Days flipped evenly across the calendar like a pendulum set to a fixed rhythm.
In the second month after Yan Hanxie's departure, under Zong Yi's almost life-risking push, the "Spark Project" forced open a gap in the fiercely competitive lower-tier market despite Vice President Sun's cautious doubts and the watchful hesitation of some board members.
When the initial data feedback returned, the growth rate exceeded even the most optimistic predictions.
As the news spread, the looks directed at Zong Yi on the twenty-eighth floor became more complicated than ever—admiration mixed with wariness.
She became the busiest and most dazzling presence in the company.
Morning meetings, negotiations, cross-city flights, late-night conferences… her schedule was packed so tightly that even her assistant worried she might collapse at any moment.
Yet she kept her back straight, her eyes clear. When handling problems she cut through chaos swiftly, and when reporting her logic was flawless.
Only the dark circles under her eyes could not be completely hidden even with the most expensive concealer.
She had also grown thinner. The shoulder lines of her once well-fitted suit jackets now showed slight gaps.
The string of sandalwood prayer beads she had cleaned and restrung lay quietly in the depths of the drawer of her apartment desk, placed inside a soft velvet pouch.
She had not taken them out to look at again.
As if they were merely a strangely shaped stone she had picked up one afternoon, casually stored away and then forgotten.
Until late one Wednesday night.
Zong Yi had just finished a long overseas market review video conference. Her throat ached with dryness, and her temples throbbed.
Outside the window the lights of the city had already thinned. She was the only one left in the office.
She shut down the computer, rubbed her sore eyes, and stood up to leave.
Just as she picked up her coat and car keys, her personal phone vibrated in the quiet.
The screen lit up.
It showed an unfamiliar number from the south, with no saved name.
Her heartbeat skipped without warning.
Her fingertip hovered above the answer button, paused for two seconds, then pressed it.
She did not speak.
No voice came immediately from the other side either.
Only faint static from the line and… the distant sound of waves?
Again and again, slowly striking against something.
Then a familiar yet unfamiliar voice sounded, carrying the slight distortion of a long-distance call and a sense of… vast exhaustion.
"Zong Yi."
It was Yan Hanxie.
Her voice was hoarser than when she left, as if worn down by sea wind and salt, or like someone unused to speaking after a long silence.
Zong Yi tightened her grip on the phone, her knuckles turning slightly pale.
She did not answer.
She simply listened quietly to the faint sound of waves coming from the other end of the line.
"It's me." Yan Hanxie seemed not to need her response. She confirmed it on her own, and then there was another brief silence, with only the background sound of waves continuing.
"The 'Spark Project'… I saw the briefing email. You did very well."
She brought up work. In the most businesslike tone.
Zong Yi finally spoke, her voice somewhat hoarse from fatigue. "The data is real. The team worked hard."
Silence again.
The sound of waves filled the empty space.
"You…" Yan Hanxie paused, as if choosing her words, "you sound very tired."
Zong Yi leaned against her desk, her gaze falling on the blurred neon lights in the distance outside the window.
"I'm fine." She paused, then added a sentence equally devoid of warmth, "Not comparable to President Yan's quiet recuperation."
There was a subtle sting in those words, one she herself had not even noticed.
From the other end of the phone came a very light breath, almost like a sigh.
"Quiet?" Yan Hanxie repeated the word, her tone carrying a faint, indescribable mockery—whether directed at herself or something else, it was unclear.
"Yes. Very quiet."
Then she fell silent again. This time the silence lasted even longer, so long that Zong Yi almost thought the signal had been cut.
Only the steady sound of waves proved that the call was still continuing.
"I…" Yan Hanxie spoke again, her voice lower, her speech slow, as if struggling to organize her words. "Yesterday, I went for a walk by the sea. The wind was very strong. It almost blew my hat away."
She began talking about trivial matters that meant nothing.
Not work. Not her illness. Just a gust of wind by the sea, a hat.
Zong Yi listened quietly.
She could imagine the scene: the seaside in the southern winter, perhaps the sky gray and dim, the wind carrying a damp, salty smell. A thin, gaunt woman walking alone along an empty beach, her hat blown crooked by the wind as she reached up to hold it…
"The vegetarian meals here aren't as good as the one downstairs at the company," Yan Hanxie said again, her tone as calm as if she were commenting on a dish. "The tofu is old. The soup is bland."
Zong Yi thought of the delicate meal boxes on the twenty-eighth floor that were often carried out untouched.
