"No, no, Mr. Ronan, what I meant was..." Robert Harris stammered, perhaps too eager.
Faced with Henry Ronan's reserved yet still imposing aura, Robert instinctively felt a twinge of fear.
Mr. Henry Ronan was never truly a gentle and benevolent gentleman.
A man with strikingly elegant looks but eyes cold to the extreme could never be warm as jade.
The classic outwardly warm but inwardly cold type, even... ruthless.
Henry's deep gaze landed on Robert Harris. Before leaving the lounge, he left a remark, "You will set up her counseling treatment cycle, and inform her that the treatment fees can be suitably discounted."
Robert knew there was no room for negotiation, so he bowed and replied, "Alright, Mr. Ronan."
...
Not quite ten o'clock, Lucy Ansley arrived at the South Hill Road daily magazine office.
She worked here as a part-time copy editor, with wages settled monthly based on attendance, fifty yuan per day.
The editorial office was on the third floor, and Lucy's desk was next to the pantry, relatively quiet, but also the easiest corner to be overlooked.
"Lucy, there are three news articles and two magazines to follow up on. I've already sent them to your email. They need to be submitted for review by six this evening. Finish it quickly and give it to me, if you can't finish, you can't leave."
The woman shouting with her neck outstretched was the deputy editor, named William Lewis, the one who coordinated with Lucy the most in the department.
In other words, many of the tasks she didn't want to do were thrown to the part-timer Lucy, under the guise of proofreading.
By nature, Lucy rarely refused, nodding lightly and whispering okay.
William was very satisfied with this, raising her eyebrows to show off to her colleague beside her.
"You're really bullying her. So many manuscripts would take even seasoned editors three days to proofread. How can a part-time kid finish it by six in the afternoon?"
"That's what part-timers are for." William's expression stiffened, laughing forcibly, "Besides, I already went through those manuscripts once. She didn't come to work for the past few days. If she doesn't complete the task, she'll have her pay docked by the director."
The last sentence, William deliberately raised her voice.
Even though there was a distance, Lucy could hear it clearly.
Through the partition between workstations, she glanced at William expressionlessly, her indifferent eyes carrying a calm that, even in silence, gave the other a sense of unease.
Approaching noon, Lucy shut down her computer and left the editorial office wearing a hat.
In the elevator area, a plain-looking girl was tiptoeing and looking around. Seeing Lucy, she quickly waved and smiled, "Luce!"
For the first time, a hint of discernible ripple appeared in Lucy's usually somber and dim eyes.
She was Susie Bennett, one of Lucy's few friends.
"I knew you'd definitely come to the magazine office today. Here, I brought you lunch with the steamed meat you like."
Susie said this while handing Lucy the metal lunch box in her hand, her eyes crinkling like crescent moons in her smile.
"Thanks." Lucy took the lunch box, her eyes tinged with a bit of liveliness.
"Why are you being so polite with me?" Susie flicked her ponytail, muttering in a low voice, "Feels distant."
Lucy didn't respond, holding the lunch box with one hand, she stepped into the elevator first.
Susie followed behind her, cautiously probing, "Luce, are you really not planning to return to school?"
Although both were currently working at the magazine, their jobs were entirely different in nature.
Susie was an intern in her senior year, while Lucy was a dropout working part-time.
As for why she dropped out, Susie didn't know. She only knew that during her sophomore year, Lucy suddenly lost contact with everyone and didn't appear for a long time.
They only reconnected at the magazine office half a year ago.
But by then, Lucy had already changed, becoming distant and reclusive, like a flower withering rapidly under the bright spring sunlight, stripped of all vitality and color.
The reason was unknown.
In the elevator car, Lucy stared at the elevator doors, replying in a flat tone, "Not planning to."
Susie awkwardly touched her nose, finding herself a way out, "Oh, your parents are pretty open-minded. If I dared to drop out of college, my mom would kick me into the sky."
For a moment, Lucy's pupils suddenly dilated, her gaze hollow and unfocused.
Perhaps for a few seconds, or maybe a few minutes, when Lucy's mind was back, what caught her eye was Susie's enlarged round face and her expression that couldn't hide her panic.
"Lu... Luce, are you okay?"
Lucy furrowed her brows, closed her eyes, calming down, "I'm fine, nothing."
"Are you sure?" Susie looked at the lunch box overturned on the floor, then at Lucy's pale cheeks, "Just now you..."
Susie didn't finish, but Lucy already realized something was wrong.
Her brief loss of control earlier caused the lunch box to slip from her hand, spilling food all over, and the elevator had already stopped at the cafeteria on the basement floor.
Embarrassment in public brings unavoidable pointing and whispering.
Lucy stood for a few seconds as if an outsider, until she could move freely, then silently crouched down, picking up the spilled food in the elevator by hand.
A small episode had turned into gossip for many during their leisure time.
In the end, Lucy didn't go to the cafeteria, but rather holding onto the lunch box Susie gave her, she left the magazine office first.
For that day, Susie, though usually careless, felt a vague unease. She thought... Lucy seemed not quite right.
...
The entire afternoon, Lucy did not reappear.
As evening approached at six, William Lewis anxiously asked around for Lucy's phone number, "Does none of you have her phone number? Not even on WeChat?"
Someone chimed in with a voice eager to watch the drama unfold, "Of all of us, she coordinates with you the most, if even you don't have it, let alone us."
Frustrated, William slammed the table, unable to vent her anger, when the computer alerted her with an email notification.
Looking down, the sender was none other than Lucy, and the attachments were the already proofread three articles and two magazines.
William's fury instantly vanished, putting off the notion of complaining to the director.
But then, as she opened the email, she inadvertently noticed a reminder in the top left corner of the mailbox: Scheduled Email.
This meant that the articles and magazines had been proofread before Lucy left the magazine around noon.
Finishing in two hours what typically took someone three days.
With such efficiency, why limit herself to a small part-time role at the magazine?
Elsewhere, at dusk, Lucy sat alone under a sycamore tree covered in fallen petals, without hesitation dialed Henry Ronan's number.
She said, "I am willing to receive counseling treatment."
Next sentence, "Can it be discounted?"