“Luke’s appointment has been announced.”
Shang Zhitao heard Kitty telling Grace.
“Where?”
“In the company email group.” Their voices contained undisguised excitement. The workplace was that realistic—employees of the newly promoted would gain more opportunities: promotions, salary increases, increased departmental weight. At that time, Shang Zhitao didn’t understand these things; she just thought they were happy for Luan Nian. In her mind, Luan Nian deserved it—if not him, then who?
Shang Zhitao had heard people mention that Luan Nian would be appointed, but nobody specified what position. She opened the email and saw the appointment notice sent by Tracy on behalf of the board of directors. As she read, her face turned pale.
Before, she had harbored hope that even if Luke disliked her, she wasn’t his subordinate, so his reach wouldn’t extend that far. Now it was settled—the entire LUMI China would have to listen to him.
Shang Zhitao suddenly found herself in a precarious position. She instinctively looked toward Luan Nian’s office, then laughed at her foolishness—he was on a business trip and hadn’t been around for a week.
“What’s wrong? Not feeling well?” Lumi noticed her poor complexion and came over to ask.
Shang Zhitao shook her head, pointed to the appointment email, and asked Lumi in a lowered voice: “Does this mean Luke can rightfully fire me now?”
Lumi nodded: “Of course!” Lumi deliberately put on a serious face to tease her.
Shang Zhitao’s face turned deathly pale: “What should I do then?”
Lumi burst out laughing: “Look how scared you are!” She wrapped an arm around her shoulders: “He’ll have plenty of work to handle after taking office. How would he have time to fire a small campus recruit like you?”
He has plenty of work normally, yet still finds time to scold me, doesn’t he? Shang Zhitao thought.
“Listen, Alex is very satisfied with you, and so am I. In the past two months, your rotation evaluation has been an A. Even if he wants to fire you, he needs a reason, right?”
“My evaluation is an A? But I feel I’m too ordinary. I see Kitty and others performing excellently.”
“Are you okay? Whether they perform well or not is for Luke to evaluate—he directly manages them. Each department has different personnel standards.”
“Oh… so if I’m an A, he can’t fire me?”
“Not unless you make a major mistake.”
Shang Zhitao’s heart eased a bit, and she forced herself to focus on processing the supplier quotation forms in front of her.
This focus lasted until midnight. She finally finished organizing the materials, then picked up her phone and saw a message from Luan Nian sent at 10 PM: “I know you’re still at the company. Go to my office, there’s a USB drive in my drawer. Help me take it out and deliver it to this address.” Luan Nian sent a restaurant location, but that was two hours ago. Now it was midnight on Friday.
Shang Zhitao replied to him: “I’m sorry, Luke. I was processing quotations and just saw this. Should I deliver it to you now?”
Luan Nian called her. Shang Zhitao heard wind through the receiver: “Change the address. Write this down.” Luan Nian’s speech sounded different from usual, a bit strange. Shang Zhitao hurriedly took a pen and wrote down an address: “I’ll deliver it here?”
“Mm.” Luan Nian hung up.
He was drunk.
Today he had drunk an unknown amount. Tracy said the company appointment had been announced, and the management level needed to have a dinner gathering. Luan Nian rushed from the airport to the dinner venue and participated in a boring drinking party. It was nothing but superficial determination-showing, appearing harmonious. Luan Nian hated such boring drinking parties.
Boring, yet one had to drink a lot.
When he reached the community entrance, he didn’t forget to instruct the security guard: “Soon, someone named Shang Zhitao will come to deliver materials to me. Let her in.”
What materials need delivering in the middle of the night? The villa area’s security guard was used to residents’ private lives. Delivering herself, perhaps? The guard thought. When Shang Zhitao arrived, it was almost 1 AM. The security guard escorted her to Luan Nian’s door, rang the doorbell, and left.
The surroundings were completely quiet. The villa area had good landscaping; at night, you could hear many insect sounds and the sounds of wind blowing through everything. So Luke was this wealthy. In Shang Zhitao’s mind, this was wealth—she had no idea of the extent of truly wealthy people.
Luan Nian took five minutes to open the door. He had just washed his face and rinsed his mouth, barely maintaining sobriety. After opening the door, he leaned against the doorframe and extended his hand to Shang Zhitao: “Thank you for your trouble.”
“It’s nothing, nothing.” Shang Zhitao placed the USB drive in his palm: “You should rest now.”
“Did you call a car?”
“No.”
Luan Nian, even drunk, thought Shang Zhitao had no brain. Are you going to walk back in the middle of the night? “Come in and wait for me.”
“Is it inconvenient?” A single man and woman, and he was her boss.
“Are you sick?” Luan Nian was particularly harsh when drunk: “Take off your clothes now and see if I’m interested in you?” He walked straight in and fell heavily onto the sofa. His hand holding the phone wasn’t steady. He took a deep breath and called the doorman: “Help me get a car. Let me know when you’ve flagged one.”
Shang Zhitao stood there awkwardly. Luan Nian, with his eyes half-closed, said to her: “Sit and wait.”
His breathing was a bit heavy. Drinking heavily was really uncomfortable. He grabbed the water beside him and drank several gulps. When putting down the cup, his hand was unsteady. Shang Zhitao hurriedly stepped forward to catch the cup: “Would you like some more water?”
“Mm.”
She picked up the cup and looked around, finally finding the kitchen. She ran in to get water. When she came out, Luan Nian was already asleep, leaning sideways on the sofa—not a comfortable position.
