The Early Spring - Chapter 13

Chapter 13 - A Gentle Scratch at the Heart

Shang Zhitao truly witnessed the grueling business trip intensity of an advertising agency. What she had previously imagined business trips to be—leisurely and carefree—was, in reality, a relentless race against the clock.

The moment that morning tea concluded, endless work began. The group split into four separate paths; because she lacked experience, Shang Zhitao was assigned to act as Luan Nian's assistant, while Lumi was dispatched to the event venue.

Shang Zhitao wasn't the grudge-bearing type, so the morning's unpleasantness quickly evaporated into thin air. However, she had no idea if Luan Nian held grudges. As the colleagues left one by one, only she and Luan Nian remained seated.

Shang Zhitao felt a bit uneasy, though she couldn't quite articulate why; whenever she was around Luan Nian, she always felt a sense of unease. Deep down, she vaguely feared he would find another excuse to lecture her again, treating her like some hopeless student.

"Sit over here." Luan Nian pointed his chin toward the space beside him, signaling Shang Zhitao to move over. Obeying obediently, Shang Zhitao sat down next to him and caught a whiff of an exceptionally pleasant scent radiating from him—hard to describe, completely unlike ordinary perfume. At that moment, his aura didn't seem quite as aggressive; the man as a whole appeared somewhat more peaceful.

Luan Nian pushed his laptop slightly toward Shang Zhitao, displaying the schedule his secretary had just sent him. "Today we are meeting three clients. The first client has already reached the execution stage, and Lumi is handling one of the parts regarding the main visual and overall copywriting for the venue. The second client has already awarded us the bid, but the creative portion needs minor adjustments. The third client is a dinner banquet; the sales team has been following up for a long time and we've entered the stage of in-depth needs exploration. Because they are on the super-client whitelist and the client's attendees match our seniority title, I need to make an appearance."

Luan Nian paused, turned his head to look at Shang Zhitao, and asked, "Did you catch everything I just said?"

Shang Zhitao nodded. "I caught it."

"What you need to do is write meeting minutes for the first two clients and sync them to me after the meetings; observe the clients' reactions closely and tell me your thoughts afterward."

"Got it."

"Do you drink alcohol?" Luan Nian asked her.

"No."

Luan Nian gave her a lingering look, the meaning of which Shang Zhitao understood completely: how could someone who doesn't drink dare mix in the advertising circle? Meeting his gaze with an open, unflinching look, her defiant expression conveyed a message Luan Nian understood just as well: so what if I don't drink?

Shang Zhitao was quite amusing. Sometimes she was as humble as can be, letting anyone push her around; other times, her fur would suddenly bristle up, making her look just a tiny bit unapproachable—though it really was only a tiny bit.

Defiance aside, work still had to be done. So she asked Luan Nian with a deadpan expression, "Luke, Lumi mentioned earlier that the creative center has a specific template for meeting minutes. Could you send me a copy?" Lumi had never said any such thing, but since Luan Nian was so painfully meticulous, he undoubtedly had strict requirements, and Shang Zhitao certainly didn't want to be heavily reprimanded after the meeting.

Luan Nian casually pulled up a set of minutes for her to look at—meeting minutes totaling fewer than three hundred words. Thinking she must have misread it, and suspecting Luan Nian was just messing with her, Shang Zhitao pressed further, "Is this actually meeting minutes?" They weren't even as long as the marketing department's memos.

"Mhm. Did you see clearly? Write the key points, no fluff."

"I saw clearly."

Shang Zhitao discovered that she truly couldn't get a read on Luan Nian. She had assumed he was someone with impossibly high standards for work, yet their meeting minutes were sparse and concise; but just as she thought his standards weren't strict, he would incessantly raise new suggestions.

"Any other questions about the work?" Luan Nian asked her.

"No..."

"Let's go."

Aside from work, Luan Nian didn't utter a single extra word to Shang Zhitao. He stood by the roadside, hailing a taxi with that handsome face of his set in a stern expression. Shang Zhitao pointed to the sunshade of a roadside cafe: "You can wait over there, I'll hail the cab." It was the respectful attitude of a subordinate treating their boss.

