The Early Spring - Chapter 26

Chapter 26 - There Were Once Beautiful Romances

By the following night, she didn't dare sleep inside the room, nor did she wish to wake anyone else up, so she simply stepped outside to look at the stars.

The stars in the mountains were truly breathtaking—a vast, brilliant expanse of night sky. Shang Zhitao was reminded of when she was dating Xin Zhaozhou; they had once trekked all the way out to the countryside just to watch the stars. Neither of them had any money back then, so they took public buses, transferring over and over again, and stayed in the cheapest, run-down inns—places that honestly seemed worse than the accommodation she had now.

Yet back then, Shang Zhitao had embraced it all with sweet contentment.

She remembered how Xin Zhaozhou would tuck her little feet inside his coat and say with a trace of heartache, "Other people don't suffer this kind of hardship when they date."

"Other people don't get to see stars this beautiful when they date either," Shang Zhitao would reply, foolishly and earnestly. She had no idea that for many couples, dating involved neither hardship nor missing out on views as magnificent as this.

After sitting outside for a while and feeling the chill set in, she hurried back indoors, boiled a kettle of water, and soaked her feet. The warmth coursing through her entire body made her feel thoroughly refreshed, and she cheered herself on inwardly: There's a mousetrap by the bed, and rat poison in every corner; everything will definitely be fine today. She wrapped herself tightly in her quilt and prepared for sleep. The moment she closed her eyes, her phone rang. It was Alex, and she hurriedly answered.

"Hi, Alex."

"Flora, we're still in the middle of a management meeting. The other executives just brought up the execution status of the shoot. I'm putting you on speaker so you can sync up with everyone."

This progress report came completely out of left field. It was late at night, yet the executives were holding a management meeting. Utterly unprepared, Shang Zhitao bolted upright and managed a single word: "Okay."

"Alright, I'm turning on speaker mode now. The people on the call are Luke, Tracy, Jason, and Zack. Are you okay with that?"

"Sure." Gathering her thoughts at lightning speed, Shang Zhitao waited for Alex to signal her before launching into her report: "Good evening, executives. So far, we've completed shooting for three simple scenes. The additional miscellaneous expenses incurred amount to 2,100 yuan, and we haven't encountered any significant issues yet."

"Good, good. Make sure you all stay safe. Bye-bye." Alex knew Shang Zhitao; her report was brief, but her actual work was undoubtedly solid. Therefore, he had no desire to put her on the spot.

Luan Nian furrowed his brows.

What kind of report was that?

As soon as the meeting concluded, he picked up his phone and messaged Shang Zhitao: "What was that report you just gave?"

"The progress..."

"Are you certain?"

"I..."

A flicker of irritation flared up in Luan Nian. He felt that Shang Zhitao truly lacked all situational awareness—how could she just brush past such an important occasion with a few casual sentences? Without a second thought, he called her directly. "Give me your report again, from the top." His tone was icy cold.

That single sentence scared the wits right out of Shang Zhitao. Clearing her throat, she defended herself, "I already covered the key points."

"Quibbling?"

"No, no, no." Shang Zhitao frantically waved her hands, forgetting entirely that Luan Nian couldn't see her gestures.

"Report again," Luan Nian repeated.

"We are currently shooting..."

"Wrong. Who is 'we'? How many scenes have been shot over the past two days? What are they specifically? How far along are we on the overall completion progress bar? How much money has been spent, and what was it spent on? What are the projected expenses, and what kind of expected results are we targeting?" Luan Nian fired off questions like a machine gun, one after another. He usually uttered barely a dozen words even during his inauguration speeches, yet today he had spoken so much, all at once.

Luan Nian simply could not tolerate having fools on his team. Shang Zhitao was an employee of Lingmei, and since he was the head of Lingmei, Shang Zhitao was a member of his team.

Reorganizing her thoughts according to Luan Nian's rapid-fire questioning, Shang Zhitao timidly asked, "Should I report from the beginning?"

"Speak."

