Spirit Pagoda, seventy-second floor.
Leng Yaozhu sat behind her desk, with a materials report spread out before her.
That report had been sitting there for the entire morning.
She had not taken in a single word.
Her fingers unconsciously rubbed along the edge of her communicator. The screen lit up, then went dark, then lit up again.
Her inbox was completely empty.
No new messages, no missed calls, not even the faintest trace of that person.
She set down her communicator, picked up a pen, and pretended to read the report.
Three seconds later, she put the pen down.
She picked up her communicator again and opened their message history.
Her conversation with Lin An had stopped more than half a month ago.
The last message was one she had sent: "Are you coming again tomorrow?"
There had been no reply.
Since then, she had sent more than a dozen messages here and there.
Good morning, good night, what are you doing, the Spirit Pagoda just received a batch of rare metals—do you want to come take a look?
Every single one had vanished without a trace.
Three weeks.
Leng Yaozhu leaned back in her chair and raised a hand to rub her brow.
Her reddish-brown hair was not neatly pinned into a bun as usual. It simply hung loose over her shoulders, the ends even somewhat tangled.
She had not had the heart to take care of it for days.
"Was it really because I'm too old?"
She muttered to herself.
She recalled the day the young man had stood before her, saying he admired her achievements and wanted to stay by her side as her secretary.
Those eyes had been as clear as a mountain spring.
So clean that they had made her heart, buried beneath decades of