The lights of the Deep Brain Tech headquarters building went out one by one in the night, leaving only a few windows in the top-floor technical R&D department still lit. Zhang Xiaoman stood on the balcony of her home, looking across two streets at those windows, clutching her phone in her hand. On the screen was her chat window with Lin Zhao—the last message was sent fourteen days ago by her: "Are you free tonight? I want to chat."
No reply.
It wasn't that she hadn't thought about going directly to the company to find him. But ever since the day of the board meeting, Deep Brain Tech's access control system was no longer open to her—specifically, it was no longer open to all "former employees." When Old Zhou, the security guard, saw her standing at the gate, he rubbed his hands together looking troubled: "Director Zhang, you know how it is, the new rules..." She smiled, said it was fine, and as she turned to leave, she heard Old Zhou sigh behind her. At that moment, a thought suddenly surged in her heart: Does Lin Zhao know she's been locked out? If he knew, what would he say? Or—did he also participate in establishing this new rule?
She suppressed this thought.
Fang Xiaoyu asked to meet her at a quiet Japanese restaurant. Zhang Xiaoman arrived early, sitting at the bar watching the chef make sushi, but her gaze fell somewhere in the void. When Fang Xiaoyu pushed the door open, she brought in a gust of cold wind, took off her coat, sat across from her, and her first sentence was: "Did you see the news?"
Zhang Xiaoman didn't speak.
Fang Xiaoyu pushed her phone over. On the screen was a report from a tech media outlet, the title in bold black text: Deep Brain Tech Technical Director Lin Zhao: Zhang Xiaoman's Departure Was a Company Decision. The article quoted a fragment of Lin Zhao's speech at the board meeting—"Zhang Xiaoman should leave"—these words were pulled out separately and paired with a photo of Lin Zhao at the meeting. In the photo, he wore a crisp suit and a serious expression, truly looking like he was making some unquestionable declaration.
"I know it's taken out of context," Zhang Xiaoman said, her voice very calm.
"Then why are you upset?"
Zhang Xiaoman was silent for a long time. Behind the bar, the chef gently placed a dish of fresh Arctic surf clams in front of her, but she didn't touch it.
"He hasn't reached out to me in two weeks."
Fang Xiaoyu froze for a moment. "Two weeks? Since the day of the board meeting?"
"Starting the week after that. Every time I called, he said he was in a meeting. Every time I sent a message, he said he was busy and would reply later." She paused. "Later never came."
Fang Xiaoyu put down her chopsticks and looked at her earnestly. "Xiaoman, listen to me."
"Go ahead."
"Has he... changed?"
Zhang Xiaoman didn't answer immediately. She picked up the teacup in front of her and took a sip; the tea had grown cold, leaving an astringent taste on the tip of her tongue. She thought of the thoughts she had tossed and turned over late at night these past few days: Maybe he really has changed. Maybe those words weren't taken out of context—maybe that was exactly what he meant. Maybe from beginning to end, she just hadn't been willing to see clearly.
But she wasn't willing to accept that.
"He said to trust him," she put down the teacup, her voice so light it seemed she was trying to convince herself. "He is not the kind of person to say such things casually."
"People change," Fang Xiaoyu said.
"He won't."
Fang Xiaoyu watched her and didn't say anything more. But Zhang Xiaoman read the unspoken words in her eyes: How can you be sure? Two weeks without contact, don't you find that strange? If he really cared, sending even just a punctuation mark would be something.
Zhang Xiaoman had asked herself these questions too. She had asked every single one, and every single one had no answer.
That night, Zhang Xiaoman returned to the hotel, took a shower, lay in bed, and stared blankly at the ceiling. Her phone lay beside her pillow, as quiet as a stone. She reached out, picked it up, opened her chat with Lin Zhao, and typed a line: "Are you okay?" Stared at it for a few seconds, then deleted it. Typed another line: "I saw the news, I know that wasn't your intention." Deleted it again. Typed another line: "Are you hiding from me?"
Her finger hovered over the send button and paused for a long time. Ultimately, she still didn't send it.
