At nine o’clock, Zhang Li held the morning meeting. Xia Ran walked into the conference room with her notebook and found her seat occupied. It wasn’t an assigned seat, but she had sat in that window-side spot for two consecutive weeks.
Lu Wei was sitting there. When she saw Xia Ran enter, she looked up and smiled. “Sorry, I took this seat first.”
Xia Ran looked at her, said nothing, and turned to sit in another spot. She didn’t mind—it was just a seat, and anywhere was the same.
At ten o’clock, a sample confirmation form she sent to the materials department was returned.
The reason given was “incorrect format.”
She checked it three times. The format was identical to the previously approved template. She sent it again, adding a note: “Please confirm whether the format meets requirements.” There was no reply.
Just after two in the afternoon, she went to the materials room on the sixteenth floor to retrieve a stone sample. The sample manager said it had been checked out. She asked who borrowed it. The manager flipped through the records and said, “Lu Wei.”
She returned to the nineteenth floor and stood briefly by Lu Wei’s workstation. Lu Wei was looking at her computer, the screen showing an elevation drawing of some project.
“Lu Wei, did you borrow the Ottoman beige stone sample from the sixteenth floor?”
Lu Wei looked up, her expression as innocent as a cat that had just woken up. “Huh? I didn’t borrow it. Are you sure you didn’t misread?”
Xia Ran looked at her and was silent for a moment.
“Okay.”
She didn’t ask again. She turned and walked back to her desk.
At three in the afternoon, the monthly meeting of Fu Corporation’s design department was held in Conference Room 1 on the twentieth floor. As an external contracted designer, Xia Ran wasn’t required to attend.
But she received a meeting notice—sent by Lu Wei and CC’d to her. The body read: “Please have Designer Xia Ran attend and report on the progress of the Jinglan project construction drawings.”
Xia Ran looked at the email. Zhang Li had never mentioned anything about her needing to report. The Jinglan project’s progress had always been submitted through written reports. But she didn’t decline, because she had no reason to decline.
She picked up her laptop and walked into Conference Room 1 on the twentieth floor. The conference table was full—the design department, the project team, and several other departments whose names she couldn’t put to faces.
Fu Sinian sat at the head of the table, his folder closed, a pen in his hand. When he saw Xia Ran enter, his brow moved almost imperceptibly, but he said nothing.
Xia Ran found a seat in the corner, opened her laptop, and flipped open her notebook. Lu Wei sat diagonally across from her, head slightly lowered, a faint trace of a smile at the corner of her mouth.
The meeting began. Each department took turns reporting—progress, issues, solutions. A standard process.
Xia Ran listened, jotting down a few points relevant to her own project. When it came to the “external designer report” segment, the room fell quiet for a moment. No one said, “Now let’s have Xia Ran report.” No one asked, “How’s the Jinglan project progressing?” Lu Wei looked up and glanced at Xia Ran, a look that carried the meaning of “Go ahead, show us what you’ve got.”
Xia Ran stood up, turned on the projector, and began her report. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was steady. She listed the progress of the construction drawings, the issues encountered, and the items requiring coordination, one by one. No filler, no unnecessary movements. When she reached the material sample issue, she didn’t mention Lu Wei. She only said, “One stone sample hasn’t arrived yet; I’ve contacted the materials department to follow up.” Fu Sinian leaned back in his chair and said nothing the entire time.
He watched her. His gaze never left her. It wasn’t the kind of attention a client gives a contractor. It was the way one person looks at another—heavy, penetrating, as if nothing could escape him.
Xia Ran finished her report. The room was silent for a few seconds. No questions, no comments. Her report was like a stone dropped into water—it sank without a ripple. She sat down and closed her notebook. Lu Wei lowered her head, that smile still at the corner of her mouth.
The meeting continued. The next agenda item was an internal process optimization proposal from the design department, presented by Zhang Li. Xia Ran no longer needed to pay attention. She began packing up, preparing to leave early. Just as she closed her laptop, the conference room door was pushed open.
Shen Che walked in. He didn’t look at anyone. He walked straight to Fu Sinian, bent down, and whispered a few words.
Fu Sinian nodded. Shen Che stepped out. Fu Sinian set down his pen. He didn’t stand up—he just pushed his swivel chair back half an inch, leaned into the backrest, and folded his hands in front of him. He looked at everyone around the conference table.
