Lu Zhi asked Cheng Shu out under the pretense of work.
"Mr. Cheng, I'd like to walk you through a proposal." She stood in his office doorway, fingers tapping lightly against the frame, the corners of her mouth lifted in a smile she hadn't even noticed herself.
Cheng Shu looked up. Behind his lenses, his gaze was calm and unreadable. He glanced at his watch, then at the stack of files on his desk. "I have a meeting in ten minutes."
"That's enough."
He didn't refuse. In her book, that already counted as a kind of victory.
The restaurant was Lu Zhi's choice—a private kitchen tucked down a lane near the office, quiet, with a private room large enough that no one would disturb them. She had deliberately changed into a silk blouse she never wore to work, let her hair down, and checked herself in the mirror until she looked, at least, like she belonged there.
Cheng Shu arrived on time. He sat down, scanned the menu, asked about her allergies, ordered the food—every step handled with professional efficiency, as though he were chairing a routine business dinner.
Lu Zhi endured it.
The dishes arrived one after another. She poured herself a glass of red wine. Ice water sat in front of Cheng Shu; he drank water in place of wine, and she didn't press him.
"Where's the proposal?" he asked.
She pulled a tablet from her bag, opened it, then closed it again.
"There isn't one," she said.
Cheng Shu's fingers paused on the glass. He looked up at her.
The look wasn't cold, exactly, but it wasn't warm either. More like waiting—waiting for her to explain, waiting for her to say plainly why she had really asked him here.
"Look," Lu Zhi said, fishing the pen off the table and pressing her thumb unconsciously against the cap, "I asked you out. There's no proposal."
"Then why did you ask me out?"
"To eat." She said it simply. "And you agreed pretty readily."
Cheng Shu said nothing. He picked up his water and took a sip, unhurried, as though buying himself time to think.
"Mr. Cheng," Lu Zhi set the pen down and leaned forward slightly, "I'm not going to beat around the bush."
"Mm."
"You know," she said, eyes fixed on his, "how I feel about you."
The moment the words left her mouth, the private room fell unnaturally quiet. From the next table came the faint clink of dishes; the air vent hummed low. Lu Zhi realized her palms were sweating, but she didn't look away.
Cheng Shu set down his glass.
He looked at her without surprise, without evasion, and without answering right away. That calm made something drop in Lu Zhi's chest—she had prepared herself to be rejected, but not to be looked at like this.
"Lu Zhi." He used her full name, voice steady.
"Go on." Her voice was steadier than she'd expected.
"Do you know why I came to this company?"
The subject shifted abruptly. Lu Zhi paused, then caught up quickly. "President Lin recruited you."
"Right." He hesitated. "I made an agreement with him. For three years, work only."
Lu Zhi waited for him to continue.
"Lu Zhi," Cheng Shu removed his glasses and pressed his fingertips to the bridge of his nose—his habit when he was thinking, "I've seen what you can do. You're leading your team well, and you're solid on the numbers."
He was affirming her. Lu Zhi didn't need affirmation right now.
"So?" She cut in.
"So," he put his glasses back on, gaze returning to her face, "you deserve better."
The words landed like a punch thrown into cotton. She wanted to argue, to press him, to ask what "better" meant and what it had to do with whether he liked her or not—but Cheng Shu was already standing.
"Today's on me," he said, picking up his jacket. "Tighten up the proposal for that client next week."
He left.
Lu Zhi sat in the private room, staring at the half-finished glass of red wine, and suddenly found it faintly absurd.
She had asked what "better" meant. He had said she deserved better. Not I don't like you. Not you're not my type. Just—you deserve better.
There was evasion in it, and respect, but no answer.
Lu Zhi turned the glass half a circle and held it up to the light. The wine was clear, gem-red, tannins soft. She suddenly remembered the day she first met Cheng Shu—the quarterly review where he had publicly challenged her proposal, and she had stood up on the spot to push back until the room went silent.
Even then she had known: this man would not be easy.
Not because of his title, but because of his eyes.
There was no condescension in them, no perfunctory dismissal. He was seriously reading her proposal, seriously looking for holes, seriously weighing every word she said. That seriousness had unsettled her for a long time before she slowly learned its taste—it was respect in another form.
Lu Zhi drained the glass in one go.
She was not the kind of woman who retreated after rejection. She refused to accept it.
Cheng Shu said she deserved better. Fine—then she would ask him what he wanted. She didn't believe he wanted nothing. She believed even less that "work only for three years" was some immutable law. It was an excuse, a wall he had built around himself.
Walls existed to be knocked down.
She paid the bill and stepped outside. The night air carried the damp warmth particular to June against her face. Lu Zhi stood at the restaurant entrance, pulled out her phone, and checked the time—nine-thirty, not terribly late.
She sent Chen Zhou a message: Get me the proposal for that client three days early.
Chen Zhou replied instantly: ??? Boss, have you been possessed?
She didn't answer. She tucked the phone back into her bag and looked up at the sky.
No stars.
That was all right. She had never navigated by stars.
For the next three days, Lu Zhi practically lived at the office.
Morning meetings, proposals, client briefs, competitive analysis—she dismantled the client's entire industry chain and rebuilt it from scratch, going over every page from brand positioning to media strategy. Chen Zhou burned the midnight oil beside her until his eyes had turned panda-black, though his mouth still wouldn't quit. "Boss, this isn't three days early. You're trying to bury the previous generation under a wave."
"Less talk." Lu Zhi didn't look up, fingers flying across the keyboard. "If this draft doesn't pass, I'll treat the team to afternoon tea for a month."
"And if it does?"
"If it does," she paused, "I'm still treating."
Chen Zhou groaned, but his hands never stopped.
Lu Zhi told herself she wasn't thinking about Cheng Shu. At least she tried to tell herself that. She had simply found a rhythm—the kind where every ounce of attention poured into one thing, leaving no crack for stray thoughts. Work was the most honest thing in the world: what you put in, it gave back. No guessing, no waiting, no circling back to wonder whether you'd said the wrong thing or done the wrong thing.
Cheng Shu's rejection hadn't deflated her. If anything, it had sharpened her.
He wanted her to prove she deserved better? Fine. She would prove it to him.
No—not to him. To herself.
Lu Zhi stared at the screen, fingers hovering above the keyboard for two seconds, then moving again.
She had never been the type to fixate on one tree. But Cheng Shu wasn't a tree.
He was a mountain.
If the mountain wouldn't come to her, she would go to the mountain.