When Shen Rui told her he had a private meeting and she "should stay put," Lin Xie blinked slowly at him like he'd just said something irrelevant to gravity.
"Stay put where?"
"In the lounge."
"For how long?"
"Until I return."
"That is not measurable."
He gave her a pointed look. "Don't cause any problems."
"I never do."
He stared at her.
Then he left.
The door clicked shut behind him, and the moment he was gone, she stood.
She did not "stay put."
She had questions.
Primarily: What was behind that reinforced glass door near the corridor?
And why did some employees wear black lanyards while others wore blue?
And what did the red blinking panel beside the emergency exit mean?
None of these were problems. They were observations. Field study.
So she went exploring.
She passed a group of staff who froze mid-conversation when they saw her approaching. They shifted aside awkwardly, uncertain whether to speak. She didn't even glance at them.
She moved with the dispassionate focus of a reconnaissance drone—eyes scanning desks, doors, ceiling-mounted sensors. She paused to study a touchscreen map in the hallway and lightly tapped it. The screen froze.
She stared at it.
Then turned away like it had failed some unspoken test.
She found the kitchenette and proceeded to investigate the vending machine inventory with absolute seriousness. She pressed every single button, one by one, until it made a warning beep and shut off entirely.
She tilted her head. "Weak infrastructure."
One intern watched the whole thing from behind a stack of paperwork, terrified to speak.
She walked into the break room next and found a box labeled "Confidential—For Accounting Use Only."
She opened it.
Inside were donuts.
She closed it.
"Misleading," she murmured.
Then she tried to enter the security server room.
The lock blinked red.
She stared at it, reached out, and pressed her palm against the reader. Nothing happened.
She crouched slightly, inspected the panel seams, then straightened.
"Unethical but competent," she muttered.
Zhou, returning from another floor, saw her wandering near restricted access and nearly dropped his tablet.
"Miss Lin—uh, Miss—you're not supposed to—"
"I'm mapping the floor."
"Why?"
"Curiosity."
"That's not how—okay, please, you really can't—wait, don't touch that—"
But she was already tapping at the access panel again.
Zhou practically teleported in front of her. "Miss Lin. The CEO said you should stay in the lounge."
"I walked. I didn't leave the floor."
"There are cameras everywhere."
"I know. Some of them have dust. One is offline."
He stared at her.
She tilted her head. "Your elevators also have dead spots in surveillance. Interesting."
He made a choked noise and immediately called security to tell them to not stop her unless absolutely necessary—but to monitor her closely. Very closely.
Meanwhile, Lin Xie wandered into a small conference room and sat down.
There was a cactus on the windowsill. She poked it once. It poked back.
She stared at it, then moved to the whiteboard and began rewriting the projected numbers on a half-finished proposal. When an assistant walked in ten minutes later and saw the revised figures, they screamed.
Downstairs, two interns ducked when she passed them in the hallway, whispering, "She's like… a ghost. But chaotic."
"I saw her shut down a vending machine"
"She didn't even flinch when Mr. Zhou yelled at her!"
"Is she... human?"
By the time Shen Rui returned to his office, Zhou looked like he'd aged ten years.
"There's… been movement," he said carefully.
Shen Rui raised an eyebrow as he adjusted his cufflinks. "Movement."
Zhou hesitated. "Miss Lin rewrote the figures on the preliminary proposal for the VelaTech merger."
Shen Rui stilled. "She what?"
"She entered the small conference room while it was empty. When the junior analyst came back, the board was—corrected."
"Corrected how?"
Zhou handed over a tablet. "The projections were off. She… fixed them. With red marker."
Shen Rui scanned the screen.
Then again.
The numbers were right. Sharper than before. The financial curve was not only corrected—it was optimized. The risk allocation was segmented into three-tier fallback categories. The asset pivot had a logic no one in the building had mentioned yet.
He stared at it.
"Was anyone with her?"
"No. But we've reviewed the footage. She spent fifteen minutes reviewing the chart, and two minutes rewriting it."
Silence.
Zhou hesitated again. "Sir… She also recalibrated two broken motion sensors and bypassed the kitchenette vending lock. With… a spoon."
Shen Rui blinked.
"And she… may have muted a gossiping executive by just staring at them. Without saying a word."
Shen Rui inhaled deeply, then exhaled. "Of course she did."
Then the door opened and Lin Xie entered behind him like nothing happened.
Hoodie. Silent steps. Expression blank. She carried a small office plant she'd decided to relocate from one windowsill to another "for better light angles."
Shen Rui turned to look at her. "Did you finish rewriting my merger?"
"Yes," she said simply.
"Why?"
"It was inefficient. Wasteful. Predictable."
"You weren't supposed to touch anything."
"I didn't break anything."
He narrowed his eyes. "Did you speak to anyone?"
"I answered questions with silence."
"And the numbers?"
"I remembered the layout. Photographic retention. There was an error in projected return for Phase Three. I corrected it."
She said it like she was listing items in a grocery store. Unbothered. Logical. Dead calm.
Zhou had backed away slightly, still not sure if he should offer her tea or call security.
Shen Rui sighed and rubbed his temples. "And the spoon?"
"I required access to the vending machine. It was defective. The spoon assisted."
"You hacked a vending machine with cutlery."
"Technically it was already vulnerable."
He stared at her.
She stared back.
Then, slowly, she began following him again as he walked to his next meeting.
"Where are you going now?" she asked.
"Conference with legal."
"I'll observe."
"No."
"I'll be quiet."
"You're not quiet. You're chaos."
"I didn't kill anyone."
"That is not the bar, Lin Xie."
Still, she kept following.
Down the corridor, past gaping employees. Some pretended not to look. Others definitely whispered.
Zhou trailed behind them, already fielding panicked messages from department heads:
"The CEO let her into legal???"
"She's not on the security list—should we escort??"
"Is this how she applies for a job???"
Shen Rui pushed open the meeting room door.
Lin Xie followed.
One of the lawyers dropped his pen.
"Good morning," Shen Rui said evenly, taking his seat. "Let's begin."
Lin Xie took the seat beside him, resting her chin on her palm, gaze flicking from contract to clause to the terrified man across from her.
She said nothing.
She didn't need to.
By the time the meeting ended, two legal aides had excused themselves under the pretense of getting water and never returned.
As Shen Rui stood, Lin Xie rose too—smoothly, naturally, like his shadow.
Zhou was waiting outside with a faintly trembling tablet.
"She's now followed you through three floors, sir."
"I've noticed."
"She reorganized the storage cabinet by weapon classification code."
"…What?"
"She labeled it too. B for blunt. S for sharp. R for 'really heavy.'"
Shen Rui closed his eyes briefly. "And?"
"She also repaired a broken drone charging port using office tape and a paperclip. I don't know how."
A pause.
Shen Rui looked back at Lin Xie, who was already poking a decorative sculpture on a side table like it had offended her with its poor weight distribution.
He sighed again.
"Let her be."
Zhou choked. "Sir?"
"She's… adapting."
Zhou blinked. "She's adapting like a virus."
"She's learning," Shen Rui corrected.
And as Lin Xie began silently dismantling a broken wireless mouse just to see how it worked, Zhou whispered, "Learning what?"
Shen Rui glanced at her.
Then kept walking.
Whatever it was, he wasn't sure.
But he had a feeling—
She was learning fast.
He hadn't brought a guest into his company.
He'd unleashed a microstorm.
Wrapped in a hoodie.
With absolutely no idea she was a troublemaker at all.