The Early Spring - Chapter 20

Chapter 20 - The Little Mermaid Loses Everything

"Luke's appointment has come down."

Shang Zhitao heard Kitty telling Grace.

"Where?"

"On the company email group." There was an unconcealed jubilation in their voices. The corporate world was starkly realistic—the subordinates of those who rose to power would gain more opportunities, including promotions, pay raises, and increased departmental weight. At that time, Shang Zhitao didn't understand any of this and simply assumed they were happy for Luan Nian. In her heart, Luan Nian deserved it; if not him, then who else could it possibly be?

Shang Zhitao had previously heard people mention that Luan Nian would be appointed, but no one had specified to what position. Opening the email, she saw the notification sent by Tracy on behalf of the Board of Directors. As she read through it, her expression turned rather grim.

Previously, she had still harbored a shred of wishful thinking: even if Luke couldn't stand the sight of her, she wasn't his direct subordinate, so his reach couldn't possibly stretch that far. But now? The entire Lime China had to answer to him.

Shang Zhitao suddenly felt her position hanging by a thread. Subconsciously glancing toward Luan Nian's office, she immediately laughed at her own foolishness—he was on a business trip and hadn't been in for a whole week.

"What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?" Lumi noticed her poor complexion and leaned over to ask.

Shang Zhitao shook her head, pointed at the appointment email, and lowered her voice to ask Lumi, "Does this mean Luke now has every right to fire me fair and square?"

Lumi nodded. "Well, duh?" Putting on a deliberately serious face, Lumi teased her just like that.

With a face as pale as a sheet, Shang Zhitao asked, "Then what am I going to do?"

Lumi burst out laughing. "Look at you, scared out of your wits!" She threw an arm around Shang Zhitao's shoulder. "He has a mountain of work to process after taking office; when would he ever have the time to bother firing a tiny little campus recruit like you?"

He has a ton of work every day normally, and doesn't he still find time to lecture me? Shang Zhitao thought to herself.

"Listen to me, Alex is very satisfied with you, and I'm very satisfied with you too. Over the past two months, your rotation evaluation from us has been an A. Even if he wants to fire you, he needs a valid reason, right?"

"My evaluation is an A? But I feel like I'm so ordinary. I see Kitty and the others performing exceptionally well."

"Are you alright? Whether their performance is good or not is up to Luke to judge, since he directly manages them. Every department has different hiring standards."

"Oh... so if I'm an A, he still can't fire me?"

"Unless you make a massive mistake."

Shang Zhitao's heart settled just a fraction, and she forced herself to refocus her mind on processing the supplier quotation sheets in front of her.

That focus lasted all the way until midnight. After finally finishing the pile of materials, she picked up her phone and was stunned to see a message Luan Nian had sent her at 10:00 PM: "I know you're still at the company. Go to my office, find a USB flash drive in my drawer, and bring it over to this address." Luan Nian had included a restaurant's location, but that was from two hours ago, and it was now 12:00 AM on a Friday night.

Shang Zhitao replied to his message: "I'm sorry, Luke, I was just processing quotation sheets and only now saw this. Should I bring it over to you right now?"

Luan Nian's call came through immediately, and Shang Zhitao heard the sound of rushing wind in the earpiece: "Change of address. Write this down." Luan Nian's voice sounded different from usual—somewhat strange. Hastily grabbing her notebook, Shang Zhitao jotted down a new address: "Should I deliver it here?"

"Mhm." Luan Nian hung up.

He was drunk.

He had no idea how much alcohol he had consumed today. Tracy had said that since the company appointment was out, it was necessary for the management team to have a gathering. Rushing from the airport straight to the venue, Luan Nian had endured a tedious drinking session. It was nothing more than superficial declarations of loyalty masking surface-level harmony. Luan Nian despised such tedious drinking sessions.

Tedious, yet mandatory when it came to drinking massive amounts of liquor.

Upon arriving at the residential complex gates, he didn't forget to instruct the security guard: "A girl named Shang Zhitao will be coming by shortly to drop off some documents for me. Let her in."

Dropping off documents in the middle of the night? The security guards of the villa complex were long accustomed to the private lives of the residents inside—dropping off herself, no doubt? The guard thought to herself. By the time Shang Zhitao arrived, it was already close to 1:00 AM. The security guard escorted her right to Luan Nian's doorstep, rang the doorbell, and left.