Structuring her answers strictly around Luan Nian's prompts, Shang Zhitao began anew: "For this shooting project, a total of seventeen people are participating, including the production crew, creative team, and marketing department. We have currently completed three scenes: 'Misty Morning,' 'Mountain Trail,' and 'Moonlit Heart.' The entire commercial consists of sixteen scenes in total, and the remaining segments are scheduled to be completed within ten days. As of today, miscellaneous marketing expenses total 2,100 yuan. I haven't made a formal projection for subsequent costs yet, but they will not exceed the budget."

"Mm." Luan Nian grunted in acknowledgment. "What role do you play in all of this?"

"I... manage the finances and... handle odd jobs..." Shang Zhitao's voice trailed off into a squeak. Sure enough, hearing the words 'odd jobs' prompted Luan Nian to cut her off. "Is your value defined by doing odd jobs? Where couldn't I hire someone to run errands? If you're going to keep acting as an errand girl, you might as well pack your bags and come back right now instead of wasting the company's travel budget, and you can clear out your desk while you're at it."

He hung up the phone and tossed it aside.

He hadn't even had time to eat dinner all day, and to top it all off, Shang Zhitao had infuriated him to no end by nighttime. What on earth was wrong with her? Odd jobs? Did she genuinely believe her value lay in doing menial tasks?

Scolded thoroughly by Luan Nian, Shang Zhitao was now wide awake.

She wasn't particularly depressed, though; Luan Nian yelled at her all the time anyway, so it wasn't anything new. Still, he was right—she indeed lacked any experience in formal reporting. She had thought she was hitting the main points, but to others, it probably just came across as perfunctory slacking off.

She decisively opened her laptop, pulled up a blank document, and began summarizing the methodology of executive reporting. What constituted a proper report? Essentially, it was answering all those critical questions Luan Nian had just rattled off. Recalling the harsh edge of Luan Nian's tone, she thought what a peculiar man he was—clearly trying to teach her a lesson, yet completely incapable of speaking nicely while doing it.

Shang Zhitao let out a soft huff. What a weirdo.

She spent half an hour drafting a document detailing reporting frameworks, emailed it straight to Luan Nian's inbox, and sent him a message: "I just received guidance from Luke and benefited immensely. I've compiled a summary of reporting methods and sent it to your email. Could I please ask you to take a look?"

Scarcely had the message gone through when she received a reply from Luan Nian: "What time is it?"

Checking the clock, Shang Zhitao texted back: "It's one in the morning." She completely missed the underlying implication of Luan Nian's question. What Luan Nian meant was: What time is it? Don't you sleep, and don't other people need to sleep? Are you out of your mind?

Seeing Shang Zhitao's response, Luan Nian narrowed his eyes. She truly had zero ability to read the room. It was impossible to stay genuinely angry at someone like this; you could keel over dead from fury, and she would likely just squat beside your corpse with a face full of question marks asking, "Why did you die?"... Yes, she was precisely that brainless.

Sitting on the edge of his bed with his hair still damp, Luan Nian opened his computer's email inbox and reviewed Shang Zhitao's summarized reporting points. It was detailed, which made it a bit long-winded, but the improvement was monumental.

He called Shang Zhitao back. "Did you turn off your phone?"

"You're not asleep yet?" Shang Zhitao asked.

A sudden, intense urge to throttle Shang Zhitao washed over Luan Nian. He paused for two full seconds to collect himself before saying, "I'll dictate, and you take notes and revise."

"Understood. Thank you, Luke."

"From now on, whenever you give a work report, you must first think about what the audience cares about, and only then focus on the project itself." Luan Nian spoke with meticulous detail while Shang Zhitao took notes with utmost earnestness. This late-night tutoring session had arrived so abruptly that Shang Zhitao felt a bizarre sense of déjà vu, as if she were a student kept behind after class by a teacher for private remedial coaching. She couldn't tell whether the teacher was doing it to keep her from dragging down the class average or simply out of genuine kindness.

"Did you write that down?"

"Got it written down. Thank you."

"Since you've got it down, take the initiative to request a project progress meeting with Alex. Once you return, I expect a thorough report on how this project tracking is going."

... "Understood."

"Reluctant?"

"No, no, no. I just feel it's a bit sudden."

"If you find practicing upward management sudden, then you better prepare yourself to never climb upward in your career." Luan Nian was laying down the harsh realities of the corporate world; those who failed to master upward management never got very far.

