Lian Qiao quickly forced herself to focus on explaining the product line to the cubicle next door.
Ling Weiwei leaned against the translucent frosted glass partition, looking boneless and lazy, only asking a question on occasion.
“You explain things a bit…” She suddenly paused.
Pickled by corporate life. “Rigid?”
“Mhm,” Ling Weiwei readily admitted, her laughter drifting over from the next desk.
The pot of hydroponic green dill on the desk had roots curling and uncurling in the water. June 10th marked the official entry into the plum rain season, and the air conditioner’s breeze carried a stifling dampness, blowing half of a green dill leaf withered.
Lian Qiao reached out and plucked off that half-leaf of dry yellow.
Lian Qiao pulled out a chair and sat down. If the dinner atmosphere went well, she would probe Ling Weiwei’s attitude toward the internship.
Outside the window was the old street of Zhangjiang Town, the plane tree canopy blocking most of the streetlights. The light shattered into wisps, falling upon the old wooden table. The old sign of the Shanghai-style restaurant was on the verge of falling apart. The place looked thoroughly authentic, no wonder the heiress chose it.
Ling Weiwei sent the location on WeChat, pushed the menu over, and said, “You order for me.”
Lian Qiao glanced at the menu and ordered a plate of four-pleasure roasted gluten, a plate of cherry tomatoes in tangerine peel and honey sauce, and a plate of water bamboo stir-fried with twin delicacies. Then came a serving of loofah, clam, and silver fish soup, with chilled osmanthus sugar lotus root for dessert.
She hesitated for a brief second over the Sizzling Eel Strips. This dish cost one hundred and ten yuan, but the hot oil coaxed out the fragrance of scallions and garlic, making the eel strips soft, smooth, and perfectly balanced, it was delicious.
She added it.
“A portion of sizzling eel strips is pretty expensive,” Ling Weiwei glanced at her Patek Philippe watch face. “Actually, you didn’t have to.”
“I promised to treat you to something expensive,” Lian Qiao said. “The housekeeping auntie at your home probably doesn’t make heavy-oil stir-fried dishes very often, right?”
“Once the gap year ended and I went to Stanford, I got to eat them even less.” Ling Weiwei’s American accent was authentic. “That Chen Kai this morning, have you been used to people like him for a long time?”
Cold appetizers were served, and Lian Qiao picked up a cherry tomato: “The version of dirty jokes he tells might change, but the core message is always the same: women rely on their bodies to land sales orders. In Lingyue for five years, I’ve heard it a hundred and eighty times, my ears are practically calloused.”
“Then why didn’t you snap back?” The water bamboo stir-fried with twin delicacies was served. Ling Weiwei picked up a chopstickful, then meticulously picked out the white parts of the scallions one by one. “You don’t rely on him for your paycheck. Pharmaceutical representatives have independently calculated performance, he can’t get in your way.”
“I prefer my colleague relationships to be a bit more harmonious.”
“He unilaterally disgusts you, and you just endure it. Is that what you call harmony?”
“Actually, when I first joined five years ago, I slammed the table too.”
Ling Weiwei stopped picking out scallions: “And then?”
“And then I learned to bow my head. Bending over takes less effort than hard resistance,” Lian Qiao glossed over it generally.
Wang Jianguo would emerge from his cubicle when necessary, while she had learned to bow her head and smooth things over. This was quite necessary, especially when she had no one backing her up. “Still, everyone handles things differently.”
“Did you think I’d just keep quiet and obediently follow behind you every day from now on?”
“Along with being extremely polite.”
“I am very polite, I just never learned how to swallow my pride.”
“Then haven’t you ever messed something up because of your bravery?”
“I hold a black belt in taekwondo,” Ling Weiwei shrugged. “When words don’t work, I’m not afraid to use my fists.”
“My apologies, my apologies,” Lian Qiao smiled. “Let’s forget about Chen Kai, I still wouldn’t be able to beat you anyway.”
Ling Weiwei laughed again, like someone being tickled in just the right spot. Her shoulders gave a little shake, and her elbow almost knocked over the vinegar bottle on the table. Her front teeth pressed against her upper lip, and her nose crunched up. Compared to her cold expression in the office that morning, she looked like a completely different person. Yet she remarked, “Actually, when you helped me in front of Chen Kai today, you didn’t really want to help me. You just wanted to shut him up and keep me from making trouble so you could smoothly get through your three-month mentorship. I figured it out as soon as I thought about it.”
That was precisely the case.
Ling Weiwei’s high heels shifted back and forth on the floor, and a small, pale red mark faintly showed on the inside edge of the shoe counter.
“I kind of want to step on the backs of my shoes,” Lian Qiao quietly changed the subject. “Think that’s okay? It’s not very well-mannered, but we’re both women, the lighting here is dim, the rules don’t exist, and nobody else will notice.”
Ling Weiwei nodded vigorously. Her feet, clad only in boat socks, slipped slightly out of her shoes and rested lightly against the heel counters. Sure enough, her ankles were rubbed bright red.
Lian Qiao looked away and poured herself a cup of tea.
Ling Weiwei’s ankles moved in small, silent increments against the shoe counters. Her calf Achilles tendons were slender, and her skin emitted a fine-porcelain glow under the warm yellow light.
Lian Qiao gripped her teacup a little tighter.
When she stopped thinking about how valuable that Patek Philippe was, stopped guessing how deep Ling Weiwei’s background went, stopped pondering the mentorship evaluation, and simply looked into those eyes, her heartbeat would skip a beat. It was far too dangerous.
