She explained it to him out of the goodness of her heart.
“You and I… are classmates. There is no hierarchical relationship between us.” Zhu Yun laid this out for him in a calm, measured tone. “While I have a great deal of respect for your leadership role at the base, we have no verbal agreement between us, and we have no employment contract. Honestly, I don’t believe you have sufficient grounds —” she looked at him steadily — “to tell me what to do.”
Silence.
Quiet.
More silence.
More quiet.
In the middle of all this stillness, Li Xun rested a hand on his hip and said lightly: “So we’re equals, then.”
Zhu Yun nodded.
Yes, that’s right. Equals. Men and women are equal. Long live equality.
…But could you please stop walking toward me.
Li Xun was wearing a fitted black athletic set — a mandarin collar, sharp as a blade — the whole effect stark and unnerving against the dark. Zhu Yun’s soft pale-yellow pajamas had absolutely no offensive power in the face of all that. He advanced with a seemingly casual step, yet somehow backed her into a position where retreat was impossible. She found herself pressed against the roadside shrubbery, branches poking into her back from every angle like a squadron of soldiers holding her at spear-point, while he looked down and said again:
“We’re equals.”
He was close enough to block out the moon entirely.
Fine…
Fine, fine, fine.
I’ll concede that you may be… just slightly… marginally… a fraction… taller than me…
Having surrendered the point, Zhu Yun proceeded to silently condemn, with great feeling, anyone who exploited advantages of gender and height. Truly shameless.
Li Xun was about to say something more — but in that instant, Zhu Yun caught sight of someone passing on the other side of the path. She gave him no chance to speak. With the speed of thunder before the ears can hear it, she called out toward the retreating figure at the top of her lungs:
“JULIET —!”
Everyone in the vicinity: “…………”
Zhu Yun gave Li Xun a nudge. “Look, look — Juliet. Your Juliet just got out of class.” She pointed vigorously behind them. Li Xun looked at her without expression.
Zhu Yun didn’t actually know Li Xun’s new girlfriend’s name. The impression the girl had left on her was almost entirely defined by that day’s script-reading session.
But the girl had a remarkable quality about her — she heard “Juliet” and instantly knew it was meant for her, and came trotting over with cheerful little steps.
“Li Xun!”
Taking advantage of the moment Li Xun turned his head, Zhu Yun slipped out from behind him like smoke.
“Will you help me run lines again?” Juliet hooked her arm through Li Xun’s with a pout. “The Romeo they cast me with is so short, I can’t feel anything — all my emotions just die.”
Zhu Yun said from the side, “Right, well — you two go practice. I’ll head back too.”
Li Xun turned a smile on her that didn’t reach his eyes.
Juliet hugged Li Xun’s arm. “Come on, let’s go.”
Li Xun: “Sure.”
Juliet waved cheerfully at Zhu Yun. “We’re off then!”
Zhu Yun gave a small bow. “Have fun.”
Li Xun departed with his girlfriend.
Zhu Yun stopped at the milk tea shop and looked back.
Their silhouettes dissolved into the deep night, soft and weightless as a breath.
What was the line again?
Forgive me — it was the night that revealed my heart’s secret. Do not think my vow to be a shameless act of wantonness.
---
The first time Zhu Yun went to Zhang Xiaobei’s laboratory, it felt like a factory floor.
Han Jiakang and the others were required to be present in the laboratory at all times unless they had a specific errand — fetching something for Zhang Xiaobei, collecting a delivery, and so on. Eight in the morning until… no one seemed to know exactly when. A fixed routine, more regimented than any nine-to-five.
The “excellent opportunity for future development” that Zhang Xiaobei had spoken of turned out to be a project to develop a fixed-asset reporting system for the Municipal Bureau of Finance.
When Zhang Xiaobei was out of the room, Han Jiakang quietly confided to Zhu Yun that the project was, in truth, thoroughly unremarkable. The system was already halfway built; a programmer from Baoke had been abruptly pulled off it when something came up on their end, and no one else had been willing to take over the remaining work.
Han Jiakang said with thinly veiled contempt: “These government projects are basically just a way to drain public funds. Whether or not the thing works in the end comes down entirely to how well the officials overseeing the review have been taken care of.”
He told Zhu Yun: “And that Baoke programmer didn’t really have something come up either. They just needed to get through the first round of inspection. Once the funding was disbursed, Baoke lost interest. Zhang Xiaobei has been clinging to Baoke’s coattails for so long that the moment they opened their mouth, she had no choice but to take on their mess.”
Zhu Yun looked over the code the previous programmer had written. She thought it was decent enough. Not as clean or assured as Li Xun’s code — nothing was — but clear and readable, quality more than adequate.
Wait… Zhu Yun interrupted her own train of thought.
Had his standard quietly become the benchmark in her mind?
She spent two days working through the existing codebase and attempting to build on what the previous programmer had laid down.
Zhang Xiaobei found a moment between her many obligations and came to check on progress.
“Run it for me.”