The Early Spring - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - Was She Voyeuristically Stalking Me?

Shang Zhitao sat alongside more than twenty other campus-recruit colleagues. Before each of them lay a thick stack of contracts. While everyone else was reading through theirs meticulously, Shang Zhitao flipped straight to the last page and signed it. She moved so fast that it almost seemed brainless.

What was there to read anyway? Getting the chance to come here in the first place was already a blessing. Shang Zhitao felt a profound sense of gratitude toward Limelight; the fact that a world-top advertising company was willing to give her this opportunity was cool enough on its own!

Seeing her sign, put down her pen, and sit back down, Liang Xin thought to herself that this girl's loyalty to the company was certainly high. Yet she kept her composure, sitting at her desk tapping away at her laptop, while her assistant patiently answered everyone's various contract questions until everything was finally settled after an hour.

Limelight practiced a rotational internship system for campus recruits, with a three-month rotation in each department. If a recruit confirmed they wanted to stay in a specific department during any given rotation, the rotation period would end early. Shang Zhitao's very first stop was the marketing department.

The girl from the marketing department who came to pick her up was named Lumi, blessed with long legs, a slender waist, and a deeply alluring aura. Following right behind her, Shang Zhitao caught the subtle fragrance emanating from her.

"Where are you living?" Lumi asked casually, her eyes sweeping over Shang Zhitao's glowing white legs. Could anyone really be this pale?

"Up by the North Fifth Ring Road."

"Good grief, that is seriously far."

The marketing department was located on the fifteenth floor near the edge, right next to the planning department. Lumi led Shang Zhitao to Zhang Ling's office to report for duty. The door opened, and at first glance, Shang Zhitao spotted the stylish man she had seen earlier that morning sitting on the sofa. The man lifted his gaze to give her a faint, passing glance before lowering it back down.

"Alex, Shang Zhitao is here."

Zhang Ling stood up from his desk to greet her, extending a hand. "Welcome, Shang Zhitao." His enthusiasm caught Shang Zhitao a bit off guard, prompting Lumi to chuckle nearby. "Not used to it on your first day, are you? Our boss Alex is just this enthusiastic."

"Hello."

"Don't be so formal with 'Hello'—our company culture is to address each other by English names." Zhang Ling pointed toward Luan Nian. "This is Luke, the head of the planning department."

"Hi, Luke." Shang Zhitao turned toward Luan Nian and offered him a smile.

Luan Nian raised his eyes to look at Shang Zhitao once more, then asked Zhang Ling indifferently, "The one Tracy greenlit?"

Zhang Ling nodded. Without offering any explanation to Shang Zhitao, he pointed at Lumi and said, "This is your mentor, and she will assign your work. If you run into any issues during work, feel free to find her anytime, or you can find me. Today at noon, the department is hosting a welcome lunch so you can get to know your colleagues."

"Thank you, Alex."

Luan Nian closed his laptop, stood up from the sofa, and said to Zhang Ling, "Then let's do it that way. Give me a call when it's time to check out the venue."

He walked around the sofa, and Shang Zhitao hastily took a step back to clear a path for him. For reasons she couldn't quite explain, she was a little afraid of him. As Luan Nian brushed past her, his shadow cast over her for a fleeting moment before disappearing in a flash.

Noticing Shang Zhitao's nervousness, Lumi whispered to her, "Don't feel bad—I've been here for two years and I'm scared of him too. Come on, let's officially start your first day in the corporate world!"

Following Lumi around the company for a tour, Shang Zhitao found it vastly different from what she had imagined. Limelight's entire office environment carried a strong artistic flair. The workspace featured a reading room, capsule rest pods, a gym, a pantry equipped with freshly ground coffee beans, and even an independent employee cafeteria.

"Limelight's corporate culture is extremely open, featuring flexible working hours. As long as you finish your work, no one will bother you even if you lie around at home." Lumi paused, offering a light cough. "That's the mentor sales pitch. In reality, we work overtime every single damn day. Getting off work at seven or eight in the evening counts as early."

Hearing this, Shang Zhitao burst out laughing. When she laughed, she looked just like a little kitten—extraordinarily cute. Lumi let out a soft exclamation of amusement. "I hope you can still laugh like that in a couple of days."

After finishing the company tour, the two walked back toward the office area. Lumi pointed to a row of transparent offices. "Those are the offices of the big shots over there. You'd better steer clear of the one right at the end—that's Luke's office. People who work in creative fields all have rather eccentric tempers."

