Lin Yunsheng sat on the floor, sneezing three times within a mere half hour.
By the fourth time, Zhao Man could no longer sit still. She walked straight over from the dining area and, without a word, pressed her hand against Lin Yunsheng’s forehead to check her temperature.
"What are you doing?" Lin Yunsheng recoiled almost the instant she was touched.
"Checking to see if you're sick."
"I'm not."
Judging by that brief touch, she didn't seem to have a fever. Zhao Man leaned down, picked up Lin Yunsheng’s laptop, and headed toward the dining table. "Stop sitting on the floor."
Lin Yunsheng didn't stop her, but she didn't get up immediately either. Instead, she let her body collapse backward onto the carpet, lying flat.
She squinted up at the high ceiling, where a crystal chandelier hung, its sharp facets sparkling with translucent clarity. She counted the days; today was her fifth day back in Haicheng.
Zhao Man placed the laptop on the long rectangular dining table and walked back, lying down beside Lin Yunsheng. She didn't speak, simply listening to the rhythm of the other woman's breathing.
After a long while, she asked Lin Yunsheng, "Do you know what the current version of our story is?"
Lin Yunsheng closed her eyes and replied, "I know."
"The story of the dragon-slaying girl becoming the dragon herself," she said, the corners of her mouth twitching upward.
Zhao Man let out a snort of laughter. "Well, we can't exactly be called 'girls' anymore. We’d have to be called 'mature dragon slayers.' Someone Jinyue’s age is what you’d call a girl."
Lin Yunsheng didn't respond.
Since the day Chen Jinyue had left in a fit of pique, they hadn't seen each other for three days, nor had there been any contact between them.
In the early hours of the third day of the Lunar New Year, Lin Yunsheng had gone home once. It was very late, however, and they were likely both asleep. She had taken the suitcase left in the living room back to her room, tidied up a bit, showered, and rested. Early the next morning, before either of them woke up, she had left again.
She didn't even know if anyone had noticed she’d been back.
Lin Yunsheng’s mind was a mess.
It wasn't just confusion; there was a trace of panic.
It had started with that sudden hug from Chen Jinyue in Nancheng, reached a crescendo when she learned the girl had returned early, and had persisted until now.
During these days, her perception of time was measured in scales of busyness, irritability, and longing for Chen Jinyue—guilt and uncontrollable flusteredness tangled together, eventually driving her to choose busyness once more.
She didn't know how Chen Jinyue had convinced Chen Fang to return early. She was afraid Chen Fang would notice some unusual clue, and she was afraid of hurting Chen Jinyue. Though the latter was perhaps already a reality.
Lin Yunsheng opened her eyes slightly and asked Zhao Man, "When you dropped Xiao Jin off the other day, was she okay?"
"You're only asking me now after three days? I thought you didn't care about your sister anymore."
Lin Yunsheng turned her head to look at the person lying beside her, her eyes revealing a touch of helplessness.
"She was a bit unhappy, but I imagine after a few days, she should be fine now."
"Want me to ask for you?"
"No need."
"Are you still mad at her then?"
Lin Yunsheng was about to say that she wasn't angry with her sister, but rather with herself. Before the words could leave her mouth, Jiang Haitao came rushing out with his laptop.
He ran into the living room in a frantic hurry, only to find the two of them lying on his carpet, gazing at each other.
"..."
"So you two are here being all lovey-dovey while I'm the only one working my tail off inside, is that it?"
Lin Yunsheng and Zhao Man quickly sat up, claiming they were just resting for a moment.
Jiang Haitao rolled his eyes, placed his laptop on the low coffee table, and turned on the TV screen mirroring. The screen was filled with code that Zhao Man couldn't understand.
His fingers slid across the trackpad, walking Lin Yunsheng through the data analysis process.
"I’ve been checking to see if there was an error in the data parsing steps or a problem with the outlier definitions."
"As it turns out, every module is logical and follows the standards."
"Mhm." Lin Yunsheng’s eyes followed the screen, watching intently.
"Then I started back-checking the step-by-step code for each module. And the problem appeared here."
The cursor stopped at the settlement module. Jiang Haitao circled a specific line of code.
"Someone manually inserted a line of values here?" Lin Yunsheng’s brows furrowed.
