The elevator chime had barely faded.
Only then did Zhou Yuwei realize she was still gripping the whiteboard marker, her knuckles squeezing the cap pale.
She relaxed her hand, and the marker dropped into the tray with a soft click.
No one in the conference room spoke again. The only sound was the projector fan buzzing as the screen switched back to the desktop.
She stood there for about three seconds, her mind completely blank, as white as the half-erased whiteboard.
The next second, she was already out the door, her dress shoes making almost no sound on the hallway carpet.
Ke Minghan's back was heading toward the break room. He wasn't walking fast, as if he were deliberately leaving her time to catch up.
When she reached him, she didn't call his name. She simply reached out and grabbed his suit sleeve.
Ke Minghan stopped. He looked down at the sleeve she was holding, then raised his eyes to her.
There was no one else by the break room door. The water dispenser dripped onto the tile one drop at a time, each sound making her temples throb.
She could smell the burnt bitterness left behind by the coffee machine, mixed with the faint cologne on Ke Minghan. The two scents churned together and made her a little nauseous.
Her heartbeat slammed against her chest, each beat heavier than the last—heavy enough that she wondered if the person across from her could hear it too.
She let go and took half a step back, without having a single word ready to say.
Ke Minghan didn't speak. He simply folded his arms and waited. The pose was exactly the same as it had been after the meeting, so unhurried it was infuriating.
The clock on the wall showed that only a few minutes remained before the next meeting. The second hand moved faster than her heartbeat.
In those three minutes, her mind had already run through the first version: start with the technical details, lay out the entire logic behind the proposal's layers, and keep talking until the other person lost patience.
She immediately rejected that version. Ke Minghan hadn't come to listen to a presentation. He wanted a name.
The second version: deny it outright and say there was no such person as Zhou Yuwei—that he had misheard.
She rejected that one too. He had said those three words himself, pronouncing them so clearly there was no room for misunderstanding. Flatly denying it would only convince him further that he had found something.
The third version was even more ridiculous: say that Zhou Yuwei was indeed her sister, but that her sister had immigrated, was overseas, and couldn't be reached. No one could find her.
She rehearsed that version in her head, but halfway through, even she couldn't keep a straight face. It was terrible. Ke Minghan could check the household registration records the very next day and tear the immigration story apart.
The fourth version: burst into tears right there. Every second mattered. Once things got awkward, the other person would usually panic and try to wrap things up first.
She crossed that version out without even thinking it through. From the first day she put on this suit, she had never planned to survive by relying on that trick.
The fifth version: turn the accusation back on him and ask whether investigating a coworker's portfolio was supposed to go through HR's official process too.
That version sounded cool, but cool couldn't count as evidence. Ke Minghan would only let out a cold laugh, then ask the original question again, word for word.
She saved the sixth version for last because it was the only one she knew she could say out loud, yet wanted more than anything not to say.
She quickly repeated all six versions in her head. Each time she repeated one, she crossed it out, moving so fast even she couldn't keep up.
Ke Minghan glanced at his phone screen and slipped it back into his pocket. The gesture reminded her that she was running out of time.
The water dispenser dripped again. The sound seemed unusually clear at that moment, clear enough to feel like a countdown.
Ke Minghan unfolded his arms and glanced at his watch, as if reminding her that his patience was limited.
She arranged the six versions one final time in her mind, then chose the most painful one.
Her fingertips clenched quietly inside her suit pocket, her nails nearly digging into her palm, but her face showed no sign of panic.
She lifted her head and looked straight into Ke Minghan's eyes. She didn't dodge anymore.
“Zhou Yuwei is my sister.”
She spoke with a deliberately steady voice, so steady that even she found it unfamiliar.
“The award-winning piece was something we made together. She did most of it.”
She continued, forcing each word out as if she were moving a stone heavier than herself.
“I shouldn't have put it in my own portfolio. It was my mistake.”
After saying that, she closed her mouth and added no further explanation.
The back of her neck felt tight, and her throat was clogged as if she'd swallowed a mouthful of rice without chewing it, but she didn't lower her head.
She could feel her ears burning. The heat traveled down her neck, but she forced herself to stand perfectly straight, not letting her body reveal a thing.
Ke Minghan stared at her for a long time—long enough that a coworker passing at the other end of the hallway slowed down and took a couple of extra looks.
He didn't speak right away. First, he tightened his grip on the printed list of questions in his hand. The corners were already wrinkled beyond recognition.
“You sure?”
His tone was softer than it had been during the morning meeting, but somehow more unpleasant.
“I'm sure.”
She answered with only two words and nothing more.
Ke Minghan looked at her for a few more seconds, as if trying to find a crack in her expression. In the end, he found nothing.
At last, he lowered his arms and took a step forward, his shoulder brushing hers and bringing with it a faint scent of cologne.
“Then you'd better explain everything you need to explain.”
He tossed out the words and kept walking, heading straight for the elevator. The sound of his dress shoes grew fainter with every step.
She stood by the break room door, listening until the sound disappeared at the end of the hall. Only then did she realize her palms were drenched in sweat.
She had won that round—by winning in a way she hadn't wanted at all.
The lights in the break room suddenly switched off halfway. The sensor had probably waited too long, because it gave a faint hum before turning back on.
She stood there for a few seconds, then turned and walked back to her desk, her steps considerably slower than before.
Someone pushed a cart loaded with printer supplies down the hallway. The wheels made a steady clattering sound as they rolled over the floor, and she stepped aside to let it pass.
She returned to her seat. Her screen was still displaying the email she'd left unfinished that morning.
