The Meeting

On the fifth floor, in Penguin Video's in-house drama center, Screenwriting Department.

The young woman from Human Resources handed Li Xun and the other two over to Julie, the head of the Screenwriting Department, then left.

The three new hires introduced themselves.

Han Qiaoling went first, then Zhou Hongsu, and finally Li Xun.

"Hello, leaders and colleagues. My name is Li Xun, and I'm from Hunan Province. I'm very grateful to your company for giving me this opportunity to join our big family. I hope and believe that with my hard work and everyone's help, I'll quickly adapt to the job and create more value for the company. Thank you."

After the introductions, Julie assigned workstations to Li Xun and the other two newcomers, pairing each with an experienced screenwriter. Li Xun was assigned to work alongside a screenwriter named Wang Hai, who would mentor him.

After tidying up his workstation, Li Xun collected his office supplies with the other two, using the new-employee supplies checklist. Then he sat down at his desk, and his onboarding process was essentially complete.

Wang Hai, the screenwriter at the desk beside him, turned and said:

"The company usually won't give you any specific work during your first week. You should spend this week watching, listening, and taking notes—see how we discuss a show's style, characters, division of labor, and so on. The cafeteria's on the twelfth floor. You can bring your own utensils or not; the food's decent, but it gets crowded, so you'll have to queue. Oh, and drinking alcohol is absolutely forbidden. If you don't like the cafeteria, you can buy food downstairs. There's a snack street not far to the left when you leave the building."

"Thanks, I'll remember that."

"None of this 'senior' and 'junior' stuff. Just call me Old Wang or Little Wang."

"How could I do that? I'll call you Brother Wang."

"Suit yourself!"

"By the way, Brother Wang, how much do you know about President Dai?"

Wang Hai chuckled and teased him. "You're pretty sharp, huh? What is it, heard President Dai's a great beauty and you've got ideas about her?"

"No, it's not like I've got any ideas. I just want to know more about her. She's our direct superior, after all. And everyone's been talking about how amazing she is. I'm curious, that's all."

Wang Hai laughed. "So what if you do have ideas? What's there to be embarrassed about? Who wouldn't be tempted by a great beauty like that? What, are you afraid people will call you a toad lusting after a swan? Don't worry. There are thousands of people in this company. Every last one of them, no matter their position or salary, is a toad in my eyes if they're eyeing President Dai. So don't be shy. One more toad won't make a difference. We're all toads, and none of us should laugh at the others. Honestly, I don't think anyone in this whole company is worthy of her. If President Dai let me kiss her once, I'd gladly give up a year of my life for it."

"Give up a year of your life for one kiss? Isn't that a bit much?" Li Xun said.

A scene from last night involuntarily surfaced in his mind. That indescribable flash of inspiration vanished just as quickly.

Wang Hai gave another scoff. "You can talk tough now, but just wait until she gets here and you see her in person. Then you'll know if it's worth it."

Li Xun muttered, "If one kiss costs you a year of your life, wouldn't a hundred kisses have you dying of old age right then and there?"

Wang Hai glanced at him and scoffed. "You want a hundred kisses? What, trying to make yourself too happy to live? Why are you so stubborn? I was just speaking figuratively. It's not like anyone can really take a year off your life!"

Li Xun looked up at the ceiling and said solemnly, "You can't just eat whatever you want, and you definitely can't say whatever you want. What if it comes true? Brother Wang, I'm telling you, I've become genuinely wary of supernatural things. I don't dare go making reckless wishes. There are gods three feet above your head!"

"You believe in that stuff?" Wang Hai laughed.

"I didn't used to believe much, but now I believe a little. By the way, what's President Dai's full name?" Li Xun asked curiously.

"Dai Ying. You don't even know that?" Wang Hai asked in surprise.

"I really didn't—wait, Dai Ying? Why does that name sound familiar?"

Just then, a young woman walked out of the small office beside the vice president's office and headed straight toward Li Xun and Wang Hai.

Wang Hai lowered his voice. "That's Qiu Ting, President Dai's assistant."

Li Xun nodded.

Qiu Ting stopped in front of their desks and looked at Li Xun.

"You're new?"

Li Xun nodded.

"Li Xun?" Qiu Ting asked again.

Li Xun nodded once more.

"Go to the vice president's office. The vice president wants to see you," Qiu Ting said.

"Now?" Li Xun asked.

"Now," Qiu Ting replied.

Li Xun followed Qiu Ting into Dai Ying's office.

"Qiu Ting, you can go out for now," said the woman at the desk, who was reading documents without looking up.

"Okay, President Dai." Qiu Ting answered and left the office.

