◎Practicing the Path of the Heartless◎
Two days later, Su Yun, Fang Ke, and Yang Ximing headed to Country L.
After attending the two-day awards ceremony for the International Original Illustration and Creative Grand Prix in Country L, they even had a full day of free time.
The weather in Country L during this season was mostly overcast and rainy, but today it had miraculously cleared up.
Wearing a light-colored knit sweater, Su Yun sat outside a cafe across from their hotel, sipping a mocha while basking in the sun. His gaze habitually swept across the tables and chairs ahead.
A collared dove was perched there, but there was no one around.
He watched in a brief daze.
Just then, someone approached, asking in standard London-accented English, “Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?”
The movement was slight, and the person’s voice was very gentle, but the collared dove still startled and flew away.
Su Yun was pulled back to reality.
He looked up to find an attractive foreign man.
The man was holding a cup of coffee and smiling as he waited for a response.
There were three sets of tables and chairs placed outside the cafe. Aside from his table, the others were completely empty. The man was clearly trying to strike up a conversation.
He intended to gently decline, but his peripheral vision caught a sneaky figure lurking nearby.
“Sorry, my friend has already arrived,” he replied in English, waving at the figure hiding behind a lamppost and attempting to observe secretly.
The foreign man turned his head and spotted another East Asian face.
“Sorry,” the foreign man nodded very gentlemanly. “Have a good day.”
Su Yun curved his brows and eyes, the warm, fragmented sunlight reflecting in his pupils, and politely replied, “Thank you, you too.”
The foreign man dazed slightly, his steps hesitating, but out of good manners, he ultimately turned and left.
Yang Ximing stopped competing with the lamppost and walked over to sit next to Su Yun.
Noticing the gossipy look on his face, Su Yun took the initiative: “My friend, we are abroad now, please mind your image.”
Yang Ximing snorted with a laugh. “Then why weren’t you friendlier to our foreign friend? Anyway, I wouldn’t mind sharing a table.”
Su Yun sipped his coffee and stayed silent.
“That guy was pretty handsome. Not your type?” Yang Ximing expressed mock regret.
“No,” Su Yun replied, his gaze falling back onto the empty table and chair setup ahead, where the collared dove was already gone.
“Tsk tsk, didn’t get to see your bird-feeding muse, feeling a bit disappointed?” Yang Ximing mercilessly teased him.
Accustomed to it by now, Su Yun shoved a newly purchased bag of whole wheat toast into Yang Ximing’s lap. “Eat this.”
“Whole wheat? Why whole wheat? I don’t like it,” Yang Ximing feigned disgust. “Don’t you dislike it too? Oh, I remember now, the bird-feeding muse likes it.”
Annoyed by the chatter, Su Yun drank his coffee in sullen silence.
“Just got a congratulatory message sent from home.” Munching on the spurned toast, Yang Ximing shared the good news with a smiling, puffed-up cheek. “That role Star Journey just launched, the one you designed, is getting amazing feedback.”
“Mhm.” Su Yun showed little interest.
“What is wrong?” Seeing his flat reaction, Yang Ximing looked surprised. “Weren’t you super invested in this character before? You pulled several all-nighters just cooperating with KG’s modeling team.”
“This concerns our studio’s financial future. With the boss staring us down every day, how could I not be invested?” Su Yun explained.
“No, no.” The invisible gossip radar inside Yang Ximing began to blare. “Could it be that you…”
Su Yun quickly finished the last sip of coffee, stood up, and stretched lazily. “Ah, the weather is so nice. Too bad we have to head back soon.”
Interrupted like this, Yang Ximing became even more convinced of his theory.
“Aha, are you disappointed because the final modeling result didn’t match what you imagined?”
Ignoring him, Su Yun strolled down the street.
Yang Ximing hurried to catch up. “Master Designer Su, an interview please: was this character designed based on the muse in your heart? Is it because your expected image was too perfect that KG’s modeling standards couldn’t meet your demands?”
Thinking of Si Yan’s ideal modeling face, Su Yun’s mood inevitably dipped, and he silently declined the interview.
In the afternoon, Su Yun and Yang Ximing visited a photography exhibition.
They went out of sheer boredom, but the exhibited photographs unexpectedly hit every single point of his aesthetic preferences.
According to Yang Ximing’s reliable grapevine, the photographer behind this exhibition, S., was a friend of Fang Ke.
Yang Ximing looked baffled. “Didn’t they say this is his close friend’s exhibition? He was the one who gave us the tickets, so why isn’t he coming now?”
Pondering it for a long time, he concluded, “Their relationship must be pretty ordinary, I guess.”
Su Yun couldn’t easily guess, seeing as his current boss had always been unconventional, and his gaze drifted back to a sunrise photograph on the wall.
The expansive background of the photo was split in two by a wild jungle and a sky full of morning light. Set against this magnificent backdrop, a gray-and-white bird that wasn’t particularly striking on its own became the absolute protagonist of the image.
Guided by the photographer’s compositional framing, anyone viewing the photo would unconsciously overlook the grand scenery and focus entirely on the tiny bird. Su Yun even fancied he could hear a crisp birdsong, the sheer tension of life filling the entire world.
They say photography is a channel for photographers to express their inner selves, but Su Yun felt this photographer was helping give voice to creatures that could not speak.
This must be a very loving person, he thought.
Following that thought, the back of a man’s figure involuntarily surfaced in his mind.
The weather that day had been just as lovely as today. The man sat facing away from the light, broad and upright shoulders bathed in warm orange sunlight as a collared dove flew over with wings spread and landed on his arm.
