Chapter 3: N. A “Lovely” Night

Ning Yixiao arrived late to the banquet, but no one dared to blame him.

The prominent entrepreneurs who had looked down their noses at him two years ago now greeted him with nonchalant smiles, raising their glasses to him. Their uniform smiles looked very much like the kind of appreciation one shows for a “rising star.”

But Ning Yixiao remembered their cold indifference during the Series A funding round all too clearly.

He quickly adjusted his expression, sweeping away the gloom from just moments ago, and a polite smile surfaced on his face.

“Apologies, I was held up by something. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long.”

“I told you, Shaw is a workaholic to the core and the most punctual of us all. It must have been a work-related delay,” Mr. Ovis, who was sitting near the head of the table, said with a laugh. “We’ve only just started; the appetizers haven’t even been served yet. Shaw, for my sake, you must have a proper good time tonight.”

Others at the table chimed in, and the atmosphere became lively.

Ning Yixiao was accommodating, following these famous entrepreneurs to take his seat at the long table. Given his seniority, sitting next to the host’s seat would make others feel the chill of the “high cold,” but Ning Yixiao’s ambition kept him steady and composed.

He took the hot towel offered by the waiter, wiped his hands, and sipped his pre-dinner drink. The room was warm, and Ning Yixiao felt his body temperature gradually rising.

Most people at this table were white men—or, as it were, the business empires of Wall Street and Silicon Valley belonged to them. They competed with each other but also protected each other; no one could shake their foundation.

Ning Yixiao was always full of energy for work, but today, he found it difficult to focus. Even as he listened to the conversations of these investors and colleagues, Su Hui’s image kept appearing before his eyes—Su Hui in the dim light of the evening, his face white to the point of transparency, devoid of any smile.

“It’s rare to see such a fresh face!”

A stranger’s voice cut through his thoughts. Ning Yixiao keenly sensed that she was addressing him, so he lifted his gaze. It was a redhead who had arrived clinging to Mr. Jones’s arm; she looked a few years older than him.

She sat down diagonally across from him, while Mr. Jones sat at the head of the table. Both of their gazes were fixed on him.

Ning Yixiao instinctively wanted to pull a business card from his pocket, but as he did, he suddenly realized that when he had been sitting in the coffee shop, he had been clutching this very card for a long time, crinkling it without ever actually handing it over.

He paused, then opened his wallet and took out a crisp, new business card, handing it to the woman.

“I thought you might have two types of cards to hand out to different people,” she laughed. Her fingernails were painted a vibrant, fresh red as she took the card. She examined it carefully, like someone showing their trump card in a poker game, teasing him, “Sigh, looks like I got the official one.”

The other guests at the banquet laughed, and Ning Yixiao just smiled without offering an explanation.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Julie Swire. You can just call me Julie.” Across the flowers and expensive plates on the table, she smiled and reached out a hand to Ning Yixiao.

“Ning Yixiao.” He gave her fire-bright fingertips a light, polite shake.

“I like Eastern men,” Julie said, flicking her shoulder-length curls with a smile. “There is a very special kind of reserve and gentility to Eastern men.”

An investment banking tycoon nearby teased her bluntly: “Forget it, you just like handsome men!”

Julie gave him a playful, feigned-annoyed look, then turned back to Ning Yixiao: “It’s so strange, I’ve never seen you on the cover of magazines like Fortune or Entrepreneur.”

She joked, “If you appeared in person for promotion, perhaps you’d get even more positive marketing results.”

“Shaw doesn’t even do roadshows himself; he sends that lanky researcher from his company instead. He’s practically the most mysterious founder in Silicon Valley.”

“Better not. If he really went on the cover, Fortune would probably be mistaken for GQ!”

Ning Yixiao laughed. “It’s not that exaggerated. My looks don’t exactly fit the mainstream aesthetic here.”

“Who says?” The smile didn’t fade from Julie’s face. She had been drinking, and her cheekbones were flushed, making her speak more directly. “You look like a Eurasian mix—you have the traits of both sides, and all the good ones at that. You must have had a lot of people chasing you back in school, right?”

