Chapter 93

To avoid being press-ganged further, Li Lan went back a week before term. This was her last semester at Peking, and while she had the final chemistry modules and dissertations for both schools to write, not having a laboratory to attend saved her more than half her time.

Being used to experiments, she felt the absence of them, and a fortnight into term went to Cerulean's laboratory. The plant had been sited at Tianjin and would take a while to build, and Beijing being where the high-level people are, a development centre was needed there too, so the industrial park laboratory remained — renamed from Cerulean Laboratory to the Cerulean Beijing Development Centre, with the offices and laboratory moved from their obscure corner to the middle of the park, at three times the size.

The move had happened when the plant site was settled last year, and Li Lan had been busy and knew only that they'd changed premises; this was her first visit. She dialled a number Zhang Lin had given her, having reached her mid-meeting.

"Hello — is that Li Lan?"

In the lobby of the park's main building, shortly after she rang, a small woman in a white coat came hurrying over.

Li Lan looked at somebody who came up to her chin. "Yes. Engineer He?"

She nodded cheerfully. "Yes, He Xiaoran. Director Zhang's in a meeting; she said to take you to her office. This way."

On the way she stole a look at Li Lan, was caught, and produced a frank smile and asked, curious, "Are you Director Zhang's sister? Is it something urgent?" An hour ago Zhang Lin had told her to collect somebody from the lobby, and she'd assumed a partner of the centre's, not a young woman. Having joined recently and still being on probation, she'd never seen Li Lan, and was curious.

Li Lan walked alongside. She wasn't good at starting conversations, but with He Xiaoran chattering away she could hardly leave her unanswered. "No. Something I need to see her about."

Which made He Xiaoran more curious still. She looked a few years younger than herself and didn't look like an associate of Cerulean's — and this being a first meeting, she couldn't dig.

In the lift their eyes met, they smiled awkwardly, and the silence resumed. Fortunately they arrived quickly, and stepping out Li Lan saw the words on the wall: Cerulean Beijing Development Centre.

At the door He Xiaoran put a finger out; the centre's offices use a code and a fingerprint and aren't generally accessible. Li Lan's print wasn't registered, and Zhang Lin had given her the code long ago.

He Xiaoran lowered her voice to explain. "This is the main office. Director Zhang's is the room beside it."

Inside, the office had moved and grown considerably and had, as ever, a great many empty seats — not empty for want of people; the people were absent and the desks weren't bare. Being researchers, the staff spent most of their time away from their desks apart from written work, so Li Lan crossing to Zhang Lin's office attracted almost no notice.

He Xiaoran delivered her and went back to her seat, where the person at the next desk asked, curious, "Xiao Ran, who was that with you? A new employee?" Graduation season was approaching and the company hadn't started campus recruitment, and for an experienced hire she looked nothing like somebody with three years behind her.

He Xiaoran shook her head. "I couldn't ask on a first meeting. All I know is she isn't a relative of Director Zhang's."

---

Ten minutes after Li Lan sat down, Zhang Lin swept in, picked up a cup and drank deeply; half an hour of talking had left her parched and she'd forgotten her water. Relieved, she looked at Li Lan on the sofa. "What brings you here?"

A fair question. Ordinarily Li Lan didn't call without a reason, or turned up for a while on a whim — and every visit happened to solve whatever was burning. Had she not been at university, Zhang Lin would have gone and seized her long ago.

Li Lan felt the weakness of her position, tucked her legs up and tried to look biddable. "I've not much on this term. I thought I might be useful in the laboratory."

Zhang Lin gave her a look of complete unsurprise. She'd known there was something. "The university isn't busy?"

"I graduate this term. I only have to attend some lectures and write my dissertations."

Zhang Lin made a noise and counted. "I thought you weren't a fourth-year." It was February 2013, and she'd started in 2010 — a date Zhang Lin remembered because Cerulean had only been founded in October 2010. So she was a third-year. How was she graduating?

Li Lan laughed. "I applied to graduate early. July, all being well."

Zhang Lin was startled and then delighted. "This year? Then when are you coming to Cerulean?" She knew what Li Lan could do — prodigy is not too strong a word — and the sunscreen from last year was still their trump card, and she had been waiting for the next one.

Li Lan's eyes began to drift and she stopped meeting her gaze, and Zhang Lin had a bad feeling, and heard, quietly, "I've applied for a doctorate in England." Unfinished, and Zhang Lin understood the rest: she wasn't coming.