Lian Qiao looked out at the trees. The plane tree canopy outside the window swayed in the night breeze, scattered light flowing across the old wooden table.
“Miss, miss,” the waiter called twice. “All the dishes are served. Would you like to order anything else?”
Lian Qiao snapped back to reality and added a plate of wine-infused mashed shepherd’s purse.
“You’re just my mentor. Me talking to Chen Kai like that today, it won’t make things difficult for you later, will it?” Ling Weiwei scooped a spoonful of loofah, clam, and silver fish soup. The silver fish were smooth, tender, and soft.
“If you stir up trouble and change jobs, your client resources at Lingyue will be sunk, your promotion opportunities will vanish, and you’ll have to start all over again. There aren’t many people in the pharmaceutical industry, once you fall out with colleagues, word spreads fast through the circle, and even finding a next employer becomes difficult.”
“I’ve gotten used to working at Lingyue, I’m too lazy to job-hop.”
Ling Weiwei stopped asking, instead pushing the plate of cherry tomatoes in tangerine peel and honey sauce toward her: “Too sweet. You eat them for me.”
Lian Qiao picked one up. Just a moment ago, Ling Weiwei had clearly eaten five or six of them without saying a word. The cherry tomato entered her mouth, the sweet-and-sour flavor tangling on the tip of her tongue as the chilled juice slid down her throat.
After eating a little longer, Lian Qiao asked the waiter to check out, rounding down the bill by three hundred and fifty yuan, and they walked toward the main road.
“June loofah is so refreshing and sweet,” Ling Weiwei reminisced.
“What you’ve eaten before must have been even better.”
“Not really. In the past, people would treat me to meals where the menu didn’t drop below four figures. But everyone always loved asking what my dad liked.” Ling Weiwei glanced over. Under the warm yellow lights, her amber pupils seemed a shade deeper, like cooled tea broth. “You’re the only one who ever asked what I liked to eat.”
“When did I ever ask?”
“Didn’t you send me three links to choose from?”
That was just so you’d pick an expensive one. Lian Qiao said, “As long as it doesn’t taste bad. The place you picked is very authentic.”
“Besides, nobody here knows me, so naturally nobody asks about my dad.”
Lian Qiao laughed.
“That’s how you should smile, genuinely,” Ling Weiwei tilted her face to look at her. “Don’t be like my dad, smiling so standardly.”
Ling Weiwei laughed too. Her large front teeth pressed against her upper lip, the corners of her eyes drooping slightly, making her look like a little fox crawling out of the snow. Not a single facial feature conformed to conventional rules, yet why were they so breathtakingly put together? And so reckless.
Her dad. Ling Weiwei… Ling. Lian Qiao didn’t dare let her thoughts go any further, only saying, “I certainly won’t ever catch up to him.”
“Hard to say.” Ling Weiwei walked beside her, very close, her arm brushing against Lian Qiao’s from time to time. “When I analyzed reports, his expression wasn’t very standard either.”
Ling Weiwei’s arm brushed against hers, warm, soft, and clinging. Lian Qiao stepped half a step to the side.
Ling Weiwei paused, then kept walking as if nothing had happened.
The night breeze rustled the plane tree leaves into a loud rattle. A leaf detached itself from the branch, landed by the roadside, and flipped over twice. A bicycle rode past, crushing over it with a crisp crunch.
A black Bentley was parked by the side of the main road. A driver in a shirt stood by the rear passenger door in an upright posture.
This Bentley frequently came to the downstairs entrance. The big boss had an only daughter, though she had never publicly appeared. The big boss’s office was on the fifteenth floor, and she never overstepped floors.
“I have to go home.” Ling Weiwei walked a couple of steps toward the Bentley, then suddenly ran back, leaning in close to Lian Qiao’s ear. Her voice was dropped low, wrapped in the warmth of the summer night: “By the way, Ling Zhengyang is my dad. Keep it a secret at the company, okay?”
Her warm breath swept across Lian Qiao’s auricle, freezing her in place.
Ling Weiwei straightened up, smiling innocently: “If you don’t mentor me well, you’re on your own.” She dove into the car. “Oh, and by the way, that cherry tomato just now? Actually, it wasn’t sweet at all.”
The sound of the Bentley’s door closing was heavier than an ordinary car, like closing the cover of a hardcover book.
The taillights turned the corner and melted into the night.
Lian Qiao walked toward the subway station. The shadows of the plane trees fell at her feet, and she stepped over them one by one. As the big boss’s only daughter, no matter how outrageous Ling Weiwei’s behavior was, her internship evaluation would pass. If anything happened, the only one who would suffer bad luck was her, the mentor. Still, since the girl cared about making things difficult for her mentor, she probably wouldn’t actively sabotage her. She wouldn’t end up dead at the hands of the heiress.
Yet her world and Ling Weiwei’s world, their closest distance was just that dining table a moment ago. Once the three months were up, they would both hurry back to their respective places.
Metro Line 11 swayed and rattled as it headed toward Jiading. Lian Qiao put on her headphones and leaned against the upright pillar by the train doors.
Her phone lit up. Ling Weiwei had sent a voice message.
Lian Qiao tapped play.
Ling Weiwei asked: “Lian Qiao, you said earlier that you slammed the table five years ago too. Afterward… did you learn to bend your head on your own, or did someone force you?”
Lian Qiao stared at the chat box, her finger hovering over the keyboard.
The subway’s station-announcement chime rang out overhead.