Chapter 7

Zeng Cui then went on to explain the stakes inside and outside the project to her.

At first, Wei Xiaolu had been very resistant to him, but after hearing his analysis, she couldn’t help growing worried too.

Insufficient funding, limited technical capability, sky-high user expectations and uncontrollable timelines, internal competition for all kinds of resources, and countless rivals eyeing them like wolves...

By comparison, maintenance was much less troublesome. If the Product Interaction Department couldn’t maintain the technology properly, they could simply hand it off to an outside vendor; it would save time, effort, and money.

These had never been things Wei Xiaolu considered, but now they were starting to eat away at her.

Back when she said she wanted to give up, it had just slipped out casually.

Had that also secretly pushed Shen Siyan toward making a decision?

Wei Xiaolu wasn’t so sure anymore.

“Anyway, it was a mess to begin with, and she just made it even messier,” Zeng Cui shook his head. “She’s a leader with backing and authority; no one dares argue with her now. Only you can say a few things to her from beside her.”

“Huh?” Wei Xiaolu felt a little embarrassed at that, and scratched at her hair and the side of her face.

“In the future, our two departments might even merge. I really don’t want to see anything happen to you.”

“Understood, Mr. Zeng,” Wei Xiaolu said.

Zeng Cui sighed a couple more times. Then a phone call came in; he lifted a hand to Wei Xiaolu in apology, answered it, and walked out while still on the call.

Her earlier drowsiness had also faded. Wei Xiaolu picked up her coffee and took a sip.

The sweet, clear flavor spread through her mouth, distinct and definite. If only her own thoughts could be this clear right now. But that hazy feeling was real too.

It was the lucid drifting sensation of suddenly realizing the workplace was far more complicated than she’d imagined, only to still not understand what any of that complexity had to do with her; then, out of nowhere, being assigned all sorts of strange expectations, only to find that she simply couldn’t fit herself into this system at all.

It was a very disorienting feeling.

Wei Xiaolu bit at the straw and idly let her mind wander for a while.

Not long after, Shen Siyan returned from her meeting. She didn’t look much different from before it started. Wei Xiaolu wanted to know how the project restart had gone, but the words wouldn’t come.

Just then, Tao Wei sent her a message asking her to come to the break room for afternoon tea. She didn’t have any urgent work on hand, so Wei Xiaolu took her coffee and went.

Unexpectedly, the break room was packed.

Each department at the company had its own empty room stocked with lots of snacks and tea. Normally, when someone came in, there would only be one or two people here eating nonstop. But today, everyone in the room was talking nonstop instead.

The place was buzzing with noise.

"Xiaolu, over here."

Wei Xiaolu looked over at the voice. Tao Wei was sitting by a table near the window, talking with Ai Jin.

"Weiwei," Wei Xiaolu ran over and greeted Ai Jin as well. "Hello, Ms. Ai."

"Sit here." Ai Jin patted the chair beside her and handed Wei Xiaolu a cheese stick. "I didn’t see you go to the meeting just now?"

"Thank you, Ms. Ai. Right, CEO Shen didn’t have me go." Wei Xiaolu smiled.

"Then you probably don’t know much about what happened."

After that, Ai Jin gave her a brief summary of the meeting. Only then did Wei Xiaolu realize how much of an impact Shen Siyan’s proposal to start over from scratch had caused in the department.

This... this was a bit beyond the syllabus.

Nothing in the textbook had ever taught her about something like this. Wei Xiaolu didn’t know whether this counted as a project going off the rails; or maybe it was what Zeng Cui had called a strategic misstep.

"At first I thought the plan was workable, but look at everyone’s reaction now," Ai Jin said, spreading her hands and gesturing around them. "Now I’m starting to think it might not be realistic after all."

Tao Wei chimed in, "CEO Shen probably doesn’t know how much work it takes to build a project from scratch."

"She must’ve worked on projects during her two years in headquarters," Ai Jin said.

"That’s different," Tao Wei said, hesitant as if she had more to say but chose not to. "After all, this is our department..."

Right now, Wei Xiaolu’s state of mind was basically that of a blind man feeling an elephant. Listening to the two of them talk, all she could do was offer some emotional support to keep the silence from turning awkward: "Wow," "Oh my," "Goodness," "Really?"

Join in for the fun and eat up the gossip; that was about enough.

At the end of the day, none of this had anything to do with her anyway. No matter what happened, Shen Siyan would be the one bearing the consequences.

They chatted for a few more minutes before Tao Wei’s phone rang. She glanced at it and stood up to leave. "Ah, I need to get back to work."

"Go on." Ai Jin waved her off.

In a group of three, once the person you knew best left, the remaining two would inevitably fall into some strange, awkward silence while staring at each other.

Wei Xiaolu took a couple of sips of her coffee, but she really couldn’t find a topic. She was about to follow Tao Wei’s lead and slip away too, when Ai Jin stood up and patted her shoulder. "I’ll go with you."

"To see CEO Shen?" Wei Xiaolu asked.

"Mm. Somebody has to tell her the truth," Ai Jin tugged at her collar and shrugged helplessly. "I didn’t realize everyone was this unwilling. Not a single person in the meeting dared to object to her."

Wei Xiaolu thought of what Zeng Cui had said and nearly blurted out, "Then let me go tell her."

But she managed to shut her mouth in time.

After all, she was just an intern... she didn’t really have the standing to speak for a manager.

When they returned to the office, Wei Xiaolu went to her own little corner and stayed there, secretly pricking up her ears to listen as Ai Jin reported the situation to Shen Siyan.