Women in these social circles were often interested in Ning Yixiao; it was a common enough occurrence that everyone present had seen it happen a few times.

“Julie, you still want to set your sights on him?” Someone else joked. “Forget it, Shaw has long since had someone special.”

The smile on Ning Yixiao’s face was faint. In the eyes of others, he possessed an Eastern temperament that was both out of place and noble—even if his life had nothing to do with the word “nobility.”

Listening to their banter, Ning Yixiao observed coldly, though he kept a smile on his face, showing no sign of annoyance. He knew very well that many of these people who flattered him to his face probably mocked him in private. “Social climbing,” “sycophant,” “shrewd manipulator”—he had heard these labels applied to himself too many times in private.

The host and organizer of the banquet, Mr. Jones, watched the others talk with a warm smile, occasionally chatting with Ning Yixiao about the new products his company was about to launch. This business tycoon looked friendly, but when he wasn’t smiling, there was an air of dignity that commanded silence.

Throughout the banquet, Ning Yixiao barely ate, having only a few bites of steak. He spent the rest of the time talking with investors—discussing visions, plans, and future territories—pushing forward the imminent Series C financing for his company. His speech was steady, calm, and confident.

Halfway through, one of the investors shifted the topic, hitting the nail on the head.

“Shaw, you don’t look very well today. You weren’t like this when I saw you yesterday. Did something happen?”

Ning Yixiao was momentarily stunned, then laughed.

“No, perhaps it’s just because I’ve been working long hours lately, so I look a bit haggard.”

After the meal, the waiter served dessert, claiming it was a cherry almond Bavarian cream from Seattle’s highest-quality pastry chef. When it was served, Ning Yixiao stared at the cherry adorning the cake but had no intention of eating it.

“Shaw?” Mr. Jones even noticed his absent-mindedness. “Try this; you’ll like it.”

Ning Yixiao acknowledged, picked up a fork, scraped off a tiny piece, and deliberately avoided the beautiful, glistening alcohol-soaked cherry on top.

After the banquet ended, he stayed behind to talk with Mr. Jones. The man offered some very helpful advice, completely avoiding any discussion of his private life, only telling him to take care of his health.

“I will.”

Leaving the hotel, Julie saw he hadn’t driven himself and offered him a ride back to his hotel, but Ning Yixiao politely declined. Perhaps because she rarely encountered someone so “clueless,” Julie stood stunned for a long moment before remembering to roll up her driver’s side window.

“Then I wish you a lovely night.”

Ning Yixiao walked alone through the cold, unfamiliar streets of Seattle. The snow was falling harder and harder, with no intention of stopping. He recalled what someone at the banquet had said about hoping the snow wouldn’t be too heavy, or else there would be a strike tomorrow.

What a fragile city; one night of snow could bring it to a standstill.

He felt a sudden pang of envy and stopped in front of a convenience store. After struggling with the thought for a few seconds, Ning Yixiao went inside. When he came out, he held a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and a packet of disinfectant wipes. Borrowing a lighter from the store, he walked outside and sat down.

The patio umbrellas used for shade in the summer were left behind in the winter, and the tables and chairs tucked beneath them were free of snow.

He hadn’t bought this brand in a long time. The packaging seemed to have changed—it was no longer the “Aurora” someone had once mentioned, just a very ordinary black and blue.

The moment he lit a cigarette and took a drag, Ning Yixiao received a call from Jing Ming.

“Where are you? Are you done?”

Ning Yixiao exhaled a puff of smoke, white mist swirling before his eyes. The alcohol evaporating on the skin of his hands felt cool and slightly stinging. His tone became languid. “So concerned even though you didn’t attend?”

“Too much trouble; I couldn’t be bothered.”

Ning Yixiao always found his Chinese accent strange. “You should just speak English.”

Jing Ming was a friend he had met while studying at S University—they hit it off well. He was a true Eurasian: his father was a French real estate businessman, and his mother was a Chinese pharmaceutical powerhouse. If it weren’t for this “angel investor” rich kid with his head in the clouds, Ning Yixiao’s entrepreneurial journey wouldn’t have started so quickly.

