The Early Spring - Chapter 6

Chapter 6 - Luan Nian, the Plague God

Almost everything went smoothly on her first day of work, except for Luan Nian advising her to change jobs. But who was Shang Zhitao? She was someone who had cultivated a great mindset since childhood. Her gloomy mood dissipated quickly, and she simply and silently slapped the labels of "hard to deal with," "weirdo," and "a bit hateful" onto Luan Nian. She thought to herself with a hint of petty defiance: Hmph, I just won't resign.

It was already late at night by the time Shang Zhitao returned home, and the residential compound was shrouded in darkness. Behind her came the sound of a suitcase roller sliding across the ground. That sound followed her all the way, feeling somewhat like something out of a horror movie.

She broke into a run, bolted into the dark stairwell, raced up the stairs in one go, and rushed into her room, locking the door behind her. No sooner had she stripped off her dress and changed into pajamas than she heard a crisp click from the front door, which startled her. Then she heard a suitcase roller make a slight sound inside the apartment, followed by complete silence.

It was one of her roommates, whom she had yet to meet.

Shang Zhitao waited for a moment, and confirming that they weren't going to wash up right away, she threw on a large T-shirt and headed to the bathroom. Her bathing speed amazed even herself. Just as she lay down in bed, the door to that room clicked open, and she heard someone walk into the bathroom.

Opening her eyes early the next morning and pushing open her door with her little washbasin, she saw that the door directly opposite hers was also open. It was a tall, thin boy. Without her contact lenses on, Shang Zhitao couldn't see his features clearly, but she still smiled at him politely.

"You go ahead and use the bathroom, I'm heading to the kitchen," the boy said softly. He turned and walked toward the kitchen, yielding the bathroom to Shang Zhitao without even waiting for her to say thank you.

By the time Shang Zhitao finished getting ready, strapped on her backpack, and headed out, she bumped into him again. This time she finally saw him clearly: a young man with a strong scholarly aura, looking infinitely more amiable than Luke.

Luke? Shang Zhitao was startled by her own thought. Why was she thinking of that plague god first thing in the morning?

"Going to work?" The boy smiled at her, taking the initiative to start a conversation.

"Yeah. Are you heading out this early too?"

"Yup. Planning to go to the company for a quick run." Shang Zhitao glanced at the boy's backpack, which bore their company's logo. Wow, that must be a really good company. Noticing her gaze, the boy smiled shyly: "Our company isn't all that great; we constantly work overtime and go on business trips—it's exhausting. What about you? What company do you work for?"

"Limelight."

"Limelight... A lot of the advertising campaigns for our company are done by Limelight."

Shang Zhitao felt a bit shy too. "But none of those were made by me." They were made by that plague god, Luke.

She looked sincere and endearingly naive, prompting the boy to steal another glance at her. Silence fell quite naturally, and the two of them walked all the way to the bus stop, standing in the fine morning drizzle to wait for the bus.

"My name is Sun Yuanzhu. What's yours?"

"Is it the Yuanzhu from 'ambitious aspirations span the four seas, folded wings ponder soaring afar'?" Shang Zhitao asked with a smile.

"You actually know it?"

"My dad taught me to memorize it. I'm Shang Zhitao."

Finished speaking, Shang Zhitao hopped onto the bus, took a seat by the window, and waved goodbye to Sun Yuanzhu.

When Shang Zhitao was still little, Old Shang had put in quite a bit of effort. With the goal of cultivating his daughter into a literary master, he made Shang Zhitao memorize poetry and read books every day. Shang Zhitao recited the poems as told and read the books as instructed, but slowly turned into that hopeless A Dou who could only be propped up halfway. She just doesn't have the talent... Old Shang had whispered secretly to Da Zhai.

Riding the swaying bus once more, she pulled out a book to read. Young people were full of energy, and even after sleeping for only five hours, she still managed to look fresh in the morning. She was holding a thin volume of Business English. When signing contracts yesterday, she had heard her peers mix English into their conversations, and some words required her a long time to process before she remembered what they meant. Suddenly feeling that she lagged far behind them, she had fished out reference books as soon as she got home.

Some things were truly strange.

School was just that little world where she sat comfortably in the upper-middle tier and never felt a sense of crisis. But after just a single day of work, that crisis came knocking on her door. Shang Zhitao couldn't quite explain why, but it was probably because Luan Nian's parting words—"I advise you to change jobs"—had struck a massive chord within her.