“Just now, Designer Xia mentioned the material sample issue during her report. Who’s in charge of materials?”
The room was quiet for a moment. The head of the materials department raised his hand—a man in his early forties.
“President Fu, that sample—” “I’m not asking where it is,”
Fu Sinian cut him off. His voice wasn’t loud, but everyone in the room heard it.
“I’m asking why the sample needed by the lead designer still hasn’t arrived by the time of the meeting. What’s the process? Who approved it? Where is it stuck?”
The materials department head had sweat beading on his forehead. “President Fu, the sample was—”
“Borrowed by whom?” Fu Sinian finished the sentence for him.
The air in the conference room suddenly felt as if half of it had been sucked out. Lu Wei kept her head down, not daring to look up.
The materials department head glanced at Lu Wei, then at Fu Sinian, and lowered his voice. “It was borrowed.”
“Then why wasn’t it logged when it was borrowed? Why wasn’t it retrieved? Why wasn’t the lead designer informed?” Fu Sinian’s three questions were each softer than the last, but each carried more weight than the one before. No one dared to answer. The conference room was so quiet that the whirring of the projector’s cooling fan was audible.
Fu Sinian didn’t press further. He shifted his gaze from the materials department head and swept it across every face at the conference table.
“The Jinglan project is the group’s key project this year. Every request from the lead designer has the highest priority. I want everyone here to be clear on that.”
He picked up his pen, opened the folder in front of him, and let his eyes rest on the documents, as if that brief speech had been nothing more than an unremarkable interlude in the meeting.
“Continue.”
Zhang Li froze for a second, then cleared his throat and resumed presenting his process optimization plan. The atmosphere in the conference room gradually returned to normal.
After the meeting ended, Xia Ran gathered her things and prepared to leave. When she stood up, she noticed that Fu Sinian was no longer at the head of the table.
As she walked out of the conference room, she ran into Shen Che in the hallway.
Shen Che stepped aside to make way and said in a low voice, “Miss Xia, regarding the sample matter in the future, you can come directly to me.”
Xia Ran looked at him. “You told him?”
Shen Che didn’t answer. He gave a slight nod, turned, and walked away.
Xia Ran walked back to the nineteenth floor. When she passed Lu Wei’s workstation, Lu Wei wasn’t there. On the desk sat a cup of coffee that hadn’t been finished, now cold, with the screen still lit.
It was an email she’d been halfway through writing. The recipient was the materials department, and the body read: “No need to return that sample. I’ll return it directly to the supplier once I’m done with it.”
The afternoon’s work continued. Xia Ran was drawing.
Xia Ran placed the sample at the corner of her desk and continued drawing. She sketched a few strokes, then stopped and moved the two pots of pothos toward the window so they could get a bit more sun. Beside the leaf that had been pinched off on the new pot, a tiny sprout had emerged—a tender green, smaller than a fingernail. She looked at it for a few seconds, then turned back and resumed drawing.
Her phone buzzed. A message from Fu Sinian. “Did the sample arrive?”
She replied with two words: “It did. Thank you, President Fu.”
“Want to thank me? Buy me dinner?” Fu Sinian replied.
She bit her lip and sent two words back: “No time.”
Twentieth floor, Fu Sinian’s office. He sat behind his desk, phone on the table, screen lit. The last message in the conversation was Xia Ran’s “No time.” He looked at those two words and didn’t reply.
But he smiled. A smile that welled up from deep inside, one that curved even his eyelashes.
He picked up the phone, then set it down again. He leaned back in his chair, tilted his head up, and closed his eyes.
Those eyes from five years ago, glaring at him, saying, “Fu Sinian, you’re so annoying.”
When she was angry, she’d say, “Fu Sinian, you’re so annoying.”
When she was happy, she’d say, “Fu Sinian, can you stop pestering me?” When she was sad, she wouldn’t say anything at all—she’d just lean against his shoulder with her eyes closed.
He’d thought those days would never come back. But tonight, she’d said “No time.” Not “President Fu, my schedule is fully booked this week,” not “Some other time,” not “I’m sorry.” Just “No time.” Blunt, unadorned, even a little impatient.
Like one person saying to another—I don’t want to see you right now, but we’re not client and vendor. I just don’t have time.
The way she said “No time” was exactly like the way she’d said “Fu Sinian, can you stop pestering me?” five years ago. His girl seemed to be back.