Read Chapter 3: — THE PRICE OF FAILURE

Yifeng Design had been born from pride and kept alive by friendship.

Mufeng had left university convinced that talent was more important than hierarchy. He mortgaged his small apartment, rented an office, hired a handful of employees, and discovered within twelve months that talent did not pay invoices on time.

Tang Daidai had been beside him through all of it.

Daidi had grown up with Mufeng, Qian Duoduo, Song Dacheng and Qiu Bin in Yongfeng Lane, an old neighbourhood where everybody knew everybody's grandparents and no childhood crime remained secret for more than an hour. The five of them called themselves the Yongfeng Gang long after they were old enough to know how ridiculous it sounded.

Daidi was the only woman in the group and the loudest person in any room. Her grandfather made pear-herb candy in the traditional way, boiling fruit, maltose and medicinal herbs until the whole house smelled sweet and bitter. Mufeng had teased her about that scent since they were children.

She had also loved him for almost as long.

Everyone knew it except, perhaps, Mufeng—who knew it perfectly well and preferred not to make it real.

When Yifeng began to fail, Daidi took a clerical job by day and worked on rescue plans with Mufeng at night. They begged for investors. No one wanted a tiny design firm with debt and no defensible market.

Then Huashi appeared.

At Qian Duoduo's century-old restaurant beside the Zhihe Canal, Mufeng finally told his friends what he had agreed to.

"They aren't investing," Daidi said slowly. "They're buying us?"

"Buying the company, taking the staff, clearing the debt."

"And you said yes?"

"I had to."

Her face changed. "No. You decided you had to."

She called him a traitor and left the table in tears.

Mufeng did not follow immediately. Shame held him in place.

Dacheng, who ran a small metalworking business, said what Mufeng did not want to hear. "A company isn't a painting. You can't ignore cost because reality offends your taste. Selling before the debt destroys everyone may be the first responsible decision you've made."

Duoduo nodded. Qiu Bin said nothing.

Qiu Bin had always been the quiet one. Born into a family of calligraphers, he had chosen engineering over ink and dreamed of building cars. His grandfather considered this a tragedy. Qiu Bin considered it a life.

Later he walked Daidi home through the old lanes.

At her door, she asked, "Do I still smell like pear candy?"

He answered after too long. "Yes."

Her eyes filled.

He wanted to say, I like it.

Instead he said, "You should sleep."

She went inside.

Qiu Bin stood beneath the early cherry blossoms and hated himself for cowardice.

The next day Mufeng tried to give Daidi a cheque for months of unpaid wages. She threw it back.

"If I take that, then I was your employee," she said. "I thought I was your partner."

"You were."

"Then let me lose with you."

He kept the cheque.

For the first time, Mufeng understood that rescuing people without asking what they wanted could be another form of arrogance.

Huashi, however, was about to teach him a harsher version of the same lesson.