A few minutes earlier, Wen Zhi had stared at the message on her phone in disbelief. She’d never imagined being shut down—especially not by Shao Hua. With Xiao Mo’s connections, she’d assumed getting that endorsement would be a mere formality.
Xiao Mo had planted himself in a quiet corner of the date venue, texting Wen Zhi from the safety of a low table lamp. He hadn’t expected a hard no. The moment his text left his phone, Wen Zhi received news that Shao Hua had declined her—and she blew up, calling him so fast it was as if she could erase the refusal through sheer force of will.
He answered. It was impossible for him not to. He clipped the microphone on his chest as quietly as he could and forced his voice down a few registers.
“Xiao Mo, why would they refuse me?”
Her question came sharp enough to cut glass. For a second he almost didn’t recognize the voice—this wasn’t the sweet, gentle Zhi Zhi who always melted around him. Her tone was raw with anger.
He froze, words failing him. Wen Zhi’s disbelief twisted into urgency, as if she had to prove something, and her questions turned grating and relentless. She sounded more like a street-corner shrew than the carefully cultivated image she usually presented.
Xiao Mo stayed silent until she kept demanding answers. When he did speak he was apologetic. “I only had my assistant make an inquiry. I didn’t expect them to be so adamant.”
“It’s just an endorsement,” he added, trying to soothe her. “Don’t worry so much. I’ll have my assistant find you other offers—better ones. You can pick.”
Wen Zhi’s voice quivered on the line. Her eyes were nearly red as she spoke. “It’s different. This one is different.”
Xiao Mo’s brow tightened. His calm voice betrayed a hint of confusion. “Why are you so fixated on Shao Hua? Is their endorsement that important in the industry?”
She couldn’t say the truth. She couldn’t tell him that the reason she’d been desperate for Shao Hua was because Wen Yin had just been hired there—and because Wen Zhi had loudly boasted she would land them as a client. If she didn’t get it now she would lose face, and the internet would savage her.
“Please,” she begged, voice edging toward tears. “This endorsement matters to me. Can’t you do something? Try harder?”
Xiao Mo’s expression flashed with discomfort. He knew how to grease a lot of gears for ordinary design firms, but Shao Hua was different. Rumor had it the company had a powerful backer who’d resurrected it from obscurity and shot it back to the top in months. In a single month it had become unbeatable in the design world, its valuation skyrocketing. Whoever had engineered that comeback wasn’t someone you could call in a friendly favor.
He didn’t know the full story. He’d missed the Wen family banquet where Shao Yinan exposed himself; Lu Ziqiu and Jiang Shihuai, who disliked him, certainly hadn’t seen fit to fill him in. For now he was left piecing together gossip.
“I’m sorry, Zhi Zhi,” he said finally. “I can’t help this time. Shao Hua says they have their rules. I can’t step in.”
She went on, pleading—desperate, relentless, and unbearably familiar in her manipulations. It was the first time he’d said no to her, and her persistence felt like an accusation. He ended the call with a sigh.
When Wen Zhi came downstairs she fixed Wen Yin with a look thick with venom. Wen Yin didn’t care; such stares were nothing new. Wen Zhi had been practicing them for a long time.
The director cleared his throat as the remaining female guests assembled and announced the schedule for the final dates. “We’ll be delivering the gentlemen’s invitations to the ladies in order. After you receive yours, please follow our staff to your date locations.”
He glanced toward the assistant holding the invitations and his expression flickered, but Wen Zhi was too absorbed in her fury to notice.
“Miss Li Xiangwei, here’s your invitation,” the staff member said, extending a single envelope. Li Xiangwei took it without surprise; everyone knew about her and Xiang Zhou. Wen Zhi barely spared them a look—her mind was elsewhere. She watched the remaining invitations like a hawk.
Her hands clutched at the hem of her skirt. She’d spent hours on her appearance; sweet but elegant, a deliberate look designed to derail any man in sight. She’d been confident. She’d convinced herself that at the end of the night she’d have Shao Hua’s name to wave in everyone’s faces.
Her eyes landed on Wen Yin, irritated and smug in equal measure. Wen Yin had come made up—fully done, which irked Wen Zhi. Wasn’t Wen Yin supposedly the champion of the “bare-faced beauty” image? Now she’d show up painted like this. It was a scandalous inconsistency Wen Zhi could exploit. After the dates, she thought gleefully, she’d have her team write the smear. It would be delicious.
She didn’t expect what happened next.
The assistant stepped forward, walked straight up to Wen Yin, and placed in her hands not one—nor two—but a thick bundle of invitations. A dozen of them, stacked like a fan.
Wen Zhi’s chest tightened. The room seemed to tilt.
For the first time since she’d been rejected, something else registered: this wasn’t just a single date for Wen Yin. It was an entire set of dates, an opportunity thrown open in a way Wen Zhi hadn’t anticipated. The look that had been all venom on Wen Zhi’s face flickered, unreadable now.
Wen Yin accepted the stack with the same indifferent poise as she’d shown throughout the evening. The director’s voice moved on, but for Wen Zhi, every word from then on blurred into the cruel, bright realization that whatever game she’d been planning, it wasn’t going to play out the way she’d expected.