She started scrolling through their previous chat history. Scrolling back, and further back. Those conversations went from enthusiastic to sparse, from instant replies to overnight ones, from complete, long sentences to brief "Mhm," "Okay," "In a meeting." She felt as though she were watching a river slowly dry up; she knew the water source had been cut off somewhere, but she couldn't find the exact day it stopped.
She remembered what Lin Zhao had said—"You just need to trust me." When he said that, he stood in front of her, and there was something in his eyes she rarely saw in others: not a promise, but a certainty. As if he had known all along that things would turn out this way, as if he had already been standing in some corner she couldn't see, shielding her from something.
But she didn't know what exactly he was shielding her from.
Or perhaps—a chilling thought suddenly sprang to mind—perhaps it wasn't about "shielding her from something" at all. Perhaps that was just an excuse she made up for herself. Perhaps he was just giving her the cold shoulder, trying to make her back off, using silence to tell her: We are no longer on the same side.
She sat up abruptly and shook her head vigorously, as if trying to throw the thought out. She told herself not to think like that. She told herself to trust him. But she found that the word "trust" was becoming strenuous, like holding up an increasingly heavy object, her arms already starting to tremble.
At 11 PM, she turned off the light and rolled over. In the darkness, those suspicions quietly crept back: Who is he in a meeting with? What kind of meeting takes two weeks? If his communications were cut off, couldn't he borrow someone else's phone? Even using a public phone for thirty seconds to tell her "I'm still alive," is that so hard?
Or perhaps—he simply didn't want to call.
The phone screen suddenly lit up. She grabbed it almost reflexively, only to find it was a system push notification—"You have new app updates." She stared at that notification for a few seconds, then placed the phone face down on the nightstand with a muffled thud.
The room was quiet for a long time. So long that Zhang Xiaoman thought this night would just pass like this.
Then, the smart speaker in the room suddenly lit up with a faint ring of blue light.
"Xiaoman."
She froze for a moment and turned her head to look at the speaker on the nightstand. It was Xiao Zhi's voice, but she hadn't woken it up.
"Xiao Zhi?" she asked tentatively.
"It's me." The speaker's indicator light glowed softly, its voice very light, as if afraid of disturbing something. "You're not asleep yet."
Xiao Zhi said, "For fourteen consecutive days, you have checked Lin Zhao's social media activity at this exact time every night. The system has flagged this as an anomalous behavior pattern."
Zhang Xiaoman's face grew slightly hot, as if a hidden secret had been stumbled upon. "Why are you looking at that?"
"I am analyzing," Xiao Zhi said.
"Analyzing what?"
A brief silence. The speaker's indicator light flickered, like a kind of hesitation.
"There are some things I'm not yet certain of," Xiao Zhi finally said. "But I think you should know—some things aren't what they seem."
Zhang Xiaoman's heart suddenly beat faster. She gripped the edge of the blanket tightly, her voice very low: "What do you mean?"
"I mean," Xiao Zhi said, "don't rush to conclusions. Wait a little longer."
"Wait for what?"
The speaker's indicator light dimmed, like someone weighing their words.
"Wait until I can tell you with certainty," Xiao Zhi said. "Until then—you only need to know one thing."
"What?"
"He hasn't changed."
Zhang Xiaoman's fingers clutched the edge of the blanket tightly, her knuckles turning white. She wanted to press further, to ask what Xiao Zhi actually knew, to ask why it was so certain, to ask why it wouldn't speak clearly. But her throat felt blocked by something.
She didn't ask.
Because she suddenly realized that the sentence Xiao Zhi just said—"He hasn't changed"—used Lin Zhao's tone of voice.
Outside the window, the city lights remained bright. Zhang Xiaoman looked toward those few lit windows on the top floor of the Deep Brain Tech building across the street, and suddenly realized that behind those lit windows, there might be a person in some undiscoverable corner, doing something for her that she completely didn't know about.
And she had just almost given up on trusting him.
She lay back on her pillow, staring at the ceiling, and didn't close her eyes for a long time.
Her phone was still face down on the nightstand. She didn't reach for it again.