Chapter 6
Liu Ruyan sat at the dining table, with a bowl of plain rice porridge and two small side dishes in front of her, as light as ever.
She stirred it twice with her spoon and didn’t eat. That dream was still turning over in her head.
It wasn’t the dream itself that bothered her. It was the feeling.
The texture of the carpet under her knees when she knelt on it, the warmth and hardness in her mouth, and the force of the hand pressing down on the crown of her head.
She bit down on her spoon.
The cool metal touched her teeth and finally dulled that tingly numbness a little.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from her secretary.
[Chairwoman Liu, the 9:30 morning meeting has been moved up to 9:00. Mr. Wang's side just added a new item.]
Liu Ruyan replied, "Got it," and set her phone face-down on the table. She picked up the porridge and took a sip, burning her tongue.
"..."
After setting the bowl down, she leaned back in her chair and let her gaze fall on the empty chair across from her.
The table was set for four, but this house had always had only her sitting at it.
She stared at that chair for a few seconds, then looked away.
She stood, took her bag, changed her shoes, and left.
The sound of her heels striking the elevator lobby floor sounded hollow.
...
Li Mo crouched on the floor of his rented room. In front of him was an A4 sheet with several lines of crooked, messy handwriting.
"Step one: make her remember me."
"Method one: call her. - Too abrupt, won’t work."
"Method two: block her at the entrance of Starsea Group. - Stupid, looks like a stalker."
"Method three: engineer a chance encounter. - How?"
He bit the pen cap in his mouth, his brows knotted tight.
The key to a chance encounter was knowing where the other person was.
He only had one phone number. In the simulation, he couldn’t even get out the door, so how was he supposed to know which residential complex she lived in?
Wait.
He did know one thing.
Starsea Group!
The replay made it crystal clear: Liu Ruyan was the chairwoman of Starsea Group.
He immediately pulled out his phone and searched for it.
The core CBD district of Jiangcheng. Starsea Tower.
The photo came up: an office tower with a glass curtain wall, imposing as hell.
He searched Starsea Group's public information too. Its business covered real estate, finance, and technology, and last year's revenue had broken a trillion yuan.
Li Mo silently lowered his phone.
A trillion!
There was only 2,300 yuan in his bank card.
That was about... who knew how many tens of thousands of times apart.
"Forget it. Don't think about that."
He pulled his attention back to the A4 sheet. A chance encounter needed a reason.
"If you feel bad about it, treat me to coffee another day."
She was the one who said that, so it wouldn’t count as abrupt, right?
But the problem was that calling directly and saying, I’d like to treat you to coffee, and running into her in the right setting and bringing it up then, gave completely different results.
The first looked like a sales pitch. The second looked like fate.
"I need to go hang around Starsea Tower."
Li Mo made up his mind.
He changed into a clean pair of pants. The wound on his knee still hurt, but it had already scabbed over and didn’t affect walking.
The T-shirt was the one he’d worn yesterday, a little wrinkled. He ran his hands over it a couple times and figured forget it. Before leaving, he glanced in the mirror.
The mirror had been left behind by the landlord. The frame was chipped, but the glass was still clear enough.
He looked at himself in the mirror. What was the narration in the replay saying again?
"Because of his outstanding looks, the HR manager selected Li Mo first out of 37 candidates."
He tilted his head, looking left and right.
He really wasn’t ugly.
But he didn’t think he was handsome enough to make a female chairwoman fall for him either.
"Maybe the filter in the simulation world is set pretty strong."
He muttered to himself and opened the door to leave.
Starsea Tower was in the very center of the CBD, surrounded entirely by office buildings and malls.
Li Mo rode a shared bike there. It took forty minutes, and by the time he arrived the back of his T-shirt was already soaked.
The July sun was vicious. Heat rose from the pavement, and standing under the sun for one minute made the soles of his shoes feel hot.
He locked the bike at the parking spot across the street and looked up at Starsea Tower.
The forty-two-story glass curtain wall reflected the sunlight so harshly it hurt to look at. There was a revolving door at the entrance, and two security guards in uniform stood by it.
Everyone going in and out looked impeccably dressed. The men were in suits, the women in high heels, and every one of them walked with purpose.