Although he was a California native, he loved Chinese culture. He had sought out Ning Yixiao precisely because he was Chinese. He had meticulously picked out a Chinese name for himself from the Yueyang Lou Ji, forbidding his friends from calling him “Luka” and rallying everyone to call him “Jing Ming.” He made all his American friends struggle with their tongues, insisted on speaking Chinese with Ning Yixiao, and even learned the Beijing accent by listening to xiangsheng (crosstalk), thinking it was incredibly cool.

“I won’t. What are you doing?” Jing Ming refused to switch to English, even deliberately putting on a fledgling Beijing accent.

“Smoking.”

Jing Ming grabbed onto it like a handle, his tone rising. “Weren’t you quitting? You started smoking again?”

Ning Yixiao gave a soft “mm.” “I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable today, so I wanted one.”

Jing Ming let out a long sigh. “If you ask me, just give up on quitting. So what if you smoke? You’re not going to die tomorrow. Besides, life is only so long. For someone like you who does nothing but work, you have to have some way to pass the time.”

Ning Yixiao didn’t really take in his words; he just smoked quietly, exhaling grey-white smoke under the out-of-season parasol.

“Workaholics are terrifying. The only leisure activity I see you doing is going home and staring blankly at that little cat doll of yours…”

Ning Yixiao interrupted him abruptly and stood up. “I’m heading back.”

“Hey, hey, back where?” Jing Ming, lacking any social awareness and seeing nothing wrong with it, asked, “Oh, I’m going to a party later. Are you coming?”

“No, I’m heading back to the hotel. I still have work.” Ning Yixiao crushed the cigarette butt after saying this, throwing it into the trash can along with the faint, vague emotions in his heart.

“You should relax occasionally.” The other man sighed again.

Ning Yixiao returned the lighter, hailed a taxi, and said nonchalantly, “You, as a partner, should occasionally do some work yourself.”

Jing Ming spoke in Chinese, using completely Western-style expressions: “Fine, have a lovely night!”

The words sounded ridiculous, and they felt ridiculous, too.

Ning Yixiao did not expect to have a lovely night, let alone tonight.

When he returned to the hotel, he opened his laptop for a meeting, but for the most part, he just listened to others’ reports. Ning Yixiao was excellent at multitasking, so he checked the financial statements sent by the CFO while listening. The entire meeting lasted two and a half hours. Just before it ended, he opened his email to reply to them one by one, only then discovering an email from Carl regarding the person he had asked him to check on that day.

There were many attachments in the email, mostly academic papers. Ning Yixiao clicked to download them, then dialed Carl’s number.

“If I’m not mistaken, he is a clinical psychiatrist in New York with his own practice. I’ve collected some of the journals and conference papers he has published. Dr. Liang seems to specialize in the research and treatment of Bipolar Disorder. Do we have a project that needs to collaborate with him?”

Carl had misunderstood Ning Yixiao’s intentions, but hearing no denial from Ning Yixiao, he continued: “Actually, there is a PhD student in our laboratory who studied under the same master as Dr. Liang—that’s Elvis. If cooperation is needed, I think we can approach him through him.”

Ning Yixiao was noncommittal, paused for a moment, and then continued: “Anything else? Information unrelated to his profession.”

“Unrelated to his profession…” Carl pondered for a moment. “Private life?”

He hadn’t fully grasped Ning Yixiao’s intentions, and after thinking for a long time, he suddenly remembered a paper he had just seen. “Oh, right, Dr. Liang published a paper on gay psychology during his undergraduate years, and he explicitly stated his sexual orientation in that article. He is a homosexual.”

That was private enough, right?

Carl waited quietly for a response, expecting Ning Yixiao to praise his thoroughness.

To his surprise, Ning Yixiao hung up directly.

In that instant, a thought crossed Carl’s mind: If there were a university course on “Psychology of the Boss,” he would definitely sign up for it.