The New President Takes Over

The air conditioning in the twenty-eighth-floor conference room of Star耀 Group was running full blast, yet it couldn't suppress the tense, suffocating anxiety that hung in the air.

Lin Wanqiao sat at the very end of the conference table, her fingertips unconsciously rubbing the edge of her employee badge. It was a habit she had when nervous. Her dark circles were somewhat prominent under the cold white lights—the price she had paid for staying up all night revising the proposal, and for... listening to that voice coming from the other side of the wall.

"Is everyone here?" Meng Wei, the marketing department manager, pushed open the door. Her high heels clicked against the wooden floor, crisp and rhythmic, like a series of death warrants.

Meng Wei's gaze paused on Lin Wanqiao for half a second, her brows slightly furrowed. Her red pen slashed a sharp arc across the document in her hand. "Wanqiao, another revision of the plan? When President Lu arrives later, you'll present first. Remember, he doesn't want to hear any of those vague emotional appeals. He wants data and logic."

"Understood, Sister Meng," Lin Wanqiao replied, instinctively tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

She opened her dotted notebook, her fingertips brushing past a corner of pink paper tucked into the flyleaf. It was an old, ragged-edged scrap of paper, its handwriting blurred by age, yet it faintly overlapped with the name she had recorded by the wall last night. She took a deep breath, trying to force her attention back to the proposal before her.

The conference room door opened again.

The scattered murmurs instantly vanished, and the air seemed to freeze. Lin Wanqiao felt a tangible pressure spreading from the doorway.

The first thing she saw was a pair of slender, well-defined hands, their fingertips leisurely adjusting the cufflinks of a dark gray suit. Then, a figure walked to the head of the table.

Lin Wanqiao's breath caught. The man at the head of the table had a high brow bridge and eyes as cold and sharp as blades. Every subtle movement exuded an overwhelming sense of pressure. When he opened his mouth and uttered the words "Hello everyone," the low, gravelly quality of his voice eerily overlapped with the desperate boy's enunciation from behind the wall last night. Her hand gripping the pen tightened sharply, her knuckles turning white from the strain.

She watched the man at the head of the table flipping through documents, his movements crisp and decisive, carrying an unquestionable authority. But deep in her memory, the owner of that voice was curled up in a corner, his breathing trembling, asking her humbly, "Sister, if I'm not here tomorrow, would anyone notice?"

That desperate plea, so humble it seemed to sink into the dust, and the business elite before her, who tapped the table with his fingertips and surveyed the room with a cold gaze, overlapped in an instant, only to be violently torn apart.

"I am Lu Shiyue."

These three words struck Lin Wanqiao's heart like a sledgehammer.

Lu Shiyue.

It wasn't the same name by coincidence. That teenager who, ten years ago in the dead of night, had begged her for help through a wall, poured out his heart to her, and was casually encouraged by her—his name really was Lu Shiyue.

Lin Wanqiao's mind went blank. She stared at him intently, trying to find a trace of that boy from the past on his cold, perfect face, but all she saw was a drawn blade, with no hint of a past to be pried into.

"Let's begin." Lu Shiyue sat down, not leaning fully back in his chair, but maintaining a tense posture, as if ready to get up and deal with problems at any moment. He casually flipped open the documents in front of him, his fingertips unconsciously rubbing the crown of his wristwatch.

Meng Wei shot a glance at Lin Wanqiao.

Lin Wanqiao took a deep breath, forcing down the storm of emotions inside her, and stood up to walk to the projector position. Her legs felt a bit weak, but professional ethics demanded she maintain a basic dignity at this moment.

"President Lu, colleagues. Regarding the preliminary proposal for Star耀's new brand 'Aurora,' our core positioning is 'emotional resonance' and 'temporal healing'..."

Lin Wanqiao tried to slow down her speech, breaking her sentences down clearly. She presented the meticulously designed visuals on the PowerPoint—the fruits of three straight all-nighters.

However, just as she reached the third page, Lu Shiyue suddenly raised his hand.

His long index finger tapped twice on the table.

"Stop."

Lin Wanqiao's words came to an abrupt halt. She stood awkwardly in front of the projection screen, light and shadow playing across her face, making her complexion seem even paler.

Lu Shiyue looked up. It was the first time Lin Wanqiao had faced his high-pressure gaze in reality. His eyes were like an X-ray, piercing straight through all her defenses.

"Miss Lin, is it?" Lu Shiyue's voice carried no personal emotion, but it was chillingly cold. "Your proposal mentions 'healing' three times and 'emotional resonance' five times. I'd like to ask, as an established group in a period of transition, why would Star耀 spend tens of millions on a vague, intangible 'sense of healing'?"

"Because today's audience not only needs the functionality of a product, but also needs spiritual..."

"What the audience needs is cost-effectiveness and brand endorsement, not a planner's self-indulgent sentimentality." Lu Shiyue cut her off. His words weren't fast, but each one drew blood.

Lin Wanqiao took a deep breath, struggling to suppress the turmoil within her, trying to defend herself with professional data: "President Lu, according to our survey last month of one thousand core users, seventy-two percent of young consumers indicated they prefer brands that can provide emotional value. The positioning of 'Aurora' is based precisely on this data..."