The surroundings were dead quiet. Thanks to the lush landscaping of the villa complex, one could hear various insect chirps at night, along with the sound of the wind sweeping through the foliage. So this was how wealthy Luke was. In Shang Zhitao's mind, this constituted genuine wealth; she had no conception of the scale of truly wealthy individuals.

It took Luan Nian a full five minutes to answer the door. Having just washed his face and rinsed his mouth to maintain a semblance of sobriety, he opened the door, leaned sideways against the doorframe, and extended a hand toward Shang Zhitao: "Thanks for the trouble."

"It's nothing, it's nothing." Shang Zhitao placed the USB drive in his palm: "Then you should get some rest."

"Did you call a cab?"

"No."

Even in his drunkenness, Luan Nian felt that Shang Zhitao lacked any common sense, thinking to herself—or rather, thinking out loud to himself: You're not going to call a cab in the middle of the night and walk back? "Come inside and wait for me."

"Would that be inappropriate?" They were a lone man and woman, and moreover, he was her boss.

"Are you out of your mind?" Luan Nian was exceptionally caustic when drunk: "Take your clothes off right now and see if I'm even remotely interested in you." He walked straight inside, collapsed heavily onto the sofa, and picked up his phone with an unsteady hand. Letting out a long sigh of relief, he called the guard station: "Help me flag down a cab, and let me know when you get one."

Shang Zhitao stood there at a complete loss, while Luan Nian closed his eyes slightly and told her, "Sit down and wait."

His breathing was somewhat heavy; getting heavily intoxicated was truly miserable. He grabbed the glass of water by his hand and gulped down several large mouthfuls, but his aim was off when setting the cup back down, prompting Shang Zhitao to rush forward and catch the glass: "Do you need more water?"

"Mhm."

Picking up the water glass, she glanced around and finally located the kitchen. She ran inside to fill it with water, but by the time she came back out, Luan Nian had already fallen asleep. He was sleeping slumped sideways against the sofa—that posture could not possibly be comfortable.

Using all her strength, Shang Zhitao hoisted his legs up onto the sofa, then reached out to support his head. Her fingers brushed against the skin of his neck, and it was burning hot. Shang Zhitao's heart gave a sudden leap, her hands hovering uncertainly—neither daring to let go nor knowing whether to continue.

Luan Nian's brow furrowed slightly. Steeling her resolve, she exerted her strength, cradling his head in the crook of her arm to wedge a throw pillow underneath it before cautiously withdrawing her arm. Lowering her gaze, she saw Luan Nian's slightly flushed face; stripped of its usual severity and chill, it looked remarkably, unusually handsome.

Shang Zhitao stared at him in a momentary daze.

As it turned out, women were shallow creatures when it came to looks too; if you weren't captivated, it simply meant the person wasn't good-looking enough. Shifting her gaze away and forcing herself to ignore the flutter in her heart, she noticed a massive aquarium set up in his living room, housing nothing more than a single, solitary red fish. Shang Zhitao had no idea what kind of fish it was, only that it looked striking. Standing up, she watched the fish closely for a moment; confined within such a massive tank that occupied an entire wall, it exuded an indescribable, lonely aesthetic beauty.

Her phone rang, and she hurried over to answer it, hearing the security guard say, "Mr. Luan, a cab has been flagged down."

"Thank you."

Hanging up the phone, Shang Zhitao grabbed a random blanket to toss over Luan Nian, then fled his apartment as if escaping for her life.

It should have been an ordinary night, yet it felt entirely altered simply because she had stepped foot into Luan Nian's home. She felt like a little mermaid who had just stepped ashore from the ocean—full of curiosity about the mortal world, yet encountering that one particular person, the one who made everything feel so extraordinarily novel.

How could this possibly do!

Shang Zhitao shook her head frantically; the mortal world was far too terrifying, and in the end, the little mermaid lost everything.

Lying in bed, she found herself completely unable to fall sleep. The day she broke up with Xin Zhaozhou suddenly flashed through her mind, and what Xin Zhaozhou had said echoed back: "You're heading north, and I'm heading south; both of us bear unavoidable responsibilities. I can only wish you well—don't get swallowed up by this cruel society."

