They reached the printing house after a while.
Traffic was fine this afternoon. They met with the printing manager in charge of their order, Mr. Luo.
Mr. Luo was a sixty year old man, who owned the printing business. He started when he was young as an apprentice at a newspaper company. When he was finally adult, and had some savings, he opened this company from scratch. His first client was to help his previous newspaper company to print flyers.
Even though he was very successful now, he came from a humble origin. He was known for being friendly and hardworking. The employees would still catch him running around the printing area, checking on the the prints.
Shao Yan very much admired his spirit. Somehow, Mr. Luo always reminded her of her own father.
"Mr. Luo, what do you think about this? Honestly?" Shao Yan opened a question.
Mr. Luo took the book from her hand. He first touched the cover, and then slowly flipped through the pages. He paid really detail attention on every single crease, every single prints.
After a while, Mr. Luo said, "This architect is really good. The photographer is especially good. They will go far if they kept working together". Mr. Luo returned the book to Shao Yan.
.....
Wenhai and Shao Yan accompanied Mr. Luo for a while more. They had tea and some afternoon snacks, and traded stories. The afternoon went by just like that.
Unknowingly, it's already dark, and they remembered, they still needed to drop the books back to the office for internal review tomorrow.
They faced a bit of traffic when they drove back to the office. City S skylights were surrounding them, accompanying the lonely yet bustling nights.
When Shao Yan and Wenhai arrived in the office, most of the people had left.
Fan jie was about to leave when Shao Yan and Wenhai appeared on their floor. "So late? It's almost 9 now!" Fan jie exclaimed.
Wenhai and Shao Yan just smiled embarrassingly. Wenhai was telling Fan jie what they did with Mr. Luo.
The three of them chatted for a while, before Fan jie had to leave.
Shao Yan decided to do some work while she's here, so she walked back to her desk and turned on her laptop.
.....
"Xiao Yan, let's leave now. Just do it tomorrow?" Wenhai was already standing next to her desk, ready to go home.
"You can go first, I'm almost done", Shao Yan was typing without even looking up at him.
"Are you sure? Boss, we are at floor 56. If there's a zombie apocalypse, you'll be stuck here alone! Without cute guy like me!" Wenhai joked around to lighten her mood.
That earned him a side stare look from Shao Yan.
"Really? How old are you, still believing in zombies?" Shao Yan laughed lightly and chased him out.
.....
Her team was seated on floor 56. It's a huge floor combined with other project teams. They adopted open space layout. There were no cube partitions between each other. All the desk were in white color, making the space even larger and peaceful as it also equipped with the bright lights.
Shao Yan's desk was facing the window, but prefer to not sit right next to it to avoid the sun glares.
She typed a lot in her computer, so she preferred to face the window so she could rest her eyes every now and then.
Shao Yan also keep some succulent plants. On her desk there was a mini plant displays in a shape of ladder. On it, there were several succulent plants with colorful shades to cheer her up.
Knock knock.
A brief knock was heard on their door.
She was surprised, she turned around and saw a figure was standing by the door, he was blocking the lights that came in from behind. So she couldn't see his face.
He was glowing.
Shao Yan blinked as the figure walked closer to her, and she finally clearly saw his face.
"What are you doing here?" Shao Yan showed a very surprise face, and then she glanced at the bottom right of her computer and saw the time. "It's already so late. You're still working?"
Li Xiqing was showing a very unhappy face. "I should be asking that question at you."
Shao Yan looked back at him, and stunned for a while.
"I was finishing up something, and then I remembered that I still owe Miss Sea the second draft. I'm working on it now".
She looked up and then asked him back, "What are you doing here?"
Li Xiqing was carrying a paper bag on his hand. He put the bag on her desk, pointing to it while saying, "I was about to leave, when I remember I got this for you. So I came to put this on your desk."
Li Xiqing took a chair from the desk next to her, and dragged it over to sit near her.
Shao Yan was confused, and reached out to the bag and opened it.
From it, she took out a very delicate package wrapped in a soft paper. She lifted her eyes and peeked at him, showing puzzled look.
Li Xiqing was leaning back on his chair and paying attention on her every move.
Shao Yan opened the delicate paper, and found a soft dark grey cardigan wool jacket inside.
She paused and just stared at it.
She picked it up and spread it in front of her eyes and saw that it should reached her waist if she put it on. The material was so soft, and so warm. The size was perfect.
"The weather is cold these days. It's almost summer, I know, but it's still windy at night" Li Xiqing explained. "The air-conditioned in the office are not stable too, I'm just worried you will be cold while working". He said that casually while crossing his legs and leaned back to sit more comfortably.
Shao Yan was touched. She felt that this man was indeed very thoughtful. He was always warm towards her.
She sighed inwardly.
She didn't know how much longer she could guard her heart.