Chapter 8_2

"It's all the same. Be careful on the road, I was driving a bit recklessly today," Andy thought for a moment and then added, "As long as your dad is happy, that's good, but the work ahead will need your own dedication."

Qu Xiaojuan almost cleverly blocked Andy's way as she tried to leave the elevator and rush to her car, "Do you have plans tonight? I would really like to treat you and Xiaoguan to dinner as a way to say thank you."

"Don't you need to catch up on sleep? Don't treat me like a client, we're neighbors."

Qu Xiaojuan breathed a sigh of relief and finally let Andy go to drive her car.

Qu Xiaojuan barely kept her eyes open to get to the rendezvous point, where the leading friend arranged everyone in the cars so that the women were all placed with male drivers to ensure speed, and a fleet of fancy cars took off impressively. But Qu Xiaojuan fell asleep as soon as she got in the car; she really couldn't hold on any longer. Before sleeping, she thought of something: she had handed in her report ahead of schedule, and a friend in one of these cars was helping with the branch company's registration. With their help, everything including the industrial and commercial tax registration could be collected by Monday. Even if she completed each task by cutting corners, she had finished everything ahead of time. Completed, that was all that mattered.

Aside from Qiu Yingying, Andy was the first to encounter Manager Bai. She drove out and stopped at a traffic light, where she saw Qiu Yingying stuck close to a young man, also waiting for the green light. The two were overly intimate, attracting sidelong glances from pedestrians. Andy looked at the young man, fair and clean, scholarly and elegant. Seeing the two of them, it seemed that Qiu Yingying was the more proactive and bold one. When the green light came on, Andy drove away without a greeting; she didn't like Qiu Yingying.

Upon arriving at the forum venue, after checking in and signing in, Andy was presented with a corsage of fresh flowers. As she stood up after signing, her eyes met with the corsage and she blanched, quickly stepping back three paces. But she immediately steadied herself, smiled, and said, "I'm sorry, I have a severe pollen allergy. Thank you for the corsage." She avoided it as if sidestepping a minefield and entered the venue. Of course, the venue was also filled with fresh flowers, which Andy chose to ignore. This was an industry forum, and although Andy had only just returned to the country, because many of the executives in this industry were returnees like her, they were somewhat familiar with each other. First, she would latch onto the most familiar one, and then, as Qu Xiaojuan had said, friends would introduce friends, and friends would help friends. Tan Zongming was a big name, and Andy herself was no less so. Those who carry a big name can easily enter social circles. Just like a general on a Peking opera stage, the more numerous and higher the flags on their back, the more they become the center of the stage when they appear.

Shortly after, the host took the stage and everyone took their seats, and Andy pulled out her laptop and placed it on her lap. She always multitasked at these kinds of meetings. Once she connected to the internet, she asked a friend next to her how to activate QQ. The friend had MSN but not QQ, however, they remembered that QQ was from Tencent. Andy followed the clues, downloaded, installed, read the instructions, and activated it. Finally, she dug up that string of numbers from her memory, started the search, and added a friend. Then she didn't know what to do next; although QQ was open, there were no other changes on the screen. Obviously, Singularity might not be online.

At noon, new and old friends gathered in a private room for lunch, taking the opportunity to exchange views as the situation was tumultuous. One lunch lasted a grueling three hours, far exceeding the forum time. After finishing the meal, Andy returned to her car without haste and couldn't help but check her computer for any updates first. Still, QQ remained unresponsive. Andy couldn't help feeling irritable and punched the car seat next to her. Yet she stubbornly refused to take out her phone to send even a single text message to Singularity.

Fan Shengmei was bored, so she called up friends, but most of her friends at her age already had families and no one to accompany her on the weekend, so she had to go out shopping alone with her bag on her back.

On the 22nd floor, the only one sound asleep was Guan Ju'er. She woke up in a panic at noon to the light streaming through the window, thinking she was late for work. It wasn't until she had hurried to the kitchen that she remembered it was the weekend. So she clutched at her chest and felt her heartbeat pounding like a drum for a while before she went back to bed to sleep some more.

Qu Xiaojuan wasn't so lucky; she had to stay awake after getting out of the car, forced to sustain her spirits and meet strangers while eating hairy crabs with her friends. She couldn't even taste the crabs but didn't forget to pay for a big basket of them to take back to thank Andy and Guan Ju'er. Of course, she didn't need to do any of the work herself; she just had to sit prettily and give the orders, and Yao Bin would take care of everything for her. Yao Bin was her closest male friend since returning to the country.