Her face fell. She'd known it. She tapped Li Lan's head and enquired politely. "Miss Li. Do you happen to recall whose company this is?" Abandoning the job? She had shares herself, and she hadn't forgotten who the largest owner was.

Li Lan had come prepared, and went round to knead her shoulders. "Sister Lin, I know how hard you work, which is why I've come to help. Think about it — with a doctorate I'll be much better at the research when I'm back."

Zhang Lin knew perfectly well that a bachelor's carries no weight in their field; Cerulean's own laboratory recruited from masters level up. She simply felt Li Lan's ability already exceeded most of the institute's, and hadn't thought it through.

She patted her hand and softened. "All right. I wasn't thinking. It would be a waste for you not to do a doctorate."

She sat down opposite her. "Cerulean is always short-handed, so of course come. The plant has meant fewer parallel projects for the moment, and once it's built we'll be hiring a great many people.

"Let me tell you where we are. Bright Jade still has only the Red Jade range; sales are decent and the customer response is good, and we're working on a matching cream with early results. Rouge's cosmetics team — the sunscreen works well and it's expensive, and a lot of people have said it isn't suitable for the body, so they've modified it this year and mean to launch a large affordable bottle. Colour cosmetics are selling moderately, though that's Feng Jiang's business, not ours. As for Rejuvenate."

She sighed.

"What about Rejuvenate?"

The meeting had been about it. Being the top line, Zhang Lin was project manager herself, and while they'd prepared for a long campaign, most of the patents on suitable anti-ageing ingredients are held by other brands, and finding one that doesn't infringe and works well is not simple.

There is no shortage of anti-ageing ingredients — vitamin E, vitamin C, Pro-Xylane — except that Rejuvenate was positioned at the top, against the international luxury brands, which rules out vitamin E and C: the technique is simple and the effect slow, so neither suits as the core active.

Look across the international luxury skincare and, brand premium aside, most of it works visibly and quickly. Simple technique like vitamin E and C doesn't suit Rejuvenate; Pro-Xylane works well and most of the patents sit with a French high-end cosmetics company; and other actives either have side effects or are technically trivial. So six months on, Rejuvenate's core active hadn't been settled.

If it stayed impossible, she and Feng Jiang had discussed settling for less and changing the core active — except that then Rejuvenate's position would no longer be a first-tier one, and the value would drop by more than a single step.

"Sister Lin, I'd like to join the Rejuvenate team."

Li Lan's eyes were bright. If she was here, she might as well take on the hard thing. After a year and more in Wang Xin's laboratory she'd been wanting to try L3; a drug at that level was a very long shot, and an L3 skincare product built on repair and anti-ageing she thought she could attempt.

Then she caught up. Zhang Lin was running Rejuvenate and had been for months; joining uninvited might not be appropriate. She was about to say that if Zhang Lin minded she could work separately as before.

"Yes."

Zhang Lin agreed so readily that the sentence never came out.

She wasn't surprised by the choice; Cerulean's products were still few and there weren't many options.

Li Lan relaxed. "Send me the existing material and I'll get a sense of it and see whether I can help you."

Zhang Lin didn't mind in the least, and meant to hand the project over. "Not help me. Since you've the time, why don't you run it?" She had no idea Li Lan had come within reach of a new drug at university, and that didn't stop her having an inexplicable confidence in her.

"The Rejuvenate researchers are all long-standing staff, and you worked with most of them on the sunscreen. Familiar enough to save you a good deal of settling in."

Li Lan waved it off. "No, no. You keep the project, Sister Lin. I'll do the work. The work."

Zhang Lin slapped the desk. "What? As Cerulean's owner? When you were busy at the university, fine — and now you've time, and we need you, and you want to run?"

Li Lan jumped. Sister Lin's temper had become unpredictable. "It's your project. Taking it over isn't right."

Zhang Lin glared. "Project manager, nothing. Who cares about titles? Getting Rejuvenate developed is what matters. That's settled."

So on Zhang Lin's decision a desk was cleared for her outside, and a meeting called, and the Rejuvenate researchers informed that the project was hers. To her surprise almost nobody objected; the team took it in their stride.

What she didn't know is that unlike a university, Rejuvenate's researchers came to Cerulean for a salary. Success would be ideal and failure cost them nothing. And the lead was going from one boss to another boss — young, and still the boss, rather than someone chosen in competition from among themselves — and having worked with her before, whatever they privately thought, they were employees and had no reason to object.

So she left as head of Rejuvenate, going back to the dormitory in a daze with all of its research on a memory stick.