In the end, Ai Jin’s suggestion was for Shen Siyan to think it over again. The objections were truly overwhelming, and execution would be very difficult later on. It would be better to cut losses in time and follow the normal maintenance process.

After hearing all that, Shen Siyan’s expression remained calm as she pressed her lips together.

"I understand," she said, looking at Ai Jin. "Thank you, Ai Jin, for giving me this feedback."

Ai Jin exchanged a few polite words with her. In the end, after hearing Shen Siyan say, "I’ll think about it again when I get back," she left the office at exactly the right point and no further.

After Ai Jin left, Shen Siyan suddenly leaned back in her chair. Her right hand twirled a pen; her left rested on the desk, index finger tapping the tabletop one beat at a time.

She had started thinking again.

Wei Xiaolu could only tell Shen Siyan’s mood had changed from these tiny details, because on the surface the woman was truly flawless. When she wasn’t speaking, she was like a deep, still lake.

Sunlight slipped through the gaps in the blinds and fell across her face in alternating patches of light and shadow, lending Shen Siyan an air of cool, quiet serenity.

That beautiful still image lasted only for the moment.

Ten minutes later, Shen Siyan was once again the kind of leader who was thorough in every respect and adept at handling people with ease.

That evening, Wei Xiaolu ate dinner with her at the apartment. Shen Siyan still acted as though nothing had happened, chatting with her about some interesting but useless topics.

When Wei Xiaolu heard that Shen Siyan was immune to caffeine, she nearly drooled with envy. "I can’t do coffee. It gives me insomnia so easily."

Shen Siyan was picking up a piece of eggplant. At that, the corners of her eyes lifted. "You had half a cup this afternoon. Are you planning to stay awake until midnight?"

"That’s different," Wei Xiaolu racked her brains to excuse the fact that she’d been too tempted to stop herself from drinking it. "That was coffee bought for me by a beautiful woman."

A trace of amusement flashed in Shen Siyan’s eyes. "Try lying down later. If you can’t sleep, come out."

"Come out where, CEO Shen?" Wei Xiaolu didn’t get it.

Her fingers turning around the rim of her water glass, Shen Siyan said flatly, "I won’t be able to sleep tonight either."

Wei Xiaolu understood at once.

Her comprehension skills were really getting better.

The moment Shen Siyan said she couldn’t sleep, Wei Xiaolu could immediately sum it up as both "the leader is worried about what happened during the day" and "the leader needs late-night company."

"Then I’ll keep you company and watch the moon with you," she said.

"It’s the first day of the lunar month today," Shen Siyan said with a smile. "What moon are you going to watch, little sister?"

"Here." Wei Xiaolu pointed at the star pattern on the living room curtain.

Shen Siyan glanced over and let out a lazy smile. "Then we’ll watch the stars too."

Wei Xiaolu was still quite good at being pleasing; otherwise, Wei Zongqing and Tang Xiaofen wouldn’t have spoiled her from childhood in a way that left her brother thirty streets behind.

After making Shen Siyan laugh, Wei Xiaolu kept talking about more amusing things.

Insomnia, something that normally burdened overworked employees, gradually became romantic in her telling. Shen Siyan seemed to relax inwardly as she listened; Wei Xiaolu guessed as much, because CEO Shen had never really been tense to begin with.

"I can even brew tea. Drinking it under the moon would make the whole thing feel even better," Wei Xiaolu suddenly went on, then immediately shook her head. "No, no, tea would make it harder to sleep."

Shen Siyan lifted her chin. "I can handle tea too."

"Oh, then Xiaolu will pour you some tea." Wei Xiaolu picked up the kettle and added some water to Shen Siyan’s nearly empty glass.

Shen Siyan paused and said she could do it herself, but after a beat, she still added, "Thank you, little sister."

By this point, everything that needed to be said had already been said, and both of their bowls were practically empty. By Wei Xiaolu’s own life habits, she ought to be headed straight to bed and making nice with her pillow and blanket by now.

But there was this irresistible urge nudging at her.

Before leaving the table, she found herself asking her superior, "Are you still thinking about redoing the tax and finance product?"

Shen Siyan’s fingers stopped moving on the cup.

Then she gave a very soft "Mm" and said, "Do you have much contact with everyone? What’s their attitude like? Do they not want to redo it?"

Thinking back to the break room scene that afternoon, Wei Xiaolu answered honestly, "When I went to the break room this afternoon, that’s what I heard. The technical side... they said the difficulty was too high."

Shen Siyan braced both hands on the dining table, rested her chin on the backs of them, and thought for a moment before nodding. "I see."

"CEO Shen, I..." Wei Xiaolu felt bad too, and frowned in conflict. "I said to give it up before, but honestly, I don’t really understand these things either."

"Mm-hm." Shen Siyan arched a brow at her.

Wei Xiaolu scratched awkwardly at her hair. "I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t know it was impossible to do a redo at all..."

Shen Siyan let out a soft laugh.

"It’s fine, little sister." She reached out and smoothed Wei Xiaolu’s hair, pressing down the strands Wei Xiaolu had just messed up with her own hand. "Don’t you have me? I’m the one who decided this. Even if I was wrong, it has nothing to do with you."

Wei Xiaolu looked at Shen Siyan, and at the huge curtain behind her. All at once, the hazy feeling of being at the center of the situation yet somehow outside of it during the day vanished.

Because she discovered that she did, in fact, have a position.

She had already chosen a side.

—She was on Shen Siyan’s side.