"Understood. I'll set up a time with Alex tomorrow."

An awkward silence fell between the two of them. Racking her brains for something to say, Shang Zhitao was cut off when Luan Nian abruptly hung up the phone without even saying goodbye.

Luan Nian had spoken far too many words today—he couldn't muster the energy for a single syllable more. After hanging up, he dried his hair and crawled back into bed.

His phone rang again. Picking it up, he saw an unfamiliar number flashing on the screen. He answered, only to hear muffled sobs from the other end: "Luan Nian, do you really think I won't kill myself to show you?"

Luan Nian hung up. The phone immediately rang again: "Do you think I'm bluffing?"

"Don't use your life to blackmail me. You know it doesn't work." Hearing the crying through the receiver, Luan Nian unusually refrained from hanging up right away. He waited until her sobs quieted down slightly before saying, "When we broke up, we agreed to make a clean and civil break. There is no need for you to make such a dramatic spectacle of this." With that, Luan Nian terminated the call.

When he opened his eyes the next morning, he found several dozen missed calls lighting up his screen.

Zhang Xin had lost her mind.

Then he noticed a few new text messages sitting in his inbox:

"Are you Luan Nian? I'm Zhang Xin's friend. She slit her wrists."

"Can you please come to the hospital? She's in the emergency room."

"Are you even human? How could you treat your ex-girlfriend like this?"

Luan Nian dialed the number back. When someone answered and immediately launched into a stream of curses—"If you don't give a damn about living, just say so, we'll finish you off ourselves!"—Luan Nian listened impassively through the venting before asking, "Which hospital?"

The person on the other end froze for a fraction of a second before quickly spitting out the hospital's address.

After washing up and grabbing his car keys, Luan Nian headed out. Caught in a bit of morning traffic, he didn't arrive at the emergency center until nine o'clock. Locating the ward, he found Zhang Xin propped up against the headboard while another young woman was spoon-feeding her fruit.

Catching sight of Luan Nian, Zhang Xin shoved the fruit-laden spoon away and fresh tears welled up in her eyes.

Well, how about that, Luan Nian thought to himself. She was supposedly in critical condition in the ER late last night, yet she's already eating fruit by morning with her emotional state turning on and off like a light switch. True to form, that's our Zhang Xin.

Walking up to her bedside, he addressed her friend: "You were the one cursing me out on the phone this morning?"

The young woman faltered for a moment before snapping back, "So what if I cursed you out? I'll still find someone to finish you off!"

Luan Nian pulled out his phone and pressed the stop-recording button right in front of her. "Alright, I've got the evidence recorded. I'll be forwarding this to my lawyer shortly."

The girl was equally stubborn; she sprang to her feet and swung her hand toward Luan Nian's face. Moving with lightning reflexes, Luan Nian stepped back and caught her swinging wrist mid-air. "Spare us the tantrums. Dragging this out until it ends in total humiliation serves no one."

Luan Nian despised tantrums above all else—men and women alike, throwing a fit in front of him guaranteed his displeasure. If you had a rational point to make, state it; if you had no argument, keep your mouth shut. Shaking off the woman's hand, he cast a cold, detached gaze at Zhang Xin. "Is any of this amusing to you?"

"You don't feel even a shred of heartache, do you?" Zhang Xin stared at Luan Nian, utterly convinced that this man's heart was incapable of being warmed. Sure, when they were dating, he would buy her bags, take her out on weekend dates, and occasionally make a phone call or two during the week, but that was the extent of it. He always kept her at a distance; even in the intimacy of bed, she could never sense a trace of genuine love from him.

"If my memory serves me correctly, we broke up nearly half a year ago. Exactly how long do you expect my after-sales service period to last? Three years? Five years? Ten years?" Luan Nian knew full well how the staff at the emergency center were currently viewing him; in their minds, he was a first-class scumbag.

He cared nothing for the judgment of strangers, nor did he wish to waste another breath on Zhang Xin.

"Next time you want to commit suicide, don't call me. Your life belongs to you; if you don't want it anymore, there's no need to notify me."

"Besides, don't forget—you were the one who initiated the breakup."

Zhang Xin sat in total silence, a profound and absolute hatred for Luan Nian finally taking root in her heart.