Midnight Companion

Gu Yanzhi suspected that there were spies inside the company.

He was still shocked, however, at the measures being taken by his cousin, who was now also his boss.

The winter sunshine was bright and warm. Dressed in light casual clothing, Li Zhicheng stood in front of his office desk, handsome and quiet. The papers and other items that had cluttered his desk had now been moved into the bookcase and put neatly away. On the desk, instead, were a dozen black button cameras. With his long eyebrows furrowed, Li Zhicheng focused his attention on testing the irregularly-shaped device in his hand.

Gu Yanzhi picked up a camera and looked at it closely. "Don't tell me that you're going to install these within the task force?" 

Unbothered, Li Zhicheng kept nimbly playing with the device with his long fingers. "You told me you suspected the spy was in the task force," he responded in a calm voice.

The answer seemed to imply a yes.

Being a daring person himself, Gu Yanzhi thought about it and agreed. They must detect and eliminate the spy quickly, accurately, and ruthlessly. They didn't have time to be bothered by other trivial concerns. He was worried that Li Zhicheng might not be quite familiar with the relevant laws and rules, so he said, "Okay. But I'll arrange for someone else to do it. After all, it might not be legal, so you and I should stay away from it."

It was now Li Zhicheng who paused. He looked up at him. "You think I'm not well-aware of the laws?"

Gu Yanzhi thought about it and answered seriously, "I'm not sure." And he then laughed.

Li Zhecheng threw a piece of paper to him.

Gu Yanzhi looked down at it. Good lord, it was the floor plan of the office building and the staff dormitory that the task force was going to stay in. The places where cameras would be installed had been marked by him, mostly in the conference room, office areas, inconspicuous corners in corridors, entrances, and exits. Densely distributed, they were still in no areas that would invade the employee's privacy. The members of the task force would be under 360-degree surveillance as soon as they left their respective private rooms.

"No, you're not ignorant of the laws at all." Gu Yanzhi turned to give him this compliment. He then pointed to the device in his hand and asked, "What's this then?"

Leaving the device on the desk, Li Zhicheng put his hands into his pants pockets and said, "A signal detector." Seeing Gu Yanzhi still looking puzzled, he added, "Within its scanning range, it will detect signals from electronics such as cell phones and radios when they are in use, and intercept the signals within eight-hundredths of a second."

Gu Yanzhi finally understood. Because he had ordered all the members of the task force to hand in their cell phones and use the appointed phones instead, any spy would be easily caught if they were sneaking messages out.

The high-tech equipment is good, but... 

Gu Yanzhi kept silent for a moment, and nodded his head approvingly. "Good, very good. Ever since you came in, the security of our company has been raised to a military level."

His tone was teasing. Li Zhicheng was not affected and kept sorting out his valuable new technology.

Gu Yanzhi left him alone as he had a meeting to attend. He hadn't yet stepped out of the office doors when Li Zhicheng heard Gu Yanzhi muttering to himself.

He didn't hear him clearly at first. After he had walked a few steps away from the office, he figured out what he had said: "A military man will resort to every conceivable means to reach his end."

Lin Qian was also secretly keeping an eye out to see if there were any spies within in the task force.

It was the team's first meeting. More than a dozen people sat in a large conference room waiting for Gu Yanzhi, the standing team leader, to arrive.

Except for Lin Qian, everybody there had been coworkers for a long time and greeted each other warmly. Lin Qian introduced herself to them as well. From her perspective, everyone looked normal: this included the female head of the administration department in her thirties, the young technician in the technical department, and the middle-aged manager in the department of production management.

Soon Gu Yanzhi arrived, followed by his secretary, still looking like an arrogant boss. Without wasting words, he concisely stressed the seriousness of the dire situation. He would personally guide the whole process of managing the crisis this time, and gave them a lot of encouraging words, saying that everyone would be a hero as long as they successfully helped tide over the storm. 

After listening to his speech, everyone looked serious and confident—at least superficially.

The final part was to assign tasks.

The Head of Administration, as second in charge, announced the assignments on behalf of the leader. Someone was in charge of media liaisons, someone was in charge of government public relations, someone was in charge of advertising…

The last person was Lin Qian, who was assigned with chores and errands.

On the first day, the whole team worked overnight, including Gu Yanzhi. After intense discussions and revising over and over again, the preliminary countermeasures to the crisis were finalized at dawn.