"Creative fields?" Shang Zhitao finally managed to chime in.

"Please, we're a top-tier global advertising company; naturally, we have to have people doing creative work. All those explosive, viral campaigns our company put out that you've seen in China over the last few years were done by his team."

"Oh."

Shang Zhitao followed Lumi to her workstation. Her desk was quite spacious, and her neighboring colleagues were absent; Lumi explained that they had all gone out to an event site ahead of an upcoming product launch in a few days' time. Her office computer had already been delivered to her desk—a desktop unit paired with a laptop for mobile work. She stood up to make space for the IT technician to install the computer, taking the opportunity to glance around the office area. Her eyes swept past Luan Nian's office, where she caught sight of him standing by the window talking on the phone. With his straight posture and a polo shirt neatly fitted to his frame, even from just the back, he looked utterly stylish.

His back view was far more approachable than his actual face.

Luan Nian seemed to sense someone watching him. He suddenly turned his head around, catching Shang Zhitao through the transparent office glass just as she failed to look away in time.

Shang Zhitao's face instantly flushed red, though she couldn't quite explain why.

She quickly lowered her head to pretend she hadn't been sneaking glances at him, and softly asked the IT technician, "Excuse me, is my computer set up yet?"

"All set. Go ahead and test it out."

In a flurry of panic, Shang Zhitao sat down in her chair, tucking her body neatly into her workstation cubicle. She hadn't meant to spy on him on purpose; it was just her first day at work, and she was curious about everything. Her gaze had merely lingered on his back for a few seconds. Unsure whether this counted as impolite behavior, she slumped slightly lower in her seat, opened her computer, began registering her onboarding information, and checked the company's network security instructions. She also had two mandatory online training courses that needed to be watched by the end of the day.

Luan Nian was well accustomed to women staring at him, so he didn't find that brief glance from Shang Zhitao particularly strange. However, her subsequent guilty reaction made him feel as though she had just been voyeuristically stalking him.

"What is it?" the person on the other end of the line asked him.

"Nothing," Luan Nian replied, before asking, "Where is the department welcome gathering being held? Send me the address."

"Got it."

Luan Nian rarely attended department dinners, with welcome gatherings being the sole exception—and even then, it wasn't because he volunteered, but because the company made attendance mandatory. Tracy insisted that this was corporate culture and that management had to respect it.

Finishing up his work, Luan Nian grabbed his car keys and stepped out of his office, running straight into that campus recruit following behind Lumi.

"Hi, Luke."

"Hello." Luan Nian gave a brief nod, casting a fleeting glance at Shang Zhitao trailing behind Lumi.

Reminded of the awkward moment from earlier, Shang Zhitao flushed red all over again.

A young campus recruit—a campus recruit who blushed easily. Luan Nian suddenly felt a wave of disappointment toward the company. If things kept going this way, they might as well start wholesale-purchasing employees down at the local labor market! Still, he merely entertained the thought, walking with them toward the elevator lobby and stepping inside.

Inside the spacious elevator, the transparent mirror clearly reflected the figures of all three occupants. Eager to display her mentor's flair and break the awkward tension, Lumi asked, "Where are you heading?" As a born-and-bred Beijing local, the rich hutong flavor naturally rolling off her tongue was delightfully comical. Shang Zhitao tightly pressed her lips together to keep from bursting into laughter.

"Qingyan."

"What a coincidence, we're going there too." Lumi smiled at Luan Nian through the elevator mirror. Hating this kind of boring socializing, Luan Nian kept his mouth shut and refused to take up the conversation. Lumi's authority as a mentor suffered a crushing blow, and she shot Luan Nian a stealthy glare.

Once out of the elevator lobby, they each went to find their respective cars. Only after getting into the vehicle did Lumi say to Shang Zhitao, "He's always like that. Everyone's afraid of him."

"I could tell." Shang Zhitao held out her palms to show Lumi. "He literally scared me into a cold sweat. Now that I think about it, I've actually crossed paths with him before—he was my interviewer for the third round, though he didn't say a single word the entire time."

"What the hell? Then what did he even interview her for?"

Shang Zhitao shook her head. "I have no idea." As the two chatted away, a car flashed past them at high speed, its interior silhouette blurring by in an instant. Lumi shrugged. "Even though this guy acts like he has a paralyzed facial nerve, the man sure as hell looks the part."

Shang Zhitao finally couldn't hold it in any longer and burst into a fit of bright laughter.