Three weeks into the Sheng Ji project, things started to go wrong.
When Lu Zhi reached the office Monday morning, she could tell immediately that project manager Chen Zhou's face wasn't right.
"What happened?"
"Lu-jie," Chen Zhou kept his voice down, "Sheng Ji's liaison changed. It used to be the marketing manager. Now it's a deputy director. And—" he paused, "I heard someone put in a word on their side saying our division's execution capability still needs to be verified."
Lu Zhi's fingers tapped the edge of her desk once.
"Who put in the word?"
"Can't trace it." Chen Zhou shook his head. "But..." He glanced at her, hesitant.
"Say it."
"I heard a rumor," Chen Zhou said, lower still, "that it came out of Public Relations—that Director Shen 'casually' mentioned it at a dinner."
Lu Zhi said nothing.
She sat with her back to the door, facing the city skyline through the floor-to-ceiling window. Nine o'clock sunlight stretched her shadow long across the floor.
"Lu-jie, should we... go to President Lin?"
"And then what?" Lu Zhi's voice was level. "I tell him Shen Ning is working against me behind my back? Do you have proof?"
Chen Zhou fell silent.
"No proof is slander." Lu Zhi stood, picked up the folder from her desk. "Come on. We're going to Sheng Ji."
"Now?"
"Now." She was already through the door. "If someone questions our execution, I'll show them what execution looks like."
For the next week, Lu Zhi practically lived at Sheng Ji.
Her team re-mapped the brand landscape and user profiles. Within three days they produced a new content matrix. On day four she led the meeting at Sheng Ji in person. On day five execution began.
Saturday at ten at night, she walked out of the Sheng Ji building. Her phone rang.
Cheng Shu.
She paused.
This was the first time Cheng Shu had called her on his own initiative.
"Mr. Cheng?"
"Where are you?" His voice was the same business tone as always, giving away nothing.
"Just finished at Sheng Ji."
"Tomorrow at ten, ninth floor, group headquarters," he said. "Progress review on the Sheng Ji project. I want to hear it."
Lu Zhi opened her mouth, then closed it. "All right."
She hung up and stood under the streetlight, looking down at the screen.
Cheng Shu had never been the one to reach out.
Always passive. Always cool. Always waiting for others to come to him.
Today he had called first, asked where she was, set up a review meeting.
She drew a breath and put the phone back in her bag.
Was she imagining things?
Because it didn't feel like a superior arranging work for a subordinate.
It felt more like—
he was checking that she was all right.
Lu Zhi shook her head and dismissed the thought.
Impossible. Cheng Shu wasn't that kind of person.
At nine fifty-eight the next morning, Lu Zhi stood outside the ninth-floor conference room with a USB drive, running through the key points of her presentation one last time in her head.
The door opened from inside.
Cheng Shu.
He seemed about to step out. They met face-to-face, closer than expected.
"You're here," he said, stepping aside to let her in.
The moment Lu Zhi entered, she caught the familiar cedar scent on him—fainter than when they'd passed in the conference room, as if he'd switched to a lighter fragrance.
"I'll present the plan, but first I need to say something." Lu Zhi plugged in the USB drive and turned to face Cheng Shu. "Someone put in a word at Sheng Ji saying our division's execution capability needs verification. That didn't come from me. I have no proof, but if you want to investigate, Mr. Cheng, I believe you can find out."
Cheng Shu's expression didn't change.
"I know."
Lu Zhi's motion stopped.
"You know?"
"Director Zhou at Sheng Ji called me last week." Cheng Shu walked in and sat in the chair opposite her, unhurried. "He said someone told him Digital Marketing is Shengyao's youngest division—plenty of drive, not enough steadiness. He asked what I thought."
Lu Zhi's spine tightened.
"What did you say?"
Cheng Shu lifted his eyes to her through his lenses. Still clean, still cold—but beneath the surface Lu Zhi sensed something moving slowly.
"I said Digital Marketing's Q2 completion rate was one hundred forty-seven percent. That number doesn't need me to define it. Their results speak for themselves."
Lu Zhi's fingers tightened on the edge of the table.
"Director Zhou asked again: 'Then are you comfortable handing them the Sheng Ji project?'"
"What did you say?"
Cheng Shu looked down, picked up the fountain pen from the table, and spun it once between his fingers.
That gesture—
Lu Zhi's heartbeat skipped.
"I said, 'They don't need my comfort. They only need results.'"
Silence held for several seconds.
Then Lu Zhi smiled.
Not a polite smile—the kind that flares when something inside you catches fire, edged with sharpness.
"Mr. Cheng," she said, "thank you for blocking those words for me."
"I didn't block anything." Cheng Shu set the pen down and stood. "I stated facts."
He walked toward the door.
At the threshold he stopped, didn't turn fully, only angled his face enough to leave her half a profile.
"Lu Zhi."
"Hm?"
"What you said just now—about someone putting in a word." His voice dropped slightly. "Don't put that on the table next time. Not everyone deserves to see your cards."
Then he pushed the door open and left.
Lu Zhi stood where she was, watching the door close slowly.
Sunlight through the blinds laid stripes of light and shadow across the conference table.
She thought of Cheng Shu in the doorway, the arc of the pen between his fingers, the thread of something almost inaudible in his voice when he said they don't need my comfort, they only need results—
Trust.
Or something else.
She didn't know.
But she knew that from this moment, something had shifted.
He had stood in front of her.
He hadn't said much, but somewhere she couldn't see, he had taken the arrows meant for her back.
Lu Zhi pulled the USB drive from the computer, closed her fist around it, and walked out of the conference room with long strides.
Whatever Cheng Shu's reasons were for doing it—
she would drive the Sheng Ji project to a place where he couldn't say he wasn't comfortable.