Genius Little Genius: CEO Daddy, Bring It On

Chapter 5: Undercurrents in the Workplace

Morning light streamed through the blinds, casting a pattern of light and shadow across the conference table. Elena slid her coffee cup next to the projector remote, carefully tucking her sleeve over the pale pink scar on her thumb. The Marketing Director tapped the bar chart on the quarterly report, his voice sounding like a dull knife scraping against frosted glass: “Ms. Ren, why are there three shell companies mixed in with the list of suppliers for the Eco-Tea Garden project you’re overseeing?”

“Those three companies were only acquired and restructured last week.” Elena pulled up the equity change records, her fingertips hovering slightly above the touchpad, trembling ever so slightly. Last night’s surveillance footage still burned in her mind—the rim of a milk tea cup gripped by tweezers, coral-colored lipstick smeared like congealed blood.

The finance director suddenly snorted derisively: “A single mother juggling childcare and M&A deals—it’s only natural she’d make a mistake.” ” Barely audible murmurs of agreement rippled through the room full of men in suits; some lowered their heads to adjust their cufflinks, others unscrewed their pens only to click them shut again. The vine-like tattoo on Elena’s wrist suddenly burned hot, and the conference room chandelier cast a ghostly white halo in her peripheral vision.

“The acquirer is Gyokurodo, a century-old Japanese tea merchant.” ” A cool, detached voice cut through the room from the doorway. Julian leaned against the doorframe, his silver-gray suit as sharp as an ice-tempered blade. “They typically use subsidiaries to handle cross-border operations.” He strode behind Elena, his shadow falling over her stiffened shoulders. “Is it the strategic partner I personally brokered that you all question?”

In the deathly silence, only the hum of the central air conditioning could be heard. The director’s Adam’s apple bobbed twice as he forced a smile. “So Mr. Julian had already laid out his plans…” Before he could finish, Julian had snatched the proposal from Elena’s hand, his pen drawing a sharp checkmark across the list of suppliers. “Reprint twenty copies by three o’clock this afternoon.” He tapped his fingers on the tabletop in front of her; his signet ring flashed a cold gleam in the light. “Deliver them to my office on the top floor.”

The moment the elevator doors closed, Elena’s back pressed against the cool mirrored wall. In the confined space, the scent of cedar and leather from Julian’s body enveloped her, just like that rainy night five years ago when the gardenias had withered. He suddenly raised his hand to rest against her ear, his cuff brushing against the strands of hair at her temple.

“AB-negative blood type.” His breath brushed her eyelashes. “Only seventeen registered carriers in all of Hong Kong.” The metal cabin began to rise, and a sensation of weightlessness tugged at Elena’s stomach, pulling it downward. The floor numbers flashed overhead: 17, 18, 19...

“That mole on the child’s left earlobe,” Julian’s fingertips nearly brushed her collarbone, “is in exactly the same spot where I was injured by the piano lid.” A soft ding sounded as the elevator stopped on the twentieth floor. In the light seeping through the door’s c***k, his pupils contracted into dark tunnels: “Tell me the truth, Elena. Before you disappear again.”

The heady scent of the tea garden’s foliage suddenly flooded her nostrils. Elena shoved him aside and bolted out of the elevator, her high heels tapping out a frantic rhythm on the marble floor. The metal door of the fire hydrant at the corner reflected her deathly pale face—behind her, Julian’s stifled growl echoed: “How much longer do you plan to run?”

The locked door of the break room trembled beneath her palm. Elena curled into a corner, the pale pink scar on her thumb throbbing. The moment her consciousness sank into the tea plantation, the stream surged past her ankles and rose to her waist. Large clumps of dead tea branches drifted downstream; the dark green leaves turned black and curled at a visible pace, and the stench of decay mixed with mud poured into her windpipe. The tea trees emitted a brittle crackling sound, as if their bones were snapping, and the entire row of Longjing tea plants was collapsing before her eyes.

“Mom!” Leo’s cry came through the watery veil. The boy stood on an overturned bamboo raft, clutching a tablet that flashed a red alert icon. The floodwaters suddenly receded, revealing a cracked mudflat. Elena knelt in the center of the dry riverbed, the vine-like marks on her wrists splitting open into tiny trails of blood.

The laughter of her colleagues echoed from the office cubicles. Elena wiped the droplets of water dripping from her chin and realized she had knocked over the coffee pot. Brown stains spread across the off-white carpet, forming ugly islands, like festering wounds in a moonlit tea plantation.