On Tuesday at three in the afternoon, sunlight poured through the seventeenth-floor windows and laid a long stripe of light across the corridor floor.
Lu Zhi stood outside Cheng Shu's office, drew a breath, and knocked.
Knock. Knock. Knock. Three taps, neither light nor heavy, evenly spaced.
"Come in."
The voice came through the door—clean, like the man himself.
This was her third visit.
The first had been last Thursday afternoon. She arrived with the full Q2 data package and was stopped at reception—Mr. Cheng was in a meeting; come back another day. She waited forty minutes in the lounge, drank two cups of coffee, and was told at last: "Mr. Cheng had a sudden conflict. He can't see visitors today."
The second was Monday at ten in the morning. She confirmed by email a day ahead and had the secretary remind him again. At the door, the lock was set. The secretary flipped through the calendar, apologetic: "Mr. Cheng got the time wrong—he's already in a meeting"—though Lu Zhi was certain she had confirmed twice in writing.
The third time, she had learned.
She checked Cheng Shu's calendar and confirmed he had nothing scheduled Tuesday at three. She had Chen Zhou watch the secretary's side and make sure no last-minute meeting pulled him away. Then she gathered every document, rode the elevator from the ninth floor to the seventeenth, and walked to this door without stopping for breath.
"Come in."
She knocked again.
Silence inside.
Lu Zhi waited three seconds and pushed the door open.
The office was smaller than she expected, but impeccably ordered. Folders on the shelves were sorted by color—gray on the right, white in the middle two rows, black on top—neat enough to soothe even an obsessive mind. On the desk: a laptop, a pen cup, and a lamp. The curtains were drawn tight, one slit left open; sunlight squeezed through and cut a thin bright line across the carpet.
Cheng Shu sat behind the desk, head bent over a file.
Today he wore a light gray shirt, sleeves rolled to mid-forearm, a small patch of skin at the inner wrist paler than the rest, thin enough that blue veins showed faintly underneath. His posture was as upright as at the quarterly review, but without that held tension—more relaxed, more like a real person.
He did not look up.
"Mr. Cheng." Lu Zhi spoke first, voice level. "I'm Lu Zhi from Digital Marketing. At the last quarterly review you asked about our data sources. I've compiled the full package—dual Miaozhen and App Growing reports, plus complete documentation for our internal attribution model."
She set the USB drive on his desk and pushed it gently toward him.
"Three files. Forty-seven pages total."
Cheng Shu finally looked up.
Eyes behind the lenses studied her in that strange way—face to face, yet separated by invisible glass. His gaze swept her face once, dropped to the drive on the desk, and paused.
"Leave it there." His tone was as flat as at the review, emotionless. "I'll look when I have time."
Lu Zhi did not move.
She stood in front of the desk, feet rooted to the carpet. She watched him nudge the drive aside and bend back to his file—the gesture light enough to read as received, but Lu Zhi knew it was not.
It meant I'm not interested.
Silence stretched for a few seconds.
The air-conditioning hummed overhead, sending out air neither cool nor warm. The office smelled of paper and wood, a little like an old library, but with an extra thread of cold she could not name.
She almost wanted to laugh.
She had met every kind of difficult person. Some were genuinely difficult—picking bones from eggs to show power. Some performed difficulty while shaking inside. Some simply could not be bothered, whatever written on their faces, not even pretending.
Which was Cheng Shu?
None of them.
He was not making things hard for her. He was not brushing her off. He truly—did not care. Not about her data package, not about her three trips, not about her standing in his office waiting for an answer.
That indifference was more uncomfortable than any obstruction.
"Mr. Cheng." Lu Zhi kept her voice flat, each word nailed down. "You raised this question at the quarterly review last Friday. I understand you were doing professional due diligence. In digital marketing, data source is the foundation. You were right to ask."
She paused, watching his profile.
He still did not look up, but his pen stopped on the paper for an instant—brief, almost nothing. Lu Zhi noticed.
She filed it away: Cheng Shu stopped writing when he was thinking.
"So I spent three days organizing raw data, the attribution model, and third-party monitoring—three files, forty-seven pages." Her voice lifted slightly. "If you have five minutes now, you could finish them."
Cheng Shu set the pen down.
Light as the motion was, she saw his fingertip tap the desk edge once—short, a pause he probably did not want anyone to see.
Then he stood.
He walked around the desk, picked up a mug, unhurried, as if controlling the pace on purpose. The mug was plain white, no logo, half full of black coffee that looked bitter just to look at.
Mug in hand, he turned and looked at her from halfway across the room.
"Director Lu," he said, voice without warmth, "I respect your work ethic."
Lu Zhi's brow moved—a flicker. This was the first time he had said respect.