Reading on the bus was remarkably efficient. She reviewed over thirty vocabulary words, read an English poem, and by the time she finished, it was precisely her stop. The long bus ride wasn't boring at all; it was actually fruitful.

She shoved the book into her backpack and hopped off the bus. Her apricot-colored dress fluttered with her movements, instantly giving her a youthful, agile, and dashing air. Striding with purposeful steps toward the company, she cleverly squeezed into the elevator just as the doors were closing.

Lifting her eyes, she caught sight of Luan Nian. He didn't seem surprised to see her at all. A clumsy bird must start flying early; if you were slow and still refused to put in the effort, you really wouldn't survive the probation period. With a sarcastic smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, Luan Nian teased her, "HR hasn't started work yet."

"Huh?" His single sentence completely blocked Shang Zhitao's intended morning greeting, filling her eyes with question marks of all sizes.

"You don't need to come this early to hand in your resignation letter." Anticipating that she wouldn't get it, Luan Nian added a kicker. With a ding, the elevator doors opened, and his long legs strode past Shang Zhitao toward his office. A faint smile hung at the corner of his mouth—it was impossible to tell whether he was joking or mocking, but the entire demeanor exuded overwhelming pressure.

Damn it.

Shang Zhitao cursed inwardly using the tone of a Taiwanese movie. The motivational boost she had given herself upon opening her eyes that morning was completely sucked dry by Luan Nian's two sentences, leaving her feeling suddenly a bit depressed. She silently followed behind him and quietly detoured to her own workstation. Would any other campus recruit get talked out of their job by a senior executive for two days running?

Looking around, the work area was dead quiet. Having arrived before eight o'clock, most people in the company were still fast asleep at this hour. She dug out her assignment for the second day: the industry general knowledge manual, which covered various industry terminology.

Those terms were obscure and difficult to understand, requiring Shang Zhitao to look up reference materials alongside her reading just to grasp a superficial understanding. By the time she had flipped through half the manual, her colleagues began arriving one after another. Kitty, a peer from her onboarding batch, looked a bit surprised upon seeing Shang Zhitao: "You're so early!"

"I didn't quite understand today's materials, so I came in earlier," Shang Zhitao replied, pointing to the documents in her hand.

"Today's industry basics?" Kitty asked.

"Yeah."

As soon as Shang Zhitao uttered that "yeah," she noticed Kitty's strange expression and suddenly realized that to the others, this stuff was probably old news. Yet she remained open and unpretentious; admitting she didn't understand wasn't shameful, though her cheeks flushed slightly all the same.

Kitty's sense of superiority swelled even further. The corporate world was hardly simple; many people figured out the company's interpersonal dynamics completely on their very first day, naturally understanding that campus recruits in the planning department had a brighter future ahead. Although the marketing department managed budgets, that only applied to a tiny fraction of people. Most people still had to run around event venues and handle execution—or, in the words of Kitty's mentor: the bottom of the food chain.

Completely unaware of Kitty's inner disdain, Shang Zhitao poured her heart and soul into the manual, eager to wrap her head around the concepts as fast as possible. She didn't even notice when Lumi arrived.

Lumi placed a cup of coffee on her desk and dropped a breezy line: "Here's your coffee, Boss."

Startled, Shang Zhitao hurriedly stood up, only to be shoved firmly back into her chair by Lumi: "You've got to be the absolute first person to make their mentor fetch them coffee on their second day!" Being a Beijing native, Lumi had a booming voice and spoke in casual slang, making her remark exceptionally comical and prompting nearby colleagues to stand up and chuckle as they watched them.

Lumi, however, thought nothing of it and told Shang Zhitao, "That's how it is, keep it up. Shake up our company culture a bit. Even though I've always wanted to taste coffee made by my little apprentice, just the thought of us not being overly conventional makes me pretty happy." Lumi was just teasing her. She didn't care for all those rigid formalities; other mentors might drink coffee brewed by their apprentices while badmouthing their stupidity behind their backs, but she could never pull off something like that. She genuinely liked this clumsy, blockheaded apprentice of hers—so silly that just looking at her put one in a good mood.

Shang Zhitao gave a dopey grin. "Thanks, Lumi." Inwardly, however, she took note of the lesson: company culture dictated that mentors must be respected. Much like traditional master-apprentice bonds of ancient times, which emphasized burning incense, serving tea, and kowtowing—with a day under a master making them a father for life—that was probably the general logic behind it.