Behind the desk, the woman was bent over some documents, signing them. When Li Xun entered, she didn't even look up. He stared at the woman in front of him, who still hadn't raised her head, and a thunderclap seemed to explode in his mind.

Everything clicked into place.

So Senior Sister Dai was actually her! The woman from last night who'd bragged that she was a senior vice president at a Fortune 500 company!

No, she hadn't been bragging. It had all been true!

So President Dai was the woman who'd begged him to kiss her and offered him a hundred yuan for every kiss!

He should have realized sooner!

Li Xun's lips felt dry and cracked.

All he wanted to do was post online: "I kissed my beautiful boss the day before starting work, and she even paid me ten thousand yuan for the kiss. What should I do? Waiting for replies—pretty urgent!"

Li Xun just stared blankly at the woman in front of him as she signed and read documents.

She seemed to have an endless stack of papers to sign. She never looked up, just kept reading and signing as she said, "I read your entrance exam screenplay, Predestination. It left a deep impression. It was genuinely excellent, and your screenwriting skills are impressive. I hope your future work will be even better."

"Thank you for the compliment, President Dai. I'll keep working hard!" Li Xun replied, his mind in a muddle.

Predestination was his ticket into Penguin Video.

The Screenwriting Department's recruitment exam had asked candidates to write a short story about time travel. The more unexpected and imaginative, the better.

Li Xun's answer had been adapted from "—All You Zombies—," a classic by Robert A. Heinlein, hailed as the father of American science fiction, an unparalleled American author, and one of the four great writers of the Golden Age of American science fiction.

Because the story's title sounded somewhat insulting and might lead the graders to draw unnecessary conclusions, he'd given it a new title: the name of the film adapted from it, Predestination.

The story went roughly like this: in 1945, a mysterious baby girl suddenly appeared at an orphanage. No one knew who she was or who her parents were. She grew up alone and lonely in the orphanage.

Then, one day in 1963, she fell in love with a drifter and became pregnant with his child. But before the baby was born, the drifter suddenly disappeared. When she went into labor at the hospital, they discovered that she was intersex.

To save her life, the doctors operated, and she became a man. The baby she'd just given birth to was also taken by a mysterious stranger. After enduring one blow after another, she—now a man—ended up homeless, living on the streets.

Then, one day in 1978, he told his story to a bartender in a small bar. The bartender sympathized with him and agreed to help him find the drifter who'd gotten him pregnant. The condition was that he had to join their time-travel special forces.

He traveled back to 1963 in a time machine, where he met a young woman who'd grown up in an orphanage. They fell in love, and eventually the young woman became pregnant...

In short, it was a story about someone falling in love with himself, sleeping with himself, giving birth to himself, stealing himself, tracking himself, stopping himself, blowing himself up, and killing himself.

Li Xun suddenly understood.

So the newly hired genius she'd mentioned last night—the one with a wildly imaginative mind, whose work had brilliant twists and mind-blowing ideas, the new genius she'd said she wanted to look at every day—was she talking about me?!

So I really was a genius!

He suddenly remembered what Dai Ying had said the night before: "Forget it. Even if I told you, you wouldn't understand. That story only has one person in it from beginning to end. It's impossible to explain in a few words. All I can tell you is that it's truly astonishing! A real... mind-blowing twist, a mind-blowing idea. This person... is definitely going to make a name for himself!"

"Only one person from beginning to end—that's obviously what Predestination is about, isn't it?"

What an idiot! How did I not realize that?!

"I'm planning to add Predestination to Penguin Video's rights library. Since you wrote it before joining the company, we'll pay you 100,000 yuan for the rights. This script is interesting, but you should know that it isn't very suitable for a film adaptation, so the rights fee may be a little low. What do you think?" Dai Ying continued reading the documents without looking up.

Li Xun replied, "I have no objections. I'll go with whatever you decide, President Dai."

The woman asked, "By the way, I heard you graduated from high school. What did you do before teaching yourself screenwriting?"

Li Xun answered, "Haotuan Delivery!"

"Haotuan Delivery?"

A flash of lightning seemed to cross the woman's mind. The voice in her ear suddenly sounded strangely familiar.

She felt a vague sense of unease.

She abruptly looked up—and realized that the person standing across from her had an incredibly familiar face, one that had left a deep impression on her: the face of the man who'd taken her first kiss, then collected ten thousand yuan from her. And now he was smiling at her.

She froze completely.

Her usually cool face instantly flushed red.

Scene after scene from last night flashed through her mind.

Her voice turned unsteady without her realizing it.

"How... could it be you?!"