"Sometimes I still can't sleep well at night." Yan Hanxie's voice revealed deeper exhaustion. "The medicine doesn't help. My mind is like a spinning top that won't stop."
She was stating facts, not complaining—just calmly describing these daily moments of her "recuperation."
"But daytime is a little better. I can read books, listen to scriptures." She paused. "The sound of the temple's morning bell is very far away, but you can hear it clearly."
Zong Yi didn't know how to respond to these fragment-like murmurs.
She should politely say take care of yourself, or simply end this purposeless call.
But she only held the phone and listened, letting those words carrying the dampness of sea waves cross the long distance and enter her ears one sentence at a time.
"Zong Yi," Yan Hanxie suddenly called her name. Her voice was very soft, drifting faintly against the sound of the waves. "I… regret it a little."
Zong Yi's heart suddenly tightened.
Regret?
Regret leaving?
Regret throwing the prayer beads in the storage room?
Or… regret something else?
But Yan Hanxie did not continue. She simply repeated, "I regret it."
Then, as if she had exhausted all the strength to speak, she fell into another long silence.
The sound of the waves continued, steady, again and again, washing over the silence on the other side of the phone and also over the deathly quiet beside Zong Yi's ear.
No one knew how long passed—so long that Zong Yi thought she might have fallen asleep.
"That…" Yan Hanxie's voice sounded again, extremely faint, carrying a trace of almost clumsy hesitation that was hard to notice. "You… are you doing well?"
She asked her if she was well.
Zong Yi's throat felt as if something were blocking it.
She looked at the heavy night outside the window, at her blurred and exhausted reflection in the glass.
"I'm doing very well." She heard her own dry voice answer. "Work is going smoothly."
The answer did not address the question.
Yan Hanxie did not seem to expect a real answer either.
She only made a soft "mm," like a meaningless sigh.
"That's good," she said.
Then silence again.
This time, even the sound of the waves seemed distant.
"I'm hanging up," Yan Hanxie said, her voice returning to its earlier calm. "You… rest early."
"Mm," Zong Yi responded.
The phone emitted the busy tone—beep—beep—.
She still maintained the posture of holding the phone, leaning against the desk, unmoving for a long time.
The screen darkened, and the office returned to silence, leaving only the faint sound of the central air conditioner.
Outside the window, the city remained brightly lit, traffic flowing endlessly.
But all those sounds and lights seemed to have been absorbed by that short, fragmented phone call filled with meaningless murmurs and long silences, leaving behind only a vast hollow ringing in her ears.
She slowly lowered the phone. Her palm was cold.
She walked to the window and pressed her forehead against the cool glass.
Outside was the real, tangible world—busy, noisy, full of goals and competition.
And on the other end of the call was a distant, unknown southern beach, salty sea wind, sleepless suffering, a hat almost blown away, a sentence of "I regret it" with no beginning or end, and a clumsy "are you doing well?"
She closed her eyes.
What appeared in her mind was not Yan Hanxie's pale, exhausted face at the time she left. Not the abandoned string of prayer beads. Not the inspiring data charts of the "Spark Project."
Instead, it was long ago, when she was still just a junior manager, working overtime until dawn because of a difficult project, when she ran into Yan Hanxie in the pantry who also had not gone home yet.
At that time Yan Hanxie had not yet worn prayer beads. She had only poured a glass of water, handed it to her, said nothing, and simply patted her shoulder.
That moment of silent warmth belonging to a "person."
Zong Yi straightened up and turned to leave the office.
The corridor was empty. The motion-sensor lights turned on and off with her footsteps.
When she returned home, she did not turn on the lights and walked straight into the study.
Moonlight passed through the gap in the curtains, casting a long pale strip of light across the floor.
She opened the desk drawer, her fingers touching the soft velvet pouch.
After hesitating for a few seconds, she took it out.
She walked to the window and untied the drawstring under the moonlight.
The string of sandalwood prayer beads lay quietly on the velvet cloth, giving off a dark, warm sheen under the cold moonlight.
The restrung thread was very sturdy, and every bead sat firmly in its place.
She reached out a finger and gently moved one bead.
The bead rotated, producing an extremely faint sound of friction, almost impossible to hear.
The moonlight flowed quietly.
Holding the beads, she stood by the window for a long time.
Until a faint pale glow—like the belly of a fish—appeared on the eastern horizon.
A new day was about to begin again.
—
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