That night, she suffered a rare case of insomnia. Normally not someone prone to overthinking, the girl suddenly found herself weighed down by preoccupations this single night. Indescribable and unclear.

She was woken up the next morning by a phone call. Answering with her eyes still closed and consciousness yet to fully return, she muttered in a hoarse voice, "Hello?"

"What time did you get home last night?" It was Luan Nian. After staring at the ceiling and pondering for a long time upon waking up, he had finally remembered asking Shang Zhitao to deliver something to him, and felt he had gone a bit overboard by making a young woman run errands for him in the middle of the night.

The voice jolted Shang Zhitao completely awake, and she bolted upright: "I, I got home just before two. Did something go missing at your place?!" Her very first thought was that Luan Nian's house had been burglarized; otherwise, why else would he be calling her?

"It did. The safe was cracked."

Damn it.

A vein throbbed at Shang Zhitao's temple, sending a sharp pain shooting through her head. She frantically tried to retrace her steps, wondering if she had actually remembered to lock the door behind her when she left. She must have... right? She couldn't remember.

"Did you lose anything important?"

"A diamond is gone."

"Then... it wasn't me who took it... I don't even know where your safe is..." As she stammered her defense, Shang Zhitao gradually clawed back a bit of composure: "You should have surveillance cameras at home, right? Why don't you check the footage?"

Hearing the tremor in her voice, Luan Nian realized Shang Zhitao wasn't great at taking jokes; if he kept playing along, she might actually cry herself to death: "I'm just messing with you."

...

Shang Zhitao resumed cursing him internally. Is he out of his mind? She wanted to hurl abuses out loud, but then she remembered that as of yesterday, Luan Nian was the head of all of Lime China—living under someone else's roof, one had to lower their head. Swallowing her insults back down, she fell silent instead.

"Thank you for your hard work last night." Luan Nian finally uttered something human. "The documents are crucial; I need to forward them to the relevant project teams shortly."

Crucial? You could have easily driven to the company to pick them up yourself. Shang Zhitao muttered a complaint in her heart, though out loud she replied, "It was only right, it was only right. I'm just thrilled to be able to do even a tiny bit of trivial work for the company."

The sound of Luan Nian's laughter drifted through the receiver, catching Shang Zhitao off guard. What on earth was he laughing at?

Luan Nian was laughing at her clumsy acting, her pathetic attempt at flattery, and that underlying streak of humility: "Are you afraid I'm going to fire you?"

"Who wouldn't be?" Shang Zhitao felt rather aggrieved. "I asked Kitty and the rest, and you didn't make any of them change jobs."

"You just reminded me. I actually think they aren't performing all that well either. How about the lot of you hand in your resignations hand-in-hand the day after tomorrow?"

"Huh?"

"Huh what?" Luan Nian rarely bothered to exchange more than a few words with her: "Let me ask you, what are you afraid of? Afraid you won't find a better job if you leave Lime?"

"I stumbled into Lime entirely by accident in the first place."

"You actually know that?" Luan Nian finally seized the opening: "What relation are you to Tracy?"

"Tracy? Tracy is just Tracy..."

Having just taken office, Luan Nian still had to deal with the complex interpersonal politics within the company. Tracy's persistent protection of Shang Zhitao had piqued his curiosity about their relationship. But extracting any information out of Shang Zhitao's mouth proved impossible, so Luan Nian abandoned the attempt.

Remembering that the USB drive still contained some other miscellaneous files he couldn't be bothered to organize, he told her, "Do you have any personal plans today?"

"No, I don't."

"Then come in for some overtime. Go ahead and expense the overtime pay through your precious Tracy later."

It was Shang Zhitao's first time hearing that working overtime actually came with extra pay, prompting her to ask dumbly, "Overtime pays actual money?"

"What else would it do?"

"I'll do it!" Shang Zhitao's spirits instantly skyrocketed. "I'll start working overtime right now, just tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it immediately!" Who in their right mind turns down money?

Luan Nian was momentarily taken aback by her sudden enthusiasm. Was she really that broke?

"I'll send you an address. Go wait for me there. You must process these documents right in front of my eyes."

Trivial files, yet confidential.

"Alright, alright, alright. I'm heading out right now. Where should I go?" Bounding out of bed, Shang Zhitao threw out one final question: "Does our overtime pay get calculated by the hour?"