The man didn’t startle the bird; he simply crushed a piece of toast from the table, placed some crumbs on his fingertips, and carefully extended them toward the bird.
Miraculously, the bird didn’t fly away, pecking twice at the breadcrumbs on the man’s finger.
Captivated by the sight at the time, he had picked up his sketchbook and started drawing. But by the time he raised his head last time, the man had already left, and he hadn’t even caught a glimpse of his face.
Ever since that day, he realized he harbored a mild obsessive streak, frequently imagining what that person looked like in his mind.
Eyebrows, eyes, bridge of the nose, lips.
Bit by bit, like 3D modeling, that image gradually sharpened from blurry into clarity.
He had assumed it was all just his imagination, never expecting that someone actually looked like that.
“Sigh,” he sighed inwardly.
“Su Yun, this photographer is Chinese, you know. They’ve held exhibitions back home before,” Yang Ximing suddenly said.
“Really?” Su Yun forced himself to perk up.
The exhibition notes didn’t provide much information about the photographer; nationality aside, even the signature was a simple “S.”
Yang Ximing claimed it was purely to build up the photographer’s mysterious persona.
Su Yun disagreed. He felt the photographer likely wanted everyone to forget the presence of the shooter so they could listen more intently to the voices within the photos.
“Yeah, I looked it up online, though I don’t know if it’s true,” Yang Ximing said. “Still, if the boss knows him, it must be real. Maybe we’ll even get to meet him someday.”
“If their relationship is only average, we might not get that chance,” Su Yun said.
Recalling his previous judgment, Yang Ximing nodded sagely. “True.”
The return journey went smoothly, and the plane landed at the domestic airport on schedule.
Upon returning, the employees of Phantom Equation Studio moved into the KG headquarters offices one after another.
The previously empty office area began to fill up, linking with Departments 2 and 3 on either side. Judging from this prime C-position placement, it was clear KG intended to make Phantom Equation the backbone of their design center.
As the team leader of this main force, Su Yun had to handle more daily tasks than his actual job description required, leaving him truly with no time to dwell on anyone named Si Yan.
Corporate slaves naturally carry a faint aura of closing off their hearts to love.
“Su Yun, do you want me to talk to HR and have them recruit another intern assistant for you?” Fang Ke asked with some concern upon seeing Su Yun overworked to the point of reddened eyes.
“Kent, please call me Elliot,” Su Yun said. “Besides, no help is needed, I can handle it.” With that, he buried his head back in his work.
Still deeply worried, Fang Ke turned to ask Yang Ximing, “Xiao Ming, did Elliot get his heart broken?”
Looking blank, Yang Ximing replied, “Who’s Elliot? Is that the intern in Department 2 who confessed to the front desk? Why do you care if people get their hearts broken? So gossipy. Also, please call me Mark.” Dropping a stack of meeting minutes, he walked away.
Kent felt that ever since arriving at KG, his subordinates had all lost their minds.
“Kent, the R&D department put out an OA sign-off; the new map’s type and gameplay are locked in, and they want Department 1 to give design input,” Su Yun knocked on Fang Ke’s door. “Do you think a Cthulhu style is better, or a dark and eerie horror style?”
There was too much information to process, and Fang Ke failed to catch the point immediately. “Is there even a difference between the two?”
Drooping his brows, Su Yun exuded a depressed aura. “No.”
“Wait, are we rolling out a new map already?” Fang Ke finally caught the point, opening the OA. “During the meeting two days ago, the engine group said the framework for the new map’s engine wouldn’t be ready until next week at the earliest.”
Leaning against the doorframe, Su Yun looked thoroughly uninterested.
After reading the sign-off, Fang Ke cursed softly under his breath. “Bastards. No wonder they were showering us with gifts the moment I arrived; they were setting us up all along. We’ve only been here a few days, and they’re already launching a new project.”
“Cthulhu style plus dark and eerie horror, let’s do both!” he told Su Yun.
Su Yun was just venting; he hadn’t seriously planned on designing it that way.
Star Journey was an interstellar exploration game prioritizing boundless imagination, immersing players in a dream world constructed by creativity, completely incompatible with the two styles mentioned.
“How about a magical forest?” Su Yun dusted off his gloomy mood and asked seriously.
Pinching his chin in thought, Fang Ke muttered, “Too generic.”
“Adding some ancient mythological elements?” Su Yun asked again.
Squinting at him, Fang Ke said, “Elliot, do you already have an idea?”
Su Yun smiled and nodded. “A little bit.”
“Then you’ll take charge of this proposal,” Fang Ke said.
“Um,” Su Yun hesitated slightly.
Back at Phantom Equation, he had spearheaded the design style for many projects, but this assignment was their debut at KG. With people from Departments 2 and 3 watching closely, the outcome concerned both Fang Ke’s authority as the newly parachuted design director and the standing of all Phantom Equation members within the design center.
“Go ahead and do it.” Fang Ke understood his concerns. “I checked the OA; although the kickoff is earlier than expected, the deadline hasn’t changed. That basically gives us an extra week.”
“Alright.” Su Yun didn’t push back further.
“Now that the new project is underway, I’ll still arrange an intern assistant for you to handle some daily tasks. You’re a designer; you should spend your energy where it matters most,” Fang Ke said.
“Alright, then I’ll trouble you, Kent.” Su Yun accepted with a smile.
Right now, he was practicing the Path of the Heartless, firmly believing that work and career were the most reliable things in life.