At midnight, the neon lights of the Oriental Pearl Tower blurred into violet patches of color among the clouds. Lin Yue curled up in a swivel chair beside the floor-to-ceiling window on the 27th floor, an A3 blueprint soaked with coffee stains spread across her knees. The cool glow of her tablet lit the dark circles beneath her eyes. This was her seventh consecutive late night of work. Outside, the traffic flowed like a river of light, breaking Lujiazui's splendor into drifting fragments.
"Miss Lin, here's the Starbucks cold brew you asked for." Administrative assistant Xiao Chen's voice startled her awake. Condensation slid down the paper cup and dripped through her fingers onto the blueprint, blurring the still-wet words "Milan Design Week." She looked up instinctively and saw a streak of silver flash past outside the window: a Maybach Phantom with subtle patterned detailing. Its taillights left a fading trail in the rain, just like the comet she'd seen in the countryside as a child.
At that moment, Lujiazui lay beneath a fine drizzle, and the glass curtain walls of the Oriental Financial Center refracted a hazy rainbow. Su Ran loosened his tie and ran his fingertips over the jade ornament in the center of the steering wheel, a keepsake his mother had left him before she died. The car's fragrance system filled the cabin with the crisp scent of cedar, but could not mask the tension radiating from the financial reports scattered across the back seat. He caught a familiar figure in the right-side rearview mirror, and his breathing suddenly quickened.