"Seventy-two percent intent—how much of that can be converted into actual ROI?" Lu Shiyue didn't even look up at her; he just drew a heavy circle on her proposal outline with the tip of his fountain pen. "What is the profile of this thousand-person sample? What is their average spending range? Given that competitors already hold forty percent of the market share in the same price bracket, what makes you think a vague concept like 'healing' can sway their purchasing decisions?"

He lifted his eyes, his gaze piercing like a blade: "Miss Lin, your logical chain is broken. You're trying to mask your lack of core business logic with emotional rhetoric and cherry-picked data. This kind of proposal might have fooled some sentimental investors five years ago, but to me, it doesn't even qualify for an initial review."

The conference room fell into dead silence. The looks from her colleagues instantly shifted—some sympathetic, but mostly filled with a desire to distance themselves to avoid being caught in the crossfire. Meng Wei's face was ashen, her fingers tapping anxiously on the table. Lin Wanqiao could feel that this "cross-level" rejection had instantly isolated her within the department. Several colleagues who had been on decent terms with her quickly lowered their heads, averting her gaze, afraid of being singed by the flames.

Lin Wanqiao pressed her lips tight—it was her instinctive defensive reaction. She felt a burning pain on her face, not from shame, but from the absurdity rising in her heart.

This man before her was using the most professional logic to utterly demolish her most sincere efforts.

"President Lu, the original intention of the 'Aurora' series was to find those forgotten connections..." Lin Wanqiao made one last attempt. Her voice trembled slightly, but her eyes remained fixed on Lu Shiyue.

"Things that are forgotten are usually because they have no value in existing." Lu Shiyue coldly closed the folder in his hand with a crisp snap. "Miss Lin, if all you can produce are these word games lacking business insight, then I suggest you reconsider your career path. Star耀 doesn't keep idlers, and it certainly doesn't keep poets."

He turned his head away from her, as if she were nothing but an insignificant mistake that had already been corrected.

"Manager Meng, next."

Lin Wanqiao didn't know how she made it back to her seat. After sitting down, her fingers still unconsciously rubbed her notebook. The old scrap of paper tucked inside it now felt especially ironic.

It was written to her by Lu Shiyue ten years ago.

On that piece of paper, soaked through with sweat and tears and long since dried, the teenager had written in a childish yet stubborn hand: 【If I can survive, if I can become strong, I will definitely find you.】

That teenager who, in the dead of night, curled up in a corner because of his father's violence and whispered to her, "Sister, will the world get better?"; that teenager who found hope again because she casually said, "You'll become someone great"...

Had he really turned into this ruthless, tyrannical corporate despot before her eyes?

For the rest of the meeting, Lin Wanqiao didn't hear a single word. Her gaze uncontrollably followed Lu Shiyue, trying to find traces of that boy in him. The frequency with which he tapped the paper with his pen cap eerily matched the rhythm of the teenager nervously scratching at the wall; the stray lock of hair that fell across his forehead when he occasionally frowned also resembled the boy's trembling from pain. But aside from these subtle habits, he was a different person. That sensitive, fragile child was now using the calmest tone to pass judgment on the career fates of dozens of people. The stark contrast made Lin Wanqiao dizzy—what price had he paid to reshape that battered, wounded boy into this indestructible Lu Shiyue?

When the meeting ended, Lu Shiyue was the first to stand up. His stride was steady, stirring a faint, cool breeze.

"Lin Wanqiao."

As he passed by her, Lu Shiyue suddenly stopped.

Lin Wanqiao froze, jerking her head up.

Lu Shiyue looked down at her, his gaze sweeping over her dog-eared notebook. A faint hint of suspicion seemed to flicker deep in his eyes, but it was quickly covered by his usual coldness.

"President Lu." Lin Wanqiao stood up, her back straight as a rod.

"Redo the proposal. Send it to my office by ten tomorrow morning." He dropped these words and walked out of the conference room without looking back.

Meng Wei walked over, sighed, and patted Lin Wanqiao on the shoulder. "Wanqiao, don't take it too hard. President Lu is known for being impartial. He was targeting the proposal, not you."

Lin Wanqiao forced a smile and said nothing.

She packed up her things and was the last to leave the conference room. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows at the end of the hallway, the city's towering buildings stood in staggered rows, casting huge shadows in the sunset.

She returned to her desk, turned on her computer, and the first page of the proposal on the screen still read: "Aurora: Connecting Past and Future."

Suddenly, she felt an urgent, almost maddening urge to investigate.

If that teenager behind the wall was really him, then what had he experienced in the ten years that had vanished? How had that weak person who once couldn't even speak loudly, who begged her for help in the darkness, gradually stripped away all his vulnerability and forged himself into this invulnerable figure?

And what unsettled her most was this: if Lu Shiyue was that boy, was he also carrying some hidden purpose, searching for the "sister" who had once given him light from behind that wall?

Lin Wanqiao's fingers hovered over the keyboard, her heartbeat thundering in the silent office.

This sense of cognitive dissonance was more suffocating than any workplace crisis. She had to confirm how the weakling who had begged for help in the dead of night had become the powerful figure who now decided life and death. Lin Wanqiao snapped her laptop shut. Tonight, she would return to that wall and find the answer herself.