At 9:40, an @everyone popped up in the Silver Division group chat.
HR: @everyone Next Friday, the Silver Division product team and the Marketing Department will head to Qiyun Mountain for a joint team-building outing. The review has passed and the redesign will launch soon. Marketing will be handling promotion from here on, and Mr. Han would like the two sides to get to know each other ahead of time.
Bus departs from outside Chengshan Tower at 8:30. Back outside the office before 17:00, then dismissed.
Morning: Hike to the campsite halfway up the mountain.
Afternoon: Team competition (please wear sneakers).
Zhou read it from top to bottom. His eyes stopped on that last parenthetical.
The chair next to him rumbled across the floor on its wheels, and Song Xiaobei rolled half a foot closer, chair and all.
"Bro Zhou, do you have sneakers?"
He looked down at his feet.
The same old shoes as always. Two creases were pressed across the tops, and each sole was worn away along the outer edge. They were what he wore to morning exercise every day, too.
Song Xiaobei nudged a paper bag under his own desk with the toe of his shoe. A bit of white shoelace stuck out of the top.
"I brought mine today. I'm changing at lunch."
Zhou tucked his feet a little farther under the desk and let that one go.
At ten sharp, his phone buzzed again.
Someone had added him to a new group chat.
The group name sat at the very top of the screen.
Qiyun Mountain Team-Building | Marketing × Retirement Department
He stared at Retirement Department for two seconds.
The System had been treating him like a retired old man for over a month. Finally, an actual living person had caught up.
The person who'd made the group was Zheng Kai. The label next to his name said Marketing, Brand Events. His profile picture was a photo of someone standing on a mountaintop with both arms flung wide.
First he tossed in a spreadsheet: Qiyun Mountain Team-Building Groups.xlsx.
Zhou's finger scrolled right past the file.
Another message came right behind it.
Zheng Kai: Just kidding haha. Silver, Silver~
The Marketing side came alive all at once.
Profile pictures pushed up one after another. hahaha. hahahahaha. A little yellow face laughing behind its hand, then another, then another. Someone chimed in with Silver, Silver and a thumbs-up on the end.
A whole screenful of messages scrolled up. The group name at the very top hadn't changed by a single word.
Nobody on the product team made a sound.
On their stretch of the seventeenth floor there was nothing but the sound of typing, a little louder than usual.
Behind the wall of monitors across the way, Lu Heng's phone kept buzzing on his desk. He picked it up, glanced at the line at the very top, tapped twice with his thumb, and put the phone back where it had been.
That phone didn't buzz again.
Zhou's was still buzzing.
Song Xiaobei leaned in close to his own screen and read it out under his breath.
"Retirement Department?"
The author's publication was copied without consent, and reading the chapter on the official page supports the person who wrote it.
The moment he'd said it, both thumbs were jabbing at the screen, fast. The text box stretched from one line to three and kept growing.
who's the Retirement Department?? we're the Silver Division. if you can't read a name you can ask. and when the redesign launches, the thing you'll be promoting is still stuff we made
Zhou reached over and pressed the phone face down on the desk.
"No rush."
"We're just going to let him call us that?"
Zhou blew on the cup in his hands.
He didn't answer.
An intern picking a fight with a Marketing manager in a group chat? Zheng Kai wouldn't come out of it with a scratch. The one who'd get chewed out afterward was Song Xiaobei.
Besides, next Friday they'd have to spend an hour on the same bus as these people.
His phone buzzed again.
Wen Yining: Noted.
One word, wedged in under a row of hahahas. Nobody posted anything after it.
He looked over at Wen Yining. She was still typing. Her keyboard didn't pause once.
Song Xiaobei turned his phone back over and held down the delete key. The three lines in the text box shrank back one character at a time, until all that was left was a blinking cursor.
A quarter past twelve, the fifth-floor roof.
Song Xiaobei sat on a bench changing his shoes. The white sneakers from the paper bag had spotless soles, and a stub of plastic string was still stuck through the tongue where he'd snipped the tag off. He tied the laces and hopped in place twice.
"Bro Zhou, today it's in the bag."
Zhou set his phone on the armrest of the bench, put on the tune the morning exercise group started their routine to, and turned the volume all the way down.