Against all the odds, Gu Yanzhi insisted that Aida should be the first to stand out and apologize, recall all the products in question, and bear the loss. His plan was even more drastic than Lin Qian had thought. Absolute confidentiality beforehand, a press conference of unpredicted scale, strongly worded public statements. They must make their mark on the first shot, shock the consumers and the competitors as well, and knock out their rivals before they could even react. 

Lin Qian was impressed with Gu Yanzhi.

Under the new schedule, everyone started to work diligently into the night.

At eleven o'clock the next night, Lin Qian was still doing overtime alone in the office.

No one else was strong enough to work for such a long time. By that evening, Gu Yanzhi had finally allowed everyone to go back to their dorms and rest for a stronger fight the next day. But Lin Qian had to finish photocopying and binding the brochures for the press conference, so she had stayed.

It was a freezing winter night in the south. The office was too big to warm up, even when the heat was turned on. The security guard in charge of the building had started burning charcoal early to keep everyone warm.

That security guard was one of Li Zhicheng's juniors and the friendly neighbor of Lin Qian. His name was Gao Lang. He helped Lin Qian a lot these days, with things like ordering food, changing the water jugs, and delivering documents.

It was quiet at midnight. Lin Qian warmed her hands by the charcoal fire. Outside the window, the silence of the night made the darkness feel gloomy. In the office, only the repeated sounds of the running photocopier could be heard, making it feel colder and quieter in the spacious office.

After a while, someone else came in.

It was Gao Lang with a bag in his hand, which looked heavy. His breath was cold when he walked up to her. "Why are you still here?"

Lin Qian smiled at him. "I'm going to be finishing up soon."

He took something out of his bag and handed it to Lin Qian: Four sweet potatoes, not big, but round.

"They're from my hometown and they're very sweet-tasting. You must be hungry, right? Go ahead and bake them. Bury them in the charcoal and they'll be done quickly."

This was a pleasant surprise as Lin Qian was indeed hungry. She thanked Gao Lang repeatedly. Gao Lang gave her a generous smile and left, not daring to stay in the office any longer.

Li Zhicheng hadn't yet reached the gate of the office building when he smelled the baked sweet potatoes.

He turned and saw Gao Lang squatting in the security room, devouring one himself.

Li Zhicheng pulled open the door and walked in. Gao Lang jumped up to his feet like a spring and stuffed the rest of the sweet potato into his mouth. "Commander… or no, Boss!"

Li Zhicheng nodded and sat down next to him. Without saying anything, he took a sweet potato out of the charcoal ash and began to eat.

He quickly finished one.

Li Zhicheng looked up at Gao Lang. Having no idea what he wanted, Gao Lang stared back to him.

Li Zhicheng said, "Do you have more?"

Gao Lang chuckled, "I gave the rest to Lin Qian."

Li Zhicheng looked up at the second floor where a light was still on. "Is she still here?"

"Mmm, she's still working. It's tough for a young girl like her. Boss, don't you think that the leader of our company must be being controlling and mean?"

It was so boring waiting alone for the photocopier to finish copying! Lin Qian took a book out of her handbag and began to read.

The appealing smell of baked sweet potatoes became stronger.

Shouldn't they be done? she thought. With her eyes still fixed on her book, she reached out for a sweet potato. But when the round potato was in her hand, it felt too hot.

"Ouch!" She dropped the sweet potato, frowned, and shook her hand in the air.

D*mn, that was really hot!

The crispy, crusty sweet potato rolled and stopped at the feet of a person by the door. He picked it up with his slim fingers.

Lin Qian looked up.

He was wearing a black windbreaker. The color made his defined facial features and white complexion stand out more with his cool air. He stood there quietly, resembling a tall bamboo tree.

"Li Zhicheng? What are you doing here?"

Li Zhicheng looked at her and then at her burned finger, which appeared red. He then walked towards the desk without an expression on his face and put the sweet potato down.

"I'm here to pick up documents for CEO Gu," he answered.

In fact, he was the one who needed to look through some documents. He had asked Gu Yanzhi about it and was told that there should be no one in the office at this time. So he had taken the key and come alone.

Lin Qian glanced at the pass hanging from his neck. It was specially designed to access this building. She nodded. She was about to ask what documents he needed, but suddenly felt that her finger was still hurting from the burn!

"Sorry, I have to cool down my figure with water." She stood up.

It was close to the wee hours of the morning. A faint wind blew, rustling the trees out the window. Most lights had been turned off in the buildings throughout the industrial park. It was dark outside, and even more so in the corridor.

