"Like a spy, but not a corporate one." Chonghui cracked a joke, then immediately straightened up again. "But anyway, it really does feel dangerous. So for now, it's better not to let the rest of our team know about Xia Tian. Just keep her at the 'acquaintance' level—and Xiao Kai, keep your mouth shut, okay?"

Mo Kai nodded easily, as if it was nothing.

The two of them bounced remarks back and forth, more or less dissecting Xia Tian's motives for joining, and at the same time affirming how Nan Zhubin had just handled things in front of the project team.

Then Chonghui pulled out his senior-brother authority and spoke earnestly: "Zhuren, talk to her when you have time… If it's legal consultation, we both trust her and feel at ease with her. But what she's doing now… she's wading way too deep into muddy water."

Nan Zhubin nodded to show he took the point.

Before he could say anything, his phone suddenly vibrated.

[Xia Tian: Teacher Nan, do you have work in a bit? Coffee in the pantry together?]

Mo Kai and Chonghui weren't the type to peek at screens, but right now both of them, as if on cue, turned their eyes to Nan Zhubin's face.

Then they looked at each other and, with perfect tacit understanding, slipped out of the consulting room.

...

The coffee machine hummed softly in the pantry.

The air held a faint bitter aroma of beans, mixed with the creamy scent from packaged cakes and desserts.

With all the upheaval in the company lately, it was like even taking time to drink coffee and eat sweets might get counted as a layoff metric, so the whole pantry was temporarily deserted.

Only the external project team, and interns who would only be here a few months, could still enjoy a brief moment of quiet here.

Xia Tian leaned against the window, sipping a hot latte in small mouthfuls.

Hearing familiar footsteps, she immediately turned around, her brows and eyes curved in a smile. "Teacher Nan, I made you an iced Americano—don't you think it's too bitter?"

As she spoke, she wrinkled her nose like a cat.

"Bitterness keeps you awake." Nan Zhubin was concise.

That counted as small talk.

In fact, when they met in person, they didn't actually have that much to save for now; at most, the offline atmosphere was a bit different, giving things a different kind of immersive feel.

The corner of Nan Zhubin's mouth lifted slightly, his voice dropping a little. "How are things for you right now?"

"Just got here, still familiarizing myself with stuff." Xia Tian sounded completely matter-of-fact. "I just found out it was HR who took it upon themselves to put me in Legal. Even the Legal director was only notified at the very end."

Nan Zhubin raised his eyebrows; that really was quite abnormal.

Although recruitment is HR's job, the people they hire ultimately belong to other departments. How to set hiring criteria, how to screen candidates—those all need to take the receiving department's wishes fully into account.

Generally speaking, someone from the receiving department, someone with at least a bit of say, also needs to sit in on the recruiting process.

The way Xia Tian had been brought in was just too rough, and too rushed.

"Looks like things here are even more complicated than what you told me on the phone." Xia Tian sneaked a glance at Nan Zhubin's profile, then quickly lowered her eyelids and took a sip of latte. "But… when people do things in a rush, it's actually easier to collect stuff."

Nan Zhubin let out a soft laugh, first nodding, then shaking his head.

"Since you're already in, let's talk about what we should do next."

Nan Zhubin set the tone for the situation. He didn't try to persuade Xia Tian to withdraw from this mess the way Chonghui and the others had suggested.

Xia Tian giggled, then looked up at Nan Zhubin again. This time her gaze didn't immediately dart away.

"But you can think of it as me being curious—I don't quite understand a few things about the current situation." Nan Zhubin chose his words carefully.

He paused, as if he wanted to enter Flow State, but after a moment's thought, decided to rely on his bare brain power instead.

"So… you came in now to collect evidence for our situation, right?"

Xia Tian nodded. "Yeah. I even printed out a contract, but I didn't bring it today, it's too conspicuous. You remember to sign it for me later, I'm charging a fee."

"Of course, of course… I mean, you came here as an intern in order to help us collect evidence."

"But outsiders might not understand that causal chain." Nan Zhubin refined his phrasing. "I mean, later on when you're job hunting, if people know you interned at this company, but you ended up collecting evidence on their unfair layoffs, and then helped the project team they hired turn around and fight the company… isn't that not so great?"

"Obviously what you're doing is righteous. But some people might not get that level of detail, especially when it comes to background checks. If your future employer calls this company…"

Xia Tian's eyes were bright. In her pupils, she saw the reflection of Nan Zhubin pausing every few sentences, while in her mind she replayed the scenes of him in other settings, using his tongue as a blade, sweeping all before him.

"You make a good point, Teacher Nan. Then—why don't we just shut this company down? Then there'll be no phone call for a background check, right?"

"…Huh?" Nan Zhubin froze for a moment at Xia Tian's words and finally couldn't help switching on Flow Mode; his brain started overclocking.

Fortunately, the next second Xia Tian burst out laughing. "Kidding, I won't even need this for future jobs."

Nan Zhubin's pupils refocused.

"I'm not planning on going into corporate, and I don't want to join a law firm either." Xia Tian already had her path planned. "I'm going to take the civil service selection exam."

"Selection program?" Nan Zhubin was taken aback, then thought it over and ultimately nodded in approval.

The details weren't his to comment on, but given Xia Tian's current overall qualifications, it really was quite a good path.

"Does your advisor know about your current plan?" Nan Zhubin asked again.

He'd seen the fallout from advisor-responsibility systems more than once. What Xia Tian was doing now counted as somewhat breaking the unwritten rules of the profession.

As a soon-to-be master's graduate, if she pissed off her advisor over this, and given that they were in Beidu, she might actually have trouble later.

"My advisor's from Jiang Province too." Xia Tian was brief.

Then it was fine. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Nan Zhubin's last lingering doubt was cleared up, and he finally let out the breath he'd been holding in.

He looked up, just about to say something, when he bumped straight into the reflection of himself in Xia Tian's wide, fluttering eyes.

"Any other questions, Teacher Nan?"

"…No."

"Good, then let's discuss what to do next." Xia Tian hid the lower half of her face behind her cup, only her crescent-shaped eyes showing.

But she quickly schooled her features, turning serious, projecting a professional aura. "About evidence collection for your project team, and the evidence on the company's unfair layoffs, I think we still need to sync up again. You probably don't really know how to do it, and I don't want you wasting effort on useless work…"

Nan Zhubin nodded. "Right, we really don't know much. You're the expert here."

Xia Tian pressed her lips together. "Anyway, we should try to gather a complete set of evidence in as short a time as possible, in case something changes again… Uh, what is it?"

Halfway through, the girl suddenly noticed that Nan Zhubin's expression had gone off, like he'd drifted out of their conversation.

She saw Nan Zhubin frown. "Thinking about it, I'm hesitating too…"

"Hesitating about what?"

"About one of my visitors." Nan Zhubin recalled the consultation he'd just finished. "He seems to have run into a rather rare turning point. But that turning point is inside the company. So both he and I probably need to stay a while longer. I only just realized that…"

Looking at Nan Zhubin, who had just been carefully warning her that "going in as an intern and infiltrating the enemy" was too radical, now showing that familiar expression and returning to his familiar way of thinking—

Xia Tian blinked and laughed. "Ah, I see."

"Then yeah, we really do need to sit down and make a new plan~"