A Crack

In the meeting room, only the projector was on. The air conditioning was cranked up high, carrying a dry scent of paper and ink.

Meng Wei stood before the projection screen, the laser pointer in her hand darting back and forth between the words "Omni-channel Traffic Matrix" and "Youth-Focused Community Operations." Her speech was rapid-fire, crisp and decisive—her trademark results-oriented style.

"...Based on preliminary market research, we plan to leverage a short-video matrix with three top-tier influencers in the tens-of-millions tier, combined with offline pop-up stores, to push the initial exposure of our new 'Starry Sky' series to over thirty million impressions..."

"Hold on."

A voice cut through the room, and the air in the entire conference room froze solid.

Lu Shiyue sat at the head of the long rectangular table. He wasn't leaning back in his chair; his shoulders and back were straight, hands folded on the report folder in front of him. The projector light traced the contours of his high brow ridge and his thin, sharply defined lips, casting deep shadows across his cold, pale face.

Meng Wei's voice stopped abruptly. Her fingers tightened slightly around the laser pointer.

Lu Shiyue extended a slender hand and tapped the pen cap of his fountain pen lightly against the table—twice.

"Thirty million impressions for the initial launch," he said, flipping open the budget sheet beside him, his voice flat. "How did Marketing calculate the ROI? Spending eight million on 'one-time impressions' that will be washed away by the algorithm in a week within the current general entertainment traffic pool—and you call this 'youth-oriented'?"

Meng Wei's throat moved. "Mr. Lu, the 'Starry Sky' series is a transformational product for us. We need to quickly build brand awareness and shed the old-fashioned..."

"Shedding the old-fashioned label doesn't come from throwing money at broad traffic," Lu Shiyue cut her off directly, his gaze icy. "A grandiose but ill-defined positioning will only cause our core customer base to drift away, while new customers see us as a clumsy imitation. I want a fulcrum that creates vertical stickiness, not a flashy, worthless number with zero conversion rate."

He pushed the report folder toward the center of the table with a soft slap.

"This proposal—do it over."

The air pressure in the room dropped so low it was suffocating. Several department directors lowered their heads in silence; even the sound of rustling paper died away. Meng Wei stood frozen at the front, her face slightly pale, her red lips pressed into a tight line. She was rarely caught with such a fatal flaw during a presentation, but Lu Shiyue's every question hit a raw nerve, leaving her utterly unable to counter.

"Lin Wanqiao." Meng Wei took a deep breath and turned to look at Lin Wanqiao, who sat in the corner. Her voice was tauter than usual. "Bring up the supplementary proposal you prepared."

Lin Wanqiao's heart lurched into her throat. She was only a new brand planner. Under this kind of high-pressure environment, she could even hear the pounding of her own temples. But she had no way out. Clutching her laptop, she quickly walked over to the projector and plugged it in.

The PPT on the screen switched to a minimalistic light gray background.

Lin Wanqiao stood under the light. A stray strand of hair slipped down across her forehead, and she instinctively raised her hand to tuck it behind her ear. After this small gesture, she took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.

"Mr. Lu, Manager Meng—this is the supplementary positioning proposal I've prepared for the 'Starry Sky' series."

The moment she spoke, Lu Shiyue's gaze, which had been resting on some papers to the side, suddenly froze.

His fingertips unconsciously brushed the crown of his wristwatch. He lifted his eyes, and his gaze landed squarely on Lin Wanqiao's face. In those long-cornered eyes, the usual coldness was overtaken by a deep, complex undercurrent the instant he heard her voice.

Lin Wanqiao didn't notice his micro-expression. She was staring at the screen, trying her best to make her voice sound like that of a seasoned professional.

"In the current hardware market, the big players are all competing on performance and specs. But for today's young people living alone, their biggest pain point isn't a lack of device performance—it's long-term emotional sub-health."

Lin Wanqiao deliberately slowed her pace, breaking her sentences into clear structures. "Therefore, the new positioning I propose for the 'Starry Sky' series is—'Non-instrumental Emotional Companionship.' We're not selling cold digital accessories. What we're selling is a Mood Relief Lamp that sits on a late-night desk or a bedside table."

Her speech was steady, her articulation clear. To sound professional, she had stripped away all emotional inflection, even adding a deliberately lowered, solemn tone.

But Lu Shiyue's gaze had already changed.

He wasn't looking at the PPT. He was staring fixedly at Lin Wanqiao. On that face that was usually critical and cold, there now appeared a look of strained restraint. His Adam's apple moved up and down, as if he was analyzing something, or confirming something.

"Go on." Lu Shiyue's voice was lower than before, less sharp, but carrying a weight that couldn't be ignored.

Lin Wanqiao clicked the presenter, revealing the specific logic of her proposal. "The concrete implementation is to abandon traditional hard advertising. We enter through a soft, stress-relief mini-program combining 'white noise + ambient light.' When a user is working or suffering from insomnia, the device adjusts the light wavelength according to their breathing rhythm and plays healing sounds. This kind of companionship is low-intrusiveness and high-frequency, building a deep emotional connection between the brand and the user through subtle influence. This extends the ROI conversion cycle from a single purchase to a subscription for an ecosystem of services."

She paused, looking up at Lu Shiyue, trying to gauge his reaction.

Lu Shiyue was still looking at her. He wasn't leaning back; instead, he was leaning slightly forward. In workplace psychology, this posture signaled intense focus and scrutiny.

"'Non-instrumental Companionship,'" Lu Shiyue savored the term, his pace excruciatingly slow, as if grinding every syllable Lin Wanqiao had uttered between his teeth. "The positioning is novel, but Xingyao has never done software services before. Have you calculated the technical support and operational costs?"