Li Mo looked down at himself. A wrinkled T-shirt, the scabbed-over wound on his knee, and a pair of running shoes he'd worn for two years.
"Can't go in."
What would he even do if he went in? Say he was looking for their chairwoman?
The security guards would toss him out!
He sat down at the milk tea shop across the street and ordered the cheapest lemon water on the menu, 12 yuan. It hurt to spend it.
2,300 in his bank card, minus 12, left 2,288.
He sat by the window, staring at the entrance to Starsea Tower.
He didn’t even know what he was waiting for.
Waiting for Liu Ruyan to come out? She was the chairwoman; she’d definitely use the underground garage, not the front door.
Waiting for a miracle?
"What am I even doing..."
He flattened the straw between his teeth.
Just then, he noticed a coffee shop next to Starsea Tower. It wasn’t a normal chain shop. The sign was small, the decor understated, but the people coming and going didn’t look ordinary.
He pulled out his phone and searched it.
"Shanyin Coffee."
There weren’t many reviews, but every single one said the same thing: this was the coffee shop Starsea Group employees went to most often, and supposedly Ms. Liu herself often bought coffee here too.
Li Mo's eyes lit up.
He stared at the coffee shop entrance for five minutes.
Then he stood up.
He crossed the street, walked to the coffee shop entrance, and pushed the door open.
Cool air hit him head-on, making him shiver. The shop was small, with seven or eight tables, about half of them occupied, most of the customers wearing Starsea Tower employee badges.
Li Mo walked up to the counter, glanced at the menu, and saw that the cheapest Americano cost 28 yuan.
He gritted his teeth and took out his phone to scan the code.
"One Americano, please."
"Iced or hot?"
"Hot." He thought about it, then changed his mind. "Warm. No hotter than sixty degrees."
The clerk glanced at him but didn’t ask questions, just started making it.
Li Mo carried his coffee to a corner table and sat down. He picked a very deliberate seat, right facing the entrance, so he could see everyone who came in.
He took a sip of coffee. The bitterness made him frown. He didn’t drink coffee, but Liu Ruyan did.
Americano, no sugar, no milk, no hotter than sixty degrees.
He now even knew how she liked her coffee, but she didn’t know who he was.
Minute after minute passed.
He finished the coffee and sat there for another half hour.
He checked his phone. It was 11:40.
"She's not coming today, is she?"
Just as he was getting ready to stand up, the door opened.
A blast of hot air and perfume swept in.
Li Mo's gaze swept over. It wasn’t Liu Ruyan.
It was a young woman in a gray skirt suit, holding a tablet, with a Starsea Group badge hanging around her neck.
She went to the counter and spoke quickly.
"One Americano, no sugar, no milk, under sixty degrees. One latte with oat milk. One tiramisu. To go."
Li Mo's hand tightened under the table.
Americano, no sugar, no milk, under sixty degrees.
That was Liu Ruyan's taste. This woman was buying coffee for her.
He stared at the woman's back, his mind racing.
Secretary? Assistant?
Whoever she was, it proved Liu Ruyan was upstairs today, and her coffee habit was exactly the same as in the replay.
The replay was real!
The information the system gave him was real.
Li Mo's heartbeat sped up, and the woman left with the packaged drinks.
He didn’t follow. He couldn’t rush.
He took out his phone, opened the notes app, and started typing.
"Beside Starsea Tower, Shanyin Coffee. Liu Ruyan's coffee is bought by her assistant."
"Time: around 11:40 a.m."
"This means Liu Ruyan was at the company in the morning and drinks coffee before lunch."
He locked his phone, stood up, and walked out of the coffee shop.
The sun was still vicious.
He stood in the shade of Starsea Tower and looked up at the forty-two-story glass curtain wall.
On some floor up there, Liu Ruyan was drinking the coffee her assistant had brought her.
She had no idea there was a man downstairs watching her building.
Li Mo shoved his hands into his pants pockets and felt the business card there.
The paper had gotten a little soft from the sweat. He squeezed it once and turned away.
...
By the time he got back to the rental room, it was already one in the afternoon.
He put the business card on the table and added a line after "Method three" on the A4 sheet.
"Shanyin Coffee, before noon, entry point."