"But your approach," he paused, "needs adjustment."
"I'm listening."
Cheng Shu took a sip of coffee.
Slow, as if buying time to think—or deliberately making her wait. Lu Zhi caught herself watching his throat move beneath the collar, a small shift with something restrained about it.
She looked away fast.
"You came three times just to make me read a data package." His tone stayed flat, stating a fact that did not concern him. "That shows how much Q2 matters to you—fine. But it also shows…"
He paused.
"You need approval too much."
The air seemed to freeze.
Lu Zhi's fingers tightened on her bag strap. One second. She felt her nails bite crescents into her palm.
Need approval too much.
The words were a needle, straight into a soft spot.
She wanted to argue. To say, No—that's not it. I'm just doing my job. But the words stuck. Because Cheng Shu was right. She cared. She cared about that "mm" at the quarterly review, about the scalpel gaze, about whether he truly treated her as someone worth hearing out.
She cared about his approval.
And he had seen it.
Silence lasted three seconds.
Then Lu Zhi loosened her grip, lifted her chin, and met his eyes.
"Mr. Cheng." She smiled—a thin smile, light glinting off a blade. "Needing approval and doing my job properly are two different things."
She took a step forward.
"I came three times not because I wanted your praise. Your question wasn't resolved, so my work wasn't finished. That's my standard—for myself, not flattery for you."
Another step. Two meters from his desk now.
"If you call that 'needing approval too much,' I'd call that a misunderstanding of professional discipline." Her voice held steady, every word landing. "People who truly need approval take shortcuts, dress up data, say what sounds good. I didn't. I gave you raw data, the full attribution model, an honest analysis. That's not begging for approval. That's professional integrity."
At his desk, she pushed the USB drive toward his hand again.
"The data is here. Forty-seven pages. Find me anytime if you have questions."
She turned to go.
"Lu Zhi."
Her name—not Director Lu. The two syllables from his mouth carried a strange weight, like a stone in water, ripples wider than she expected.
Her step faltered, but she did not turn back.
"Tomorrow at nine, tenth floor conference room." His voice came from behind her, unreadable. "I want you to present this to the Data and Strategy Committee."
Her hand was already on the door handle.
She did not answer at once.
Two seconds to replay the conversation in her head: his challenge, her pushback, need approval too much, and now this sudden—present to the Data and Strategy Committee.
The committee included President Lin, two independent directors, and heads of every group division. The highest strategy review body at Shengyao. Everyone in that room was real senior leadership.
Was Cheng Shu making things hard for her—or giving her a stage?
Lu Zhi did not know.
She knew she would not refuse.
"Fine." She looked back at him. "I'll prepare a version that can survive twenty minutes of your questions."
The door closed softly behind her.
Walking away, she felt dampness in her palm. She glanced down—knuckles pale from gripping too hard.
In the elevator she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.
The smell of Cheng Shu's office still lingered—paper, wood, the bitterness of half a cup of black coffee. She remembered him lifting the mug, the line of his throat, the pause when he said her name.
Need approval too much.
It stung. It also clarified something else: he read people accurately. To dissect someone's motives in thirty seconds of conversation took more than ordinary observation.
He was more dangerous than she had thought.
The elevator opened. She stepped out wearing the unstoppable Lu Zhi face again.
"Lu?" Chen Zhou came out of the pantry with coffee, eyes wide. "You came from the seventeenth floor? You went to see Cheng Shu?"
"Mm."
"And? What did he say?"
Lu Zhi walked past without stopping.
"Tomorrow nine a.m., tenth floor, Data and Strategy Committee. I'm presenting." Her voice drifted back with a trace of smile she had not noticed herself. "Book flowers for me. A big arrangement."
Chen Zhou nearly spilled his coffee. "Huh? For who?"
"For me." She did not look back. "I'm waiting to collect."
Chen Zhou spluttered behind her. "...Lu, what happened to you? He dressed you down and you're happy?"
Lu Zhi did not answer.
In her office she closed the door and leaned against it a moment.
Sunlight through the floor-to-ceiling window laid pale gold across the carpet. Dust motes floated in the light. For some reason the afternoon felt like good weather—good weather for a hard fight.
She went to her desk, opened her laptop, and started a new deck.
File name: Q2 Digital Marketing Review_v2.0_Data and Strategy Committee Edition.pptx.
Her mouth curved slightly as she typed.
Cheng Shu said she needed approval too much—maybe he was right. So what? Approval required strength first, and she had never lacked strength.
Tomorrow she would show him what professional integrity looked like, what real competence looked like, what—
Lu Zhi looked like.
Chapter hook: Why did Cheng Shu insist Lu Zhi present again before the Data and Strategy Committee? Was he trying to corner her—or offering her an opportunity in his own way?