The new shoes really did help. For the first twenty minutes, Song Xiaobei kept up pretty respectably, and his feet didn't slip once.
Past the twenty-five-minute mark, sweat was running from his forehead down past his temples.
By minute thirty-two, his legs were trembling nonstop. Before he could finish pressing his hands down, they went groping toward the bench for the armrest.
"Bro Zhou, I seriously can't anymore."
Zhou glanced at the phone on the armrest.
12:47.
Thirteen minutes until one. The rest of the routine would take eight minutes at normal speed. He'd make it.
Song Xiaobei couldn't keep up anymore.
Once he sat down, that would be round three that didn't count. Today was the last day. Where was he supposed to find another youngster before midnight?
He didn't stop. His next move came at half the speed.
"No rush. Take it slow."
Song Xiaobei, panting, cracked a grin. He recognized that one. His hands came back from the armrest. His eyes locked on Zhou's hands, and he followed them down, inch by inch.
His legs were still shaking. He didn't sit down.
A move that used to take four beats now took eight. Zhou's hands pushed forward and stopped in midair, waited for Song Xiaobei's to catch up, and only then drew back.
On the armrest, the phone screen was lit. 12:59 ticked over to 1:00.
Neither of them looked over at it.
At 1:03, the tune reached its last note, and their hands sank together, slowly, from their chests back to their sides.
The closing moves.
A ding sounded in his ears.
[This Week's Hobby Task: complete]
[Reward: Skill — Tai Chi (Proficient)]
The instant his hands settled, his footing was steadier than it had ever been, as if the ground were pushing up from underneath to hold him.
Song Xiaobei tipped backward and collapsed into the bench, his new sneakers sticking straight out on the tiles.
"Bro Zhou, this is really the wellness kind?"
Zhou stopped the tune, pocketed his phone, and headed for the glass doors. Behind him the bench creaked, and Song Xiaobei pushed himself up and followed.
At 1:07, the two of them stepped out of the elevator onto the seventeenth floor.
Wen Yining looked up at the clock on the wall.
"Seven minutes."
Song Xiaobei had just opened his mouth.
"I held us up." Zhou beat him to it.
Wen Yining looked at him. Then she lowered her eyes and went on typing.
"Don't hold anyone up next time."
Behind him, Song Xiaobei pulled his head down into his shoulders and stayed that way all the way back to his desk.
At three in the afternoon, he dropped a pinch of chrysanthemum into his thermos.
At 5:30, he got up and went downstairs. The turnstile beeped, and right behind it came a ding in his ears.
[Ding! Elder Zhou, this week's Retirement Living Summary is here!]
[Left on time: 5/5]
[Morning exercise: 7/7]
[Early to bed: 6/6. Tonight's isn't here yet, so don't stay up!]
[Water: 7/7]
The line at the bottom had already been filled in at lunchtime.
[Teach a youngster a full tai chi routine: 1/1. Completed!]
He'd just stepped out the main doors when there was another ding.
[Next Week's Hobby Task: Climb high and see far. Hike up a mountain]
[Walk slowly. No running!]
[Time limit: 7 days (ends at midnight next Friday)]
[Reward: One folding hiking pole]
[Spring's here! Climb high, see far, and loosen up those joints! The wind's sharp up on the mountain, so put on an extra layer!]
Zhou stood on the steps. His first thought was: how did it know?
Then he remembered it couldn't even get his age right. No way it knew the company was doing a team-building trip.
He was only twenty-two, and it had already set him up with a hiking pole. It had even been thoughtful enough to pick one that folded.
On the subway, everyone was pressed up against everyone else. He held on to a handrail and worked it all out in his head.
Qiyun Mountain was out in the western suburbs. Going on his own would take two hours round trip, so the weekend was out. Next Friday, the company's chartered bus was hauling everyone up into the mountains anyway. He'd take care of it on the way.
As for the afternoon competition, he just wouldn't sign up. No signing up, no running.
He freed up one hand, opened the Silver Division group chat, and scrolled up to that morning's notice.
Afternoon: Team competition (please wear sneakers).
That line sat there on the screen.
He looked down at the old shoes on his feet.
The box in the lower left corner of his vision was still lit.
No running.