked up the revised plan Zhu Yun had written, flipped through it quickly — the same way he’d scanned her resume when she first came in, a single sweep — then set it down on the desk. He pinched the bridge of his nose and said nothing for a long moment.

“What’s wrong?” Zhu Yun asked. “If you think there’s something off with the revisions, just say so directly — the more specific, the better.”

Zhao Teng looked around the room.

The office was quiet. Dong Siyang had taken Zhang Fang out to work on a business deal, and Li Xun had taken a few hours off to go look up some reference materials. Only Guo Shijie remained in his corner, head bent over his illustrations.

Zhao Teng lowered his voice. “Come with me.”

Zhu Yun followed him to the emergency exit stairwell — the shared smoking area for everyone on the floor, a place where employees from half a dozen companies came to rest and chat.

Zhao Teng closed the door and went straight to the point: “Go to Director Dong and back down.”

“What?”

“Dong Siyang responds to softness, not hardness — especially with women. He’s always been like that. If you keep trying to go head-to-head with him, you’re going to get burned.”

Zhu Yun: “Didn’t we come out here to discuss the revised plan?”

Zhao Teng frowned. “There’s only any value in discussing something if there’s actually a chance of reaching an outcome.”

Zhu Yun: “How is there no chance of reaching an outcome? Do you think the overall content of the revised plan has fundamental problems?”

Zhao Teng was getting frustrated.

“There’s nothing wrong with it — that’s exactly why the problem is so serious!”

He pulled out the folded plan from his back pocket and spoke rapidly: “Do you have any idea how much work is packed into these two pages? What we originally designed was just generals fighting — a single combat stat, high means you hit faster, low means you hit slower. If you change it the way you’re suggesting, everything we’ve done so far gets thrown out.”

Zhu Yun was quiet for a moment, then said: “This game has two key strengths — its historical setting, and its warfare. Nine out of ten war strategy games on the market use the Three Kingdoms as their backdrop, whereas ours uses the Warring States period. The Warring States history isn’t as well-known as the Three Kingdoms, but the material is actually far richer — the First Emperor of Qin sweeping across all six rival states to unify China. If we can truly draw players into that world, it could be a real breakthrough.”

Everything Zhu Yun said made sense to Zhao Teng — it was, after all, why they had chosen that setting in the first place.

But there was a gap between what you imagined and what you actually did…

“The game is far too simplistic right now — even a street brawl takes more thought than this.” Zhu Yun pressed on. “And on top of that, the entire game is built on a Three Kingdoms framework that doesn’t even belong here. Even all the artwork is wrong — the whole thing is riddled with errors.”

She reached over and took the plan from Zhao Teng’s hands, flipping to the first page. The promotional cover showed the First Emperor of Qin on horseback, pointing triumphantly at the head of his armies.

Zhao Teng: “What’s wrong with this?”

Zhu Yun pointed to the horse beneath the Emperor. “During the Warring States period, saddles existed, but stirrups didn’t. Stirrups didn’t appear until the Han dynasty.”

Zhao Teng tilted his head back in defeat.

Zhu Yun pointed to the Emperor’s robes.

“The Zhou dynasty’s totem was fire. The First Emperor of Qin was devoted to the theory of the Five Elements and believed Qin corresponded to water, which had overcome Zhou’s fire. Black represents water, so the Qin people revered black. The First Emperor of Qin would absolutely never have presided over a ceremony in a garish shade of lemon yellow like this. And furthermore —”

“Alright, alright.” Zhao Teng cut her off. He let out a long, weary breath and said earnestly: “Look — the people who play these games won’t know all this. Who’s going to notice something that specific? Nobody will catch it.”

Zhu Yun put down the plan. “That’s self-deception. Players are always smarter than you think. Every sloppy detail you try to slip past them will eventually show up in your numbers.”

Zhao Teng was at a loss.

He was completely out of his depth when it came to dealing with someone like Zhu Yun.

From the moment she walked through the door for her interview, this woman had radiated an unmistakeable air of high-caliber professionalism. His desk was behind hers, and he had taken notice of her more than once. Her posture was always perfect, her screen always on something work-related. Even during lunch breaks, he had never once seen her open a single entertainment site.