Lin Qian wanted to rush out, but at sight of the darkness, she became scared.

She turned to look at Li Zhicheng.

He stood there still, quiet, and calm.

"You come with me," Lin Qian said, trying to look calm.

He watched her quietly.

Lin Qian had a good reason. "CEO Gu sent you for the documents, but there is a lot of confidential material in here. I can't leave you here alone, so come with me."

Li Zhicheng shot her a glance before turning around and walking out first. Lin Qian quickly followed him.

At the end of the hallway was a row of sinks.

The lights over the sinks were turned on by Li Zhicheng, giving off a yellow and warm glow over the slippery surfaces. He stood next to her with his hands in his pants pockets.

Satisfied, Lin Qian reached out to turn on the faucet, and put her burned finger under the running water.

She hissed at the freezing temperature.

There was no heat in the south, so water from a pipe in the middle of winter was as cold as ice. After a while, Lin Qian couldn't bear the cold any longer. She withdrew her hand and was about to turn off the faucet. "It's so cold. I'll go and apply some toothpaste."

"Keep rinsing," a deep and powerful voice rang quickly in her ear, "for at least five minutes."

A little startled, Lin Qian cast him a sideways glance.

Still without much expression, he stood upright under the light, like a sculpture. Probably because he had said it in a commanding tone, there was a touch of harshness on his face.

Seriously?

Saying nothing, Lin Qian looked down at her wristwatch and reached out the finger to the running water again, her teeth clenched.

Li Zhicheng's gaze shifted quietly from her locked eyebrows to her burned finger. Under the clear, flickering running water, her fingers were white and slim with the burned part as red as bright paint.

Li Zhicheng quickly moved away his gaze to the vast park in the distance.

Five minutes later, Lin Qian looked at her watch. As soon as the time was up, she turned off the faucet, not one second more or less. 

She looked down at her finger and held it up to show him, a sweet smile on her face. "Thank you! It worked."

He glanced at her and nodded lightly.

Lin Qian said again, "Look, it's frozen stiff and doesn't hurt anymore." Flashing him with another sweet smile, she turned around and walked into the office without waiting for his response.

Li Zhicheng stayed where he was, watching her quietly bend her finger while walking. Motionless for a second, he had a slight smile on his face as he finally walked steadily into the room as well.

Back in the office, Lin Qian made a midnight phone call to Gu Yanzhi, out of precaution. "Mr. Gu, sorry to disturb you. I'm in the office. Manager Li Zhicheng just came and wanted to pick up some documents. I'd like to verify it with you."

Gu Yanzhi's voice coming from the other end of the line didn't carry any drowsiness but did have a glimmer of inexplicable amusement. "Li Zhicheng… the manager? Mmm, I did arrange it. Give them to him."

Lin Qian sorted a few documents out, handed them to Li Zhicheng, and said, "The brochures are still printing. Wait a few minutes. I'll give you a copy after I have counted them all. You can have a seat for now."

Saying nothing, Li Zhicheng sat down opposite her.

It was quiet in the large room. They sat face to face for a while before Lin Qian spoke up: "Come on, let's finish the sweet potatoes."

Li Zhicheng looked up at her with his dark and calm eyes. Thinking that maybe he didn't want to eat, she was about to say she would have them herself when she his low voice.

"Mmm."

With only one finger hurt, Lin Qian was able to peel a sweet potato with her own two hands. When she finished peeling one sweet potato, she looked up to see that Li Zhicheng had started eating.

They remained sitting opposite the charcoal fire. He was large and tall, a sweet potato small in his strong hand. He chewed with his mouth closed, looking handsome and refined.

A little touched, Lin Qian started to grow curious. Since they didn't know each other well, she was not in a good position to ask why he had left the army for the business. So she asked in a seemingly casual way, "Are you liking your new job?"

He paused and said in a calm voice, "Yeah."

Lin Qian nodded and asked nothing more.

Lin Qian was full after finishing one sweet potato. Seeing him stop eating, she said, "I'm not going to eat any more. I'm full. Finish the rest if you like."

He then finished the other two quickly and quietly.

After sorting all the documents out, Lin Qian yawned and gave a copy of the brochure to him. "Okay, here it is."

A stack of documents in his hand, he stood still, looking at her distantly.

Lin Qian blinked. "Anything else?"

"I have some ointment for burns," he said in a clear and slightly indifferent voice.