Shang Zhitao used all her strength to move his legs onto the sofa, then stepped forward to support his head. Her fingers touched the skin on his neck—burning hot. Shang Zhitao’s heart skipped a beat, her hands neither able to withdraw nor continue.
Luan Nian’s brow furrowed slightly. She steeled herself, used some force, held his head in the crook of her arm, stuffed a cushion under his head, then withdrew her arm. Looking down, she saw Luan Nian’s slightly flushed face, different from his usual seriousness and coldness, exceptionally handsome.
Shang Zhitao was a bit entranced.
Indeed, women are also lustful. If you aren’t bewitched, it’s definitely because the person isn’t attractive enough. She moved her eyes away, forcing herself to ignore the panic in her heart. In his living room, she saw a huge aquarium with only one lonely red fish swimming inside. Shang Zhitao didn’t know what kind of fish it was, just that it looked beautiful. She stood up and carefully observed the fish for a while. It was trapped in this large tank, glaringly occupying an entire wall, with an indescribable sense of lonely beauty.
The phone rang. She ran to answer it and heard the security guard say: “Mr. Luan, the car is here.”
“Thank you.”
Shang Zhitao hung up, casually found something to cover Luan Nian, and fled his home.
It was just an ordinary night, yet it became different because of a visit to Luan Nian’s home. She was like a mermaid who had just come ashore, full of curiosity about everything in the human world, and then she met that person, the one who made her feel intrigued.
How could this be allowed?
Shang Zhitao shook her head chaotically. The human world was too frightening—the little mermaid ultimately lost everything.
She lay in bed but couldn’t fall asleep no matter what. She suddenly remembered the day she broke up with Xin Zhaozhou. Xin Zhaozhou said: You’re going north, I’m going south. We both have responsibilities we can’t shirk. I can only wish you well. Don’t be swallowed by the cruel society.
This night, she unusually didn’t sleep well. The girl was not typically burdened with worries, but suddenly on this night, she had something on her mind. Something indescribable.
She was awakened by a phone call the next morning. With her eyes closed, she answered it, her consciousness not yet revived, her voice hoarse: “Hello?”
“What time did you get home last night?” It was Luan Nian. Opening his eyes, he thought for a long time, finally remembering he had asked Shang Zhitao to deliver something to him. He felt he had gone too far, asking a girl to deliver materials in the middle of the night.
Shang Zhitao was startled awake by this voice, sitting up abruptly: “I, I got home a little before 2 AM. Did you lose something at your home?” Her first thought was that Luan Nian had lost something at home; otherwise, why would he call?
“Yes. My safe was broken into.”
Damn.
Shang Zhitao’s temple throbbed and began to ache. She tried to recall whether she had closed the door properly when she left. She should have… probably? She couldn’t remember.
“Did you lose any important items?”
“The diamonds are gone.”
“That… it wasn’t me… I don’t even know where your safe is…” Shang Zhitao said while thinking, finally regaining some calm: “Don’t you have cameras at your home? Why don’t you check the recordings?”
Luan Nian heard her voice trembling and realized Shang Zhitao wasn’t good at taking jokes. If he continued the act, she might cry to death: “I’m just kidding.”
…
Shang Zhitao cursed him again in her mind. Is he sick? She wanted to curse out loud, but suddenly remembered that as of yesterday, Luan Nian was the boss of the entire LUMI China. She had to bow her head under his roof. So she swallowed her curse and said nothing more.
“Thank you for your trouble last night.” Luan Nian finally said something decent: “The materials are important. I need to forward them to the relevant project soon.”
Important? You could have driven to the company to get them yourself. Shang Zhitao muttered in her heart, but said aloud: “It’s my duty, my duty. I’m happy to do such a trivial little thing for the company.”
The receiver transmitted Luan Nian’s laughter, which made Shang Zhitao pause. What was he laughing at?
Luan Nian was laughing at her poor acting, flattery, and the hint of humility in her bones: “You’re afraid I’ll fire you, right?”
“Who wouldn’t be?” Shang Zhitao felt a bit wronged: “I asked Kitty and others. You haven’t made them change jobs.”
“You’ve reminded me. I don’t think they’re very competent either. How about the day after tomorrow, you all resign hand in hand?”
“Huh?”
“Huh, what?” Luan Nian rarely talked more with her: “Let me ask you, what are you afraid of? Afraid you won’t find a better job after leaving LUMI?”
“I got into LUMI by accident in the first place.”
“You know that yourself?” Luan Nian finally caught the opportunity: “What’s your relationship with Tracy?”
“Tracy? Tracy is just Tracy…”
Luan Nian had just taken office, and the company’s complex interpersonal relationships were part of his work after taking office. Tracy had always firmly supported Shang Zhitao, which made him curious about their relationship. But it was difficult to extract any information from Shang Zhitao, so Luan Nian gave up.
He remembered there were some trivial materials he was too lazy to organize on the USB drive, so he said to her: “Do you have personal plans today?”
“I don’t.”
“Then work overtime. Report to Tracy later for overtime pay.”
Shang Zhitao heard for the first time that overtime actually came with overtime pay, and foolishly asked: “We get paid for overtime?”
“What else?”
“I’ll do it!” Shang Zhitao suddenly became energetic: “I’ll do it right away. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it immediately!” Who would fight against money for no reason?
Luan Nian was startled by her sudden enthusiasm. Is she that poor?
“I’ll give you an address. Go there and wait for me. You must process the materials in front of me.”
Unimportant, yet confidential.
“Okay, okay. I’ll leave right away. Where should I go?” Shang Zhitao jumped out of bed and asked another question: “Is overtime pay calculated by the hour?”