"Yes, just one line of values, in this very inconspicuous spot. It very precisely made the cleaned data 'dirty' again, and it guided the Marketing Department to make the decision that we needed to down-tier our placements this year."
As he spoke, Jiang Haitao opened another file. This time, Zhao Man could understand it; it was the Marketing Department’s placement logic during the Spring Festival over the past few years.
"I re-ran a version of the data. Without this outlier, based on the current situation, this year's coverage rate could have reached 88%. But now, we're only at 47%."
Zhao Man’s expression began to sour as well. She added, "And the down-tiering caused our unit price per screen to rise by 30%."
"Exactly. So the cost data looks terrible too. Finance will definitely come looking for you after the holidays."
Lin Yunsheng cast a sympathetic look at Zhao Man, then turned back to ask, "Have you checked the operation logs?"
"Yeah..."
He paused for two seconds. "Xu Mingbo."
Surprise flickered in Lin Yunsheng’s eyes.
"Xu Mingbo? Who's that?"
Jiang Haitao explained to Zhao Man, "A newcomer who transferred over from the business team in the third quarter of last year."
"A newcomer? The 'kid' Yunsheng mentioned during our last dinner?"
"That's the one."
Lin Yunsheng stood up abruptly and walked to the long dining table. She clicked open her own laptop and pulled up the employee files.
The longer her gaze lingered on the screen, the more mocking it became.
She pulled out a tissue and sneezed for the fifth time.
Wiping her nose, she looked up at the two people now sitting across from her. "Do you know which team Xu Mingbo was with before?" she asked Jiang Haitao.
"I know, South China."
"And before that?"
"I don't know. West China?"
Lin Yunsheng shook her head.
This time she looked at Zhao Man with a faint smile and asked, "Guess who recruited him?"
Zhao Man didn't understand why she was being asked, thinking, *Should I know this?*
Lin Yunsheng didn't keep them in suspense any longer. "It was Wang Chengfan," she said, enunciating each syllable slowly.
Zhao Man practically bounced out of her chair, cursing, "Holy crap! Wang Chengfan? It’s been how many years, and we’re still getting tangled up with that bastard?"
Perhaps because the matter finally had some leads, Lin Yunsheng’s mood improved slightly. She sniffled and looked at the woman jumping in front of her. "But Wang Chengfan has been gone for so long. There must be people in the Marketing Department and Renxing Advertising Agency cooperating on this."
"Marketing... who else could it be but my brainless, corrupt boss? We got him kicked out, and now that I’ve taken his position, it would be strange if he *didn't* try to stir up trouble."
Lin Yunsheng gave a low laugh. "The story version can be updated to 'Mature Dragon Slayers Eradicate the Remnants.'" She closed her laptop and stood up.
Then she said to Zhao Man, "I’ve organized the historical parameter reviews for Business Analysis and Marketing. Take a look, and then investigate the issues within the Marketing Department."
Zhao Man nodded.
"I'm suddenly a bit sleepy." Lin Yunsheng glanced at the time; it was eleven in the morning. "I'm going to sleep for a while."
With that, she headed toward the guest room.
She left the two of them in the dining area, one of whom was still grumbling and cursing.
Jiang Haitao interrupted her, asking, "If you two are the mature dragon slayers, then what am I?"
"You? You're the dragon-slaying sidekick." After saying that, she went back to her cursing.
Lin Yunsheng lay on the bed. Before closing her eyes, she took out her phone and tapped on her chat with Chen Jinyue.
The messages were still stuck on the address share from three days ago—Yuanmao Mansion.
She had stayed here for five days, yet New Year's Eve in Nancheng felt as distant as if months had passed. Her head felt incredibly heavy and dizzy.
The rain in Haicheng had stopped on some unknown day. Now, only a gloomy sky remained, draining the city of its vitality.
Lin Yunsheng closed her heavy eyes. In the void of her mind, she saw warm sunshine one moment and incessant rain the next, soaking her to the bone.
Her head grew dizzier. She was still thinking that perhaps she shouldn't be so hyper-vigilant; Chen Jinyue must have been miserable for days. Before she fell into a deep sleep, the last thought in her mind was: *When I wake up, I'll go home to see my sister.*
I miss her so much.
***