Lin Wanqiao's fingers tightened on the edge of the lectern. Her thumb unconsciously rubbed the metal edge of her employee badge—her signature nervous habit.

"Yes, I've calculated it." Lin Wanqiao quickly flipped to the next page, displaying detailed data charts. "For the software architecture, we'll partner with established third-party audio libraries, adopting a revenue-sharing model. No need for in-house development in the early stages. For operations, the initial core user profile is highly precise—high-stress urban white-collar workers and freelancers. Compared with the broad, general-traffic influencers Manager Meng mentioned, I recommend precise collaboration with 'vertical meditation and sleep-aid KOLs.' The budget would only be twenty percent of the original proposal, but the user profile match rate would be over eighty-five percent."

Meng Wei, sitting to the side, was jotting notes rapidly with a red pen. Her gaze flicked between Lin Wanqiao and Lu Shiyue. The tension on her face eased slightly. She had to admit that Lin Wanqiao's angle was very clever. Not only did it avoid the disadvantage of going head-to-head with hardware giants on specs, but it also pulled Xingyao—a well-established old brand—directly into the red-hot "emotional consumption"赛道.

After listening, Lu Shiyue tapped his slender fingers twice on the report folder.

The two crisp sounds stood out sharply in the silent meeting room.

"Who wrote the copy?" Lu Shiyue asked abruptly.

Lin Wanqiao was taken aback. "I did."

"Read the brand slogan on the first page," Lu Shiyue said, his gaze locked onto her face, his tone carrying an undeniable command.

Lin Wanqiao's heart skipped a beat.

She turned to look at the first page of the PPT. There was a line of copy written to highlight the warm, tender tone:

[On countless nights when there are things you can't tell anyone, on the other side of that wall, there's always a lamp lit just for you.]

This was a line she had written spontaneously when a memory surfaced while drafting the proposal—the memory of that late night a decade ago, talking to him through the wall.

Lin Wanqiao's throat went dry. She looked into Lu Shiyue's deep, unfathomable eyes. Her instincts told her that this man was setting an elaborate trap. If she read that line in her usual casual tone, Lu Shiyue would definitely detect something wrong.

Ten years ago, she was the pen pal on the other side of the Wall of Time and Space, comforting the young Lu Shiyue with the gentlest voice.

And in reality, he was her direct superior, the one who held her livelihood in his hands.

She absolutely could not expose herself.

Lin Wanqiao forced herself to grip the presenter tighter, pressing her voice into an extremely flat, stiff tone, like an emotionless reading machine: "On countless nights when there are things you can't tell anyone, on the other side of that wall, there's always a lamp lit just for you."

After she finished reading, she deliberately added a touch of a new employee's nervousness: "Mr. Lu, is... is this copy not appropriate? If you think it's too sentimental, we can revise it with a more technological expression..."

Lu Shiyue didn't speak. He just looked at her. The scrutiny and probing in his eyes, far from diminishing, only grew darker and more unfathomable because of her deliberate disguise.

"Meng Wei." Lu Shiyue suddenly turned his head, though his gaze still hadn't left Lin Wanqiao. "Take this supplementary proposal to Marketing for refinement. I want to see the detailed execution plan in three days."

Meng Wei was startled, then exhaled in relief. "Yes, Mr. Lu."

"Lin Wanqiao, stay." Lu Shiyue threw out five words, his tone calm but brooking no dissent. "I need to personally verify the tonality of the copy."

The people in the meeting room filed out one by one. The sound of the door closing was very soft, yet it felt like all escape routes had been sealed off.

Lin Wanqiao stood by the lectern, her fingers clutching her laptop so hard that her knuckles turned white. She didn't dare to move; she even breathed deliberately lightly.

Lu Shiyue stood up from the far end of the long table. He was tall, with an upright posture, and his gray suit had not a single wrinkle. He walked over step by step, the leather soles of his shoes making dull thuds on the carpet. Each step felt like it was pressing down on Lin Wanqiao's taut nerves.

He reached Lin Wanqiao, with only a black conference table between them.

Lu Shiyue placed both hands on the edge of the table and slowly leaned forward, closing in on her.

In an instant, the distance between them shrank to almost nothing. Lin Wanqiao could even catch the faint, cool woody scent on him, mixed with a trace of barely perceptible tobacco. The overbearing aura came crashing down on her, and her instinct screamed at her to step back, but she held herself still, only pressing her lips tightly together.

Lu Shiyue's gaze was locked on her face. His fingertips reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a piece of paper with some creases on it.

The paper looked like it had some age to it. The edges were a bit frayed, but it had been preserved very carefully.

He pressed the paper onto the table and slowly pushed it right under Lin Wanqiao's nose.

On the paper was a line of writing. The handwriting was somewhat immature, but the strokes were deep:

[Don't be afraid of the dark, because on the other side of the wall, I'm always listening.]

Those were the words Lin Wanqiao had said to that helpless boy ten years ago, across the Wall of Time and Space.

The moment Lin Wanqiao's pupils made out the characters, they constricted violently. Her fingernails dug deep into her palm as she fought to control the trembling of her facial muscles, not allowing even the slightest abnormal expression to show.

Lu Shiyue was propped on the table, his handsome face less than half a foot from hers. He could clearly see the slight flutter of her lashes and the faint flush creeping up behind her ears from nervousness.

"Planner Lin," Lu Shiyue said, his voice low, carrying a highly aggressive, gravelly texture that echoed through the empty conference room. "Use the same pace you used just now in your presentation... and the tone you normally speak with."

His finger pressed heavily on that old piece of paper, his eyes blazing with an almost obsessive stubbornness and inquiry:

"Read this line. One more time."