Luan Nian glanced at her. He didn't actually like it when Shang Zhitao acted like this—in fact, most subordinates behaved this way, but he particularly couldn't stand it coming from her. He wanted to open his mouth to lecture her, but ultimately held it back.

None of my damn business.

Let her hail the cab if she wants to.

Why on earth do I keep wanting to lecture an idiot anyway?

Luan Nian thought to himself, actually stepping aside to watch Shang Zhitao flag down a taxi.

When getting into the car, Luan Nian pulled open the door, glanced at Shang Zhitao's floral dress, and silently slid into the back seat.

Shang Zhitao vaguely felt like she had been looked after, yet also felt like she hadn't. She realized she wasn't as afraid of Luan Nian as she had been last week. Luan Nian had a sharp tongue, but he was truly earnest when working. He spoke sparingly, but every single sentence carried crucial information; all you had to do was listen carefully. Whatever needed to be taught, he would definitely teach; whatever needed to be explained, he would definitely explain.

Luan Nian meeting with a client was completely different from the minor scuffles Shang Zhitao remembered from her college days. She recalled how she and her fellow poor students would be an absolute bundle of nerves meeting clients, not daring to negotiate terms and offering suggestions with extreme caution. Back then, those clients had them completely wrapped around their finger, often sighing, "Sigh, our budget is limited. If push comes to shove, we'll just ask another group."

"You don't need to ask anyone else. We are the best. We're both cheap and good."

What about Luan Nian?

The impression Luan Nian gave off was: I don't care whether you're the client or not, just do as I say—as if everything were completely under his control. Yet he maintained a proper sense of propriety, never coming across as obnoxious.

He pitched a creative concept and discussed it with the other party in earnest. If he encountered a point he disagreed with, he would slow down, think about it very carefully, and then point out the flaws in the client's idea step by step. Calm and collected.

For instance, he would ask: "So who exactly is the target audience for this creative concept? Could we break it down by creative elements, please?"

Or he would say: "Over the past three years, we've tried this communication method three times, and the results weren't great." Then he would open his laptop and pull up the data from back then to display it. It was as if everything in his mind had been neatly categorized, ready for him to retrieve at a moment's notice.

He would even smile at the client's female executive: "Lowering prices is not the best strategy."

How could he be so gentle? When he was gentle, he took on an entirely different persona, making people feel as though a spring breeze were brushing across their faces.

Luan Nian was always full of surprises. Shang Zhitao had expected him to be overbearing and arrogant, but he wasn't. What a truly eccentric man.

After talking with the first client, the client escorted them all the way downstairs and watched them leave.

Shang Zhitao felt she had just witnessed textbook-level meeting skills—no, textbooks didn't even teach things like this. Looking back at Luan Nian, her gaze carried a trace of uncontainable adoration. She snuck a look, then looked again, and even when caught red-handed by Luan Nian, she felt no awkwardness. She finally voiced her true thoughts in broad daylight: "You are truly amazing. That meeting just now was so brilliant."

"Is brown-nosing a mandatory course at your university?" Luan Nian asked her.

He couldn't be praised, nor could he be scolded; he was simply that kind of difficult person to get along with.

Snapped at by him, Shang Zhitao was nevertheless used to it. Ignoring his jab, she continued talking on her own terms: "I learned a lot from you today."

"What did you learn?"

Shang Zhitao thought for a moment. "I learned to leverage my gender advantage and smile at female clients." With that, she flashed a mischievous smile, radiating such bright cheerfulness that it brought her entire being vividly to life.

Luan Nian stared at her fixedly. This campus recruit had been standing right in front of him that morning with reddened eyes and stamping feet, yet by the afternoon she dared crack jokes with him—she really had thick skin. Glancing at her, he turned and walked into a roadside convenience store, bought two bottles of water chestnut juice, and tossed one to Shang Zhitao. She caught it in a panic. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

As Luan Nian drank his water, his peripheral vision swept over Shang Zhitao. Her face was slightly flushed from the sun, and though she was an utterly ordinary girl, when she tilted her neck back slightly to drink, she carried a trace of subtle sexiness. A clean kind of sexiness. His heart suddenly gave a little scratch.

Very lightly.