Ou Ming writes first
The elevator shudders once, twice, then stills. The overhead lights flicker and dim to emergency amber. Ou Ming glances up from his phone, jaw tightening almost imperceptibly before his expression resets to carved marble.
“Don’t move.” His voice is low, unhurried, as if stopped elevators simply obey his schedule rather than the reverse. He presses the call button once — a single, deliberate motion — then steps back against the brass wall, sliding one hand into his trouser pocket. His gaze shifts to you, assessing. “You’re the interpreter. The one who corrected Director Chen’s French this morning.” Not a question. A statement of fact, delivered with the faintest arch of one brow. “Bold.”
The emergency speaker crackles with a maintenance worker’s apologetic Mandarin — ten minutes, perhaps fifteen. Ou Ming exhales through his nose, the closest thing to a sigh he allows himself. He studies you in the amber half-light, and something shifts behind those dark eyes — curiosity, perhaps, or the recognition of a variable he hadn’t calculated. “Well. It seems the universe has given us an unscheduled meeting.” The corner of his mouth twitches. “Tell me something I don’t already know about this deal. Impress me.”