She opened the first one. A client was asking about the format of a contract attachment. She quickly typed a reply in her usual courteous, thorough tone.
The second was a year-end banquet attendance survey forwarded by General Affairs. She checked that she would attend and casually added the time to her calendar.
The third was a schedule forwarded by the Design Department group chat. She replied with two words: Got it.
Only after replying to all three emails did she realize she hadn't taken a single sip of coffee since the morning meeting. The condensation on the cup had already dripped into a small puddle.
She lifted the long-cold coffee and took a sip. The icy liquid slid down her throat and, surprisingly, cleared her head a little.
A few messages popped up in the company's internal messenger. They were all private messages from people in her department praising how amazing she'd been at the whiteboard that morning. She replied to each one with two words: Thanks.
As she answered, she thought that if these people knew what she'd just said by the break room door, they probably wouldn't praise her again.
She reopened the proposal draft beside her and adjusted the letter spacing in the first version, then changed the color brightness in the second.
After revising both versions, she hit Save. The little loading icon spun for two seconds before finally stopping.
She put on her headphones and played the instrumental music she usually listened to while working late, setting the volume a little higher than usual.
Lin Xiaoyu leaned over from beside her, holding a stack of documents that needed to be stapled. The paper edges were uneven.
“Where's your stapler?”
Lin Xiaoyu asked as she casually rummaged across Zhou Yuwei's desk, knocking two pens out of the drawer.
“You can borrow mine.”
Zhou Yuwei pulled open the drawer, took out the stapler, and handed it over. Her movements were perfectly natural, as if nothing had happened.
Lin Xiaoyu took it and casually remarked that Zhou Yuwei's whiteboard presentation that morning had been insanely good, then turned back to her own desk to get busy.
Zhou Yuwei lowered her head and kept staring at the screen. Something suddenly tugged at the corners of her mouth, and she let out a laugh without even realizing it.
It was the first time she'd smiled all day. Afterward, she froze for a moment before remembering what had happened that morning.
She lowered her head, returned the stapler to its place, and continued working on the next document without the slightest hesitation.
Behind her, the copier ran at a steady pace. The sounds of paper going in and coming out, one sheet after another, gradually overlapped with the rhythm of her breathing.
Her mouse cursor moved across the screen and opened the next file. Her focused expression gave no hint that anything had happened that morning.
It wasn't until the clock on the wall reached four in the afternoon that she realized she'd been sitting in the same spot for two full hours without getting up.
Daylight slanted in through the window and fell across her keyboard, shifting faintly to the rhythm of her typing.
She looked out the window. The sky was brighter than it had been when she entered the office that morning. The wind had thinned the clouds, revealing a small patch of pale blue.
Two hours had passed, and she'd finished the entire section, turning in work that was more thorough and solid than anyone else's.
She had kept her emotions under control perfectly—so perfectly that the person sitting across from her couldn't tell what she'd gone through that morning at all.
For a moment, she couldn't even tell whether this composure she'd kept so perfectly was an act, or whether she'd truly grown used to it.
Before leaving work, she stepped into the emergency stairwell. There were no cameras there, and no coworkers ever passed through.
The air in the stairwell was cooler than in the office. The smell of concrete walls mixed with the rusty scent of the fire hose cabinet and hit her in the face.
She leaned against the wall, pulled out her phone, and opened her conversation with her brother.
She typed a line.
“Today I said I was my own brother.”
She stared at the line for two seconds before pressing Send.
The word Read appeared beside the message almost immediately, much faster than usual.
Three words appeared at the bottom of the chat: Typing… They remained there for a very, very long time.
She stared at those three words, barely even breathing, afraid that if she moved, she might miss something.
The Typing… indicator disappeared for a moment, then reappeared a few seconds later.
Her thumb hovered above the screen. She didn't urge him on, nor did she type another word.
She pressed the phone against her chest, feeling her heartbeat through the vibration of the screen—slower than usual, but heavier.
The stairwell light was motion-activated. She stayed perfectly still, and the light above her flickered twice before coming back on.
Nearly two minutes passed before the three words finally stopped and a new message appeared.
“Sis, I'm sorry.”
She stared at the five words. The screen's light shone across her face. The stairwell was silent except for a door closing somewhere below.
The tip of her nose tingled, and her throat tightened again. She tilted her head back and blinked twice at the fluorescent light in the stairwell.
When she finished blinking, her eyes were still dry. She locked her phone and stood against the wall for a few seconds.
She pushed open the emergency door again and walked back to the office, her steps as steady as usual.
The office air conditioning rushed toward her, washing away the lingering smell of rust from the stairwell. She casually wiped at the corner of her eye, but came away with nothing.
She returned to her desk, put her phone in the drawer, and sat back down to finish the last bit of work for the day.
There was something new on her desk: a cup of bubble tea, the straw still stuck through the sealed film.
She picked it up and glanced at the label. It read: half sugar, no ice, written in the clerk's messy handwriting.
Half sugar, no ice—exactly how she liked it.
There was no name on the cup and no note left behind.
She turned the cup halfway around in her hand, her fingertip rubbing over the condensation on its side. For a moment, she couldn't think of anyone else who would remember how she took her drinks.
She turned to look at the seat beside her. Lin Xiaoyu was busy stapling the stack of documents with her head lowered, not looking up.
It had to be Lin Xiaoyu.
She pushed the straw through the film. It made a soft, muffled pop as it broke through.
She lowered her head and took a sip. The lightly sweet flavor, undiluted by ice, slowly spread across her tongue.
She took a second sip, only then realizing that the corners of her mouth had lifted again.
The office lights were still on, and the keyboards continued to clack one beat at a time. The day was finally almost over.