She was also the most formally dressed person in the entire company. Dong Siyang showed up in a suit too, but he was a thug in a suit, when all was said and done. Zhu Yun was different — she was genuinely suited to the polished, high-end professional attire she wore, and her resume alone had made that clear.

Zhao Teng sat in the middle of a tremendous internal conflict. He turned it over and turned it over, and in the end gave his face a vigorous rub with both hands.

“The game is supposed to go live next month — the month after at the latest. There isn’t enough time to make these changes.”

“Exactly.” Zhu Yun said. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you — can we do this through post-launch updates? We release one or two opening battles first to get attention, and then roll out updates every month.”

Monthly updates…

That concept was entirely foreign to Feiyang Company. The games they’d released in the past had almost all followed a one-and-done approach — put it out, leave it alone, let it sink without a trace.

“Our boss was right about one thing,” Zhu Yun said. “If business is a battlefield, then products are weapons. If you’re careless when you’re still sharpening your blade, you’ll be routed the moment the fighting starts.”

“Our boss?” Zhao Teng caught the wording. “He said those things about you, and you still count him as ‘ours’?”

Zhu Yun shook her head. “That’s a separate matter. Right now I need us to focus on making this project work.”

Zhao Teng paced in a tight circle, head down, then seemed to make up his mind. He looked at Zhu Yun and said: “I know you’re capable. But this project was a mess from the start — built on impulse, no solid foundation. Here’s what I think: back down to Director Dong this time. He’s rough on the outside, but he’s decent enough to his own people.”

He took a deep breath.

“The next project. Let’s put everything into the next one. I’ve always wanted to make a really good game — I just never had the chance, and never had anyone who could keep up.”

Zhu Yun: “There won’t be a next one.”

Zhao Teng blinked. “What?”

Zhu Yun held up the plan. “This one.”

Zhao Teng was irritated. “I told you — this project is too much trouble.”

Zhu Yun: “The starting concept of this game is sound.”

Zhao Teng: “Too much trouble!”

Zhu Yun’s voice stayed low. Each word landed with clean, unequivocal weight: “This one. We fix this one before we move on.”

Zhao Teng was nearly at his breaking point. He scratched furiously at the back of his neck and tried once more to persuade her. “This takes too much time. We’d have to research the details of every battle, and completely redesign the entire combat system. Why don’t we draft a simpler plan — something easier to build depth on from there.”

Zhu Yun shook her head. “The company has already invested too much. Changing direction now would cost more than it’s worth — everything would have to start over. Don’t worry about the trouble — just do your best. I’m the one responsible for this project, so even if things go wrong, it won’t fall on you.”

She turned and walked back toward the door. Then, at the threshold, she said: “Someone once told me — people can’t spend their whole lives only doing what comes easy.”

Zhao Teng didn’t follow. “What?”

Zhu Yun was quiet for a moment, then glanced back with a small smile.

“It means you have to actively seek out difficulty for yourself. Running from it never works.” She left.

Zhao Teng stood in the stairwell, utterly gobsmacked. After a long pause, his face flushed red and he shouted at the door she’d gone through: “Are you and that friend of yours masochists?!” He stamped his foot hard and went after her.

The stairwell fell quiet again, as though the whole conversation had been no more than an optional dream.

Only a soft, barely audible exhale remained, drifting up from the floor below.

A dark silhouette leaned against the wall, smoking.

Li Xun had finished his errand and come back. Too impatient to wait for an elevator crowded with people, he was climbing the stairs alone, turning something over in his mind as he went.

He had caught the second half of the conversation between Zhu Yun and Zhao Teng.

He didn’t like distractions. But now his thoughts kept tangling with the last words Zhu Yun had said, and no matter how many times he tried to pull them apart, they refused to separate. He stopped trying.

He dropped the cigarette, stamped it out, and as he raised his head, happened to glance out the window.

He was struck.

Was the sky in late autumn really this blue?

Blue so vivid it was almost blinding.