Ruichi's pitch was scheduled for Friday morning.

Lu Zhi wore her most expensive suit, light makeup, hair combed without a strand out of place. She stood outside the conference room clutching the bid document, the corners of the paper faintly creased where her fingers had pressed too hard.

Chen Zhou waited beside her, reading her face. "Boss, want some water before you go in?"

"No."

"Then a piece of chocolate? If your blood sugar—"

"Chen Zhou." Lu Zhi turned to look at him.

Chen Zhou shut up immediately.

She switched the folder to her other hand, finally freeing the pen she'd been unconsciously crushing. A shallow nail mark remained on the cap.

"I know how ready I am." she said, "Going in is just procedure."

Chen Zhou wanted to say something else, but her eyes stopped him.

The door opened. Someone inside called out, "Director Lu, you're up."

Lu Zhi drew a deep breath and stepped in.

Five people sat around the table. Ruichi's marketing director occupied the center seat, flanked by the media director and marketing team members. Across from them was one more seat, reserved for—

Cheng Shu.

He sat at the far end of the long table, laptop open in front of him, pen turning between his fingers. When Lu Zhi entered, he looked up once, gaze calm, as though she were any ordinary presenter.

But he had come.

President Lin had said Cheng Shu wanted this client too. Yet here he sat on Ruichi's side of the table—and Lu Zhi understood, suddenly, with a flicker of something she didn't have time to examine. Not now.

"Director Lu, please." Ruichi's marketing director gestured.

Lu Zhi walked to the screen, opened the deck, and began.

She started with market analysis—Ruichi's opportunities and challenges, paths to acquire young users—then moved into the full marketing strategy, expected results, and execution timeline. Twenty slides, thirty minutes, not a single stumble or dead pause.

Data at her fingertips. Cases deployed with precision. Rhythm under complete control.

At the end she stopped and looked at Ruichi's marketing director.

"Look," she said finally, "what you want isn't exposure alone. It's conversion. Not just buzz, but that feeling in a young person's mind of this is me. We can deliver that."

The room was quiet for several seconds.

Ruichi's marketing director scribbled a few words on paper, then looked up. "Director Lu, I have a few questions."

"Go ahead."

"You mention an 'emotional identification' path. On the private-domain operations piece—can your team configuration support it?"

"Yes." Lu Zhi said, "I'll lead personally—from product selection to content to media buy, I'll be involved end to end."

"Execution timeline?"

"Results in three months. GMV growth of at least twenty percent in six." Her voice was steady. "That's a conservative estimate."

The Ruichi team exchanged glances.

"All right," the marketing director closed the folder, "that's all for today. We'll be in touch."

Lu Zhi bowed slightly, packed up her laptop, and turned toward the door.

At the threshold, Cheng Shu's voice came from behind her.

"Director Lu."

She stopped and turned.

Cheng Shu stood, moved around the table, and came to her. Today he wore a dark gray shirt, one button more open than usual at the collar, looking slightly less rigid than he ordinarily did.

"On the private-domain piece," he said, voice lowered so only she could hear, "rethink your product-selection strategy. Ruichi's user tags are more complex than you think."

Lu Zhi paused for a second.

It sounded like a challenge, but the tone was wrong. Not picking holes—more like a warning.

"Thank you for the note, Mr. Cheng." Her expression didn't change. "But I've reviewed their user profiles. The eighteen-to-twenty-five segment accounts for over forty percent."

"Forty percent of the total." Cheng Shu said, "Did you look at the structure?"

Lu Zhi said nothing.

"Among their core buyers, thirty percent are twenty-four to twenty-eight—young professional women. Strong spending power, low loyalty. In other words—they buy Ruichi today and another brand tomorrow." Cheng Shu paused. "Your path solves acquisition for young users. It doesn't solve retention for existing ones."

Something shifted inside Lu Zhi.

He was right.

She thought about it all the way back, busy refining the proposal, without stopping to ask why he had said any of it. Not until she returned to her apartment that evening did she realize—

Cheng Shu wasn't trying to tear her down.

He was teaching her.

She sat by the window, staring at her phone for a long time.

She remembered what he'd said when he turned her down: I've seen what you can do. You're leading your team well, and you're solid on the numbers. At the time she'd taken it for evasion. Looking back, his expression hadn't looked evasive at all.

The way he looked at her had always been serious.

Serious in the way you look at someone worth taking seriously.

Lu Zhi felt abruptly irritated. She stood, walked out to the balcony, and lit a cigarette.

The night wind was cool against her face, pressing some of the heat down.

Cheng Shu was genuinely infuriating. Not because he was cold, but because he could have said nothing at all and still, at the critical moment, offered one or two sentences that actually helped. It felt like throwing your full weight into a punch only to have him catch it lightly and adjust your form.

She hated being coached.

But she couldn't deny that every word he'd said had landed exactly where it needed to.

Lu Zhi crushed out the cigarette and went back inside.

She opened her laptop and revised the proposal.

Existing-user retention—added. Precision targeting for young professional women—added. The emotional-identification path extended from purchase to repurchase—so consumers wouldn't only feel this is me, but this brand understands me.

She worked until three in the morning and sent the revised framework to Chen Zhou.

Chen Zhou replied instantly: Boss, burning the midnight oil again?

Lu Zhi ignored him, closed the laptop, and lay on the bed staring at the ceiling.

Cheng Shu said she deserved better.

She intended to prove she didn't need "better." She wanted what she wanted.

And what she wanted, she had always fought for herself.

Outside, the night was deep. The city's lights blurred into a distant band of glow. Lu Zhi closed her eyes, still turning over the path diagram in her mind—how to pull new users, how to keep old ones, how to win twenty-four-to-twenty-eight-year-old professional women.

She suddenly remembered Cheng Shu in the dark gray shirt today, one button open at the collar, sleeves rolled to his forearms.

She cursed herself under her breath, turned over, and pulled the blanket over her head.

She still had revisions tomorrow. No point thinking about nonsense.

Cheng Shu was nothing.

She was Lu Zhi. She was going to win.