Present Day
The river shines like steel under a white noon sky. Towers throw light across glass and stone. On the top floors, conference rooms look down like calm eyes.
"Two quarters to proof, four to scale," Gu Ze Yan says, sleeves folded once, voice warm and steady. "We don't chase noise. We build habits."
He looks like someone carved him with clean lines—sharp brows, straight nose, clear profile, the kind of height that makes chairs seem too small. On the wall, a product demo loops: a quiet interface hiding unapologetically clever math. In this city that runs on slogans, his AI company has the rare luxury of results. He is the CEO; he wears it lightly.
Applause softens. Hands shake. The room empties.
Only two remain.
Su Shen Qiao rests a hip against the table—sleek bob, pale suit, cool poise that cameras love and numbers respect. Co-founder, managing director, partner, friend. "You skipped the valuation on purpose," she says, amused.
"You didn't," he says, returning it.
She skims a tablet, then looks up, the partner receding, the friend stepping forward. "You look… steadier."
"Older?" He smiles.
"Mature," she corrects, mouth curving. "In a good way. Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," he says.
It fits like a tailored jacket: smooth outside, something stitched and private beneath.
"Eat lunch," she says. "With a human. I'll handle the afternoon call."
He salutes with his water glass. She goes; the door breathes shut; quiet settles like light dust.
A soft knock. "Permission to enter?"
Zhao Xin Yue peeks in—ribbon in her hair, tote on one shoulder, eyes clear and bright. She moves with gentle ease and stubborn light. Half sister. Same age as the girl he doesn't name. Once classmates, two names on the same homeroom roll.
He stands at once. "Xin Yue."
She crosses in three quick steps and hugs him like years never learned to stretch. "Gege, your secretary said you've been eating air."
"I'm on a strict diet of victory," he says.
"Victory doesn't have vitamins." She drops contraband on the low sofa by the window: warm buns, cut fruit, a tiny cake like a cloud. "Sit."
They sit. Sun lays tidy rectangles across the carpet. The river flashes. Xin Yue talks with both hands—about a professor who wears two watches and still misses class, a classmate who draws with both hands at once, a portfolio review that stole her weekend. He listens the way rooms soften for him. He's still the talkative one who can make a space feel warm, quick with jokes, neat with kindness, good at placing encouragement exactly where people need it.
When her stories thin, her voice gentles. "How are you, really?"
"I'm good," he says easily.
She waits. He adds, mild as warm water, "Team's strong. Sleep is better. I eat—when extorted." He nudges the cake.
"Mm." She studies him—this brother who looks like sunlight to strangers. For a breath, the light shifts and she sees the weather underneath. "I missed you."
He turns to the glass before the heat spills. "I'm here."
Her fingers find his, a quick, firm squeeze. "If you ever want to talk, I can pretend to be a wall."
"You're terrible at being a wall," he says.
"I can learn." Chin up.
"I know." He squeezes back.
They decide on hotpot, then forget to order it. She stands at last, ribbon catching light. "If you skip family dinner, I'll bring my roommates to judge your fake plants."
"My plants are thriving in their artificiality."
"Exactly." She kisses his cheek and disappears with her tote, a gust of warm air in ribbon form.
He lets the quiet sit beside him for one breath.
Then he works.
—A design sync; he spots a pattern no one named and praises the junior who almost did.
—A client prep; he's quick, funny, precise, the kind of charming that disarms without showing the blade.
—A pass through the open office; he remembers names, asks about a grandmother's surgery, tells Facilities to fix the chair that squeaks like a dying bird.
He is better at all of it than he was five years ago. The world would nod: this is a man who lived well.
When the floor warms with the hiss of takeout lids, he speaks less. The glass becomes a mirror. He reads a paragraph twice and keeps none of it. Music leaks faintly from somewhere; he once knew the title; now it's only notes.
There are oceans in his phone he never opens. Names he does not type. Winter soups he does not order. He has learned to walk on other water.
The door opens without knocking. Only one person does that and keeps his job.
Chen Rui slides in sideways: neat jawline, tidy suit, sneakers he thinks no one notices, tablet hugged like a shield. His smile is built for easing rooms, but today he hides it. "Boss."
"Mmm?"
"Do you have sixty seconds to not assassinate the messenger?"
"Forty," he says, looking up.
Chen Rui swallows a grin; the humor leaves his eyes, replaced by care. He chooses each word like stepping stones in rain. "Dr. He called."
The room rearranges around three syllables.
"He Ming?" Ze Yan's tone doesn't change. The air does.
"ER day shift. Haiyun District People's." Chen Rui checks the tablet as if facts might steady his own pulse. "They brought in a woman from a traffic scene. Minor collision. Concussion, small cut at the temple, shoulder bruising. Stable."
Silence. The building hums. The river doesn't care.
Chen Rui lowers his voice. "He thinks it might be… her."
The old earth under the new city tilts, just enough to feel. Pens don't roll. Glass doesn't crack. A pulse that's kept time for years skips once, then corrects.
"What room?" Ze Yan asks.
"Observation. He'll meet you at triage. He also said—" Chen Rui tries for a smile and lets it go, "—to breathe."
"Keys," Ze Yan says.
"In your pocket," Chen Rui replies—because he slid them there after the morning sync, because he's been braced for this call for years, too.
Ze Yan rises. Jacket. Phone. The book on his desk goes into his bag without him seeing the cover. He turns off the desk lamp he doesn't need. Noon floods the window; he closes that, too.
"Do I call anyone?" Chen Rui asks, following, careful not to touch the thread pulled taut through the room. "Legal? PR? Shen Qiao?"
"No."
"Your sister?"
"No."
"Do you want me to drive?"
"No."
They reach the door. Chen Rui opens his mouth, closes it, then tries again, softer. "Boss… it's okay to—"
Ze Yan looks at him. There is nothing in the look but air. Calm is a talent and a sin. He has both.
"I know," he says.
That's all.
He steps into the corridor and is already moving. Past the glass that held his reflection. Past reception where the guard sits up straighter without knowing why. Into the elevator that swallows him whole.
Ma Chen Rui stands in the doorway for one beat, listening to the cables sing. He exhales the breath he's been holding for years, pulls out his phone, and sends three words to a contact saved as Blue Pajamas.
On his way.
The elevator drops. The city tilts like falling.
Lunch crowds lift lids. Taxis blink. Office plants hum their quiet, artificial green. Somewhere across the river, a fluorescent bulb buzzes above a bed that isn't his.
Gu Ze Yan doesn't run.
He doesn't need to.
He leaves everything he built arranged like chess pieces on the top floor—and goes.